Not On My Watch: A Beloved Prison Wardens 30 Year Fight For Justice In The Prison System

by Bob Hatrak, Joan Hatrak

Overview

The memoir 'Not On My Watch', by Bob Hatrak, who was the youngest warden of a maximum-security prison in America, Rahway State, is an inspirational story of how one man with great vision, overcame personal adversity to become one of the most notable and progressive prison reformers of our time. His approach to rehabilitation was 'do-it-yourself'. Inmates were empowered to envision their path after incarceration and were given the choice to join self-rehab groups with common interests. Bob's insight and compassion was the driving force that created the "Scared Straight" program, which he developed in the 1970's, and is still being used today throughout the United States and abroad, as a means of deterring juvenile crime. He is also credited for enabling 'one of the most unbelievable stories in all of boxing', that of James Scott, a convicted murderer, and his rise to be the contender to the title of 'light heavy-weight champion of the world' … while he was incarcerated. Bob's story is personal, professional, gut-wrenching, inspirational … but most importantly… a reminder that as a society, we have a long way to travel on the path to justice, equality and reform

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781940178691
Publisher:	Villa Magna Publishing
Publication date:	03/29/2024
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	322
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Now retired, Bob Hatrak, the famed Rahway State Prison warden, had a rich work history. Out of college, he began working as a high school teacher and head basketball coach. He started a career in corrections in 1967 when he accepted the Director of Education position at the Trenton State Prison (New Jersey). In 1973, he was asked to assume the warden's position at the notorious, violent, and riot-torn Rahway State Prison. Serving there, he built a national and international reputation as a reformer. Under Bob's leadership, violence decreased dramatically and Rahway became a prisoner rehabilitation model featuring inmate Self-Rehab Enterprise Groups. He set up a 'Lifers' Group, which became famously known as "Scared Straight" and the Rahway State Prison Boxing Association, a Vocational Trades School, which helped inmates, including the legendary Light Heavyweight, James Scott, navigate professional boxing careers. In recognition for his contributions to boxing, Hatrak has been inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame. His approach to prison management helped Rahway go from its prior reputation of 'a notorious, violent, and riot-torn prison' to one that the American Justice Institute honored. Under Bob's watch, a national research project included Rahway Prison among the five most stable maximum-security prisons in America. Once he left Rahway, Bob led a corrections department in the Pacific Northwest, worked as a state department of corrections director and deputy director, and owned and operated a successful prison consulting business with his wife Joan. They did that for twenty-two years. Their client list included many state and county prisons, jails, and department corrections. Joan and Bob live in a senior retirement community in Portland, Oregon. They have two children and four grandchildren.

Editorial Reviews

03/18/2024

This uplifting, told-with-humility memoir centers on one warden’s efforts to bring humanity to American prisons in the 1970s, and to reduce recidivism, encourage education, and change a punitive system. At New Jersey’s Rahway Prison, Hatrak pioneered rehabilitation programs, vocational training, a wildly successful boxing association, and the program that eventually became known as “Scared Straight,” setting the model for reform. Hatrak, writing with his wife Joan, tells an inspiring story of the upbringing that led to this humane approach to justice and his conviction that each inmate must be seen and treated as individuals whose potential needs nourishment. Especially important to him: encouraging each prisoner to envision and prepare for a life after release.

Written in a quick, engaging style, Not on My Watch makes Hatrak’s upbringing as exciting as the reform stories that follow it. The authors touchingly celebrate the “proud” city of Trenton, New Jersey, and its street sports, horse-drawn ice cart, and group of little rascals who called themselves, playfully, the Beatty Street Gang. He grew up shining shoes, delivering newspapers, and searching for what’s next, from marching with his high school band in New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade in ill-fitting pants to getting scouted as a pitcher by the then-Philladelphia Athletics. As an education major at Rider college, an accident set him on another course, though, and he soon took a job in the mailroom at Trenton State Prison, censoring letters—and being treated with unexpected kindness by the warden.

Hatrak’s accounts of reforming Rahway, meanwhile, offer insight and surprise even for readers already familiar with Scared Straight, the heartening effectiveness of Hatrak’s reforms, or the rousing story of James Scott, the convicted murderer who, though Rahway’s Boxing Association, became a real-world championship contender. Unflinching in the face of the violence and despair, Hatrak’s story is a reminder of the difference dedicated people can make on issues of justice and equality. Near the end, Hatrak writes simply of the prisoners, “They did themselves proud.”

Takeaway: Rousing story of Bob Hatrak’s efforts to reform American prisons.

Comparable Titles: Shane Bauer’s American Prison, Nell Bernstein's Burning Down the House.

Production grades Cover: B Design and typography: A Illustrations: N/A Editing: A- Marketing copy: A-

BookLife Reviews