Obviously Hidden

Obviously Hidden

Author: Tamara Roba

Publisher: America Star Books

Published: 2013-08

Total Pages: 54

ISBN-13: 9781627726542

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Jo Taylor has always been a little insecure. She loves coming up with plans to help people, but almost all of her plans turn into a fiasco. So when Jo's latest plan backfires at school, she finds herself on a flight to New York (with her best friend) to live with her uncle for the summer. Once there, Jo gets tangled in one of New York's biggest bank robbery mysteries. But with the help of her friends both old and new not only does Jo find out who she is, but also ends up doing more than the police ever could. Join Jo on this unforgettable adventure full of danger (and a small innocent romance) to solve a mystery in the city that never sleeps.


Lorton Legends

Lorton Legends

Author: Eyone Williams

Publisher: Dc Bookdiva Publications

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 9780984611065

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Lorton Correctional Complex was one of the most notorious prisons in U.S. history. It housed convicts from Washington, D.C. Known for violence and corruption, it shaped and molded every man, or woman, that experienced life on the inside. Sent to Lorton at age 17 for armed robbery, Ronald Mays is introduced to a world where only the strong survive. In prison he is forced to better himself as a man he learns to read, he drops his heroin habit, and becomes a father. Being a loyalist at heart, Ronald gets involved in a feud with older convicts that can cost him everything. A survivor by nature, Ronald makes it out of Lorton alive and returns to the streets of D.C. with his mind focused on doing bigger and better things with his life. He leaves all of his old ways alone and pursues his dreams of becoming a pro boxer if he succeeds he wins for all those close to him. No matter how hard he tries to avoid the drama of the D.C. streets, it comes his way hard and fast. Ronald finds himself fighting his yesterdays in order to attain his dreams of tomorrow. Like most real men that survived Lorton, Ronald is driven by his will to succeed and his demand for respect. Nothing will get in his way. An epic story of struggle, adversity, and accomplishment.


Unusually Cruel

Unusually Cruel

Author: Marc Morjé Howard

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0190659343

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The United States incarcerates far more people than any other country in the world, at rates nearly ten times higher than other liberal democracies. Indeed, while the U.S. is home to 5 percent of the world's population, it contains nearly 25 percent of its prisoners. But the extent of American cruelty goes beyond simply locking people up. At every stage of the criminal justice process - plea bargaining, sentencing, prison conditions, rehabilitation, parole, and societal reentry - the U.S. is harsher and more punitive than other comparable countries. In Unusually Cruel, Marc Morjé Howard argues that the American criminal justice and prison systems are exceptional - in a truly shameful way. Although other scholars have focused on the internal dynamics that have produced this massive carceral system, Howard provides the first sustained comparative analysis that shows just how far the U.S. lies outside the norm of established democracies. And, by highlighting how other countries successfully apply less punitive and more productive policies, he provides plausible solutions to addressing America's criminal justice quagmire.


Hell Is a Very Small Place

Hell Is a Very Small Place

Author: Jean Casella

Publisher: New Press, The

Published: 2014-11-11

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1620971380

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

“An unforgettable look at the peculiar horrors and humiliations involved in solitary confinement” from the prisoners who have survived it (New York Review of Books). On any given day, the United States holds more than eighty-thousand people in solitary confinement, a punishment that—beyond fifteen days—has been denounced as a form of cruel and degrading treatment by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. Now, in a book that will add a startling new dimension to the debates around human rights and prison reform, former and current prisoners describe the devastating effects of isolation on their minds and bodies, the solidarity expressed between individuals who live side by side for years without ever meeting one another face to face, the ever-present specters of madness and suicide, and the struggle to maintain hope and humanity. As Chelsea Manning wrote from her own solitary confinement cell, “The personal accounts by prisoners are some of the most disturbing that I have ever read.” These firsthand accounts are supplemented by the writing of noted experts, exploring the psychological, legal, ethical, and political dimensions of solitary confinement. “Do we really think it makes sense to lock so many people alone in tiny cells for twenty-three hours a day, for months, sometimes for years at a time? That is not going to make us safer. That’s not going to make us stronger.” —President Barack Obama “Elegant but harrowing.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A potent cry of anguish from men and women buried way down in the hole.” —Kirkus Reviews


Inside Private Prisons

Inside Private Prisons

Author: Lauren-Brooke Eisen

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-11-07

Total Pages: 476

ISBN-13: 0231542313

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

When the tough-on-crime politics of the 1980s overcrowded state prisons, private companies saw potential profit in building and operating correctional facilities. Today more than a hundred thousand of the 1.5 million incarcerated Americans are held in private prisons in twenty-nine states and federal corrections. Private prisons are criticized for making money off mass incarceration—to the tune of $5 billion in annual revenue. Based on Lauren-Brooke Eisen’s work as a prosecutor, journalist, and attorney at policy think tanks, Inside Private Prisons blends investigative reportage and quantitative and historical research to analyze privatized corrections in America. From divestment campaigns to boardrooms to private immigration-detention centers across the Southwest, Eisen examines private prisons through the eyes of inmates, their families, correctional staff, policymakers, activists, Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees, undocumented immigrants, and the executives of America’s largest private prison corporations. Private prisons have become ground zero in the anti-mass-incarceration movement. Universities have divested from these companies, political candidates hesitate to accept their campaign donations, and the Department of Justice tried to phase out its contracts with them. On the other side, impoverished rural towns often try to lure the for-profit prison industry to build facilities and create new jobs. Neither an endorsement or a demonization, Inside Private Prisons details the complicated and perverse incentives rooted in the industry, from mandatory bed occupancy to vested interests in mass incarceration. If private prisons are here to stay, how can we fix them? This book is a blueprint for policymakers to reform practices and for concerned citizens to understand our changing carceral landscape.


Industrial Bank

Industrial Bank

Author: B. Doyle Jr Mitchell

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 130

ISBN-13: 0738592897

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a bank holiday on March 5, 1933, closing banks across the country until they proved financial soundness. Meanwhile, as the United States crawled out of the Great Depression, Jesse H. Mitchell and a group of black businessmen accomplished the extraordinary--they started a black-owned bank on a street known as "Black Broadway" in the nation's capital. Mitchell, a Howard University-educated lawyer and realtor, and his friends sold $65,000 in stock, and in the sweltering heat on August 20, 1934, Industrial Bank of Washington opened for business. A range of black investors rallied around the effort, from individuals, churches, and service-oriented organizations to savvy business owners. The bank has carried on for three generations: Mitchell's son B. Doyle Mitchell Sr. succeeded him as president in 1953, who was then succeeded in 1993 by his grandson B. Doyle Mitchell Jr. as president and CEO and his granddaughter Patricia A. Mitchell as executive vice president.