Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing

"These were the guys, the source of my pain, the source of their own pain, the source of their victims' and of their families' pain. My first few days, they had seemed like one big green-clad undifferentiated mass. Now, of course, they all had faces to me."

Conover entered my radar with his reading of the epilogue of Newjack on The Moth. I went into the book thinking that it would be like that: these bizarre, dramatic prison-life stories, chapters of gang crime and corruption and all the other nonsense that coupled those New Years' fires. And while it was peppered with scenes like this - staff abusing inmates, hearsay of guard/inmate relationships, and the mystery of that 16-inch shank (sword???) - it thrived instead in its nuance and show more the everyday stresses (and amusements) of Conover's term as CO.

The introduction sets up him going into the job to try and see the cracks in the foundation of the prison system, but (as cheesy as it sounds) it ends up being a complete search for the truth on every detail. Instead of making an excuse for all prison guards or a sob story for the abuse of the inmates, Newjack exposes every last dark corner of Sing Sing, every dangerous or heartfelt or darkly funny anecdote, and leaves the sentencing up to the reader.

Granted, his intentions are repeated at the end of the book, but it never sounds authoritative or as if there's only one side to every issue.

I also appreciated how honest Conover is. He talks just as much about when he was kind & skilled as when he was unfair & incompetent.
Instead of just someone looking in, he becomes a character all his own: he presents all his flaws, the instances where he humiliated himself, and how he began to struggle as a "free man" during his own term at Sing Sing. While humanizing him, his reflection that came from being outside Sing Sing while writing made him even judge his past self - he acknowledges the stress that was put on him, but never presents it as justification for the behavior of guards.

It definitely didn't rely on dramatics or violence or tragic inmate stories, but instead through little bits of events and quotes from inmates/guards with a whole spectrum of attitudes and outlooks, built something completely immersive and honest. Right, there weren't gallery fires every few chapters, but for all the seemingly mundane details about locking in hundreds of inmates, there were many small but incredibly powerful moments, both from his own musings and the lives of inmates that he glimpsed into.

tl;dr: a book has never given me such secondhand stress as this one did and I love it all the more for it show less

A very interesting and thought provoking book written undercover. Conover strikes the perfect balance between objectivism and sentimentalism. It's a bit dated - it was published in 2000, although I found most parts still very much relevant today. Worthwhile for anyone concerned with the growing prison industrial complex and the impacts of that on society.

I want to start by saying I have immense respect for Ted Conover. When our prison system denied his request to shadow a corrections officer recruit, he sidestepped the system and applied for the position himself. His commitment to the job, in order to bring us the story, is commendable.

Newjack is an honest, straightforward look at life inside a prison from the viewpoint of a corrections officer. While I read a lot on this topic, most books come from the inmate's perspective. I was shocked to learn how little training these men receive. They go from a short 7 weeks at school straight to prison work, having had absolutely no prior contact or training directly with inmates. These men and women who risk their lives each day are woefully show more unprepared for the reality inside those walls. This book is a scary, sad, sometimes funny look at that reality.

I've long believed our prison system is a mess and only reinforces negative behavior. If you doubt that at all, you need to read this book. show less

DeNiro-esque.

Ted Conover is one really impressive writer who I kind of see as the Robert DeNiro of writing (note: I mean "Taxi Driver" DeNiro, before he stopped caring and mailing in his roles). I say this because he really throws himself into his books like DeNiro used to do with movies. (again...this is "Raging Bull" DeNiro...not "Rocky & Bullwinkle" DeNiro). Always fascinated with prisons, Conover wanted to write about "The Academy", which is where people in New York learn how to be corrections officers. What he found out is that the New York Department of Corrections would not allow journalists inside to write about them. At this point, any normal person would get frustrated...maybe ask again later...and move on. Not Ted Conover. He show more decided to BECOME A CORRECTIONS OFFICER. For a year. Not just go through the Academy. He did it for a year. In Sing Sing!

Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, is Ted Conover's personal memoir of his year spent as a corrections officer in one of New York's famous maximum security prisons: Sing Sing. If you have any interest at all in prison life, you will find this book to be entirely riveting. Conover holds nothing back as he tries to figure out the life of a corrections officer and the life of an inmate.

One point he makes very early is that neither prison nor "prison guards" are very much like the movies. Yes, the movies get some aspects right, like gang violence and the loneliness of being imprisoned. But it doesn't get other things right, like prison rape and brutally violent guards. Of course, there is some of that, and you can't expect Hollywood to portray everything accurately.

Conover found prison to be more alive than I expected it would be. I figured it would be routine after routine to keep everything as organized as possible, but there is a lot of fluidity to it. I thought it was particularly interesting that the officers knew that they couldn't control everything and that basically the inmates ran the prison. Kind of counterintuitive.

The best parts of the book for me were when Conover would interact with the inmates and how he showed they were real people too. He was very curious about these men: how they got there, how they handled prison, and what kind of people they were. Now, obviously these weren't very good people...since they are in a max prison. But there were a couple of people who you became almost sympathetic to. One particular man had a prison tattoo of an unknown poem on his back. Eventually Conover found out it was an excerpt of The Diary of Anne Frank. After re-reading the book, he realized the similarities between Frank and the inmates and why the prisoner would relate to her. Obviously the situations that surround their respective imprisonments are totally different, and no one intends to say otherwise, but I can certainly understand what the inmate was thinking. I found that story particularly interesting because you don't normally associate hardened criminals as lovers of The Diary of Anne Frank.

This book is fantastic and encourages me to read and review some of Conover's other books where he “rides the rails” with hobos, becomes a taxi driver in Aspen, and crosses Mexico's border with illegal immigrants. Look for those sometime in the near future!

Rating: 5 out of 5
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this review, and others, can be found at www.lettersonpages.com show less

Highly detailed and mostly engaging, "Newjack" is a solid read. If you're interested in how the prison system works and what life inside looks like, read this book.

It drags at times when Conover gets too detailed in his day-to-day labours, but at its best when he describes the history of the electric chair or characters like Larson, who I could only picture as Snoop Dogg. He gives guards and inmates a fair shake.

Very interesting, non-political look at Sing Sing prison from the point of view of a correctional officer who does not have any personal investment into the job (i.e. he knows it's not his livelihood so he can see the light at the end).

There was a section about 2/3 of the way through that spent too long going over early prisons, the death penalty, and the changing perspective of the purpose of prisons which felt a little out-of-place (you could tell the author's opinion on prison reform from this segment, but not from the rest of the book - I prefer non-fiction which doesn't have any author bias to it, though I recognize that is difficult to attain.)

Anyway, it was enlightening, mostly non-partisan and very interesting to read - show more especially as a reader who has no concept of the lifestyles that the prisoners (or the correctional officers) come from. show less

Книгите и филмите за затворите едно, че почти винаги са от гледната точка на затворниците и второ, са пословично далече от реалните условия и отношения между хората (и особено между затворниците и надзирателите) вътре - до степен да нямат нищо общо с нея.

Всеки път обаче, когато чета книга, писана от човек, който наистина е бил вътре (от която и да е страна на решетките), се удивлявам на сходствата на всички show more затвори по света. Независимо дали се намират в САЩ, в Бразилия, във Великобритания или в България, навсякъде затворите се борят непрестанно с недостатъчния бюджет, с недостатъчно персонал и проблемите в набирането му, с идеите на администрацията и политиците относно това какви трябва да са отношенията между хората в затвора (което включва всичката гняс, свързана с политическа коректност, употреба на сила, дисциплина и т.н.).

"Новобранец" не е лоша книга, ако я приемем според както подсказва заглавието - като погледът на един журналист, изкарал "под прикритие" една година в ролята на надзирател в най-известния (и един от най-трудните) затвор в САЩ - Синг Синг. Определено е истина твърдението на по-старите надзиратели, описано в книгата: че за да станеш наистина надзирател, ти трябват минимум 4 години служба. Преди това си новобранец и нищо не разбираш - нито от работата, нито от това какъв човек си.

От такава позиция авторът е описал каквото е видял, па макар и ограничено от малкия му опит. show less