top of page
.png)
A BIT ABOUT K C CARCERAL
K C Carceral provides a vivid first-hand account of life behind bars in America. His narratives represent topics as violence, sexual mores, friendships, and serving time. Through powerful personal experience, a reader is given a unique look into America's prison system.
Home: Bio
Home: About
Home: Bio
NOW ON SALE:
The Cage of Days
K.C. Carceral and Michael G. Flaherty
[A]s someone who has taught college courses in a prison environment and witnessed firsthand some of the temporal rhythms and whims of this setting, I appreciated the authors' ability to provide a deep look into the time work (and the limits of these efforts) that occurs in a space that many individuals may never experience or witness. The book invites further discussion on ongoing and critical debates surrounding incarceration in particular (e.g., whether the U.S.'s calculus to determine time served is in fact "rational") and the justice system more broadly (in particular, the claim that privacy is essential to personal autonomy).
-- Jamie L. Mullaney , Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs and Professor of Sociology at Goucher College. https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.611
"Prisoners' experience of time is unique and worth studying in greater detail. The Cage of Days provides a thoughtful window into how convicts experience time behind bars. Carceral and Flaherty are experts, and they are able to blend insider and outsider perspectives, autoethnography and scholarship, very successfully.
Highly recommended."
-JEFFREY IAN ROSS, author of Key Issues in Corrections
_JPG.jpg)
Carceral, K. C., et al. (2004) BEHIND A CONVICT'S EYE, Doing Time In A Modern Prison. Belmont, CA.: Wadsworth.
WELL WORTH DOING THE TIME TO READ BY CMS ON FEBRUARY 28, 2005
IT DOESN'T SEEM LIKE IT WOULD BE EASY TO HAVE AN IMPACT ON SOCIETY FROM BEHIND PRISON WALLS, BUT, EASY OR NOT, THAT IS WHAT K. C. CARCERAL HAS ACHIEVED. "BEHIND A CONVICT'S EYES" IS TANGIBLE PROOF THAT EVEN A CONVICTED FELON MAY MAKE AN IMPORTANT AND POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION.
CARCERAL (THE NAME IS A PSEUDONYM MEANING "BELONGING TO A PRISON") IS A CONVICTED MURDERER SERVING A LIFE SENTENCE WHO HAS CREATED A SERIES OF VIVID WORD PORTRAITS OF INMATE LIFE. THESE CAPTURE NOT ONLY HIS OWN EXPERIENCES, BUT THE POLITICS, ECONOMICS, AND CULTURE OF PRISONS AS WELL.
THE PORTRAITS DONE, CARCERAL FOLLOWS WITH A SCHOLARLY EFFORT THAT BUILDS ON AN EXISTING THEORY OF "TOXIC SHAME IDENTITY" TO SUGGEST WHY PEOPLE BECOME CRIMINALS.
HIS OWN WORK IS SUPPLEMENTED THROUGHOUT BY "DISCUSSIONS" FROM THE FOUR EDITORS OF THE BOOK.
CARCERAL SAYS LITTLE ABOUT THE CRIME THAT BROUGHT HIM TO LIFE IN PRISON. READING HIS BOOK CANNOT HELP BUT MAKE ONE WONDER WHAT HE COULD HAVE ACHIEVED HAD HE NOT COMMITTED HIS CRIME -- OR IF HIS CONTRIBUTION TO SOCIETY WOULD HAVE BEEN AS GREAT AS THE ONE CONTAINED IN THIS SLIM VOLUME.
A BOOK THAT SEEMS AIMED LESS AT THE GENERAL PUBLIC THAN AT STUDENTS AND THOSE WHO WORK FOR OR DEAL DIRECTLY WITH THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM, "BEHIND A CONVICT'S EYES" DESERVES A WIDER AUDIENCE THAT IT IS LIKELY TO GET.
Home: CV
_JPG.jpg)
Home: Bio
Home: CV
Carceral, K. C., et al. (2006) PRISON, INC. A convict exposes Life Inside a Private Prison. New York, NY.: NYU Press.
PRISON, INC. PROVIDES A FIRST HAND ACCOUNT OF LIFE BEHIND BARS IN A CONTROVERSIAL NEW TYPE OF PRISON FACILITY: THE PRIVATE PRISON. THESE FOR-PROFIT PRISONS ARE BECOMING INCREASINGLY POPULAR AS STATES BUDGETS GET TIGHTER. YET AS PRIVATIZATION IS SEEN AS A NECESSARY AND COST-SAVING MEASURE, NOT MUCH IS KNOWN ABOUT HOW THESE FACILITIES ARE RUN AND WHETHER OR NOT THEY CAN EFFECTIVELY WATCH OVER THIS DIFFICULT AND DANGEROUS POPULATIONS. FOR THE FIRST TIME, PRISON, INC. PROVIDES A LOOK INSIDE ONE OF THESE PRIVATE PRISONS AS TOLD THROUGH THE EYES OF AN ACTUAL INMATE, K.C. CARCERAL, WHO HAS BEEN IN THE PRISON SYSTEM FOR OVER TWENTY YEARS.
Home: CV
ARTICLES
BORDT, REBECCA L. & CARCERAL, K.C. "A TEACHING COLLABORATION WITH A PRISON WRITER." RADICAL TEACHER, VOL. 94, 2012, PP. 24-33.
CARCERAL, K.C., ROSE, C.D., RICHARDS, S.C., & BERNARD, T.J. “MOVING BEYOND THE OFFICER-PRISONER MODEL OF CONTROL.” UNDERSTANDING CORRECTIONAL VIOLENCE, 2008, PP. 231-248
Home: Contact
bottom of page