Prison Writers | Where Prisoners Have A Voice

Bizarre or Funny

The Secret Guide to Prison Tattoos From a Prison Tattoo Artist

Childhood

Heather D’Aoust Was Raped at Fourteen, Weeks Before Killing Her Mother

How I Became a Sex Slave to a Sadistic BDSM Master (and other tales)

It is strange to look back on your life and try to understand how a devout Christian child could voluntarily become a slave to a sadistic BDSM Master (acronym for Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadomasochism and Masochism.) My parents [...]

By Dorothy Maraglino

Daily Survival, Lifers & Solitary

In Solitary, If You’re Not Mentally Ill Already, You Will Be

After spending months in isolation, you start to feel as though you have been buried alive. You have people who self-mutilate by cutting themselves. Or they swallow things like fingernail clippers and pens. Others drink cleaning solutions just to go to the hospital to escape reality.

By Tyler Metzner

Fellow Inmates

Who Killed My Cellmate?

I've always turned to literature as my means of escape, especially in the midst of painful situations and despair. So, it's only fitting that I would relate most with Virginia Woolf the night I'd find my bunky lying dead on a [...]

By Derek Trumbo

Childhood

Ask Yourself: After a Childhood Like This, Would YOU Be In Prison?

Living in a household ruled by addiction, there were many nights spent with hunger as my friend. I would open the refrigerator only to find some moldy cheese and an empty gallon of a milk jug filled with water.

By Fontaine Baker

Reform & Reentry

It’s A Proven No-Brainer: Educate Prisoners, Reduce Crime

The study also showed that the release of 1,000 prisoners who had earned bachelor degrees while in prison would save Texas $59,000,000 yearly.

By Ed Lyon

Daily Survival, Going to Prison, Violence & Corruption

Life in Prison When Prison Gangs Run the Show

Most people join gangs just to be accepted or needed. Or they want the feeling that they’re someone important. Or they want to be a part of something because they really had no real friends growing up.

By Antwan Johnson

Fellow Inmates, Going to Prison, Hope & Change, Juveniles in Prison

The Miracle Man Who Gave My Worthless Life New Meaning

I kind of figured I was destined for prison. I'm dead serious. I was born a realist and knew that the life I was born into meant there was little to no hope for a prosperous future. When I was [...]

By Nickolas Laumann

Topics
...Choose what interests you

Daily Survival Editor's Choice Violence & Corruption Hope & Change Reform & Reentry Fellow Inmates Bizarre or Funny Lifers & Solitary Going to Prison My Crime Featured Article Coronavirus Juveniles in Prison Prison Love and Sex Childhood Race

Daily Survival, Lifers & Solitary

15 Years In Solitary Confinement And Look At Me Now

About a week after Thanksgiving of 2004, I stabbed a prison guard when I was at the Barrington Unit, located between Houston and Galveston, and got an additional 99 year sentence for that assault. I spent the next fifteen [...]

By J.S. Slaymaker

Editor's Choice, Reform & Reentry

Will I Die of Coronavirus Before My Release Date in 100 Days?

I hope not to die in the next 145 days. Unfortunately, the possibility of death remains real. In the event of my demise, I ask that my story be told as an example of everything we have gotten wrong with mass incarceration policies. And that my death not be in vain, but serve as a rally cry for those seeking to repair a broken system that routinely discounts the lives of black and brown people.

By Benny Hernandez

Reform & Reentry, Violence & Corruption

Getting Parole Is A Sham In Texas

The best thing about being in prison is getting out. To do that, an inmate has two options, aside from dying while inside. The first is to serve it out in full, day for day. The second is get out [...]

By J.S. Slaymaker

Contributing Writers
Meet the men and women behind the stories

Chris Dankovich and Gabe Ortega

Chris Dankovich and Jerry Metcalf

Leonard Andre Scovens Jr.

Leonard Scovens

les raymond

Loen Kelley

Loen Kelley and Chris Dankovich

Sex in Prisons: Mama Herc and Fighting the Ninja

Mama Herc was a genuine prison legend, infamous beyond his razor wire boundaries. When I was in the county jail for a couple of years, fighting my case through the courts, recidivists would share chain gang horror stories about what would [...]

By Charles Norman

Editor's Choice, Race, Violence & Corruption

Why Some White, Rural Prison Guards Hate Urban Blacks

We face pure uncut racism everyday we wake up. We deal with these correctional officers every day, many of us trying to respect them, knowing deep down in our hearts that they don't like blacks. They haven't even been around a lot of black people before. There are little subtle things they do.

By Antwan Johnson

Editor's Choice, Hope & Change

Writers Say Thanks to Prison Writers! (and Loen)

They made a journalist out of me. And that, my friends, is something of extreme significance. I came to prison with an eight grade education. I have a thriving writing career now. I owe it all to Prison Writers and Loen for believing in me.

Childhood, Lifers & Solitary

Here’s What Happens When You Grow Up in Prison

The reality is, prison has in fact made me worse than who I was before I came here. It has made me shallow and cold, like winter. It has made me recognize anger, loneliness, hate, and despair -- as everyday feelings. Feelings like happiness, and love, definitely don’t exist.

By Dusstin Longtin