An incredible collection of first hand accounts interspersed with statistics and information to support these encounters in telling hte story about the failures of the prison system, Would highly recommend

Many thanks to Net Galley for the advance reading copy of this fantastic eBook.

I would recommend this book to prison abolitionists interested in centering first-hand accounts in their activism and people who are on the fence about full prison abolition but willing to listen. The strongest aspect of this book is most certainly in its “cellular reading” format and the prison witness letters themselves. As for the weakest aspect, I’m not sure I can really provide insight on that. Considering the nature of this book, I can’t really make any suggestions of how to improve it. For example, as much as I would love an even wider array of people’s accounts at hand, such statements would depend entirely on prison witnesses having the resources to write and send them, which is unfortunately not always the case. I would be willing to read more of Larson’s work in the future, but more than that, I’m interested in reading more of the work from the American Prison Writing Archive.

The overall throughline here is that prison is not an effective way of bringing about change or preventing future harm. I appreciate that it’s both a text that is willing to make the reader uncomfortable in a productive way, while still acknowledging the reasons people are resistant to the idea of abolition, in order to walk the reader through the thought process away from those misgivings. Each chapter has its own subtopic and specific aim, and each is necessary to the text. While the chapters are jam-packed with information and quotes, I believe that’s an important aspect of this book compiling, essentially, evidence via these witness statements. It not only provides a lot of evidence backing the point, it allows them to share a diverse and thus more well-rounded representation of the prison population. Outside of the prison witness account excerpts, the grammar and style is consistent and academic, lending even more to the effect of preserving the statements as-written.

As I mentioned, I really appreciate the “cellular reading” methodology employed in this text and the way it was crafted because of that. When I started reading the book, I had assumed it would be a collection of individual essays by prison witnesses. Instead, it compiles different excerpts of prison witness writings related to one topic and walks the reader through them, often allowing the incarcerated people to speak for themselves while also providing necessary context like sources, studies, statistics, etc. This book is incredibly meticulously crafted with a careful and intentional hand, from its format to the editing (or lack thereof—the words of prison witnesses are preserved as they were written, including grammatical errors, which lessens the distance allowed to the reader from the writers as people).

A really interesting and raw look at incarcerated people, their families, and the systems that put them in the positions they are in. I liked the sociology and history element as well as real people.

This was pretty hard to read. This book starts with a history of incarceration and punishment and goes to current times, discussing the philosophy behind punishment and the effect punishment has on prisoners, their families, and the rest of society.
It is a difficult problem because punishment is necessary but so many times it is not humane. In particular, I appreciated the programs that helped prisoners enrich their family relationships and grow while incarcerated. People must be able to still be human after being punishment, and the current system has the opposite effect of what is intended so often.
This is a serious read that uses a lot of scholarly resources as background.
Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for giving me a free eARC of this book to read in exchange for my review!