Penology category: 518 books

"A boy with no one to listen becomes a man in prison for life and discovers his mind can be free. A woman enters prison to teach and becomes his first listener. And so begins a twenty-five year friendship between two gifted writers and poets. The result is By Heart ? a book that will anger you,...

Veronica Bird was one of nine children living in a tiny house in Barnsley with a brutal coal miner for a father. Life was a despairing time in the 1950s, as Veronica sought desperately to keep away from his cruelty. Astonishingly, to her and her mother, she won a scholarship to Ackworth Boarding School...

***Soon to be TV Series*** Dr. William Wright gave up a suburban practice as an ear surgeon to become the doctor at Colorado’s maximum-security prison. After that, running a medical clinic at the county jail should be a snap, right? Oh, brother… Hoards of desperate people fresh from...

Kilmainham Jail is perhaps the most important building in modern Irish history. A place of incarceration since its construction in the late eighteenth century, it housed a succession of petty criminals, including sheep rustlers and, during the Famine, people who committed crimes with the sole aim...

In his talks to communities throughout the length and breath of Ireland, John Lonergan finds himself coming back to one theme: the importance of kindness. It is an unexpected theme for the former boss of Ireland's biggest and toughest prison, Mountjoy, but then John Lonergan is an unusual man. John...

At the heart of his book is his conclusion that prison simply does not work, failing on three fundamental levels. The view of the popular media is that when prisoners are locked up they cannot commit crime. This is not true. Podmore shows how crime actually proliferates in prison, how serious organised...

A key player in the worst prison riot in British history at Strangeways Prison in April 1990, Alan Lord was always in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was drawn to trouble like water to a sponge.After experiencing a troubled childhood during which Alan was in and out of children's homes - after...

A prominent artist ventured behind locked doors to portray three "forgotten" social classes: the elderly, people in mental institutions, and the prison population. Alan E. Cober began his career in the 1960s, when illustration took a turn toward a new expressionism. Influenced by the works...

The timeless Carceri etchings of Piranesi (1720–1778) represent not only spectacular artistic accomplishments but also unforgettable expressions of psychological truths. Combining the influences of Tiepolo, Bibiena, and Rembrandt, these works of architectural fantasy challenge the boundaries of...

“ Qu’est-ce que l’assistance ? C’est l’ensemble des secours divers par lesquels une société essaie de seconder la bonne volonté des gens en suppléant à l’insuffisance de leurs moyens, là où ils ont à se procurer le nécessaire. Qu’est-ce que la répression ? C’est l’ensemble...

“ La vie de M. Bérenger a été longue, « si toutefois, comme dit le poète, il y a quelque chose de long dans ce qui est mortel. » En tout cas, il représente une époque dont les malheurs, les aspirations, les efforts et les regrets, dont les beaux exemples aussi donnés au monde tout entier,...

The most significant building project of its time, Eastern State Penitentiary was designed to reshape the mind of an inmate, rather than punish the body of one. It was believed that by keeping prisoners isolated in the chapel-like cells the inner light of their souls would emerge, leading them to discover...

A popular backdrop for numerous movies, Sing Sing, or "the Big House," has been a site of both controversy and reform. The history of Sing Sing dates back to 1825, when warden Elam Lynds brought one hundred inmates to begin construction of the prison "up the river" on the banks of the Hudson. The marble...

Charlie Bronson has taken his 24 years of experience of prison dwelling and condensed it into one handy and comprehensive volume. Moved regularly around the prisons of the British Isles, he has sampled all that prison life has to offer, taking in both the historic and pre-historic buildings that comprise...