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 â...
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...
“The System” Is Not Broken
It's true: the American criminal justice system is not broken â it's doing exactly what it is designed to do. Far gone are the days when the only things that distinguished prisons from college campuses were the barbed-wired fences, gun towers, and . . . oh yeah, the...
An Open Letter To Survivors of Gun Violence
Our hearts are saddened. I know this event just happened and you're trying to make sense of it. You can't. Crazy people have been doing senseless stuff like this since time began. Whether it was the Romans massacring Jewish people or terrorists flying planes in...
Letters From Prison: No Mental Health Help For Ohio Inmates
From www.rehabcenterforwomen.org: According to a report by the Treatment Advocacy Center, in 2012 the United States had 10 times more mentally ill individuals in its prisons than the amount who are treated in psychiatric hospitals (356,268 in prison, vs. 35,000 being...
Review of Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mendel
Station Eleven is one of those books that is so well-conceived and executed that you are sad when there's no more to read. After reading so many post-apocalyptic novels, many which barely bother to explain what caused society's collapse, I expected another contrived...
The Hardest Part of Prison
After a while, even the horrid conditions of prison become normal to its occupants. Waking up everyday in a concrete cell, being told when you can shower, use the phone, or even use the bathroom eventually fall into place as routine. No big deal â it just is. I...
If You Love Me
I cannot tell you how many times I've been on the phone while regrettably being forced to listen to another inmate on the phone next to me scold his girlfriend or mother for not doing something he had asked them to do. "Why haven't you sent the money? . . . you said...
Letters From Prison: Our Humanity is Broken
Some mornings when I wake for breakfast chow at 3:00 or 3:30 here in the County Jail, I canât help pondering the question of where they are able to find so many people with the same disposition; just dripping with contempt. Even though itâs the same caliber...