On The Need for Broader Insight

Abstract

In 1981, a call for papers was sent to eighty correctional facilities in the United States, ranging from maximum security prisons for men to institutions for women to juvenile reformatories. To explain the rationale behind our invitation to prisoner-writers, perhaps the most eloquent account of the potential usefulness to criminal justice of prisoners' writings was offered by Gary Livingston, who has spoken from the view of the outcast. The publication of these papers represents a statement against repression as the means to social justice. Equally, it is an acknowledgment of how formidable is the matter of reform. Extending Livingston's term violence to unjust acts both large and small, we suggest that these voices offer promise of a better under standing of how we may achieve in fact the ideals of a just society. —Ed.