Free: Two Years, Six Lives, and the Long Journey Home
by
Lauren Kessler


Extremely eye-opening book – once you’ve read it you realize why recidivism is sadly such a common occurrence. All the stories are so sad and frankly several of the protagonists were born into lives that didn’t offer then much of a chance of anything good ever happening in their lives. It would be very difficult for anyone to restart their lives after being “away” for 30+ years but imagine having to do with no experience with computers, the internet, cell phones, very little education and none of the necessary paperwork to live in today’s society.
Not to mention once again “being in charge” of one’s own life after having every minute regimented during the time in prison. It’s daunting. And very difficult to overcome.

It’s also a very hard-hitting expose of for-profit prisons and why there are more interested in the bottom line than they are in helping their client reinvent their lives in a positive manner.

The author doesn’t sugar coat why the 6 people she featured were in sent to prison but by the end of the book you find yourself cheering for them and hoping that they can beat the odds and make it a new life.

She has an engaging reading style and the book, besides being very informative is also a page turner “Free” should be required reading in every social justice and criminology program.

Many thanks to NetGalley for an ARC of "Free" in return for an honest review.

5 stars
Free
Lauren Kessler
Wow, just wow. This is an utterly fascinating book looking into the lives of youthful offenders, the exceedingly long sentences and their lives after they are released from prison. Kessler expertly draws the reader into the lives of these people, their past, their crimes and the challenges they face.
I truly had no idea how hard it is to re-establish a life that most never had to begin with after going to prison as a teenager. Free truly opened my eyes to the concept of Restorative Justice and the worth of such programs being held inside of prison.
I feel like this is a book that should be required to be read at schools across the country so that everyone can truly see what a bad decision as a teenager can do to a life and the ripple effect of those effected.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher and Netgalley.

Free follows several prisoners who are able to gain release after committing serious crimes and highlights the barriers that people with a criminal history face to successful re-entry into society. What does every day life look like for a person once they step out of their structured prison life and into the parking lot, free to go? Kessler also details the the story of a prisoner who is still incarcerated but is leaping all of the hurdles possible in order to petition early release.

This book helped me understand many of the critical ways that our prison system fails inmates; prisons in the USA focus on punishment over rehabilitation. I feel so much more empathy for prisoners after reading this book, and have a deeper understanding of the barriers they face when re-entering society - not only the significant barriers of finding a job and housing, but also the barriers of how to function socially and psychologically in an entirely new, unstructured environment.

Unfortunately, the way this book was put together was confusing and hard to follow. I had a hard time remembering who was who because of the way the stories for each prisoner jumped around within the book. I also felt that the book had a weak ending where I found myself asking, "wait, that was the end?!"

This would still be a good read for anyone looking to develop empathy for prisoners or an understanding of the barriers ex-prisoners face, but definitely could've been more structurally sound.

Thank you to Net Galley for an advanced copy!

Eye opening account about prison life and re-entry into the world. This book effectively shows how our prison system is not properly preparing re-entry for the recently released to be successful in their new life. When people being released from prison have the cards stacked against them, the results will likely be failure. How is that going to break the cycle? Each story in this book hit me in a different way, and yet it the very same way. The odds are against these people sometimes from the day that they are born.

This is a really well done book about what happens to people after getting released from prison after serving a very long time inside. The author is described as 'an "immersion reporter" who specializes in exploring invisible subcultures in our midst.' She honestly reports how these particular people came to receive their long prison sentences, & then follows them upon release. She's made very compelling & interesting reading of a tough subject. It reads pretty fast considering the subject, & nonfiction. The 'Source Notes' at the end document a lot of good research & the 'About the Author' is worthy of note too. I think I might look up more of her work......that speaks to a good, positive review! I bet she can make any subject interesting!
I received an e-ARC from Sourcebooks via NetGalley in exchange for reading it & posting my own fair/honest review.

An eye opening book about the criminal justice system, sentencing and how the lack of support for prisoners once released sets them up for failure. Strongly recommend the book to give one a better understanding of the system and the changes that need to be made.
Thanks to NetGalley for a copy.

Interesting and insightful. A great starting point for those interested in learning about restorative justice and re-entering the world following a prison sentence.

Not exactly what I was expecting. Lot of statistics.

Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free, it had no bearing on the rating I gave i.t

The author; Lauren Kessler, has another book on prison life titled “A Grip of Time: When Prison Is Your Life”. In that book she works with prisoners who are lifers, they have very little or really no chance of parole. There she works with them by teaching a writing class. In “Free” she is again working with them in this setting but the individuals that she is working with are men and women who have committed murder at a very young age and were tried as adults. (One woman is different in that she has been in and out of jail for drug abuse).
How could 13, 14 and 15 year old children get tried as adults and end up in prison for 20 or more years of their lives? The competing factors are numerous and the author does a good job of presenting many of the sides of this issue. But she does not provide any solutions and maybe there aren’t any.
So, what is the author’s goal? Just to open a door and let us peak in for a few hours? To educate people about the issues and problems in the prison system? Change laws? Get more government entities and non-profits to work together to help individuals getting out of prison?
The problem is, there are already so many issues that confront people on the outside that getting them to look at spending dollars to help released prisoners navigate their lives once they get out is not high on the list. Other issues that have a higher priority for most people (in no particular order) are health care, homelessness, child hunger, poverty, mental health, living wage jobs, student debt, care of the elderly and the list goes on.
It is a very interesting book and I think it would be helpful if more people would read it, if for no other reason than to have a greater sense of what these people go through, what they think about the process, their goals and some seeing those goals drift away.

There is a hard line to walk and reconcile regarding imprisonment and reentry and remembering the victims of crimes. Free by Lauren Kessler provides several poignant accounts of people involved in the criminal justice system, the recounting of their crimes, and their attempts, struggles, and some successes at reentry. Some of those portrayed went to prison as teens and were released in their middle adult years to a world that changed dramatically and moved on without them.

Free is a good telling of what it is like for those who are released and then left on their own to navigate several systems that do not have resources to help and also the constraints these people face after serving their time.

@Sourcebooks

"Free" by Lauren Kessler, is a honest and emotionally raw look at former prisoners after they are released from prision. Can they blend back into society? Will they find basic needs like housing and employment? What percent of those released end up back in prison and why?

Lauren Kessler, has spent years studying and writing about the stark difficulties in "maximum security prisions". She takes a eyes opening look at what life is like for prisoners after they are released and try to acclimate back into society. Many are still fighting mental illness and addiction. Who do they turn to for help? The odds are against their survival on the outside. This book is not easy to read, but is a shocking look into our justice system and why it fails to rehabilitate those released.

"Free" is a non-fiction book set to be published April 19th.

Thank you NetGalley and Sourcebook, for asking me to review this mind-boggling e-book. I appreciate it!

Free takes a deep dive into the challenges and obstacles prisoners face upon being released back into society. Kessler does an excellent job of showing what is currently being done to help aid prisoners and how much is still lacking. She works with prisoners and is a mentor to ex-convicts, and it is easy to tell how much compassion she has.

Kessler tells the stories of six inmates and details their successes and failures. Free is very informative and not only shows the struggles of inmates but also shows their persistence to overcome their pasts.

An important book for our times and exercise in empathy-building, Free explores what happens when one's "debt to society" is ostensibly paid. As Kessler reveals, for far too many, it is never fully paid - and the ripple effects of incarceration haunt those attempting to re-enter community long after their sentences are served. She shows how the concept of freedom looks different for those with the stigma of justice system involvement and how the collateral consequences impact the ability to rebuild their lives. This book does for re-entry what Just Mercy did for exposing the bias and injustice of capital punishment.

I received a digital pre-publication copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

As I was reading this book, I was thinking we all need to read this! The author educates us on just how many people are being locked up for longer and longer periods of time for minor crimes. I think my favorite part was dealing with charging children as adults. I can’t even imagine being locked up at 14 with grown men. Thirty years later and the same child is released. But to do what? He has missed everything. No one will hire him or rent to him and the obstacles these people face are sometimes insurmountable.

Let’s not fool ourselves that prison is for rehabilitation. It is not. Although there are programs that help them to re-enter society, they are few and far between. There is no standard way to make sure they all get a fair shot.

Through intensive research and relationships within the prison environment, the author has told the stories of some of the hundreds of thousands of people being released into a world that is now foreign to them. Some are incarcerated as kids and now released into a place where they have no skills, no transportation, no way to fulfill the requirements of being let out with little to no resources.

Some of them can’t take the pressure of the outside and all of its temptations and continually cycle in and out of jail/prison. They may be free, but they really aren’t. We judge them we don’t give them second chances, we send kids to private prisons who make a lot of money from them and give them little in the way of skills they can use on the outside.

We want justice but we should also be teaching people an alternative to their former lifestyle. We should be getting them mental health treatment, but we aren’t. Out of sight is out of mind. And while they may have done the crime and the time, what do they do now?

This was heartbreaking but a much-needed look at the facts.

NetGalley/: April 19th, 2022 by Sourcebooks

This book is one of those odd ones - it resonates with you but not in the manner in which you thought. Kessler tells the stories of six individuals, each recently released from prison. There was one individual who was included in the book however remained incarcerated (although seeking a shorter sentence;) the reason for his inclusion is unclear but one could assume he had a personal connection.

Over the course of chapters, the reader is introduced to each person, where Kessler reveals their crimes, lives, and current day challenges. There is also commentary on the current state of the criminal justice system.

Kessler clearly did her research and is well versed in the subject, however I would have preferred to focus on a smaller number of individuals and have more details on their stories, including interviews with their family members, et al.

I picked this book up and put it down quite a bit. Informative, but didn't hold my attention as I had hoped.

Thanks to NetGalley and Sourcebooks for the ARC and opportunity to review.

I really enjoyed this look into the lives of 6 prisoners- both current and recently released. It's no surprise that our criminal justice system is in need of a major overhaul and that we, as a country, fail majorly in rehabilitating and giving ex-prisoners the tools they need to succeed in life. So it was nice to read about some success stories. Despite some of the actual crimes being downright awful, it's important to see the person as a whole and to really understand the circumstances surrounding their crime(s) and the life that brought them to that point. I like that the author focused on those intricacies. The books itself was well written and tells an important story. It left me feeling that I wanted to do more to help and I wish that there were resources at the end so that I could find volunteer opportunities in my own community.

DNF. For the lkfe of me, I couldnt get into this book. I think I only made it 10% of the way in. I wanted to hear more about the lives of the prisomers while they were inside and about how they did once they got out, but I didnt feel like I got that at all. Maybe it turns into that later in the book, but the larts that I read did not interest me at all

Free
By Lauren Kessler

"Free" is a book about incarceration, especially of children/young people. It presents case studies describing how and why these youngsters went down a path that lead to addiction in many cases; gang membership (which often replaced family and other supportive relationships); and ultimately criminal behavior. Most often they were from backgrounds where violence and abuse were all they knew from an early age.

But the book goes further. It discusses other societal issues which have contributed to America's having the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world. Things like our "war on drugs" and our emptying mental institutions in the misguided idea that mentally ill people were better off dumped out on the streets.

Ms. Kessler makes a very good case for prison reform. She makes the reader see the plight of the incarcerated as the plight of real people with many extenuating circumstances. And she tells the stories of several prisoners who have managed with the types of support she advocates for to adjust to life as productive citizens back on the outside. She is a believer in second chances. The book gives the reader a lot to think about.

I wish to thank NetGalley and Sourcebooks Publishers for allowing me to read an advanced copy of this book. I have voluntarily read and reviewed it. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This non-fiction book focuses on a subject of which I knew very little. It is an insider look at the process of incarnation and releasing prisoners back into society. It highlights the way this evolves in our country. I did know that a lot of people get released but had no idea of the struggles they face as they return to life outside the walls. I did not realize that 95% of those in prison will actually return to society but many end up back inside for many, many reasons. This book informs the reader of the social hardships as well as the financial failures they encounter in just finding a place to live or employment or things as difficult as a drivers license. The author highlights several actual prisoners and we follow their path as we learn what is being attempted in trying to prepare prisoners for changing their life paths and prepare them for life outside. The successes are amazing and the failures are heartbreaking. I can assure you that this book will enlighten you and cause you to understand that our present way of dealing with inmates needs reform. The author compares our methods with the country of Norway that is really impressive in how they treat prisoners.

This is not a fun read, nor is it intended to be, but one I encourage you to select. Highly recommend it.

Lauren Kessler’s “Free” (ISBN: 9781728236513), publication date 19 Apr 2022, elicits many reactions, from being informed to feeling revulsion. The author understands what prisoners face when seeking an early release, and their challenges once they achieve it. However, the author only rarely provides commensurate information on the effects that the prisoners’ violent crimes have on victims, and their families and friends. This is more than a significant weakness; it is a major failing that prevents a balanced view and reduces the author’s credibility.

The author does catalog examples of how prisoners are not prepared for success when they return to the free world. While a worthy point, it is not one that can fully supplant the need to incarcerate people for unlawful activity, particularly violent crimes. However, in discussing this, the author claims this occurs in part because prisoners are not able to read body language, navigate space, and develop composure in crowds, yet later in the book the author asserts these are the very capabilities that permit existence if not progress during confinement.

In another area, the author spoke of the need to change to the essential purpose of incarceration, i.e., to punish and remove a violent offender from society at large. To do so, the author used Nicole, the wife of the prisoner Arnaldo, who spoke of the need to "support healing and accountability over punishment." Laudable, but it would be an injustice to relegate punishment for murder to a subordinate or tertiary interest.

In the end, this reviewer gained some new insights, but it was difficult to not feel that somehow the author was suffering from the Stockholm Syndrome, making her at least somewhat blind to the need to respond punitively to violent criminals.

On balance, this book earns two stars. Thanks to the publisher, Sourcebooks, for granting this reviewer the opportunity to read this Advance Reader Copy (ARC), and thanks to NetGalley for helping to make that possible.