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Through thirty compelling essays written in the prisoners’ own words, Crimson Letters: Voices from Death Row offers stories of brutal beatings inside juvenile hall, botched suicide attempts, the terror of the first night on Death Row, the pain of goodbye as a friend is led to execution, and the small acts of humanity that keep hope alive for men living in the shadow of death. Each carefully crafted personal essay illuminates the complex stew of choice and circumstance that brought four men to Death Row and the cycle of dehumanization and brutality that continues inside prison. At times the men write with humor, at times with despair, at times with deep sensitivity, but always with keen insight and understanding of the common human experience that binds us.
Syringe exchange programs and safe injection services are outside-the-box interventions increasingly being used by governments, nonprofits and citizens to address dire issues percolating in tandem with America's burgeoning opioid epidemic. People who inject drugs (PWID)--almost a million Americans annually--commonly use painkillers such as heroin and fentanyl, as well as methamphetamine, benzodiazepines, barbiturates and cocaine. Yet the users themselves are often obscured or marginalized by the bigger picture. This collection of essays covers policies and practices aimed at preventing both opioid-related deaths and related infections of hepatitis and HIV.
Imprisoned since age nineteen, Alim Braxton has spent more than a quarter century on North Carolina's death row. During that time, he converted to Islam and dedicated his life to redemption. Braxton, a rapper since the age of thirteen, uses his rhymes as a form of therapy and to advocate for prison reform, particularly by calling attention to the plight of the wrongfully incarcerated. This book, a hip-hop-rich prison memoir, chronicles Braxton's struggles and triumphs as he attempts to record an album while on death row, something no one has done before. Braxton's world is complex: full of reflections on guilt, condemnation, incarceration, religious awakening, and the redemptive power of art. Ultimately, Braxton shows us that even amid the brutality of our prison system there are moments of joy, and on death row joy may be the most powerful form of resistance.
A first-hand account of the death penalty's wholly destructive nature. In Witness, Lyle C. May offers a scathing critique of shifts in sentencing laws, prison policies that ensure recidivism, and classic "tough on crime" views that don't make society safer or prevent crime. These insightful and analytical essays explore capital punishment, life imprisonment, prison education, prison journalism, as well as what activism from inside looks like on the road toward abolishing the carceral state. No outside journalist can adequately report what happens inside death row or what it is like to live through thirty-three executions of people you know. May's grounded writings in Witness challenge the my...
The history of an unnatural disaster—drug overdose—and the emergence of naloxone as a social and technological solution. For years, drug overdose was unmentionable in polite society. OD was understood to be something that took place in dark alleys—an ugly death awaiting social deviants—neither scientifically nor clinically interesting. But over the last several years, overdose prevention has become the unlikely object of a social movement, powered by the miracle drug naloxone. In OD, Nancy Campbell charts the emergence of naloxone as a technological fix for overdose and describes the remaking of overdose into an experience recognized as common, predictable, patterned—and, above all...
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A devastating, empathetic look at the opioid epidemic in the United States, through the eyes of a paramedic on the front lines. [I] set my cardiac monitor down by the young man's head. He is lifeless, his face white with a blue tinge. I apply the defibrillator pads to his hairless chest . . . A week from today, after the young man's brain shows no signs of electrical activity, the medical staff will take the breathing tube out, and with his family gathered by his side, he will pass away at the age of twenty-three. When Peter Canning started work as a paramedic on the streets of Hartford, Connecticut, twenty-five years ago, he believed drug users were victims only of their own character flaws...
Within the last four years, the death of George Floyd brought a new level of urgency to understanding police violence; the world experienced two of the three hottest years on record; drug overdose deaths in the U.S. surpassed 100,000 per year for the first time; the foreign-born percentage of the population became the highest ever; and COVID-19 transformed education, work, and public health. Seeing Social Problems: The Hidden Stories Behind Contemporary Issues, Second Edition shows students how to think about social problems in a new way, by exploring the connection between their own experiences and larger social forces. The personal relevance of this book’s content is at the forefront of ...
What had happened to my baby brother? How did a tiny little pill shatter our family? When did we first begin losing Pat? These are the harrowing questions that plagued Erin Marie Daly after her youngest brother Pat, an OxyContin addict, was found dead of a heroin overdose at the age of twenty. In just a few short years, the powerful prescription painkiller had transformed him from a fun-loving ball of energy to a heroin addict hell-bent on getting his next fix. Yet even as Pat’s addiction destroyed his external life, his internal struggle with opiates was far more heart-wrenching. Erin set out on a painful personal journey, turning a journalistic eye on her brother’s addiction; in the pr...