Talking Reform: Making and Unmaking a Life in Canada's Prisons

Abandoned as an infant and victimized by his adoptive father, Mac began drinking heavily in his early teens. He left home at fifteen to work in the rugged and isolated logging camps of northern British Columbia, earning respect through hard work, heavy drinking, and violent confrontations with men twice his age. At eighteen Mac spiralled into a life of crime – arson, theft, and drug dealing – and at twenty-four was convicted of murder and sentenced to hard time. This only deepened his addic...