Through intimate portraits of four exonerated prisoners, journalist Alison Flowers explores what happens to innocent people when the state flings open the jailhouse door and tosses them back, empty-handed into the unknown. From the front lines of the wrongful conviction capital of the United States--Cook County, Ill. These stories reveal serious gaps in the criminal justice system. Flowers depicts the collateral damage of wrongful convictions on families and communities, challenging the deeper problem of mass incarceration in the United States. As she tells each exoneree's powerful story, Flowers vividly shows that release from prison, though sometimes joyous and hopeful, is not a Hollywood ending--or an ending at all. Rather, an exoneree's first unshackled steps are the beginning of a new journey full of turmoil and triumph. Based on Chicago Public Media's yearlong multimedia series--a finalist for a national Online Journalism Award--this narrative piece of investigative journalism tells profoundly human stories of reclaiming one's life, overcoming adversity, and searching for purpose--at times with devastating consequences and courageous breakthroughs.
"Flowers, an investigative reporter based in Chicago, offers four vivid, in-depth ethnographic portraits of exonerated prisoners...Through these searing portraits, readers will witness the fissures in the criminal justice system and the damage they cause to the wrongfully convicted, their families, and their communities."
Publishers Weekly
"Every now and then, a tiny crack of light shows through the dark, brutal realities of the US criminal justice system, and a falsely convicted victim walks free of the prison doors after spending decades behind them. But for these former prisoners, exoneration is not the end of the story. It is only the beginning. And Alison Flowers, in Exoneree Diaries, effectively provides the narrative of their
Foreword Reviews, "Book of the Day"
"After their triumphant releases, we rarely hear more about the people whose lives are interrupted by lengthy prison stays for crimes they did not commit... In [these] deeply personal accounts, [Flowers] gives readers a near-complete look at each exoneree's life before, during, and after prison."
