Reading List
Non-fiction
History
Blackmon, Douglas A. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil
War to WWII. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/798411401
Bonner, Raymond. Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/796761691
Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1162821285
Hernandez, Kelly Lytle. City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in
Los Angeles, 1771-1965. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1119747136
Hinton, Elizabeth. America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960's. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1241246438
Houppert, Karen. Chasing Gideon: The Elusive Quest for Poor People's Justice. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/870288646
King, Gilbert. Devil in the Grove.
Oshinsky, David M. “Worse Than Slavery”: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/36812900
Thompson, Heather Ann. Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1080895952
Memoirs
Abu-Jamal, Mumia. Live from Death Row. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52970037
Allen, Danielle S. Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1089722067
Baca, Jimmy Santiago. A Place to Stand. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1054957377
Bandele, Asha. The Prisoner’s Wife: A Memoir. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/59111754
Barnett, Brittany K. A Knock at Midnight: A Story of Hope, Justice, and Freedom. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1112906063
Betts, Reginald Dwayne. A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age
in Prison. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1031927997
Bolden, Christian L. Out of the Red: My Life of Gangs, Prison, and Redemption. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1244438082
Boyle, Gregory. Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/709782498
Brown, Cyntoia. Free Cyntoia: My Search for Redemption in the American Prison System. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1174836637
Burton, Susan. Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for
Incarcerated Women. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1022881092
Charriere, Henri. Papillon. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1191146119
Duncan, Lenny. United States of Grace: A Memoir of Homelessness, Addiction, Incarceration, and Hope. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1176325947
The Elsinore-Bennu Think Tank for Restorative Justice. Life Sentences: Writings from Inside an American Prison. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1124562699
Graves, Anthony. Infinite Hope: How Wrongful Conviction, Solitary Confinement, and Twelve Years on Death Row Failed to Kill My Soul. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1088919077
Hayes, Billy. Midnight Express. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/910610898
Hinton, Anthony Ray. The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1048935112
Hopwood, Shon. Law Man: My Story of Robbing Banks, Winning Supreme Court Cases, and Finding Redemption. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/748577837
Huynh, Quan. Sparrow in the Razor Wire: Finding Freedom from Within While Serving a Life Sentence. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1202266462
Jackson, George. Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/751419314
Jackson, Spoon. By Heart: Poetry, Prison, and Two Lives. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/939842972
Kerman, Piper. Orange is the New Black. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1043834047
Lamb, Wallie and the Women of York Correctional Institution. Couldn’t Keep it to Myself. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1083109858
Lannert, Stacey. Redemption: A Story of Sisterhood, Survival, and Finding Redemption Behind Bars. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1102266744
Manuel, Ian. My Time Will Come: A Memoir of Crime, Punishment, Hope, and Redemption. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1175680831
Masters, Jay Jarvis. Finding Freedom: How Death Row Broke and Opened My Heart. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1142002158
Masters, Jay Jarvis. That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/607477049
McCall, Nathan. Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man In America. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1090744673
Parsell, T.J. Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1054955935
Pearson, Felicia. Grace After Midnight: A Memoir. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/810997236
Phelps, Carissa. Runaway Girl: Escaping Life on the Streets, One Helping Hand at a Time. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/820123605
Prejean, Helen. Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/34722356
Rhodes-Courter, Ashley. Three Little Words. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/233544941
Rideau, Wilbert. In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Redemption. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1015817881
Rodriguez, Luis J. It Calls You Back: An Odyssey through Love, Addiction, Revolution, and Healing.
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/809314988
Senghor, Shaka. Writing My Wrongs: Life, Death and Redemption in an American Prison. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1039534627
Shakur, Sanyika. Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/244170485
Steinberg, Avi. Running the Books. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1194909972
Stevenson, Bryan. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1119116448
Tobola, Deborah. Hummingbird in Underworld: Teaching in a Men’s Prison. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1108872219
Ward, Jesmyn. Men We Reaped. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1052550760
Wideman, John Edgar. Brother and Keepers. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1198792723
Woodfox, Albert. Solitary: Unbroken by Four Decades of Solitary Confinement. My Story of
Transformation and Hope. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1236198089
Prison Abolition
The Abolition Collective. Making Abolitionist Worlds: Proposals for a World on Fire. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1144108631
Bernstein, Nell. Burning Down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/902656873
Davis, Angela. Are Prisons Obsolete? http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/793376137
Dixon, Ejeris. Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories from the Transformative Justice Movement. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1225195894
Gilmore, Ruth Wilson. Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1029802075
Kaba, Mariame. We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1240267964
Norris, Zach. Defund Fear: Safety Without Policing, Prisons, and Punishment. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228517655
Reference
Alexander, Michele. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1162862525
The Aperture Foundation. Prison Nation. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1002833802
Armour, Jody David. N*gga Theory: Race, Language, Unequal Justice, and the Law. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1226754428
Bauer, Shane. American Prison: A Reporter’s Undercover Journey Into the Business of Punishment. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1086562994
Bazelon, Emily. Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass
Incarceration. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1230375623
Butler, Paul. Let's Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/435419382
Conover, Ted. Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/937342380
Dreisinger, Baz. Incarceration Nations: A Journey to Justice in Prisons Around the World. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/966386594
Drucker, Ernest, ed. Decarcerating America: From Mass Punishment to Public Health. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/974699602
Eisen, Lauren-Brooke. Inside Private Prisons: An American Dilemma in the Age of Mass Incarceration. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1077483820
Fleetwood, Nicole R. Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1201516795
Forman, James, Jr. Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1152915332
Garrett, Brandon. Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/806495170
Gottschalk, Marie. Caught: The Prison State and the Lockdown of American Politics. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/958882902
Harding, David J. After Prison: Navigating Adulthood in the Shadow of the Justice System. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1142883913
Hayes, Chris. A Colony in a Nation. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1032366512
Hinton, Elizabeth. From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in
America. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1007099147
Kilgore, James. Understanding Mass Incarceration: A People’s Guide to the Key Civil Rights Struggle of
Our Time. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1159823175
Kim, Alice (ed.). The Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences Working Toward Freedom. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1007747641
Kuklin, Susan. No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/859192747
Lankford, Susan. Born, Not Raised: Voices from Juvenile Hall. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/778565132
Larson, Doran. Fourth City: Essays from the Prison in America. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/876156369
Law, Victoria. Prisons Make Us Safer: And 20 Other Myths About Mass Incarceration. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1143822151
LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole. Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/901589598
Leovy, Jill. Ghettoside. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/937883305
Miller, Reuben Jonathan. Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1233054770
Rakoff, Jed S. Why the Innocent Plead Guilty and the Guilty Go Free: And Other Paradoxes of Our Broken Legal System. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1246145284
Rathbone, Christina. A World Apart: Women, Prison, Life Behind Bars. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1019890364
Richie, Beth E. Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/764339521
Roth, Alisa. Insane: America's Criminal Treatment of Mental Illness. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1164146192
Rothstein, Richard. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated
America. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1228819669
Santos, Michael G. Inside: Life Behind Bars in America. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/123797600
Schenwar, Maya, & Victoria Law. Prison by any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1249801485
Sered, Danielle. Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1226063632
Smith, Mychal Denzel. Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man's Education. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1009030245
Waldman, Ayelet. Inside this Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women’s Prisons. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1005212688
Wang, Jackie. Carceral Capitalism. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1113546645
Western, Bruce. Homeward: Life in the Year after Prison. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1008770268
Fictional Works
General
Benioff, David. The 25th Hour. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1090565376
Braly, Malcolm. On the Yard. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/834413893
Chapman, Ryan. Riots I Have Known. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1121610497
Crosby, S.A. Blacktop Wasteland. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1246189474
Dawkins, Curtis. The Graybar Hotel. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1015825097
Dumas, Alexandre. The Count of Monte Cristo. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1240774221
Egan, Jennifer. The Keep. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/930364554
Gaiman, Neil. American Gods. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1241443485
Gantos, Jack. Hole in My Life. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/785071589
Jones, Tayari. An American Marriage. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1090206538
King, Stephen. The Green Mile. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1013168912
King, Stephen. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1200851005
Kushner, Rachel. Mars Room. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1056743039
Mosley, Walter. The Right Mistake: The Further Philosophical Investigations of Socrates Fortlow. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1230312909
PEN America. As I Hear the Rain: PEN America Prison Writing Awards Anthology.
PEN America. The Named and the Nameless: 2018 Prison Writing Awards Anthology.
Puig, Manuel. Kiss of the Spider Woman. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/29877344
Ward, Jesmyn. Sing, Unburied Sing. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1238010987
Waters, Sarah. Affinity. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/869917716
Whitehead, Colson. The Nickel Boys. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1158122860
Poetry
Betts, Reginald Dwayne. Felon: Poems. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1156994037
Knight, Etheridge. The Essential Etheridge Knight. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/840562192
Poetry Magazine. The Practice of Freedom: February 2021.
Young Adult
Asante, MK. Buck: A Memoir. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/903901955
Canada, Geoffrey. Fist, Stick, Knife, Gun. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1230286117
Jackson, Tiffany D. Allegedly. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/993682801
Myers, Walter Dean. Lockdown. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1016513026
Myers, Walter Dean. Monster. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1203009979
Neri, Greg. Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/747819151
Stone, Nic. Dear Justyce. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1140679515
Volponi, Paul. Rikers High. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/704378240