Prison For Dummies

dmierkin posted a link to a dictionary of US prison slang. Well, I thought. There must be some books geared toward people who are going to prison, right? And surely there are. There is a somewhat outdated You Are Going to Prison
the ever popular DownTime : A Guide to Federal Incarceration, and informative Behind Bars: Surviving Prison.

What’s the audience for these books? Corrections officers, criminology students, and even some convicted felons. And me, I guess.

From an excerpt from a review:

I am on the way to FEDERAL prison and thought that this book would be helpful. Instead I found the book to concentrate on MAXIMUM security prisons. More akin to the Shawshank Redemption than information about what white-collar types will experience. […] White collar types will find that book much more helpful. […]

I half expected a “For Dummies®” title to be available, but alas. Either they won’t touch such a topic, or they just did not think of it yet.

If I had more room for books, I’d probably collect the entire “For Dummies®” series. They have fine titles like “Judaism For Dummies®”, AOLTVâ„¢ For Dummies® and Sex For Dummies®, 2nd Edition. Some books are pretty interesting, some are funny and some will become rarities. Gotta research them some more. There must be a lot of interesting trivia about “Dummies®”, like what was their first book, how they became so successful, etc.

Hmm, they started in 1991, and “Dos for Dummies®” was the first book. Interesting.