Fathers Returning Home From Prison

A biography of a German American family who grew wealthy from their Philadelphia beer brewing company in the late nineteenth century. Heirs to the renowned German-American Bergdoll Beer fortune at a young age, the Bergdoll boys used their millions to become champion race car drivers and pioneer aviation heroes in the early 1900s. Grover, the most notorious, is celebrated for his daring record-setting flights in a Wright Brothers airplane. Erwin drives a powerful Benz to win a prestigious motor car race, the equivalent of the Daytona 500. Then, just as Grover is trying to buy a bigger plane to set more records and attempt to fly to Europe a decade before Lindbergh, they’re snared by vengeful local military draft officials. Running and hiding from their war duty, the fugitives are so reviled by nationalistic Americans that two older brothers change their names to avoid infamy. Eluding capture for years with financial help from their wealthy German Mutter, the Bergdoll boys are entangled with kidnapping and murder, federal agents and bounty hunters, Nazis, and Congressional investigators, and an incredible story of release and escape from an Army jail with bribery, all the way up to the White House to search for buried gold. Hounded by the unsympathetic press and public, and congress, the Bergdoll fortune is confiscated by the federal government. Their doting mother gets into pistol shootouts with agents trying to search their mansions and country estates. Grover remains one step ahead of bungling lawmen by hiding in Germany and secretly traveling into and out of America on fake passports and producing kinderreiche Familie with his attractive German wife.

"Is it easy to come home after being in jail?" Ideal for use with children aged 6-11, this is a vital resource for supporting the wellbeing of children whose parent is coming home after spending time in prison. Using plain language and photographs, it reassures children and guides them through adjusting to their parent's homecoming. It explains which feelings the child and both parents might experience and the different challenges that everyone in the family might face, while suggesting ways to build new bonds with the parent. Included are activities to help children manage their feelings, tips for parents and professionals on how best to support them, and a list of resources for additional help and information.

"Growing up homeless on the streets of Florida wasn't as much fun as my dad thought it would be. To him, a beat up Ford was a permanent address and a pistol meant a steady paycheck. To me, an eleven-year-old kid, it was a constant, lonely struggle for survival amongst thieves, predators, and killers. I only wish that's where it began and ended. This is my story so far." - Bobby Howell --------- From losing his family at the hands of a sociopathic father, to his eventual quest to bring justice to the very same man who gave him life, The Different One is a compelling autobiography about a boy surmounting monumental odds on the path to becoming a man. Written in a conversational style, Bobby Howell takes us through his tumultuous journey from childhood to adulthood, sharing true accounts of events from the heartwarming to the horrific in an honest and soul-searching voice that will leave even the most callous of readers speechless.

The incarceration rate in the United States is the highest of any developed nation, with a prison population of approximately 2.3 million in 2016. Over 700,000 prisoners are released each year, and most face significant educational, economic, and social disadvantages. In After Prison, sociologist David Harding and criminologist Heather Harris provide a comprehensive account of young men’s experiences of reentry and reintegration in the era of mass incarceration. They focus on the unique challenges faced by 1,300 black and white youth aged 18 to 25 who were released from Michigan prisons in 2003, investigating the lives of those who achieved some measure of success after leaving prison as well as those who struggled with the challenges of creating new lives for themselves. The transition to young adulthood typically includes school completion, full-time employment, leaving the childhood home, marriage, and childbearing, events that are disrupted by incarceration. While one quarter of the young men who participated in the study successfully transitioned into adulthood—achieving employment and residential independence and avoiding arrest and incarceration—the same number of young men remained deeply involved with the criminal justice system, spending on average four out of the seven years after their initial release re-incarcerated. Not surprisingly, whites are more likely to experience success after prison. The authors attribute this racial disparity to the increased stigma of criminal records for blacks, racial discrimination, and differing levels of social network support that connect whites to higher quality jobs. Black men earn less than white men, are more concentrated in industries characterized by low wages and job insecurity, and are less likely to remain employed once they have a job. The authors demonstrate that families, social networks, neighborhoods, and labor market, educational, and criminal justice institutions can have a profound impact on young people’s lives. Their research indicates that residential stability is key to the transition to adulthood. Harding and Harris make the case for helping families, municipalities, and non-profit organizations provide formerly incarcerated young people access to long-term supportive housing and public housing. A remarkably large number of men in this study eventually enrolled in college, reflecting the growing recognition of college as a gateway to living wage work. But the young men in the study spent only brief spells in college, and the majority failed to earn degrees. They were most likely to enroll in community colleges, trade schools, and for-profit institutions, suggesting that interventions focused on these kinds of schools are more likely to be effective. The authors suggest that, in addition to helping students find employment, educational institutions can aid reentry efforts for the formerly incarcerated by providing supports like childcare and paid apprenticeships. After Prison offers a set of targeted policy interventions to improve these young people’s chances: lifting restrictions on federal financial aid for education, encouraging criminal record sealing and expungement, and reducing the use of incarceration in response to technical parole violations. This book will be an important contribution to the fields of scholarly work on the criminal justice system and disconnected youth.

*Silver Medal, 2015 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards, Best New Voice* *Finalist, Memoir, 2015 Maine Literary Award* In this gripping nonfiction account, Robert Reilly provides a look inside America’s prison system unlike any other, and the way that it affects not only the prisoners themselves but also the corrections officers and their families. After 13 years of struggling in the music business, Robert Reilly found himself broke and on the edge of despair. The specter of success in the music business had become a monster about to ruin his family life. Something had to change, or something was going to break beyond repair. A chance conversation with a neighbor led him to apply, somewhat half-heartedly, for a job at the county prison. Although he hated the thought of a “real job,” a regular salary of $40,000 with benefits, and paid time off seemed like a small fortune. “Amazingly, I somehow got hired. So, in an effort to do the right thing and put my family first, I left the madness of the music business and entered the insanity of the U.S. prison system.” Robert Reilly served a seven-year term as a prison guard in Pennsylvania and Maine. Entering America’s industrial prison system in search of a way to support his young family, the struggling musician found himself in a looking-glass world where, often, only the uniforms distinguished guards from prisoners. Life in Prison chronicles the horrors of a place where justice is arbitrary, outcomes are preordained, and the private sector makes big money while the public looks away. This is Reilly’s story of doing time. To call the experience sobering would be the ultimate understatement: “As time crawls by, I become jealous of the inmates leaving the prison. I start to slip; I start to feel like I’m losing my faith. Any trace of innocence that I thought I still had starts to evaporate. I begin to feel trapped, imprisoned, locked in a dark heartbreaking world, just like an inmate.”

An "examination of our huge crime and incarceration problem that looks at the influence of the family--specifically one Oregon family with a generations-long legacy of lawlessness"--