In the neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen, 1959, a playground confrontation leaves two white youths bludgeoned to death by a gang of Puerto Rican kids. Sixteen-year-old Salvador Agron, who wore a red-lined satin cape, was charged with the murders, though no traces of blood were found on his dagger. At seventeen, Agron was the youngest person ever to be sentenced to death in the electric chair. After nearly two years in the Death House at Sing Sing Prison, a group of prominent citizens, including Eleanor Roosevelt and the governor of Puerto Rico, convinced Governor Rockefeller to commute Agron's sentence to one of life imprisonment. In 1973 Richard Jacoby began a voluminous, twelve-year correspondence with Agron. His Conversations with the Capeman is guaranteed to challenge deeply held notions of crime, punishment, and redemption. Salvador Agron was released from prison in 1979 and died in the Bronx in 1986 at the age of forty-two. With a new preface

New York, 1959: A playground confrontation in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan with a Puerto Rican gang leaves two boys stabbed to death, and a third critically injured. Because the victims were white and not members of any gang, the Puerto Rican invaders quickly became the incarnation of evil, and their leader, sixteen-year old Salvador Agron, the embodiment of all that was wrong with New York City at a time when teen gang activity was raging. Called the Capeman because of the red, satin-lined cape that he wore into battle the night of the playground killings, Agron became the focus of unrelenting media scrutiny. Convicted when he was barely seventeen years old, he was the youngest person ever to be sentenced to death in the electric chair. After nearly two years in the Death House at Sing Sing Prison, a group of prominent citizens, including Eleanor Roosevelt and the governor of Puerto Rico, convinced Governor Rockefeller to commute Agron's sentence to one of life imprisonment. Greenhaven Prison, 1974: Researching the spiritual transformation that sometimes effects death row inmates awaiting execution, Richard Jacoby, a graduate student from Brooklyn college, begins a voluminous correspondence with Agron. Convinced that Agron's story must be told, Jacoby promises to help him. Together, they begin a journey of transformation that has finally culminated, twenty-five years later, in the publication of this astonishing book. Salvador Agron's story was so powerful and heartfelt that it inspired songwriter Paul Simon to collaborate with Derek Walcott, winner of the Noble Prize for Literature, to risk their reputations to write and produce a multi-million dollar musical onBroadway in the late 1990's. Conversations with the Capeman is a story of great pathos, by turns shocking and heartbreaking. It is guaranteed to challenge our deeply-held notions of crime, punishment, redemption; and ultimately, the very nature of forgiveness.

An alphabetical listing of plays that have been banned throughout history with a short synopsis and reason for banning as well as profiles of the playwrights and other resource material.

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE BOSTON GLOBE, BOOKLIST, AND KIRKUS REVIEWS • From acclaimed historian Richard Norton Smith comes the definitive life of an American icon: Nelson Rockefeller—one of the most complex and compelling figures of the twentieth century. Fourteen years in the making, this magisterial biography of the original Rockefeller Republican draws on thousands of newly available documents and over two hundred interviews, including Rockefeller’s own unpublished reminiscences. Grandson of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, Nelson coveted the White House from childhood. “When you think of what I had,” he once remarked, “what else was there to aspire to?” Before he was thirty he had helped his father develop Rockefeller Center and his mother establish the Museum of Modern Art. At thirty-two he was Franklin Roosevelt’s wartime coordinator for Latin America. As New York’s four-term governor he set national standards in education, the environment, and urban policy. The charismatic face of liberal Republicanism, Rockefeller championed civil rights and health insurance for all. Three times he sought the presidency—arguably in the wrong party. At the Republican National Convention in San Francisco in 1964, locked in an epic battle with Barry Goldwater, Rockefeller denounced extremist elements in the GOP, a moment that changed the party forever. But he could not wrest the nomination from the Arizona conservative, or from Richard Nixon four years later. In the end, he had to settle for two dispiriting years as vice president under Gerald Ford. In On His Own Terms, Richard Norton Smith re-creates Rockefeller’s improbable rise to the governor’s mansion, his politically disastrous divorce and remarriage, and his often surprising relationships with presidents and political leaders from FDR to Henry Kissinger. A frustrated architect turned master builder, an avid collector of art and an unabashed ladies’ man, “Rocky” promoted fallout shelters and affordable housing with equal enthusiasm. From the deadly 1971 prison uprising at Attica and unceasing battles with New York City mayor John Lindsay to his son’s unsolved disappearance (and the grisly theories it spawned), the punitive drug laws that bear his name, and the much-gossiped-about circumstances of his death, Nelson Rockefeller’s was a life of astonishing color, range, and relevance. On His Own Terms, a masterpiece of the biographer’s art, vividly captures the soaring optimism, polarizing politics, and inner turmoil of this American Original. Praise for On His Own Terms “[An] enthralling biography . . . Richard Norton Smith has written what will probably stand as a definitive Life. . . . On His Own Terms succeeds as an absorbing, deeply informative portrait of an important, complicated, semi-heroic figure who, in his approach to the limits of government and to government’s relation to the governed, belonged in every sense to another century.”—The New Yorker “[A] splendid biography . . . a clear-eyed, exhaustively researched account of a significant and fascinating American life.”—The Wall Street Journal “A compelling read . . . What makes the book fascinating for a contemporary professional is not so much any one thing that Rockefeller achieved, but the portrait of the world he inhabited not so very long ago.”—The New York Times “[On His Own Terms] has perception and scholarly authority and is immensely readable.”—The Economist

This comprehensive collection from the legendary folk icon features lyrics from each of Simon's 10 original studio albums, as well as lyrics from the renowned Simon & Garfunkel records. 50 b&w photographs throughout.

Tears & Tiers is both a touching and disturbing fifty year mosaic depicting the Life & Times of Joseph "Mad Dog" Sullivan, Bank Robber, Escape Artisit (the only man to escape the infamous Attica prison) and notorious Hitman. While this never boring saga delves into his youthful years and forty-five years in prison to date, a hideous portrait of life within the walls. It also touches on his involvement with some past icons of our times such as Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Hoffa, and anothony "Fat Tony" Salerno, Boss of New York's Genovese crime family. Writen by Gail Sullivan his wife of over thirty years, while a great read Sullivan's life as such is not one you would wish upon anyone you hold dear.

Here is a fascinating, all-encompassing journey through the life and career of one of America’s most influential, and literate, songwriters. Beginning with Simon’s earliest days as an aspiring teenage idol and Tin Pan Alley songsmith, Paul Simon FAQ takes readers through Simon’s sometimes tempestuous relationship with singing partner Art Garfunkel, with whom he established the most popular musical duo in rock history. The book goes behind the scenes of Simon’s groundbreaking work at the forefront of world music and follows him to his emotional 2018 final concert before his retirement-from performing live. In addition, Paul Simon FAQ features chapters dedicated not only to Simon’s music but also his stage, screen, and television work, his devotion to charity, and more. Influences such as Bob Dylan, the Everly Brothers, and the Child Ballads are examined, while his songwriting is documented not only through his own recordings but also those of the myriad other artists who have covered his compositions. Fact-filled sidebars serve up a wealth of statistics and lists. In short, Paul Simon FAQ is the ultimate guide to the consummate performer.

Social Work in Juvenile and Criminal Justice Systems sets the standard of care for mental health treatment and the delivery of social services to crime victims, juvenile and adult offenders, and their families. The chapters, all authored by experts in the field and all committed to the mission of social justice, are written with the clear understanding that we cannot study criminal justice in a vacuum. Therefore, a major focus of the book is on the renewed growing sense of the profession’s obligation to social justice. Each chapter interconnects with the various components of juvenile and criminal justice. Another prominent aspect of the book is that it is strength-based. It views those involved in the criminal and juvenile justice systems as individuals rather than inmates or criminals, each with unique positive talents and abilities. The book is divided into four sections. The first section discusses forensic social work, including crime and delinquency theories, trends, and ethical issues. The second section prepares social workers for practice in correctional institutions and explores crisis intervention with victims of violence, reentry of adult offenders in society, and aging in prison. The third section covers assessment and intervention in child sexual abuse, mental health and substance abuse, interpersonal violence and prevention, child welfare and juvenile justice. The final section presents an overview on social work in the twenty-first century, which includes restorative justice and the justice system, new ways of delivering justice, domestic violence, neighborhood revitalization, race and ethnicity, and social work practice with LGBTQ offenders. This book will be the best single source on social work in criminal justice settings and will prove to be an invaluable resource for the many professionals who have responsibility for formulating and carrying out the mandates of the criminal justice system.

How progressive good intentions failed at Coxsackie, once a model New York State prison for youth offenders. Should prisons attempt reform and uplift inmates or, by means of principled punishment, deter them from further wrongdoing? This debate has raged in Western Europe and in the United States at least since the late eighteenth century. Joseph F. Spillane examines the failure of progressive reform in New York State by focusing on Coxsackie, a New Deal reformatory built for young male offenders. Opened in 1935 to serve “adolescents adrift,” Coxsackie instead became an unstable and brutalizing prison. From the start, the liberal impulse underpinning the prison’s mission was overwhelmed by challenges it was unequipped or unwilling to face—drugs, gangs, and racial conflict. Spillane draws on detailed prison records to reconstruct a life behind bars in which “ungovernable” young men posed constant challenges to racial and cultural order. The New Deal order of the prison was unstable from the start; the politics of punishment quickly became the politics of race and social exclusion, and efforts to save liberal reform in postwar New York only deepened its failures. In 1977, inmates took hostages to focus attention on their grievances. The result was stricter discipline and an end to any pretense that Coxsackie was a reform institution. Why did the prison fail? For answers, Spillane immerses readers in the changing culture and racial makeup of the U.S. prison system and borrows from studies of colonial prisons, which emblematized efforts by an exploitative regime to impose cultural and racial restraint on others. In today’s era of mass incarceration, prisons have become conflict-ridden warehouses and powerful symbols of racism and inequality. This account challenges the conventional wisdom that America’s prison crisis is of comparatively recent vintage, showing instead how a racial and punitive system of control emerged from the ashes of a progressive ideal.

Who among us cannot testify to the possibilities of the night? To the mysterious, shadowed intersections of music, smoke, money, alcohol, desire, and dream? The hours between dusk and dawn are when we are most urgently free, when high meets low, when tongues wag, when wallets loosen, when uptown, downtown, rich, poor, black, white, gay, straight, male, and female so often chance upon one another. Night is when we are more likely to carouse, fornicate, fall in love, murder, or ourselves fall prey. And if there is one place where the grandness, danger, and enchantment of night have been lived more than anywhere else -- lived in fact for over 350 years -- it is, of course, New York City. From glittering opulence to sordid violence, from sweetest romance to grinding lust, critic and historian Mark Caldwell chronicles, with both intimate detail and epic sweep, the story of New York nightlife from 1643 to the present, featuring the famous, the notorious, and the unknown who have long walked the city's streets and lived its history. New York Night ranges from the leafy forests at Manhattan's tip, where Indians and Europeans first met, to the candlelit taverns of old New Amsterdam, to the theaters, brothels, and saloon prizefights of the Civil War era, to the lavish entertainments of the Gilded Age, to the speakeasies and nightclubs of the century past, and even to the strip clubs and glamour restaurants of today. We see madams and boxers, murderers and drunks, soldiers, singers, layabouts, and thieves. We see the swaggering "Sporting Men,"the fearless slatterns, the socially prominent rakes, the chorus girls, the impresarios, the gangsters, the club hoppers, and the dead. We see none other than the great Charles Dickens himself taken to a tavern of outrageous repute and be so shocked by what he witnesses that he must be helped to the door. We see human beings making their nighttime bet with New York City. Some of these stories are tragic, some comic, but all paint a resilient metropolis of the night. In New York, uniquely among the world's great cities, the hours of darkness have always brought opposites together, with results both creative and violent. This is a book that is filled with intrigue, crime, sex, violence, music, dance, and the blur of neon-lit crowds along ribbons of pavement. Technology, too, figures in the drama, with such inventions as gas and electric light, photography, rapid transit, and the scratchy magic of radio appearing one by one to collaborate in a nocturnal world of inexhaustible variety and excitement. New York Night will delight history buffs, New Yorkers in love with their home, and anyone who wants to see how human nocturnal behavior has changed and not changed as the world's greatest city has come into being. New York Night is a spellbinding social history of the day's dark hours, when work ends, secrets reveal themselves, and the unimaginable becomes real.