March 3, 2023
American Prison by Shane Bauer
Investigative journalist Shane Bauer goes undercover for Mother Jones magazine as a corrections officer at a privately run prison in Louisiana to find out about conditions for both prisoners and guards. He details the fear he experienced daily, the brutal and often stupid rules that officers were expected to enforce, the poor living conditions, and how prisoners were routinely humiliated and denied basic needs such as meals and medical care. After four months as a guard, Bauer resigned when his cover was unintentionally blown by a photographer trying to get photos for the article. Although he himself had been a prisoner for almost a year in Iran, Bauer actually excelled as a guard and was singled out for a promotion and advanced training, gaining insight into how guards in concentration camps become detached from their actions and are able to commit increasingly horrific acts, in the name of following orders. He found the whole experience dehumanizing for both guards and prisoners, and details how both groups become institutionalized.
Like many other readers, I had no idea that there were privately run prisons in the U.S. - I thought all prisons were run by government, either federal, state, county or municipal. The privatization of prisons is largely so that they are run for profit, and many of the "skills" that they teach prisoners have no transferable value outside prison (did you know that virtually all Braille books are produced by prisoners? If there is no company outside of prison that makes Braille books, this is a useless skill with no value outside of prison). Bauer also discusses recidivism in the epilogue, following up with some prisoners to see how they are managing after being released from prison, finding that most convicts who had been in prison for lengthy sentences were released back into society with no resources for making the transition, often falling back into criminal activities.
