When you finally acknowledge and really accept that you can do and be more than the limitations others have set before you, there are more worlds open to you, with understanding and growth that has no limits than you have imagined, right in front of you. My Reluctant...
Hate Medicine
Hate medicine.... We watched him dying. Everyone on our wing had their own diagnosis. “Cirrhosis.” “It’s jaundice. Look at how yellow he is.” “How can you tell? He’s hispanic.” “Next time you get close to him, look at his eyes. They are yellow.” “I bet he has liver...
Finding My Purpose In Prison
We’re pleased to introduce a new contributor to our blog, Eric Burnham. My name is Eric Shawn Burnham. I was born April 21, 1979 in Las Vegas, Nevada, but I grew up in Oregon and California mostly. I came to prison in 2001, and I’ve been at EOCI ever since. When I...
Hate Mail: End hateful prison mailroom practices
People hate us. It sounds melodramatic, but it is true nonetheless. We’re hated by each other, by people on the outside, and by people working on the inside. By ‘us,’ I mean incarcerated persons. Offenders, inmates, convicts, prisoners. And there are people who make...
Review of Houses of Healing by Robin Casarjian
Initially when I began reading this book, I thought it was going to give me all the reasons why I needed to change my thinking (as an inmate), yet offer not much in the way of breaking down how I could do it — thankfully I was wrong! Houses of Healing is a remarkable...
Review of Night by Elie Wiesel
It's not very often I can say that I'm sorry I missed the contemporaneous contributions to humanity by any particular human being. The recent passing of Elie Wiesel has left me feeling that loss. The vivid portrayal of Mr. Wiesel's Second World War atrocities were...
Review of Mr. Smith Goes to Prison by Senator Jeff Smith
What a book! This indepth, candid memoir depicts a prominent man's epic fall from being a young hot shot politician with a sky's-the-limit career staring him in the face to a convicted felon serving hard time in a federal...
Letters From Prison: Welfare Check Please
Here is a touching letter from an inmate in Texas who is worried about a fellow inmate he met during transit - which means he likely spent a week or less with him. #InmatesAreHuman
Review of The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
I'll admit, when I first heard the title of this best-selling book, I, as a black man, was taken aback. I scoffed at the notion that anyone could attempt to make a sound case for comparing the atrocious Jim Crow segregation laws of the 50s and 60s with today's –...
Review of The Great Bridge by David McCullough
David McCullough's The Great Bridge is an extraordinary book. It tells the tale of how the Brooklyn Bridge was conceived and built. As is the case with other McCullough works, it is superbly crafted and reads as well as any great work of fiction. The main focus of the...