Reading List for People Working with the Incarcerated Population
Recommended reading for prison work put together by me. This is a very general reading list. Many of these can be categorized under more than one heading. Please share this with anyone you know who is interested in working with the incarcerated.
Dharma & Meditation Reading List
Freeing the Angry Mind; How Men can use Mindfulness and Reason to Save Their Lives and Relationships - Peter Bankart, Ph.D.
That Bird Has My Wings-The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row - Jarvis Jay Masters
Finding Freedom; Writings from Death Row - Jarvis Jay Masters
Just Another Spiritual Book - Bo Lozoff
It’s a Meaningful Life-It Just Takes Practice - Bo Lozoff
We’re All Doing Time - Bo Lozoff
Letters From The Dhamma Brothers - Jenny Phillips
Razor Wire Dharma-A Buddhist Life in Prison - Calvin Malone
Sitting Inside; Buddhist Practice in America’s Prisons - Kobai Scott Whitney
Dharma in Hell: The Prison Writings of Fleet Maull - Fleet Maull
Prison Culture
I’m In God’s Confinement; San Quentin Death Row - Albert “Ru-al” Jones * please read this book! Ru is in my Death Row Sangha, is a great scholar of religion, and gives a painfully realistic view of life on San Quentin’s Death Row.
Walking the Circle - J. Tony Serra
Gang Intelligence Manual - Bill Valentine
Prison Ministry; Understanding Prison Culture Inside and Out - Lennie Spitale
Newjack; Guarding Sing Sing - Ted Conover
Fourth City: Essays From the Prison in America - edited by Doran Larson
From the Big House to Your House: Cooking in Prison - Misc Authors
Crossing the Yard; Thirty Years as a Prison Volunteer - Richard Shelton
Wilderness and Razor Wire; A Naturalist’s Observations From Prison - Ken Lamberton
Inside: Life Behind Bars in America - Michael G. Santos
Disguised as a Poem; My Years Teaching Poetry at San Quentin - Judith Tannenbaum
By Heart; Poetry, Prison and Two Lives - Judith Tannenbaum and Spoon Jackson
Serving Time, Serving Others: Acts of Kindness by Inmates, Prison Staff, Victims and Volunteers - Tom and Laura Lagana
Women in Prison: Inside the Concrete Womb - Kathryn Watterson
Inside the Broken California Prison System - Boston Woodard
Restorative Justice, Corrections, Criminology
Corrections, Peacemaking, and Restorative Justice: Transforming Individuals and Institutions - Michael Braswell, et al
The Little Book of Restorative Justice - Howard Zehr
The Rise and Fall of California’ Radical Prison Movement - Eric Cummins
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Punishment - Richard Snyder
Total Confinement: Madness and Reason in the Maximum Security Prison (California Series in Public Anthropology - Lorna A. Rhodes
The Lucifer Effect; Understanding How Good People Turn Evil by Philip Zimbardo
A Reader on Punishment - Edited by Antony Duff and David Garland
The Society of Captives; A Study of a Maximum Security Prison - Gresham M. Sykes
Beyond Bars-Rejoining Society After Prison - Jeffrey Ian Ross, Ph. D
Last Chance in Texas; The Redemption of Criminal Youth - John Hubner
Tattoo on the Heart-The Power of Boundless Compassion - Fr. Greg Boyle
Documentaries
The War on Drugs
Crips and Bloods; Made in America
Tupac Thug Angel
G-Dog
Kirin Bidi
Lost for Life
The Dhamma Brothers
The Last OG (kinda funny but real story of reentry starring Tracy Morgan) on Netflix
Ministry & Chaplaincy
Prison Ministry; Understanding Prison Culture Inside and Out - Lennie Spitale
The Arts of Contemplative Care-Pioneering Voices in Buddhist Chaplaincy and Pastoral Work - Edited by Cheryl A. Giles and Willa B. Miller
Prison Chaplaincy Guidelines for Zen Buddhism - Kobutsu Malone
Dying in Prison; Counseling the Terminal Inmate - Donalyn A. Gross
Death Row Chaplain - Rev. Earl Smith
Psychology
Women Who Love Men Who Kill - Sheila Isenberg
Men Who Rape; The Psychology of the Offender - Nicholas Groth with H. Jean Birnbaum
Misogyny, Misandry, and Misanthropy - Howard Bloch
Healing the Shame that Binds You - John Bradshaw
Masters of Disguise; Shame and Guilt - Jane Middleton-Moz
Dimensions of Forgiveness: Psychological Research & Theological Perspectives - Everett L. Worthington, Jr.
Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them : When Loving Hurts and You Don’t Know Why - Susan Forward
On the Problem of Empathy: The Collected Works of Edith Stein (3rd Volume) - Edith Stein
Miscellaneous Must Reads
From the Big House to Your House; cooking in prison (a collection of recipes by women prisoners)
Occupying Privilege-Conversations on Love, Race and Liberation - J Love Calderon
The New Jim Crow - Michelle Alexander
Criminal of Poverty - Tiny aka Lisa Gray-Garcia
Chronicles of San Quentin: The Biography of a Prison - Kenneth Lamott
