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    Stolen Years: Stories of the Wrongfully Imprisoned
    Stolen Years: Stories of the Wrongfully Imprisoned
    Stolen Years: Stories of the Wrongfully Imprisoned
    Audiobook8 hours

    Stolen Years: Stories of the Wrongfully Imprisoned

    Written by Reuven Fenton

    Narrated by JD Jackson, Bahni Turpin and Will Damron

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    There is a grisly murder in your neighborhood. You stand outside with your neighbors and watch, or maybe you peek out your curtains. Hours pass, then days, maybe years. Then one day there is a knock at your door and the police take you in for questioning. Do you remember what happened? Do you have an alibi? Can you take countless hours of interrogation without breaking?
    This can happen to you. And it happens to more people than you think.
    Stories from The Fixer to The Shawshank Redemption have for decades catered to audiences' grim fascination with wrongful imprisonment-one's worst nightmare come to life. In Stolen Years, the stories are true. The ten former inmates profiled here fended off the blackest despair so they could keep fighting for freedom. Once out, they faced a new struggle: getting back to living after losing so many years behind bars.
    Intense, startling, and utterly compelling, Stolen Years will take listeners into the lives of the jailed innocent.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateNov 10, 2015
    ISBN9781494571849
    Stolen Years: Stories of the Wrongfully Imprisoned
    Author

    Reuven Fenton

    Reuven Fenton has been covering breaking news for the New York Post since 2007, and has earned national recognition for his exclusive reporting on myriad national stories. He is a graduate of Yeshiva University and Columbia University School of Journalism. Goyhood is his debut novel. 

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    Reviews for Stolen Years

    4/5

    24 ratings9 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Why I read it:
      Years ago a friend's ex-husband did something that could have landed him in prison. He'd been desperate, but, still, had broken the law. Around this time I was reading in bed one evening, my cat snuggled against my leg, when I was overwhelmed by the thought of what it must be like to go to prison. I shivered, then got up, grabbed a beverage and a snack, and snuggled back into bed with my book and cat, resolving to never do anything to land in prison.

      But what if you land in prison for a crime you didn't commit? It couldn't happen to you, right?

      In Stolen Years journalist Reuven Fenton tells the story of ten people who didn't think it could happen to them either. Yet these ten people were wrongfully convicted for crimes they didn't commit. These eight men and two women spent a combined total of 176 years in prison. The shortest time was nine years, the longest thirty. Can you imagine?

      False accusations, eyewitness miss-identification, false confessions made under duress, improper forensic science, and official/government misconduct are what wrongfully put these people behind bars. Studies estimate that between 2.3 to 5 per cent of people currently serving time in U.S. prisons are innocent. That's up to around one hundred thousand people wrongfully convicted. Not only are the inmates' life ruined, but the impact on family and friends is monumental. Not to mention that the real murders were left to walk the streets.

      These stories are compulsively readable yet I found myself only able to read one or two per sitting. It's overwhelming to read about real people who are plucked out of their lives and thrown into a nightmare. At the heart of the matter is a legal system that's based on winning or losing rather than justice.

      In his conclusion Fenton offers suggestions on how to change the system, what reforms some states are already implementing, and what citizens can do to help. One of the easiest things citizens can do is thank journalists who write about people who have been exonerated and share the stories on social media. Doing this will help keep the focus on such stories. The more the public learns about problems in the justice system and begin the put pressure on elected officials, the sooner reforms will be implemented. Visit innocencenetwork.org to learn more.

      Stolen Years is a quick read that will stay with me for a very long time. I highly recommend it to readers who are new to the issue of wrongful imprisonment and/or interested in our criminal justice system. It will no doubt make for interesting book group discussion.

      Source: Review copy provided by TLC Book Tours.
    • 4/5
      Stolen Years tells the stories of ten people wrongfully imprisoned, a popular topic these days, and is a valuable addition to the growing awareness of the problems in this country’s criminal justice system. This book is heartbreaking as each individual tells their story and the struggles they went through serving time for crimes they didn’t commit. These individuals’ lives were irrevocably changed and each was forced to come to terms with their circumstances. Though each was eventually exonerated, their struggles continued even after they were freed. These stories illustrate the need for reform in our criminal justice and prison systems.
    • 4/5
      Stolen Years: Stories of the Wrongfully Imprisoned is a compilation of true stories of individuals who were in prison for many years for crimes they did not commit. For some, prison changed them in good ways, for others it simply robbed them of families and friendships too far gone to get back when they were exonerated. These stories were eye opening. I've always believed in the justice system. I always thought I was ok with the fact that given the way our system runs, there are bound to be some innocent people serving time for crimes they did not commit. I feel somewhat differently after reading this book.
    • 4/5
      I found this to be a very easy and interesting read, but I agree with one of the previous reviewers that I would have liked to have read even more in depth profiles of these people and their trials (both in the courtroom and in life). However, I did appreciate the fact that the author did not shy away from the fact that most of the exonerated were already on a rocky road - previous records, addictions, jobs outside of the law - when they were wrongfully convicted. It made a very strong point that the legal system in America is indeed broken. I found the conclusion to be especially thought-provoking and informational.
    • 4/5
      Easy read. Thought provoking and frightening. I am still not 100% against the death penalty. I was hoping this would sway me more.
    • 3/5
      I don't want to discount the stories in this book, but I would have rather read fewer, more in depth stories. More information on how their trails went wrong, the process they went through to get exonerated, their families struggle, and more about their lives after. The stories are horrific and I can't imagine what I would do if this would happen to me or a family member. Thank goodness for groups like The Innocence Project. The message this books sends is that the system is broken and must be fixed. Hopefully these stories and others like them will get that started.
    • 5/5
      A very interesting read. The author saves us from the worst horrors of prison life, just telling us about some of the wrongs committed in prison. The true horror is how these innocent people ended up in prison: lazy D.A.'s, dishonest lawyers, witness's who outright lie, shabby investigation, and a hurry to close cases so it looks good on someone's resume. Some of the exonerated may have been drug dealers, addicts, thugs, and low life's before their conviction, but that does not mean that they deserved to go to prison for a crime they did not commit. Nothing can make up for the time lost to them or their families. Nothing can make up for the horrors they faced everyday in prison.Rueven Fenton tells each story well and with dignity. A real eye opener.
    • 4/5
      The advertisement for Stolen Years which appeared both in the description for LibraryThing Early Reviewers and on the back cover of the book state:“There is a grisly murder in your neighborhood. You stand outside with your neighbors and watch, or maybe you peek out your curtains. Hours pass, then days, maybe years. Then one day there is a knock at your door and the police take you in for questioning. Do you remember what happened? Do you have an alibi? Can you take countless hours of interrogation without breaking? This can happen to you. And it happens to more people than you think.”However, these statements are overly sensational when compared to the book, which tells the stories of ten innocent people who were wrongly convicted and spent from nine to thirty years in prison. Most of these ten were financially poor and had limited education, and some of them had criminal records. Moreover, they tended to be very young when arrested for the crime for which they were wrongly convicted. Still, anytime that a person is wrongly convicted, justice is not served.The stories in the book describe prison life as experienced by the incarcerated people, their adjustments to this life, their fights for their freedom, and their adjustments to life after prison. The miscarriage of justice in the way they were arrested, charged, and tried is also described for each. Most of these stories are very moving.However, the book brought up a several questions for me. Mr. Fenton does not tell how he picked the people to portray in the book. All of the people portrayed were from different states. Several of the men were very violent even in prison, and I wondered why they were chosen, especially when the ten make up such a miniscule number compared to the over 1400 innocent people released in the past 25 years or so. How typical are the ten described? The Conclusion of the book is valuable since it briefly discusses “the five most common causes of wrongful conviction: false confessions, eyewitness misidentification, improper forensic science, false accusations, and government misconduct” (listed on p. 227).The headings of the chapters on the individuals give the person’s name, state, and number of years of incarceration. Additional information such as length of sentence, age of person when arrested, and race would have been useful to have.The book contains a few endnotes which include bibliographical references but no index.
    • 4/5
      One of the few areas of agreement in a contentious Congress is the need to reform the criminal justice system. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree that many people are incarcerated for far too long for minor offenses, such as marijuana possession, and that this is an issue that can be fixed.This interest makes Reuven Fenton's book, Stolen Years- Stories of the Wrongly Imprisoned a topical book, and hopefully one that will be the beneficiary of this new scrutiny. Fenton, a reporter for The New York Post, has written about ten people who were falsely convicted and spent many years in prison before having their convictions overturned and winning their freedom.While reading these stories, it is hard to fathom how so many people can fall through the cracks of the justice system. Whether through incompetence or malfeasance on the part of police and lawyers, innocent people's lives are destroyed and guilty people get away with crimes, allowing them to hurt other people.Many of these stories have similiarities; someone is brought in for questioning, and knowing that they are innocent, agree to speak with the police without a lawyer present. They are kept for hours in a room, barraged with questions, and told that if they just tell them the truth and confess, the police will work with them and they can go home.Once they sign a confession, filled in with details by the police, the person is charged with the crime and their signed confession is used to convict them of a crime they did not commit.They still can't believe that they could possibly be convicted of something they didn't do, and yet they find themselves in prison. Many of them spend their time working on their appeals, believing that they can find a way out.One of the more interesting aspects of the book is the description of prison life. In the notorious Angola Prison in Louisiana, Damon Thibodeaux was shocked to discover that their are public tours of the prison, where people look at the inmates like they are animals in a zoo.James Klupperberg was sentenced to Menard Correctional Center in southern Illinois, where he found that the inmates literally ran the prison, before the reforms of 1996 ended that practice. He described it as a "little city", where drugs were sold openly while people hung out on their corner, just like on the streets outside. (Think: TV's "The Wire")The guys at the top of the chain of command had luxuries inside their cells- VCRs, portable washers, and stereos. Drugs were regularly smuggled into the prison, often by corrections officers. One enterprising person hit golf balls full of cocaine over the prison walls from the outside.When they finally do get out of prison, the people who showed them kindness were often the correction officers. Many of them were happy to see these people get their justice and a chance to start a new life.Another interesting theme of the book was what happened to these people when they were released after 15 years or more inside. The world had changed dramatically, and they faced many challenges, like finding employment. Even though their convictions were overturned, try explaining a 15-year employment gap on a job application.The first meal outside of prison is very important, and we get descriptions of that. Many of them find it difficult to sleep in a soft bed when they get home.Reading about a man falsely accused by his own daughter of rape, or a woman who lost her children when she was falsely imprisoned for killing her husband is heartbreaking. To be accused by someone you don't even know is bad enough, but to have family members turn against you is just unfathomable.Anyone with interest in the justice system, and fans of the movie The Shawshank Redemption (which is everyone, right?) will want to read Stolen Years. It is enlightening and I recommend it.