This morning, as I was running around the track, I began thinking about my goals for 2010. We still have nearly two complete months to pass in 2009, but I’m in a state of limbo right now as I wait for word from St. Martin’s Press on whether the publisher will bring Earning Freedom to market. [...]
Some prisoners at Taft Camp don’t serve time as easily as I do. I feel sorry for Richard, an older man who serves a seven-year sentence. He’s been in this camp for about one year, and it looks as if he’s aged 10 years. He stoops when he walks, he leaves his hair and face [...]
Some readers may wonder whether a man in prison can still lead a meaningful life. Keeping a busy schedule helps me. I’m always working to complete the next project, and I measure my progress every day. Measuring progress is one of the reasons I write this daily prison journal. The discipline of writing forces me [...]
An acquaintance of mine, here at Taft Camp, asked me the significance of keeping this prison journal. He thought prison was something a prisoner should try to forget about, not memorialize by writing about the drudgery each day. For me, keeping a journal represents a willful act, I told him. It is part of this [...]
I’m grateful to the people who take time to write me after they read my work. I have a stack of envelopes from people who’ve read my book, Inside: Life Behind Bars, some of my other books, or articles that my wife publishes for me on our Web site. I’ve not been able to keep [...]
I read an article in this week’s issue of Time magazine that described the important role community colleges play in helping people develop marketable skills. Here in Taft prison, the Taft Community College offers courses that can play a huge role in helping offenders emerge successfully. Unfortunately, few take advantage of the magnificent educational opportunity. In [...]
The Taft Prison Camp is playing three very good movies this weekend. I will not be watching any, as I must keep my routine of sleeping early and waking early in order to meet my writing goals. I really want to finish the draft of this chapter I’m working on, and that requires sacrifice. I’ll [...]
Early this morning I finished reading When Prisoners Come Home a book by Professor Joan Petersilia, who teaches at Stanford Law. With the heavy writing schedule I now have, my time for reading has diminshed. Early this year I set a goal of reading 25 books during 2009. Thus far I’ve only read seven books, [...]
I’ve been reading from two books and a published paper on California’s prison system that Dr. Joan Petersilia wrote. She is a distinguihsed professor who publishes extensively on issues pertaining to crime and corrections. As I read these academic writings I remember my early years as a prisoner, and the reality of how much of [...]
I resumed work on the rewrite of the chapter for Professor Joan Petersilia at 2:20 this morning. By 7:30 I had completed the project. Had I been able to access a typewriter, I could have typed the document in a couple of hours at most. Prison has made me a fast typist, but the rules [...]
