After being denied access to report on Sing Sing, one of America's most notorious maximum-security prisons, journalist Ted Conover decided to become a prison guard. As a rookie officer, Conover spent a year in the unpredictable, terrifying, and often violent world of the American penal system. Without a weapon and outnumbered, the prison guards in one of America's toughest prisons oversee 1,800 inmates, most of whom have been convicted of violent felonies: murder, homicide, rape. The inmates conceal improvised weapons to settle gang rivalries or old feuds, and the guards are often attacked or caught in the middle of fights. When violence erupts in the corridors or the yard, an officer's day can turn from routine to frightening in an instant.

Conover is an acclaimed journalist, known for fully immersing himself in situations in order to write about them. With remarkable insight, Newjack brings the reader as close to the experience of life in an American prison as one would ever want to get. It is a gripping narrative of how the harsh world of the prison system breaks everyone who enters it—prison guards and inmates alike.

Pages: 352, Dimensions: 12.6x12.6cm