Inside: Life Behind Bars in America

Michael Santos has written a powerful book about what it is like to be inside the US federal prison system, from maximum security down to minimum security, and at each level it is scary. Although the levels change, it becomes apparent that the operations of the facilities are similar in how inmates are treated, which well explains why the system does not work properly. I have been involved with prisons in a number of ways for over 20 years, and what Mr. Santos describes is accurate. My involvement has been through prison ministry work, as well as through working with a company that built units inside one of the prisons described. Having seen these things for myself, I am grateful that I never became one of the systems victims. The irony of the book relates to it being written about the federal system. That is considered to be the best of the systems in this country, and if it is this messed up, imagine, if you can, how badly the prisons in various states operate. They are designed to fail, so that the unions for the guards can guarantee job security. What does it say about our society when we pay a starting teacher, with a Bachelors degree about $30,000 a year to start, but we pay a similar salary to guards with a high school diploma while they are still in training? And, what is to be said of a teacher maxing out at about $70,000 a year with a Masters and 20 years experience, while guards can be making $73,000 a year in 5 years and can, and do, add overtime to that. It says that we care more about warehousing our population than we do educating them to begin with, which would save millions of dollars down the road. And that is basically the point of the book! Sadly, the people who most need to read this book never will. I encourage everyone to buy this book and read it. It will open your eyes about what really happens behind those walls.

I have been a CO for about 17 years. Mr. Santos's observances are 100% right. This is a book that should be read by everyone who works in the system. First of all, the fact that our jails and prisons stiffle education among inmates is in my opinion the true message of this work. What we do in our facilities is so archaic it is mind boggling. We take mostly young males from a demographic of 19-27 and throw them into these dungeons; and then make it our main goal to prevent them from being assholes for the shift. Hey now that is lofty! Don't be productive, don't do crime and most of all please don't learn. I witnessed first hand the results when our government cut the school teachers out of the budget. Only the odd inmate will find a way to grow. Why? Well try telling a young person who is probably poor, got an addiction problem and has been programed from the time they are infants that violence solves all problems. "Sit and learn will yha." Geezzz, wonder why we have difficulties? It is assinine. The book left me questioning how many other people like this guy we are allowing to waste away for no other reason than we fail to be progressive in our thinking. Please don't tell me it is a money issue. We would save allot of money if we could develop abilities. It is a time in their lives when they have no where else to go and what do we do? Instead of finding the most productive means of building them as people, we watch most of them play cards, watch tv and talk bullshit. The other thing that Santos' book shows is that even the toughest, roughest firebreather eventually, gets old, sick and tired (often all three at the same time) and begins to reflect. I have seen this often. What if that same person had the tools that formal education provides? The one serious critism I have of this book is Santo's politics. The right is one of the main forces against change. Some think that you can separate the right from their easy assumptions on punishment. I don't believe you can. To conclude, his critisms of officers should not detract from the book. The fact is most CO's get caught in a vortex that traps them between inmates who want to harm them on one side and a management who only want a warm body on a post on the other. The system ignores them being overwhelmed and discouraged. This book is one positive step in changing what really is one of society's greatest failures. This is a well written enjoyable read that makes one think.

Michael Santos accurately represents the microcosm that is prison life in the 21st century. His focus is on the federal system, which is reputed to be a bit saner than less regulated state institutions, and his perspective is entirely consistent with my experience in a similar federal setting. Reform is needed, of course, but first must come the gritty truth that Michael Santos reveals. As Upton Sinclair wrote a century ago, at a time when we were victimized by dirty, rotting food in the public marketplace, "The source and fountain-head of genuine reform is an enlightened public opinion." Keep on crankin, Michael. We may not see any easy resolution to the chaos and overwhelming human drama he writes about, but as more and more people learn what is actually happening, and as more and more are affected by this system, change is inevitable. Perhaps it will begin when we the people finally ask what are we paying for and what are we getting in return. Ironic how expensive it is. Ironic that prison guards manage to earn more than prison wardens and even more than college professors and legislators. Bizarre.

This book is the BEST ONE of Michael G. Santos books. I have read each and everyone of his books that are published, to date I have purchased and read, ABOUT PRISON, WHAT IF I GO TO PRISON, PROFILES FROM PRISON, yet this one I could not put down. I read it then I read it again, just to make sure that I did not misinterpret any chapter, as this book is written in explicit prison language! I purchased three copies of INSIDE:LIFE BEHIND BARS IN AMERICA -- giving two of them as gifts, and keeping one copy for my library. I was visiting with my Mother, Cousin and Aunt mentioning that I was reading this book, all three of them purchased a copy of INSIDE and now they are engrossed in the book! I support this author and will continue to look forward to new books written by him.

Three things that struck me as I read Inside, were these: 1. The rigorous honesty of Mr. Santos. 2. The absolute accuracy of Mr. Santos' 'ear' for jargon, slang and prison profanity 3. The overwhelming sense of clarity I received regarding Mr. Santos' sense of who he was, who he now is, and how he became the man he is today. Translation: Possibly the best 'prison' book I've ever read next to 'In the Belly of the Beast" by Jack Henry Abbott. Mr. Santos' doesn't come close to Mr. Abbott's often times overwrought and dense philosophies regarding prison life (Abbott wrote more in essay form, as Santos writes more in narrative form) but then, Abbott's book was compiled from a series of letters written to Norman Mailer, so Abbott was hitting, through his writing, one-way line drives into the catcher's mitt of his audience. Mr. Santos is telling us a story here, and so his writing has the natural ebbs and flows of a story, whereas Abbott's book is simply a red-hot laser of accusation, opinion and deep, dark thought - very deep and dark thought. What I found validating however, was how Mr. Santos stood to-to-toe with with Mr. Abbott on 'just the facts' of [life in] a penitentiary and how he also stood on even footing with another proven and literary award-winning prison author, Edward Bunker. Even decades after Mr. Bunker's incarcerations at Folsom and San Quentin prisons, and the subsequent books he produced (some of which were turned into films) including, 'No Beast So Fierce," and 'The Animal Factory,' Mr. Santos writes as if he were a contemporary of Mr. Bunker's, proving perhaps his, and Mr. Abbott's claims that in our country, the penitentiary system and its penal codes and methodologies are outmoded, draconian and are, in many instances, crafted to retard the very "rehabilitation" tax payers expect our prison systems to effect upon those they are charged with housing. From a sheer 'ear' standpoint, Mr. Santos may take the prize. Not since Jimmy Lerner's memoir, 'You Got Nothin' Coming!" have I read such precisely accurate slang and jargon. Mr. Santos captures the lurid, crass and ignorant language of his fellows with a flawless ear. So much so, perhaps in a strange way, Mr. Santos has made a case for Congress to enact laws to either recognize a new Language in America--call it OGese (Original Gansta-ese) or, to pass laws that make it illegal to slaughter the English language and the grammatical mortar which holds it together such as his fellow felons do. Overriding all of this however, at the completion of this bright, clarifying and optimistic book, is the unimpeachable fact that Mr. Santos is ready to be set free. He has not only paid his debt to the law's of the society that he betrayed as a young man, but he has repaid it with large doses of service-soaked interest in the forms of two college degrees and a partial Ph.D, classes taught to fellow prisoners and lessons taught, via video conference, to university students. He