Down Inside

Book excerpt: "Down Inside is both a personal memoir of author Robert Clark's three decades in Canada's federal prisons in Ontario, and a scathing indictment of bureaucratic indifference and agenda-driven government policies. In his thirty years of service, Clark rose from student volunteer to assistant warden. He worked with some of Canada's most dangerous and notorious prisoners. He dealt with escapes and riots, prisoner murders and prisoner suicides. He also arranged ice-hockey tournaments in a maximum-security institution, sat in a darkened gym watching movies with three hundred inmates, took parolees sightseeing, and consoled victims of violent crimes. He's managed cellblocks, been a parole officer, and investigated staff corruption. Clark takes readers down inside a range of prisons, from maximum-security Kingston Penitentiary to the Regional Treatment Centre for mentally ill prisoners and minimum-security Pittsburgh Institution. Down Inside compellingly challenges the popular belief that a "tough on crime" approach makes our prisons and our communities safer, arguing instead for humane treatment and rehabilitation. Finally, Clark responds to the recently renewed controversy about long-term solitary confinement, drawing from his own experience managing solitary-confinement units to discuss headline-making cases like that of Ashley Smith, and calls for an end to its overuse in Canada's prisons."--