It’s clear that Austen sees plenty wrong with our system of corrections, but he doesn’t whine with advocacy. His style is informative with little sap, and he manages to make sympathetic characters out of violent men ... Austen bounces around, weaving...stories through chapters that zoom out and capture just about every facet of the prison system and its failures.
A critical contribution to discussions of how to reform American criminal justice, illuminating how we might change the process of giving people second chances and re-envision the very purpose of our carceral system ... Construct[ed] around intimate portraits ... The structure makes for an elliptical and sometimes disorienting timeline, returning to key time periods, like the 1970s, again and again. Structural qualms aside, Correction provides a revelatory lens for examining mass incarceration.
Austen is a gifted writer. The narratives of these two men, interlaced with the history of criminal punishment in America, contain some affecting passages ... But for all its gritty reportage, Correction deals in unreality. Mr. Austen writes as if there were some ideal system that could mete out punishment more or less perfectly.
Despite a few clunky passages, Austen argues persuasively that improving the carceral system must involve shifting emphasis from 'vengeance and permanent punishment' to genuine rehabilitation and the chance for the incarcerated to lead productive lives after serving their time. A cleareyed, compassionate, urgent appeal for prison reform.
