Views From The Inside

My Hero Made It To The Big Screen

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It was May 7, 2025, but between the sound and smell of the popcorn machine, the double-door entrance, and the floor-to-ceiling movie screen, it felt like my brother and I were carefree kids entering our rural hometown theater.  We were far from home though, and after 21 years in prison, Tim and I were entering the gym at Nash Correctional Institution. 

We grabbed our popcorn and weaved through dim lighting to the sound of excited chatter, though no one was more excited than me.  I was about to see my hero, my brother, finally make it to the big screen.  I always looked up to Tim, in every way imaginable.  If he did something wrong, then I had to try it too, regardless of the consequences.  If he went somewhere, I was going too.  When Tim started elementary school, I was miserable.  I waited for him like a labrador until he made it home.  On this day, the crowd in the gymnasium around me was waiting to see him too.

We made our way to two center seats on the third row of the metal, pullout bleachers.  The event was a celebration of sorts for the Correctional Enterprises Print Plant workers and the NC Prison News Today (NCPNT) team.  NCPNT was a new statewide prison publication produced by the incarcerated for the incarcerated.  We were all invested in watching an episode of Tar Heel Traveler, a WRAL news segment hosted by Scott Mason that highlights unique stories from across the Tar Heel State.  This unique story was about us.

The episode, The Prison News, was going to feature the story of creating the first issue of NCPNT.  Each of us had contributed to the process.  The NCPNT team wrote articles, designed layouts and graphics, and polished the issue with several rounds of editing.  Print plant workers provided skilled labor, printing, cutting and binding the finished magazine.  NCPNT connects every person incarcerated in the North Carolina prison system.  Individuals at both men’s and women’s facilities can submit articles for possible publication.  Upon completion, a digital magazine can be accessed through the Edovo education app, available to everyone for free on individual tablets.  A goal of the publication is to create community through shared experiences and information.  The inaugural issue featured articles about frustration over the TextBehind mail-relay policy, effects of mass incarceration on children, and the potential of a new reentry council.

Tim has always been talented and intelligent, but he didn’t always apply his abilities in the positive way he does now.  Despite having a LWOP sentence, he lives every day with purpose.  That is what led him to become the acting editor of NCPNT, which is just one of his many achievements.  He graduated from the NC Field Minister Program in 2021 and now teaches academic writing.  He also co-authored a bill that would give state lifers an avenue to qualify for release through their rehabilitative efforts.

Education and writing are not Tim’s end game.  They are tools he wields to inspire, teach and mentor other incarcerated men, and his dedication to live a transformed life has positively influenced countless lives.  Tim has always been my hero, but now he is shining for all to see.  

As the episode began, The Prison News included a sneak peak inside the NCPNT newsroom where Tim and NCPNT’s graphic designer were interviewed.  The segment also gave viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the print plant and interviews with three key workers.  I smiled through the entire thing, but my smile was biggest each time Tim flashed across the big screen.  I’ve never been prouder than when my hero delivered the show’s most important line.  “I don’t believe that I can ever deserve the opportunity to get out [of prison], because I took two lives.  But I try to live in a way that I’ll be a person who will bring restoration and healing wherever I go.”

ABOUT THE WRITER.  This is the first time Tony Johnson has contributed to WITS, though his hero and brother Timothy Johnson has contributed on several occasions. Tony has lived in prison for 21 years. He was the sports reporter of The Nash News, a prison newspaper, and a contributor to NC Prison News Today, a new statewide prison publication. He was also the featured poet at an event hosted by the Brothas United, a nonprofit. In addition to his writing, Tony is a freshman in the Second Chance Initiative program, where he intends to earn his Associates and Bachelor degrees from Campbell University.

The segment of the Tar Heel Traveler that Tony wrote about can be seen here.

Mr. Johnson can be contacted at:
Tony Johnson #0868310
Sampson Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

Tony Johnson can also be contacted via GettingOut.com.

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Writing Contests

SUMMER 2025 WRITING CONTEST

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Describe a time when you chose to be your authentic self when it took courage to do so.


ENTRY DETAILS: Only those who live in prison are eligible to participate & we don’t accept anything that has been previously published.
Submission is also permission to edit & post in future WITS projects.
Submission is free.
Entries should be 1,000 words or less. Poetry is considered if it is inspired by the prompt.
Submissions can be handwritten.

PRIZES: First Place: $75 | Second Place: $50 | Third Place: $25

DEADLINE: September 30, 2025. Decisions will be posted to the WITS website by approximately November 30, 2025.

MAILING ADDRESS: Walk In Those Shoes, Writing Contest Entry, P.O. Box 70092, Henrico, Virginia 23255

Please share with any writers you know who live in prison. The details are also shared on Page 3 of the Summer 2025 Newsletter which has a sampling of the writing WITS accepts.

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LWOP, Views From The Inside

Little One

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i want to go back
and speak with the little one
console the tiny witness
tell him it is not his fault

-the wind whips

his mother explodes through the glass door
falls bloody and motionless to the floor
beige carpet sprinkled with thousands of shards
little one stands with fear-scorched
nostrils
alone

-the wind whips & whirls

a giant stumbles through the jagged
door
boots crunching every cursed step
slurred rage flips a table and
chairs fly across the room
a moan from the limp mass on the floor
distracts

-the wind whips & whirls
with no intent

little one flees through the shattered
doorway
runs down the middle of the street
in the middle of the night
bare feet slapping cooled asphalt
he is screaming out
for help
for someone

-the wind whips & whirls
with no intent
that we know

“it is not your fault little one”

ABOUT THE WRITER.  In addition to Geoff’s accomplishments as a writer, he has worked incredibly hard and graduated from North Carolina’s Field Ministry Program in 2023, earning a bachelor of arts degree that he uses to counsel and mentor his incarcerated peers. Not only is he choosing to serve and support others spiritually, but he takes on that task with grace and purpose.

Geoff is also one of 23 co-authors of Beneath Our Number: A Collaborative Memoir From Inside Mass Incarceration. All of his writing for WITS can be found here. He has also contributed to the N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change with his poems Rainy Respite and A Sorry List – Abbreviated. In addition, Geoff has organized a small group that meets regularly to follow along with a curriculum designed to explore self discovery and personal growth. He has served over two decades of a life without parole sentence, and has chosen to invest his time in positive endeavors.

Geoff welcomes any and all feedback regarding his work. Comments left on this post will be forwarded to him, or you can contact him directly at the below address.

Geoff Martin #0809518
Columbus Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

He can also be contacted through GettingOut.com and TextBehind.com.

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Innocent, Sentenced to Death, Terry Robinson

Dreamlike

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For a time when I was a kid I dreamed of someday becoming an architect.  While other kids reveled in stickball and tag, I opted for dirt schematics.  The idea of designing and building homes was a playground for my mind.  I’d sit in the Projects just waiting for rain, and when everyone else in the neighborhood stayed indoors to keep dry, my best friend Chris and I competed over the intricacies of our mud houses.  I was fascinated by our ability to make use of the slush many others considered a social hindrance and mold it into a sanctuary.  I carried that dream of being an architect for more than half my life, even when I was standing on the pathway to becoming something else.  It was a dream that would survive adversity, unaffected by ill-fortune and one fostered by a purpose from God. 

Today it’s injustice that has claimed my longtime dreams of architecture, and for the last twenty-six years I dream only of vindication.  I’ve been in prison all this time accused of murdering a man named John by conspirators with motive and a trial court with terrible aim.  Today I dream of accountability for those that wronged me and restoring my reputation.  More than anything I dream the truth of my innocence will come out and I’ll be set free from Death Row.  

However vindication can feel much like a pipe dream after over two decades of disappointment.  Waking up day after day to being falsely imprisoned can render all hope lost.  Yet I continue to dream of vindication in the face of disappointment out of necessity, needing to believe that my life does have value and a false accusation will not be my undoing.  But whereas my dream of architecture was one of a soothing nature, the dream of vindication hurts.  In one dream I felt fulfilled by future possibilities; in the other I loathe the coming days.  Before, the dream was my inner refuge; today’s dream poses risk – the hefty toll of waiting around, hoping and praying for justice that may never come.

The fault was my own for dreaming so big when I knew damn well what I was up against.  A man was dead and when someone has to pay, any old villain will do.  From the moment I was accused and made a prime suspect, my innocence was in dire trouble.  All I had to back me was the word of an alibi whose credibility was tainted by addiction.  My downfall was the likeness of my two court appointed attorneys whose sole interest was in mitigation, a novice jury with no qualms of snatching away dreams, and a judge who orchestrated it all.  The nerve of me to think I could ever be more than the model to which they assigned guilt.  My innocence never stood a chance in a court of iniquities that operates on popular opinion.  So here I am twenty-six years later, wrongfully convicted and trying to hold myself up with a dream, which seems so futile given the reality that my hopeful tomorrow will end much like my hellish yesterday.

Today, May 18, 2025, marked twenty-six years since I was falsely imprisoned for murder.  Twenty-six years I’ve awaited vindication.  Twenty-six years a dream has been deferred.  Anyone who ever said “…don’t give up on your dreams,” ain’t never been to Death Row or they’d know the time spent on appeals is the real dream-killer while execution becomes the resolve.  Twenty-six years and the only thing  more damning than a dream that hasn’t happened is one that’s close but slipping away – when the supporters no longer rally, the faith dwindles, and the legal representation is slow to task.  Twenty-six years and I’m back where I started, daydreaming of a life outside my prison cell while the passing time burns my vindication to ashes and leaves me to sift through the residue for a smidgen of hope that ‘someone somewhere’ will make things right.

I am innocent, and I won’t ever get tired of saying it.  I’m not responsible for what happened to John.  I was not a party in the commission of the robbery that killed him, nor was I privy to the criminal intent.  I was condemned by fabricated testimony, misconduct, tunnel vision, and a jury eager to convict.  But there’s someone out there that knows I’m innocent, as made evident by their account of the crime, that one person, the cornerstone of my vindication and who can attest to my innocence.

How am I supposed to fight a court system that re-envisions the facts and views circumstantial evidence as truth?  Where is the victory if exoneration comes after they’ve stolen from me twenty-six years?  Life on Death Row won’t sustain many dreams, but it will crush them under ominous heels.  I’ll never become an architect… I know that now.  My purpose is just to stay alive.  Wrongful convictions are not a misfortune that falls on a few but a transgression that lands on many.  My false imprisonment is a breach of moral ethics… it has to be because I’m innocent.  So I’m appealing to all those out there who would dare to defy injustice – somebody somewhere please do something!

ABOUT THE WRITER. Terry Robinson is a long-time WITS writer who writes under the pen name Chanton. He is a member of the Board of Directors of WITS, and also facilitates a book club on NC’s Death Row. He has spoken to a Social Work class at VCU regarding the power of writing in self-care, as well as numerous other schools on a variety of topics, including being innocent and in prison.

Terry Robinson’s accomplishments are too numerous to fully list here, but he is currently working on multiple writing projects, contributes to the community he lives in including facilitating Spanish and writing groups, and is co-author of Beneath Our Numbers: A Collaborative Memoir From Inside Mass Incarceration and also Inside: Voices from Death Row. Terry was published by JSTOR, with his essay The Turnaround, he was a subject of an article by Waverly McIver regarding parenting from death row, Dads of Death Row, and all of his WITS writing can be found here. In addition, Terry can also be heard here, on Prison Pod Productions and also as co-host of In the Cellar, a podcast that explores the challenges, tragedies and triumphs of living with a death sentence.

Terry has always maintained his innocence, and is serving a sentence of death for a crime he knew nothing about. WITS is very hopeful Terry Robinson’s innocence will be proven, and we look forward to working side-by-side with him.

Terry can be contacted at:
Terry Robinson #0349019
Central Prison
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131
OR
textbehind.com

His writing can also be followed on Facebook and any messages left there will be forwarded to him.

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LWOP, Views From The Inside

Recycled and Repurposed

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Trash heaps of humanity – prisons are often thought of that way.  Yet when these sprawling sites become recycling centers, those considered disposable climb up from under the heap remade and repurposed.  These transformed individuals, ‘ambassadors of change’, provide a model for other recycling projects.  There was a line from A Bronx Tale – “The saddest thing in life is wasted talent.”  Prisons overflow with this distinct form of sadness – individuals with talent wasted by destructive choices.  

Although prisons teem with wasted talent, there is a segment that rises above the waste of their past and circumstances.  These individuals refuse to remain wasted, they dedicate themselves to radical change, and they build lives of impressive accomplishments and positive impact, inspiring others in prison to also dedicate themselves to this reclamation project.  These ambassadors often come from a prison subgroup, those serving life without parole.  Three of those lifers are Phil, Kwame, and Barry.

When Phil was first sentenced to life, he thought his life was over so change was pointless.  Yet, despite a lack of meaningful incentives, a love of writing motivated him to become self-educated as he studied and strived to hone his craft.  The writing pursuit and corresponding education produced a whole-person maturation.

Phil has since written dozens of books and numerous articles, been published in two legal journals and drafted a legislative mass incarceration reform proposal and bill for North Carolina that combats institutional violence.  While editor of the Nash News, he was featured on the Criminal Podcast in an episode about prison newspapers.  He spends his time writing to advocate for reform and positively influence his community.  The reform bill he drafted has motivated numerous lifers to live a changed life and inspired many in prison to be their own advocates for reform.

Kwame, another ambassador, became a writer and trailblazer while incarcerated.  Some would label him a product of his environment – a minority youth raised in an inner-city neighborhood plagued by poverty, drugs, and crime, who then ended up in prison.  But that episode is not the entire story; it’s just the opening scene.

Kwame wrote one of the pioneering books in the urban fiction genre.  Using stories of the streets familiar to him, he has written stories and created characters that helped others from a similar background feel understood and forced many who could not previously identify with the struggle of the inner-city better understand and empathize with the systemic challenges.  

Kwame has now become a screenplay writer and movie producer.  He also created and taught The Art of Storytelling, a creative writing class for the prison population, seemingly discernibly like the NYU professor he could have been.

Kwame – author, producer, ambassador of change – paved a path for others in prison to enter the urban fiction genre.  He has created a legacy of possibility and a culture of writing that has been a catalyst for numerous others to change.

Barry, yet another ambassador, overcame a struggle with alcohol and substance use through a 12-step program.  He was building a career as a project manager for a construction company – until he decided he had come far enough to have one drink.  One drink turned into a pitcher, into several pitchers.  A lot happened that night, a man lost his life and Barry was sentenced to LWOP.  

Barry could have become bitter.  Instead, he spent nearly twenty years helping others – a peer counselor in a substance abuse program, dog trainer, and now a Field Minister.  He spends most of his time doing one-on-one counseling, helping guys work through problematic emotions, substance abuse, and grief by applying cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles.  He also teaches Thinking for a Change.

Barry is fulfilling his talent by becoming the counselor his neighbors need.  The guys he has helped change then go on to convince others to change, to use CBT to face their troubles.  The counselees, who overcome explosive anger, addiction, depression, and anxiety, have become ambassadors themselves.  

These ambassadors prove the inherent potential for change within every person, including every incarcerated individual.  These ambassadors light the darkness of prisons as beacons of hope to the incarcerated and beacons of possibility to society, to the many who think a person who lands on the trash heap can be only waste. 

So, when people view the story of the young adult who robbed someone or even took a life, instead of thinking, ‘Throw them away’, remember these ambassadors.  These recycled and repurposed individuals have transformed themselves and their lives, and now they influence others to change.

De Niro, R. (1993). A Bronx Tale. Savoy Pictures.

ABOUT THE WRITER.  Timothy Johnson is serving a life without parole sentence.  He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Pastoral Ministry with a minor in Counseling from the College at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; he serves as the editor for The Nash News, the first and longest running prison publication in NC; he was editor of Ambassadors in Exile, a journal/newsletter that represents the NCFMP; he is a co-author of Beneath Our Numbers; he has been published in the North Carolina Law Review, Hope for the Hopeless:  The Prison Resources Repurposing Act ; and he is currently leading the effort to build NC Prison News Today, a statewide prison publication.
Recently, Timothy and Phillip Vance Smith, II, co-authored a piece for NC Newsline, which can be found here, and Timothy can also be heard on the Prison POD podcast on YouTube.
Just this month, Timothy as well as others were featured on a Tar Heel Traveler segment which can be seen here.

Mr. Johnson can be contacted at:
Timothy Johnson #0778428
Nash Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

Timothy Johnson can also be contacted via GettingOut.com

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Sentenced to Death, Views From The Inside

Tents

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For months when I was twenty-three, I sensed God calling me to live in a tent.  Actually, He called me to forsake my party lifestyle and selling drugs; and since part of me yearned to do this, I started fantasizing about being homeless and living out of a tent at a local campground.  My desire had nothing to do with some romantic, spiritual vision that saw connecting with nature as a way to connect with God.  Rather, it was the embodiment of my wish to be free of my attachment to creature comforts.  And it was a practical path to accomplishing what God was asking of me because without my ‘supplemental income’, I simply could not afford to pay all my bills.

My small town had few available decent jobs paying livable wages which didn’t require higher education and a clean criminal history.  With a felony on my record and a GED, I counted myself fortunate to earn $9 an hour building furniture; but even working full-time, I barely covered rent, power, water, phone groceries, toiletries, gas…  I’ve never had health insurance.  Without my extra illicit money, I couldn’t afford little luxuries like cigarettes or new clothes, or taking my girlfriend out to eat or the movies.  I was willing to stop partying, but I felt like God was asking me to stop living!  So, while camping in a tent to save money became a symbol of redemption for me, ultimately I chose to keep my creature comforts.

It’s been twenty years since I made that choice, one that ultimately led to a drug-related violent offense for which I received a death sentence.  Though I long ago gave my heart to God, I’d trade this concrete box for a flimsy tent outside any day – without the girlfriend, cigarettes, running water or electricity.  I realize now that God was not asking me to give up living.  He was trying to teach me how to live without those chains.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.  George Wilkerson is an accomplished writer, poet and artist, and also a veteran WITS contributor.  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 and gettingout.com

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LWOP, Views From The Inside

What’s In A Name?

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They are known to many as murderers, robbers, and rapists – to me, they are co-workers, neighbors and friends.  Officials have labeled them prisoners, convicts, inmates, offenders, but those labels fail to describe the real people in prison, including those convicted of violent crimes.

During twenty years of incarceration I have witnessed incredible acts of kindness and compassion performed by people convicted of crimes, many by lifers convicted of murder.  This story is just one of thousands I can share.  

For many people the support of family and community is essential to the grieving process when you lose someone.  The death of a loved one is typically followed by gathering at the home, visitation, viewing, a funeral service, and family meals because mourning together provides comfort and facilitates the grieving process.  

In prison, the pain and grief of working through this process can be even worse.  Grieving alone in a place that already has people at the limits of their coping ability each day can be devastating, like an atomic bomb laying waste from the core outward.

My dad died in 2022.  He visited me for the last time on a Saturday.  We had no idea we would never see or speak to each other again.  Thankfully, every visit ended with hands held in prayer, big hugs, and a kiss on the cheek.  Our last words to each other were, “I love you.”  I waved as he walked out the door.  He went to the hospital the next day due to intense intestinal pain and the inability to keep down any food or liquids.  Three days later a surgeon worked for nine hours to untangle his intestines from a hernia mesh.

He never woke up after that surgery, spending the next several weeks in ICU on a ventilator.  Complications repeatedly developed, several infections, pneumonia, kidneys shutting down, heart problems.  It was just too much.

Returning from my job in the school area, I checked my tablet messages and had a message that my dad was being placed in palliative care, and he was being kept alive long enough for family to gather and say goodbye.  I wrote the words I wanted to say to him, because I knew that writing them was the only way to keep it together when I attempted to speak them.  Then I called my mom and had her place her phone by his ear on speakerphone.  He died the next morning at 5:56 am, ironically, the exact time he would normally be walking into work.  No more working a hard job in a plant to take care of others at the age of 78.  His work here was done.

My father was a great man, great father, great husband, and a great friend.  My parents were married for almost 57 years, and my mom’s life is entirely different now. His life was intertwined with ours.  I have been doing well, mostly.  Sometimes I am fine, then the grief crashes into me like a tsunami.  Grief is like that.  It surprises and overwhelms, then releases for a while, only to repeat the process.  My prison community has given me unsurpassed compassion and support.

The day before the funeral, I worked on a speech to be read in honor of my father.  While writing, my heart felt like it was in an ever-tightening vise, tears running onto the page, smearing the blue words.  A hand squeezed my shoulder.  I looked up to see a friend joining me in tears.  No words were needed to profess his brotherly love.

On the day my father died a co-worker knocked on my battleship gray cell door.  He had bought and prepared lunch for me – a Big AZ Angus Cheeseburger and french fries with Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce for the burger and ranch dressing for the fries.  That may not seem like much to a person who drives by twenty fast food places every day, but in here, that act of kindness is enormous.  An apt comparison is paying someone’s mortgage or rent for a month.

Another friend drew a picture of Snoopy and his pal Woodsctock, then had guys write messages of condolence on it.  A large group signed a card full of kind words to send to my mom.  Other friends gave me ice cream, sodas, bags of cereal, cookies and a variety of snacks.  The cookies made me think of a maxim from Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster, “I live in the moment when things go good.  When things go bad, I eat a cookie.”

The cookies and other gifts did not change anything monumental, but these things reminded me how much I am loved and how blessed I am to be in a dorm where I have a community, a brotherhood.

The guy who brought me lunch is serving time for multiple armed robberies and an attempted murder.  The friend who cried with me is serving time for murder.  The Snoopy and Woodstock artist has a rape conviction.  The others are serving time for violent crimes, several of them lifers convicted of murder.  But those crimes are not who they are now. Those inexcusable crimes are things they did, not the people who have learned from their mistakes, who want to help others and who make the world a better place through kindness, giving and compassion.

Despite living in a prison, surrounded by people convicted of violent crimes, I could not have been in a better place while mourning the death of my father.  Nowhere else could have provided me a better support system.  Nowhere else would have given me the outpouring of love offered here.  My co-workers, neighbors, and friends, known to some as murderers, robbers, and rapists, literally and figuratively wrapped their arms around me in empathy and love.  

ABOUT THE WRITER.  Timothy Johnson is serving a life without parole sentence.  He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Pastoral Ministry with a minor in Counseling from the College at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary; he serves as the assistant editor for The Nash News, the first and longest running prison publication in NC; he was editor of Ambassadors in Exile, a journal/newsletter that represents the NCFMP; he is a co-author of Beneath Our Numbers; and he has been published in the North Carolina Law Review, Hope for the Hopeless:  The Prison Resources Repurposing Act .
Recently, Timothy and Phillip Vance Smith, II, co-authored a piece for NC Newsline, which can be found here, and Timothy can also be heard on the Prison POD podcast on YouTube.

Mr. Johnson can be contacted at:
Timothy Johnson #0778428
Nash Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

Timothy Johnson can also be contacted via GettingOut.com

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Views From The Inside

The Cell

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I sit and pray at this concrete wall,
Losing reasons I have to stay.
Try as I might
I can’t turn the page,
Read and reread the same words
Pray and stare vacantly at the same wall.
If I were to get out
Would I be trapped in my head?
A room with no door?
When I close my eyes I still see the wall,
If my head is the cell, who can I call?  
Will I drown in the bottom of a well,
Alone in my personalized hell?
If no one hears my scream,
Does it make a sound?

ABOUT THE WRITER. This is Steven Leech’s first submission to WITS. Steven enjoys creative writing, particularly poetry, aimed at evoking emotion, which he has done with this poem. I think it also takes the reader there for a moment. Mr. Leech can be contacted at:
Steven Leech #13345628
Deer Ridge Correctional Institution
3920 E Ashwood Road
Madras, OR 97741

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Juvenile Justice, Views From The Inside

Soul Searching In Desolate Places

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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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Sentenced to Death, Views From The Inside

I Was A Part Of Kairos #52!

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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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Prison Writing and Expression