Today, Three Rooms Press  is releasing the updated classic prison memoir, BAD: The Autobiography of James Carr. Originally published in 1972, this book captures the pivotal point in American history when prisons decided rehabilitation wasn’t possible, and prisons became terribly punitive. Forty years later, we’re still trying to reverse the damage caused by the 1970’s criminal justice system. 

In honor of James Carr’s autobiography, here’s a list of Ten Books Spanning Five Decades That Demonstrate the Ongoing Need for Prison Reform:

1. BAD: The Autobiography of James Carr by James Carr
2. THE NEW JIM CROW: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander 
3. COULDN’T KEEP IT TO MYSELF: Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution by Wally Lamb
4. IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST: Letters From Prison by Jack Henry Abbott
5. SOLEDAD BROTHER: The Prison Letters of George Jackson by George Jackson
6. INSIDE: Life Behind Bars in America by Michael Santos
7. ALL GOD’S CHILDREN: The Bosket Family and the American Tradition of Violence by Fox Butterfield
8. NEWJACK: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover
9. INSIDE THIS PLACE, NOT OF IT: Narratives From Women’s Prisons by Ayelet Waldman and Robin Levi
10. ON THE YARD by Malcolm Braley