num_pages: 226
description: Here is remarkable document—the vivid recollection of a man who for thirty years was an inmate of the Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing.To say that the prison at Lansing was bad is hardly necessary. From its founding in 1864 through the decade of the twenties, Lansing was one of the most feared and hated prisons in the country. Men who had survived the ordeal of a sentence the called it The Devil's Front Porch—the nearest thing to hell. The system for handling convicted felons was traditional—"break him or kill him". Most of the prison personnel set about this task with zeal and dedication. An uncommon feature about Mr. Johnson's story is that he has told it with objectivity and with compassion both for his fellow prisoners and for their tormentors.The book is written from the vantage point of one who is constantly a member of the cast, always on stage but never the star. His story opens at the turn of the century when Lansing still housed some of the outlaws left over from riotous times, and the reader is carried from the days of the buggy to the days of the jet, discovering meanwhile that the earth turns considerably more slowly in the murky world behind prison walls.
language: English
title: The devil's front porch
titlecomplete: The devil's front porch
ratings_count: 7
publisher: University Press of Kansas