Lifers & Solitary

Asst. Editor2021-09-14T13:09:33-04:00Hope & 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 modern-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 [...]

By Kevin Cooper

Prison Writers Staff2021-08-29T16:29:19-04:00Editor's Choice, Lifers & Solitary|

F*** Solitary Confinement

The hole, the new term for solitary confinement. It’s the place they take you when you break one of their “rules,” or at least they say you did. It’s supposed to be a deterrent from future acts of whatever they deem [...]

By Shavez Holden

Prison Writers Staff2021-08-12T13:52:14-04:00Editor's Choice, Lifers & Solitary|

Who Guards the Guards?

Sergeant McKay* was passing out the food trays, sliding the trays through the slot in our metal doors. Every convict on the confinement tier knew you just don't ask Sergeant McKay to pass your food tray to someone else for you. Everyone knew that except Ray "Noodles."

By Leonard Andre Scovens Jr.

Prison Writers Staff2021-07-06T13:55:32-04:00Lifers & Solitary, Violence & Corruption|

Selling Slum In Solitary: How To Provoke a Fight

In Michigan we call it selling slum. A symphony of baritones, reverberating air full of testosterone: men in discord. After a certain point, I don’t even hear words anymore.

By Deyon Neal

Prison Writers Staff2021-08-24T18:31:06-04:00Lifers & Solitary, Reform & Reentry|

Getting Penalized for Not Taking the Plea Bargain

My earliest release date is 2041. According to the World Almanac, my life expectancy as a Black man is 67 years old. I'll be 66 years old in 2041, if I am released. If I make it. I came to prison [...]

By Sheldon Johnson

Prison Writers Staff2021-06-20T10:27:12-04:00Lifers & Solitary, Reform & Reentry|

Life Without Parole = Death By Incarceration

A life sentence can be death by incarceration. When a person serving life without parole (LWOP/DBI) reforms and rehabilitates his/her life, they should be allowed, “The Right to Redemption”

By Larry Stephenson

Prison Writers Staff2021-06-20T10:29:11-04:00Lifers & Solitary|

Why Solitary Confinement Is Torture

After spending over five years studying how prolonged periods of solitary confinement harm the brains, the only conclusion that I could come up with is that solitary confinement is torture. I’m not the only one who knows this.

By Jason Walker

Prison Writers Staff2021-04-27T13:47:39-04:00Featured Article, Lifers & Solitary, Reform & Reentry|

Ten Years in Solitary In a Supermax Prison

I have a very intimate understanding of the effects of long-term isolation on a person's mental and physical health. I spent a long time in solitary -- a decade -- involuntarily entombed in isolation at the notorious Tamms Supermax Prison in southern Illinois.

By Joseph Dole

Prison Writers Staff2021-04-17T15:28:50-04:00Childhood, Featured Article, Lifers & Solitary|

Life in Sing Sing: Letter to My Younger Self

Dear Younger Self, If you only knew where you were headed and the degree of suffering you will endure, you'd stop the hands of time. But you don't, you can't. Your young mind cannot create such imagery.

By Sheldon Johnson

Prison Writers Staff2021-01-20T13:35:28-05:00Lifers & Solitary|

Solitary Sucks

One thing is for sure—once you're locked in—you're at the mercy of those with the squeaky boots, the clanking keys, and the ratcheting handcuffs. Even knowing their mighty shields don't make them more human than me, I still worship them. I leap to my feet and rush to the door at the sound of another human.

By Austin Jakubowski

Prison Writers Staff2021-04-17T15:48:43-04:00Featured Article, Lifers & Solitary|

Two Weeks in Solitary And You Go Mental

Self-mutilation seems to be a common coping mechanism. Cutting and bleeding. I've seen many hang themselves with a sheet.

By Joshua Shadduck

Prison Writers Staff2021-01-17T08:26:47-05:00Fellow Inmates, Lifers & Solitary|

Thugs Singing Jingle Bells In Solitary

First one voice joined in, then another and another. I repeated the Jingle Bells chorus, and more of the wing joined in, laughing like crazy, yelling, but not about drugs. “Yo, Mr. Norman, you know any more?”

By Charles Norman

Prison Writers Staff2020-12-24T08:21:55-05:00Daily Survival, Lifers & Solitary|

Here’s What Happens In Solitary

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.

By Tyler Metzner

Prison Writers Staff2021-06-30T16:15:22-04:00Daily Survival, Lifers & Solitary|

15 Years In Solitary Confinement And Look At Me Now

I stabbed a prison guard when I was at the Barrington Unit in 2014, located between Houston and Galveston, and got an additional 99 year sentence for that assault. I spent the next fifteen years in solitary

By J.S. Slaymaker

Prison Writers Staff2020-12-14T15:06:41-05:00Lifers & Solitary, Uncategorized, Violence & Corruption|

The Prison Assassin, Corrupt Judicial Members, No Parole

No doubt patterned after its judicial system, Texas also has one of the most brutal prison systems in the world. The federal court eventually got involved, literally taking control of the whole shebang in a civil rights lawsuit called Ruiz v. [...]

Prison Writers Staff2021-01-09T11:03:34-05:00Childhood, 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