Book Review: Pollock, J. M. (2004). Prisons and Prison Life: Costs and Consequences. Los Angeles: Roxbury. 306 pp

• Author: William M. DiMascio
• Published date: 01 September 2007
• Date: 01 September 2007
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734016807305970
• Subject Matter: Articles

procedures needed in a local court. The publishers also include updates on the law at their

Web site: www.nolo.com.

Of final note, the authors make clear that the Handbook is not a platform raising the

reader up to the level of knowledge needed for being able to represent one’s self. The stakes

are high in criminal cases, and the authors assume that anyone facing a criminal charge for

which imprisonment is a possibility hires and attorney, whether privately or appointed by

the government. The goal of the Handbook is simply to better educate defendants who are

up against the power and resources of the government—police officers and prosecutors

who work the intricacies of the system everyday. Bergman and Berman-Barrett’s Criminal

Law Handbook simply allows accused persons to play a more active role in their defense.

With it, one can participate in making intelligent decisions about almost any phase of the

criminal justice system.

Marilyn L. Bardie Kapaun

Georgia State University, Atlanta

Pollock, J. M. (2004). Prisons and Prison Life: Costs and

Consequences. Los Angeles: Roxbury. 306 pp.

DOI: 10.1177/0734016807305970

Make no mistake: criminal justice is as simple as the two-times table to the uninitiated.

Everything most people think they need to know about prisons follows from the earliest

lessons taught by their parents about right and wrong, yes and no, and good and bad. Or

so it seems.

It is not until the layers of the onion are peeled away, until the critical questions are

raised, that the ironies and complexities surface: Why in the land of freedom and fairness

have race and class become such major factors in determining who goes to prison? How has

the mightiest nation known to man become such a loser in the war on drugs? What useful

purpose is served by subjecting the most disempowered, abused, and nonviolent women in

the perpetually negative environment of prisons?

Joycelyn M. Pollock, PhD, JD, is an accomplished educator and author whose background

also includes experience working in corrections administration and inmate advocacy. This

wide-ranging perspective brings clarity and intelligence to essential issues in criminal

justice as well as a confident approach that enables the author to blend insights from

acclaimed penologists and life-sentenced prisoners. And her lucid writing style also distin-

guishes this book from many pedagogic volumes.

In addressing a central and widespread misunderstanding, Dr. Pollock writes the following:

One of the most important realizations learned by visiting prisons is that they are full of people

who are not monsters. Visitors to prisons inevitably ruefully, sheepishly, or innocently say,

“They are not at all like I thought they’d be.” Even those men who are covered with prison tattoos

and talk the talk of the prison yard might be studying sociology in a college class or learning

computer programming. (pp. 93-94)

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