Disclaimer: This series is drawn from real conversations with individuals who are incarcerated while awaiting trial. All names and identifying details are changed, and some dialogue has been lightly edited for safety and clarity. These are first-hand experiences and may contain blunt or mature content. No part of these entries is fictionalized or intended to sensationalize, stereotype, or generalize. In the U.S., individuals are legally innocent until proven guilty. The purpose of this project is to provide a human-centered window into a system that is often hidden from public view.
If you missed the previous issue, you can read issue three here.
Anchor Section
Short, honest answers from the men inside, shared exactly as spoken.
Q: How has your sense of time changed since being incarcerated?
Bullet:
“It feels like the days flyby.”
Ola:
“Loss of future time, every day is the same.”
Doc:
“Time has been erased. We don’t even have a clock.”
Q: How does it feel to be treated as guilty before being convicted?
Haa:
“It feels wrong, the system is backwards.”
Boots:
“It’s frustrating and embarrassing.”
Pastor:
“You’re seen as “less than” or dangerous. Over time, you even start to question yourself. Even if you didn’t do anything.”
Ace:
“I’m guilty as charged, I accept my punishment.”
Q: What do you look forward to in the future?
Haa:
“To live a life free of crime.”
Boots:
“I don’t think of the future, because I might not have one.”
Ola:
“My freedom.”
Sketch:
“Being called by my name, not a number and my own business.”
The Microwave Chef’s Weekly Special
Because where there is hunger, there is creativity.
When the kitchen is a microwave and the pantry fits in a pocket, you learn to make comfort out of almost nothing. This is food built from trade, timing, and creativity — a small act of control in a place where very little is yours.
The Mayor’s Desk – Weekly Update
Official Mayor’s Statement:
“I accept responsibility for the mistake, but I don’t understand how serving time in the hole doesn’t count as punishment. Being disciplined twice for the same issue, especially after the appeal was denied, feels excessive. Taking away phone access after that has made it harder than it needed to be.”
Mayor’s Update
The Mayor has been released from the hole, but the matter is not resolved.
Although he already served time in isolation for the infraction, officials determined that because he retained phone access during that period, the punishment did not count. His appeal was denied. As a result, he is now serving an additional 30 days without phone or tablet access.
This decision does not apply to him alone.
Five other inmates who were sent to the hole at the same time are also being disciplined a second time under the same reasoning. For many of them, this means no communication with their children, no phone calls, no video visits, no contact at all for the duration of the punishment.
The Mayor submitted a second appeal to the warden, this time explicitly on behalf of himself and the other affected inmates. According to the response he received, the warden acknowledged that his points were well made, but stated that the situation falls under a no-tolerance policy and that punishment must proceed regardless.
In his words, the most difficult part is not the discipline itself, but the sense that the same infraction is being punished twice — and that the cost is being borne not only by inmates, but by their families.
Municipal Concerns (Grievances & Diplomacy)
The Mayor has formally filed multiple grievances addressing both his own situation and broader conditions affecting the inmate population. These grievances have been submitted to the warden and escalated to the Oversight Committee.
Mail Disruption
The Mayor has also filed grievances on behalf of himself and other inmates regarding a prolonged disruption in mail delivery.
According to these filings, inmates have not received personal mail for more than three weeks. This includes letters, photographs, holiday cards, and other forms of personal correspondence. As a result, many inmates did not receive Christmas cards, family updates, or photographs of loved ones during the holiday period.
The Mayor notes that this is not an isolated incident but part of an ongoing issue within the facility. Despite repeated grievances, no clear explanation or corrective action has been communicated.
Disparities in Housing and Privileges
Additionally, the Mayor and other inmates have filed grievances concerning what they describe as inconsistent enforcement of housing and behavior standards.
Specifically, concerns have been raised about another inmate who, despite a documented history of violence and involvement in serious assaults, has reportedly been allowed to retain special privileges and placement in a no-tolerance or good-behavior housing unit.
The grievance alleges that this inmate’s continued placement contradicts stated eligibility criteria and raises questions about equitable enforcement. The Mayor and others assert that inmates with minor or nonviolent infractions have been removed from the same housing unit, while this individual remains.
These grievances request formal review and clarification of policy application, emphasizing that consistency and transparency are essential for maintaining order, safety, and trust within the facility.
Pod Affairs Report
There is little movement in the pod.
Most inmates remain locked down for the majority of the day, and routine has flattened into repetition. The same hours. The same doors. The same waiting.
What conflict exists is familiar and cyclical. Occasional fights break out. Doors are kicked in frustration. Arguments flare over tablet use, particularly when some inmates take devices without signing up and face no consequences. These incidents come and go, resolved more by exhaustion than intervention.
One newer inmate has drawn attention for collecting discarded plastic and food wrappers, stating he is protesting microplastics. His actions are tolerated, mostly ignored, and folded into the background of daily life.
Beyond that, the prevailing condition is stagnation.
Morale is low. Depression is common. Conversations are shorter. Many inmates describe feeling “stuck” — not just physically, but mentally. Days blur together. There is little sense of forward motion, only endurance.
Content Note:
This piece includes references to violence, incarceration, and racial language, shared in the subject’s own words. Please read with care.
Meet: Brick
He was sixteen years old and living on his own.
His mother had lost her house. There was no rent money. No safety net. No one stepping in. So he did what felt, at the time, like the only thing left.
He started breaking into places.
Not homes with people inside. Not cars with drivers in them. He was careful about that. He waited until houses were empty, cars unattended. He avoided confrontation at all costs. He didn’t want to hurt anyone. He didn’t even want to be seen.
“I was looking for cash,” he told me. “Stereos. Things that could be replaced.”
There were moments when he stopped himself. Holidays, for instance. He couldn’t take gifts. He couldn’t touch heirlooms. His heart was heavy every time he did it. Crime was survival, not ambition. It was never a long-term plan.
Then something unexpected happened.
He met a friend who invited him into another world entirely. A ranch. Horse racing. Wealth, he had never seen up close. For the first time, people treated him like he belonged somewhere.
He worked hard. He learned. He worked matches. He earned real money. He was given a place to stay, a car to drive, and, more importantly, a sense of family. People welcomed him without asking where he came from.
“For the first time,” he said, “I wasn’t just surviving. I was thriving.”
He began to believe his life had changed permanently. That he was done stealing. Done running. Done scraping by.
And then, just as suddenly, it collapsed.
A party. Drugs left behind. Everyone was removed from the ranch, including him. The opportunity vanished overnight. He didn’t deny responsibility, but the loss hit something old and familiar: the feeling that whatever he built could be taken away without warning.
He panicked.
Trying to maintain the lifestyle he had briefly touched, he made a series of decisions that would change his life forever. First, fraud. Then something worse.
He bought a ski mask. He carried a gun he had stolen earlier but never loaded, never used. He told himself he wouldn’t hurt anyone.
The robbery went wrong almost immediately.
The man he targeted turned out to be armed. Shots were fired. The sound of glass exploding filled the car. He curled into himself as bullets tore through metal. One hit his knee. Another lodged just beneath the skin.
He ran.
Dogs found him.
When officers arrested him, one of them pressed a gun to his head and told him he was lucky to be alive.
At the hospital, doctors told him the bullet had missed everything vital. “You’re fortunate,” they said.
He didn’t feel fortunate.
He was sent to juvenile detention, facing a sentence that could have kept him incarcerated for life. When he called his mother, terrified of disappointing her, she simply said she would come see him.
He was transferred to a youth training facility. Behind barbed wire, he found something unexpected again: education.
He earned his GED. Took college classes. Discovered writing. Fell in love with language after reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Became a student leader. Found structure.
Then one violent incident — a fight he didn’t initiate — sent him to adult jail.
That is where he says he learned what hell actually looked like.
The rules were brutal and unspoken. Choose sides. Choose territory. Choose affiliation. Or suffer for refusing.
He learned quickly how to survive without becoming what the place demanded of him.
Later, he encountered faith, not as doctrine, but as grounding. Islam gave him discipline, study, and a moral structure that transcended prison politics. He became a leader within that community. A teacher. A mediator.
He earned degrees. Led programs. Painted visiting rooms. Built art collectives. Studied law.
Then loss arrived again.
His father died.
Then his mother.
He was not allowed to attend either funeral.
“That’s when I understood why people give up,” he told me. “The pain was so deep I didn’t know how to stand back up.”
What brought him back, he said, was a realization he wished he’d had earlier: emotion alone could not free him. Rage could not outmaneuver systems built to crush people.
He chose something else.
Rational thought. Strategy. Persistence.
He began fighting his case legally. Writing courts. Working with pro bono attorneys. Building a record that could not be ignored. Years passed.
In the law library, he became something else again.
He was one of the few inmates who studied there daily, not just for himself but for others. He learned how to read cases, how to spot inconsistencies, how to write motions that would actually be heard. Men began coming to him with paperwork they didn’t understand, deadlines they were about to miss, sentences they didn’t know how to challenge
In one case, working line by line through documents with another man, he noticed a discrepancy no one else had caught. It changed everything. After five years of waiting, that man was found innocent and released.
“I didn’t free him,” he said. “I just helped him see what was already there.”
Now, he waits for a hearing that could finally determine his future.
What hurts him most, he says, is not just the years lost — but the life never lived. The family never built. The contribution delayed.
When he speaks about the future, his goals are clear: marriage. Business. Community service. Advocacy for youth offenders who enter the system without tools, without support, without a map.
“We have programs for addiction,” he said. “For mental illness. But what about kids who never learned how to live in society in the first place?”
He believes this is where transformative justice begins.
What jail ultimately taught him, he says, was love — not sentiment, but discipline.
“To love yourself. To love others. Even your enemies. That’s the hardest work there is.”
And it is the work he is still doing.
Author’s Note
This story is shared with the inmate’s consent and anonymized for safety. The experiences and reflections are his own; I have edited for clarity, structure, and readability while preserving his voice and meaning. This piece is not offered to excuse harm, but to show how easily lives are shaped by circumstance, policy, and the absence of early support. The goal of Cellblock is to document lived experience inside the system. Thank you for reading.
Next edition: February 8th
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Rose, what’s most effective here is how firmly you refuse to collapse human experience into commentary. And that's what makes it stand so well.
The structure does a lot of ethical work.
By placing policy updates, grievances, and short answers alongside Brick’s long arc, you let the reader see how individual lives are shaped by accumulation — of rules, delays, and small denials — rather than by a single decisive moment. The system reveals itself through repetition, not rhetoric.
Brick’s narrative is especially strong because it resists redemption framing. Education, faith, and legal knowledge aren’t cures; they’re tools. That distinction matters. It keeps the piece honest about how limited choice can be inside a structure designed to exhaust people rather than resolve them.
I also appreciated how restraint is maintained around judgement.
Harm isn’t erased, but neither is complexity flattened.
The focus stays on consequence — how policy decisions echo into families, how punishment often extends far beyond the person officially disciplined.
This reads to me as documentation in the truest sense: Careful, human, and difficult to dismiss.
It trusts the reader to notice rather than be instructed — and that trust is what gives the piece its weight.
Read. Very interesting insights!