Stanley Williams Life In Prison Analysis

Prison Cultural Essay The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast my culture and the culture of Stanley “Tookie” Williams the author of Life In Prison. The book takes place while Stanley is serving time in prison on death row for being convicted of murdering four people in 1981, during two separate robberies. Stanley is serving his sentence in San Quentin prison in San Francisco California (Williams, 9). Stanley is an african american male who grew up in South Central Los Angeles and in 1971 along with his friend, Raymond Lee Washington, started a street gang, which was known as the Crips (Williams,9). Prison, as described, by Stanley is not a place where anyone wants to be (Williams, 9). Inmates in the main prison eat breakfast and dinner in a large cafeteria, for lunch all inmates are given brown paper bag lunches, eaten in their cells or on the exercise yard. Death row inmates do not leave their cells for meals, they are given their food through a slot in their door (Williams, 25). There is no privacy in prison. Each time a prisoner leaves his cell to go to another part of the prison, he is handcuffed and strip searched (Williams, 49). Stanley explained that even after all his years in prison, this is still the most humiliating act (Williams, 40). The guards are …show more content…
He is confined to a prison where he can never leave, where his every action is being watched, he is not free to make any choices that I can make. I can go get a job and take my car on a long drive, Stanley will never do that. I can hug and hold my family whenever I want, Stanley gets a few times a year with some of his family. If I knew about Stanley as a person before he entered prison maybe we would more in common, at this time we live in two completely different worlds under extremely different circumstances. I have the freedom to live a full, happy life. Stanley’s life is so very limited. So many things he will never do, never