Tag: Top Post

  • Thoughts from living with sex offenders

    Some thoughts on the guys in for sex offenses, after having the unique experience of living with a lot of them for 6+ months and interacting with them frequently (they make up possibly a majority of the population here, especially if you discount the largely non-English speaking Puerto Rican gang members). 1. All of them…

  • The Men Inside (Child Abuse)

    “At 7, I was bound, abducted, and forced to have sex with other children, in a cinderblock room, much like I was kept at The Building,” says David (name changed). He has said this twice, in the past week, the entire time we’ve known each other since he arrived from “The Building”, what the men…

  • Fight the Weak

    Joey (name changed) twitches like a lovable toy robot dropped down the stairs a few too many times. The batteries are fully charged, but jerky movements let you know something’s loose inside. Still, his smile radiates with a shy glee and his eyes [reveal] a brain working overtime. It doesn’t tell him nice things. “I…

  • Donkey Empathy

    This week’s Torah Portion, Mishpatim, is perhaps my favorite. Like a great standup bit, it seems to be random observations going nowhere in particular, until the final revelation. Hot off the giving of the Ten Commandments, we have a Parsha that is different from many which came before it. There are no spectacular miracles, no…

  • Muslim Mike Chooses Life

    “Everyone leaves prison with a million-dollar plan,” says Muslim Mike, as he’s affectionately known. “My plan is to be comfortable, have a steady job, a roof over my head, and a fridge brimming. Let the money chase me.” Mike, 6’2 with a physique that speaks to discipline, works in food service and talks about ingredients…

  • In the Image of the Creator

    I have been thinking a lot about hunger lately, because I’m often hungry here. The kosher meals, cheap TV dinners full of soy, sodium, and fillers, are calorie-short, even if you could eat all of them. They are frequently moldy or full of melted or broken bits of plastic. I kept a log for a…

  • Family & Forgiveness : Reuben’s Voice (Abortion)

    One of the simultaneously most-painful and most-beautiful moments in prison is watching a small boy or girl cling to their father, grab him one last time, before visiting day hours are over. It may be the last time they see him for the week, or months if they live far away. You don’t want to…

  • Teaching Art in Prison

    Last night, I taught a drawing class to a room full of men accused of crimes ranging from armed bank robbery, to child porn, to drug running, to white-collar fraud, to illegal migration, to public corruption… The Education building of FCI Miami Low looks like a small school, but with the same heavy steel doors…

  • Pound, Oprah Winfrey’s Dream

    Pound, as he’s called, is big. Bigger. When you sit with him or stand next to him, it feels as if he was made for a world 50% bigger than we’re inhabiting. Even his voice is big. When he booms, “Hayy baby,” to his niece or wife on the phone, you don’t just hear it…

  • The Lebanese Jewish Zen Monk Who Taught Nazis to Fight

    The Lebanese Jewish Zen Monk Who Taught Nazis to Fight

    “Nobody with hope joins a gang,” says Brian Zater, the Lebanese Jewish Zen Monk of Glass House. He’s telling me about his first encounter with a White Nationalist, “He was covered from the neck down in tattoos, with plenty of swastikas.” Brian Jones approached Zater, the new guy in the Pen, in a TV room…