Who are these prisoners, - those who have been demonized and banished?

What are they really like? Are they all alike, or very different? How are they different from me (or, could some of them be like me)? This page conveys a sampling of voices of prisoners, very human beings, who are held in the nation's prisons.


Starving

by Waymon Berry, Corcoran Prison, CA

Within State Prisons there are so many broken beings that are overwhelmed with hopelessness! Most of us were maade to feel hopeless and broken even as children - long before we began to commit our trnsgressions out of panic or stupidity.

Many of the people I know in prison just want to feel as though they matter enough that somebody - anybody - will listen to them. They are so very much like misbehaving children - they do not transgress because they ar evil, but rather because it is the only thing most of them know how to do to communicate to others that they need attention. So very many of us - both in and out of prisons - are literally starving for attention, yet we have been made to feel as though we are expendable - easily forgotten.

You Listened To Me

by Joann Pagan Feliciano, Taconic Correctional Facility

You listened to me
like I listened to you.
You made me understand,
and gave me wisdom, too.

You showed me another way
to go about my problems.
You came from the same streets,
and you helped me solve them.

I didn’t know I could be different,
but you taught me another way
to stand firm in what I believe,
and always say what I need to say.

I thank you
from the bottom of my heart
for teaching me what you learned,
and giving me a brand new start.

Gauntlet of Shame

by Michael Rhynes, exerpts from Inside/Out

After a visit
With a loved one,
The degrdation that
I experience would
Make an SS Officer
Blush.

No curtain
In the world
Can shut out
The shame
And humiliation
I feel
When toldd to strip.

Brings back
Racial memories
Of my
Foremothers & forefathers
Standing on the
Auction block
Having their
souls bidded for.

My shoes are seearched
Not for contraband
But what makes
Me walk with dignity.

Pants
Searching for
Weapons of
Self esteem.

Shirt
Searching for
That steel rod
That keeps
My back straight.

White Underwear
Strip away Anything that
Resembles purity.

Mouth
To see if
I smuggled in
Any pride.

Ears
To see if
There are words
Of encouragement
Clinging to my
Subconscious.

Nuts
To make sure
There are no
Future children
Hiding there.

Turn around
Bend over
Spread your ass hole
So wide
To see which
Neighborhood
You're from.

Still Hoping

I came to prison when I was 21 years old with a sentence of 8 1/3 to life. I got pregnent very young and for that reason I stopped going to school one year before my graduation. While in this place, I have tried my best to get ready for the day I go back to society and to my family and children. When I arrived at this facility I hardly spoke English, but my determination to change my life and the aspect of it that brought me to prison led me to learn English and enroll in college. Before they took college from us I had the opportunity to matriculate and participate for one year. I hope to have college back because I would like to finish and graduate. College would help me to grow as an individual and as a woman. It also would provide me with the necesary tools to succeed as a productive citizen and as a mother.

Parole: How It Actually Works

by a group of prisoners at Wallkill Correctional Facility

As preposterous as it may sound, the New York State Board of Paole, as part of a current political agenda to appear tough on crime, has been denying release to a class of offenders who have consistently shown the lowest levels of recidivism in favor of releasing those who are among the group with the highes levels of recidivism.

Among criminal justice professionals it is well known that people convicted of homicide-related offenses have the lowest recidivism rates. In May 1994, the commissioner of Correctional Services, in testimony before the State Senate Crime Victims, Crime and Correction Committee, stated that between 1991 and 1993, about 1000 people in New York's work release program had been imprisoned for a crime involving death. "When those 1000 went out on work release, eleven of them were arresed again. "About 1% of those offenders were arrested and half of those were charged with only minor breaches of the law (none for murder).

In New York, a person convicted of murder must serve at least 15 years before being considered for release on parole supervision. As Robert Gange, Executive Director of the Correctional Association has said, "What happens in the course of that time is that you grow up and you mature, and you've been able to take advantage of what programs do exist in prison."

The individuals being denied release solely because of their crime conviction should be evaluated for parole on a case-by-case basis and not as a class of individuals. It is in our best inerests to provide opportunity for repentance, reflection, and reformation.

A Prison Psalm

by Johnny Yuen, Sing Sing Correctional Facility

The Commish says
to the Prisoner,
"Hey! You’re bright,
You have good capacity, so
go get an education.
Get some skills, if you want.
Help your fellow inmates.
Get involved with the outside community."

"Then what?" the Prisoner cried out.
A carrot dangling in front; the
stick hidden.

"Then," says the Commish,
"We tell you that you did well,
stroke you; that,
no one can take that away from you;
and, then, on the other hand,
tell you that all your accomplishments
are immaterial.
Come see us again in
two years; perhaps you’ll be
released then."

"So what’s about my behavior in here,
or what I did in here?
What about rehabilitation?"
asked the Prisoner.

"Well, I don’t have an answer to that,"
says the Commish.


from Bedford Hills Correctional Facility:

It's Possible!

College in prison unconditioned and erased the negative thoughts that were filtered to me about myself as a child growing up in an alcoholic environment. It allowed me to gain self-respect, self-confidence and a much higher self-esteem. I never would have done it on the street because no one else did it in my family; no one was there to say it was a possibility. There was no one else who had achieved, so they didn't feel it was important to push us to achieve.

When I Began to Change

I remember going to my first graduation in prison. I was new here, with a lot of time, very angry and getting into trouble a lot. School wasn't my thing. At Graduation, everyone who had earned a certificate or their GED or college degree was called up to receive their diplomas. This one college graduate had started out an ABE student (less than sixth grade reading level) and had made it all the way through college. When she was called up, everyone in the whole place went wild cheering her. I said to myself, "I want that to be be me someday." Maybe that was my first goal ever in life. That's when I began to change my atttitude in here.

Stopping the Cycle

Thanks to my college degree in prison, I am not thinking or even having the desire to go back to a life of crime to support myself and my children. I am enthusiastic about my career in counseling and plan to go on to graduate school to pursue a graduate degree in social work. My college education will also help stop the cycle of second generations going to prison because my goal is to educate my children.

What I Learned

by Jon Marc Taylor, Missouri prison
With one's self worth, much less self esteem, under perpetual, systematic assault, an oasis of hope must be discovered if sanity is to prevail. For me as well as thousands of others, that refuge has been the Shangri La of college and university extension programs in the prisons.

I struggled to excel, stumbling with poor composition skills, yet managing to earn Dean's list recognition from the outset. Slowly I began to find self-worth, measured not only by grades but by an awakening comprehension of a larger, more complex and compelling world.

(From others I learned) the power of higher education to change attitudes and perceptions, as well as the behaviors of those who internalize the knowledge, insights, and cognitive skills offered by academia. Time and time again I saw this transformation in people society had labeled as worthless and largely beyond redemption.

Hidden Talents

How many talents are wasting away in our prisons? Some can nevertheless express themselves with the paint brush. One example of that is Anthony Papa in Sing sing CF. His story was published in the New York Times of July 28, 1996, after the exhibit of 33 of his paintings at the New York Theological Seminary. Excerpts from that story:

"Mr. Papa's reality is a canvas of rage and sorrow, fear and hope. There is no subtlety, no ambiguity. Mr. Papa likes to think of it as dissection of the brain of a man who has spent a decade in prison. In one caustic self-portrait, an intravenous bottle containing a wristwatch dripsinto a skeletal torso enclosing unbalanced scales of justice. In another painting brushed with boad strokes of purple, indigo and blue, razor wire matamorphoses into butterflies on the delicate backdrop of the Hudson River."


Let your voice be heard. See the Action Page

To find other examples of prisoner's expressions, click:

Other Voices From Inside

and also

OSEPP Voices From Inside

To find some poems on justice, written from the heart, click:

Poetic Justice

To return to the Home Page, click:

Home Page