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 [...]
"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 [...]
Today marks four years without him -- son, oldest brother, grandson, USMC honor graduate, lifelong friend, 25 year-old with a laugh you can’t resist and a way of looking at you so intently that when he was a baby, strangers [...]
In Virginia, there are 6 levels of security, Level One being the lowest - with the most privileges -- and “Level S" is the highest level of security. Level S is a super maximum security prison, which houses the most violent [...]
The people in the position to help the most have the power to hurt the most. People who go around pushing buttons will eventually break one. "I'm sorry" should not be the intermission between disrespectful acts. Every prisoner represents multiple [...]
The people in the position to help the most have the power to hurt the most. "I'm sorry" should not be the intermission between disrespectful acts. Every prisoner represents multiple victims and many represent lives lost. If you think that perfection [...]
I spent the first few years of my natural life sentence muttering incoherently to myself and chewing my fingernails to bleeding nubs while I contemplated the most painless methods of suicide for American prisoners. How’s a 23-year old kid supposed to [...]
Can you translate this? I have the keys for my Car but my Road Dogs are disappearing on me. One was 5150 and Did the Dutch, one left on Back Door Parole, one is a BB Filler on his way out. Two are in The Hole (one for Keistering a cell phone), one is jacked up on Brake Fluid (he's got L [...]
When it comes to the underground economy in prison, you have to live inside here to understand it. For example, inmates use “postage stamps” as poker chips. At the end of the night, you can keep the postage stamps or cash [...]
Ask anyone who has been in prison to describe how to survive it and you’ll probably get a different answer from every one of them. Most will agree that prison just plain sucks, to put it politely. However, there are some [...]
Here I was, months into a jail sentence that was going to be the beginning of my prison sentence. I had no idea how many years I was going to get in the slammer this time. The fact that I was [...]
One thing I’ve learned about myself is that there is no situation that is so bad that I can’t make it worse. The last time this thought popped into my head was seven months earlier, looking into the mirror at an [...]
