Humans of New York: Inmate Stories

Since 2010, the very popular blog Humans of New York has collected portraits and interviews on the streets of New York City (reminds me of my blog from freshman year of college). Recently, they have been covering inmates from five different federal penitentiaries across the north east. What I like about this series is that it puts a personal face to those who are behind bars. It makes me question if the correctional system is fulfilling its mission and goals in the most effective way possible. That's a conversation for another day, but here are a few of the stories:


“I’m sixty-two now. I have three more years. I sold heroin. A lot of it. I had forty people working for me. If you were to ask me thirty-four years ago what it was going to be like in prison, I couldn’t have imagined. It’s been the same thing every day. Everyone I care about is gone. My mother passed. My father passed. My brother and sister. If I look backwards, I’ll lose my mind. I just try to keep busy and take it one day at a time. I’ve done every self-help program in the system. I’m the lead facilitator for the Men of Influence program. We teach behavioral skills, financial management, and entrepreneurship. In the five years that I’ve been in charge, we’ve graduated 250 people, and only one has come back to prison. I tell them: ‘Don’t let me be your future.’ And if I could say one thing to everyone who reads this interview. I want to apologize for the harm that I caused. If I could go back in time and correct it, I would. But that’s what I’ve been trying to do for the past 34 years. I grew up in the Baltimore projects. Everyone that I knew had nothing. I was trying to improve my life with the information that I had at the time. I grabbed the wrong rope. I’m sorry if I caused generations behind me to go astray. It wasn’t my intention to bring pain to the community. And I really think that when I’m released, I can be an asset to society.”
(Federal Correctional Institution: Cumberland, Maryland)

"I got caught up in a little something. I've got twenty days left. Nobody knows I'm here. I've got somebody updating my Facebook page for me. All my friends think I'm in Hawaii right now." (Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York)

“I was alone with four kids. My mother was sick. I was making $500 a week working at a restaurant in Harlem. This Colombian woman told me she could help. She said, ‘We need honest people like you.’ I really needed the money. They gave me a job as a transporter. I drove cocaine from Manhattan to Massachusetts. They gave me some extra to sell at the restaurant. I only had a few clients. I did it for two years. I never did any drugs myself. Then I was set up in a sting by the same woman who got me started. I knew I’d done wrong but I’d never been in trouble before. I thought I would do a little time in jail. The detectives told me: ‘You’re a leader. You’re this. You’re that.’ The lawyer told me to sign these papers. I didn’t understand what to do. They told me I didn’t have a chance at trial. They told me they were helping me. I was given 25 years.” (Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn)

“He’s a beautiful person. He always tells me: ‘We’ve got tofind a way to win by losing.’ In the eyes of society, we’ve lost already. Everyone in here is a loser. We can either be angry about it, or we can keep trying to grow. He’s always correcting my Spanish and giving me quizzes. He used to be an engineer, so he’s been tutoring me in trigonometry. He’s been a blessing to me. He’s helped me to not be so angry. He’s always so happy and optimistic. And I don’t know how he stays so positive. Because I’m getting out of here in 40 months. He’s doing life.” (Federal Correctional Complex: Allenwood, Pennsylvania)

“I was studying landscape 
architecture at Penn State anddealing drugs on the side. At the age of twenty, I got arrested with a quarter pound of mushrooms and a pound of marijuana. I assumed my life was over at that point. I didn’t think I could bounce back from a felony charge so I pretty much gave up on everything. I started doing cocaine and heroin while I waited on my sentencing, and I’ve been an addict ever since. I’ve spent a total of fifteen years in prison for various drug charges. My last arrest was for producing Fentanyl. It’s extremely difficult to make—it’s stronger than heroin and a much more complicated molecule than meth. I only know of one other person on the east coast who figured out how to make it. There were so many laws in place to keep people from getting the materials. I had no resources and no connections but I studied organic chemistry and found a way. When I finally got caught, all they wanted to know was how I did it. That’s the problem with my addiction. I’m smart enough to get around anything. So there’s never been anything to stop me but myself.”(Federal Correctional Complex: Allenwood, Pennsylvania)

“This is my fifth time in prison. Every crime I’ve committed has come from my addiction. Best case scenario is I get out of here, rebuild my life, and join the one percent of people who have beaten a meth addiction. Worst case scenario is I become no more than what I am today. And honestly, if I mess up again, I hope it kills me. Because I don’t want to keep hurting people. I’ve cheated my kids out of normal lives. My seventeen-year-old daughter is in a home for teen moms. My twenty-one-year-old son is in jail. My eighteen-year-old daughter is doing OK. She’s got a job at FedEx and goes to college. She hates drugs and thinks the world is a good place and that nobody is out to hurt her. She wants to help me. She wants me to come live with her when I get out. I don’t think that’s a good idea.” (Federal Correctional Complex: Hazelton, West Virginia)