PRISONPENN.COM FROM THE INSIDE OUT

Washington Post
The inmate population at state prisons has declined for the first time in 38 years, according to a new study from the Pew Center on the States.
According to the report, Prison Count 2010, about 1.4 million people were under the jurisdiction of state prison authorities in January of this year, about 5,700 fewer people  [ Read More ]

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  [ Read More ]

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  [ Read More ]

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  [ Read More ]

By Jerzey
What’s good out there everybody? It’s your dude, Jersey City’s Finest Sean AKA Doc AKA Jerzey – 201 stand up (LOL)! The newest edition to Prison Penn dot com. I just wanted to take a minute and introduce myself to all you bloggers out there. Your gonna be reading my thoughts, fears, poems and  [ Read More ]

It’s been a minute since I last put up an entry. I have been caught up with school and what not, but I am going to try to write more often. I know many people out there enjoy reading my crazy ass thoughts, so with this entry, I am going to answer a few questions  [ Read More ]

BY RUSS BUETTNER – NEW YORK TIMES

Correction officers at the Westchester County Jail used excessive force on inmates who were sometimes already restrained or compliant, dousing their faces with excessive amounts of pepper spray or, in one case, slamming a prisoner’s head into a wall, a federal investigation has concluded.

By Lamont E. Bryant,

We’re in need of a fate fix,
To come we must,
Out of the matrix
Of Blood, Money, Sex, and Lust.
Where Greed, Lies, and Hate Mix,
to lead our lives, illusively,
As the dead walk, transfixed,
From relationships developed abusively;

GKAY

Health Care in prison is a joke. If you’re ever incarcerated, you better pray to God that you don’t ever need serious medical attention, because you will be in trouble. I don’t know where they go to find these fake ass doctors, but it can’t be Med School. Not a legit one  [ Read More ]

By Lamont E. Bryant,

Family occupies a very special space in my heart and my mind. Though the term ‘Family’ may often be thought of as an idea, it exists in the flesh, real and concrete. My family and my value of them have provided me with a better understanding of Love, Loyalty, Honor,  [ Read More ]

JOSH KORNBERG – THE DARTMOUTH
The United States prison system is as unsavory and misguided as David Bowie’s 1972 mullet. With 7 million Americans in jail, on probation or on parole, the “land of the free” is host to nearly 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, according to a CNN study. Over one in 100 Americans  [ Read More ]

It has been a while since I saw him, a long while. Our last encounter was more than 22 years ago, when I was only six years old. Ironically, that last encounter was inside of a federal prison. Of course, I was a visitor. Now, more than two decades later, we meet again in a  [ Read More ]

DICK BRENNAN with MyFox and AP reports

Fernando Bermudez , whose 1992 conviction for killing a teen outside a nightclub was overturned last week, has been released from prison, an official said.
Prison officials released Bermudez around 2:10 p.m. Friday from the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y., according to a state corrections spokeswoman.
“It’s an amazing  [ Read More ]

So I recently got this response to my “I Was Over You” entry sent to me in the mail, and felt it necessary for me to talk about it in a new entry. Though many may expect me to respond in a retaliating fashion, I have opted not to. I understand that my words have  [ Read More ]

I was in a good mood all day. That is, until ten minutes ago when someone told me some shit taht messed me up. The news was so startling to me taht I had to come back to my cell and get my thoughts together. Like I said, this is something that someone else told  [ Read More ]

A lot of prisoners might be mad at me for this, but then again they don’t have internet access, so whatever.

There is a big investigation going on in my housing block regarding homosexual activities. There are about six prisoners under investigation for allegedly participating in some doo doo dick  [ Read More ]

I feel like I’m in Hell’s furnace right now. It is 90 degrees outside, but in here it feels like its 300 degrees. It’s so hot in here right now, that I don’t even want to move. This is my fourth summer in this prison and I am far from getting used to this torture.  [ Read More ]

I am a magnet for problems, especially when I am on the verge of having something good happen to me. It never fails, I could go a whole year without any problems but right before a trailer visit, or the week before a play that I am involved in, I find myself knee deep in  [ Read More ]

For the most part, my father was never apart of my life. He left my mother and I when I was very young. My mother was pretty young herself, she came into this country from Hong Kong when she was 17 years old, and about a year later she was pregnant with me.
Though my mother  [ Read More ]

Rappers and prison go hand in hand. Just as it isn’t strange for you to read and article about some rapper having been in prison or is going to prison, it’s isn’t strange for us to be sitting across from a rapper in the mess hall, or showering next to one in the bath house.
I  [ Read More ]

Losing someone that you love is never an easy thing, but losing a loved one while in jail adds a whole other dynamic. Though I have been fortunate to have no experienced that myself, I have witnessed many others go through it.
Yesterday, one of my comrades was told that his daughter was shot in her  [ Read More ]

I went on a visit earlier. On my way to the visiting floor, I overheard a few officers talking about someone being on the visiting floor. I was under the assumption that they were talking about someone that was famous. As I reached the search room, where you must go through in order to reach  [ Read More ]

It’s 12:00am and I just stepped in my cell a few minutes ago from the yard. Usually I’d be asleep by now, because the yard run is supposed to end at 9:40, but today was an exception. From 9:00 to around 11:30, I was laying down on the yard’s blacktop bench with my hands on  [ Read More ]

Prisoners tend to be more fit than the average person on the outside. In prison we have much more time to work out, and our routine is more or less the same everyday, so we don’t miss meals, unless it’s intentional. We don’t use drugs or drink – for the most part, and we get  [ Read More ]