Angles on Corrections

Editor's Note: One of the writers is a former airborne.

Police-Writers.com, a website dedicated to listing state and local police officers who have authored books, added three writers who give different perspectives on the corrections system; one is a cop who is an expert in conducting investigations in prisons; one is a cop who went to prison; and, the third wrote a thriller were the offenders skip the prison experience.

William Bell comes from a family whose involvement with law enforcement dates back to the Civil War. His own education and career spans more than thirty years. Greatly influenced by his father, a retired Police Inspector, he began with the Dearborn Police Department (Michigan) where his responsibilities included work in road patrol, SWAT, undercover narcotics, and pattern crime. For nearly twenty years the author has been employed by the Colorado Department of Corrections, where he ultimately gained his expertise with the Criminal Investigation Division. He is noted for taking the investigation of prison crime into the streets. He reflects is practical as well as academic excellence in his book, Practical Criminal Investigations in Correctional Facilities.

Lines Crossed is the true story of Alex Richardson, a Lake County Sheriff’s Department (Indiana) a narcotics detective who was ultimately sentenced to federal prison for taking a bribe from a drug dealer. His book, Lines Crossed: the True Story of an Undercover Cop, describes the activities of the County drug task force; and, “he also reveals his gambling habit, and the corruption that takes place while working narcotics.”

Alex Richardson grew up in Gary, Indiana. He left at the age of 18, joining the Army where he was a military policeman. He graduated Airborne School becoming a paratrooper, then finished his enlistment by serving in a special operations unit at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. After his military duties he served as a patrolman on the Lake County, Indiana, Sheriff’s Department before serving over two years as an undercover detective on the Lake County Drug Task Force.

Mark Osterman, a Detroit Police Department police officer wrote two crime thrillers: Happiness is a Green Light and Justifiable Homicide. According to the book description from Justifiable Homicide, “In this sad aftermath, Jack began his secret war on crime. He joined the Detroit Police Department and rose through the ranks to become a detective. However, Jack's after-hours activities included a different method for reducing crime statistics. This one-man crusade served as judge, jury and executioner.

Police-Writers.com now hosts 429 police officers (representing 189 police departments) and their 908 books in six categories, there are also listings of United States federal law enforcement employees turned authors, international police officers who have written books and civilian police personnel who have written books.