Prison Without Walls

Our nation's two-decade spree of building prisons and sentencing even nonviolent criminals to long spells inside them has produced a staggering number of incarcerated people in America--more than 2 million as of last year, a record. Equally shocking, though seldom discussed, is the fact that more

than 30 percent of that number, 630,000, will be released in the next year. A small but growing body of literature has begun chronicling the struggles of this cataract of former prisoners and parolees to rejoin a society where they're alienated and stigmatized, and where they often had few resources to begin with. Life on the Outside, Jennifer Gonnerman's account of Elaine Bartlett's sixteen-year imprisonment and 2000 release, makes a timely and valuable addition to this body of work. By detailing the impact of Bartlett's absence and reappearance on her extended family over a period of years, Gonnerman opens a window onto the American underclass, where cycles of poverty, drug use, homelessness and poor mental and physical health interlock to form a kind of prison of their own.

Since her release from prison by an act of clemency from Governor George Pataki, Elaine Bartlett has become active in the movement to repeal New York State's draconian Rockefeller drug laws, which mandate stringent sentences for drug-related convictions. Bartlett's experience epitomizes the far-reaching consequences of these laws: Convicted of ferrying four ounces of cocaine to Albany for an acquaintance who turned out to be a government informant, Bartlett landed a minimum sentence of twenty years, although she had no prior history of arrests or convictions. She left four children behind, the oldest of whom was only 10.

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