You Can't Win

First published in 1926, "You Can't Win" is an amazing autobiography of a criminal from a forgotten time in American history by Jack Black, a burglar, safe-cracker, highwayman, and petty thief.
The book recounts Black's adventures in the hobo underworld, freight-hopping around the western United States and Canada, with the bulk of incidents taking place from the late 1880s to around 1910. He narrates of becoming a thief, burglar, and member of the yegg (safe-cracking) subculture, exploring the topics of crime, criminal justice, vice, addictions, penology, and human folly from various viewpoints, from observer to consumer to supplier, and from victim to perpetrator. It is a true lost masterpiece, one of the most legendary cult books ever published in America.

"Even at that age I had stumbled upon one truth, and that is, the best way to get misinformed is to ask a lot of questions." —Jack Black (You Can't Win)

Jack Black (1871-1932) was a hobo and professional burglar. Born in 1871 in New Westminster, British Columbia, [1] he was raised from infancy in the U.S. state of Missouri in the town of Maysville and eventually Kansas City. He wrote You Can't Win (Macmillan, 1926), a memoir or sketched autobiography describing his days on the road and life as an outlaw. Black's book was written as an anti-crime book urging criminals to go straight, but it is also his statement of belief in the futility of prisons and the criminal justice system, hence the title of the book.