Gates of Injustice is a compelling exposé of the U.S. prison system: it tells how more than 2 million Americans came to be incarcerated ... what it's really like on the inside ... and how a giant "prison-industrial complex" promotes imprisonment over other solutions.
Alan Elsner paints a terrifying picture of how our prisons really work. You'll hear how race-based gangs control institutions and prey on the weak - and how a rape epidemic has swept the U.S. prison system. You'll discover the plight of 300,000 mentally ill prisoners, some abandoned to suffer with grossly inadequate medical care.© 2003-2004 Shannon Stapleton

Elsner takes you inside "supermax" prisons that deny inmates human contact and reveals official corruption and brutality within U.S. jails. You'll also learn how prisons help to spread infectious diseases throughout society ... one of the ways the prison crisis touches you, even if you've never had a brush with the law.
Alan Elsner, National Correspondent for Reuters, has written extensively about conditions in jails and prisons, visiting institutions in a dozen states to meet with inmates, lawyers, corrections officers, medical staff, religious volunteers, family members and law enforcement. He has 25 years' experience in journalism, covering stories ranging from the September 11, 2001 attacks on America and the crisis in the Middle East to the 2000 presidential election and the end of the Cold War.
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2 million prisoners: how it happened, and why
Why the United States locks away 6 - 10 times more people than other Western societies -
The brutal realities of prison life
Dehumanization: violence, gangs, rape, brutality and corruption -
The other victims
What it's like for convicts' families left on the outside -
No place for the sick or weak
Prison medical care: varying from substandard to shocking -
Life after prison: the realities of parole
What's supposed to happen ... and what really happens -
The "prison-industrial" complex
The hidden politics of imprisonment
Prison photos and images © 2003-2004 Shannon Stapleton.