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Writing from Prison
These essays were sent to the Real Cost of Prisons
Project by men who are incarcerated. Additional essays and
other writing will be added.
We encourage you to contact the writer directly if you
like their work and/or want to use his/her work. If no
contact information is available, please contact
lois@realcostofprisons.org
To submit political and analytical writing, please send
to The Real Cost of Prisons Project. There is no payment
available for posting writings.
For more information, contact lois@realcostofprisons.org
or mail to:
Real Cost of Prisons Project
5 Warfield Place
Northampton, MA 01060
If friends, family and
others have access to a computer, please send writing as a
Word document or an email.
James M. Anderson, #1205943, 2605 State Street, Salem, OR 97310
• A Prisoner's Stance
• Fear and Chains
Mis-Mission Statement, author unknown.
A Need for Higher Learning
by Jacob Barrett, #557456, P.O. Box 97, McAlester, OK 74502
Mr. Clair L. Beazer, #49801, Sterling Correctional Facility, P.O. Box 6000, Sterling, CO 80751-0600
• It Is Another Sad Day in the C.D.O.C.
• Running Joke
• Video Visitation
"Prisoner Suicides: The Danger of Manufacturing Hopelessness" by Ed Bowser
"Justice Works! When its principles are not compromised",
A Letter to the Governor by Michael Braae, 270679 W.C.C. AT 105 IMU P.O. Box 900 Shelton, WA 98584
Keith Burley, #EC-0000, Box 9999, LaBelle, PA 15450-0990, writes, "Please publish this writing of mine on your website and include my name and
address beneath, encouraging fellow writers, poets and anyone interested in
prison reform to contact me."
• The Beast!
• A Prelude to Madness: An Analysis of Incarceration and the Mentally
Ill
• The Hole (poem)
The Prison Industrial Complex: Specter of Colonialism
by Michael Contreraz, C-45857 D4-104L, P.O. Box 5242, Corcoran, CA 93232
CSI Discovers Where the Money Went
by Richard Geffken, V01102 C2103L, Mayo CI, 8784 West U.S. 27, Mayo, FL 32066.
Ana Lucia Gelabert; see also her Comix from Inside
• Prisons and the State
• Some Facts You Should Know About Texas Prisons (PDF), February 2008
• Position Statement by the 4th of July Anti-Fascist Movement (2008)
• Cost Benefits of Releasing Excess Prisoners in U.S.A and Texas (PDF) 2008
• Voting Records on Criminal Justice Issues based on CUREs Review of the 109th Congress (PDF),
compiled by Ana Lucia Gelabert, March 2008.
Forward by Luis Gonzalez, CDCR #T-67569, Corcoran State Prison 3C-2-219,
P.O. Box 3471,
Corcoran CA 93212-3471.
This Forward was written by Luis Gonzalez and Jose Felix both whom are
incarcerated in Corcoran, CA. Luis was asked for a comment to be included in
the forthcoming book of the Real Cost of Prisons comic books to be published
by PM Press. This is what they wrote. Luis can be contacted at the above
address.
David Hinman, #0025374, Anamosa State Penitentiary, Post Office Box 10, Anamosa, Iowa 52205-0010
The Right to Vote for Convicted Felons
Looking at Interchange Fellowship Program (IFI) From a Different View, December 2003.
See also: December 03, 2007: Federal Appeals Court Strikes Down Public Funding Of Evangelical Prison Program In Iowa
Also see Whittling Away the Time, an article about a wood carving of Anamosa State Penitentiary.
Letter from F. DeAndre Howard, February, 2007. Contact the author at Reg.
#07757-089, Federal Correctional Institution, P.O. Box
5000, Pekin, IL 61555-5000
Kenneth Keel
• Prison Diet Poses Health Dangers
• Challenging "Three Strikes" Under Human Rights Treaty
"Anatomy of a Prison Riot" by R.M., November 2006
"Waiting to Die - The American Prison Experience" by R. M., November 2006
"Comprehensive Incarcerated
Person Reform, Rehabilitation and Reentry Act" and
Letter. Please feel
free to contact the author with your thoughts and
comments: Sheldon N. Messer 00A3204, Sing Sing
Correctional Facility, 354 Hunter Street, Ossining,
New York 10562
Terry Olney, 60345, P.O. Box 11099, Omaha, NE 68111-0099
• Throw Them in Prison and Make Everything Right
• Where Do They Come From?
Mark C. Palmer, 21986-4F1, 2521 Circle Drive, Jamestown, ND 58501
• North Dakota Is Supposedly The Safest State in the Nation: Why is the Prison Population Growing?
• We Have Rights!
Consider This By Brian J. Polley, P.O. Box 43, Norfolk, MA 02056-0043
Illegal Limbo by Changa Asa Ramu, aka Paul J. Rogers, #BS-6500, P.O. Box 999, 1120 Pike Street, Huntingdon, PA 16652
Juan A. Roldan, MPS, 86-A-8348, Box 1245, Fishkill Correctional Facility, Beacon, NY 12508
• Vicarious Living
• A Letter of Apology
• The Parole Enigma: New York State's Parole System in the 21st Century
Tiyo Attallah Salah El
• The Expanding Prison Planet
• A Call for the Abolition of Prisons
• A New Approach Towards Abolishing Prisons (2008)
A Privilege for the Privileged
by Mr. Kemoria Bright Cloud Smith, #696218, Connally Unit, 899 F.M. 632, Kenedy, TX 78119-4516.
Private Prisons: a View from Inside
by Davis Stephenson, #118218, NFCF, 1605 East Main St., Sayre, OK 73662
"Indemnification of Prison Guards"
By DJ Taylor, #179983 Northern Supermax, P.O. Box 665, Somers, CT 06071.
Sadot X. Williams, DQ3608, S.C.I. Greene, 175 Progress Drive, Waynesburg, PA 15370-8090
• The Pennsylvania Department of Corruption
• Control Units and Oppression, March 2008
• The Madness Continues, May 2008
Letter from Michael Smokey Wilson, Lifers, Inc/End Violence Projects. Contact information:
Michael Smokey Wilson, AF #2695, Box 246, Graterford, PA 19426-0246
Writing at Other Web Sites
Correctional Capitalism in the "Land of the Free"
By Jens Soering. Prism Magazine, January-February
2008. Jens Soering is serving a life-sentence in
Virginia. His most recent book is The Church of the
Second Chance: A Faith-Based Approach to Prison
Reform, to be released this spring by Lantern Books.
His other books include The Convict Christ: What the
Gospel Says About Criminal Justice (Orbis 2006), The
Way of the Prisoner and An Expensive Way to Make Bad
People Worse. To learn more about Jens Soering go to
http://www.jenssoering.com
Inside Out: Voices from New Jersey State Prison
Poems, stories, memoirs, and commentaries by forty-three inmates.
This is a 20-page sampler assembled by Kal Wagenheim, who for 5 years
directed a creative writing workshop at the NJ State Prison in Trenton NJ.
It is a small part of a 70,000 word book with inmates' poems, stories,
essays. Some of the poems are also available online at
http://www.jerseyworks.com/trentonstate.html.
http://realcostofprisons.org/materials/voices-trenton.doc
Voices.Con
The Voices.Con newsletter is published monthly by term-to-life prisoners in
California focusing on issues of primary concern to those servicing a
long-term incarceration. All material contained within Voices.Con has been
provided exclusively by California's term-to-life prisoner population. The
information has been designed to also be of potential benefit in other
jurisdictions having term-to-life and long-term prisoners as well as
citizens or family members.
http://www.emitime.com/voices.con/
James Bauhaus
A collection of writings by James Bauhaus, LCF 88367, 8607 SE Flowermound Road, Lawton, OK 73501.
http://www.jamesbauhaus.org
PEN Prison Writing Program
http://www.pen.org/page.php/prmID/152
Founded in 1971, the PEN Prison Writing Program
believes in the restorative and rehabilitative power of
writing, by providing hundreds of people who are
incarcerated across the country with skilled writing
teachers and audiences for their work. The program seeks
to provide a place for prisoners to express themselves
freely with paper and pen and to encourage the use of
the written word as a legitimate form of power. The
program sponsors an annual writing contest, publishes a
free handbook for prisoners, provides one-on-one
mentoring to inmates whose writing shows merit or
promise, conducts workshops for former inmates, and
seeks to get prisoners' work to the public through
literary publications and readings. Prison Writing
Program, PEN American Center 588 Broadway, Suite 303,
New York, NY 10012 E-mail: pen@pen.org Telephone: (212)
334-1660.
A Prisoner's Perspective
Blog by Dortell Williams
http://www.dortellblogs.blogspot.com/
Dortell Williams is a prolific self-taught writer who
has an interesting insight to share. Dortell will
complete 18 years of continuous imprisonment (of a life
sentence) this year. He has spent his time wisely,
earning a correspondence paralegal certificate, as well
as teaching himself Spanish, stock trading and many
other useful subject. He is seeking a website to host
his writings and an editor to help him compile hundreds
of essays into a compelling book. He can be reached at
H-45771/A2-103, P.O..Box 4430, Lancaster, CA 93539.
SCOPE Magazine
http://www.scopemagazine.net/
Mission Statement: "Scope is a forum that aims at chronicling different aspects of our
lives as they unfold in this prison environment; to cultivate and proclaim
our growth and development; and to express issues of remorse, redemption and
rehabilitation through the art of writing. Our joint task reflects an
earnest desire to project ourselves positively beyond these walls. It is our
hope that the experiences of prisoners might, in some small way, serve as a
stage of atonement for bad choices.
"We hope that this medium is a stage through which prison writers can
exemplify a positive image of prisoners as ordinary and extraordinary people
who have made poor choices in their lives. That New York prisons are filled
with men and women that are talented, virtuous, and redeemable. That we have
hopes and aspirations for a better future. Literary excellence is a standard
that we aspire to; positive transformation and productive living are the
goals."
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