Summary Of A Crowbar In The Buddhist Garden By Stephen Reid

A crowbar in the Buddhist Garden by Stephen Reid is a collection of writings, referred to his essays about his life and well as his time in prison. His writings give people are good look into the actual life and past of a criminal and also helps to personify the idea of what an offender or criminal is. These essays make out offenders to people real living people who have families and past lives, loves and experiences. This book includes four essays known as: The Last Score, Junkie, Leaving Their Mark, and The Art of Dying in Prison as well as a prologue and epilogue, each of which cover different times and aspects of the life of Stephen Reid both in and out of the penitentiary. From reading each essay one can better learn to understand the …show more content…
Reid takes about how our society is a society that is impatient with misfits and delinquents and we would sooner lock them up and through away the key. We want to keep these people out of society and away from our homes instead of trying to help them figure out their life and stop having to commit criminal acts. Prison literature is also something that is looked at and the fact that many people chose to change the blame and not dwell on it. Having dignity in the writing of prison literature is not recovered easily in the aftermath of crime and punishment. People do not want to talk about the suffering going on in prison and how truly horrible prison is for most people. To enter into a prison, with the weight of one’s crime, is the most loss anyone could feel. Reid however feels that this feeling of loss can be a good thing, because you are stripped down to the basics and your outlook on one everything that is good and bad …show more content…
This book humanizes the offenders and shows that they are real people with real pasts and families. This book is the best book I have read in a long time especially considering I want to working in the Criminal Justice System in the future and I think hearing peoples stories can give one insight into how people can be helped and how the entire system can be improved. There are obviously many improvements that need to be made to the system but hopefully with time the criminal justice system will be made to be more about the people inside the system instead of the opinions of the people on the outside. In the end this book is a great read that is relevant to the Canadian System and how the actual offenders live and