Prisons
New:
Master Hangmen by
Robert Walsh
(10/26/08).
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the Pierrepoints, first Henry,
then Thomas and finally Albert, were chief executioners for Great Britain,
responsible for hanging hundreds of British citizens. After World War II, Albert
would hang some 200 Nazis on orders of Field Marshall Montgomery.
Updated:
The Great Prevaricator by
Lona Manning.
(Updated 05/29/07)
Edgar Smith,
with William F. Buckley Jr. blithely playing his stooge, wrote his way to
freedom from the Death House in Trenton State Prison in 1971, becoming the most
famous death-row prisoner of his time. Fourteen and-a-half years earlier, Smith
-- at age 23 -- had bludgeoned to death 15-year-old Vickie Zielinski in Mahwah,
N.J. Less than five years after his release from prison, Smith kidnapped a
petite but scrappy young mother who miraculously managed to escape from Smith's
car with a knife stuck in her side.
Devil's Island by
J.J. Maloney.
(Updated 02/07/05)
An essay on the history of the most famous and dreaded prison of all time.
Recommended reading for those who think a "get tough" policy on crime is a new
idea, or that it works.
Volunteering
for Death: The Fast Track to the Death House by Robert Anthony Phillips.
Death-row inmates are increasingly foregoing the appeal process to hasten the
date of their execution. "Volunteers" now account for more than one of
every eight executions.
Alcatraz: Rigid and Unusual
Punishment by Michael Esslinger. During the 29 years Alcatraz
operated as a federal penitentiary it built a reputation as a Devil's Island
of the soul. If Al Capone was the nation's symbol of lawlessness, then
Alcatraz would be the nation's symbol for punishing the lawless.
In The Wake of a Riot is the
story of the disastrous 1954 riot that leveled much of the Missouri State Penitentiary and
left four convicts dead and 30 wounded. One of the dead inmates was a police
informant, and seven men were convicted of that murder - after claiming to have been
tortured. One legendary St. Louis defense attorney fought for 29 years at his own
expense because he believed his client to be innocent.
The Walls,
a first person account of what it was like to serve time in the maximum-security prison at
Jefferson City, Missouri.
HIV in Prisons,
a study by the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Statistics on this hidden pandemic.
