Journal Entry: Dr. Malik Muhammad-07/10/2023-From the Belly of the Beast

Journal Entry

Prison is like sleeping under a blanket of negativity every second. Hope is not allowed, personally I believe it scars people in here so its easier to just accept nothing will be good…ever. For me this is especially hard because Im ultra sensative to negativity to the point it makes me ill. I am not saying Im super positive every second but I do know good things happen to us each day if where looking for them. Alot of people look at getting out of prison as the goal. I live with a different lense, what I do each day is the goal. While in prison I have written two books and am working on a third. I am working to repair my credit while in here so I can have that as a tool to help fund the trucking business I want to start. I am by trainning a PhD. psychologist but I have lost all my licenses being in here (which is another layer of adding insult to injury because it stripped me of my ability to earn income when Im released). But Im a fighter, I will get my licenses back, but I will need help. My daily plan is to read books in clinical psychopharmachology because I was in a masters program when I came to prison. The “justice” system is a real joke. I had a full scholarship for the program and asked the judge to delay my sentence date to allow me to finish the program, to no surprise he said “no”. I still dont see how me, a first time non-violent offender was a threat to the community that the judge needed me off the streets immedialtly. I thank Mr. Santos and his whole staff for doing this. We are not bad people we are just outnumbered and outresourced. But if we all we got, then we got all we need.

Dr. Malik Muhammad
From the belly of the beast