Sentenced to Life in Prison at 23: Learning How to Survive a Cage
How’s a 23-year old kid supposed to process having to spend the rest of his life in prison, in a cage? He doesn’t. How does…
How’s a 23-year old kid supposed to process having to spend the rest of his life in prison, in a cage? He doesn’t. How does…
Chris Dankovich, a lifer in Michigan, offers prison advice on romance, finances, and mental health. Question: What’s some prison advice for dealing with depression? Some…
Jeffery Shockley reflects on the deep personal transformation, grief, and resilience that come with serving a life sentence, sharing hard-earned wisdom about aging, coping, and…
Edgar Garcia reflects on finding life after death row, where years of isolation and loss became the foundation for healing, purpose, and transformation. The longer…
Edgar Garcia writes about 17 years on death row, the clemency that granted him a second chance at life, and the struggle to escape the…
Andrew Krosch writes about segregation—one of the most traumatic experiences in prison, because of the time spent locked down and the devastating property loss that…
Charles Smith explains how a lifelong sentence beginning at age 16 led to years of violence, isolation, and ultimately a powerful transformation through words. I’ve…
Jeffery Shockley reflects on what it means to live with a life sentence, navigating decades of loss, resilience, and systemic challenges inside the Pennsylvania prison…
Andrew Krosch writes about life inside the segregation unit at Minnesota Correctional Facility–Oak Park Heights, where daily routines, tense encounters, and quiet endurance define the…
Edgar Garcia writes about his journey from death row to clemency, reflecting on the pain of long-term isolation, the discipline of self-improvement, and the power…
Daniel Harris writes about the reality of a 24-hour lockdown in Texas prisons, highlighting how mass punishment unfairly impacts innocent prisoners for the actions of…
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…
Beau Brown explains how life in solitary strips a person to their core, revealing truths about prison, punishment, and the fragile threads of humanity that…
Well, after 20 years in solitary confinement in America's toughest federal Super-max prison, still half-sleep and dazed, my mind and heart raced, baffled and excited.…
Benjamin Case used to think “crime was more than a lifestyle. It was a belief system. I was gangster to the marrow” until the unconditional…
Since the day Daniel Hyden crashed his car into a crowd of NYC partygoers, killing four people, he says the only relief he’s had from…
Despite a rocky childhood, Kevin “Rashid” Johnson hopes for “a world where all life can coexist as a community and interdependent whole.” He’s found redemption…
Larry Stromberg makes the case for giving Pennsylvania prisoners with a sentence of life without parole a second chance to return to society. He explains…
Although he has four life sentences, Benjamin Case has been saved in prison by God and the remarkable and unrelenting support of three strong women…
MarQui Clardy asks if solitary confinement was the right treatment for someone who just survived a suicide attempt in prison after his mental health issues…
Andrew Krosch explains the strange calm that can come from prison isolation. A place meant for punishment but sometimes experienced as relief. Within the Administrative…
In 1999, Kenneth West was give a 120-year sentence at the age of 19. He describes how long sentences and punitive treatment by guards can…
On Memorial Day 2002, I drove to the home of my estranged mother and father and shot them dead. I killed my parents. It’s hard…
Andrew Krosch describes a recent parole board hearing he attends, knowing full well there is nothing he could say to get out of prison given…
Shawn Johnson, a 21-year-old Asbury Park man convicted of killing a city resident and wounding another in two alleged gang-related shootings, was sentenced to 60…
Shakeil Price was given a life sentence based solely on the testimony of his co-defendant’s girlfriend. He has spent the last nine excruciating years navigating…
Gordon Grilz explores the complexities of being a murderer , including crimes of passion, the morality of the sixth commandment, and the gray areas of…
In March of 2011 I received a letter informing me that my ex-wife, Adrianna, had died. She had been found on the bathroom floor of…
Let me be the first to say that I have been around some men who should never get out of prison. They should never see…
There is something uniquely special about long prison sentences. And knowing you’re going to die in prison. Something indefinable that sets the prospect of decades,…
“Damn it’s cold back here.” The nurse said as she stopped by the inmate’s cell to give him his morning dose of medication. The escort…
From day one I’ve known prison sees me as worthless. I was instantly rushed to solitary confinement since I can’t be trusted to behave. I…
I spent one year in solitary confinement once, and I made it my goal not to ever go back there again! Solitary confinement is a…
Four hours away from execution on death row. From December 17, 2003, to February 9, 2004, the prison guards and administration at this modern-day plantation…
I’m serving a life sentence in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A life sentence in Pennsylvania is really a death sentence if one doesn’t get relief…
It was 4:45 a.m. on an eerie fall morning when a sudden jolt of strange energy went through my body, waking me up. I woke…
Shakeil Price: A plea deal I never knew existed cost me my freedom — and exposed how the system fails the people it’s supposed to…
Since 1989, 3,000 people who were wrongly convicted have been exonerated. In roughly 69% of those exonerations, there was testimony provided by witnesses that proved…
The aging prison population: Causes, costs, and consequences
The elderly in prison creates unique challenges for the criminal justice system, including higher medical costs and the need for special housing and programming. CDOC’s …
Earlier this year (i.e. 2023) Texas finally got around to fully incorporating the prison tablets into its prisons. I have been reading about e-tablets being…
And I can go on and on about the bad in prison but what happened on 6-22-23 could help change peoples lives. So I feel…
You are familiar with his work: the lovable face of Home Improvement, the voice of “Pure Michigan” and Buzz Lightyear … as well as the…
I’m many things, but I’m not a killer. I didn’t kill anyone. This is my story. My name is Jaime Jezzuel Lopez. I was born…
In the past ten years more than ten people on Texas Death Row have been found to be wrongly convicted and incarcerated, over 150 nationwide.…
This powerful firsthand account challenges the notion that justice is blind, revealing how money, influence, and access to legal resources often tip the scales—while the…
Alone, alone, all all alone // Alone on a wide wide sea! // And never a saint took pity on // My soul in agony. – Samuel Coleridge…
When they first brought me here, it was the end of September, just before dawn, nothing to see on the other side of the transport…
On Monday, January 9, 2023, I reported to the classification building for my annual progress report. They verify your current emergency contact information in case…
I grew up in a backwoods redneck family, born the fourth (and last) child of good parents that did their best to raise me in…
I was following my dream to become a great actor/writer and filmmaker. Acting was a way to escape my abusive childhood. I was sexually molested…
The ticking of the clock is the one thing people seldom notice. With the advent of digital watches, one would be hard pressed to hear…
Civil commitment is additional incarceration, often for an "indeterminate" period of time, after a person has served their entire prison sentence for a sex offense.
I am once again faced with the abusive conditions in which Ad-Seg [Administrative Segregation, a form of solitary] has a legacy. It’s a place where…
To share a bunk with a man sentenced to life in prison without parole–when you are not–is a surreal experience. Every moment, of every day,…
I hope this finds you and family well during these trying COVID times. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to address Arkansas’ juvenile…
From A Contributing Writer: Help us stop unfair life without parole! SIGN PETITION HERE There are 1,629 men and women sentenced to life without parole under…
I was never on “death row.” Instead of being sentenced to death by execution, I was sentenced to death by incarceration or Life-Without-Parole (LWOP),…
Self-mutilation seems to be a common coping mechanism. Cutting and bleeding. I've seen many hang themselves with a sheet.
For those of you who don’t know, a Super Max prison is more secure than a maximum-security prison and houses the highest-risk inmates. But…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
Dear _______, You don’t know me. Not really. We each had a major part to play in each other’s lives. In fact, you took mine.…
Flames surged out of cell A-250, well-fueled by rolled-up newspapers, cardboard, and clothing collected by the cell’s lone occupant, Ryan Nieves. He wanted the…
I’m not perfect. I am too broken to ever be, but I can finally be proud of the man I am. For me, that is…
We were handcuffed in our boxers and shower slippers, barely awake. They, however, were ready, looking for a reason to hit the button. And to…
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…
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…
Before 1977, ALL California prisoners were sentenced to Indeterminate sentences, a term that included “imprisonment for life” (i.e. five years to life for armed robbery).…
The visit is today. I’m so excited. I’ve been looking forward to it for months. I’m showered and freshly scrubbed. I dress in my cleanest,…
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…
I officially retired November 30th, 2007 at the ripe old age of 24, and it’s great! I am now part of a government-sponsored adult day…
Once upon a time I was a Death Row inmate, Level 3. What that means is I was the residue at the bottom of the…
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…
Editors Note: Mustafa Zulu spent 20 years in solitary confinement in the harshest Federal Prison in America: ADX Florence in Colorado. One day, he was…
After spending 3 years in a medium security Ohio prison, a friend of mine once asked me if the time spent there had institutionalized me.…
After spending over five years in solitary confinement, I have finally come to realize that solitary confinement is known torture — and the prisoners aren’t…
Murph the Surf and I are walking in the rain past the steam plant heading back to the Southwest Unit. The chapel is off…
Hello. My name is Brad but everyone calls me Lou. I’m in prison for killing an inmate while doing time for another crime. The reason…
I arrived to death row on August 28, 2000. I did not think I’d still be alive 14 years later, but here I am. Surely,…
After spending over five years studying how prolonged periods of solitary confinement harms the brains, the only conclusion that I could come up with is…
One night in the early part of 2000, as I lay in my bed in Sullivan Correctional Facility’s Special Housing Unit (solitary), my mind…
Throughout my 22 years of incarceration, I’ve survived many shades of torture. My most horrible experience was in 1995, in the federal prison in Terre…
April 5, 1978, dawned clear and bright in Tampa, Florida. My father was sick, at home, and I drove out to Thonotosassa, east of Tampa,…
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