Recent Books and Reviews Herald a Growing Field

Paths of Discovery: Art Practice and Its Impact in California Prisons (2^nd ed.) by Larry Brewster and Peter Merts, 2015.

Brewster, professor emeritus and former dean of the College of Professional Studies at the University of San Francisco, and photographer Merts, offer ten chapters of vivid descriptions of early arts-in-corrections programs with color photographs of residents and examples of their artwork. The authors also provide an account of the origin of prison arts in California prisons, which has historically valuable information. The book advances our understanding of the practice and impact of AIC in California prisons, which can be useful in guiding new programing in other prisons. Examples of artwork published in color, as well as color photographs, provide striking examples of talent and cooperative engagement among prison residents. Brewster’s pioneering evaluation research continues to guide work in this field, as indicated in his co-authored chapter in Arts in Criminal Justice and Corrections, noted below (Brewster et al., 2025).

The Frenzied Dance of Art & Violence, by David E. Gussak, Oxford University Press, 2022.

Gussak, who has been teaching art therapy since the late 1990s, explores and explains the relationship between art and violence. Drawing on the lives of prominent artists including Caravaggio, Dali, Goya, and Picasso, he recounts how their art has been influenced by their own penchant for deviance or by extremely violent events of their time, and how art can also serve as a moderating influence for dealing with dark impulses. The psychological treatment of the subject and modes of analysis make this book an invaluable reference for those engaged in arts-in-corrections. This book will be particularly valuable to AIC practitioners as well as policymakers for a deeper explanation and understanding of the psychology of prison art. Gussak previously published an early text on art therapy in prisons (Gussak & Virshup, 1997); a momentous first-person account of how art therapy informed the sentencing at a murder trial (Gussak, 2013); and a book on the benefits and procedures of art therapy for people in prison (Gussak, 2020).

Arts in Corrections: Thirty Years of Annotated Publications, by Grady Hillman, Routledge, 2023.

Hillman, a poet and educator, began teaching in prisons in 1981 and since then has taught and advised in over thirty states and six countries. In this collection of 30 years of annotated publications, he recounts experiences and lessons learned teaching poetry and creative writing in prisons and juvenile detention facilities. The book closes with an introduction to the Prison Arts Resource Project, an ongoing source of annotated bibliographic references to research in arts-in-corrections. This book, which advances knowledge of the practice of AIC, will be a useful source of inspiration to other educators in the field of AIC.

Inside Knowledge: Incarcerated People on the Failures of the American Prison, by Doran Larson, New York University Press, 2024.

Larson, a professor of English at Hamilton College and founder of the American Prison Writing Archive, has drawn extensively on first-person accounts of prison life, previously in Fourth City: Essays from the Prison in America (Larson, 2013) and, more recently, Inside Knowledge. In this new book, Larson constructs a withering indictment of the four, canonical purposes of prison: retribution, rehabilitation, incapacitation, and deterrence. He bases his critique on accounts by prison residents “bearing witness” to the utter failure of prisons to achieve these purported goals and instead causing residents and society far greater harms. Meaningful change in both prisons and criminogenic communities, Larson argues, requires society to listen to those most directly affected. This book advances knowledge of how the goals of prison are understood, deconstructed, and rejected by imprisoned people, which should be of particular value to penal policymakers.

Higher Education and the Carceral State: Transforming Together, Annie Buckley, ed., Routledge, 2024.

Buckley is a professor of visual studies and director of the Institute for the Arts, Humanities, and Social Justice at San Diego State University. She also founded and directs the Prison Arts Collective which seeks to expand access to art among people experiencing incarceration. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Buckley has compiled 22 chapters that describe efforts of university faculty and students to engage prison residents in the arts and higher education. These essays are inspiring and also instructive in how they demonstrate innovative approaches to education for this special population of learners working in a challenging environment. This book is especially valuable for its contribution to advancing knowledge of the theory and practice of AIC among various disciplines.

Arts in Criminal Justice and Corrections: International Perspectives on Methods, Journeys, and Challenges, Amanda J. Gardner and Laura Caulfield, eds., Routledge, 2025.

Gardner, based in New Mexico, is a journalist and curator of the Prison Arts Resource Project and Caulfield is a psychologist and Dean of Research Culture and Postgraduate Research at the University of Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom. Together, they have arranged 11 chapters on arts in penal institutions, including coverage of theoretical frameworks for evaluation, accounts of research methodologies, and examples of innovative techniques used in arts-in-corrections. Chapters include those written by researchers as well as profiles of each author, a technique that humanizes the researcher and helps make his or her work more accessible to the reader. This volume and Buckley’s, noted above, both provide new material that will be valuable to practitioners and researchers alike for contributions to advancing theory and knowledge in the field.

Prisons of Creativity: Artistic Innovation During Incarceration, by John R. Whitman, Routledge, 2025c.

As an advocate for creativity in prisons and avid reader of current literature on the topic, the author offers a roadmap for constructing a national framework for carceral creativity in this compact book. He draws on the history of the prison, the legacy of creative evidence from prisons, and examples from incarcerated creators currently at work to argue that a nation’s commitment to innovation should, for the benefit of society, include those in captivity. Long exploited for their physical labor, people in prison should be encouraged to develop their creative capacity, supported by a national carceral creativity policy. This book aims to advance policy in the field of AIC from the local to the national levels in countries worldwide, resulting in turning prisons into sources of creativity to add to a nation’s stock of innovation.

Other members of the editorial board of this journal have also published or reviewed highly recommended books in the more encompassing field of penal institutions. Sarah Colvin, professor of German at Cambridge University, published a comparative examination of prisons in East and West Germany based on first-person accounts prior to and following integration, Shadowland: The Story of Germany Told by its Prisoners (Colvin, 2022).

Finally, The Norwegian Prison System: Halden Prison and Beyond, by Are Høidal and Nina Hanssen, is an illuminating description and historical account of what has been described as the most humane prison system in the world so far, though not without shortcomings.

The impact of these works, considered foundational in the growing field of AIC, should be felt among practitioners, researchers, academics, and policymakers concerned with advancing our understanding of the theoretical and practical aspects of AIC and with developing more effective and humanistic penal policy.

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