Holding the Key

Journalist Ted Conover spent one year undercover as a prison officer at the notorious Sing Sing prison in Westchester, USA. There he participated in the most disturbing rituals of prison life, soon discovering how strip searches, forcible cell extractions and depriving men of the most basic of luxuries exacts a toll on inmates and officers alike. As jailer to some of the most dangerous men in the USA, Conover struggles against the indifference of disillusioned prison staff, the pent-up frustration of inmates and the seemingly impossible task of balancing decency with toughness. And Conover recounts the history of Sing Sing: its part in electric chair experimentation; the building of Sing Sing by the convicts in 1826; the brutality of the early regime. This unparalled exploration of the American penitentiary system finally asks us to consider the impasse between the need to imprison criminals and the dehumanization of guards and inmates that inevitably takes place behind bars. Holding The Key is an emotive, illuminating and unprecedented work of participatory journalism.

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