NEWJACK: Guarding Sing Sing may be the story of Conover’s first year year as a guard at Sing Sing. It is a nerve-jangling accounts of his passage in to the storied prison as well as the lifestyle of its guards – both fresh-faced “newjacks” like Conover and brutally hardened veterans. As he problems to be a great officer, Conover angers inmates, dodges blows, functions to balance decency with toughness, and participates in jail rituals – strip frisks, cell queries, cell “extractions” – that specific a toll on inmates about Newjack and officers alike. The story begins with the corrections academy and ends using the flames and smoke cigarettes of New Year’s Eve on Conover’s flooring of the notorious B-Block. Along the way, Conover also recounts the history of Sing Sing, from draconian early punishment, to fame as the citadel of capital abuse, to its present status as New York State’s “bottom level of the barrel” prison. This book can be a landmark of American journalism – the definitive demonstration of the impasse between your have to imprison crooks as well as the dehumanization of inmates and guards – that almost inevitably takes place behind bars. “Newjack can be an astonishing work by a gifted – and devoted – journalist. Ted Conover requires us in to the dangerous, unhappy, amusing and instructive spirit of 1 of America’s most widely known prisons.” — Tom Brokaw