Leonard, 35

This situation can take your lust for life away, what I use to like or intrigue me, I find myself despising. The person I used to be thought of love as something real, almost tangible. To view human nature in this form from within prison I now believe people as a majority don’t care about people. Because the prison I am at is such an attack on human nature- love of any type, form or meaning almost doesn’t seem real. Grim reality.

Incarcerated: 10 years

Housed: Wabash Valley Correctional Facility, Carlisle, Indiana

I was raised in a household where we’d move every year. I switched many schools. My mother would pick me and my sister up every other weekend. I had no father but my uncles on my mother’s side taught me how to be a man. During my teenage years, I was rapping like and being very unfaithful to my son’s mother and justifying it by thinking in terms of money. I loved money, cars, clothes and my family. But, the most important of the four I neglected to love them properly. I thought I had it all together. I was able to hold jobs in the free world for long periods of time, although I was hustling and soliciting women to fulfill my addiction to drinking and gambling.  I am here for someone being disrespectful to me and the female, while at a restaurant, and I regret it all. I had no idea what prison was like. Nobody really does until they are in one or someone truly tells you what it’s like to be inside a prison. Now, looking back on my younger years I wish I had someone who would have put more conscious reading material in my hands. Where I am at is an oppressive farm. Since my incarceration I’ve seen the pain I’ve caused my victim’s family and my own and I’ve rebuilt mentally since then. I immersed myself in true history, business, and economics. I’ve came up with many inventions with the hopes of helping and not hurting people. This is how I spent my time, as if I am about to go before a venture capitalist for an investment at any day. But now, I feel like I am in the twilight zone because now that I have all I need to be successful, I can’t get to it.

This type of oppression has made me an angry person, and I’m always angry. This prison is like a daycare, they treat and talk to you like little boys. They take you as a danger if you carry yourself as a man or a man with dignity. Many lawsuits against medical, our pictures get copied in black and white (even obituaries), no fruits served, all controlled movement, no non-white employees (male or female), and not allowed to see rated R-movies.

This situation can take your lust for life away, what I use to like or intrigue me, I find myself despising. The person I used to be thought of love as something real, almost tangible. To view human nature in this form from within prison I now believe people as a majority don’t care about people. Because the prison I am at is such an attack on human nature- love of any type, form or meaning almost doesn’t seem real. Grim reality.