25 Years in Prison for a First-time, Nonviolent Offense

In 1991 I got busted by the feds for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense: selling LSD at 15 colleges in five states. I was a kid, barely out of my teens, and was determined to be a great American anti-hero. Facing 20 years to life…

Innocent Man in Prison for 45 Years

Cleve Heidelberg has been in prison for 45 years. Convicted of killing a police officer in the early morning hours of May 26, 1970 in Peoria, Illinois. He was sentenced to 99 to 175 years of incarceration. Now at 72 years old, the injustice of Heidelberg’s conviction…

The Prison-Dorm Continuum

This is a repost from an article I wrote for OZY.com

Twenty-five years wasn’t something that I wanted to waste. When I arrived at Manchester Federal Correctional Institution in the southeastern foothills of Kentucky in 1993, I decided to make the most of a…

Why I Started Earning Freedom on Medium

Our nation’s commitment to mass incarceration, from my perspective, represents one of the greatest social injustices of our time. As a man who served 26 calendar years in federal prisons of every security level, I sense a duty and responsibility to help more…

The Fascinating Story of White Boy Rick

This is a repost from an article I wrote for thefix.com

Meet Richard Wershe. To other convicts in the Michigan penal system and the handful of DEA and FBI agents who once employed him as an informant, Wershe is known by the memorable…

What Inspired Me While I was Doing a 25 Year Sentence

I met Michael Santos in prison for the first time at FCC Fort Dix, shortly after I got transferred there in 1999. I had a similar case to his, we were both drug dealers, and we were both sentenced to multiple decades of imprisonement in…

How Prison Inmates Make Valentine’s Day Happen for Their Loved Ones

This is a repost of an article I wrote for VICE.com

It probably won’t shock you to learn that Valentine’s Day in America’s prisons tends to be pretty depressing. I remember from own…

What 26 Years in Prison Taught me About Self-Improvement

On August 13, 1987, DEA agents arrested me. I started selling cocaine when I was 20, and by the time I turned 23, the run ended. At the time of my arrest, all I cared about was getting out of jail. Yet after a jury convicted me of…