An O.G. Explains “The New Convict Code”
Tex McClain had nothing but his word. Old and sick, having outlived anyone in society who might help him, he had to live by his wits to earn coffee and cigarettes. Old Tex’s word was good. If he told you [...]
Her Name Was Mo And She Brought People Together
Some people knew her as Arlene Mohammed, but her name was Mo and she brought people together. Mo was a strong black woman from another era, the one that followed Jim Crow but preceded Civil Rights, the one when black men [...]
The Logic of The Dysfunctional Prison System
How does prison work? The worst thing about prison is not how it captures men, but how it releases them. We are given nearly nothing. Maybe a GED. Only a handful of units in Texas have college classes, where it takes [...]
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 [...]
I’ll Never Forget Going To Prison
"Seven-Block, fourth tier, get ready for chow," booms the lady voice over the intercom. Try making up every day to that, I think. It reminds me of the lead juror's voice at my verdict reading, "Guilty." Maybe this whole sentence [...]
Inmate Details His First Riot: The Scourge of Tear Gas
Outside, the chow hall door opens. Spacemen enter. Gas masks and shields. Six black "fire extinguishers" fog the air, sending men scrambling. Human bug-spray.
Slave Work In the Fields: Digging a Trench Through Shit Creek
They call fields. You wake up. Comfort yourself. Cuddle your sheet and pretend it's a cat. Your cellie rushes to smoke a K2 stick (spice joint), to less feel the pain. Shit if you can. Sit. Get ready. You go outside, [...]
Another Suicide in Solitary: When is Enough Enough?
Gabriele was an upbeat cat for a prisoner with a life sentence. I remember the day that I met him. I was having a difficult day trying to navigate all of the negativity that prison has to offer when suddenly this [...]
Prison Chain-Gang Mating Rituals
Courtesy of Charles Norman Big Willie Taylor came to my cell one evening after supper with a question. I knew it was a question because he never came to my cell unless he had a question that stumped [...]
Asst. Editor2020-07-19T10:18:46-04:00Hope & Change, Lifers & Solitary, My Crime, Violence & Corruption|
My Life on Death Row in San Quentin
From December 17,2003 to February 9, 2004, the prison guards and administration at this modem day plantation changed me, rearranged me, oppressed me, regressed me, repressed me, depressed me and undressed me in order to murder me. They had me bend [...]
Getting Life in Prison at 17 Years Old
I am prepared to die: My name is Edward Mike Ji, now age seventeen, newly minted adult duly dubbed and declared so by Collin County Juvenile Court, inmate number 207989, and death cannot come swiftly enough. I lay in this foul [...]
A Jailhouse Lawyer Explains How it Works
“You've got a thousand men in the water and maybe three life preservers. You better be okay with watching men drown. ”
- Melvin Tunstall, when I took a job in the prison law library.
Ask a Drug Dealer How to End the Drug Epidemic
Users use whatever is available, and all price does is move them from one drug to another. “White people are starting to figure that out,” added Edgar Lee. “When they can’t get their Oxycontin they move to heroin.
Police Brutality — And Then This?
THE JURORS GASPED when they saw the photo. I was on the witness stand in federal court when my attorney entered the photo as an exhibit, and even I had never seen my arrest picture displayed in such vivid detail. [...]
A Prisoner Writes: Schizophrenic Religiosity
Jeffery Hofstedter was our prime example of schizophrenia augmented by religiosity. White, late thirties, anorexically thin, he balanced a supersize pair of bifocal chominators to laboriously read his Bible aloud, one disconnected word at a time. He had been booted [...]
My Crime: Change in Places
Sixteen years later, that day still played in my head as clear as a Blu-ray movie. I still saw Frank's raised eyebrows when, in broad daylight, he announced, "We're taking that." A nine-millimeter semi-automatic stuck out of his jeans pocket. I [...]