Stories

Prison is designed to disconnect people from the rest of society. As we listen to their stories, we begin to heal those connections.

Here you will encounter challenging and sometimes difficult language and ideas: Please take care as you explore. We share it all in the spirit of broadening our collective understanding and envisioning a different future.

By Women, Family, Memories

Reflecting Back by Sharon Hunter

I was taken from my mother at the age of two, with seven of her 13 children. My father was deceased. I was placed in an orphanage. I lived there from 1968 to 1984.  The orphanage was a home and school. It was Bible-based and very strict. The same opportunities in a...

Read More

Creativity

You Live and You Learn by Joei Alexander Jordan

Greetings, My name is Joei Alexander Jordan, but many people know me by my stage name, "Joei Average." I was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on May 16, 1993. My mother struggled with drug abuse until I was 11, and my biological father was incarcerated for the majority...

Read More

By Women, Mental Health

One Day at a Time by Madge Matthews

While sentenced to life after being wrongfully convicted, all I can think of is getting out of prison. This thought consumes me. I have spent 10 years writing letters, asking for legal help with my case, to no avail. It’s hard to prove your innocence!  I cried...

Read More

Family, Memories

Before Prison by Derek Bishop

 My mother raised me. As a young boy, life was music, noise, joy, anger, pain, and fighting. My passions were sports, video games, and winning spelling b’s. I was fun, nosy, and the eldest of 12 children. I watched movies with my mother and grandmother. This...

Read More

Life in Prison

So Long by Edward T. Walton

I’ve been incarcerated for so long. I spent three years in the juvenile system and was sentenced to two natural life sentences, eight months after my release from juvenile. At 36 years of age, I’ve spent about 21 years of my life incarcerated. However, that’s not...

Read More