The First Twenty-nine Days

For the twenty members of Voices Beyond Bars, this anthology represents more than freedom from incarceration. It is about hope and faith, about telling the truth and working toward personal healing. Johnny L. Ellis and Abraham Rose, a husband/wife team and members of Voices Beyond Bars, have created a meaningful and important book.In a country that considers itself the most advanced in the world, we have a prison system that is archaic. Men and women who are incarcerated in the United States find themselves without a voice and, too often, without a future. While the prisons are intended to rehabilitate, they serve more as holding cells for individuals in need of education, social skills, and confidence. The result is that the majority of released prisoners will return to prison, bringing with them the frustration of failure, anger, and blame. In The First Twenty-Nine Days, Ellis and Rose aim to raise the publicA's awareness of how society creates barriers to success. Prisoners who are finally released, for the most part, are programmed to fail. And when they fail, the entire system fails. This is a book of myriad emotions, one in which the reader is reminded that the worldA's largest democracy does not always mete out justice for all.