Colorado Parks & Wildlife Research Library

With a career, a boyfriend, and a loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the reckless young woman who delivered a suitcase of drug money ten years before. But that past has caught up with her. Convicted and sentenced to fifteen months at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, the well-heeled Smith College alumna is now inmate #11187-424-one of the millions of people who disappear "down the rabbit hole" of the American...

The life story of a man who served more than four decades in solitary confinement -- in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell, 23 hours a day, in notorious Angola prison in Louisiana -- for a crime he did not commit.

"What if social transformation and liberation isn't about waiting for someone else to come along and save us? What if ordinary people have the power to collectively free ourselves? In this timely collection of essays and interviews, Mariame Kaba reflects on the deep work of abolition and transformative political struggle." -- page [4] of cover.

Faith in the power and righteousness of retribution has taken over the American criminal justice system. Approaching punishment and responsibility from a philosophical perspective, Limits of Blame takes issue with a criminal justice system that aligns legal criteria of guilt with moral criteria of blameworthiness. Many incarcerated people do not meet the criteria of blameworthiness, even when they are guilty of crimes. The author underscores the problems...

Investigates the sexual behavior and relationships of prison inmates and examines the attitudes of officials and guards toward sex in prison.

Mass incarceration will end-there is an emerging consensus that weve been locking up too many people for too long. But with more than 2.2 million Americans behind bars right now, how do we go about bringing people home? Decarcerating America collects some of the leading thinkers in the criminal justice reform movement to strategize about how to cure America of its epidemic of mass punishment.

"What purpose is incarceration supposed to serve, and how successfully does it serve that purpose? What's Prison For? traces the tension between our national punitive streak and our faith in rehabilitation, between viewing prisoners as menacing Others to be incapacitated and shamed and, alternatively, viewing them as future neighbors"--

"Beyond These Walls is an ambitious and far-ranging exploration that tracks the legacy of crime and imprisonment in the United States, from the historical roots of the American criminal justice system to our modern state of over-incarceration, and offers a bold vision for a new future. Author Tony Platt, a recognized authority in the field of criminal justice, challenges the way we think about how and why millions of people are tracked, arrested,...

"A dramatic, revelatory account of the female inmate firefighters who battle California's wildfires"-- Of the thousands of firefighters who battle California's blazes every year, roughly 30 percent of the on-the-ground wildland crews are inmates earning a dollar an hour. Approximately 200 of those firefighters are women serving on all-female crews. Lowe has spent years getting to know dozens of women who have participated in the fire camp program....