Prison & Prisoners
George Wayne Cameron (1959-2019)—a prisoner serving Life Without Parole in an Alabama prison near Birmingham—died over Memorial Day weekend. I’d known George since 1996 when a Good Friday prayer card at Marble Collegiate Church came into my hands.
Read MoreMy Little Cell is my personal laboratory. A laboratory is a place equipped for scientific experimentation. My Little Cell is equipped for universal learning, universal studying, and experimentation. I am my own little personal scientist. What does a scientist do? Experiments. And through experimenting, what emerges? Inventions.
Read More"Let's Keep Dancing," a play by John Purugganan, has received a developmental reading produced by The Public Theater in New York City. John is a creative writer, essayist, and life without parole prisoner in California.
Read MoreThe question should not be: Why is a college education important for Life Without Parole prisoners? The real question is: Why isn’t it important?
Read MoreAs of 2013 there were 2,220,300 men and women in prison in the United States; approximately 50,000 are serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. At this Holiday Season, I wanted to share a few thoughts from those inside prison. The following thoughts are from letters I’ve received during 2015. - RM
Read MoreJohn Catanzarite, from a letter to RM 05-18-15, after 13 years of solitary confinement.
At this time so many things in my life started to change—released from isolation, two transfers, adjusting to being around so many people, etc.—I was overwhelmed.Read More
Growing up I learned that my so-called enemies were not always my enemy. And who I thought were my enemies were not always my enemy. In prison I hear the word “enemy” being used all the time. And some of them talk about the old advice: Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer. I know they’re talking about pretending to be a friend so you can keep one step ahead, but for me it doesn’t work like that.
Read MoreNow that California has been granted an additional two years to come into compliance with the U. S. Supreme Court’s order to reduce its prison population, we can only hope the best idea to come out of this fiasco is not lost. Early on, the federal judges overseeing the effort ordered the state to create a list of prisoners least likely to reoffend if released from prison: The Low-Risk List. Due to the recent two year extension, this most reasonable and completely logical idea remains in limbo.
Read MoreEight years into my prison sentence, I was transferred to another correctional facility for psychological evaluation and placement in isolation housing. That was thirteen years ago, and I’ve been in isolation ever since. I literally haven’t touched another human being since April 2000.
Read MoreI became acquainted with Michael McKinney after my essay “Visiting Prison” was published in Quaker Life magazine. He wrote me via the magazine, and I responded. We have been in touch by letter ever since. Michael is serving a sentence of Life Without Parole, incarcerated in Raiford, Florida. He has spent a number of years in solitary confinement. He writes with difficulty, but with intense conviction on a variety of topics. Here is one of his essays he sent me in 2013.
Read MoreThis November I will have 30 years done. I feel that I have paid for my sins. My health is down to a point where I am on oxygen 24 hours a day in the prison infirmary. My heart is bad. I have Hep C and other ailments. But the State wants to keep me locked up as [it does with] many others as old or older than me, costing the taxpayers millions of dollars.Read More
No big deal, he was told they’d be doing more testing; they just can’t tell us when, due to security reasons (if we knew what day we were scheduled to leave the compound, we could have an escape plan and a car waiting).Read More
You wait outside the prison in your car; after 7:30 you’re given a numbered form and allowed into the parking lot; after 8:30 you’re allowed into the waiting room to wait for your name to be called (sometimes in numerical order); you take off your belt, shoes, turn out your pockets; you carry nothing inside but a Ziploc bag with dollar bills for the vending machines, your ID, and half the form; an outside area between the two fences and the guard tower; then inside and a walk to the cell block to wait, have another guard take down all the information, surrender your ID, and make ultraviolet sure that your wrist has been stamped with the stamp of the day. Then the key turns, the visiting room door is opened, and you and everyone else visiting that day are passed through, then locked inside.
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