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This book tells the story of mass Incarceration in America through the writers who experienced it first-hand. It begins at mid-century with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, whose insights about racism and the criminal justice system warned of what was to come. It takes off in the 1960s and 1970s with revolutionary writers like George Jackson, Assata Shakur, and Mumia Abu-Jamal, seeking liberation not just from prison but the oppressive structure of society that sustains it. It evolves in the post-revolutionary era with witnesses like Wilbert Rideau, Jack Henry Abbott, and Jimmy Santiago Baca, seeking self-determination and justice from these increasingly cavernous prison warehouses. And it ends with the stories of survivors like Shaka Senghor, Jarvis Masters, and Susan Burton in the 21st century seeking healing from the psychological trauma that led to prison as well as the trauma of prison. 

About the Speakers

David Coogan, Ph.D is an Associate Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University; the founder of Open Minds, a college program at the Richmond City Jail; the author of Writing Our Way Out: Memoirs from Jail (2015), written with ten formerly incarcerated men; and the director of a criminal justice diversion program based on that book.

Liz Canfield, Ph.D is an Associate Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University; the founder of Open Minds, a college program at the Richmond City Jail; the author of Writing Our Way Out: Memoirs from Jail (2015), written with ten formerly incarcerated men; and the director of a criminal justice diversion program based on that book.

Becca Ringle is a doctoral student and Teaching Associate in English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with research interests in American literature, feminist rhetoric, and critical prison studies. Their recent Master’s thesis, Grabbing for Life: Rhetorical Space and Agency in Women’s Prison Zines, was awarded the Virginia Commonwealth University Graduate School’s 2023–2024 Outstanding Master’s Thesis Award in the Humanities and Fine Arts Category.