“If anyone thought I was not going to voice my opinion and that I was just going to let my son become a statistic, they had the wrong mom,” says Lavern Rushin. “They had the wrong mom.” Lavern is the mother of Matthew Rushin, the... Read More

When Darlene Wells and Jesse Dunaway met, it was “empathy at first sight.” She was working as a nurse at the institution where Jesse is a prisoner, and he was working in the staff dining hall. “You get to see these people, day after day,”... Read More

William Wilder is no kingpin. In fact, he did not even sell drugs. In 2018, he bought 14.3 grams of methamphetamine from a confidential informant. And now he’s in prison for a first-degree felony for trafficking. There is a very, very long distance between Pablo... Read More

Celeste Monette Blair is serving 30 years in federal prison. Prison life is more chaotic than ever now, yet somehow she is able to find a sort of peace, and even to give something to us through her words. Here’s what she wants you to... Read More

For Wayne Potee, it all comes down to one day. It was a weekday, and he was working on power lines when he took a bad fall off his truck. He suffered an injury to his rotator cuff that required surgery. Afterward, the surgeon prescribed... Read More

John Knock is in prison for marijuana charges for a term of two life sentences plus 20 years. This story is from his sister, Beth Curtis. From day one, Beth has been John’s strongest supporter. She will never stop telling his story and working to... Read More

Last year, one of the jurors in Frederick “Rick” Turner’s trial talked to the Washington Post after Rick’s sentencing hearing. “Mr. Turner has a problem, he made really bad decisions. But do I think he can be a productive member of society? Yes, and I... Read More

When Charceil Kellam was arrested in September of 2006, her family assumed that she wouldn’t spend much time in prison. She had a history of arrests, related to her decades-long addiction issues, but even when convicted, she never spent a ton of time locked up.... Read More