Customer Reviews

You Are Going To Prison

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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

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.

"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.

This is one of the most fascinating and disturbing books I have read in some time. Though I (thankfully) have never been caught in the "maw of the criminal justice machine" as Hogshire puts it, I literally could not put this book down once I started reading and I finished it in one afternoon!

Hogshire takes you on a journey through our justice and criminal system from the "flashing blue lights" all the way to the electric chair. Remember the "Scared Straight" program back in the 1970s? Well this book should be required reading for all juvenile offenders - if this book doesn't set them on the right path, nothing will.

One thing that disturbed me about this book was that Hogshire seems to lean too heavily in the favor of the criminals. Such as telling us where we can buy handcuff keys for example, or how to hide evidence. But even more disturbing is the growing power that we citizens have yielded to the government. For example, police can now seize property and initiate investigations based on anonymous tips alone and can apparently manufacture evidence against you very easily should you do so much as sass certain police officers at a routine traffic stop. There are few saints on either side here.

Even if you plan on being a law-abiding citizen your entire life, you should still read this book and be aware of how easy it is for anybody to fall into the "machine."

Jim Hogshire's, You are Going to Prison, is a very frightening and in depth look at the United States prison system. The book takes the reader deep into the "criminal justice machine" while explaining in vivid detail how to survive a trip to a maximum security prison, or to at least make it as painless as possible.

While Hogshire is blatantly biased against the criminal justice system, his book is one of the most facinating that I have ever read. This is because the book is informative and very descriptive. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know what really happens inside America's prisons.

Let me start out by saying that I am a Corrections Officer in the 13th largest county jail system. One might think that I would hate this book because of it's anti-law enforcement stance. But this book speaks the truth on a great many things.

Unless you are a psycho or a hard core convict, prison is not a fun/pleasant place nor are jails and certainly not reception centers. This book exposes a world that most Americans cannot believe exists.

This book is a must read for anyone committing or considering committing crimes.

Due note that prisons and jails vary by a great degree, with no two being the same, so this book is not absolute gospel but it still is worth reading.

Even regular citizens should read this book, if for no other reason than appreciation of the normal lives they have and enjoy.

I have a husband in prison who I talked every step of this book out with . He has been in prison for over ten years from MAX security to Medium and soon to minimum and I can tell you this book is right on the money .Its so helpful for folks headed into prison or for there families to give them some insight to what life inside is really like . I highly recommend this book to wives ...inmates ...families ...

Jim Hogshire does not like the police.

This is not like saying "I do not like peanut butter and jelly." It's more like saying, "I do not like to be skinned alive."

I found out about this book from a hysterical internet blog written by a man who eats odd things and then reviews them. From an eight-year old box of "Urkelo's" to a can of moldy corn, the author tried many things, including Jim Hogshire's recipe for prison wine. This caught my attention, and I couldn't be more glad about it. While there are times that one might appreciate the class of Charles Dickens or the vocabulary of Umberto Echo, there are also times that one enjoys reading plain old Tell It Like It Is literature. This is that at its animated best.

The book tells about more than just prison. It details the entire legal process from being arrested to possibly sitting on death row. While at first I doubted the veracity of his claims that the police and prison guards are as bad as he said, I found myself swayed to his side by his simple, emphatic account after account of what prison was like and how the justice system relies on plea bargains and guilty pleas to keep it moving at more than a snail's pace. Simply put, his book made sense to me.

If you have anyone in your life that may be facing hard time, I would recommend this book because Jim Hogshire talks about situations that could save that person's life that are not often detailed in normal conversation. It's hard to get ahold of this book cheaply now because it's out of print, so if you know anyone who has a copy, you might want to borrow it instead of buying one of your own.

I am on the way to FEDERAL prison and thought that this book would be helpful. Instead I found the book to concentrate on MAXIMUM security prisons. More akin to the Shawshank Redemption than information about what white-collar types will experience. Ultimately I found a book called DOWNTIME - A GUIDE TO FEDERAL INCARCERATION offered by Davrie Communications. White collar types will find that book much more helpful. Check out the Davrie Communications website. They have several helpful books for federal minimum security types. It is located at ...

A friend brought this book on a vacation and everyone was sucked in by it. Hogshire is a no-nonsense guy who has a lot of information on every stage of the legal system. I cannot recommend this book enough for both information and recreational reading.