Jennifer Wynn has been going in for six years, first as a journalist and then as a teacher of male inmates in a unique rehabilitation program known as Fresh Start.

Wynn takes readers over the Rikers Island bridge, into the jails and back out--to the communities where her students were born and raised. She chronicles their journeys as they struggle to "go straight" and find respect in a city that fears and rejects them. Heart-warming stories of a handful of ex-offenders who have transformed their lives offer hope to a crime-weary public. Interviews with leading criminologists shed light on the motivations of inner-city offenders and why nearly 80% of Rikers inmates return to jail within a year. And Wynn describes how Rikers has been transformed in recent years from one of the world's most violent jails into one of its safest.

Capturing voices from the other side, the 11,000 correction officers who live and work in the jails, Inside Rikers shows why many guards believe that they, too, are "doing time."