Can’t Wait for this Shit to End

By Philip Miller

Prison really sucks. I mean it REALLY sucks. Of course, I might just be overreacting to the overly warm sense of hospitality provided by my benefactors. I can’t receive this treatment just anywhere, you know. Really, where else could I have someone bang a baton against metal bars in order to wake me up at 5:30 in the morning? Loud banging that is immediately followed by the question, “Where are you going this morning?” The combination of the noise and that godforsaken question makes me want to say, “Hmm, lets see. I have a choice of, what three different buildings? How about we close our eyes and pick one out of a fucking hat!” Unfortunately, the rules of diplomacy dictate otherwise, and I grudgingly answer, “school”. I can’t wait for this shit to end.

Besides the early morning wake up call, I would be remiss if I didn’t speak of the mass confusion that permeates this dilapidated microcosm. The motto assigned to that confusion is called, “hurry up and wait.” Yes, the ever so clever dungeon keeps juxtapose those contradictory ideas each day. It starts with a simple announcement: “Chapel Run going out!” and “Last call on Chapel Run!” Everyone within earshot realizes that if you’re going to the chapel, it’s time to leave right now. Surprisingly, as soon as I take the first step into the hallway, I’m told, “Stand by. WE didn’t call chapel yet.” As I try to process what the fuck is going on, I stand quietly in a state of perplexity. I know damned well that the chapel run was just announced. Arguing is futile so waiting is the only option. Then along comes a sergeant. The sergeant asks the officer, “why are these guys still here? Didn’t the chapel run go out already?” As if a light just lit the fuck up in his uniquely brilliant mind, the officer says, “Okay, Chapel is going out.” I look at the prisoner beside me and, without saying a word, we both know what the other is thinking: this has to be the only place that would hire these people. Alas, the confusion does not end there. Halfway down the hallway, another officer stops the entire group and says, “where are you guys coming from and where are you going?” Okay, let’s pause for a moment. Is it me, or do the officers here compete with each other for the “stupidest person alive” award? Before the officer needlessly halted our journey, we were all walking in the direction of the Chapel, which lies only 30 feet away. IN this part of the hallway, there is literally no other place to go except the Chapel. I understand that this officer might be some world-renowned theorist of existence and non-existence coexisting in a formless vacuum, but give me a fucking break! The group stands there silently, refusing to dignify the officer’s stupidity with any form of acknowledgment. Finally, another officer comes along and says, “Why are you guys just standing here? Keep it moving.” What the fuck is wrong with these people! I can’t wait for this shit to be over.
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Immortal Technique Interview Pt 2

After much anticipation…

Judge Keeps His Word to Immigrant Who Kept His

By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: February 18, 2010

The judge and the juvenile had grown up on the same mean streets, 40 years apart. And in fall 1996, they faced each other in a New York court where children are prosecuted as adults, but sentenced like candidates for redemption.

Mr. Wu with his fiancée. When he was jailed last fall, he reminded Judge Corriero of his old promise to stand by him.

The teenager, a gifted student, was pleading guilty to a string of muggings committed at 15 with an eclectic crew in Manhattan’s Chinatown. The judge, who remembered the pitfalls of Little Italy in the 1950s, urged him to use his sentence — three to nine years in a reformatory — as a chance to turn his life around.

“If you do that, I am here to stand behind you,” the judge, Michael A. Corriero, promised. The youth, Qing Hong Wu, vowed to change.

Mr. Wu kept his word. He was a model inmate, earning release after three years. He became the main support of his immigrant mother, studying and working his way up from data entry clerk to vice president for Internet technology at a national company.

But almost 15 years after his crimes, by applying for citizenship, Mr. Wu, 29, came to the attention of immigration authorities in a parallel law enforcement system that makes no allowances for rehabilitation. He was abruptly locked up in November as a “criminal alien,” subject to mandatory deportation to China — the nation he left at 5, when his family immigrated legally to the United States.

Now Judge Corriero, 67, retired from the bench, is trying to keep his side of the bargain.

“Mr. Wu earned his second chance,” the judge wrote in a letter supporting a petition to Gov. David A. Paterson for a pardon that would erase Mr. Wu’s criminal record and stop the deportation proceedings. “He should have the opportunity to remain in this country.”

The letter is one of dozens of testimonials, including appeals from Mr. Wu’s fiancée, mother and sisters, who are all citizens; from the Police Benevolent Association, where Mr. Wu used to work; and from his employers at the Centerline Capital Group, a real estate financial and management company, where his boss, Tom Pope, calls Mr. Wu “a shining star.”
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Lane Garrison: ‘Prison life was hell’

By SFGATE

Actor Lane Garrison has spoken out about his recent prison hell, revealing he was forced to live in squalid conditions in solitary confinement.

The former “Prison Break” star was jailed in 2007 after pleading guilty to vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving for a December 2006 car crash that claimed the life of a 17-year-old.

Released last year, Garrison has spoken little about his 22 months behind bars in 18 different prisons, but now reveals it was a hell of intense heat, bugs, rats and time alone.

He tells In Touch magazine, “In Chino prison in Northern California, I was in solitary confinement for three weeks in a 104-degree cell infested with rats and roaches.

“The only time I had contact with the outside world was when I got my meals through a slot. I didn’t do anything to warrant solitary, but that’s just where they put me

Nation’s Oldest Death Row Inmate Dies; Did Time In Connecticut

By JESSE LEAVENWORTH The Hartford Courant
February 16, 2010

The nation’s oldest death row inmate — a delusional killer, escape artist and jailhouse lawyer who spent much of his life in Connecticut prisons — has died at age 94.

Viva LeRoy Nash died of natural causes in an Arizona prison, where he had lingered on death row since a 1983 conviction for killing a Phoenix coin shop clerk. Described by his lawyer as exceptionally smart, but profoundly insane, Nash had spent all but about 15 years of his life behind bars.

He was convicted in Connecticut in 1947 of shooting and wounding Danbury police Capt. Eugene Melvin that same year. Melvin had responded to a bad check complaint at a clothing store. As he was leading Nash to a patrol car, the suspect pulled a .25-caliber pistol and shot Melvin in the stomach and shoulder, according to stories in The Courant. After a marathon flight in a stolen car, Nash was caught 40 hours later in Texas. He was returned to Connecticut, tried, convicted and sentenced to 25-30 years in prison.
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Immortal Technique Interview (Revised)

After many complications, the Part 1 of the Immortal Technique interview is back up.

Stay tuned for Part 2

Lil Wayne Prison Sentence Delayed

By dentistry…
10:27, Wednesday, 10 February 2010

Lil Wayne will not be entering prison this week as expected because he needs to visit the dentist! The rapper was due to be sentenced yesterday but instead will now be back in court on March 2 after surgery on his teeth. He will serve a year in jail for a gun possesion charge from 2007. Weezy appeared in court for the hearing on Tuesday where his lawyer appealed for extra time to get a cracked tooth fixed.
Judge Charles H. Solomon set the March date but said: “I don’t want this to get pushed back anymore. This is the last adjournment.”
The postponement was unexpected and the rapper had recently been hard at work before entering prison. Reports claim he filmed NINE music videos at the weekend. He also released a video online saying goodbye to his fans.

Blending Music with Rehabilitation (featuring Kenyatta Hughes)

From WNYC
Friday, February 05, 2010

“In prisons around the world, music is increasingly used as a rehabilitative tool. Carnegie Hall recently launched a program that would send musicians into facilities like Sing Sing and Riker’s Island. Other programs including the nonprofit Rehabilitation through the Arts and the Scottish Arts Council are getting inmates to learn, write and perform pieces first-hand.

Today, we look at the effectiveness of arts in rehabilitation. Joining us is Emeline Michel, a Haitian musician who has performed at Rikers Island; and Katherine Vockins, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Rehabilitation Through The Arts.”

Check out Kenyatta Hughes, one of the writers for prisonpenn, at 13:30 on the radio interview. listen here: http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/episodes/2010/02/05/segments/149594

To learn more about RTA, visit their website: http://www.p-c-i.org/rta.php

Ex-Ohio Football Star Clarett Seeks Prison Release

by Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Former Ohio State football star Maurice Clarett is again seeking early release from prison.

Clarett, who scored the winning touchdown for the Buckeyes in the 2002 national title game, has filed a motion asking a judge to release him. No court date has been set.

Clarett withdrew a similar request filed with the Ohio Parole Board last year. He’s hoping to pursue a football career,

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said Tuesday he’ll wait for a prison report on Clarett’s conduct before deciding whether to support or oppose early release.

Clarett pleaded guilty in September 2006 to having a hidden gun in his SUV and holding up two people outside a Columbus bar in a separate case. He was sentenced to 7 1/2 years in prison with possible release in 3 1/2 years.

I Rose with the Sun

By Todd Brockington

I rose with the sun,
Yawned, stretched and strove for the one
Thing that I could get my day started
That be freedom like used to rest in apartment 6I,
Bravehearted, shit I faced the odds wit squinted eyes
Graveyarded many ties to minimize fake shit these nigaz try and legitimize
It’s basic, the tension you can taste it
Teeth clenching cause rubbbin’ shoulders wit lames too abrasive
Need mention, if I eat it ima’ shit it
If I breed it I beget it
My release is my objective and that only increases my perception
Cause the beast can be kinda deceptive
That’s why weed is kindly accepted, to forge they focus
The walls, they close in, I’m claustrophobic
I lost the motion
But the movement still afloat
If ya frequency wideband know you in tune wit’ what a killa wrote.
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Business at Sing Sing

By Joseph Kim

It wasn’t what I had expected it to be like at all. The hall was full of bright color and lined with great windows. To the left were shelves of toys and books and straight ahead were several vending machines. It was full of visitors, but it was quiet and oddly peaceful. There were many children, but none of them crying or screaming like they would at an airport or at a theater.
The room was full of intention. I was able to feel it the very second I stepped in to the room. There is only one real reason to visit a prison; to see someone you love.
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Interview With “Rob”

I would like to start this entry by asking all of my readers to say a prayer for Vada Vasqez. She was a victim of a stray bullet from a 16-year-old boy’s gun. Vada is currently in a coma from a gunshot wound to her head. Hopefully her circumstances will have improved by the time this entry is posted. I hope and pray that young Vada finds the strength to pull through this situation. I would also like to apologize on behalf of all of the prisoners who may have contributed in influencing the young man’s actions. Many of us on the inside the role that we played in helping create the environment that exists in our communities and we accept the fact that we are partly responsible for the negativity that takes place in our communities.

Situations like this are extremely unfortunate and they happen all to ooften. Incidents wehre innocent children become victims of misplaced anger and bullets by young gang members are dishearteningly common. We can only imagine how the family and friends of the victims feel. We know how we feel when we read about situations like this in the papers, but how does the killer feel? How do they live with the weight of a child’s body on their consciences? How can they live with themselves? A friend of mine has been faced with these questions for the past 18 years.
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New Neighbors Suck Sometimes

By Jerzey

So I guess this guy’s on his way out – maybe. He is five cells to my left when I’m on the bars. Last night at 1:50 AM I awoke to a man screaming, moaning and crying in his sleep from a nightmare. It woke me up out of a dead sleep. I gotta say it was very upsetting and a horrible. Thing to hear and listen to. All I kept thinking was this guy is about to “hang out”. His cries went on for a good two minutes; I had mixed emotions. I wanted him to shut the fuck up so bad; to go back to sleep and make like it never happened. One of my neighbors finally got him to shut up, or woke him up. I’m not sure which one.

For the next half hour I was lost in thoughts. It hurt me to hear that guy like that. Crying and sobbing like a baby. What kind of problems and what kind of bid does he have. Does he have daylight at the end? They say pressure bust pipes and at that moment I understood all too well. I thought about my family, my lady – the love of my life. All that I lost, from her and everything else I was stripped of. Where I am and what my life has become. A con in the worst prison in the state. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. Wanted to sleep but couldn’t. Wanted to be in my lady’s arms so bad, but couldn’t.
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I Miss My Boy

By Zachary Miller

I first met Mike in the spring of my freshman year. That’s not to say that I didn’t know who he was by then—he was a pretty recognizable figure on campus, being one of a dozen or so black kids in the entire school. I was always intrigued by him; he seemed like a real enigma: a tennis prodigy in baggy tennis attire.
I was trying out for the tennis team; he was the captain and the best player on the team, already getting looks from top division one schools as a junior. The team was flying down to Florida to train for the upcoming season, and it just so happened that me, Mike, and another kid, were to be roommates.
I improved my game in the hot Florida sun, but I most remember the nights I spent talking, playing cards, and watching TV with Mike. As the only two in our room who stayed up late, we formed a kinship of necessity, sprawled out on our separate couches in a dingy common room littered with food, watching History Channel documentaries on Bonnie and Clyde and Al Capone. The first night, we didn’t talk much, but by the third night, the TV had become a pretext for our conversation. We talked about life, about school, about girls. He told me about his home in the most dangerous neighborhood in Boston. He told me how much he hated tennis, even though he was so good. He told me how hard it was to adjust as the shyest of the few black kids at our tony prep school.
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Immortal Technique Interview Pt 1

The Criminal Class Contributions to Fashion

By Mark E. Dixon

For decades, the criminal class has influenced the way civilians have dressed, and styled their hair. From the wise guys wearing “matador” slacks in the seventies, to the new generations, opting for the work clothes look, found in all prisons.

As a youngster in the seventies, I found it hard to ignore the fact that anytime I caught a glimpse of a wise guy type, they always had the same style pants and shoes on. It was not until I was well into my twenties, that I found out the fitted waist slacks, nicknamed “matadors,” because there were no belt loops, or any need for a belt, were more than just a collective choice of style. The “matadors” and slip on leather shoes were more like a Mafioso’s work clothes. Reason being, is that once a perpetrator was headed to the system, their shoelaces and belts were removed, to minimize the chances of them hanging themselves.

The idea amongst them was to always be prepared, just in case they got pinched. There would be no belt to turn in, or laces to remove, which allowed them to focus on their real problem, instead of the fact that their pants were falling, and their shoes flopping.
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Letter from a Birmingham Jail

16 April 1963
My Dear Fellow Clergymen:
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against “outsiders coming in.” I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I have organizational ties here.
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Immortal Technique Interview Coming Soon

Prisonpenn sat down with Immortal Technique in Harlem to discuss his experience in prison, his opinion on the current state of hip hop, and much more. Check out the teaser for the interview here:

Immortal Technique Trailer

Spineless in California

From the New York Times

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California was on the mark when he said this week that the state needed to change policies that spend more money on prisons than on the state’s once-vaunted higher education systems, which are being bled to death in budget cuts. But Mr. Schwarzenegger was way off the mark when he suggested that the answer was to privatize prison services or to pass yet another constitutional amendment, this time to limit prison spending.

States that privatize prisons sometimes save money, but they can also buy trouble by ceding control to companies that put profit first and inmate welfare a distant second. That would be disastrous for the California prison system. It is already under pressure from scores of court orders that require it to reduce its growing prison count and provide adequate mental, medical and dental services, as well as better care for the disabled.
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Holiday in the Big House

Today is Christmas, a day of celebration and happiness, but my day was nothing of the sort. Instead it was extremely depressing and violent. It started first thing this morning, when I was awakened to the screams of a man being beat half to death by the sticks of correctional officers. The screams were so loud and piercing that it snatched me out of my slumber and made the hairs on my arms and legs stand at full attention. This was at 6:30 in the morning so the block was dead quiet. The screams of the prisoner echoed throughout the entire block. They started off as piercing screams which became somber cries. As the beating continued, the somber cries turned into pathetic whimpers, and all I could do was lay on my bed and thank God that that was not me. The beating lasted for about three minutes, which is a long time when you are getting beat with night sticks. Every time the sticks struck its mark, the walls vibrated. You could hear the cracking and crunching sounds that the sticks made when landing on the prisoner’s skull, ribs, and face. It was so quiet in the block that the sounds of the beating were almost in high definition. The sounds were so disturbing it made me flinch with each crack and crunch. Merry Christmas indeed.
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Love

By Kenyatta

Do I write too much about love?

I sometimes wonder if you tire of hearing how I love my family or babygirl (my purple bass player: ). I wonder if I should write about other things, like the thunderous clap of a C.O slamming shut my cell gate or the daily frisking of my body. These things are real. They hurt me, I suppose.

But they never harm me. I am so well defended by love that I am nearly invincible.

You know how some people hear hellfire preaching and get God, or maybe they get to feeling holy or whatever, I don’t know. I mean, everybody has their own reasons, and they’re perfectly valid. But the whole hell thing never bothered me. I mean, okay. It’s hot. Really hot, and for eternity. But no matter how bad it might be, you’ll get used to it, right? Seriously. After the first million years or so, it would be like, “Okay, I’m on fire. As usual.” I suppose this just show how messed up my mind was.

The point is, fear would never bring me to God, ’cause I was too stupid to be afraid. But one day, He revealed Himself to me in His love, and I was blown away. I’ll tell you about it sometime, but for now just know that I’m talking about a love so vast, so absolute, that it is beyond imagining. Love literally rules the universe, binds and keeps it in its form and function. And the incredible thing is that once you know, you can see it working all the time, in everything. There is nothing greater than love. God is love. Seriously.

No, seriously.

So if it seems that I am overly concerned with love, it is only because it is so important. I just can’t think of anything better to talk about.

Time

By Kenyatta

Baby girl has ruined my time perspective.

It’s crazy how you start to think about time in prison. When people ask you how much time you have left to do, and you say, “About four or five years,” their reaction is always the same. “Damn,” they say. “That’s a long time.”

And it is a long time. But if you tell a prisoner you’ve got five years left, he’s happy for you. Five years? Man, you’re damn near home already. I guess it’s all a mater of perspective. When you compare five years left to fifteen done already, well, it just doesn’t seem that long.

See, when Einstein said that time is relative, he knew what he was talking about. When you measure time, its passage is charted in relation to the position of of observation. Most people look at time from ‘now’. So they’re living n now, which is crazy short, and comparing it to then stretching back forever. They think, “Damn, that’s like a billion nows.” And when you get sentenced, that’s how you feel, like that five or ten or twenty years is just forever, a billion nows that you’ll never see the end of.

But after a while — and I don’t know if this is beautiful or sad, but it is survival — now isn’t as short as it used to be. Because when this now looks and fells and lives just like the last now did, and every now in the foreseeable future promises to be exactly like this one, well, it’s all just one giant now. We don’t count time in minutes or hours, or even days and weeks. Prisoners count time in months and years, and rejoice at single digit numbers. Were it not for that, we could not maintain sanity, I think. How can you look ahead to decades of nows that promise futility and loneliness and not go crazy?

And now she’s here, messing up my sense of time. I see her so infrequently, for such a little while, that each moment is so precious I can hardly enjoy it, because I’m constantly aware that this now will soon pass, and the next now will be spent without her, and then I’m left counting nows until I’m with her again. As difficult as it is to look at all those years stretched out ahead of me, each one is broken up into a legion of nows, I don’t know that I would trade it for what she makes me feel. It’s a moot point, really, because I don’t have any choice but to feel what I feel.

Until I see her again, I count the days.