num_pages: 199
description: What do we know first-hand about prisons? We have accounts from many top administrators. There is a large literature of convict reports and memoirs. But we have almost no personal accounts written by the people who were engaged in the day-to-day work of guarding and keeping prison inmates. In Prison Work, former California prisons corrections officer William Richard Wilkinson candidly tells what it was like to try to handle problems that can arise in prison, from furnishing three meals a day to quelling a riot. Constructed around a series of interviews with Wilkinson, this book recounts his extensive experience with discipline problems, wrong-headed administrators, contraband, and escapes. Wilkinson’s story presents a blunt, unabashed view of daily life in prison, including fascinating discussions of racial and religious conflict, gangs, and prison violence as well as the institutional culture and more human side of life as experienced by a prison employee. The duration of Wilki
language: English
title: Prison Work: A Tale of Thirty Years in the California Department of Corrections
titlecomplete: Prison Work: A Tale of Thirty Years in the California Department of Corrections
ratings_count: 1
series: History of Crime and Criminal Justice
publisher: Ohio State University Press