My Year of Reading Letters From Prisoners

The Marshall Challenge receives about 3,000 letters a yr from people who find themselves incarcerated, their households and their help networks. For the previous yr, I’ve been a part of a workforce opening the mail and studying by means of their tales.

Some letters are deeply emotional — like one from a person in Florida, newly identified with liver most cancers, pleading for the medical therapy he’s been denied. Others are lighter, just like the paintings despatched to hold on our workplace partitions, or a easy thank-you for protecting a difficulty that resonates with individuals behind bars. Some letters are requests for authorized assist and different sources. Many are from readers writing to request their very own copy of our award-winning journal for individuals in prisons and jails: Information Inside.

Regardless of the content material, the letters typically convey a way of urgency. Many individuals inform us they’re writing to us as a result of they’ve nowhere else to show. They describe going through challenges that require instant motion: untreated bodily and psychological well being points, overcrowded prisons and fixed lockdowns, inedible meals.

Our mission at The Marshall Challenge is to highlight the prison justice system, exposing abuse, hurt and wrongdoing by means of our journalism. Even when the letters don’t immediate an investigation, they illuminate the affect of the system on the individuals ensnared in it. Here’s a snapshot of what I’ve discovered.

The true story of individuals in jail unfolds lengthy after sentencing.

In October, I learn a letter from a younger lady serving 19-to-life for the “devastating loss” of a childhood good friend. She wrote in regards to the remorse she felt after killing her good friend in a automotive crash following an evening of consuming. And she or he shared her want to make use of her time in jail to “make a distinction.”

Native information shops lined the crash and her courtroom case intimately. Through the trial, her attorneys suggested her to not communicate. The media curiosity in her story ended the day a decide handed down her sentence. She by no means acquired an opportunity to inform her aspect of the story.

Many individuals write to us to share their understanding of the trail that led them to jail. The letters don’t learn like excuses. Many are in a position to join the dots between the hurt they inflicted and the harms they endured. In the end, lots of the individuals who write this sort of letter additionally share their intention to commit themselves to a brand new path. Their letters inform a fuller story of their lives.

The younger lady’s letter raises necessary questions for me as a journalist. She has been incarcerated for almost 4 years. She is hopeful immediately, however what’s going to almost 20 years within the system do to her? Will her time in jail permit her to meet her promise to make a distinction?

In search of justice, incarcerated individuals grow to be their very own attorneys.

Judges hardly ever take a second take a look at sentencing choices. Solely 12 states and the District of Columbia have insurance policies that permit judges to reexamine prolonged sentences imposed many years in the past. The method is commonly procedurally and politically fraught.

So, many individuals hope that publicizing their case would possibly result in a shift in public opinion, or some sort of authorized breakthrough or motion on their behalf. Some write out their whole life tales by hand, protecting many years and sparing no element. Others ship meticulously organized, thick packets of paperwork, proof and courtroom transcripts — all in an try to show their innocence or obtain a special final result. (As a information group, we don’t tackle authorized instances or advocate for people.)

Authorized language is a fastidiously wielded software in jail. Incarcerated writers use authorized phrases like “due course of,” “exculpatory proof” and “habeas corpus.” Many have needed to grow to be their very own attorneys, shaping arguments and presenting proof in hopes that their instances shall be taken significantly.

It’s inconceivable to know what number of of their instances have advantage. Nonetheless, the letters reveal the dimensions of the issue. As new analysis made clear that lengthy sentences don’t enhance public security, many prison justice reformers campaigned for extra pathways out of jail. On the identical time, exonerations are on the rise, revealing that errors (and malice) are a aspect of the justice system.

Creating artwork turns into a option to reclaim time in any other case misplaced to restrictions.

We’ve acquired artwork in almost each type: private essays, excerpts from novels in progress, poems, pencil drawings, work and experimental, stream-of-consciousness writing (typed and handwritten).

Individuals in jail typically describe their paintings as a “considerate” use of their time. It’s a option to inject objective into hours in any other case spent in a restrictive setting. Every bit of artwork appears like a quiet assertion: “I’m nonetheless right here, nonetheless considering, nonetheless creating, and residing in methods you may not anticipate.”

Their artwork is in stark distinction to the restrictions of the system. Prisons are more and more strained by understaffing, resulting in lockdowns and restricted programming. However artwork is one thing individuals in jail can do on their very own. So inventive expression can nonetheless flourish in a system that limits entry to significant programming, training or job coaching.

One man incarcerated in Kansas, engaged on his newfound drawing passion, despatched us a picture of what he sees exterior his window.

One other man, incarcerated in New York, recreated the duvet of his present favourite e-book, “Ideas of Kingdom Transformation” by Stanley R. Saunders.

One other individual, incarcerated in Louisiana, despatched in a poem in regards to the informal violence he typically witnesses whereas consuming breakfast. He shared that his brother, the one one who had learn the poems, “doesn’t like them, however he does detect the emotion in them.”

Celeb advocacy for prison justice reform reveals the place insurance policies and establishments have failed.

The Marshall Challenge receives scores of letters addressed “To the Workplaces of Kim Ok.”

Kim Kardashian has grow to be one of the crucial recognizable faces of prisoner advocacy lately. She helped safe freedom for Alice Marie Johnson, a grandmother serving life for a nonviolent drug offense. Since then, she’s used her widespread tv present to discover jail points in California and even attended a prison justice reform roundtable on the White Home.

Every letter to Kardashian highlights the systemic points that make it needed for celebrities to step in the place insurance policies and establishments fail. For years, prison justice advocates have lobbied sitting presidents to assist clear the Division of Justice’s prolonged clemency backlog. President Joe Biden inherited over 14,000 petitions for clemency from the earlier administrations. He pardoned his son Hunter Biden in December, however has made almost no progress addressing the record. In recent times, presidents have used their pardoning energy much less and fewer ceaselessly whereas their restricted choices have grow to be more and more political.

In the event you’re curious, I did go down the rabbit gap of making an attempt to determine why individuals suppose we work with Kardashian. It seems that one in every of our employees members was interviewed for “Kim Kardashian West: The Justice Challenge.” And The Marshall Challenge is the one newsroom within the U.S. to publish {a magazine} particularly for incarcerated individuals, which is how many individuals in jail come throughout our work (be taught extra about Information Inside right here).

Prisons gas loneliness, but are excluded from the general public well being dialog.

Final yr, the U.S. Surgeon Basic Vivek Murthy declared loneliness an “epidemic,” evaluating its destructive results to smoking as much as 15 cigarettes a day. The advisory makes clear that emotional connection — or the dearth of it — significantly impacts particular person and societal well being. However his imaginative and prescient didn’t embody prisons and jails, house to almost 2 million individuals.

We see this loneliness epidemic mirrored within the mail in various methods. We obtain fairly a couple of letters addressed to our feminine reporters — some direct, like, “I wish to get to know you higher,” and others extra refined, like, “Can we discuss?” Some writers are bashful about their request (“Pardon my intrusion”), whereas others use their prolonged sentence as an excuse (“… attributable to 30 years of sexual deprivation”). The necessity for connection can be mirrored within the many letters asking for recommendation on discovering pen buddies or constructing significant relationships, each inside and out of doors of jail.

Prisons and jails don’t simply isolate; they engineer disconnection. From the boundaries to visiting family members, to the stigma that daunts communication with the surface world, incarceration entrenches loneliness in methods few different environments do.

Small, on a regular basis complaints present how jail slowly erodes dignity.

The small particulars that individuals share of their letters are sometimes those that stand out essentially the most. These seemingly trivial particulars reveal the harshness and neglect of each day life inside.

One man incarcerated in Virginia wrote to us not too long ago in regards to the meals: “pure slop” he calls it, together with meat labeled “not suitable for eating” and “yeastless” bread that crumbles for those who contact it. One other man, in Illinois, observed the heavy layer of mud that settles in every single place. He identified rusted partitions, painted over as an alternative of being changed, in a constructing he says has been “condemned for at the very least 20 years.” One other man wrote to us about how costly commissary hygiene merchandise are. In his facility in Ohio, a 4-ounce bottle of shampoo can price as much as $2. He lamented that it’s so expensive, staying clear feels inconceivable until you’re keen to go broke.

These aren’t tales of outright abuse and violence — although we do get a lot of these, too. One man incarcerated in New York described the “air of concern” that comes when officers cease sporting identify tags. With no identify, he says, there’s no option to maintain anybody accountable in the event that they mistreat you.

These on a regular basis issues — the meals, the mud, the noise, the dearth of hygiene — put on individuals down over time.

“We all know jail ain’t meant to be a camp for criminals,” one man wrote. “However we’re nonetheless human beings and should be handled higher.”