On the 9th July, 31 years after I was sentenced to life imprisonment, the Parole Board delivered it's judgement on my continued imprisonment in clear and explicit terms recommending my transfer to an open prison in preparation for my probable release in 12 months time. The Ministry of Justice and prison system decided to ignore and effectively sabotage the recommendation, raising the question of exactly what real legal authority the Parole Board has over the prison system in determining how life sentenced prisoners are progressed towards release, and maybe more critically what real motives underlay senior prison management's attempts on occasion to subvert the recommendations of the Parole Board?

By David Swanson
The similarities between mass incarceration and mass murder have been haunting me for a while, and I now find myself inspired by Maya Schenwar's excellent new book *Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn't Work and How We Can Do Better.* This is one of three books everyone should read right away. The others are *The New Jim Crow* and *Burning Down the House*, the former with a focus on racism in incarceration, the latter with a focus on the incarceration of youth. Schenwar's is an overview of incarceration in all its absurd and unfathomable evil—as well as being a spotlight leading away from this brutal institution.