Inside Knowledge

October 1, 2023
What prisoners can tell us about the true costs of incarceration. This book brings together--and provides edifying commentary on--a selection of writings by incarcerated Americans who reflect on their experiences as inmates. Larson, a professor of literature and co-founder and director of the American Prison Writing Archive, seeks to "reassess law, crime, punishment, and justice, and the triggers between them." This is a consistently searing indictment of the ways in which prisons harm prisoners, as well as their families and communities, while doing little to fulfill the institution's ostensible objectives: enacting appropriate retribution, promoting rehabilitation, containing criminality, and deterring future offenses. The author frames prisoners' writings with revealing accounts of the original goals of the American penitentiary system, its evolution and divergence from foreign models, and the contemporary political dynamics driving policies of mass incarceration. Larson ably demonstrates the cruelty and illogic of prison environments, which systematically dehumanize the incarcerated and preclude possibilities for genuine atonement. "A convicted person, once confined, must identify with the person they were outside in order to acknowledge that it was their actions for which punishment is being imposed," writes the author. "Yet imprisonment aggressively severs life inside from life outside." Many of the writers, he notes, "describe manufactories of indiscriminate personal and social disaster." Larson makes abundantly clear the moral significance of bridging that divide and harmonizing the stated ideals of the justice system with its actual functions. Also compelling are the suggestions given for plausible reforms, including the incorporation of prisoners' stories into legal training so that lawyers might better comprehend the stakes involved in sentencing. As this compelling text shows, filling in longstanding silences about what prisons actually do may have far-reaching and desperately needed benefits for those inside and outside the institution's walls. Profound reflections on the unacknowledged inhumanity of the nation's prisons.

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December 1, 2023
Most analysis of prisons and criminal justice comes from professionals or from singular voices. Larson, professor of literature and creative writing at Hamilton University, centers the diverse voices of those whose lives are most impacted by the carceral system: incarcerated people themselves. Larson founded the American Prison Writing Archive to collect firsthand writings from across the country, and here he uses a rich cache of those accounts to dismantle the primary justifications for mass incarceration. By tying the stories of imprisoned people together in this way, it is impossible to ignore how the treatment, conditions, and consequences of incarceration systemically and universally fail to achieve their purported goals. Regardless of location, the system fails on promises of effective rehabilitation, retribution, and deterrence and instead often creates counterproductive conditions. It is affecting to read these stories as well as analysis of life on the "inside," and it is effective. Larson's dedication to challenging the usual conversations about mass incarceration by showcasing voices of the imprisoned highlights many faults and some solutions. An important addition to the discussion around this urgent subject.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.