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45 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Should Be Required High School Reading, May 20, 2003
Forget MTV's Scared Straight. If you want to scare someone, no matter what age, into toeing the line and avoiding a prison sentence at all costs, make them read this book. I guarantee there is not a more forthright, realistic view of what goes on in the belly of the beast that is our prison system than can be found in the passages that comprise this excellent book. As a note of caution, much as I would have liked to use this as a text in my high school teaching days, I probably wouldn't have gotten it past my department heads, as it does depict very graphically what awaits the prison newbie as he (no focus on women's prison here) wends his way through the prison system. It's none too jolly, trust me. Hogshire definitely "tells it like it is," and holds nothing back. HBO prison shows don't show the half of it. For the real, unadulterated deal, trust this author. Even if you're not planning on a prison junket anytime soon, I recommend this short book as a fascinating read. It may trun your head (or at least your stomach) about the continuing sorry state of affairs in our nation's prison system. BEK
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30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A strong warning, September 26, 2001
Jim Hogshire's underground classic You are Going to Prison is probably one of the strongest arguements against criminal behavior ever published. Certainly, his guidebook for how to survive behind bars is much more effective than the horror stories and stern warnings that we've been getting from actual law enforcement officials over the past few decades. To a certain extent, I think that's because the police, when they tell you not to break the law, are doing their job. Hogshire, on the other hand, writes with a certain brutal simplicity with an attitude of, "If you're stupid enough to go to prison, here's what's going to happen. Your choice." Anyway, the book itself is just what it claims to be. A guidebook for what to reasonably expect if you should happen to find yourself confined to prison. It doesn't paint a pretty picture but will be found fascinating by anyone with an interest in criminal behavior, law enforcement, or anyone whose just curious about aspects of life they'll probably never actually get a chance to experience. It is true that Hogshire isn't a huge fan of law enforcement authorities but at the same time, that shouldn't be taken to mean that he in any way glorifies criminals or prison life. I've read that this book has become dated since its original release. That wouldn't surprise me. With outside society growing grimmer by the minute, one can only guess what must be going on in America's prisons. Still, even if dated, this is a harrowing (if at times strangely humorous -- Hogshire has a corrosive wit that will be appreciated by anyone with a bit of the cynic inside of them) look at a place none of us ever want to end up.
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32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Limited Options in Dark World, May 20, 2002
"If you don't get life," author Jim Hogshire writes, "the next worse thing the state can do to you is kill you." This sentence from the section entitled "Executions" represents the spirit of this excellent introduction to a world where you lose control over simple things like where you go to the bathroom, what you eat, and what you can safely say to other people. Hogshire's book is at once a sly critique of the system as it really operates and a survival guide for anyone unfortunate enough to be caught up by "the machine". The book is insightful not only for the prisoner, but for those who love him or who just want to understand the world in which he exists. Hogshire is not a preacher who will tell you that crime does not pay: he freely admits that you are better off simply not being caught and provides a few pointers for minimizing the risk of being passed from the streets to the prison should you be arrested, detained in the county jail, and tried. Even following his book to the letter, he further admits, you may find yourself inexorbably shuttled through the judicial process to that most horrible of places, the modern prison. At each step along the way he discusses the legal and personal risks that a convict must face including physical violence, boredom, cravings for drugs, lonliness, and self defense. Sometimes he injects his darkly funny observations about what people try to accomplish with prison and what actually happens there. (See, for example, his comments about the likelihood of prison rapists getting "some of their own medicine".) I don't think this guide is just for prisoners or their families. I think it should be read by wardens, guards, voters, and politicians so that they can understand just what kind of unnecessary hell the American legal system has created. It would not surprise me if this book was banned in some penal systems to keep prisoners from getting ideas. Though I have no intentions of committing a crime, I am glad I read this if for no other reason than I now understand how to act in the event I am arrested and how I might survive should evil compound evil and I find myself in one of the darker worlds we have created in the name of light.
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