Derailed: How Being a Lawyer Taught Me to Survive in Prison - Softcover

Mark E. Roseman, JD, is the executive director of both the Steve Frankel Group, LLC (sfrankelgroup.com), which provides continuing education courses for mental health professionals, and Practice-Legacy Programs (practice-legacy.com), which prepares continuity-of-care plans for mental health practices.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Mark graduated from the Ohio State University with a bachelor of science degree in agriculture. After completing his undergraduate and postgraduate studies at Ohio State, he graduated from the Western State University College of Law in Fullerton, California. He was admitted to the California bar in 1978. Originally a solo practitioner, Mark became a civil litigation partner with a law firm in Santa Ana, California.

He became a tenacious advocate for survivors of childhood sexual abuse in 1990--a time when the national conversation on the topic was hushed and subdued. Mark was a member of the task force that drafted the first delayed-discovery statute in California to extend the statute of limitations for survivors of childhood sexual abuse to sue for damages in civil court. He lobbied in Sacramento for the passage of the law he helped draft, Code of Civil Procedure Section 340.1, extending the statute of limitations for locating childhood predators and enabling survivors access to the courts from age nineteen until age twenty-six.

Mark's other professional achievements include serving as a temporary judge, serving as an arbitrator, being coauthor of mental-health-and-the-law articles, and being lead counsel on published California cases on legal issues pertaining to sexual abuse litigation.

Mark is the coauthor of You the Jury: A Novel (2015) and author of Derailed: How Being a Lawyer Taught Me to Survive in Prison (September 2016).

"Roseman's self-disclosures are refreshingly profound. His memoir soberly describes how he avoided being brought down by the negative situational power of the California prison system by being proactive and consciously avoiding the institutional boredom of prison as well as prison dehumanization. The Lucifer Effect, about which I've written, passed over him; Mark's transformational skills enabled him to remain a good guy."
-- Philip Zimbardo, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Stanford University; creator of the Stanford Prison Experiment; and author of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

"The motto of the American criminal justice system is 'Equal Justice under the Law,' but sadly, the reality for many decades has not matched the blindfolded lady holding a scale. There is one form of justice for the wealthy, the famous, the well-connected, and those from the upper socioeconomic strata and something qualitatively different for the poor or middle class, who comprise 99.9 percent of the American population. Mark Roseman's detailed recollection of his experiences with the penal system highlights this disparity in many facets. I urge those who are genuinely concerned with inequities in the administration of criminal justice to read his work carefully."
-- Alan I. Bigel, PhD, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

"Using the incidents and stories from his own experience, Mark Roseman provides us with a window into prison culture that is startling in detail, both jolting and riveting in its description. It opens a world lived in by millions of Americans and yet a world hidden from the notice of the majority. It showed me how what we don't know about the American prison system leads to public toleration of values and practices that, in many ways, betray our ideals."
-- Cathy A. Small, PhD, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Northern Arizona University

"Roseman's fascinating and unique account of incarceration in California avoids the clichés of many prison exposés. He shows how state and federal efforts at prison reform have fallen short. His descriptions of patterns of communication, domination, sex, trust/mistrust, and respect/disrespect among prisoners is vivid and disturbing. Roseman honestly addresses the pervasiveness of racial discrimination in the prison system and decries the bleak opportunities post-prison life offers to ex-cons."
-- Charles Jaret, Professor Emeritus, Department of Sociology, Georgia State University

"Those of us who are adventuresome and curious often make great efforts to travel to primitive cultures to immerse ourselves in their unique customs, foods, and language. Why not experience this right here on American soil? Mark Roseman's Derailed is a compelling account of his two-year prison experience. Roseman, a middle-class lawyer, served time in prison as a result of poor judgments that could have been made by many of us. If you think prison is for others, read this book and then think again!" -- Sandra Haber, PhD, Fellow, American Psychological Association
  "This is an important book that needs to be read. It skillfully alternates between the shocking real and mind-boggling surreal of life inside California prisons today. Written unselfishly, with simple, heartfelt, and compelling truth by a former prisoner, it alerts all of us to the evil reality of our modern prisons--places that do far more harm than 'rehabilitation.'"  -- Martin J. Silverman, public policy speaker and blogger, retired attorney, marketing director, and public speaking coach