Doing Time With My Son

This is a book for families, community leaders, and other stakeholders who are concerned about the impact of incarceration on individuals and families. If you have never experienced first-hand the incarceration of yourself or of a loved one, this book will give you an empathetic, but realistic, look at a struggle that has become a national crisis. And if you are a family member of an inmate or an inmate yourself, Doing Time will give voice to a struggle that you know only too well. This book will teach you that together we can always move forward with hope, knowing that no matter where we come from, what we've been through, and what lies ahead, love endures.

"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.” For prison writers, it means more than serving a sentence; it means staying alive and sane, preserving dignity, reinventing oneself, and somehow retaining one’s humanity. For the last quarter century the prestigious writers’ organization PEN has sponsored a contest for writers behind bars to help prisoners face these challenges. Bell Chevigny, a former prison teacher, has selected the best of these submissions from over the last 25 years to create Doing Time: 25 Years of Prison Writing—a vital work, demonstrating that prison writing is a vibrant part of American literature. This new edition will contain updated biographies of all contributors. The 51 original prisoners contributing to this volume deliver surprising tales, lyrics, and dispatches from an alien world covering the life span of imprisonment, from terrifying initiations to poignant friendships, from confrontations with family to death row, and sometimes share extraordinary breakthroughs. With 1.8 million men and women—roughly the population of Houston—In American jails and prisons, we must listen to “this small country of throwaway people,” in Prejean’s words. Doing Time frees them from their sentence of silence. We owe it to ourselves to listen to their voices.

Our understanding of eating disorders has improved markedly over the past 10 years since the publication of the previous edition of this volume. Early intervention is the key, as body dissatisfaction, obsession with thinness, and restrained and binge eating can be found in those as young as ten. Exploring prevention methods and therapeutic options, the second edition of Eating Disorders in Women and Children: Prevention, Stress Management, and Treatment is updated with new research on these devastating maladies. Highlights in the second edition include: An emphasis on the physiology of eating disorders and genetic factors related to anorexia and bulimia Theories on prevention and the identification of at-risk individuals The latest information on therapeutic modalities, including cognitive behavioral, interpersonal, constructionist, and narrative approaches as well as pharmaceutical management Nutritional evaluation and treatment Specific exercise recommendations for women and children with eating disorders An accompanyingCD-ROM containing a PowerPoint presentation for each chapter With contributions from acclaimed clinicians widely known for their work with the eating disorder population, this volume recognizes the multifaceted nature of these disorders, addresses the widening demographic range of those afflicted, and delves into the issues behind their development. It provides practical recommendations for treatment from many perspectives, presenting enormous hope for people who painfully struggle with these disorders. In addition, it explores critical measures that can be taken to help the larger population understand and work to prevent eating disorders in their communities.

Serving Time Too: A Memoir of My Son’s Prison Years reveals how a mother’s loving fidelity to her son throughout his incarceration and after his release makes her an unintended victim of crime and punishment. Millions have lived this story, but Williams is the first to present it in print.

Doing Time, Writing Lives offers a much-needed analysis of the teaching of college writing in U.S. prisons. Through the examination of a college-in-prison program, Berry exposes not only incarcerated students' hopes and dreams for their futures but also their anxieties about whether education will help them.

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.

Are you struggling to connect with your child now that they've left the nest? Are you feeling the tension and heartache as your relationship dynamic begins to change? In Doing Life with Your Adult Children, bestselling author and parenting expert Jim Burns provides practical advice and hopeful encouragement for navigating this tough yet rewarding transition. If you've raised a child, you know that parenting doesn't stop when they turn eighteen. In many ways, your relationship gets even more complicated--your heart and your head are as involved as ever, but you can feel things shifting, whether your child lives under your roof or rarely stays in contact. Doing Life with Your Adult Children helps you navigate this rich and challenging season of parenting. Speaking from his own personal and professional experience, Burns offers practical answers to the most common questions he's received over the years, including: My child's choices are breaking my heart--where did I go wrong? Is it OK to give advice to my grown child? What's the difference between enabling and helping? What boundaries should I have if my child moves back home? What do I do when my child doesn't seem to be maturing into adulthood? How do I relate to my grown child's significant other? What does it mean to have healthy financial boundaries? How can I support my grown children when I don't support their values? Including positive principles on bringing kids back to faith, ideas on how to leave a legacy as a grandparent, and encouragement for every changing season, Doing Life with Your Adult Children is a unique book on your changing role in a calling that never ends.