“Young brother,” said Old Man John, trying to get my attention away from my computer screen and the furious typing I was doing. “I need you to send an e-mail to my granddaughter.” I laughed, not because I thought it was [...]
Some people knew her as Arlene Mohammed, but her name was Mo and she brought people together. Mo was a strong black woman from another era, the one that followed Jim Crow but preceded Civil Rights, the one when black men [...]
In 1992, summer in Brooklyn, New York came early. We had “permanent beef” with a West Indian crew, which meant trying to terminate each other on sight. Gunshots sparked so often that Flatbush residents didn’t have to wait for the [...]
It is no secret that the state has used the Prison system as a dumping ground for the mentally ill. Common sense would lead an observer to conclude that an environment as degenerative as prison is not the best location to [...]
One day I was returning from the morning yard recreation. As I neared the entrance gate, I heard a "Thwap!” and saw a body fall to the concrete few feet ahead of me. Instead of anyone rushing to his aid, the [...]
In April of 2008, my son was arrested for accidentally killing a Columbia graduate student while trying to impress a group of shallow friends who taunted, egged and dared him to attack the Asian man. Fast forward, my son eventual pled [...]
What would you expect to find in a maximum-security prison? Convicted felons? Of course. Spontaneous violence? Check. Gang members? Plenty. Humanity? Come again? “This is the last place I’d ever want to be sick,” I thought as I stared at the [...]
“The next time I have to tell you something twice, I’m gonna knock ya teeth outta ya mouth,” he whispered, his breath hot against my neck, the sharp hairs above his lip pricking my earlobes. If he weren’t 6’3” and about [...]
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 was full of thoughts of my daughter Santana. Thoughts of her would fill my mind every day [...]
The alarm went off, signaling that once again the prison was about to be shut down and placed on lock-down because of the major fights going on between rival gangs within the prison walls. So now, as usual, we were [...]
An obese, red-faced prison guard, his grey hair greased back, gets up from his swivel chair and shouts, "Hey retard, get over here!" He points at me and then in the direction of a faded orange brick wall. Two rookie guards [...]
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 Adam Roberts Phoenix Players Theatre Group (PPTG) is a small, selective theater group that operates quietly amidst the 1,600 residents of the maximum-security prison in New York, meeting on Friday nights in a classroom in the prison’s [...]