REAL STORIES

Thoughts of a sibling: (from Georgia)

Prison Reform: Work, Responsibility, and Real Rehabilitation
What I don’t understand is how society just accepts leaving men and women in prison with no jobs, no skills, and no real way to survive when they get out. How is that justice? We, as taxpayers, are funding prisons where inmates sit in a room all day doing nothing, wasting away. Y’all think that’s punishment, but in reality, it’s creating more problems. Capable, able-bodied people are being stripped of any chance to work or learn responsibility.

Here’s the real kicker: Even though our tax dollars fund the prison system, families on the outside still have to send money for commissary just so their loved ones can eat, call home, or get basic necessities. Why? Why aren’t inmates given jobs and paid at least minimum wage so they can contribute to their own survival instead of depending on struggling families?
Missed Opportunity for Real Rehabilitation
Instead of locking them up and letting them waste away, why not make these prisoners do the jobs that American people don’t want to do? There are industries struggling to find workers, and instead of helping inmates build real skills, we just let them sit in a cell watching TV and playing on tablets. That’s NOT rehabilitation—that’s creating dependency.
Who Pays the Price?
I don’t want to take care of a 40-year-old grown man who has been broken by the system because they never taught him how to be productive in society. That’s not fair to me, to my children, or to anyone who has to carry the burden of someone else’s mistakes because the justice system failed them.
The Hidden Cost of Incarceration
And let’s talk about the cost—having a loved one in prison is expensive! Not only do we pay through our taxes, but we have to send money just so they can survive behind bars. How does that make sense? Why are we paying for grown people to sit around all day when they could be working, learning, and preparing to actually contribute to the world once they’re released?
The Solution: Real Work, Real Wages, Real Rehabilitation
It’s time to make the justice system better, not just for the inmates but for society as a whole. We need to stop creating dependent adults who can’t survive on their own after prison. It’s time to demand real rehabilitation, real jobs, and real responsibility for those who are incarcerated. Not only do we pay through our taxes, but we have to send money just so they can survive behind bars. How does that make sense? Why are we paying for grown people to sit around all day when they could be working, learning, and preparing to actually contribute to the world once they’re released?

From Inmate in New Hampshire:

The obvious question is: has this changed me? Or how has it? It has made me question all of the American foundations, certainly the ones who had the tools to do this to me. As much as I have tried to make it a point that I wouldn’t let this change me, you can’t avoid it. In here it has motivated me, something I certainly lacked at times—to fight for my freedom and for others who were unfairly treated by the courts. The treatment in this prison, the lack of a budget or where it is being spent is part of the fight as well. We need more education, better access to funds for the library, healthier food. There need to be more incentives to help the Correctional officers. It is overcrowded and needs a complete overhaul. The courts are part of the fix. Hopefully this book pushes those items to the forefront. They are now clearly being ignored at the statehouse.
They say you only spend two days in prison, the day you go in and the day you get out. The monotony in the middle that I have experienced tells me first hand this is true. I can’t wait for day two. Theis ‘first day’ has been the longest. The ones who make it to day two are generally getting out with ‘zero’ and going back to day one. The system is failing. FIX IT to help those getting out and the communities they are going back to., and the run down prisons with overworked staff, underfunded programs and our over crowded community.

Inmate from Arkansas:

“Can you imagine how it feels to be sitting in prison for years and years and never get a birthday card or a Christmas card from anybody, let alone your family. The people who are supposed to love you and support you no matter what? When you have been wrongfully convicted a lot of times people assume that you are guilty. They don’t even take the time to study the case or look at the facts. Sometimes if the accused has been in trouble before it’s an easy win for the prosecution. Everybody assumes you are guilty, even your own family. Nobody can imagine how bad that feels to have the whole world turn their backs on you over something you know you really didn’t do but nobody believes you. So, one by one friends and family distance themselves and before you know it you have nobody and no support. You begin to feel like why am I doing this? Why am I still hanging on? This is pointless and there is no hope. A lot of times when you are on the inside knowing you shouldn’t be there you are carrying so much grief and regret and you have nobody to talk to and you can’t let it show so you just become paralyzed and even simple tasks you know you’re supposed to be working on you just can’t bring yourself to move. I very well know what that feels like. To be totally paralyzed and overwhelmed. So just because you don’t get a letter back don’t take it personally and don’t let that discourage you. You may never know that one of those letters may have given somebody the will to keep going just knowing that somebody is there, and they do care, that’s what matters most. It’s a real struggle just not to give up being totally wrongfully convicted and it feels like you’re buried alive and the whole world has forgotten about you.”
The terror, the helpless feeling—the anguish and anxiety. The trauma we had all been put through will never go away. We were all staring into eternity, into a black abyss with no way out. And yet the world moves on. The people who put us through this continue their lives without any thought for the chaos and devastation they have caused.

Family Member from Oklahoma

Our court system has failed us. Maybe a friend, relative or family member. Most of us have heard about a failing system.
USA is all about putting someone behind bars. The DA is only out to ruin someone’s life. They don’t use a document if it doesn’t help them. For instance if hospital medical records shows nothing wrong with victim, the DA will get a chiropractor instead to say something is wrong. Chiropractor doesn’t need to see ex-rays because he can tell something is wrong. ?? How did our system get here? How do we discredit a doctors record and x-ray and allow a chiropractor to see something the doctor and x-ray didn’t. How do we convict people with no evidence? It’s the crooked District Attorney’s. The DA is one sided. We need change. We need a new system. The old one is broke.

Family Member From Ohio:

That’s because they do what they want. Contrary to what the general public thinks, there is no law that forces judges to look at or accept an appeal, even when the appeal is credible! Judges have way too much power and to be honest, they know they don’t have to do anything. And they take advantage of that fact. Not only do they not care about people, but they place politics above human lives. They don’t want to reverse what the State judge did because they are on same team and it would look bad on the whole team. There is no such thing as justice. Its all about keeping reputation of government, regardless of them doing wrong.
That’s why I get angry when people say bad things about a case that’s been rejected by appeals. Being rejected on appeal is the norm for even the most credible cases, and that’s sad. The courts are so corrupt, its insane! Like I said they do what they want.

Inmate from New Hampshire:

It is the people that I miss the most and that still mean the most. This gets to be the point of where life is, versus where or what it was supposed to be. Where it was supposed to be was that I had a steady job. I had a typical 2010”s middle-ish class of life of working Monday through Friday 7:00 AM to 3:30 PM. Being it was the 2000’s, that meant that I could not afford a place of my own; but I was saving up for one.
I had about $5,000 in savings, a car that was paid off that would last me another year or two; along with my ambition of growing with the company or starting a small business of my own.I had the ambition of hiking the Appalachian Trail, I had it planned to start it on April 8, 2024—a day when we are going to be having a solar eclipse that would be very close to Mt.
Katahdin in Maine.I had dreams of starting my own family with my friend and building something special together. Being content and happy and seeing my daughter succeed and continuing family traditions, and making new ones with my parents, sister, nieces, cousins aunts and uncles…reestablishing old friendships and building the new ones at my place of work or through my paint nights, poker nights or on Face Book;’ hiking ,sports outdoors people’ Just my little slice of a life; of the so-called “American Dream.”
I never asked for much and none of this may sound like a lot to you, but it was the chance of having the best life for me and being able to make it better for those around me. Now all of that is gone and impossible to get back. All I can do is wonder “WHY?”
Instead where life is, is a ZERO and I am helpless to turn it into anything, making it minute by minute or day by day, but it’s all one long day. How can I be productive and not bitter? How can I be around all this evil. But still want to help it make things better? How can I not be distracted by what I should be doing or experiencing—and who with? How can I get happy over chicken in a bag or a box of Cheez-its.
Or a game of cribbage? How can I get up for a job at the Plate Shop or in Property or the kitchen, making $3:00 a day? How can I not spend every day thinking about S and the pain she went through and continues to go through to have to make up such horrible things about me and how someone that meant the most to me and still does could do that? The hatred she has for her grandparents, aunt—so many people.
Even people on her mom’s side of the family—and probably her as well. She knows somewhere in there she did this. That she was probably pushed into this. The thoughts of how much joy and kindness she used to have and now what they turned her into. How can I block all that out while trying to fight my case and knowing the odds and society, the system are stacked up drastically against me? Does the truth, human kindness, common sense still have a place in 2022? Do I? It is hard to go on like this but I do it for my family and that means for her, too.
have to believe eventually the truth comes out, (even if the state would prefer that it does not) Right? The only way that I can go on is to believe in that and to take time each day to black it all out and just live in the moment—for whatever this Hell may bring. I may not be of much worth to any of you—but don’t we all deserve a chance to live our one life?

Inmate from Mississippi:

It’s a sad sad state of affairs. And the heart breaking reality of it, is that there isn’t any relief in sight. None. First the officials who are in charge of, and responsible for the welfare and keep of these men are taking on the defense of denial, and act like this is a courtroom drama, and they are lawers and aren’t obligated to aid the opposing team and admit to anything that is happening in real time, the inaction and denial only further worsens the situation behind the prison walls and, and allows the perpetrators of these atrocious acts of violence to continue on unimpeded.
The reason that the officials responsible take this position is that they really have no choice. They have made a deal with the devil and sold their souls long ago, to the very ones committing these acts, the prison gangs. They have given a blind eye and a green light to the gangs, to allow them to opperate, and not only allow, but aide them in the illegal enterprises of criminal activity that, if the public were able to wrap their mind around the staggering amount of money that is generated from it, would surprise and astonish you.
The administration has entered into this unwritten aggremsnt with the gangs in order to employ them with the, (and this would be halarious if the situation weren’t so dire) keeping and maintaining the security inside of the prisons. Yes, the very thing that is blowing up and causing so many men their lives, and the family’s and love ones so much pain and anger. The very thing that the ones we thought were in power, are paid to uphold, well they aren’t really in power, because they’ve sold their rights away to the gangs.
They did it because of a problem they themselves caused by cutting costs and corners, to such a degree that they were unable to maintain the security of the inside of our prisons, so they’ve made that deal with the devil, and we all know better than to do that.
It all stems from the money, the private prison corporations,which was the biggest mistake in the history of corrections that a blind man saw comming. How in the world can a company make millions of dollors, doing something that the state would Lose millions doing??? That is the fly in the buttermilk. That question ought to make anyone who tries to answer it conclude that something isn’t right. But people, in order to begin to correct this problem, which not only is isolated to one place, but is taking place in the whole southern U. S., we have to find a solution and #1 eliminate the power these gangs have over our system, and send the private prison corporations packing.
Anything other than those two actions will be spinning our wheels, and won’t get us anywhere. In order to correct the situation in our prisons we have to do this. Period. They are the cause of the problem, and they must first be corrected and that is what any serious conversation should concern. The men that need our help, need it now, and it’s time we found a way to get it Done.

Family Member in New Hampshire:

It was very difficult after the verdict; it was so surreal like a time warp or a bad episode of ‘Twilight Zone.’ It felt as if a wet wool coat had been flung over my head, making it difficult to breathe, trying to remember how to breathe. And yet, I was also thinking, at the same time, “This nightmare is over, in a couple of months everyone will realize what a farce this whole thing had been, we would certainly win on appeal.
My ex daughter in law would be found guilty of perjury and child abuse, she would lose all custody, my son and his daughter would finally and thoroughly be done with her and they could continue their lives in peace. I remember telling my family who were standing in the courtroom next to the lawyer (my husband, my daughter and her husband, my brother-in-law, who had come from Connecticut to offer his support), “It’s okay, we will have a better Christmas this year.” As it turned out I was way too optimistic, not a better Christmas—a Christmas like a death in the family but no body to bury, no funeral, no friends stopping by with casseroles.
What we got instead were neighbors who grabbed their children and herded them inside their homes when they would see us in the yard, people we had known for years who turned into crickets, people we knew in stores turning away, going down other aisles when they saw us, cashiers glowering and grimacing as if their shoes were too tight, co-workers I had known for over 30 years questioning why I didn’t change my name and despite being a nurse manager, being told that I was no longer “needed” at staff meetings.
Even family members disappeared with the apparently required lame excuses of, ‘Terrible, sorry, I have no words’ and then nothing but crickets. They forgot phone numbers, how to write letters or even how to respond to text messages.