Crimes of the Old-Right

The Prisoners of Breendonk by James M. Deem
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2015]
xi, 340 p. : ill. (some col.), col. maps ; 24 cm.

Deem has done something that is difficult to do - written a fresh Holocaust book that brings something new to light (a nearly forgotten Nazi-run prison in occupied Belgium), reveals the mundane and depraved day to day sadism and savagery of the Nazis, and rescues from oblivion the humanity of the men who suffered and/or were murdered at this prison.

I couldn't read the book cover to cover. It was just too hard to revisit the beatings, starvation, humiliations, tortures, executions, and day-to-day cruelties committed against the prisoners in Breendonk. However, the book uses a great many photographs, and personal testimonies to bring to life the inmates of the prison - and to put faces and names on the perpetrators of this smaller, but still horrible Nazi concentration camp.

I would definitely recommend this book to students who know some of the basic facts about the Holocaust, but who want to really engage with the people who were involved.  With maps, diagrams, artistic sketches from an inmate, reproduced documents, and many stunning photographs, Prisoners of Breendonk is a powerful read.

Finally, the book is a stark reminder of the horrendous crimes of the original Nazis - and the dangers posed by the current neo-Nazis and so-called "alt-right" groups and leaders experiencing a resurgence of power and influence in the US and Europe.


   

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
New York : New Press, 2010.
xi, 290 p. ; 24 cm.

This is a book I've been wanting to read since it first came out in 2010.  It received a lot of praise, and time has proven that the praise was not misplaced.

In the last couple of years - especially following the killings of Treyvon Martin and Michael Brown and the subsequent emergence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement - the national debate on the injustices of law enforcement and the criminal justice system toward black people in the US has taken on a vibrant and expansive life.  Reading The New Jim Crow during the summer of 2016, I couldn't help but wonder how amazed Michelle Alexander must feel about events that have occurred in the ten years since she published the book.

Her book is a thorough, well researched, and toughly argued case against the US criminal justice system - especially the mass incarceration of African Americans since the ramping up of the War on Drugs.

What makes her book especially powerful - in addition to its research data and passion for justice - is that it shows how the new mass incarceration of black people is simply a continuation of the historic pattern of racism in the US adapting to new social changes and traditions in order to reestablish the oppression of African Americans: first slavery, then after the Civil War and reconstruction comes Jim Crow, and after the Civil Rights movement and legal gains, comes the War on Drugs and the lopsided application of it against people of color.

It's a powerful book and still very timely.  I'd recommend it to any student wanting to research or understand mass incarceration and institutional race

Schooled in Prison

A Question of Freedom by R. Dwayne Betts
New York : Avery, 2010, c2009.
1st trade pbk. ed.
 240 p. ; 21 cm.   

There have been some really good books out lately about mass incarceration - such as The New Jim Crow and the comic book format, Race to Incarcerate.  A Question of Freedom is a great addition to the literature - and especially for high school age readers - in that it personalizes the story in a compelling and finely written memoir by a young man who was sentenced as an adult to 9 years in prison at the age of 16.

Yes, he committed a serious crime - using a gun to carjack a man in a mall parking lot.  And yet under the relatively new draconian laws now on the books in many states, he was sentenced a a sixteen year old to serve years in adult penitentiaries in the state of Virginia.

In prison Betts underwent a transformation from a basically good student who was morally adrift - to a thoughtful and powerful writer.  His writing conveys - without melodrama - the really twisted world of the US prison system where who you are as a human being is lost in a bizarre world of regulations, danger, and violence.  I was especially struck by how much time Betts spent in "the hole" - solitary confinement for minor rule infractions, and how he ended up in Virginia's infamous Red Onion "super max" prison, supposedly for the "worst of the worst" - even though he never did anything more violent than push a rookie guard's hands off of his genitals when that new guard was over zealous in doing a pat down search.

Again and again, Betts also reflects on the sad racial facts of the US prison system where the majority of prisoners are Black and Latino, and on the draconian "get tough" sentencing that locks people away for decades.  He himself could have been sentenced to life in prison!

I really like how Betts does not try to shock us with violent or terrifying episodes from prison, but instead conveys the soul killing world of prison - and the redemptive nature of the decent human beings who were kind or protective of him.

I would highly recommend this book for reading in classes.  It is ultimately a hopeful book.  The author has gone on to be a successful poet in addition to this fine non-fiction memoir.  I will be recommending it to any students looking for something about prisons, biographies, young writers, and mass incarceration.

Like a Supermax on Steroids

Lockdown by Alexander Gordon Smith
New York : Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2009.
273 p. ; 22 cm. 

Given the use of  brutal, personality-shattering Supermax prisons in the US, the nightmarish glimpse inside US detention prisons in Iraq, the bloated rates of incarceration in the US, and the growing evidence of wrongful convictions - Lockdown is a timely and compelling novel - albeit, from an author in the UK and not the US. 

The story centers around a young teen, Alex, who has been pursing a life of crime - mainly home burglaries - until he is framed for a murder and sentenced to the notorious underground penitentiary, Furnace, where all the inmates are boys and young men serving sentences of life without parole.  The horrors of Furnace are many - murder, giant guards with superhuman strength, mutant dogs, and the sinister Wheezers, who come occasionally in the dead of night to drag away prisoners to a fate apparently worse than death.  Alex is determined to achieve the impossible - survive AND escape from Furnace - and so the action of the novel.

I would have been happy if the novel did not include the science fiction creations of mutant dogs and black-suited giants for guards, and instead relied on good, old human cruelty and malevolence for it's horror.  Nevertheless, it is a compelling read that excels in creating an atmosphere of dread, deprivation and impending violence.  Another strength of the novel is it is exceedingly readable.  The plot hooks you in and takes you for a ride - though a bleak and disturbing one at that. I can say that several young men who read this novel from our library, really liked it.  In fact, part of why I finally read the novel was because a patron returned the book a few weeks ago, and before leaving, said, "Mr. Murrey, you HAVE to read this book!" He was right.