cover image Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America's Prisons

Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America's Prisons

Alan Elsner. Prentice Hall, $23.99 (283pp) ISBN 978-0-13-188179-2

In this new edition, updated after the Abu Ghraib scandal, Elsner uses a conversational tone in recounting the aspects of day-to-day life for American inmates: drug and alcohol abuse, rampant disease, rape, murder and racism. Prisons, Elsner writes, are fertile ground where the worst aspects of society take root and blossom, and the majority of his book, drawing on data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, court cases and interviews with current and former inmates, paints a stark picture of a seedy world where guards rape inmates without fear of recourse and inmates can be left in lockdown for weeks as a budget cutting initiative. Instances of the sadistic creativity exhibited by inmates (generally with the aim of violating prison regulations) and guards (to punish inmates who have creatively violated prison regulations) pepper Elsner's sobering reportage, much of which concerns itself with figures and statistics so staggering that Elsner, clearly an advocate of prison reform, hesitates to even hint at solutions until the final chapter, when he outlines three elements of prison reform: reducing the number of new inmates, lowering recidivism rates and eradicating the ""worst abuses within the system."" An unflinching account of an uncomfortable subject, the book provides a window into an overlooked-and growing-segment of society and will appeal to readers interested in issues of justice and human rights.