The memoir Re-Incarceration: A True Story of Life Inside the Revolving Door of Jail provides an unfiltered account of Michael 'Tyke' McCarthy's criminal history spanning five decades, beginning when he was eight years old. McCarthy spent more than half of his 63 years incarcerated, with his arrest record including armed bank robbery committed at age fifteen, numerous burglaries, and repeated parole violations that returned him to prison multiple times. His experiences highlight what the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports as a widespread phenomenon: approximately 44 percent of released prisoners are rearrested within their first year of release, creating what is commonly called the 'revolving door' of incarceration.
McCarthy served time across multiple correctional systems, including California Youth Authority facilities, state prisons like San Quentin, and federal penitentiaries at the Florence complex in Colorado and Seagoville in Texas. The memoir details his experiences within these institutions, including time spent at facilities nicknamed 'gladiator school' for their violence, his participation in prison firefighting programs, and the role alcohol addiction played in his repeated returns to incarceration. He recounts a prison riot at the Florence Federal Correctional Institution that resulted in the loss of his front teeth, illustrating the dangerous conditions within these facilities.
Despite growing up in an upper-middle-class Irish Catholic family in Marin County where his father played for the San Francisco Seals baseball team, McCarthy describes himself as the 'jet-black sheep' drawn to motorcycles and criminal activity from an early age. This background challenges assumptions about socioeconomic factors in criminal behavior. McCarthy was sentenced to ten years in federal prison for armed bank robbery in 2000, with thirty family members and friends appearing at his sentencing hearing, demonstrating the widespread impact of incarceration on communities.
After his release, parole violations related to alcohol led to an additional fourteen months of incarceration, exemplifying how substance abuse issues contribute to recidivism. When asked about his decades of criminal activity and imprisonment, McCarthy stated: 'It was an embarrassing waste of time.' In 2023, McCarthy experienced five strokes while working at a demolition site, leaving him with partial paralysis and vision impairment. He currently resides in Northern California with his wife, Reba, and recently completed his parole for the first time in four decades, marking a significant personal milestone.
Re-Incarceration joins a growing body of literature examining the American criminal justice system from the perspective of those who have lived within it. The book is published by Parker Publishers and represents McCarthy's first published work as he transitions from his career as a demolition worker. McCarthy's detailed account of his experiences across multiple prison systems provides valuable insight into the factors that contribute to repeated incarceration, including institutional violence, substance abuse, and the challenges of reentry into society after release.
