Summary Of A Place To Stand By Jimmy Santiago Baca

From “Inside Rikers”, written by Jennifer Wynn, Wynn shares the lives from the “world’s largest penal colony” the inmates from Rikers Island. She really humanizes criminals by giving them faces and names because she does what most American are unwilling to do because they are afraid, that is forgiving people and giving them second chances. She really does see the good in the hearts of some staunch criminals. At the same time, she is a clear sighted humanist on how hard it is to leave the criminal lifestyle. Drawing all the difficulties and complications that our society has placed in the way of the newly released inmate. Not to mention the persuasions of the criminal lifestyle itself. The first chapter is Welcome to the Rock, where Wynn introduces the narratives of Angel, Kenny, Charlie, Alfonso, and Benjamin. Chapter two is titled, From the Belly of the Beast to New York Streets where both Frank and Mike are introduced here. In Chapter Three, the Captain and Harry tell the stories of Keepers Of The Kept, Convicted At Birth with Rico, Napoleon, Hilton, and James in Chapter 4.

“On Entering a New Place” by Barry Lopez is a piece of work that will really make you think. By definition, a preconception is; a preconceived idea or prejudice. Preconceptions of unknown objects or beings could really affect a person, which is what happened to the man in this reading. In the first two paragraphs, a man is having preconceptions about the desert he is crossing, but when the third paragraph comes along, he says “You can’t get at it this way. You must come with no intention of discovery.” Implying that you cannot have preconceptions to things that you are not familiar with.

“What I Learned as a Kid in Jail” is a speech given at a TEDTalk convention to a group of young men and women delivered by Ismael Nazario, a prison reform advocate where he does work for The Fortune Society, a non profit organization. Nazario was arrested when he was just under eighteen for robbery and sent directly to Rikers Island where he spent 300 days in solitary confinement, before ever being convicted of the crime. Nazario’s goal in delivering his speech to a group of younger men and women is to make them aware of the way correctional officers treat younger inmates and how inmates should be spending their time doing productive activities and understanding they do not have to go back to the life they were living. Nazario accomplished this goal by sharing personal stories from his past experiences.

In the last part of the book, peace, Michael writes about his exoneration and the welcomed journey of beginning his life outside of prison. The author uses the themes of pain, prison, and peace to create an emotional and firsthand account of what it is like to be sentenced to life in prison for a crime you did not commit.

The distressing experience of operating as a prison guard in such a notorious penal facility as New York State’s Sing Sing Penitentiary is one that is unlikely to be desired by one not professionally committed to the execution of prison uniformity. However, the outstanding novel written by Tom Conover illustrates the encounters of a journalist who voluntarily plunged himself into the obscure universe of the men and women paid to spend the better portion of their lives behind prison barriers. In Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing, Conover creates a noteworthy document resonating personal emotional occurrences that nonetheless suggest the cultural sensitivity of a true prison guard. From the standpoint of our studies

The article then jumps to present day, in which he uses his past to relate to current convicts and help them overcome the position that they are in, by allowing the prisoners to understand their own culture and those of different cultures,

Ted Conover’s book, New Jack, is about the author's experiences as a rookie guard at Sing Sing prison, in New York, the most troubled maximum security prison. He comes to realize that being a correctional officer isn’t an easy task. This is shown from the beginning when he is required to attend a 7 week training program to become a correctional officer. He comes to realize what inmates have to endure on a daily basis. Throughout his experience into a harsh culture of prison and the exhausting and poor working conditions for officers, he begins to realize that the prison system brutalizes everyone connected to it. New Jack presents new ideas of prisons in the United States in the ways facilities, corrections officers, and inmates function with

In A Place to Stand, Jimmy Santiago Baca introduces the readers to his life, providing many details from his past that allow the readers to understand his present. Throughout the novel, Baca finds himself in the midst of violence where ultimately, these instances lead to a common theme of abuse. The physical and mental abuse that Baca endures throughout his childhood plays an important part in shaping Baca’s entire life. Furthermore, the abuse that Baca suffers inflicted by his father, his mother, and his ex-girlfriend, negatively affects his future life and point him towards crime and distrust in people around him.

The author starts by explaining Baca’s background he tells the audience the difficult circumstances that were Baca’s life. All circumstances considered into his young adulthood Baca could hardly read nor write and truly had no desire to learn; Which makes it even more spectacular that he found poetry. His interest began at twenty-one when Baca was in prison, sentenced to possibly five to ten years. A couple years passed and a church program had extended a relationship via a letter they sent, they targeted prisoners without families. Unbeknownst Baca learned through steady communication with the church how to read and write. The writing gave him something to do and in a sense a purpose. Shortly into their connection, the man from the church introduced to a friend who was a poet. After this moment Baca’s life would never be the same. “I believe something in my brain or

When arriving at Florence State Prison Jimmy Santiago Baca’s life changed. Upon resaving a letter from a man named Harry he became interested on learning to read and write. Harry’s letter gave Jimmy some sense of belonging. He stated his feelings on the letter, “I was eager to communicate with someone to alleviate the boredom of the dungeon.” All it took was a paper with words to take someone away from that place they despised. Harry had sent Baca a dictionary so he could learn new words. To Jimmy this opened a new world to him. This gave him an opportunity on having control over something the prison couldn’t take from him.

After reading the book I have gained a new understanding of what inmates think about in prison. Working in an institution, I have a certain cynical attitude at times with inmates and their requests.

Hassine begins his narrative as he is entering prison but this time as an inmate. Prior to his incarceration, Hassine was an attorney (Hassine, 2011). Even then as an attorney, the high walls of prison intimated Hassine (Hassine, 2011). As Hassine was being processed into the system, he expressed how he systematically became hopeless from the very prison structure itself as well as because of the intimidation he felt by uniforms. Prisons of the past actually had a goal to aid individuals through rehabilitation by instilling new values in order to correct the wrongs that one may have committed during their lifetime but today this is no longer true. . Hassine draws colorful depictions of how dim and unfamiliar a prison can be in which instills fear in an individual soon as he or she

“Prison City, U.S.A.,” by Jill Rothenberg, is an article that explains the effects of the prisons of Cañon City on the prison workers and the citizens of the town. The prison workers have a couple different views of their job in the prison. Some view it merely as a good source of income and a promise of a pension after retirement or as a job that must be dealt with by someone. Even in the bad situation of one of the worst prisons in America, some guards see their job as a way of help society in restructuring the habits and morals of the criminals as they prepare them for their return to normal life. The central theme of this article is the effects of the prison on the lives of those who live around and work

Jimmy Boyle's autobiography A Sense of Freedom (1977) gives a very interesting and honest insight into his life of crime and incarceration. The autobiography, written from inside prison, is according to Boyle an attempt to warn young people that there is not anything glamorous about crime and violence. It gives a full narration of his life from a very young age, with a detailed insight into his childhood, experiences of petty crime, approved schools and borstal, right through to his adult experiences of more serious crime, violence and adult prisons, including his interpretation of the Penal System. Reading this autobiography I aimed to remain detached from the author and seek to create an independent

    The renowned poet, Richard Lovelace, once wrote that "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." Although many think of a prison as a physical building or a jailhouse, it can also be a state of mind. A great number of people are imprisoned mentally and emotionally. Charles Dickens expresses this message in his eminent novel, Great Expectations. This book is about a simple laboring boy who grew into a gentleman, and slowly realized that no matter what happened in his life it couldn't change who he was on the inside. On the road to this revelation, Pip meets many incarcerated people. Through these people, Dickens delivers the message that people can be