Hard Time: A Fresh Look at Understanding and Reforming the Prison, 4th Edition, is a revised and updated version of the highly successful text addressing the origins, evolution, and promise of America’s penal system.

• Draws from both ethnographic and professional material, and situates the prison experience within both contemporary and historical contexts


• Features first person accounts from male and female inmates and staff, revealing what it’s actually like to live and work in prison


• Includes all-new chapters on prison reform and on supermax correctional facilities, including the latest research on confinement, long-term segregation, and death row


• Explores a wide range of topics, including the nature of prison as punishment; prisoner personality types and coping strategies; gang violence; prison officers’ custodial duties; and psychological, educational, and work programs


• Develops policy recommendations for the future based on qualitative and quantitative research and evidence-based initiatives