The vastness of American prison literature testifies to many ills in American society. Among these are the Puritan need for old-testament punitive retribution, including the notion that solitary confinement would bring about penitence (yes, that’s where the term “penitentiary” originated.) Race and racism in the penal system, the “war on drugs” the privatization of prisons, the irony that the “land of the free” has the largest prison population in the world, and the highest per-capita incarceration rate are among the issues we will explore.

Students should purchase the following:

Caryl Chessman, Cell 2455, Death Row: A Condemned Man's Own Story (1948, rpt. 2006)

Jack Henry Abbott, In the Belly of the Beast: Letters from Prison (1991)

Fauziya Kassindja, Do They Hear You When You Cry (1998)

James Forman Jr., Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America (2017)

Ashley C. Ford, Somebody's Daughter: A Memoir (2021)

The following are useful supplementary materials:

https://www.criminaljusticedegreehub.com/literary-works-penned-in-prison/

https://nicic.gov/history-corrections-america

https://www.statista.com/topics/1717/prisoners-in-the-united-states/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/10/an-artist-on-how-he-survived-the-chain-gang

Sam Cooke, “Chain Gang”: https://youtu.be/PRyDlVOE86U

https://www.vera.org/blog/dispatches-from-germany/what-german-prisons-do-differently

Requirements: Attend all classes do all readings, engage in class discussions. All students will give a brief (5 minute) talk interpreting—not summarizing—a scene, a theme, or a character. All students will write a brief (one page) exploration of a passage from the readings. Put the passage into your own words and explain what’s interesting about it.

All students: My personal preference, if we meet in person, is for all of us to be (like me) fully vaccinated. The choice is yours, but my chronic condition puts me in life-threatening danger if I am exposed to the Coronavirus. Thank you for considering this request.