Letters to an Incarcerated Brother: Encouragement, Hope, and Healing for Inmates and Their Loved Ones

by Hill Harper

  Flash: A gun.

  Getting checked: When someone tests you on your ability and willingness to fight when it comes down to it. Also called a corta check.

  Girl: Cocaine.

  Grit: A cigarette.

  Gummy bear: A leech; someone who sticks to you or constantly needs something from you.

  Holding jiggers: Watching out for the COs.

  Hole: Solitary confinement. Also called the bucket.

  I’m done talking about it: Say anything else and I will beef for you.

  Jill: Pills.

  Jodi: Name for the guy your girl is sleeping with while you are incarcerated. Also called a Sancho.

  Ketchup: Make someone bleed.

  Kill: Jacking off.

  Kite: A letter.

  La ling: Snitch.

  Lo lo: Sneaky or dirt-cheap.

  Low hate: A schemer.

  Off this nastiness: Don’t need it or be left alone.

  Pardon self: Excuse yourself.

  Poppi: A drug dealer.

  Prison farms: You have intake farms, minimum security, and maximum security. Texas and California call max units gladiator farms, from the historical gladiator who was ready to live and compete in a constantly violent setting.

  Pruno: A beverage inmates create by gathering orange juice and hiding it in their cells until it ferments (aka until it rots), then drink to get drunk.

  Rack or Raq: Bed.

  Rec yard: The place where guys play basketball and handball and lift weights.

  Riot: Three or more people fighting.

  Rolley: A cheap brand of roll-up cigarettes.

  Scratch: Money. Also known as scrilla or chicken.

  Scurry: Scared.

  Setting it off: Kicking off a riot.

  Square (Catching the square): The place where people would fight.

  S.R.O.: Single Room Occupancy

  Stinger: An actually pretty cool contraption made of speaker wire, rubber bands, and nail clippers. When all put together it almost resembles a cord. Goes from the outlet in the cell to a cup of water. Very handy when locked down for long periods of time and you need hot water.

  Stomping someone: Kicking a person when he is down.

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  Boothe, Demico. Getting Out and Staying Out: A Black Man’s Guide to Success After Prison. 2nd ed. Full Surface Publishing, 2012.

  Braman, Donald. Doing Time on the Outside: Incarceration and Family Life in Urban America. University of Michigan Press, 2004.

  Brooks, Justin. Wrongful Convictions: Cases and Materials. Vandeplas Publishing, 2011.

  Brown, Claude. Manchild in the Promised Land. Signet, 1995.

  Canfield, Jack, Mark Victor Hansen, and Tom Lagana. Chicken Soup for the Prisoner’s Soul: 101 Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit of Hope, Healing and Forgiveness. Backlist LLC, 2012.

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  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In the end, maybe it’s wiser to surrender before the miraculous scope of human generosity and to just keep saying thank you, forever and sincerely, for as long as we have voices.

  —Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I cannot say it enough. To everyone who made this book possible, thank you! As with my previous books, I would like to begin with the most important “thank you”—God is the creator of all things and when it comes to expressing the gratitude in my heart, for me that is where it always begins. Thank you, God, for leading me on a journey toward the completion of this work.

  The first letter I received from someone incarcerated was from a sixteen-year-old young man named Brian Dupar. His letter touched my heart deeply. Brian is in his twenties now and will be leaving prison soon. We speak on the phone often. Thank you, Brian. The heartfelt courage in the words of your initial letter inspired this entire book. And upon your release, I look forward to the great contributions you will make to this world!

  More than any of my previous books, this book is a true collaboration. So many people offered up their ideas, intellect, and sweat to make this work possible. This project could not have been done without the wisdom, research, and talent of Bruce Benderson. Thank you, Bruce. Thank you, Tommy Oliver, for your time and helping with so many creative elements. Thank you to Leslie Wells for all of her help and expertise. Thanks to Camille Tucker, Meri Nana-Ama Danquah, Enitan Bereola II, Stefan Geordin, Dezil, Tuan Priester, Viliv Studios, Brett Mahoney, Omar Benson Miller, Dr. Tomekia Strickland, Cynne Simpson, Chivette Burton, Robert Nersesian, Eugene Ray, Richard Fudge, Professor Charles Ogletree, and Jordan Walker Pearlman.

  A special thanks to all of you who took the time to write me e-mails, letters, and tweets sharing your stories and solutions. The candid, unfiltered details of your private experiences, ideas, and insights bring an authentic, unscripted depth and magnitude—an unrivaled humanity—to the narrative embodied in this work.

  Thank you to all of those who contributed letters for the book: Lemon Andersen, Enitan Bereola II, Dr. Jamal Bryant, Dr. Benjamin Chavis, Charles Dutton, Lupe Fiasco, Chloe Flower, Kevin Hagan, Jeff Johnson, Catherine Rohr, Dr. Rudy Tanzi, Russell Simmons, and Michael Steele.

  Thank you, Stephanie Daniels, for your tireless work, as well as everyone else who works in my office—Akello Stone, Parker Delon, and Patricia McNair. Thank you to my mother, Marilyn Hill Harper, for reading so many drafts and offering her wisdom and encouragement.

  Heartfelt thanks to Nicholas Higgins of the New York Public Library, whose Correctional Services and Family Literacy programs have brought a wealth of reading materials and literacy skills to the incarcerated and their families. Connections, their annual guide for the recently released incarcerated in the New York area, provided valuable information for this book. The Correctional Services programs are constantly in search of books to donate to the incarcerated and would appreciate any you are willing to give.

  Thank you to investigator Maureen Kelleher, who pointed me toward several useful resources at the beginning of this project.

  Warm thanks also to Signe Nelson and Cindy Franz, whose compassionate and knowledgeable work with the incarcerated has made an enormous difference for the lives of many.

  Thank you to everyone at Defy Ventures, who offered their expertise and insight: Jeff Ewell, Corey Henderson, Ryan Holly, Fabian Ruiz, Jose Vasquez, and Louis Kanganis.

  Thank you to William Shinker, Lauren Marino, Emily Wunderlich, Lisa Johnson, Lindsay Gordon, and everyone at Gotham/Penguin books. Thank you to my literary agent, David Vigliano, for his support and encouragement.

  Henry Ward Beecher said, “Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.” For authors, books represent legacy, yet books are not too useful if they go unread. So, finally, with deep gratitude, thank you for reading this work. May all of us find our own peace, happiness, abundant blessings, and freedom. I humbly thank you.

  NOTES

  INTRODUCTION

  1.Lauren E. Glaze, and Erika Parks, Correctional Populations in the United States, 2011. (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2012). In Nicholas Higgins, “Family Literacy on the Inside,” Public Libraries Online, March 19, 2013. publiclibrariesonline.org/2013/03/family-literacy-on-the-inside.

  2.Adam Liptak, “U.S. Prison Population Dwarfs That of Other Nations,” The New York Times, April 23, 2008. Also in “The Drug War, Mass Incarceration and Race” online from Drug Policy Alliance at www.drugpolicy.org/sites/ default/files/FactSheet_Drug%20War,%20Mass%20Incarceration%20and%20Race.pdf.

  3.Glaze and Parks, Correctional Populations in the United States.

  4.The Sentencing Project, www.sentencingproject.org (accessed Dec. 1, 2012). The Incarceration report is at www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=107 (accessed Dec. 1, 2012) and can be found in Higgins, “Family Literacy on the Inside.”

  5.Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (New York: The New Press, 2012), 6.

  6.Paul Guerino, Paige M. Harrison, and William J. Sabol, Prisoners in 2010, Appendix Table 24: “Reported number of inmates under age 18 held in custody in state and federal prisons, by sex, region, and jurisdiction, June 30, 2009 and 2010,” www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p10.pdf.

  7.Allen J. Beck, and Paige M. Harrison, “Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004,” Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 24, 2005; online at http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=843. Also cited in Paul Krugman, “Prisons, Privatization, Patronage,” The New York Times, June 21, 2012, www .nytimes.com/2012/06/22/opinion/krugman-prisons-privatization-patronage .html. Florida is used as an example of the state level in William D. Bales, Laura E. Bedard, Susan T. Quinn, David T. Ensley, and Glen P. Holley, “Recidivism of Public And Private State Prison Inmates in Florida,” Criminology & Public Policy 4, no. 1 (February 2005): 57–82. Found online at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-9133.2005.00006.x/abstract.

  8.Vicky Pelaez, “The Prison Industry in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of Slavery?” El Diario-La Prensa, New York and Global Research 10 (March 2008), found online at www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison -industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289. Also in Bryan Stevenson, “We Need to Talk About an Injustice,” Filmed March 2012. TED video, 23:41. Posted March 2012. www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice.html.

  9.Available online at www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=10865.

  10.Sarah Schirmer, Ashley Nellis, and Marc Mauer in Incarcerated Parents and Their Children, The Sentencing Project, February 2009, online at http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/publications/inc_incarceratedparents.pdf.

  11.Stephen Kurczy, “Catherine Rohr Helps Ex-cons Return to Society by Learning to Start Businesses,” The Christian Science Monitor, April 23, 2012, www .csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/2012/0423/Catherine-Rohr -helps-ex-cons-return-to-society-by-learning-to-start-businesses.

  12.Howard Husock, “From Prison to a Paycheck,” The Wall Street Journal, August 3, 2012, online at online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443866404577565170182319412.html.

  LETTER 2: THE NATURE OF FREEDOM

  1.Sidney Poitier, The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2007).

  LETTER 3: LOSING IS LEARNING

  1.Jone Johnson Lewis. “About Elizabeth Cady Stanton.�
�� About Women’s History, womenshistory.about.com/od/stantonelizabeth/a/stanton.htm.

  LETTER 4: WHOSE LIFE IS IT?

  1.Wes Moore, The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates (New York: Spiegel & Grau, 2011).

  LETTER 5: MENTORS AND OPTIONS

  1.@DeepakChopra (Deepak Chopra). (2012, June 13). There is no such thing as a thing. There are only relationships #CosmicConsciousness [Twitter post]. Retrieved from twitter.com/DeepakChopra/status/213076976796307456.

  2.U.S. Department of Education, Education Resource Organizations Directory, State Correctional Education Coordinator, online at http://wdcrobcolp01 .ed.gov/programs/EROD/org_list.cfm?category_cd=SCE

  LETTER 6: ESCAPE PLAN

  1.Books on exoneration include Brandon L. Garrett, Convicting the Innocent: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong (Boston, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012); Scott Christianson, Innocent: Inside Wrongful Conviction Cases (New York: New York University Press, 2006); Justin Brooks, Wrongful Convictions: Cases and Materials (Lake Mary, FL: Vandeplas Publishing, 2011); Jim Petro and Nancy Petro, False Justice: Eight Myths That Convict the Innocent (New York: Kaplan Publishing, 2010); John Grisham, The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town (New York: Dell, 2012); James R. Acker and Allison D. Redlich, Wrongful Conviction: Law, Science, and Policy (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2011).

  2.“The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison,” interview with Anthony Papa in The Socialist Worker, August 30, 2002, http://socialistworker.org/2002-2/419/419_06_CorporateCrime.shtml.

  3.@DeepakChopra (Deepak Chopra). (2012, March 1). Today consider: If you could jump ahead five years from now and meet yourself, who would you meet? #Choice [Twitter post]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/DeepakChopra/status/175278678715006976.

  LETTER 7: HAVING AN IMPACT

  1.Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (New York: Penguin, 2008), 13.

  LETTER 8: WHAT IS A SLAVE?

  1.Murray C. Cullen, Cage Your Rage: An Inmate’s Guide to Anger Control (Alexandria, VA: American Correctional Association, 1992) is a workbook that helps you learn how to identify and control anger. Living on the Outside: A Pre-Release Handbook gives pointers for figuring out what kind of work you might like to do, getting a job, finding a place to live, figuring out your transportation, managing money, keeping safe and healthy, and finding services on the outside. Incarcerated Education contains an outline of training programs and classes in this particular jail: basic office skills, building maintenance, nail technology, plumbing, small engine repair, life management, men’s issues, and women’s issues. Chicken Soup for the Prisoner’s Soul: 101 Stories to Open the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit of Hope, Healing and Forgiveness by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen and Tom Lagana.