Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing

Acclaimed journalist Ted Conover sets a new standard for bold, in-depth reporting in this first-hand account of life inside the penal system at Sing Sing.

When Ted Conover’s request to shadow a recruit at the New York State Corrections Officer Academy was denied, he decided to apply for a job as a prison officer himself. The result is an unprecedented work of eyewitness journalism: the account of Conover's year-long passage into storied Sing Sing prison as a rookie guard, or "newjack."

As he struggles to become a good officer, Conover angers inmates, dodges blows, and attempts, in the face of overwhelming odds, to balance decency with toughness. Through his insights into the harsh culture of prison, the grueling and demeaning working conditions of the officers, and the unexpected ways the job encroaches on his own family life, we begin to see how our burgeoning prison system brutalizes everyone connected with it. An intimate portrait of a world few readers have ever experienced, Newjack is a haunting journey into a dark undercurrent of American life.

• Cop in the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore's Eastern District
• Sidewalk
• On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City
• The Maximum Security Book Club: Reading Literature in a Men's Prison
• Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice
• Is Killing Wrong?: A Study in Pure Sociology (Studies in Pure Sociology)
• Law and Mental Health: A Case-Based Approach
• American Corrections in Brief
• American Corrections
• First Available Cell: Desegregation of the Texas Prison System