Pyerse Dandridge thought he was on the way up. After earning his BA in English from Sacramento State University, he was paying his daily expenses by toiling in a restaurant while working on his novel. But his purchase of five houses with faulty subprime loans cost him his freedom. After the houses were lost to foreclosure, Pyerse was prosecuted by the federal government for loan fraud and sentenced to 17 months in Herlong Prison Camp, near the California-Nevada border.

This book recounts Pyerse's experience inside Herlong and at the halfway house where he was sent to readjust...