Embedded journalist Shane Bauer delivers a gripping account of his time working undercover as a prison guard at a private prison in Louisiana. Accepting a position under minimal scrutiny and for meager wages, Bauer exposes the cruel and dehumanizing conditions fostered by a profit-driven penal system. 'American Prison' serves as both a personal narrative of Bauer's descent into the prison's brutal culture and an incisive historical study of for-profit prisons in the United States. His investigation reveals unsettling connections to the legacy of slavery and uncovers the systemic neglect and abuse that prisoners, and oftentimes the guards themselves, are subjected to. This book is an urgent and scathing critique of the private prison industry and a compelling plea for reform in a world where incarceration equates to big business.