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.
I Am Ready, So I Fight by Joseph Wright
I came to prison with the mindset that I was never going home. And so, I lost myself in the prison system. If you ask me if I was ready to go home after 2 or 3 years, I would have said yeah. But deep down, I was not! It took me 8 years to change and become a man....
Restorative Justice Now! by Michael McGaughty
While I have had paroles in the past, I did little to honor the privilege of maintaining them. I came into the prison system at the age of nineteen. I am now seventy three. I have only managed to stay out of prison for just three years since June of 1967. To date,...
Finding My Way by Jason Badgley
There have been many layers to the transformational changes I’ve experienced since being incarcerated. In the beginning I was a broken person, emotionally devastated beyond words. The pain, emptiness, loss, and guilt I struggled with ran deeper than words can...
God Forgives by James Legrone
I have been incarcerated for thirty plus years now. However, I sincerely hope, and pray that those who may develop an electrifying curiosity to read my story know that I seriously contemplated not summarizing these tragic events for fear the reader would totally...
The Clandestine Blessing by Robert Lee Bates
My name is Robert Bates. I was born in Detroit, Michigan into a family of seven sisters and two brothers. My father died one month before my birth. Mother was from the deep south with no education. Having been a domestic abuse survivor, she did her very best...
What is Forty-Five Years of Your Life Worth? by Michael Edgerton
Every day I wake up with a sore and aching back. Bones that feel every bit of eighty years old, and I wonder, how in the world did the Michigan Department of Corrections figure out how to make a mattress made of lava rocks? After 25 years of sleeping on these beds...
No One Investigates or Cares About Justice by Randy Ray
The story I'm telling is true! Since no one else will tell the truth, then I have to. It started in November 2000, when I was working for a roofing company, and I got hurt about two weeks into the job. I hired a law firm to sue for workers’ compensation and have my...
Senseless Crime (Drinking and Driving) by Russell Dunham
I was born June 6, 1976, with both parents having drug and alcohol problems. I never really got a chance to know both of my parents, being that I got tossed around. My mother lost me to my father, and my father gave me to his parents to either raise or give me to...
People Deserve Another Chance by Ashley Smith
My name is Ashley Smith—13 and a half years, July of 2026. Well, I've done every group that's been available to me, but because I'm LD, not a lot's been available until the very end of my sentence. But right now I'm in Jackson College full time for a double...
From the Land of the Free to the Land of the Detainee by Antonie L. Scott
Peace, my bunky, is an older guy who is really sick with cancer and has a life sentence. I just told him I will need the light tonight because I need to do some writing. I explained this project to him and asked if he wanted to share anything. To my surprise, he...
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...
Inside Prison, What Does Rehabilitation Look Like? by Samuel Ozell Powell
My name is Samuel Ozell Powell, I am 44 years old. I am serving a life without parole sentence, for first-degree murder and assault with intent to murder. I have been incarcerated for 22 years. I was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I die daily in prison,...