Reuben Jonathan Miller (Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration) discusses his work studying mass incarceration, including life after incarceration, sharing the stories of the men, women, and communities fighting against a system that is designed for them to fail. His poignant and eye-opening call to arms reveals how laws, rules, and regulations extract a tangible cost not only from those working to rebuild their lives, but also our democracy. In conversation with Yahusef Medina.
Watch the video from this event:
“Through vivid stories and evidence of this afterlife… Miller describes “a new kind of prison”… in heartbreaking prose.”―National Book Review
“For incarcerated persons in the United States, release does not equal freedom. Miller’s first book is an important, harrowing ethnographic study that reads like a keenly observed memoir, which, in part, it is. His own father and brothers having been imprisoned, Miller, a chaplain at the Cook County Jail in Chicago, is candidly close to his research on mass incarceration and its after effects. This is essential reading for all who care about justice in contemporary America.”—Library Journal, starred review
“Striking a unique balance between memoir and sociological treatise, this bracing account makes clear just how high the deck is stacked against the formerly incarcerated.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Reminiscent of Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, Miller’s well-argued book delivers a scarifying account of law gone awry.”—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Sponsors
Virginia Festival of the Book staff, volunteers, partners, and attendees appreciate all of our sponsors. It is their crucial support, along with individual donors, that allows us to present the 2022 Virginia Festival of the Book almost completely free of charge. We appreciate the generous commitment from our Premier Sponsor, The Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation, and these major sponsors: Michelle and David Baldacci, Dominion Energy, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
