One Day in the Life of 179212 (Notes from an American Prison)

To a correctional facility in Virginia he is known as Prisoner 179212. But to a legion of journalists and legal reform activists he is Jens Soering, a German citizen who has endured for the past twenty-six years the harshest and most unforgiving punishment this country can offer—a life sentence without realistic hope of release, which some refer to as "the other death penalty." Told with dry humor, One Day in the Life of 179212 provides an hour-by-hour survey of everyday life in an American medium-security facility with all of its attendant hardships, contradictions, and even revelations. Soering poignantly illustrates the importance of meditation and faith when confronted with extreme adversity, in addition to making a highly compelling case for prison reform. Although this inspiring, eloquent memoir recounts just a day in the life of one man, much like Alexander Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, it provides a powerful voice for the over two million men and women lost in the maze of America's prison-industrial complex.