With the opening of the Ohio State Reformatory in 1896, the state legislature had put in place "the most complete prison system, in theory, which exists in the United States." The reformatory joined the Ohio Penitentiary and the Boys Industrial School, also central-Ohio institutions, to form the first instance of "graded prisons; with the reform farm on one side of the new prison, for juvenile offenders, and the penitentiary on the other, for all the more hardened and incorrigible class." However, even as the concept was being replicated throughout the country, the staffs of the institutions were faced with the day-to-day struggle of actually making the system work.

Have you ever wondered what it is like to walk the halls of a dark and mysterious prison? Have you ever wanted to stand in places where inmates once walked in an attempt to try and get a sense of what it would be like to spend the majority of your life, or even a portion of your life behind bars? If so, you are holding one of the most amazing books that can take you into all of these situations. This book is about a prison that was built in the rolling hills of Mansfield, Ohio in the1800s on a pre-existing civil war training camp where approximately 150,000 inmates served time For The crimes they may or even may not have committed. it covers topics from before the prison was built, during the building process, and after its completion. This book will cover an inmates stay and what he could experience during his incarceration and how this prison operated as a "city within a city".

"Recounts the frightful story of a fire at the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus on Easter Monday 1930."--P.[4] of cover.

Lucasville tells the story of one of the longest prison uprisings in U.S. history. At the maximum-security Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, prisoners seized a major area of the prison on Easter Sunday, 1993. More than 400 prisoners held L block for eleven days. Nine prisoners alleged to have been informants, or “snitches,” and one hostage correctional officer, were murdered. There was a negotiated surrender. Thereafter, almost wholly on the basis of testimony by prisoner informants who received deals in exchange, five spokespersons or leaders were tried and sentenced to death, and more than a dozen others received long sentences. Lucasville examines the causes of the disturbance, what happened during the eleven days, and the fairness of the trials. Particular emphasis is placed on the interracial character of the action, as evidenced in the slogans that were found painted on walls after the surrender: “Black and White Together,” “Convict Unity,” and “Convict Race.” An eloquent Foreword by Mumia Abu-Jamal underlines these themes. He states, as does the book, that the men later sentenced to death “sought to minimize violence, and indeed, according to substantial evidence, saved the lives of several men, prisoner and guard alike.” Of the five men, three black and two white, who were sentenced to death, Mumia declares, “They rose above their status as prisoners, and became, for a few days in April 1993, what rebels in Attica had demanded a generation before them: men. As such, they did not betray each other; they did not dishonor each other; they reached beyond their prison ‘tribes’ to reach commonality.”

What started as an institution to reform young and non-violent criminals became one of the most infamous prisons in American history. Before 1884, most first-time offenders between the ages of 16 and 30 were housed in the Ohio Penitentiary, where they were likely to be influenced by hardened criminals. That changed when the Ohio Legislature approved the building of a reformatory, a new type of institution that would educate and train these young men. Since its opening in 1896, the reformatory expanded its training programs and became a self-sustaining institution--the largest of its kind in the United States. By 1970, the reformatory had become a maximum-security prison filled with the most dangerous criminals in the U.S., with a death row but no death chamber. It closed on December 31, 1990, but preservation and restoration efforts are ongoing, and it continues to be as infamous today as in its heyday, appearing in numerous television shows and feature films, including The Shawshank Redemption.

A comprehensive report of the deadliest prison fire in the history of the United States, in which 320 convicts died.

Chronicles the history of the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield, Ohio and the ghost lore that surrounds the structure.