[Seven Long Times] joins the ranks of other first person accounts of imprisonment and testifies to the inhumane and generally repressive nature of those institutions.

For sociologists, Piri Thomas raises two related problems. The first is the analytical status of first person accounts. The second is the possibility of fully understanding institutions of repression within the same conceptual sphere in which these institutions understand themselves. (pp. 303-04)

Obviously, the justification of this sort of book and its distinguishing characteristic is that it is written with the special point of view of the insider. But even the insider cannot by virtue of this special perspective alone decipher and understand the historical and social reality which produces the American prison. Thomas's just and sometimes moving accusations against the prison system suffer from an uncritical acceptance of the ideas which surround and legitimate it. Insofar as this is the case it...