by Shane Bauer, 2018
This was one of the books for our Old Town Library Book Club. We are going to discuss it tonight via Zoom. Shane Bauer is a reporter for Mother Jones and goes undercover as a guard in a for-profit prison in Louisiana for 4 months in 2014. The company that runs the prison, Correction Corporation of America (CCA) is in the prison business to make money so they only pay their guards $9 an hour to start – this was in 2014. There were some guards that had been there for decades and still only made $9 an hour. They were also always short-staffed so any rehabilitation programs, medical programs, counseling programs were cut completely or virtually non-existent.
I did not like reading this book – this prison was a very dark place. It is filled with drugs, sex, anger, violence, racism, injustice. He recounts many of the conversations word-for-word because he hid a recording device and a camera on himself each day. So, every other chapter is a blow-by-blow of conversations and activities in the prison between himself and inmates, guards, etc. and they make for disgusting reading, especially the sexually threatening conversations.
Every other chapter goes into the history of prisons and they have always been horrible places in America – mainly a way to keep slavery going and get free, mainly black labor, to pick cotton, farm, build roads and railroads. The working conditions were even worse than slavery, if that is possible. Many black men were arrested on trumped up charges just to get them into prison and put them to work. Another example among so many of the horrible injustices brought on by racism and greed in this country.
I hope no one I love is ever in prison. I hope no one I love ever has to work in a prison. My sister worked in our local jail. I now see how awful that must have been. They are the dark, violent places where the ugly side of humanity is front and center.
I believe he wrote this book to close down the for-profit prisons but when Trump was elected, Trump gave them new life. I am not sure what the answer is. I don’t know if public prisons are any better. But I think there must be more done to educate and rehabilitate inmates, giving them job skills and hope for a better life. One of the most depressing parts of this book is about one of the inmates, “Corner Store,” who is released after 20 years. After a year out, he is arrested and sent back to prison for sexually propositioning a 10-year old girl. Just depressing and hopeless. Larry and Dan brought Community Bible Study into the Sterling Prison, or they did until COVID-19. They talked with us once and they shared only good things. They shared how a few of the prisoners started a church and lead the Bible studies and inmates learn how to control their anger. They did share how hard it was for inmates to find quiet time in which to do their lessons. I wonder what Larry and Dan would say after reading this book.