Violent, overcrowded and mismanaged, American prisons are in a state of crisis. Can another prison reform movement come out of this--one started from the inside out? Dispatches from The Pen is an occasional series of writing and reporting from the inside of American penitentiaries. For more information, contact Mark Schurmann at mschurmann [at] newamericamedia [dot] org.
News > Dispatches from The Pen
Golden Girls Behind Bars
New America Media, News Feature, Viji Sundaram,  Cliff Parker, Feb 09, 2009
Last month, prisoner Number W 41465 passed away, her greatest wish unfulfilled: to die a free person. Eighty-eight years old, nearly blind and deaf, her mind enfeebled by Alzheimer’s and in the terminal stages of kidney failure, Helen Loheac was "a tiny old woman who just wanted to be released.”
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A Letter From Immigration Detention
Commentary, New America Media, Jan 30, 2009
The death of a German-born immigrant in a detention center in Virginia has again put the spotlight on detention conditions. A Spanish language newspaper printed this letter from an immigrant in the same detention center.
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How I Survived Men's Prison as a Woman
New America Media, Commentary, Kelani Key, As Told To Carolyn Ji Jong Goossen, Nov 14, 2007
Transgender women are housed in men’s prisons, where they must learn to survive any way they can. One transgender woman tells how she found protection – and a supportive community – on the inside.
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Black Market In Tobacco Makes Prisons More Violent
New America Media, Commentary, Dwight E. Abbott, Apr 14, 2007
The new ban on tobacco products in California state prisons has created a valuable black market commodity -- with all the dangers that go with it.
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Dispatch from San Quentin: 'West Block Weather'
New America Media, Commentary, Pao S., Mar 07, 2007
An inmate argues that unsanitary conditions, overcrowding and neglect have created a mental and physical health crisis in San Quentin, contributing to an outbreak of the norovirus that shut down the prison last December.
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To Be Tried As An Adult
New America Media, Commentary, Big Vic, Feb 09, 2007
According to a poll released Feb. 7 by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, a large majority of Americans (92 percent) believes that the decision to try a juvenile in an adult court should be made on a case-by-case basis, and not be governed by a blanket policy. In this personal essay, an incarcerated young man waits to find out whether he will be tried as an adult.
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Those Unsung Homies—Stupidity, Anger, Violence, Despair
The Beat Within, Youth Commentary, Jo, Dec 07, 2006
For the past two years, Jo, a 16-year-old writer, has been locked up in a San Francisco Bay Area juvenile hall behind a solid steel door on which there is a large sign stating emphatically: “Do not talk with this minor.” Ironically — given the designation of “minor” on his door — at the time of his crime, the 14-year-old Jo (under the terms of California’s Proposition 21) was “magically” designated an adult by the District Attorney for the purpose of trial and punishment.
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Who Asked Us? -- My America -- A Letter from the Left-Behind
New America Media, Commentary, Michael Cabral, Oct 10, 2006
Michael Cabral, a prisoner at California’s maximum security prison at Pelican Bay, has only just celebrated his 20th birthday. In a personal letter to Beat Within editor Michael Kroll, this man-child’s moving description of the life he knew makes a mockery of the slogan, “Leave no child behind.”
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, Interview: JR Valrey//Audio: JR Valrey and Malcolm Marshall//Photos: JR Valrey and Jocelyn Goode, Nov 01, 2006