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Competing with the likes of Detroit and Ann Arbor, Jackson won the battle to build Michigan's first state prison in 1838. During the era of the "Big House" and industrial growth, the penitentiary's on-site factories and cheap inmate labor helped Jackson become a thriving manufacturing city. In contrast to Jacktown's beautiful Greco-Roman exterior, medieval punishments, a strict code of silence, no heat, no electricity and a lack of plumbing defined life on the inside. Author Judy Gail Krasnow shares the incredible stories of life at Jacktown, replete with sadistic wardens, crafty escapees, Prohibition's Purple Gang, a chaplain who ran a brothel and influential reformers.
"In Curtis Dawkins's first short story collection, he offers a window into prison life through the eyes of his narrators and their cellmates. Dawkins reveals the idiosyncrasies, tedium, and desperation of long-term incarceration--he describes men who struggle to keep their souls alive despite the challenges they face. In 'A Human Number, ' a man spends his days collect-calling strangers just to hear the sounds of the outside world. In '573543,' an inmate recalls his descent into addiction as his prison softball team gears up for an annual tournament against another unit. In 'Leche Quemada, ' an inmate is released and finds freedom more complex and baffling then he expected. Dawkins's stories are funny and sad, filled with unforgettable detail--the barter system based on calligraphy-ink tattoos, handmade cards, and cigarettes; a single dandelion smuggled in from the rec yard; candy made from powdered milk, water, sugar, and hot sauce. His characters are nuanced and sympathetic, despite their obvious flaws. The Graybar Hotel tells moving, human stories about men enduring impossible circumstances."--
Competing with the likes of Detroit and Ann Arbor, Jackson won the battle to build Michigan's first state prison in 1838. During the era of the "Big House" and industrial growth, the penitentiary's on-site factories and cheap inmate labor helped Jackson become a thriving manufacturing city. In contrast to Jacktown's beautiful Greco-Roman exterior, medieval punishments, a strict code of silence, no heat, no electricity and a lack of plumbing defined life on the inside. Author Judy Gail Krasnow shares the incredible stories of life at Jacktown, replete with sadistic wardens, crafty escapees, Prohibition's Purple Gang, a chaplain who ran a brothel and influential reformers.
State and local policies are key to understanding how to reduce prison populations. This anthology of critical and personal essays about the need to reform criminal justice policies that have led to mass incarceration provides a national perspective while remaining grounded in Michigan. Major components in this volume include a focus on current research on the impact of incarceration on minority groups, youth, and the mentally ill; and a focus on research on Michigan’s leadership in the area of reentry. Changes in policy will require a change in the public’s problematic images of incarcerated people. In this volume, academic research is combined with first-person narratives and paintings from people who have been directly affected by incarceration to allow readers to form more personal connections with those who face incarceration. At a time when much of the push to reduce prison populations is focused on the financial cost to states and cities, this book emphasizes the broader social and human costs of mass incarceration.
At 2.26 million, incarcerated Americans not only outnumber the nation’s fourth-largest city, they make up a national constituency bound by a shared condition. Fourth City: Essays from the Prison in America presents more than seventy essays from twenty-seven states, written by incarcerated Americans chronicling their experience inside. In essays as moving as they are eloquent, the authors speak out against a national prison complex that fails so badly at the task of rehabilitation that 60% of the 650,000 Americans released each year return to prison. These essays document the authors’ efforts at self-help, the institutional resistance such efforts meet at nearly every turn, and the impact...