Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing

Name: Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing
Author: Ted Conover
ISBN: 9781400033096

Ted Conover

award won

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Ted Conover

award won

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#231 of 3,809 books · #112 in Biography & Memoir

Won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction (2000). Also shortlisted or longlisted for 1 other award.

Newjack won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. 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.

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