Prison Writings in 20th Century America
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Book Summary Information
Editor: H. Bruce FranklinForeword: Tom Wicker
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-06-01
ISBN: 0140273050
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Prison Writings in 20th Century America
Book Review: Valuable insights into American society
Summary: 5 Stars
H. Bruce Franklin has done us a great service by providing us with insights into American society which most of us are too busy or too myopic to see clearly. Franklin's selection of works by America's prisoners from Melville to Malcolm X from O'Henry to Hogan provides a view of America from those who were marginalized by the dominent society. It is important that we as a people see and understand these observations and take them to heart. The introduction by Tom Wicker is as disturbing as some of the collected writings. Wicker, the noted journalist who covered the Attica Riots for the New York Times, lists the hard facts about the prisons of the 1990's. Crammed into warehouses, overcrowded, ignored by social services, the new prisoners are victims of a get tough drug policy which has quadrupled the number of inmates in the United States in the past twenty years, despite a decrease in the overall crime rate. America, the lagest consumer of drugs in the world, is also the largest incarcerator for drug users. Our unenlightened policy has resulted in the United States having more prisoners behind bars that any other nation in the world, including the former Soviet Union. It certainly explains our much bragged about low unemployment rate as well. With two million of our young men locked away in prison, the percentage around to be unemployed is drastically reduced. A boom economy. The unfortunate result of this domestic policy (discounting of course, the two million in prison) are our free young people who are denied adequate educational facilities because prison funds are a priority in the state budget. More and more, prisons are big business: good for construction, good for local employment, good for the politician's statistics, and good for the deep pockets of the correctional specialists. The damage our national prison policy is causing to the fabric of our nation is incalculable and will continue to cause damage for generations to come. Professor Franklin has done his country a great service. But, as previous reviews have shown, many of his fellow citizens would like to ignore this problem and put it out of sight, much like they have agreed to do with two million of their fellow citizens. Shades of the gulag. The delight of this book, however, is that the prisoners'writing shows that, despite being marginalized, despite being crowded, abused, and left to rot in a system of "indeterminate sentences," some men and women continue to not only preserve their souls, but actually create art and with it the power to move the rest of us to truly see and feel. We are not surprised that the caged bird can sing. We are surprised (to our shame) that it sings so well.
Summary of Prison Writings in 20th Century America
"Harrowing in their frank detail and desperate tone, the selections in this anthology pack an emotional wallop...Should be required reading for anyone concerned about the violence in our society and the high rate of recidivism."?Publishers Weekly. Includes work by: Jack London, Nelson Algren, Chester Himes,Jack Henry Abbott, Robert Lowell, Malcolm X, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Piri Thomas.
From the Autobiography of an Imprisoned Peon (1904), the memoirs of an indentured slave, to Jack Henry Abbott's In the Belly of the Beast, this collection presents sobering accounts of American prison life throughout the century. The stories come from all perspectives--innocent and guilty, comical and terrifying--but their common thread is the dehumanizing nature of prison existence. Sometimes poignant, sometimes violent, sometimes even funny, these stories are consistently disturbing and sobering glimpses into the incarcerated life. Prison Writing in 20th-Century America speaks for a largely silent but growing population. As the percentage of Americans who are incarcerated continues to climb, the stories in this book--and their testimonial to the depths to which both the jailed and the jailers can sink--become all the more urgent. --Lisa Higgins
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