The devil's front porch

by Lester Douglas Johnson, Bill D. Schul (Foreword & Annotation)

Here is remarkable document—the vivid recollection of a man who for thirty years was an inmate of the Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing.
To say that the prison at Lansing was bad is hardly necessary. From its founding in 1864 through the decade of the twenties, Lansing was one of the most feared and hated prisons in the country. Men who had survived the ordeal of a sentence the called it The Devil's Front Porch—the nearest thing to hell. The system for handling convicted felons was traditional—"break him or kill him". Most of the prison personnel set about this task with zeal and dedication. An uncommon feature about Mr. Johnson's story is that he has told it with objectivity and with compassion both for his fellow prisoners and for their tormentors.
The book is written from the vantage point of one who is constantly a member of the cast, always on stage but never the star. His story opens at the turn of the century when Lansing still housed some of the outlaws left over from riotous times, and the reader is carried from the days of the buggy to the days of the jet, discovering meanwhile that the earth turns considerably more slowly in the murky world behind prison walls.

226 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1970

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the story of an inmate at the Kansas State Penitentary and includes tales from the inmates' perspectives on the happenings in a pen in the early to mid 1900s. I was not too impressed by this book but would recommend it to those of you who are interested in how the penal system worked during these times.