Correction

The United States, a single country, locks up a quarter of the world’s incarcerated population. More than 850,000 Americans are currently on parole. Yet the parole system is opaque, a confounding process riddled with inequities. Few understand parole as the extraordinary pivot point it is-both in the country’s changing conceptions of justice and in the cycle of mass incarceration.

Through its portraits of two men, imprisoned for murder, and the parole board that holds their freedom in the balance, Correction offers a behind-the-curtain look at the process of parole. Austen’s engaging storytelling forces a reckoning with some of the most profound questions underlying the country’s values around crime and punishment: What must someone who commits a terrible act do to get a second chance? What does incarceration seek to accomplish? An illuminating work of narrative nonfiction, Correction challenges us to consider for ourselves why and who we punish-and how we might find a way out of an era of mass imprisonment.

Author Biography

Ben Austen is a journalist from Chicago. He is the author of High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing, which was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal of Excellence in Nonfiction and named one of the best books of 2018 by Booklist, Mother Jones, and the public libraries of Chicago and St. Louis. A former editor at Harper’s Magazine, Ben is the cohost of the podcast Some of My Best Friends Are. His feature writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Wired, and many other publications.