Doing Time In The Depression

As banks crashed, belts tightened, and cupboards emptied across the country, American prisons grew fat. Doing Time in the Depression tells the story of the 1930s as seen from the cell blocks and cotton fields of Texas and California prisons, state institutions that held growing numbers of working people from around the country and the world—overwhelmingly poor, disproportionately non-white, and displaced by economic crisis. Ethan Blue paints a vivid portrait of everyday life inside Texas and California’s penal systems. Each element of prison life—from numbing boredom to hard labor, from meager pleasure in popular culture to crushing pain from illness or violence—demonstrated a contest between keepers and the kept. From the moment they arrived to the day they would leave, inmates struggled over the meanings of race and manhood, power and poverty, and of the state itself. In this richly layered account, Blue compellingly argues that punishment in California and Texas played a critical role in producing a distinctive set of class, race, and gender identities in the 1930s, some of which reinforced the social hierarchies and ideologies of New Deal America, and others of which undercut and troubled the established social order. He reveals the underside of the modern state in two very different prison systems, and the making of grim institutions whose power would only grow across the century.

As banks crashed, belts tightened, and cupboards emptied across the country, American prisons grew fat.Doing Time in the Depression tells the story of the 1930s as seen from the cell blocks and cotton fields of Texas and California prisons, state institutions that held growing numbers of working people from around the country and around the world—overwhelmingly poor, disproportionately non-white, and displaced by economic crisis.Ethan Blue paints a vivid portrait of everyday life inside Texas and California's penal systems. Each element of prison life—from numbing boredom to hard labor, from meager pleasure in popular culture to crushing pain from illness or violence—demonstrated a contest between keepers and the kept. In this richly layered account, Blue compellingly argues that punishment in California and Texas played a critical role in producing a distinctive set of class, race, and gender identities in the 1930s, some of which reinforced the social hierarchies and ideologies of New Deal America, and others of which undercut and troubled the established social order. He reveals the underside of the modern state in two very different prison systems, and the making of grim institutions whose power would only grow across the century.

As a physician who personally suffers from depression, Susan J. Noonan draws on her own expertise and empathy to create a guide for people who suffer from the disease. Explaining the basics of mental health—including sleep hygiene, diet and nutrition, exercise, routine and structure, and avoiding isolation— Managing Your Depression empowers people to participate in their own care, offering them a better chance of getting, and staying, well. Noonan’s depression management strategies draw on the best available educational resources, psychoeducational programs, seminars, expert health care providers, and patient experiences. The book is specifically designed to be highly readable for people who are finding it difficult to focus and concentrate during an episode of depression. Cognitive exercises and daily worksheets help track progress and response to therapy and provide valuable information for making treatment decisions. A relapsing and remitting condition, depression affects nearly 15 percent of people in the United States. Managing Your Depression will bring depression management strategies to people who do not have access to mental health programs or who want to learn new skills. -- Francis M. Mondimore, M.D., The Johns Hopkins Hospital

'I Had a Black Dog says with wit, insight, economy and complete understanding what other books take 300 pages to say. Brilliant and indispensable.' - Stephen Fry 'Finally, a book about depression that isn't a prescriptive self-help manual. Johnston's deftly expresses how lonely and isolating depression can be for sufferers. Poignant and humorous in equal measure.' Sunday Times There are many different breeds of Black Dog affecting millions of people from all walks of life. The Black Dog is an equal opportunity mongrel. It was Winston Churchill who popularized the phrase Black Dog to describe the bouts of depression he experienced for much of his life. Matthew Johnstone, a sufferer himself, has written and illustrated this moving and uplifting insight into what it is like to have a Black Dog as a companion and how he learned to tame it and bring it to heel.

"Stigma, shame and hardship---this is the lot shared by families whose young men have been swept into prison. Braman reveals the devastating toll mass incarceration takes on the parents, partners, and children left behind." -Katherine S. Newman "Doing Time on the Outside brings to life in a compelling way the human drama, and tragedy, of our incarceration policies. Donald Braman documents the profound economic and social consequences of the American policy of massive imprisonment of young African American males. He shows us the link between the broad-scale policy changes of recent decades and the isolation and stigma that these bring to family members who have a loved one in prison. If we want to understand fully the impact of current criminal justice policies, this book should be required reading." -Mark Mauer, Assistant Director, The Sentencing Project "Through compelling stories and thoughtful analysis, this book describes how our nation's punishment policies have caused incalculable damage to the fabric of family and community life. Anyone concerned about the future of urban America should read this book." -Jeremy Travis, The Urban Institute In the tradition of Elijah Anderson's Code of the Street and Katherine Newman's No Shame in My Game, this startling new ethnography by Donald Braman uncovers the other side of the incarceration saga: the little-told story of the effects of imprisonment on the prisoners' families. Since 1970 the incarceration rate in the United States has more than tripled, and in many cities-urban centers such as Washington, D.C.-it has increased over five-fold. Today, one out of every ten adult black men in the District is in prison and three out of every four can expect to spend some time behind bars. But the numbers don't reveal what it's like for the children, wives, and parents of prisoners, or the subtle and not-so-subtle effects mass incarceration is having on life in the inner city. Author Donald Braman shows that those doing time on the inside are having a ripple effect on the outside-reaching deep into the family and community life of urban America. Braman gives us the personal stories of what happens to the families and communities that prisoners are taken from and return to. Carefully documenting the effects of incarceration on the material and emotional lives of families, this groundbreaking ethnography reveals how criminal justice policies are furthering rather than abating the problem of social disorder. Braman also delivers a number of genuinely new arguments. Among these is the compelling assertion that incarceration is holding offenders unaccountable to victims, communities, and families. The author gives the first detailed account of incarceration's corrosive effect on social capital in the inner city and describes in poignant detail how the stigma of prison pits family and community members against one another. Drawing on a series of powerful family portraits supported by extensive empirical data, Braman shines a light on the darker side of a system that is failing the very families and communities it seeks to protect.

Doing Time on the Outside fills a gap in the research by focusing on the experiences of women on conditional release, and attempting to understand how some criminalized women avoid going back into custody given the many challenges they face.

"Following on the success of Managing Your Depression, Susan Noonan's new book is for family members and friends of people with depression or bipolar disorder. A certified peer specialist at McLean Hospital (a comprehensive psychiatric hospital affiliated with Harvard University), Susan draws on her experiences providing support and education for those living with or caring for a person who has a mood disorder. A family member who has a mood disorder affects the entire family. Further, family members and close friends are often the first to recognize the subtle changes and symptoms of depression--and they are also the people who provide daily support to their loved ones, often at great personal price. Caring for someone with a mood disorder differs from caring for someone with a physical medical disorder, in ways that complicate the caregiving role. A concise and practical guide to the daily management of depression and bipolar depression written for the caregiver, the book explains how to reinforce lessons the patient has been taught in therapy, how to role model resilience skills, and how caregivers can and must care for themselves. It describes effective communication strategies and advises how to find appropriate professional help. Its many tables and worksheets convey much needed information in an accessible way. References, Resources, and a Glossary complete the package. Overall the book helps readers navigate the depression or biopolar disorder of someone close to them, providing readers with words to say and things to do as they try to help someone change the course of a sometimes confounding and often disabling illness"--

Naomi Judd's life as a country music superstar has been nonstop success. But offstage, she has battled incredible adversity. Struggling through a childhood of harsh family secrets, the death of a young sibling, and absent emotional support, Naomi found herself reluctantly married and an expectant mother at age seventeen. Four years later, she was a single mom of two, who survived being beaten and raped, and was abandoned without any financial support and nowhere to turn in Hollywood, CA. Naomi has always been a survivor: She put herself through nursing school to support her young daughters, then took a courageous chance by moving to Nashville to pursue their fantastic dream of careers in country music. Her leap of faith paid off, and Naomi and her daughter Wynonna became The Judds, soon ranking with country music's biggest stars, selling more than 20 million records and winning six Grammys. At the height of the singing duo's popularity, Naomi was given three years to live after being diagnosed with the previously incurable Hepatitis C. Miraculously, she overcame that too and was pronounced completely cured five years later. But Naomi was still to face her most desperate fight yet. After finishing a tour with Wynonna in 2011, she began a three-year battle with Severe Treatment Resistant Depression and anxiety. She suffered through frustrating and dangerous roller-coaster effects with antidepressants and other drugs, often terrifying therapies and, at her absolute lowest points, thoughts of suicide. But Naomi persevered once again. RIVER OF TIME is her poignant message of hope to anyone whose life has been scarred by trauma.