Soul Searching In Desolate Places

I spent years not knowing who I was on the inside, a state that is its own form of prison.  From age fifteen on, I felt insecure about my past, the crime that brought me to prison, the lack of having ever actually done anything in my young life of meaning or enjoyment, and even about not fitting the ideal of what a ‘real’ prisoner should look like.  I did all I could to mask those feelings, put on a front and hold myself together in prison.

I spent my first few years of incarceration in a prison for Youthful Offenders.  There was plenty of violence there, and knowing I would later be going to an adult prison until I was forty, I decided to put on some size.  I worked out like crazy to make up for the fact that I couldn’t make a convincing ‘mean’ face if my life depended on it.  I tried to compensate with the amount of weight I could throw around, which was considerable until I injured myself so badly I couldn’t do a pushup for a couple years.  I learned the habits of hypermasculine men, things like eating a banana by breaking it into pieces first so no one could sexualize it.  I learned how to talk to others, and in some ways I found part of the person I could have been if I had not destined my future to incarceration.

Getting locked up before I came into my own, I had a bad habit – among others – of trying hard to fit in with all groups and all people, trying to find what we had in common and how we were alike.  I’d talk about money with bank robbers, drugs with addicts, smuggling with cartel members…  I’d discuss God during the years I was agnostic, leave behind a conversation over a television show with a supremacist to talk politics with a member of the Nation of Islam.  Looking back, I recognize that some of that was because I was just interested in other people and their perceptions, having come from an isolated background.  But some of it was because I didn’t want to be the odd man out, and some because I feared being alone in a very hostile and dangerous environment.  Guys who didn’t fit in didn’t tend to have a lot of friends, and guys who were too different were targeted.  I was already of small stature, childish features, and I wore glasses.  I had twenty-five years to do, and I didn’t want that to be how my life was defined on the inside.

After enough time locked up, even a kid from the suburbs can talk gangster, and I could even pass, in short spurts, as ‘hood.  I hadn’t done many drugs on the outside, but experienced a fair share after getting locked up, and growing up around the people I did, I knew more about guns than most people locked up for shooting someone.  Those things and women are the things discussed most in prison.

I was smart enough and read a lot, so I knew at least a little about most things.  This got me a job tutoring in the prison GED school when I was still too young to have graduated high school.  Teaching and helping others from all walks of life helped me to relate to others, and my time in prison was easier for a while.  Some Bloods stood up for me, some Crips tried to recruit me, some Skinheads liked me, some Latin Kings had my back, and some members of other religions tried to convert me, though I never chose to join any of them.  I could get along with just about anyone, but who was I really?  Did any of them know the real version of me?  Did I even know me for sure?  

It’s hard to quite know who you are when your own history is something you’d prefer to escape, and your present is…  well, also something you’d prefer to escape.  It’s like being lost in the woods at dusk with no way to find your way backwards and the vague understanding that you likely have a thousand miles to go.  You’re left only to push forward, survive the journey, and along the way, search for the soul that crashed like a meteorite in the wilderness years ago.

I spent my first few years learning to survive without the future in sight.  My high school class graduated while I was locked up, and the few friends who had written moved on as we grew apart and they went on to college.  Smartphones connected everyone, loved ones passed away, guys I knew on the inside were released and came back, and all the while I stayed in one place.  I lived in the moment a lot, getting lost in them and the days and years, lost in stories told by those around me of their lives and dramas.  I remember the names of girlfriends of my first five cellmates, and I remember the prison-friends I made as a teenager much better than almost anyone I’ve known in the fourteen years since.  It was like high school in some ways, those early memories seeming a big deal and sticking with you because they were a part of your formation as an autonomous individual.  Those who were there were part of the concrete of your identity during the final churning in the mixer.  

I felt most insecure in the experiences I knew nothing about, never living on my own, never having a driver’s license.  I never had a serious girlfriend, never went off to school or moved around, or saw much of anything except some childhood trips around the country.  I didn’t know how to cook or eat healthy, didn’t know how to pay taxes.  The few wild stories I had took place in prison.  Listening to others around me, I couldn’t relate, nor could they relate to me unless I avoided the subjects completely, so I asked questions and listened a lot.  

What began as defense mechanisms turned out to help me as I was fortunate enough to meet a handful of new friends on the outside, usually through my dad.  I could not meet anyone without that person making the choice to open up to me, and when they chose to, they found someone who was genuinely interested in everything they had to say.  I gained understanding of life that way, of the things normal people deal with on a day-to-day basis.  These friends helped me remain human, rather than turn into a toxic caveman.

Within prison, I discovered people often actually liked me as a person.  Sometimes I found myself, especially in my early twenties, trying to act cool, or what I thought was how someone who was cool would act, and made a fool of myself more than once.  I went through a period when I used a fair amount of substances to deal with depression and the chronic anxiety that came from feeling I’d wasted my entire life.  That feeling defined me for a couple years, because it was so true in many ways.  I committed an adult crime with a child’s mind, I harmed people I loved and created the whirlwind I fell into.  At times I did not know who I was, but whoever I was, that was all a part of me.  It was my life, and there was no running from it.

I was a loser.  Not to be self-deprecating, but I was, because I sure hadn’t acted like a winner.  But even in prison things grow, whether they be noxious weeds or better things.  I decided I didn’t want to be like that my entire life, and though I struggled through the years, bored and occasionally terrified with a few moments of wonder, I managed to grow myself.  I became quite an amazing cook as part of an introductory culinary arts vocational class, and later became a tutor/chef.  I learned enough about law to help a teen get out of prison.  I started writing, creating, drawing and constantly reading.  Eventually, I learned about so many things I would have had an interest in had I not been locked up. I learned about what I wanted, began to see what I had the ability to create instead of the destructive tendencies that brought me to prison.  I made friends, and I started having more experiences and more to talk about.  I trained dogs, wrote for books, and performed with bands in prison concerts.

Though I still preferred to listen, I started to discover who I was, to find myself in the shadows despite being behind bars for the majority of my life.  I still can’t make a mean face even if it meant my early parole, but I don’t really care.  I still get stares from the predators when I eat a banana the regular way, but my beard makes me less appetizing and at 33 they know not to mess with me.  I know how to get along with everyone, but I’m much more discerning about who I choose to talk to.  The biggest thing that has changed about me in here is getting rid of my ego, which took work, and giving up on trying to fit in.  When I did, I found that more people took to me than ever before.  Maybe that’s what becoming an adult is, as opposed to a child.  I grew up, and I did it in prison.  It’s possible to find out who you are behind bars…  but it can be a bit harder. 

ABOUT THE WRITER.  This is Chris’ first time writing for WITS, but he has been writing for some time. He wanted to share his perspective on what it is like to grow up in prison. If you would like to contact Chris, you can do so at:

Christopher Dankovich #595904
Thumb Correctional Facility
3225 John Conley Drive
Lapeer, MI 48446

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I Was A Part Of Kairos #52!

Tuesday, July 23, 2024

Let me get this straight…

A bunch of old Christian white men coming to Texas death row to bring forth a Kairos conference for minorities held in chains within isolated cells?  I could hear tribal drum beats from my African ancestors telling me to run.  Flee the scene!  Avoid at all costs!  It was something I had successfully avoided for two decades, and I had never applied to join – until now.  

Over the years I had not refused out of penal dogma, nor was I convinced I would be radicalized religiously.  I am an iconoclast by nature, so I am not at all intimidated by people who have a different view on life than I do.  In fact, I cherish meeting people with different beliefs.  No, my lack of participation was simply based on my view of advocacy for Texas death row inmates and how it would look.  I believe that if one resident gets something from an outside organization, then all of us should receive the same thing or things equally.  Or none of us should get anything.  

When I first arrived on death row I learned this from former inmates who called upon unity and fairness as their religion.  Everything I do is done with the idea that I can make a difference in my environment, and my previous protests of Kairos were always done because I wanted everyone to benefit from it.  

But situational circumstances can be reason to make exceptions to the rules.  Sure, perhaps a bit manipulative, depending on how you look at it, but that became my dilemma, I was given a choice I had to make – “Join Kairos or be moved to another cell in another section.”  

A cell is a cell, I am sure one would assume.  True to some degree.  However, I have invested financially in the cell I currently occupy.  I have faux wallpaper on the walls.  It’s clean.  It is not as draconian looking as other cells due to my efforts.  It’s comfortable as far as death row standards.  So, I was reluctant to part ways with my current cell.  Starting all over is a mentally daunting task for me since the administration has done nothing to maintain our cells’ appearance and condition for over eighteen years. 

So, I agreed to take part in Kairos, convincing myself that in the worst case scenario, if I didn’t like it, I would only have to endure it for two days.  I mean, realistically, I have wasted 9,490 days in a solitary cell.  So, what are two days?

Wednesday, July 24, 2024

A section of one of our pods consists of fourteen cells with a recreational dayroom in front of all the cells.  On this morning, the dayroom was cluttered with crane-neck microphones, speakers, guitars, an electric piano – instruments that would be played by population inmates who had sufficient musical skills.  A few other population inmates, penal-certified Field Ministers and Life Coaches, arrived around 7 am to set up the area with chairs for the guests and decorate with colorful ribbons attached to short messages.   

The inmate-band did a test run on their instruments while another inmate began brewing Folgers coffee, filling the air with an aroma that had been absent from my nostrils since my youthful days living with my grandmother.  Another inmate walked around taking photos of death row inmates in cells.  I refused to have my photo taken at first until I saw that everyone else had theirs taken.  If you ever see the photo, you may notice my wallpaper in the background.  

At around 8 am, about twenty-five Kairos representatives arrived.  They were a casual bunch, not on the far side of over-the-hill, but having passed its summit. With their thinning gray-to-silver hair, they appeared more suited for a M.A.G.A rally than sitting alongside the condemned.  Never judge a book by its cover…

The not-knowing drove my expectations, and I would later learn the same not-knowing faced these Kairos men.  They heard that in my section resided enigmas.  We’d offered up nothing much for attempted spiritual support in past events, and they were told to be unsure of how we might react.  So when they came in, they prayed.

After their group prayer, two of the inmate Life Coaches rolled in breakfast and passed a plate to each death row inmate consisting of breakfast tacos, boiled eggs, oranges, apples, Folgers coffee, assorted cookies and real sugar.  Don’t even get me started trying to recall when my pallet last tasted real, uncut, diabetic cocaine…  sugar.

Once we had all eaten, each Kairos man introduced themselves, and we quickly learned these were not Jim Jones disciples.  Some were former military, including two who fought in the Vietnam War.  One was a scientist, another a mathematician, another a New York liberal, a pastor of a growing church, etc…  All were well off.

Then a Field Minister went to each cell and introduced each death row inmate and explained to them why we took part in the Kairos activities.  Some of us were truthful about not wanting to move.  A few said they wanted to build on or explore their faith and fellowship with Jesus Christ, one had no response, and another said he simply wanted to try something new.  

After the introductions, they sang three songs, encouraging us to sing along.  Then two men took center stage and gave their testimony and explained who they were as Christians.  All were passionate.  I think what grabbed my attention the most was how brutally honest their revelations were, from being used by the military as a Special Ops killing machine to a manipulative womanizer to a reckless alcoholic who nearly killed his entire family in a car accident.

Once these men were done, a group narrator divided the men into ‘families’, naming the groups Matthew, Mark and Luke, and groups of three men were assigned to come talk to inmates at their cells.  Conversations could be about the testimony given and how it moved us, if it did.  Or they would just listen to us talk about carnal stuff – sports, penal injustice, our delusional egos, and so on.  Nothing was forbidden.  Nor were they trying to judge us.  The talks would last for fifteen minutes before they were called back to the dayroom.  More songs were sung, more coffee passed out, and different men would then stand and talk.  Around noon, lunch was passed out, and afterwards there was more singing, more testimonies, and more family meetings at door cells.

Both days at around 2 pm the Kairos men would sing the song I’ll Fly Away, forming a single-file line, spreading their arms out like wings and flapping them as if birds, unashamed, sharing the biggest and warmest smiles I have ever seen in my life.  They were intoxicated, yet not under the influence of any alcohol or chemical agent.  Though I laughed at their ‘funky chicken’ dance routine, I was more appreciative of their genuine display than I thought I would be.  

And at around 5 pm each day, they ended with prayer, feeding us again before saying their good-byes.  

On Day 2, the final day, they explained that their wives, family members and church members had prepared the meals for us.  They even did all the baking.  This revelation touched me – then and now.  I’ve learned over the years that on death row, the majority of us receive support from strangers, non-family members, from different countries even.  It moves and humbles me.

They also gave us a little tote bag filled with notes and letters from Kairos men and their families, even from incarcerated men and women who took part in previous Kairos events.  I read every one.  Some were written with a formal message, but there were a few personal messages from the men I spoke to.  I’m sending them home so my mother can read them too.

When it was finally over and the lights were no longer bright on the section, when every instrument, chair and person was long gone, the most fascinating thing happened…  the air was filled with happiness, not the wild tension that normally fills up this place like a powder keg waiting to ignite.  If I had to describe it…  Recall how the green menace stole all the presents from the Whos in Whoville?  He was so proud of himself, thinking he had ruined the holiday for everyone as he patiently waited to hear screaming and crying coming from the small town.  Instead he heard singing.  Praise. 

Well, after the Kairos men left, IT WAS LIKE WHOVILLE UP IN THIS MUTHER…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.  Charles “Chucky” Mamou is a long-time WITS writer. The circumstances surrounding his case have long inspired me, giving insight into how criminal courts work in some cases. Convictions resulting in sentences of death can be obtained, even when all the evidence that is in a state’s possession is not shared.

Details surrounding Charles’ case have been shared extensively on this site. If you would like to contact Charles Mamou, you can do so at:

Charles Mamou #999333
Polunsky Unit
P.O. Box 660400
Dallas, TX 75266-0400

He can also get messages through: https://securustech.online/#/login

And any messages or comments left here will be forwarded to him.

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A Hard Shell

When I became incarcerated at seventeen, I didn’t know what to expect.  I had no idea how to do this thing called being an adult, much less being an adult in prison.  I was worried and a bit scared to be honest.  I didn’t know anyone who had ever been locked up, and the movies made it all seem terrifying.  At one point early on, I was sure I would die in here, and with a 48-year sentence, that seemed likely.

Once I got to prison, however, I quickly realized it was nothing like the movies.  For me, it felt more like high school.  Everyone seemed to be worried about getting a girlfriend, going to GED or vocational classes, or catching rec time to play softball.  Since I was only eighteen at the time, I didn’t much worry about the education part.  I got my GED at the jail and that was sufficient for me.  So I focused on chasing girls and going to rec.  I did that for a few years until someone recommended I try to get the college scholarship offered here.  They believed in me, so I decided, why not?  Most people didn’t get it their first time anyway.  But I did.  I got accepted into college with a full scholarship for an Associate’s Degree.  Maybe there was something to this education thing… 

I moved into the college wing and that’s when life changed.  I was surrounded by positive people, all pursuing an education.  In the midst of it all though, one person stood out.  Her name was Turtle.  At the time I met her, she had been locked up for eighteen years, serving a Life plus 20-year sentence without the possibility of parole.  She had been incarcerated since she was eighteen years old.  Her daughter was just five when she entered the system.  Meeting Turtle was like meeting a mythical creature.   Everyone knew her story and who she was – and now I was living with her.  At just five feet tall, she didn’t seem like she would be intimidating, but she was, and I was a little nervous to speak to her.  But then she came up to me and offered to help me get a job.  Huh?  I was shocked.  Getting a job hadn’t even been a thought for me.  

I quickly got to know Turtle, and the more I knew, the more she amazed me.  She was raised in a severely abusive household and kicked out at age 12 for being gay.  She got pregnant with her daughter at thirteen and survived on the streets with an infant until she became incarcerated at age eighteen.  She was also illiterate when she got locked up, not knowing how to read or write, but the woman standing in front of me in 2015 was just two classes away from an Associate’s Degree.  Turtle had also completed multiple vocational programs, too many to count really, and led a Celebrate Recovery program, helping others to heal from trauma.  As if her accomplishments inside weren’t enough, from behind bars she also raised an amazing daughter who grew into an amazing woman.  She parented over the phone, through letters, and in the visitation room.  The bond she has with her child is unlike anything I have seen in here.  

It has been almost ten years since Turtle and I first met, and she has continued to amaze and inspire me.  She now has two granddaughters that she is active with who love their Grams so much.  Her daughter is a 32-year-old widow who is just as strong as her mother taught her to be.  Turtle now facilitates multiple programs including three substance abuse groups, anger management, and Beyond Violence.  She is just two classes away from a Bachelor’s Degree and is a mentor in the Prison Fellowship Program.  She is also one of my best friends.  Turtle is the reason I have become who I am.  She taught me not just how to do my time but to build a better life, be a better person, and how to have hope in a hopeless situation.  I owe my life and the freedom I will one day have to Turtle.  I know I am not the only one she has helped.  Countless people talk to her every day about getting into her classes and how they can be better.  If anyone in prison deserves a chance at freedom it is her.  But guess what?  That isn’t her goal.  Her mission is to be the best she can while in here.  She has always just wanted to help those around her.  I am so proud of my friend who learned her ABC’s, got her GED, and earned her college degree all in one little prison classroom.  If that isn’t resilience, I don’t know what is.  

ABOUT THE WRITER.  Ashleigh placed first in our most recent writing contest with this essay. She not only wrote a beautiful piece, she also answered the prompt and shared the actions and life of someone who displayed inner strength. Ashleigh has written for WITS before, and I hope we hear from her again. Ashleigh can be contacted at:

Ashleigh Dye #1454863
Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women
144 Prison Lane
Troy, VA 22974

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Awakening

Close to thirty-three years ago, at the age of twenty-two, I became the newest addition to North Carolina’s Death Row.  There were about eighty-four others here then, and since that time our disparaged population grew to more than two hundred.  Also over time, I became lost, with no conscious direction.  I had no sense of hope in my life and fell into unfathomable darkness, with many of those I once knew lost – my grandmother, my parents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  Those I had left became strangers.  I staggered through the sands of my sanity, clinging to the delusion that I was merely existing and not really alive.  I became the embodiment of the walking dead.

At one point in my stay here on Death Row, I tried to bring an end to my remaining appeals…  Thankfully, I was unsuccessful.  There came an ‘awakening’ here on the row in the form of two classes – Creative Writing and Houses of Healing.  The following year new classes were added and greedily devoured.  In these classes, we began to experience parts of ourselves we hadn’t known we’d lost, and before long we hungered to change the narrative of who we were, how we imagined ourselves and how society perceived us. Those very words,  Change the Narrative, became our mantra and our movement.  

We began to counsel ourselves and monitor each other’s actions, challenging each other to excel and take pride in our accomplishments.  Some of us wrote newspaper op-eds and magazine articles.  Some wrote books.  Some even began community outreach programs to encourage the youth to believe in themselves and succeed in life.  We are even – to the best of my knowledge – the only Death Row in the United States to ever put on a live play, Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose, and we also created a play, Serving Life, which was adapted into Count and performed by student actors at the University of North Carolina.  

We worked hard, many of us for the first time in our lives.  Classes became safe spaces where we could open up and be ourselves.  They were places we could leave the negativity and degradation of incarceration behind.  We forged new and deeper bonds with each other, and I learned things about people I’d known for years.  For example, a guy I’d known for twenty-four years once attended nursing school.  Another I knew for nine years had completed three years of college trying to become a social worker.

We inspired each other to believe we could achieve great things.  We not only changed ourselves, we also changed the culture here and our way of thinking.  There was a major drop in write-ups and speech and debate made arguments fun instead of stressful.   We were truly changing the narrative.

Yet…  If there is ever a constant in this life, it is that reality is paved in the unexpected.  The classes were shut down, and like Dante’s leopard, lion and she-wolf, we were confronted with obstacles we needed to overcome.

Our leopard came in the form of custody staff, many of whom don’t recognize any value or potential in us.  Our lion, the program department, did not provide programs and was unwilling to allow others to do so.  And our wolf lived among us, haters, unhappy with their lives and intent on sabotaging the growth of others.  

But in the end, we’ve learned that it is only ‘us’ that holds us back.  Knowing that, we will never give in or give up.  We will and are achieving great things.  We are still writing creatively on our own, publishing books, short stories, poems and magazine articles.  We are becoming versed in modern technology, learning new languages and working towards achieving our dreams.  We no longer accept merely existing in a state of learned helplessness.  We inspire each other daily and we have changed our narrative.  Now it’s time to live our new stories!

ABOUT THE WRITER.   The author writes under the pen name Resolute, and has placed Second in our most recent writing contest with this essay. Resolute answered the prompt, eloquently sharing the inner strength and community building among his peers, describing members encouraging and uplifting one another to change their narrative.

Any comments left on this page will be forwarded to the author.

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True Strength Rescued Me from Me

“Lay down!”  “Stop resisting!”  “Submit to the cuffs!”  

Correctional Officers screamed at me as I was slammed to the floor, pain bombarding my face as it collided with the unyielding concrete, a huge, heavy hand pressing my head down.  Squinting, I glimpsed Roy and three of his teeth lying in a puddle of his own blood.

I thought I was strong.  I thought Roy was weak.  I was wrong.


A couple months before that altercation, I transferred to Johnston Correctional from Polk Youth Center in Raleigh, a ‘Gladiator School’ known for violent fights, rapes and theivery.  Nothing gave me permission to be human there, every day a fight, physically and emotionally, and violence was my only tool to handle conflict.  While this tool cost me the most, my wounded, aching heart continued to support it, chanting, ”No more abuse, no more hurt.  Ever.”

I was a prisoner to both the State and my anger.  Fellow-caged swore I was a lunatic.  Nobody knew that each night the shower hid a lunatic’s tears of confusion.  Who am I?


I arrived at the adult prison with one certain conviction – make them say, “Leave that lunatic alone!”

In class, Roy, an elderly white man, sat beside me, singing, praying and openly expressing his Jesus love.  How’s he so at peace in the same prison that’s killing me?

One day Roy’s joy clashed with the lunatic in me.  I threatened, “If you speak any more of that Jesus s#*! to me, I will knock your teeth out!”

Roy only smiled before saying softly, “God bless you, son.”

The lunatic punched peaceful Roy, who ended up unconscious, bloody, and missing three teeth.


Leaving segregation, volunteers filled the yard.  They greeted me, handing me Jesus tracts, inviting me to a Revival.  I headed to the yard away from the Jesus freaks thinking, I just got out of the hole behind this Jesus s#*!, now he’s everywhere!

I picked up a basketball, began shooting, and saw smiling Will approaching.  Knowing Will’s intention, I blasted him with cursing to get rid of him.  He responded, “Yes, I am here to ask you to come to church, but I have a proposition.  We play one on one, straight ten, make it – take it.  If I win, come to the last night of Revival.  If you win, I’ll buy you any meal from the canteen.”

Music to my ears!  I got the ball first, checked it, drove hard to the basket, stepped back, pulled up, swish!  No problem!  I taunted Will, “Easy money!  I’ll give you a plea bargain if you tap now!”

He smiled.

I drove hard again, stepped back, pulled up, but without the ball.  Will had swiped it and was already laying it up.  I never got the ball back.  I lost ten to one.

I was livid.  I cursed Will, spit at him and called him names.  I wanted to hurt someone.  How could I have lost to a weak little Christian at basketball?  Will walked off, and I kicked the ball and paced the dirt track.  Hearing footsteps, I spun around, seeing Will and thinking, time to fight!

Carrying a box, Will said, “Hey man, I apologize for upsetting you.  You don’t have to come to the service tonight, but I would love to see you there.  I thought you might like something from the canteen anyway.”

The tray contained exactly what I would have chosen…


Lying on my bunk, questions blared.  Why is my chest feeling heavy?  Why am I crying and caring about any of this?  Why did I feel guilt concerning Will?

The speaker blared, “Revival Call.”

Not knowing why but feeling compelled, I jumped down and went.  Stepping inside the chapel, all heads spun and eyes went wide.  Everything inside beckoned me to bolt, except the small calm that sat me down.  I didn’t know how to act, my legs antsy and dancing.  The word ‘lesbian’ caught my attention.  Looking up, I realized a volunteer was speaking, but why was she talking about lesbians?

Her testimony ripped the scabs off childhood wounds.  She talked about lying in bed at night, the sheets tucked tightly around her, making a peephole to stare at the doorknob.  She hated the color Carolina Blue, the color on her bedroom walls where her father abused her.  Her past affected her future, impacting her relationships with men.  She gave up, concluding death was easier than trying to live.

I heard that someone else had gone through what I went through.  Someone else understood my fight, my pain, my daily struggle.  

“But now, by God’s grace, my life is worth living.”  Her past lost its power, and Jesus set her free.  Her past also made her able to love and help others who were hurting.

“Your past does not dictate your future.  Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”

I realized I was sobbing.  She stood, reaching to me, saying, “Come to me, my child.”  The same indescribable calm caused me to take her hand.  Kneeling before heaven and accepting Jesus as my Savior, I looked up to see Roy and Will standing beside me, hands on my shoulders.

Roy and Will did not see an obstacle in my lunacy, rather an opportunity to see a life changed.  They taught me true strength and godly love.  Their love and forgiveness led me to Jesus.  I thought my anger and violence made me strong, but I was wrong.  Real strength tears down walls and rescues people.  Real strength is love, joy and forgiveness.  

Because of the real strength of Roy and Will, I am now a Field Minister.  God uses me to minister to the hurting and lost through love, forgiveness, joy and peace. 

ABOUT THE WRITER. Larry Thompson, Jr. is new to WITS and also the third place winner in our summer writing contest. The judges were impressed with his easy-to-read, smooth writing style, as well as his willingness to be vulnerable and honestly share a life-changing experience. Mr. Thompson can be contacted at:

Larry Thompson, Jr., #0406623
Nash Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

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Voices of Reform

A clip of Chanton & Mumin from S1, Episode 7 of In The Cellar, regarding Staff Relations.

Who are we to ask or expect better from them, when we’re willing to put our own humanity aside?  

I think that if we see an officer in need, if we really believe that we’re all people, and we’re deserving of kind treatment, then at some point we have to take a stand and just buck the notion that we ain’t supposed to deal with them, we ain’t supposed to help them, they’re the po-leece.  I think we’re s’posed to. 

One of the ways to first break that division, it gotta start from us.  We have to take ownership of our part, to our role in this equation.  

Terry ‘Chanton’ Robinson and Jason ‘Mumin’ Hurst are WITS writers committed to changing the narrative, sharing their reform through writing as well as their voices In The Cellar.

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Sinking Into Earth

Present Day, Death Row.

I recently studied a photo of Stephen Hayes’ exhibit, 5 lbs., featuring a wall of dark dinner-plate-sized frames, each filled with brass shell casings.  Emerging from the bullets,  hands that seem to be reaching from underneath – or maybe surging up through – a flurry-flood, breaking the surface like drowning men and children.

The first message is cerebral.  As a series, the lots of dinner plates and lots of hands suggest a widespread pattern of violence.

The second message is emotional.  Wide-spread fingers and clenched fists speak a language I recognize – DESPERATION – showing that ultimately each of us suffer fear and death alone.

I’ve been incarcerated twenty years, but even now, at forty-one, my breath quickens as if those fingers are mine, screaming at me from the past.  When I was twelve and living in the projects, I suddenly realized that before I turned thirty, I’d either be dead, serving a life sentence, or waiting to be executed.  When I told my homies, they looked at me coolly, like I’d pointed out some obvious and natural law, the way gravity pulls all bodies toward earth’s center.  

February 1993.  The Projects.

You need to call the cops…  What?  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  Call the cops!  That was taboo in the projects; we all knew the consequences.  My homie’s mom draped her heavy arm around my shoulders, lifted my chin to examine tonight’s damage.  I had thick red welts from where my dad’s fingers had encircled my neck.

“George, sweetie, I know we not s’posed to, but if you don’t call the cops, yo daddy gon’ kill you or one of yo brothers.”

She said it so tenderly, I started sobbing again.  Though I was scared of my dad, I was terrified of the po-leece. 

As boogeymen, police had supernatural powers to make people disappear.  Adults threatened children with them, like, if you don’t take yo li’l ass to bed, the po-leece gone take yo li’l ass to jail.  Our campfire stories centered around THE LAW – run-ins with them, running from them, getting captured by them.  I didn’t want to call the cops; I didn’t want to die either.  

She dialed, then pressed the cordless phone to my ear.  A stranger’s voice said, “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”  

Finally, desperate, I told on my dad.  I told about the years of beatings, the broken bones, how he’d tried to kill me, that my brothers were still in the apartment with him.

By the time the cops came to rescue me, I felt better.  I figured my brothers and I would either go live with our mom (wherever she was) or go into foster care.  Either way, we’d escape the projects and our dad.

The cops were kind.  Both were middle-aged, one White, one Black.  They took me to confront my dad who stood shirtless on our stoop, smoking a cigarette.  He smirked when he saw me walking up between two brawny officers.  

We stopped about five feet away.  One of the officers rubbed warm circles between my shoulders.  They told my dad all I’d said, then got quiet.  My dad dropped his cigarette, stubbed it out with his bare heel, then growled, “Yeah, I did it.  All of it.”

The guy on my right looked down at me a couple seconds, then back at my dad.  Then he pressed me forward and said, “Well… you must’ve done something to deserve it.”

The cops nodded to my dad, then walked away saying, “Have a good night, sir.”  My dad sidestepped as I hung my head and went inside to rejoin my brothers.

Sometimes, after that night and just prior to or following a beating, my dad would drag me by an ear to the kitchen phone and thrust the receiver against my head.  “Here, call for help,” he’d say, chuckling.  I’d close my eyes and click the phone back into its cradle.

March 25, 1993.  The Projects.

I’d turn twelve at midnight.  I lay on my bed monitoring the sounds inside and outside the apartment, anxious. The corner where our sidewalk bordered our parking lot was a prime hangout spot for dealers, users, prostitutes.  Every night I listened to car stereos thumping, people laughing, bottles bursting (sometimes through our windows), the undulating tones of an argument that ended with the slaps and thuds of fists on faces – or gunshots.  After years of living here, like an inner city lullaby, these hypnotic sounds soothed me, rocked me to sleep each night.

But tonight was initiation night.  Despite having lived here so long, my family still wasn’t accepted.  At first, it was because we were only one of two nonblack families – my mom, Korean, my dad, White.  Also, my dad tried to keep my three brothers and me within shouting distance at all times, locking our doors for the day once the sun went down.  We were day-shift people.

During the day, the projects seemed mostly abandoned, withdrawn, guarded, like my dad.  Though we lived in the ‘hood, we weren’t of it.  My brothers and I were baited into fights every day.  People stole our towels, socks, even underwear off our clothesline; threw mud, burnt grease, piss and shit on our drying bedsheets.  All of it screamed, YOU DON’T FUCKING BELONG HERE!

So, I’d decided to join them.  My friends would help initiate me into the real ‘hood life.  What had me on edge was my dad.  I didn’t know the term schizophrenia yet; all I knew was that he was crazy, unstable, violent.  

He also oscillated between narcolepsy and insomnia.  Most nights, he’d prop up on the couch in our living room, in pitch dark, chain smoking Winstons… until he passed out for ten or fifteen minutes at a time.  I was waiting to hear his heavy breathing turn into snores.  I needed those loud snores if I was going to sneak out – and later, sneak back in – under their cover.

I was startled upright by screeching tires and, “FREEZE!”  A stampede of feet slapped grass and cement and rattled hedges outside my window as shadows flitted past.  A minute later, several ambled back and became menacing silhouettes outlined by strobing red and blue lights. They laughed among themselves.

“…like roaches!” one of them yelled.

Though the cops had cleared the corner, everybody knew the crowd had simply relocated to one of the other parking lots.  As kids, before we ever committed a crime, ‘hood life taught us to scatter reflexively at the sight of a police cruiser, period.  It was a joke, or a dangerous form of Tag.  You’re it.  

My dad’s lawnmower-snores rumbled through the apartment, unbothered by the ritual outside.  I laced up my sneakers. I was tired of being treated like an interloper.  I knew my family was too poor to move anywhere else, so I crouched on my bed, listening to dad’s steady snores, then climbed out my window.

Present.

Looking back, that was around the time I found the first gun I’d ever own, just laying in the grassy field beside my parking lot – the same field we’d cross to get to the bus stop, or when running from cops.

Last week, I heard on the news that someone there did a drive-by shooting, hitting three teens standing on the sidewalk near that bus stop, across from the police substation.  The assailant got away.  It seems nothing has changed except the generation.  I can’t help but wonder – was there so much crime, really, because our way of life in the projects was anti-police, or were we behaving criminally because police were anti-us, and we didn’t have anything to lose?

For me, the art exhibit photo merges past and present desperations.  In the past, perhaps, one of those hands is mine, reaching toward the police for help.  Presently, those hands seem to embody the pervading fear of police that people of color have – hands held up defensively, pleading, STOP… ENOUGH… WAIT… JUST FIVE MORE MINUTES…

It’s as if those hands know that to keep their freedom and bodies intact, while facing impossible odds, they must learn to part the sea.  They’ll need a miracle. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.  George Wilkerson is an accomplished writer, poet and artist, and I am always grateful to share his work.  George is the author of Interface and Bone Orchard, as well as co-author of Inside: Voices from Death Row and Beneath Our Numbers.  He is editor of Compassion, and he has had speaking engagements on multiple platforms, adding to discussions on the death penalty, faith, the justice system, and various other topics.  George’s writing has been included in The Upper Room, a daily devotional guide, PEN America and various other publications. More of his writing and art can be found at katbrodie.com/georgewilkerson/.

George Wilkerson can be contacted at:

George T. Wilkerson #0900281
Central Prison
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

He can also be contacted via textbehind.com

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Episode 4 – Visitation

Episode 4 was released today! Mumin and Chanton share their thoughts and experiences with visitation, discussing it’s value and impact on their lives and those around them. They are also joined by a relative for this one. This project consists of 10 episodes, and I encourage anyone wanting to learn from this community, which in good part is self-governed, to go back and listen to each one.

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In The Cellar: Episode 1, First Impressions

In their first episode, Mumin and Chanton talk about the impact of first impressions, their and other’s need to convey impressions, and how that is shaped while living in prison.

In The Cellar hopes to raise awareness regarding the psychological impact of living with the looming threat of lethal injection and give policy makers and up-and-coming policy makers a more rounded perspective.

Please follow this project on Spotify, and also leave your thoughts and comments, which will be shared with Mumin and Chanton.

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Scarred But Sturdy

I often think of myself as a sturdy, ancient oak, tucked away in the still quiet of the forest.  I have many scars, but I believe each and every one is a part of the necessary affliction to be overcome and has gotten me to where I am today.  Each scar, like the markings of an oak tree, is a measure of my inner growth displayed for the world to see.

Today, I did something I have never done.  I stood naked from the waist up in front of the worn and cracked wall mirror of my prison cell.  My reflection stared back as if to say, “I’ve waited for you to notice me for quite some time now, my friend.”  All I could do was stare back.  I was covered from neck to feet in prison tattoos, the fleshly billboard of places I’ve been and all the moments I wanted to capture beneath my skin through self-expression.  My reflection resembled so many other men locked away within these cold walls.  But, I knew the truth as I stood staring; I’d been hiding behind so many scars for so long, and I wanted to finally crawl out from behind them, once and for all.

I lifted my arms to see more and explored the ink of my torso.  My fingers traced the now mature scars where breathing tubes had once been inserted into my chest, and I went immediately back to my childhood where I’d suffered abuse at the hands of a violent stepfather who nearly took my life at the age of eleven.  I stood for a moment, reliving what it felt like to struggle for my last breath because my lungs had been collapsed by a vicious monster who had married my mother and beaten me often as a child.  He was an addict who took his pain and suffering out on my brother and mother as well, and he left a scar I could not cover with a simple tattoo, no matter how hard I tried.

Reality began to set in, and I was back in the confines of my 13×13-foot man-made cage, realizing thirty-one years have gone by.  I was incarcerated most of my life, as a juvenile and adult, and “time” has started to wear on me.  I may not have been in this very cell, but I have been in countless replicas where I’ve awakened each morning for three decades – cold concrete walls that leak when it rains, and a mattress as worn as the folded up blanket at the end of my bed.  I am getting older, undeniably. 

Through it all, shines the illuminating shimmer of light from the window in the back of my cell, light that reflects on what I hold dearest, the faces of my beautiful wife and daughters taped to my wall.  Their faces, despite all that I have gone through, remind me that I am still alive in spite of my scars.  There is, in fact, life outside these walls, and I will see it again.  

As I stood continuing to stare at my bare torso in the reflection, I thought, “I’ve come so far, and each scar has taught me a lesson, inching me closer and closer to freedom.”  I’d run from many of my scars most of my life, and in that moment I was willing to face them.  I stepped closer, lifting both my hands to my face as the tears began to fall.  It was the first time in a long time I could remember actually crying.  In that moment, I felt it.  I felt it hard.  The courage began to swell up inside my chest, my hands covered in the tears that fell effortlessly, and the voice inside spoke to me.

“Keith, you truly are like that of an oak tree, and your life is measured by the scars you have been running from for so long.  You must stop and face them.  Learn how to embrace them if you are ever going to reach your greatest potential because that, Keith, is where you will heal the most.”

My knees began to lower to the cold concrete floor as the words echoed over and over again in my mind. I started to understand just what my purpose had been all these years, seeing through the tattoos that I’d hidden behind for so long, and it was what every human is brought into this world for – to live; to love and be loved; to learn and fail when necessary in order to learn from mistakes; and forgive ourselves as much as we are willing to forgive others.  I sat kneeling and broken, yet I could not feel more alive, stronger than I had ever been.  I wiped away the tears, stood up in my reflection, and felt it.  I felt like that of an oak in the forest, upright and standing tall for the world to see.  These scars are mine, as yours are to you, but we are all like trees in the forest; we may become scarred, but growth is inevitable.  Our measurement is not going to be by what caused our afflictions, but how we endure them, refusing to be torn down.

Push through whatever has or continues to cause you pain.  You will find your way, it will come.  Your reflection, when faced, will lead the way, just be ever willing to look closely in the mirror and see that tree in the forest.  

ABOUT THE WRITER. Keith is a writer and artist, among his many other talents, and a frequent WITS contributor. He is also a tireless positive support in his community and consistently encourages and uplifts those around him.

Keith is currently working on two book projects and also acted as the Chief Editor of the 4Paws Newsletter. He has earned an Associates Degree in Behavioral Science and was the illustrator of the GOGI Life Tools Coloring Book. Keith works during the day and facilitates programs in the evenings. He also hopes to have access to pursuing his Bachelor’s degree in the future.  

To hear more of Keith’s story in his words, you can hear him on the Prison POD podcast.

Keith Erickson can be contacted at:
Keith Erickson #E-74907
Pleasant Valley State Prison
D-5-225
Low
P.O. Box 8500
Coalinga, CA 93210

Keith can also be reached through GettingOut.com

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Prison Writing and Expression