Based on ethnographic observations and interviews with prisoners, correctional officers, and civilian staff conducted in solitary confinement units, Way Down in the Hole explores the myriad ways in which daily, intimate interactions between those locked up twenty-four hours a day and the correctional officers charged with their care, custody, and control produce and reproduce hegemonic racial ideologies. Smith and Hattery explore the outcome of building prisons in rural, economically depressed communities, staffing them with white people who live in and around these communities, filling them with Black and brown bodies from urban areas and then designing the structure of solitary confinement units such that the most private, intimate daily bodily functions take place in very public ways. Under these conditions, it shouldn’t be surprising, but is rarely considered, that such daily interactions produce and reproduce white racial resentment among many correctional officers and fuel the racialized tensions that prisoners often describe as the worst forms of dehumanization. Way Down in the Hole concludes with recommendations for reducing the use of solitary confinement, reforming its use in a limited context, and most importantly, creating an environment in which prisoners and staff co-exist in ways that recognize their individual humanity and reduce rather than reproduce racial antagonisms and racial resentment. Way Down the Hole Video 1 (https://youtu.be/UuAB63fhge0) Way Down the Hole Video 2 (https://youtu.be/TwEuw1cTrcQ) Way Down the Hole Video 3 (https://youtu.be/bOcBv_UnHIs​) Way Down the Hole Video 4 (https://youtu.be/cx_l1S8D77c)

Down in the Hole humorously re-imagines HBO and creator David Simon's The Wire as an illustrated Victorian novel. Highly anticipated since its initial online appearance and immediate viral proliferation, first-time authors and ersatz Victorian scholars Joy DeLyria and Sean Michael Robinson have painstakingly created a satirical and fictional world based on the characters and narrative of television's most loved drama, The Wire. To be published in time to celebrate The Wire's tenth anniversary, Down in the Hole: the unWired World of H.B. Ogden is a collection of excerpts and illustrations from The Wire, a Victorian serial novel of DeLyria and Robinson's invention, credited to fictional author H.B. Ogden. Excerpts from Ogden's work are knit together by the history of the novel, its author and illustrator, and the adventures of the passionate archivists who uncovered this forgotten text. The Baltimore Sun writes: "...[This] quintessentially Victorian vision of Ogden's The Wire...is a scintillating piece of faux-scholarship. It's set in an alternate universe where the HBO series doesn't exist—and where The Wire in any form, including Horatio Bucklesby Ogden's, has yet to be discovered." Gawker asks: "So, how long before we can actually buy this illustrated version of The Wire? I'd put it on my Amazon wish list now if I could."

Based on ethnographic observations and interviews with prisoners, correctional officers, and civilian staff conducted in solitary confinement units, Way Down in the Hole explores the myriad ways in which daily, intimate interactions between those locked up twenty-four hours a day and the correctional officers charged with their care, custody, and control produce and reproduce hegemonic racial ideologies. Smith and Hattery explore the outcome of building prisons in rural, economically depressed communities, staffing them with white people who live in and around these communities, filling them with Black and brown bodies from urban areas and then designing the structure of solitary confinement units such that the most private, intimate daily bodily functions take place in very public ways. Under these conditions, it shouldn’t be surprising, but is rarely considered, that such daily interactions produce and reproduce white racial resentment among many correctional officers and fuel the racialized tensions that prisoners often describe as the worst forms of dehumanization. Way Down in the Hole concludes with recommendations for reducing the use of solitary confinement, reforming its use in a limited context, and most importantly, creating an environment in which prisoners and staff co-exist in ways that recognize their individual humanity and reduce rather than reproduce racial antagonisms and racial resentment.

Ed Norris' career arc was dazzling. He spent 20 years as a crime-fighting savant with the New York Police Department, rising from beat cop to deputy commissioner of operations at age 36. As police commissioner of Baltimore, he breathed life into a demoralized force that lowered the city's infamous homicide count for the first time in a decade. After the 911 attacks, he took over the Maryland State Police and pushed innovative anti-terrorism strategies that made him a national leader in the field. At the University of Virginia, they taught a graduate course about how his leadership techniques transformed one of the most violent cities in the country. He was the golden boy of law enforcement, a brash, larger-than-life figure with a taste for fine restaurants, bespoke clothing and fast motorcycles. Then it all came crashing down. An investigation into a little-known police expense account morphed into what many felt was a politically-motivated hit job by federal prosecutors. Corruption charges were spiced with lurid allegations of pricey dinners with women and gifts purchased at Victoria's Secret. Ed Norris protested his innocence, but landed in federal prison. Thus began the hellish ordeal that ultimately cost him his livelihood, reputation, health and marriage. This is the incredible story of America's most promising cop, the dark forces that brought him down and his long, emotional journey back from the abyss.

Designed to inspire self-discovery, "There's a Hole in My Sidewalk" contains more than 100 touching poems that gently guide readers to a more authentic and fulfilling life.

Highly anticipated since its initial online appearance and immediate viral proliferation, first-time authors and ersatz Victorian scholars Joy DeLyria and Sean Michael Robinson have painstakingly created a satirical and fictional world based on the characters and narrative of television's most loved drama, The Wire. To be published in time to celebrate The Wire's tenth anniversary, Down in the Hole: the unWired World of H.B. Ogden is a collection of excerpts and illustrations from The Wire, a Victorian serial novel of DeLyria and Robinson's invention, credited to fictional author H.B. Ogden. Excerpts from Ogden's work are knit together by the history of the novel, its author and illustrator, and the adventures of the passionate archivists who uncovered this forgotten text. The Baltimore Sun writes: "...[This] quintessentially Victorian vision of Ogden's The Wire...is a scintillating piece of faux-scholarship. It's set in an alternate universe where the HBO series doesn't exist-and where The Wire in any form, including Horatio Bucklesby Ogden's, has yet to be discovered." Gawker asks: "So, how long before we can actually buy this illustrated version of The Wire? I'd put it on my Amazon wish list now if I could."