PRISON FELLOWSHIP BLOG

Book Review: Held Hostage

Ken Cooper’s dramatic life story will not break new ground for the genre of second-chance transformation stories. It is a well-told account of a fascinating life. But this autobiography does do something other books have not—help pry us away from some societal views that have held people’s minds hostage concerning causes for crime and their ultimate solution.

Today more than 2.3 million men and women are incarcerated in the U.S. In the last 20 years, the prison population has nearly tripled, until now one of every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

But they don’t stay there. According to the U.