"When he graduated from Harvard Medical School, Jim O'Connell was asked by the medical school Dean to spend one year setting up a program to care for the homeless population in Boston. It became Jim O'Connell's life calling, to help people known as "rough sleepers." For the past three decades, Dr. O'Connell has run the Boston Healthcare for the Homeless Program, which he helped to create. Affiliated with Massachusetts General Hospital, the program...

"Do Penance or Perish tells the fascinating story of Ireland's Good Shepherd Magdalen Asylums. First brought to widespread public attention by the 2002 film The Magdalen Sisters, the asylums were homes that were founded in the mid-nineteenth century for the detention of prostitutes undergoing reform. The inmates of these asylums were discouraged - and many forcibly prevented - from leaving and sometimes were detained for life. Put to work without...