I never thought prisons were unnecessary.  They serve a purpose when someone dangerous to themselves and society is incarcerated – until such a time they are no longer dangerous.  Which brings us to – Prison Reform.  The term alone is a threat to those who profit from overflowing prisons.

When the prison population becomes such that most of the farm is over fifty, broken down, chronically ill and unable to find the front gate – much less escape – I believe we need reform.  Every one of us makes mistakes, some worse than others, but when an inmate does exactly as he or she is told and serves the minimum amount of time required to be placed on parole – they should be allowed to go home.

If, after twenty-five years of incarceration, the system can’t prove you are up to something – chances are, you aren’t.  I’m not a psychiatrist or psychologist, but I think it would be impossible to hide who you truly are – good or bad – for a quarter of a century.  But, in order to justify their actions, the system will accuse you of – ‘manipulating the system’ – acting one way when you’re really another.

If they can’t prove you’re up to something, they believe they have not looked hard enough.  It couldn’t be that you were not up to anything except living a life of monotonous, repetitive days filled with boredom and no productivity.

On the other hand, if a person comes into the system with both guns blazing, caution to the wind, devil be damned, there is a good chance he or she will be the next to go.  That individual is categorized as a ‘repeat customer’.  Why release someone who is never coming back?  That would be bad for business.  And – once again – the taxpayer pays twice, sometimes three times, for the rehabilitation process.  The system is like sausage.  It tastes great going down, but if a person actually saw how the sausage was put together from start to finish, there would be more vegans.

Once again, I’m not saying prisons should be abolished, but more thought should be given to who and why a person is determined ‘too dangerous’ to be released after they reach their parole date.  A man in his sixties, convicted of something bad he did thirty years ago, is not the same person he was.  Ornery, maybe, but not a danger to anyone.  Without hope, it’s hard to start each day.

The philosopher, Confucius, 551-479 A.D., was once asked by the Governor of the province he resided in to report to him why the prisons were so full, why crime was so rampant, and people so corrupt and deprived.  Being the philosopher that he was, Confucius went from town to town interviewing the sheriffs, the mayors, and the wardens of the prisons.  When he returned to the Governor, he reported that the people were only as law-abiding and good as the people in charge and if the governor replaced corrupt officials with moral, good men – he’d see a change in the pattern.

The governor did just that.  Almost a year to the day later, the prisons were nearly empty, the crime rate nearly erased, and people were back on solid footing.

I know this is not ancient China, however mankind hasn’t changed that much in 2,500 years – maybe technology-wise but not morality-wise.  I believe the old philosopher was on to something.  I believe we should take the profit out of prison and put the prophet back in.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Beginning to feel a little less ‘Shipwrecked, Abandoned, and Misunderstood’.   In spite of 25 years behind bars, John Green continues to wake up every day holding on to his humanity and on a mission to change the world for the better.

John Green #671771
C.T. Terrell Unit A150
1300 FM655
Rosharon, TX 77583

I thought I saw you yesterday,
But, maybe my imagination was running wild.
I was isolated,
Trying to escape my tomb.
But I felt your angelic presence,
And, I saw your halo shine…
But when I opened my eyes
I realized – it was only a figment of my imagination.
Brown eyes, I thought I saw you yesterday.
Maybe it’s because my heart was heavy
And needed to see an angel
To escape this hell.
Brown eyes, I thought I saw you yesterday.
Through this doom and gloom – I smiled…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.   Kareem Gaines is a poet, writing for the living and the dead, the free and the enslaved, the bruised and the healed.  He is serving a forty year sentence and can be contacted at:
Kareem Gaines #JP1388
State Correctional Institution at Dallas
1000 Follies Road
Dallas, PA 18612

Originally published by www.uncaptivevoices.wordpress.com.

My best friend, my protector, my teacher, and my inspiration in anything I ever accomplished or failed at was my father.  His name was Bob.  If I had known I would only have him in my life for twenty-seven years, I would have  crammed more time into each and every day.  But none of us know exactly when we’re going to leave or how much time is allotted us.

I’m not a deeply religious person.  That being said, it’s not as if I’m not a spiritual man.  After all, someone has to be in charge of all this chaos.  My dad used to say things. Sometimes they were deeply profound, sometimes they were funny, and they always had some meaning. I wish I had been paying more attention to him; more than likely I wouldn’t be writing this from a prison if I had.  However, I feel everyone should know about ‘The Book Of Bob’.  You won’t find it in the library or at a bookstore or on a newsstand.  It’s not available in fine print or large.  It’s embedded in my life and written on my heart.

My dad, born Robert Norris Green, was brought into this world on December 1, 1932.  He left too soon, on June 13, 1988.  He was only 56 years old, but he looked like he was in his early 40’s.  He passed a yearly physical and stress test a month before a blood clot formed in his leg.  It broke loose and traveled to his heart.  He died instantly. There were no anti-clotting agents back then.  Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here now, and he would be sitting somewhere, drinking coffee, and telling me a joke or adding to ‘the book’.

He used to tell me things like, “Some people see the glass as half-full and some half-empty.”  My dad thought the glass was too big.

Or, “The world is a small place, but I wouldn’t want to have to paint it.”

My favorite, “Life is like a crap sandwich, the more bread you have, the less crap you have to eat.”

I developed my sense of humor based on my dad’s little sayings, but he never taught me how to cope with difficult people.  Or maybe he did, in his own way.  The man would give the shirt off his back if he thought someone needed it.  He used to help complete strangers, the homeless, stray dogs and cats.  There wasn’t a moment in my life that I felt I couldn’t tell my dad what I’d done or hadn’t done – never a second I felt I couldn’t depend on him.  It is through my dad that I was taught to love and express my feelings.

If everyone had such a figure in their lives, the world would be a better place.  That is why I get frustrated in this place.  It separates and divides families for years at a time and does nothing to try and mend or heal broken fences or relationships.  Since I’ve been incarcerated, I have never been closer than 300 miles from my adopted home in East Texas (I was born in Columbus, Ohio).

I see inmates struggle because they have lost what is essential to being human:  relationships, hope, faith and yes – love.  Many, more than likely, never had a father or ‘Dad’, and it saddens me to know that the next generation will likely repeat the process of being locked away from family and friends.

Bob used to tell me that there is a part of each of us that is good.  Sometimes you have to look harder in some to find it, but it’s there. I’ve seen hardened men break down and cry when they finally realize what is important and what they’ve lost.  We need to look for that, grow it, and accept it as the normal – not the impossible.  We need more of the type I was graced to have as my dad – my best friend.  We need each other, and we need more Bob.

It’s funny how that happens.  You live life forward, but you learn from it backward…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Beginning to feel a little less ‘Shipwrecked, Abandoned, and Misunderstood’.   In spite of 25 years behind bars, John Green continues to wake up every day holding on to his humanity and on a mission to change the world for the better.

John Green #671771
C.T. Terrell Unit A150
1300 FM655
Rosharon, TX 77583

Every Sunday when I was a kid my grandmother would get up at 5:00 a.m. to make Sunday dinner.  We would all go to church, and before we left, dinner would be fixed and on the stove.  And, she always made cornbread.  She could make it all sorts of ways – jalapeno, cheese, pork – and she would bake it in all types of pans.

From time to time, I’d play sick and be allowed to stay home with my uncle who never went to church.  That’s when I’d make my way into the kitchen and into the pan of cornbread.  I’d cut off a piece, then another and another.  One time I ate all but one small slice.

My grandmother would get so mad at me when she would come home and get ready to eat.  One time she brought the pastor home and the cornbread was gone.  That was it for me.  She told me I was the cornbread eatin’est little boy she ever saw.

It wasn’t long after that she woke me up around 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning and told me to wash up and help her in the kitchen.  I found her at the kitchen table with all the ingredients laid out to make her cornbread.  She also had two pans – hers and one small one for me.  From that day forward, I would get up every Sunday morning and make that pan of bread.

One day a friend came over and called me ‘Cornbread’.  That was in 1967, and the name stuck.  It was with me until I came to prison.  After I got here I heard some guys talking, and one of them called the other Cornbread.  I dropped the ‘corn’ in my name that day.  Now – I’m just called ‘The Bread’.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR.  Alfred Hall lives in a prison in Texas and can be contacted at:

Alfred L. Hall #01840184
Ramsey 1 Unit
1100 FM 655
Rosharon, TX 77583

At age eleven I was diagnosed as a Type I diabetic.  I weighed 90 pounds dripping wet, and in May of 1972 I went from that 90 pounds to 56 in about two and a half weeks.  I was incessantly thirsty.  I couldn’t eat enough food, and I threw up and pissed like a drunken sailor.

My dad took me to the family doctor, and he tested my urine and called the children’s hospital in Columbus, Ohio, to get me admitted. Once there, my blood tested at 901 – I was on the edge of a coma.  I was in the ICU for a week before they moved me to a regular room, where my diabetic training commenced.

I was put on a special diet – seven exchanges a day.  Three servings of meat or protein (eggs, fish, peanut butter), four milk or dairy, three fruits, three vegetables and two fats.  If I wanted ice cream, I could have it, only if I exchanged one milk and one dairy for it.  I was told to avoid a lot of starches, potatoes, bread, rice, cereal – everything an eleven year old craves.  Only three of these, no more candy.  No more sickly sweet sodas.

The doctors at the hospital told my dad that I had juvenile diabetes, and that I most likely wouldn’t see my 21st birthday.  My dad and I celebrated that birthday together on December 16, 1981, and I’m 57 now.   The docs were a bit off.

The doctors also told my dad not to be too strict with me.  The more I was treated like I was a normal, the less likely I’d develop complications – everything in moderation.  Of course, this instruction became another way for my mother to punish me.  She rid the house of sugar.  It was an actual sugar embargo.  No more cakes, pies, cookies, candy, Captain Crunch.  Nothing entered the house that could be construed as sugar.

I stuck to my diet and Dad would sneak me out on Saturday afternoons for ice cream.  And, with sugar on the barred substance list, I learned to cook.  Cakes, pies, and Toll House cookies were just a few ingredients away.  I made a few trial and error mistakes, but you can’t keep a good (or bad) diabetic down.

However, if mom discovered my transgressions, she’d beat me silly, yell, scream and ground me for weeks on end.  I didn’t get caught often, but when I did, there was hell to pay.  When I turned sixteen, she took me to a church counselor to see, “What the @?!#!,” was wrong with me.

I talked to him for an hour.  She talked to him for an hour.  In the end, she grabbed me by the hand, and we stormed out of the church.  Later that evening, my Dad told me, “Your mom is upset because the counselor told her you weren’t the problem, she was.”

On July 4^th, 1980, I packed everything I owned and escaped to Ohio.  By September I was back.  I had a relapse.  My insulin needed adjustment, and my blood sugar went back to 700, so I had to spend another two weeks in the hospital.   This was proof to my mom that I wasn’t taking care of myself, and they were just wasting their time and money on a lost cause.

In September of 1981 I left again. This time I went to Grand Prairie, Texas. I sold the ‘useless comic books’ that were ‘taking up space and collecting dust’, and I rented a two bedroom apartment for six months.  I fixed my car, got a job working for Kroger Grocery Company, and I paid for two semesters of college with money to spare.  Thank you Marvel Comics!

In the spring of 1983 I got sick again, and Dad asked me to come home.  He said he’d foot the rest of my college education.  I almost graduated. In 1988 I was about 30 credit hours short of my degree in Computer Science, and I’d taken enough English courses to keep me close to an Associates in English.

After my dad died that year, I had another episode with diabetes, this time dropping instead of elevating. My sugar went to 28 one morning, and I almost died on the way to the hospital.  Now, instead of too much sugar, it was not enough.

I was bouncing back and forth before my incarceration.   And, now, after being in prison for 25 years surrounded by pancakes, pasta and everything but the proper nutrition, I’ve developed PTSD – Pancake Traumatic Stress Disorder.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR  Beginning to feel a little less ‘Shipwrecked, Abandoned, and Misunderstood’.   In spite of 25 years behind bars, John Green continues to wake up every day holding on to his humanity and on a mission to change the world for the better.

John Green #671771
C.T. Terrell Unit A346
1300 FM655
Rosharon, TX 77583