No Place Like Home

"When a prison officer known only as "the Captain" is taken hostage while on the job, it sets a chain of events in motion. Through flashbacks, readers learn about the characters' pasts and get an insider's view of day-to-day routines inside a state prison, which is anything but routine even on a normal day. No place like home provides a realistic look at prison life--not the glamorized, action-filled perspective shown in movies and television. Thanks to Keith Hellwig's decades of experience in the field, the book challenges what the public thinks it knows about the people who live and work in prison--officers and inmates alike. Correctional officers are not stereotypical brutes, liquor-swilling fools or action heroes; they are ordinary men and women performing their duties. Likewise, inmates aren't brilliant masterminds or monsters; they are flawed human beings who have made mistakes. In reality, officers and inmates share a simple dream to go home at the end of the day. The author invites readers to step into the world of prison life, realizing the humanity not only of the inmates but also of the officers who guide and protect them, told from the perspective of someone who has been there."--Page 4 of cover