Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing

I have always been fascinated by prison life. I have no intent of experiencing it first hand and I know that I could not rely on Hollywood to accurately portray anything. While looking for a book, I saw this one and thought it would offer a unique perspective on prison life.The concept behind "Newjack" was very simple yet ingenious. Author Ted Conover requested the State of New York access to the Correctional Officer training program and the COs to write a story. After what looked like a promising response from the state of New York, Mr. Conover was denied access. So Mr. Conover did the next best thing, he took the civil service exam and two years later, was accepted into the Correctional Officer training program. Upon graduating, Mr. Conover was assigned to Sing Sing Prison. Mr. Conover spent a year "undercover" as a Correctional Officer in the New York penal system.I do not want unjustly portray the book in a negative light, so I will begin with he positives. I have not been to jail, but based on stories of LEOs and correctional officers I have spoken with personally, this book seems to be a pretty fair representation of life as a correctional guard in prison. The writing in this book is easy to read, much like opening a person's diary. The author also does a magnificent job describing details of his day to the point where you feel his frustration when inmates won't get into their cell or feel the electricity in the air when the author works the yard or mess line.However, I feel the book could have greatly benefited from a better layout and altering the content. The book reminds me of an over hyped Hollywood movie. The tension is built and built, but nothing ever really happens. The initial writing in the book gives the feeling that something bad in prison happens at every turn. Initially, the book is filled with talk of inmate on guard violence, bodily fluids being thrown at guards, and prison riots. When the author is assigned to be an officer at Sing Sing, there is an expectation of bad things happening, but nothing really serious ever does. Also, the whole "history of Sing Sing" in the "Scrap Heap" chapter seemed horribly misplaced in my opinion. It seemed to bog the story way down.Overall, I think this was an excellent representation on life as a correctional officer (basically hours of boredom with seconds of sheer terror). I think the author had a novel idea and executed it quite well. While I think the book could have benefited from some better editing, this in no way takes away from the story being told. If you want to read what life as a correctional officer is like, this is the book for you. If you are more interested in prison life from an inmate's perspective, this is still a good book, but there may be better ones available. I did not regret reading this book at all.

Walter Cronkite once said that the citizens of a country have a right to know what's being done in their name. It's a simple enough premise: public institutions, spending public money, should be subject to public scrutiny. And yet, the nation's prisons and jails remain practically invisible to the public eye, thanks to both their media-shy temperament and a relatively incurious media. Newspapers and television may flock to chronicle shocking crimes and sensational trials, but when the sentences have been handed down and the headlines are fading, the public mentality seems to be "out of sight, out of mind."Journalist Ted Conover sought to redress this problem, to understand the corrections system in New York State and, in particular, the corrections officers who, on behalf of the public, guard those deemed unfit for society. Towards that end, he wanted to follow a rookie C.O. through training and into an initial posting, but was repeatedly denied permission to do so. Rebuffed by the powers-that-be, stymied by the system, he settled on an even better and more original solution: to become that rookie C.O. himself.Many journalists aspire to be (or pretend to be) completely objective--dispassionate chroniclers of the world, separate from the people and situations they write about. The brilliance of Conover's book is that he took a completely opposite tack, enmeshing himself in the system rather than trying to observe it at arm's length. And in doing so, he has created an excellent, compelling, and thoroughly informative book, one that dismantles many stereotypes about prisons and guards, stripping away the lumpy old layers of paint and showing the true shape and color of things.Many of his most insightful observations deal with a very poorly understood subject--the effects of incarceration on the guards. At the outset of his experiences, Conover wonders whether guards truly are the brutal people depicted so often in prison movies and, if so, whether they are drawn to the work because they are insensitive, mean people or whether they become that way because of the work. By the end of his time guarding Sing Sing, he seems convinced that the latter is often the case, that warehousing people can end up dehumanizing both the people being warehoused and the people doing the warehousing. The stress and strain of prison, it seems, seeps into the lives of C.O.s, resulting in higher rates of alcoholism and divorce. (Those who pick this book up expecting an overly-sensitive, "Cool Hand Luke"-ish rant about cruel C.O.s and maltreated prisoners will find themselves pleasantly surprised by the author's fairness and empathy towards his fellow guards.)Prison sex, too, appears far differently on the inside than it does in popular culture. While prison rape is a staple of movies and shows about incarceration ("The Shawshank Redemption", "Oz"), Conover concludes that most prison sex is, in fact, consensual. Such observations may seem like voyeurism, but they are not; given the lower availability of condoms, the higher rates of infection for sexually transmitted diseases (particularly HIV) and the fact that many of these men will eventually leave prison (possibly to rejoin thier families), prison sex is a factor that fundamentally alters the incarceration equation.Despite its overall excellence and its willingness to take on such edgy topics, the book isn't a completely thorough or representative picture of New York State's corrections system. The author readily admits that Sing Sing is an atypical prison, with a larger percentage of minority guards and unseasoned officers than the upstate facilities; it would have been interesting if he'd been willing or able to spend longer in the system and get a better look at those institutions.Still, this complaint is insignificant when compared with the book's overall virtues. "Newjack" is a great public service, a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the consequences of the nation's get-tough-on-crime mentality. While many people affect a cavalier don't-do-the-crime-if-you-can't-do-the-time air, Conover's book shows that this is a very myopic attitude--prisoners will do the time, and they will emerge, and the experiences they face on the inside will help determine whether they will do the crime again or instead find a place in society. Given that fact, society should try to better understand what life is like for them--and for the guards who do the public's thankless bidding.

Certainly a very interesting book from a unique perspective. Conover writes about the contemporary state of the prison, while giving us the context of its history and the changes in society and law that govern it. However, his real focus is more immediately human; he frankly shares his (and his colleagues) experiences and frustrations as a corrections officer, while also giving a voice to the inmates as much as he can, given his necessarily restrained relationship with them.Especially welcome in this this version are two afterword sections, written at seven months and ten years respectively following its original publication, discussing the book’s initial reception and how interest in it has endured.

The recent release of Nick Yarris, incarcerated for 18 plus years for a crime he did not commit, convicted without forensic evidence, prompted me buy this book. I was moved by Nicks story and wanted to know what conditions he might have endured for eighteen long years. Ted Conover's book is quite dated now, although there is an epilogue added in the twenty first century, but one feels that little has changed since the first stones were laid in the construction of the beast which is Sing Sing Penitentiary. Vividly described with interesting detail and characters who will evoke feelings of pity, sadness, horror and shame.

Great insight to how American prisons operate from the inmates on edge to the Guards on tender hooks through inmate abuse to stress in and out of the prison regime. Well worth the a read an eye opener.

Only read the first page and looks great already i would recommend

A unique piece of gonzo journalism with the danger he put himself in but only in this manner would get this fantastic insight into the inner dealings of a prison. Well worth a read.