A lively array of selections from the earliest recorded convict autobiographies, examining crimes, arrests and convictions, punishments inflicted, survival techniques, and spiritual awakenings. Hard labor in coal mines, whippings, solitary confinement in bare unheated cells, water torture, and iron maidens — these are just a few of the punishments meted out to these prisoners and vividly recounted in these selections. Including the tales of the United States’ earliest gangsters like Thomas “Cole” Younger, Light-fingered Jim, and the James Brothers.