Seneca phrased it best when he eloquently wrote "work nourishes noble minds." If everyone sat around every day, in prison or outside of it, not only would nothing get done, a lethargy would take over our souls. We're meant to put our minds and bodies...
Fact of Prison: all inmates count down the weeks and months. Many more count down the years. Some I'm here with have been counting down the decades. Without fail, on the eighth day of every month, I hear my favorite snippet of prison optimism. "Only...
As the temperatures in South Dakota begin to break 90 degrees, fresh on the menu is cold nachos. At first, the idea sounds wildly unappealing. "Hi, I'd like a plate of nachos but please don't heat any of it up, room temp will suffice" said...
The Bureau of Prisons has every facility on a five week rotation of meals and they try to keep the cost to feed each inmate at around $3.00 per day. You end up eating the same things again and again so eventually you're going to...
These words come up daily in prison. In light of this, I am sharing the ideas behind them so you all can appreciate a small aspect of how a day here goes. There is a bulletin board located outside the officers station that houses information pertinent...
When it comes to incarceration, racial inequality shines through even more than in broader society. A glaring example of this is with crack cocaine prison sentences. In the 1980's, Congress decided the US needed to get tough on drug crime. In a four year period,...
While you can't see through the two opaque security windows in our cinder block wall study room, it does contain four chessboards that are much appreciated, thoroughly utilized, and more than make up for the lack luster surroundings. If you're looking for a game, sit...
First things first, the best show to watch is whatever is already on. You not only have to earn the right to change the channel, but even with that, there are specific TV's in which one with such a right would exercise it. Each race...
There are many conversations which are common in the free world but never happen in prison. One is when someone talks about how they've been "so busy lately, absolutely slammed." There is less work to be pursued when the going pay rate is around $0.17...
Happiness resides in misery Misery hides in happiness Who knows where they end -Lao Tzu Prison is a punishment. So how does society measure whether a punishment effectively meets the goals of punishing someone? Somewhere a group of experts determined that based on a multitude of factors, x number...