READ the early reviews of Gates of Injustice:

"Alan Elsner's powerful book demonstrates that our $40 billion corrections system for both adults and juveniles is badly broken. Our jails and prisons and penitentiaries are failing us at enormous cost in money and in danger to society. Elsner makes an overwhelming case for reform, and his many sensible proposals deserve to be implemented. This book should be a wake-up call for federal, state, and local governments across America."

--Senator Edward M. Kennedy

"The book gives a chilling insight into the human cost of America's massive resort to incarceration in the past few decades, which sees the U.S. today with around a quarter of the world's prison population. It charts the negative impact on both inmates and society of what is essentially a wasteful and inhumane system. The author offers a series of practical proposals for reform, which are long overdue. This is an important book for anyone interested in human rights and penal policy."

--Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International

"Engaging, crisply-written, filled with powerful vignettes, Alan Elsner's picture of life behind bars in the United States is a searing look at the crisis in America's prisons."

--Jamie Fellner, Director, U.S. Program, Human Rights Watch

"Everyone interested in safer communities should read Gates of Injustice. Alan Elsner thoroughly documents the scandalous state of our current prison system that does little to change the values of inmates, leaves victims unhealed, the taxpayers poorer and our communities less safe. As a conservative Republican and a Christian, I have come to realize that prisons don't exist as ends unto themselves. Public safety should be their goal. Yet, as Mr. Elsner so thoroughly documents, the current system is often so brutal and inhumane that the skills offenders learn to survive inside prison make them anti-social when they are released. Mr. Elsner does not just condemn our system, he offers several suggestions to improve it. Gates of Injustice is a great resource"

--Pat Nolan
President, Justice Fellowship
Former Republican Leader of the California State Assembly

"Even the most skeptical reader will be fascinated by the gripping stories of prisoners and their families. Alan Elsner has written an enormously compelling book. His lucid and informative analysis provides a framework for understanding why the crisis has occurred and what can be done to end it. This book should be read by everyone who cares about America's future."

--Jean Maclean Snyder, MacArthur Justice Center, University of Chicago Law School

"Gates of Injustice provides a rare and poignant glimpse of the cruelty our society has permitted to fester in the name of 'criminal justice.' A prerequisite for the obvious proliferation of blatant human rights abuses behind bars is the blindness and silence of the American people. Alan Elsner describes the horrors of the current imprisonment binge for anyone who is willing to open their eyes. In fact, this book should be required reading for all who care about the future of democracy and humanity."

--Terry A. Kupers, M.D., author of Prison Madness

Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America's Prisons

By Alan Elsner

Gates of Injustice is a compelling exposé of the U.S. prison system: it tells how more than 2 million Americans came to be incarcerated ... what it's really like on the inside ... and how a giant "prison-industrial complex" promotes imprisonment over other solutions.

Alan Elsner paints a terrifying picture of how our prisons really work. You'll hear how race-based gangs control institutions and prey on the weak - and how a rape epidemic has swept the U.S. prison system. You'll discover the plight of 300,000 mentally ill prisoners, some abandoned to suffer with grossly inadequate medical care.

Elsner takes you inside "supermax" prisons that deny inmates human contact and reveals official corruption and brutality within U.S. jails. You'll also learn how prisons help to spread infectious diseases throughout society ... one of the ways the prison crisis touches you, even if you've never had a brush with the law.

• 2 million prisoners: how it happened, and why
  Why the United States locks away 6 - 10 times more people than other Western societies
  
  
• The brutal realities of prison life
  Dehumanization: violence, gangs, rape, brutality and corruption
  
  
• The other victims
  What it's like for convicts' families left on the outside
  
  
• No place for the sick or weak
  Prison medical care: varying from substandard to shocking
  
  
• Life after prison: the realities of parole
  What's supposed to happen ... and what really happens
  
  
• The "prison-industrial" complex
  The hidden politics of imprisonment

Alan Elsner, National Correspondent for Reuters, has written extensively about conditions in jails and prisons, visiting institutions in a dozen states to meet with inmates, lawyers, corrections officers, medical staff, religious volunteers, family members and law enforcement. He has 25 years' experience in journalism, covering stories ranging from the September 11, 2001 attacks on America and the crisis in the Middle East to the 2000 presidential election and the end of the Cold War.