A review by booksrbrainfood
Dannemora: Two Escaped Killers, Three Weeks of Terror, and the Largest Manhunt Ever in New York State by Charles A. Gardner

4.0

This book attracted my attention because I work in a state system as well that is similarly structured in a way to a prison, a mental health facility. When I began working in this field it was at a time after the states were being held accountable by the Department of Justice for poor conditions within state hospitals or institutions. As I researched the legal side of this issue, I came upon the Willowbrook Hospital in New York state, as a "ground zero" for deinstitutionalization of people. This was because of all the cost-cutting that had been done, over-crowding, under-staffing, poor conditions and zero accountability. The conditions in the prison system are very similar, and now since the writing of this book, another NY prison was without power for several days during the most severe cold weather of the year. I think that this book did a great job, a frightening job of showing what is wrong in the prison system, in this particular case and going forward. It feels focused on NY but it is a more widespread problem than that.

#Dannemora ##NetGalley