25 Years of Hell

Book excerpt: 25 Years of Hell is not your ordinary prison book. It is a unique and personal story of an African American Corrections Officer in the corrupt, primarily Caucasian, upstate New York State Department of Corrections, where being Black is considered a crime. The book dives into the pervasive, systemic abuse and corruption that plagues the Department. Told from the perspective of someone who lived it – for twenty-eight years. When everyone is against you due to the color of your skin – from the civilian plumber to the highest levels in the Department, it is one racial epithet, incident or lynching, after the next. 25 Years of Hell is a case of discrimination and retaliation, jolted by an endless shot of racial steroids. While the robes and hoods of the KKK are overtly nowhere in sight, the individuals who would be wearing them are instead dressed in officer uniforms, thereby remaining covert and outside the auspices of State and Federal authorities. Hell knows no fury like a corrections officer scorned. 25 Years of Hell is a must read, tell-all story of the most ruthless and wretched racist practices, told through the lens of Curtis Brown, who barely survived the daily doses of the 25 years of racial hell he endured.