“[W]hen you go through them one by one by one, they raise complex and genuine questions like ‘What is the meaning of punishment?’ and ‘What is freedom?'” 

—Vesla Mae Weaver, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology, on the more than 3,300 first-person narratives of the American Prison Writing Archive, which describes life and conditions inside 400 correctional facilities in 47 states, and which recently transferred to Johns Hopkins’ Sheridan Libraries. The New York Times, April 17, 2023