When a cocksure father hatches a simple insurance fraud scheme, he has no idea its failure will lead his family into the maelstrom of America’s most violent prison riot. High Desert Blood takes you inside the walls of the Penitentiary of New Mexico, offering a gripping true crime journey through the heart of a system that failed its inmates, its staff, and the society it was meant to protect.
         Through meticulous research and compelling storytelling, Andrew Brininstool unveils the conditions that led to the infamous 1980 riot, a catastrophic event that left a permanent scar on the American penal landscape. Snaking through the storyline, we meet Gary Williams, a nonviolent first-time offender thrust into a world of chaos, and his brother, Jeff, a career criminal who mysteriously vanishes during the riot. After his release, Gary’s relentless quest for the truth about his brother’s disappearance leads him to a similar tragic fate.
         This book offers an unflinching look at the brutality and corruption that plagued the prison, shedding light on the systemic issues that made such a disaster inevitable. High Desert Blood is not just a chronicle of violence and despair; it’s a call for reform.
 

A groundbreaking collection of writings by Michel Foucault and the Prisons Information Group documenting their efforts to expose France’s inhumane treatment of prisoners

Founded by Michel Foucault and others in 1970–71, the Prisons Information Group (GIP) circulated information about the inhumane conditions within the French prison system. Intolerable makes available for the first time in English a fully annotated compilation of materials produced by the GIP during its brief but influential existence, including an exclusive new interview with GIP member Hélène Cixous and writings by Gilles Deleuze and Jean Genet. 

These archival documents—public announcements, manifestos, reports, pamphlets, interventions, press conference statements, interviews, and round table discussions—trace the GIP’s establishment in post-1968 political turmoil, the new models of social activism it pioneered, the prison revolts it supported across France, and the retrospective assessments that followed its denouement. At the same time, Intolerable offers a rich, concrete exploration of Foucault’s concept of resistance, providing a new understanding of the arc of his intellectual development and the genesis of his most influential book, Discipline and Punish.

Presenting the account of France’s most vibrant prison resistance movement in its own words and on its own terms, this significant and relevant collection also connects the approach and activities of the GIP to radical prison resistance movements today.