We Gotta Have More Jails

BOOK 1. 1984-1987. Observations in Houston on Bar Room Types, Business and Political deals, Illusions, and the Business and Drug Worlds. RECONQUESTA, the ZIMMERMAN TELEGRAM, views of the Louisiana and Texas legal systems, Drug Wars, and Yelps for More Jails, Trauma. BOOK 2. 1927-1933-1934. Near death, Flashback to 1927, first school year, Prohibition, Legal System, incoming Radio, Music, Religious Groups, Hog Killing Day, Trauma. BOOK 3. 1968. Egg Head conference in a New Orleans Bar Room, Fishermen, History of Ten Drugs and Possible Solution to the World’s Problems. BOOK 4. 1969 A.D.—50,000 B.C.—300 B.C. to 1900s. Model and Child, the Key to Solution of the World’s Problems, and Flashback views to 50,000 to 300 B.C, Plus Views of Current Situations. BOOK 5. 1989 A.D. Return to Reality, Houston Night Life, Small to Massive Drug Wars, Poetic Views of Cultural Flaws and Possible Solutions.

About The Charm String Stories There are as many reflections concerning the development of what would eventually become the State of Washington as there are people who experienced it. This book is one view composed of many interpretations: a young boy traveling west by covered wagon; a young girl born just prior to departure; a husband and wife searching for an uncertain future; Native Americans dealing with changes in lifestyle, attitudes and stereotypes which they neither solicited nor created; the march of technology through a raw, ownerless wilderness to a burgeoning small town economy on the brink of a destiny in statehood. Some of it was good. Some of it was less than fortunate. But it was all absolutely written in the sense that there was no appeal or reprieve. It was like the tide. It was coming in and there was no turning back. But there was, and there is, looking back. And that is the purpose of this book. Our path ahead as a civilization is far more secure and purposed if we can only take a minute or two to turn around and realize how far weve come in only a few generations. But thats not the whole story. These people did a lot of work. They had a mighty struggle which I am not sure we could match. But we are where we are because of their work, because of the foundation they laid, as imperfect as it was. Here it is, all strung together in a charm string dimension, a story of two boys, a wolf, a sunrise, a sea gull, a great friendship, and a purposed gaze into a future with a foundation in education and a commitment to an improved reality for all. Nick Bond, editor Grandson of the author May, 2012

Grandma has died. Her wishes were to be cremated. One grandson will sign while the other refuses. The quest for a signature becomes a spiritual journey--of sorts. The subtitle for this play could be Confessions of a Wayward Christian.

Having gained unique access to California prisoners and corrections officials and to thousands of prisoners’ written grievances and institutional responses, Kitty Calavita and Valerie Jenness take us inside one of the most significant, yet largely invisible, institutions in the United States. Drawing on sometimes startlingly candid interviews with prisoners and prison staff, as well as on official records, the authors walk us through the byzantine grievance process, which begins with prisoners filing claims and ends after four levels of review, with corrections officials usually denying requests for remedies. Appealing to Justice is both an unprecedented study of disputing in an extremely asymmetrical setting and a rare glimpse of daily life inside this most closed of institutions. Quoting extensively from their interviews with prisoners and officials, the authors give voice to those who are almost never heard from. These voices unsettle conventional wisdoms within the sociological literature—for example, about the reluctance of vulnerable and/or stigmatized populations to name injuries and file claims, and about the relentlessly adversarial subjectivities of prisoners and correctional officials—and they do so with striking poignancy. Ultimately, Appealing to Justice reveals a system fraught with impediments and dilemmas, which delivers neither justice, nor efficiency, nor constitutional conditions of confinement.

My book, Soul of the South, includes thirty short stories ranging from general fiction; military, everyday drama, to children’s stories some of which use animal characters. My premier story ‘The Pecan Tree’ is a fictionalized account of a soldier in General Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson’s army returning home from the Battle of New Orleans through west Tennessee in 1815. There has stood a huge pecan tree in Natchez Trace State Park for many years supposedly planted by a soldier of the returning army. It was reputed to be the largest and oldest pecan tree in America. Sadly, a few years ago one of our many tornadoes destroyed it. There is another story I read as a boy that stated a sixteen year old volunteer with the militia Jackson headed in his many Indian wars refused his sergeants order to pick up biscuit crumbs that he had thrown on the ground in front of his tent. Because of the soldier’s refusal Old Hickory had him shot for insubordination. Using these two events I have woven a story of a ghost that made his presence known at various times during the years following the army’s trek through the forest that became Henderson County, Tennessee. The story basically follows the Beacum family that settled the land where the boy was buried with a pecan in his pocket that grew into the large tree. The family settled there during the 1830’s and the last surviving member died in the 1930’s. The family farm is offered for back taxes and is purchased by a young teacher who has a wife and son. The ghost continues his visits and only after the teacher enlists in the army and survives a Japanese prison camp does the story come to an end when he returns home. There is a story of Billy the Kid who surfaces on a farm in west Tennessee when he is an old man and adds a fictional account of how his death and burial were staged by the man who, history says killed him; sheriff Pat Garrett. I try to include a moral in each of the children’s stories as well as making them interesting.

Sheriff Axel Cooper returns! East Slope Justice is a fast-paced tale with enough conflict, action and intrigue to satisfy even the most impatient reader! In East Slope Justice Cooper leads a manhunt into the Harlan Range of Montanas Rockies. In the midst of an oppressive March snowstorm and a vicious re-election battle, Cooper fights off his corrupt opponent and the unforgiving elements of a high-altitude chase. Ron Boggs, the creator of Sheriff Axel Cooper and author of the well-received Natural Drift, is a Montana writer and enthusiastic fly-fisherman. A retired attorney, Ron has particular interests in the perils of law enforcement and jurisdictional conflicts in the American West. He and his wife have a home in Big Sky. Among his other works of fiction are Backfire and Adrians Bordereaux. Praise for Natural Drift: A good read with a realistic plot and well developed characters. I honestly could not put it down once I started it. Sheriff Thomas Rieger (retired), Carbon County, MT

The question of ‘what works’ in offender treatment has dominated the field of prisoner re-entry and recidivism research for the last thirty years. One of the primary ways the criminal justice system tries to reduce the rates of recidivism among offenders is through the use of cognitive behavioural programs (CBP) as in-prison intervention strategies. The emphasis for these programs is on the idea that inmates are in prison because they made poor choices and bad decisions. Inmates’ thinking is characterized as flawed and the purpose of the program is to teach them to think and act in socially appropriate ways so they will be less inclined to return to prison after their release. This book delves into the heart of one such cognitive behavioural programme, examines its inner workings, its effects on inmates’ narrated experience and considers what happens when a CBP of substandard quality and integrity is used as a gateway for inmates’ release. Based on original empirical research, this book provides realistic suggestions for improving policy, for reforming current in-prison programs engaging in problematic practices and for instituting alternatives that take the needs of the inmates into greater account. This book is essential reading for students and academics engaged in the study of sociology, criminal justice, prisons, social policy, sentencing and punishment.