Guards are about to either lazily check with a passing glance that your cell is in compliance or aggressively rip through everything you own-you never know which. ” When you hear this announcement crackle in through the cellblock loud- speaker, all contraband needs to be hidden in your jumpsuit. Inmates, prepare for cell inspection at this time. You’ll get used to it.Ĩ:30 a.m.-” Cell inspection at this time. Comb teeth are the standard method for keeping body piercings from closing up when you’re in jail and real jewelry is banned. If you’re like me-which right about now you’re probably very glad you’re not-you’ll al- ways take a comb, rip off the teeth, and insert one in the space where your lip ring used to be. It is the one reliably edible meal: cereal.ħ:30 a.m.-” Supplies! ” The guard assigned to your wing comes by with a cart loaded with jailhouse hygiene supplies: sketchy toothbrushes, doll-size bars of soap, and fine-tooth combs that tend to leave teeth behind in your hair.
Five male “trusties”- the universal jail name for inmates who do the jail food prep and custodial work in exchange for extra privileges-bring in your breakfast tray. It explores race, privilege, addiction, redemption and my journey through a broken system - starting just after the 2010 arrest that landed me in the Tompkins County Jail.ħ:00 a.m.-” Razors! Razors! ” You wake up to COs at the cellblock door screaming what sounds like a suicide suggestion but is in fact the offer to receive a single-blade razor for shaving. And those jailhouse journals went on to become the basis for a book: Corrections in Ink.
I got a second chance that not everyone does, and I went on to graduate from college and become an investigative reporter. The pages and pages of scrawling blue pen documented every detail of my life from a time when I was a broken person trying to become less broken.Įventually, I did. The whole time I was there, I kept a journal and by the time I got home in the fall of 2012, there was a foot-high stack of yellow legal pads waiting for me. I had, of course, lived - only to keep destroying my life and end up on my way to prison three years later. I’d been struggling with addiction and depression for years in fact, the spot where police picked me up was only a few houses down from the bridge where I’d once tried to kill myself.
Even though I was at the tail end of my senior year at Cornell University, that outcome should not have been a surprise to anyone who knew me. On a cold morning in upstate New York, I got arrested while walking down the street with a small Tupperware container filled with heroin.
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