Prisons and jails, I tend to feel that you're actually safer as a journalist than you might think, certainly more than it appears.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think we will be safer when we can concentrate law enforcement and criminal justice resources and energies on those individuals who truly need, for the safety of society... to be incarcerated.
That is my major concern: writers who are in prison for writing.
I will say that the prison regime is rather a good one for a writer because you have plenty of time to write.
There is no higher claim to journalistic integrity than going to jail to protect a source.
I went into journalism to learn the craft of writing and to get close to the world I wanted to write about - police and criminals, the criminal justice system.
Working in a prison, is, to my mind, similar in ways to working in a coal mine. It's going to scare away a lot of people.
Crime stories are our version of sitting round a camp fire and telling tales. We enjoy being scared under safe circumstances. That's why there's no tradition of crime writing in countries that have wars.
Well, I don't think prisons are the answer to everything, obviously.
I'm unique for a suspense author in that I don't have a specialty background. A lot of suspense writers used to be lawyers or crime beat reporters. I didn't even know a cop when I started out. I finally figured out that I could visit prisons - I just had to be willing to make the phone calls.
I'm not an investigative journalist; I don't track crime or police blotters.
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