{"title":"Literary Collections--Prisoners' Writings","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"ghost-in-the-criminal-justice-machine-reform-white-supremacy-and-an-abolitionist-future","title":"Ghost in the Criminal Justice Machine: Reform, White Supremacy, and an Abolitionist Future","description":"\u003cb\u003eA powerful personal investigation of the insidious ways white supremacy compromises criminal justice reform, from the award-winning, formerly incarcerated activist and Soros Justice Fellow\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDespite reform efforts that have grown in scope and intensity over the last two decades, the machine of American mass incarceration continues to flourish. In this powerful polemic, formerly incarcerated activist, essayist, and organizer Emile Suotonye DeWeaver argues that the root of the problem is white supremacy. In the same vein as James Baldwin's \u003ci\u003eThe Fire Next Time\u003c\/i\u003e, DeWeaver's \u003ci\u003eGhost in the Criminal Justice Machine\u003c\/i\u003e brilliantly combines social commentary and personal narrative. This fiery debut is an original and provocative critique of the deeply troubling racial logic behind parole boards, police unions, prison administrations, and more.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDuring his twenty-one years in prison, DeWeaver covertly organized to pass legislation impacting juveniles in California's criminal legal system; was a culture writer for \u003ci\u003eEasy Street Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e; and co-founded Prison Renaissance, an organization centering incarcerated voices and incarcerated leadership. DeWeaver draws on these experiences to interrogate the central premise of reform efforts, including prisoner rehabilitation programs, arguing that they demand self-abnegation, entrench white supremacy, and ignore the role of structural oppression.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith lucid, urgent prose, DeWeaver intervenes in contemporary debates on criminal justice and racial justice efforts with his eye-opening discussion of the tools we need to end white supremacy--both within and outside the carceral setting. For readers of Mariame Kaba, Susan Burton, and Derecka Purnell, \u003ci\u003eGhost in the Criminal Justice Machine\u003c\/i\u003e adds a sharp and unique perspective to the growing discourse on racial justice, incarceration, and abolition.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 1620977885\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9781620977880\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Deweaver, Emile Suotonye\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: New Press\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"New Press","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover (May 2025)","offer_id":46080092471493,"sku":"9781620977880","price":27.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9781620977880.jpg?v=1776034444"},{"product_id":"jailbirds-in-flight-everything-youve-wanted-to-know-about-enlightenment-in-prison-but-were-afraid-to-ask","title":"Jailbirds in Flight: Everything You've Wanted to Know about Enlightenment in Prison but Were Afraid to Ask","description":"\u003cp\u003eNicole Daedone entered federal custody on charges tied to her life's work-the teaching of Orgasmic Meditation-and found herself inside the \"belly of the beast,\" the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. What she encounters there is a nation's shadow made visible, and within it, an unexpected field of grace.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDaedone meets women of immense courage and wit-OGs, hustlers, ministers, mystics-and even correctional officers whose quiet humanity breaks through the steel divide. Each holds a fragment of forgotten wisdom. Together, they turn the fluorescent corridors of confinement into a living monastery. Between commissary sushi rituals and midnight sermons, they find freedom begins long before the gates open.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWritten from inside MDC, this book is a love letter to the human soul and a call to restore the sacred in our most forsaken institutions. With startling tenderness and conviction, Daedone shows what happens when we treat prisons not as wastelands of punishment, but as the bedrock of liberation for a nation.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNicole Daedone has given the copyright, all book proceeds, and related rights this book to the Jailbirds in Flight Trust, so her story can keep benefiting others. The Trust money is shared between some of the women she was incarcerated with, some of whose stories helped inspire some of this book and the non-profit Unconditional Freedom which runs the Art of Soulmaking and Guards to Guardians.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-10: 196106443X\u003cbr\u003eISBN-13: 9781961064430\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Daedone, Nicole\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Soulmaker Press\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Soulmaker Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (Dec 2025)","offer_id":46081857978565,"sku":"9781961064430","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9781961064430.jpg?v=1776049972"},{"product_id":"trying-to-catch-lightning-in-a-jar-letters-from-prison","title":"Trying to Catch Lightning in a Jar: Letters from Prison","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Life with no parole for fifty years. That's what my paperwork reads. I saw it in print the day I arrived.\" So begins Patty Prewitt's epistolary memoir, Trying to Catch Lightning in a Jar, describing the first eighteen years of her incarceration in various Missouri women's prisons. Her letters tell the nightmarish story of incarceration while also describing her daily attempts at making the best of the situation with keen observation, humor, and compassion for those around her. Patty served thirty-eight years before her sentence was commuted.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"display:none\"\u003eISBN-13: 9798218682736\u003cbr\u003eAuthor: Prewitt, Patty\u003cbr\u003ePublisher: Some People Press\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Some People Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback (May 2025)","offer_id":46081878130885,"sku":"9798218682736","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0708\/6414\/2533\/files\/9798218682736.jpg?v=1776050139"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.inveni.store\/collections\/literary-collections-prisoners-writings.oembed","provider":"Inveni","version":"1.0","type":"link"}