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 [...]
Reliving Day Three of a Thirty-Year Guilt Trip By Deyon Neal "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 [...]
Courtesy Adam Roberts It's hard to endure the first day in a new prison, whichever it may be, Auburn or Attica, even for someone who has over eighteen years in. You don't know where anything is, no one knows [...]
Courtesy of Brad Simpson "Now Entering the Jungle" By Brad “Lou” Simpson I have only had a few overwhelming experiences in my life. Looking back, I can count them all on one hand. The first time, I was young [...]
Courtesy of Charles Norman 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 [...]
By: Dorothy Maraglino, Contributing Writer ON SENTENCING: Although I’ve been here 940 days, I have not had a trial yet. For two years, the D.A and the defense attorneys have been discussing penalty options. It turns out you can’t go to [...]
Yesterday I was moved to a cell with an observation camera in it. There was a good reason for the move, although the staff was unaware of just how much of a good reason there was. I sometimes secretly refer [...]