Writer: Jerry Metcalf

Jerry Metcalf recounts the terrifying moments of a deadly fire in prison, when guards fled through choking smoke and locked inmates were left to suffocate—until…

Jerry Metcalf explains how prison overdose deaths—like that of a young inmate who died alone on a cell floor after using K2—expose the brutal failure…

One of the best jobs in prison is to train prison dogs. Jerry Metcalf describes how training prison dogs under the philosophy of the five…

Jerry Metcalf tells the touching story of an inmate living in a Michigan prison  managed to develop a college art course for prisoners across the…

I was sitting here talking with my buddy Joshua (Nova) earlier, and he made a good point. Everyone in the entire world talks to one…

The other day, my buddy Gary Wolf (think older dude, yet in really good shape) went on a visit with one of his family members.…

Late last night while doing a suicide watch all alone in the hole, I sat there thinking that if I had some GoPros, then I…

The other day, while walking down the hallway here in my prison housing unit, I noticed something odd lying on the floor. I stooped to…

Dear readers, On September 16, 1995, I shot and killed a man. For that crime I’m deeply and profoundly sorry. No matter how much I’d…

Another mentally deranged kid marches into a school and mows down nineteen other kids and two teachers with an assault rifle. How the hell do…

“Yeah, they shocked his bitch-ass back to life,” a white prison guard said to a few other white guards standing around him laughing at his…

A few days back, I sat in my cell listening to two white prison guards outside my window hold a conversation about systemic racism in…

My original appellate attorney did not raise my judge's use of acquitted conduct at sentencing as a due-process violation. But in 2006 I hired James…

The LGBTQ community is the most persecuted group of people in Michigan prisons. Between prison guards, other convicts, and the overall MDOC administration, LGBTQ prisoners…

Somewhere back around 2006, a glaringly bright lightbulb burst to life inside my skull, and I realized that I needed Alcoholics Anonymous. Actually, to be…

One day, in the beginning of December 2020, a number of convicts in my unit in a Michigan prison were infected/reinfected with COVID-19. Our unit…

The only way Covid 19 enters this facility is through its employees. And if the State does not have the political courage to stop these…

During my twenty years of incarceration I've seen some of the most bizarre things, but none have been more unnerving than the oddities I've witnessed…

"Biden said he's sorry for all that crazy shit in his past," G, another African American friend of mine says with a shrug. "If we…

...yesterday our tests began to return and showed that many of the people who caught it back in March have now contracted it again. My…

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.…

Welcome to Zombie Land. Those are the words that rattle around inside my skull every time I step away from my cell during this Coronavirus…

Every time I watch the news footage of that cop murdering Mr. George Floyd, I cringe. And not only because it resulted in Mr. Floyd’s…

As I sat thinking about how and what to write on such a sensitive topic, I kept asking myself where to begin. Do I start…

When you're in the hole (solitary confinement), there's only three things that can alleviate loneliness and boredom: jacking off, taking a shit and pacing back…

Throughout my 23 years of incarceration, many people have had a positive influence on my life, but none more so than the courageous volunteers who…

There are two main emotions every convict locked away in America is forced to cope with during his incarceration: Anger, and Loneliness. Anger at the…

A few years back, some asshole came up with the idea to hold a pedophile footrace around the track here at our facility. (Pedophiles are at…