Prisoners look upon the summer months in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) with dread and trepidation. For one is acutely aware that one may not survive another summer. Many do not. It is not uncommon for the temperature to [...]
My 25 years of experience doing time in prison make me an expert at avoiding the pitfalls of prison. All prisons are different, but many of the rules of conduct stay the same. Simple common sense will save you most [...]
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 [...]
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. At the time my idea of what it meant to be institutionalized consisted of simply forming [...]
Murf the Surf and I are walking in the rain past the steam plant heading back to the Southwest Unit. The chapel is off to our left, separated from the sidewalk by tall, thick hedges. We are coming from the Main [...]