Let's flash back about, oh, 20 years. I was new to the Texas Panhandle, seeking to learn the ropes about the community where I had just moved. I got a call one day from the then-assistant warden of the William P. Clements Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The prison official, Rick Hudson, invited me to tour the maximum-security lockup in northeast Amarillo.…
I was so shocked as I was taken to be put in the back of the police car to be driven to a local jail by the police after the party. I started trembling on the way unable to process what had happened. Previously I only had spent a few minutes at the party and didn’t realize my friends wanted me to go a party with drugs and alcohol. Upon arrival at the prison there were tall electric fence that surrounded the premises. On the top of the fence I was able to see the vividly sharp barbed wire at the top that was there as extra protection to make sure no one could escape.…
Starting a first assignment can be enjoyable yet nerve wrecking, as when it involves researching yourself on "Google". it doesn't seem to help either Being a beginner to online classes, Its quite Intimidating .Its comforting of being slightly used to the computer, as my past job experience has been mostly at call centers, in front of lucent screen. When I vigoursly research myself I expect to find past photos which I probably never knew existed, maybe a my space account, sadly abandoned as I matured through the years without it. What I did find though surprisingly did not surprise me .…
It is 7:23 a.m. on a Thursday morning, the pass allowing tardiness to first hour is tucked away in my tattered blue backpack. I sit in my car gazing at the quiet building. I have seven minutes to make it up the staircase, adorned with two lamp posts. I, along with many others, have visited Morgan Federal, the bank across the street, countless times and never realized just what was in the vicinity. A friend who works next door in the courthouse suggested I profile this place and gave the directions: “It’s in the old jail,” as if that was a common reference automatically understood.…
They had called my mom and she had to drive 5 hours from our house. I saw her walk in with tears in her eyes, she comes up to me and gives me the biggest huge ever and asked me if I was okay. She asked the police if she could see who did this to me, the police said that they could at the moment but in a few minutes I would have to do an identity test. I saw him and I knew it was him and they brought him to the front. Of the station to get brought to a jail cell.…
As a child growing up in Rhode Island, the smallest state in the Union, the idea of a vast planet brimming with civilization and culture was more like something out of a fairy tale than it was reality. So, when my father announced that we would be leaving the country to go to Scotland, the home of his and my ancestors, my world began to expand at a rapid pace. This trip could not have been timed more perfectly. The summer of 2007 marked the end of fourth grade, my first year at Saint Mary Academy Bay View.…
I was not used to being clueless. Just as for many teenagers, when I got my license a new world was open to me. This was certainly a world where I had more freedom, and I had to learn how to navigate it, in more ways than one. Learning how to communicate with my parents as an adult was not easy. My new found freedom came with the catch of proving to them that I would be responsible and reliable.…
Here I am behind bars, vulnerable and desperate for help. It has been exactly a year now since I’ve confessed to the police about the murder that me, Oliver Smith, the 18 year old man, committed with the help of my friend, Liam Allen. I am now in The Kingston Prison serving a 25 year sentence for 1st degree murder. It all began on the first day of school when Liam and I entered our grade 12 biology class for the first time.…
As I walked out of that “prison” and looked at it for the very last time, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief : I was finally free! No more Nathan, no more Turing Test, no more Caleb, simply myself. An helicopter ride later, I was in the middle of an intersection in New York City. There were so many billboards, people and vehicles rushing in every direction all around me that everything seemed blurry for the first few minutes. All I could feel was the wind brushing my cheek.…
Most of the people who reside in the United States live unrestrictedly, come-and-go as they please, and never experience the boundaries of confinement. Similarly, the majority of these people are likely unable to relate to the conditions that surround inmates who reside in prison. While the bulk of society can only imagine what it is like to be imprisoned, over two million individuals incarcerated in the United States live this reality daily. The convicted find themselves serving prison sentences for crimes ranging in severity and corresponding lengths of time. While there are generally three different security levels of prisons, the lives of the inmates may be typically similar concerning their arrival, living environment, and routine (Grabianowski, 2007).…
At a younger age, I would say I believed that I can only trust myself and my mother, this is because as a little kid my mom would always tell me that there are bad people in the world and that giving them any information about anything can be very harmful. But as I grew up and realized what was actually happening in my country I knew there were millions of others that were suffering against the “bad people” and we could only do something about it if the whole community came together to help. It was at that time when I was about 25, when I started to put some effort into trying to establish more just conditions within my country especially after the implication of extremely high food prices. This is when I started my first strike involving my…
Last winter, my grandmother got breast cancer. This took a hard toll on my whole family. The doctors said that she was only in stage 2 and that it would be cured with radiation. My grandmother had to go to radiation everyday, 5 days a week. This was extremely difficult on my family.…
When I was younger I always seemed to get into trouble. I found school and home really boring so I did things to make it more exciting. I disobeyed everyone who though they were in charge of me. No one can tell me what to do. My grades were terrible and my social life was not any better.…
I’m one of the lucky ones. At least that’s what mother always used to tell me. I wonder what she would say now. Father had a different view on things. He demanded that I never leave the house and that the world know nothing of my existence.…
A faint cry was all I heard; a feeble noise that escalated until it couldn’t be ignored. The incessant gnawing at my heart awoke me; fear had me in its grasp as terror encompassed me. “God, help me!” The feeling was too strong to discount. I struggled against the sheets, desperate to escape and rescue my daughter.…