American PrisonRecommendations

A ground-breaking and fearless inside look at the link between jail and business in America, both in one Louisiana prison and throughout the history of our country.

Shane Bauer was employed as an entry-level prison guard at a private jail in Winnfield, Louisiana, in 2014 at $9 an hour. He used his true name, despite being an award-winning investigative journalist, and there was no substantial background check. His position ended abruptly four months later. But he'd had enough, and he published an exposé about his experiences that won a National Magazine Award and went on to become the most-read piece in Mother Jones' history. There was still a lot more he needed to say. In American Prison, Bauer mixes a far more in-depth examination of his own experiences with a well-researched history of for-profit prisons in America, dating back to the decades before the Civil War. We can't grasp the harshness of our current system and its role in the greater saga of mass imprisonment without first understanding where it originated from, as he quickly understood. In the aftermath of slavery, private prisons grew established in the South as part of a systemic attempt to keep the African-American work force in place, and the echoes of these sordid roots may still be heard today.

The private jail system is purposefully shielded from public scrutiny. Private prisons are not rewarded for caring for its inmates' health, feeding them well, or attracting and retaining a well-trained jail staff. Bauer befriends some of his coworkers and sympathises with their predicament, but their lives' chronic dysfunction just adds to the prison's instability. Bauer discovers that the longer he works at the jail, the crueller and more violent he becomes, and he is far from alone.

American Prison is an important human narrative on the actual face of justice in America. It is a scorching critique of the private prison system and the overwhelming forces that drive it.