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Prison Transformations: The System, the Prisoners, and Me by Stephen Chinlund ’51. Here is the story of an Episcopalian priest who is attracted to monastic life but finds a higher calling in helping the incarcerated find ways to transform their lives. In the early 60’s, he was hired at Saint Augustine’s Chapel on Henry Street, a satellite of Trinity Church. The neighborhood of the chapel, troubled by drug addiction and crime, led him to visit first Riker’s. His concern for prisoners grew and became central to his life’s work. In spite of much evidence to the contrary, Stephen maintained a firm belief that people are capable of transformation. In opposition to the harsh view that prisoners required disdain, a view prevalent among prison personnel, he maintained a fervent optimism and could point to some amazing results. From his start as a visitor, he continued to work with the system throughout the state of New York, convincing the powerful to try new approaches. By building a program called Network, which consisted of group meetings with a simple reliable format, he provided broken individuals a vehicle to view life a new way. At the meetings, the participants were invited to relate some positive, helpful behavior, to devise a plan for how they would deal with life on the outside, and then to reflect in silence. Here, of course, Stephen was influenced by his life as a student at Friends. Eventually, when the Commission of Corrections was formed to monitor prisons after the riot at Attica, Stephen was appointed by the governor to be Chairman. Stephen discusses the issues of crime, incarceration, rehabilitation and reentry to society with the complexity and thoughtfulness they deserve. His own bent toward introspection, especially in his comparative analysis of monasteries and prisons, is engrossing. This book stands as an inspiration for those working with seemingly immovable individuals: it seems that stubborn idealism can win out.

Why I Like this Story, Edited by Jackson R. Bryer 50’s. I try to describe these books and, though I suppose there is some inevitable judging, my goal is for you to see what this book is like, not what I think it is worth. I usually like the books very much, but if I don’t, maybe you will. I think I will make an exception here and tell you why I love this book, why I think it is a great book. I am bowled over by this book. Writers writing about other writers produces incandescent, nearly transcendent moments. If this book is testimony to anything, it is that writing and life are so intertwined that they might be said to be the very same thing. Breath becomes word. There are forty-eight essays In the book. Each writer selected a short story to reflect on. The first essay I turned to was Frederick Busch on John O’Hara. I knew Fred Busch in college. When he was in an English class, the professor had to take a back seat. The story he talks about here, “How Can I Tell You?” iconcerns a car salesman. In one dazzling paragraph, Busch give us a tour of the salesmen of American literature, from Melville to Carver. Salesmen are so desperately at the mercy of buyers. Busch takes our hand and leads us through the O’Hara story, admiring along the way all that O’Hara holds back from saying. Busch savors the story’s “long look into what cannot be said,” and blasts us with the irony of “the emptiness that threatens to fill us.” While in this life-story nexus mood, I turned to Nicholas Delbanco’s look at a Malamud story, “The Magic Barrel.” Back in the 70’s, I took a summer writing course at Bennington. Delbanco was a teacher (so was Busch, by the way) and Malamud came for a reading. Someone asked him how he came to be a great writer. His answer? “I’m not a great writer, but I have great thoughts on the staircase.” So now here they appear, Delbanco and Malamud, friends from different generations. Interspersed in Delbanco’s reading of “The Magic Barrel” are memories of their time as neighbors before Malamud’s death. Malamud, through his work, continued to give Delbanco lessons. The one he ends with? “So enjoy!” I can’t tell you about all forty-eight though I wish I could. I’ll just mention two more. One is Elliot Ackerman on Andre Debus, and the other is Andre Debus on Hemmingway. A friend gave Debus’s “A Father’s Story” to Ackerman as he was about to become the father of a baby girl. This gift was so thought-provoking on the contrast between fathering a son and a daughter that as his daughter grew up, he passed it along to other new fathers of girls. Should a father protect a girl more, should he restrict her more, should he discourage her from taking chances? Debus’s story looks at these questions from a dark place because the daughter in question has caused a highway death. How surprised I was to discover in Debus on Hemmingway that an accident had dramatically and permanently altered his own life. Debus’s piece begins on a light note. He is at the University of Iowa living next door to Kurt Vonnegut. They both go to the airport to pick up Ralph Ellison, who has come to read at the famous Iowa Writers Workshop. We see that writers are people, having drinks and shooting the breeze. Debus mentions that he teaches Hemmingway’s “In Another Country” and Ellison proceeds to recite the first paragraph from memory. Writers schmoozing – just like this whole book. “In Another Country” is set in a hospital full of soldiers with grave war injuries. Debus asks a friend what he thinks it is about and the friend answers, “the futility of cures.” This story follows Debus through his life as he becomes a college English teacher and has the accident, which puts him in a hospital bed for a year and places him permanently in a wheelchair. Over time, the story’s meaning changed for him and not in a predictable way. He tells us, “A story can always break into pieces while is sits inside a book on a shelf; and, decades after we have read it even twenty times, it can open us up, by cut or caress, to a new truth.” After I read Busch’s essay, I xeroxed it and sent it to my college roommate, Mary. She said, “I guess I’ll have to buy the book now.” I said, “Don’t do that. I’ll send it to you when I’ve finished it.” I did not know that this was a book I wanted to keep. When I finally finish reading all the Friends Seminary books – surely the supply will dry up – this book will set me off in new directions. By the way, I sent Mary her own copy of the book.

Edge of the Knife: Police Violence in the Americas by Paul Chevigny 50’s is the story of police abuse of power, whether unnecessary deadly force in the street or torture behind closed doors. Paul Chevigny examines police departments in Los Angeles and New York City in the US and then Sao Paulo Brazil, Buenos Aires Argentina, Kingston Jamaica, and Mexico City. For Los Angeles, the Rodney King beating in 1991, was a watershed event. The semi-military approach to policing had been largely free of scandal until that moment. That the public saw what happened created a sense of outrage and led to commissions which examined the sad fate of most civilian complaints. In LA complaints were rarely sustained and often the officers with the most complaints were the ones promoted. This book is deeply researched and though it came out in 1995, it seems to be very relevant today as institutional cultures are remarkably slow moving. Even with the ever-present cell phone cameras, the issues in the 90’s are still present. Paul provides a wealth of evidence about violence, its link with corruption (bribes and kickbacks), and the general inability of the departments to monitor themselves. He advocates for greater accountability particularly from civilian review boards. As troubling as his reporting on LA and NYC is, his details about what goes on in South America, Jamaica, and Mexico is exponentially more horrifying, where there is often no thought of the police as working for justice for the people. Tourists may not notice the frightening complicity between authorities and crime because private security forces are brought in to protect them. After reading this, I would not venture far from my hotel! Edge of the Knife is not a diatribe. It seeks to understand how sociological and psychological forces work. It contains much thought that would be helpful to blacklivesmatter.