On prison, freedom, and redemption.
The first thing one notices is the chair. Comprised entirely of straight lines with minimal upholstery, it’s a chair designed for utility rather than comfort. On the seat is a device like a small heating pad on which I’m asked to sit and, in the polygrapher’s words, "take it easy," though neither of us believes…
In 2011 the author was sentenced to twelve years in federal prison for downloading child pornography. He was released in 2021 and now resides in Texas. For more than a decade he has written extensively about his experiences as a defendant, prisoner, and as an ex-felon and registered sex offender reentering society.
Clark smiled broadly, which was unusual for Clark. Prone to anxiety and depression, he often sat through our weekly sex offender treatment sessions wearing an exhausted, dour expression, as though his life were coming to an end and he’d sooner sleep through the last dreadful bits. But today he smiled—it was a rather handsome smile—and…
A flicker in the bottom corner of my eye, too quick to identify but slow enough to determine speed and direction. It’s source: the dried goods shelf where oyster and hoisin sauce cans are stacked in rows; it’s destination: the small, irregular hole at the baseboard behind the stove. Unperturbed, I continued sliding blocks of…
My neighbor died the day I moved into my apartment. This I learned from another neighbor, Dillan, who lives three doors down. She’d went by Charlie, he said, and added that she’d been very old, nearly ninety, and in poor health. She’d had a cat. This I learned not from Dillan but surmised myself from…
About 60 GED graduates lined up in the chapel today to rehearse for tomorrow’s annual graduation ceremony. Attending the ceremony will be members of the prison staff including counselors, unit managers, and correction officers. The warden will also be speaking at the event. Practice went smoothly, but the afternoon was spoiled by the appearance of…
Walter’s mother receive a phone all from a Captain Smith with the Bureau’s regional office. The captain wasn’t happy. He’d had enough, he said, of the elderly woman calling his office to complain of Big Spring FCI’s handling of the COVID crises. He said the stories of inmate neglect her incarcerated son was feeding her…
The speakers called a meeting in the dorm. All inmates of every race and affiliation—blacks, whites, Hispanics, sex offenders, Native Americans, the one Asian—was encouraged to attend. Over a hundred men crowded into the largest of the living quarters, squeezing between bunks and lockers, spilling over into the bathroom, pressing together so tightly that not…