My friend Justin, the British pen friend, happened to mention Prison Journalism Project one day and I asked what that was. He explained that it is a publication about prison and for prisoners or other stakeholders to connect with the outside world. He then sent a couple of sample articles and I was intrigued. I asked for more info and he sent some print outs directly from their website. To make a long story short, after several months and a few re-writes, I submitted an article and they responded with an interest in working with me.
For anyone who knows me, they would not be surprised to learn that my first submission was about art. But it is the thing I am most well-versed in, most confident about and the thing I have been doing the most for the past 20 years. Thus it was not hard to find content to write about. In the past 20 years I have taught myself how to paint and draw, how to use different types of pencils – from charcoal to pastel to graphite – and finally I began teaching others how to do these same things.
I enjoyed writing the article and I hope to work more with the editors at PJP so that I might be published. I was also thrilled to receive an invitation to submit some artwork that they might consider posting with the article. Since our institution does not allow us to send art to people not on our visitation list, I’ve sent photos instead. Hopefully they will find something worthy of their publication.
I have already started drafting another article on prison reform. Many individuals thought Trump, due to his success with the First Step Act in 2018, would be ushering in large swaths of prison reform. They thought his personal experiences with the DOJ would push him to reform the agency. Within his first week in office, though, Elon Musk and he have taken a look at the DOJ’s budget and want to slash it. Guess what got cut in the first week? Inspectors General fired, Federal Workers fired, Federal Worker Protections ended, Prison Programming gone – too much money being spent in prisons on reforming/rehabilitating prisoners. I think many individuals thought Trump would be doing wonderful things once he got into office again. I think it remains to be seen what the outcomes will be from the chaos and havoc he’s wrought within the first 14 days. At least now I have a way to document it and report on the affects after his policies are enacted.
