first person
39 Years
I rejected a plea deal and chose instead to go to trial. I would not understand until too late that I had placed a target on my back.
incarcerated and formerly incarcerated authors
69 posts in ‘incarcerated and formerly incarcerated authors’
first person
On Aging and Dying in Captivity
This year I passed a grim milestone: I’ve now been in captivity longer than I’d been alive when I was arrested.
Life Inside
Death by Design
There are no good prisons—but even minor design changes could make them less awful to be trapped inside.
In the States
The People v. the Prison
California is discovering the hard way that you can’t leave decarceral reforms in the hands of prison officials.
abolition
A Thousand Possibilities
Abolition requires the world-building work of imagining all the many life-affirming alternatives to incarceration.
law & policy
Breaking the Chains
Ending prison slavery and giving fair wages to incarcerated workers are necessary steps on the pathway to justice.
Life Inside
The Last Breakfast
I kept my promise to break bread with my friend Dobie one last time, right before the state of Louisiana put him to death.
A closer look
Squinting in the Sunlight
Most reentry programs assume a person who is able to work and live on their own. Those of us who are older don’t have that kind of freedom.
Life Inside
Unsettled People
Prison transfers are routinely used to punish, disorient, and isolate incarcerated people, disconnecting them from family, friends, community, and all sense of place.
advocacy
Not a Fix-All
Electing progressive prosecutors is but one tool in a multifaceted, collaborative approach to ending mass incarceration.
Q&A
Picturing the Crisis
A new book uses art to make the horrors of mass incarceration as visual, and visceral, as possible.
culture
A Narrative of Control
Mass incarceration rests on false narratives that carceral institutions themselves control. But some of us are fighting back.
Surveillance
For the Public Good
While on parole in Oregon, homelessness, unemployment, and lack of services kept me in survival mode. This is not public safety.
poetry
The Names They Call Us
“I applaud, your / Frankenstein’s monster, forevermore.”
first person
The Banality of Mandatory Surcharges
In New York and elsewhere, exploitative court-ordered fees shouldn't saddle a person who is already poor and criminalized.
poetry
Prisoner of Poetry
“What does it mean to be an / incarcerated poet?”
Essay
Hip Hop Is My Life
I spit bars on Death Row to preserve the legacy of our people, what’s been done to us, and how we’ve fought back.
poetry
“Incarcerated Slavery” & “2 crack a smile”
“The cotton field / is replaced by walls of steel . . . ”
first person
Ink from Honey
Poetry can help incarcerated authors to reclaim the story of their life.
poetry
“Don Haitian Monument” & “The Hunters”
“Paralyzed in shock / by slave raid tactics, / my trembling hands on the wall . . .”
first person
Closed Doors
Prison is no place for grief and closure. Yet even as I mourned, glimmers of love and life surrounded me.
first person
Learning to Live
For incarcerated people, prison education programs can offer not only knowledge but also hope that a different future is possible.
A closer look
Graying in Prison
There's no aging with dignity for people serving extreme sentences. Freeing them is only a start to a deeper paradigm shift.
Policing
Unsafe on Campus
Policing on college campuses falls hardest on formerly incarcerated students, leaving them and the broader community unprotected.
advocacy
Hope Against Hope
A candid portrait of the experience of fighting for clemency in Louisiana—a route to freedom now severely threatened by the state’s new carceral governor.
In Their Words
Ambassadors to Freedom
People condemned to die in prison are telling the world about it—and fighting to free one another in the process.
Futures
Abolition Can Mend Our Democracy
How might we reimagine our rights and liberties in the absence of incarceration?
activism
No Killing Revolutionary Hope
The oral histories of political prisoners shed light on their true character—and expose the darkness of the state.
activism
Asymmetrical Partners
Activism must involve incarcerated people—but few outside advocates really understand the dangers and limitations that imprisoned organizers face.
campaigns
Beauty on the Inside
A look at how decarceral, abolitionist filmmaking can help us envision new worlds.