Ted Conover - Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing

Pros: good read

Cons: sometimes gets too dramatic.

The Bottom Line: good book

Review: All I knew about prison guards before I read this book, I got from The Shawshank Redemption, Oz, and a bunch of much lesser TV shows/movies. They all portray prison as a big gangrape and the guards as sadistic people who enjoy beating the crap out of ...

Pros: Immersion Journalism at its best

Cons: Not yet out in paperback

Review: Newjack: Guarding Sing-Sing is journalist Ted Conover's latest book. Newjack is different from every other book on prisons, and certainly different from any other book written from the prospective of a prison guard. Conover writes a great story without...

Pros: Detailed with back up. Examples. Comprehensive.

Cons: Lacks "heart" on some level.

The Bottom Line: Newjack is a complex story told by an academic style writer. It's rock solid, but it lacks a little something.

Review: Ted Conover wanted to follow a new recruit from training at the NY Corrections Officer Academy into the prisons as a “newjack” which is what the prisoners call the new correctional officers on the block. When he was turned down on that idea, he...

Pros: Well-written, immerses you in the situation

Cons: Thinly-veiled commentary on US penal philosophy

The Bottom Line: Newjack provides a very interesting look at guards and prisons from a conscious and articulate participant/observer.

Review: What's it like to be a corrections officer? I never really thought about working as a guard (or, for that matter, that I would be reading a book about what it would be like to be a guard). Ted Conover presents a view from the inside in his book...

Pros: fascinating

Cons: <--- Murderers,arsonists and rapists

Review:
From when I first heard about NewJack on an interview with terrie Gross of Fresh Air, I thought "This is going to be my kind of book." I was right. From beginning to end I was rivited by Mr. Conover's shrewd and objective look into...