The Boys of the Dark

The Boys of the Dark: A Story of Betrayal and Redemption in the Deep South, by Robin Gaby Fisher, Michael O'McCarthy, and Robert W. Straley. A story that garnered national attention, this is the harrowing tale of two men who suffered abuses at a reform school in Florida in the 1950s and 60s, and who banded together fifty years later to confront their attackers. Michael O’McCarthy and Robert W. Straley were teens when they were termed “incorrigible youth” by authorities and ordered to attend the Florida School for Boys. They discovered in Marianna, the “City of Southern Charm,” an immaculately groomed campus that looked more like an idyllic university than a reform school. But hidden behind the gates of the Florida School for Boys was a hell unlike any they could have imagined. The school’s guards and administrators acted as their jailers and tormentors. The boys allegedly bore witness to assault, rape, and possibly even murder.

For fifty years, both men---and countless others like them---carried their torment in silence. But a series of unlikely events brought O’McCarthy, now a successful rights activist, and Straley together, and they became determined to expose the Florida School for Boys for what they believed it to be: a youth prison with a century-long history of abuse. They embarked upon a campaign that would change their lives and inspire others.

Robin Gaby Fisher, a Pulitzer Prize--winning journalist and author of the New York Times bestselling After the Fire, collaborates with Straley and O’McCarthy to offer a riveting account of their harrowing ordeal. The book goes beyond the story of the two men to expose the truth about a century-old institution and a town that adopted a Nuremberg-like code of secrecy and a government that failed to address its own wrongdoing. What emerges is a tale of strength, resolve, and vindication in the face of the kinds of terror few can imagine.

Alcatraz Reunion

Alcatraz Reunion, directed by John Paget. What happens when America's most notorious prison hosts an 'alumni' reunion? Award-winning filmmaker John Paget presents Alcatraz Reunion, the critically acclaimed documentary on America's legendary prison. This Special Edition DVD comes packed with bonus features and is beautifully packaged in a full-color six-panel Digipak, complete with pictorial timeline history of Alcatraz.

Synopsis: Calling All Cons! Calling All Cons! With the 70th Anniversary of Alcatraz Penitentiary fast approaching, National Park Service Ranger John Cantwell is inviting every ex-Alcatraz inmate - and their former cellhouse guards - back to the Rock for an Alcatraz Alumni Gathering! (And you thought your family reunion was dysfunctional!)

Intrigued by this most unlikely of reunions, filmmaker John Paget travels the continent to find the few known surviving ex-prisoners of Alcatraz. They were once America's most dangerous public enemies - but who and where are they now?

Against the backdrop of these colorful characters and their imminent rendezvous, Alcatraz Reunion traces the history of the iconic island, and its mysterious transformation from notorious prison to tourist mecca. Once this tale holds you captive, there is no escape!

In this film you'll meet the real ex-cons of Alcatraz, and experience their humor, hubris and humanity like never before...plus commentary from legendary San Francisco Chronicle reporter Carl Nolte and the heartwarming story of 'the Alcatraz priest' Father Bernie Bush.

DVD BONUS FEAUTURES: Three complete historic newsreels from key moments in Alcatraz history: The Famous Escape of 1962, Jack LaLanne's Handcuffed Swim, Alcatraz Closing Day, 1963

Wanted: Historic County Jails of Texas

Wanted: Historic County Jails of Texas, by Edward A. Blackburn, Jr. Along with the settlement of the Texas frontier came rustlers, public drunks, gunfighters, and other outlaws. A jail in which to incarcerate the lawbreaker was thus often the first public building raised in a new town. Later, as government developed, public buildings—notably county courthouses and jails—assumed not only practical but also symbolic importance. The architecture of these buildings in the nineteenth century reflected the power and status with which the community imbued the government; many of the same architects applied the aesthetic standards of the day to both. In later years, the safety and at least limited comfort of the prisoners became concerns and jails were remodeled or abandoned to other uses in favor of modern, more utilitarian structures.

In this heavily illustrated guide to the historic county jails of Texas, Edward A. Blackburn, Jr., takes readers to each of the 254 counties in the state, presenting brief histories of the counties and the structures that housed their criminals. He provides general information about the architecture and location of the buildings and, when possible, describes the present uses of those that have been decommissioned. Interviews with local officials, historians, and newspaper publishers have yielded colorful anecdotes for many of the jails. Revealing photographs of many of the old jails have been gathered from local and archival sources, and Blackburn himself has taken pictures of extant buildings. Together, these words and images not only provide a survey of the way Texans have housed their criminals, but also, with the aid of thumbnail maps of county locations, offer residents and tourists throughout the state a guide to a fascinating aspect of architectural and cultural history.

Edward A. Blackburn, Jr. a retired Houston physician, visited all 254 Texas counties to collect information and photographs, both historical and contemporary. He has long had an interest in Texas history and is an avid collector of Texana.

Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the U.S. Prison Regime

Forced Passages: Imprisoned Radical Intellectuals and the U.S. Prison Regime, by Dylan Rodriguez. More than two million people are currently imprisoned in the United States, and the nation’s incarceration rate is now the highest in the world. The dramatic rise and consolidation of America’s prison system has devastated lives and communities. But it has also transformed prisons into primary sites of radical political discourse and resistance as they have become home to a growing number of writers, activists, poets, educators, and other intellectuals who offer radical critiques of American society both within and beyond the prison walls. In Forced Passages, Dylan Rodríguez argues that the cultural production of such imprisoned intellectuals as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Angela Davis, Leonard Peltier, George Jackson, José Solis Jordan, Ramsey Muniz, Viet Mike Ngo, and Marilyn Buck should be understood as a social and intellectual movement in and of itself, unique in context and substance. Rodríguez engages with a wide range of texts, including correspondence, memoirs, essays, poetry, communiqués, visual art, and legal writing, drawing on published works by widely recognized figures and by individuals outside the public’s field of political vision or concern. Throughout, Rodríguez focuses on the conditions under which imprisoned intellectuals live and work, and he explores how incarceration shapes the ways in which insurgent knowledge is created, disseminated, and received.

More than a series of close readings of prison literature, Forced Passages identifies and traces the discrete lineage of radical prison thought since the 1970s, one formed by the logic of state violence and by the endemic racism of the criminal justice system. Dylan Rodríguez is assistant professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Riverside.

Crash Out: The True Tale of a Hell's Kitchen Kid and the Bloodiest Escape in Sing Sing History

Crash Out: The True Tale of a Hell's Kitchen Kid and the Bloodiest Escape in Sing Sing History, by David Goewey. The enthralling and evocative story of tough Depression-era bandits who vowed to make something of themselves, even if that meant defying the stone walls of America’s most infamous prison, by a writer who grew up in Sing Sing’s shadow. During an era of never-ending breadlines and corrupt cops, no place churned out budding crooks more efficiently than Hell’s Kitchen. Neighborhood loyalties bonded gangs of immigrant sons who were looking for a way out of 1930s New York, and waterfront kids like Whitey Riordan paid the bills with small-time hustling. But when enterprising crook Patches Waters invited Whitey into the Shopping Bag Gang, Whitey jumped at the big score. Bold black headlines announced the group’s string of successful heists, but the gravy train abruptly halted in 1939 when someone squealed and police captured most of the gang. Patches and Whitey were sent up the river to Sing Sing.

Westside connections couldn’t help much there, in the infamous Hudson River prison that had housed convicts for more than a century. In Sing Sing the boys had to answer to veteran warden Lewis Lawes, a revolutionary reformer who preferred trust and rehabilitation to old standbys like the lash and the yoke. Progressive indeed, but nothing changed the fact that Whitey and Patches, along with more than 2,800 other men, faced a future of endless days in a cage of limestone, cement, and steel. Perhaps inevitably, their thoughts turned to escape.

A string of well-publicized jailhouse riots and breakouts captured the country’s interest in the 1930s, and though prisons kept stepping up security, convicts continued to crash out. When Patches encountered an old cellblock crony who had stumbled upon a way out, he pieced together a daring escape plot involving purloined guns, counterfeit keys, precision timing, a complex network of outside accomplices, and the kind of outsize bravado that would have made Dillinger proud. Unable to resist the thought of freedom, Whitey signed on. On Easter Sunday 1941, the three embarked upon the most sensational breakout in the prison’s history. Leaving four men dead and indelibly staining the reputation of the nation’s most famous warden, the Westside boys transcended their wildest dreams, only to find themselves backed to the edge of a wide, dark river. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Crash Out is a gritty, page-turning saga that reveals how the career of one resilient hustler can illuminate a sliver of Americana.

Sing Sing: The Inside Story of a Notorious Prison

Sing Sing: The Inside Story of a Notorious Prison, by Brian Denis. On May 14, 1825, one hundred mute, dispirited convict-laborers disembarked from steamers at Mount Pleasant, New York. They had been transported in chains nearly three hundred miles from Auburn Prison in upstate New York for the purpose of constructing a new maximum-security prison near a village on the Hudson called Sing Sing. Wielding pick axes and shovels, they worked under brutal supervision for five years, building the grim structure out of the rock underfoot, rusty scrap iron, and granite from a local quarry. Overseeing their slave labor was the sadistic Elam Lynds, formerly the warden in Auburn and soon to be the first master of Sing Sing. So begins Denis Brian’s gripping history of one of America’s most notorious prisons. For most of the 19th century Sing Sing was a bastion of inhumane treatment, where guards made every effort to break the spirit of inmates by a fanatic rule of silence enforced by shockingly brutal punishments and tortures—floggings with metal-tipped whips, the Chinese water cure, the Cage, the Crucifix, the Ball and Chain, and more. In 1891, Sing Sing witnessed its first electrocution, which was reportedly a terrible fiasco. This was followed by 613 additional electrocutions of both men and women. In addition, we learn that electricity genius Thomas Edison was a great proponent of this method. Based on extensive research with original sources, Brian’s narrative covers every period of the prison’s checkered history, from the awful conditions of the 19th century to the relative improvements of the 20th century to today. In 1916, a dramatic turnaround occurred, when one of criminology’s most progressive wardens, Lewis Lawes, took over. In command for twenty-one years, Lawes—who believed in reforming prisoners, not just punishing them—brought almost miraculous changes for the better.

During the 20th century Sing Sing held such infamous prisoners as members of Murder Incorporated, the Lonely Hearts Killers, Albert "the cannibal" Fish, Lucky Luciano, Louis Lepke, and Ethel and Julius Rosenberg. Brian recounts their stories and throws in "cameos" by such diverse visiting luminaries as Harry Houdini, Arthur Conan Doyle, Johnny Cash, John Cheever, and Mother Theresa. At the same time, it was the scene of daring, ingenious escapes, the first blood donations by prisoners, and inmates volunteering to be injected with syphilis in the interest of medical science. Brian’s story ends with a glimpse of Sing Sing today, based on first-hand visits, and interviews with the present warden, prison psychologists, doctors, and chaplains. A must for fans of true crime, criminology, and urban American history, Brian’s powerfully told story is both a dramatic page-turner and a definitive history.

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The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber

The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber, by Joe Loya. Joe Loya's idyllic childhood came to an abrupt end when his mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness. In the two years before her death, Joe's extremely religious father became increasingly violent toward his two young sons-a contradiction that haunted Joe for years. Then, at age sixteen, Joe retaliated during a particularly severe beating and stabbed his father in the neck. For Joe, this was the starting point of a life of crime, and after holding up his twenty-fourth bank, he was arrested and served seven years in prison. He continued his criminal behavior behind bars and was eventually placed in solitary confinement-the lowest of lows, even for convicts. Alone in his cell for two years, Joe was finally able to forgive his father, finding clarity, cultural insight, and redemption through writing. Joe Loya is an essayist and playwright, as well as a contributing editor with the Pacific News Service. His essays have appeared in several national newspapers and magazines, including the San Francisco Examiner, the Los Angeles Times, and El Andar magazine. He lives with his wife in the Bay Area.

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Altered States of America: Icons and Outlaws, Hitmakers and Hitmen

Altered States of America: Icons and Outlaws, Hitmakers and Hitmen, by Richard Stratton. Altered States of America is a riveting collection of journalism by outlaw-turned-author Richard Stratton. Stratton's years as an international marijuana smuggler, his 8-year bid in a federal prison system, and subsequent ascendance to acclaimed author and filmmaker, give him the credibility with which to wrest an uncommon truth from his subjects. The stories in this collection read like adventure fiction. To name a few: the story of Greg Scarpa, a Columbo mob captain turned informant; Bonecrusher, a guard at Corcoran penitentiary who witnessed the bloody gladiator fights between convicts; the CIA's top-secret MK-ULTRA program in which the CIA secretly dosed unsuspecting civilians and its own agents with LSD, or the heartbreaking profile of Joe Stassi, America's oldest living gangster, who was ordered to murder his best friend. Each piece is linked by Stratton's reflections on and connections to the people and places he describes. Whether he is talking with Oliver Stone or a prison guard, Hunter S. Thompson or a gangster, Sean Penn or a CIA agent, Stratton has an empathetic understanding of his subjects. This collection truly embodies Bob Dylan's famous line: "To live outside the law, you must be honest."

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Last Chance in Texas: The Redemption of Criminal Youth

Last Chance in Texas: The Redemption of Criminal Youth, by John Hubner. A powerful, bracing and deeply spiritual look at intensely, troubled youth, Last Chance in Texas gives a stirring account of the way one remarkable prison rehabilitates its inmates. While reporting on the juvenile court system, journalist John Hubner kept hearing about a facility in Texas that ran the most aggressive–and one of the most successful–treatment programs for violent young offenders in America. How was it possible, he wondered, that a state like Texas, famed for its hardcore attitude toward crime and punishment, could be leading the way in the rehabilitation of violent and troubled youth?

Now Hubner shares the surprising answers he found over months of unprecedented access to the Giddings State School, home to “the worst of the worst”: four hundred teenage lawbreakers convicted of crimes ranging from aggravated assault to murder. Hubner follows two of these youths–a boy and a girl–through harrowing group therapy sessions in which they, along with their fellow inmates, recount their crimes and the abuse they suffered as children. The key moment comes when the young offenders reenact these soul-shattering moments with other group members in cathartic outpourings of suffering and anger that lead, incredibly, to genuine remorse and the beginnings of true empathy . . . the first steps on the long road to redemption.

Cutting through the political platitudes surrounding the controversial issue of juvenile justice, Hubner lays bare the complex ties between abuse and violence. By turns wrenching and uplifting, Last Chance in Texas tells a profoundly moving story about the children who grow up to inflict on others the violence that they themselves have suffered. It is a story of horror and heartbreak, yet ultimately full of hope.

The Hate Factory: A First-Hand Account of the 1980 Riot at the Penitentiary of New Mexico

The Hate Factory: A First-Hand Account of the 1980 Riot at the Penitentiary of New Mexico, by Georgelle Hirliman. The terror lasted for thirty-six hours. When it was over, thirty-three inmates were dead, all at the hands of their fellow convicts. It was an outbreak of inmate violence unequaled in the annals of prison uprisings. It happened at the Penitentiary of New Mexico—Time magazine called it “the nation’s most notorious prison.” W.G. Stone was there. He witnessed the beatings, the stabbings, the rape, the torture. “Tying the rope under his arms and around his chest, they strung him up on the basketball hoop for all to see. There he would hang for the rest of the riot…During those hours of madness that were to follow, inmates would come in and hack at his dangling corpse with knives, beat it with pipes, mutilating it so totally that it was beyond recognition, a raw, bloody mass of flesh, by the time the uprising was over.”

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Murder Unpunished: How The Aryan Brotherhood Murdered Waymond Small And Got Away With It

Murder Unpunished: How The Aryan Brotherhood Murdered Waymond Small And Got Away With It, by Thornton W. Price, III. In November of 1977, Terry Lee Farmer, a white inmate at Arizona State Prison in Florence, walked up to black prisoner Waymond Small in front of sixty witnesses and stabbed him in the heart with a shank. Small had agreed to testify before the state legislature about gang violence inside Arizona State Prison and was murdered the day before his scheduled appearance. This murder proved the catalyst for an all-out war between the State of Arizona and the Aryan Brotherhood. Through five trials, Farmer claimed self-defense and the jurors acquitted all ten of his co-conspirators. Thornton Price, one of the defense attorneys, now tells how Farmer and Small became cannon fodder in this war to reclaim Arizona's prisons from rival gangs. These gangs--the Aryan Brotherhood, the Mau Maus, and the Mexican Mafia--were suspected of committing more than a dozen murders over the previous two years, motivating politicians to crack down after the violence could no longer be ignored or contained. To reconstruct the case, Price reviewed 16,000 pages of court records and conducted interviews with key participants to piece together an insider's account of the crime and the politics behind its investigation. Prison murders should be easy to solve, but investigators quickly learned that the convicts' code of silence makes these cases often impossible to win in court. Price focuses on the special problems posed by prison crime by getting inside the skins of men like murderer Terry "Crazy" Farmer and William "Red Dog" Howard, one of the Florence Eleven and a founder of the Aryan Brotherhood. He also presents the perspectives of state investigators and reveals how they calculated to pit black witnesses against white killers until one black would break the code of silence and provoke feuding within the Brotherhood. Murder Unpunished tells how society's most outrageous criminals ran the prison through gang violence as outside the walls Arizona struggled to outgrow its Wild West past. Like few other books, it reveals how prisons incubate predatory criminals and gangs, and it exposes the unique difficulties of prosecuting prison crimes. It is a gripping account that cuts to the heart of our penal system and a cautionary tale for citizens who prefer to keep prisons out of sight, out of mind.

Handbook Of Correctional Mental Health

Handbook Of Correctional Mental Health, by Charles L. Scott. M.D. The first practical, clinical guidebook on correctional mental health care that uses hypothetical case vignettes to illustrate important points, the Handbook of Correctional Mental Health is designed to assist mental health professionals in providing effective care to inmates and understanding both the unique living environment and stressors faced by inmates in a variety of correctional settings and the legal context in which they provide that care. Each of 12 fascinating chapters written by 26 nationally recognized experts is clearly organized by overview, clinical case vignette, and key summary points, following the individual from arrest through probation. Each chapter combines basic background information for providers new to the world of corrections with more advanced material for seasoned correctional providers. Incorporating various viewpoints on potentially controversial issues (such as the prescription of benzodiazepines to incarcerated inmates) and including extensive legal and clinical references that reflect current trends in correctional psychiatry, the Handbook of Correctional Mental Health has a broad multidisciplinary scope that will appeal to psychiatric students, residents, and clinicians; law school students and practicing attorneys; mental health court judges; and social workers, nurses, officers, and administrators who work in correctional settings.