This prison advice for women comes from Monique Houston, a woman who entered prison at just 20 years old and is now nineteen years into a thirty-year sentence #prisonwriters #lifebehindbars #prison #womeninprison #storytelling
For 48 years, Charlie Norman has been fighting what he says is a wrongful murder conviction for a 1975 robbery gone bad. In failing health, he’s hoping to be released when he turns 80, which is the date for his 6th parole hearing.
Pam Bondi has opposed Charles Norman’s release since at least his 2005 parole hearing, when she was still in the Hillsborough State Attorney’s office under Mark Ober — the prosecutor who originally convicted Norman in 1980. Ober has fought Norman’s release at every parole hearing since, and Bondi continued that opposition after becoming Florida Attorney General, testifying at his 2012 hearing that she believes Norman would attempt to murder her if released.
Allies continue to fight for his release on freecharlienow.com, claiming he was convicted by tainted testimony, and some powerful people have taken up his cause, including a former state senator and a nun at Jesuit High. He’s been a model prisoner the last 5 decades: improving himself, creating art, helping others and writing for Prison Writers. 🤷🏾♂️
#JusticeForCharlie
#WrongfulConviction
#SecondChance
#PrisonReform
#BringThemHome
James Aren Duckett has been on death row since 1988. His execution, scheduled for March 31, 2026, was blocked by the Florida Supreme Court to allow for further DNA testing, which could potentially exclude him from biological evidence found on the victim—evidence that was originally tested with outdated methods.
Supporters of Duckett point to several factors that cast doubt on his conviction, including reliance on circumstantial evidence, eyewitness testimony, and forensic techniques such as microscopic hair comparison and tire track analysis, which would be considered unreliable by modern standards, as well as claims that investigators overlooked alternative suspects or mischaracterized witness testimony.
While the state maintains his guilt, the ongoing DNA analysis and unresolved questions about the original forensic evidence have created significant legal uncertainty and raised the possibility, according to the defense, that Duckett could be innocent of the 1988 rape and murder of 11-year-old Teresa McAbee.
#prison #prisonwriters #lifebehindbars #storytelling #fyp
Kim Brown says there are biological men in her prison who claim to be trans, but aren’t. She feels that her privacy is violated.
New York State’s Department of Corrections houses trans women in women’s prisons, as do a handful of other states. Across the country, correctional staff and observers have reported significant safety concerns and operational challenges regarding the housing of biological men who identify as women in female prisons, with some staff feeling forced to manage heightened risks of sexual assault and violence.
#prisonwriters #storytelling #lifebehindbars #realstories #prison
Bill Zamastil has been convicted of four murders: the kidnapping, rape, and murder of a woman in Wisconsin, the clubbing to death of a brother and sister in California and the killing of a Tucson woman who was the daughter of an FBI agent. He is a strong suspect in the murders of a 21 year old man in California, a college student in Wisconsin and many others. He’s been in prison since 1978
#prisonwriters #storytelling #lifebehindbars #serialkiller #realstories
When I heard Bill Zamastil wanted to talk to me because he was ready to confess to a lot of murders, I looked into all the cold cases that happened during the 11 years he spent killing all his victims before getting locked up for a couple of them.
He was able to remember enough details about 2 of them to take it to the FBI. Agents have been working with him since.
Stay tuned for Part 4
#prisonwriters #storytelling #lifebehindbars #serialkiller #realstories
Arnold Barnes calls this “Don’t Mess with Texas”
Right when in-cell temperatures reach 100
Blood pressure reaches 200-200.
Feel like my body and brain in the oven.
You couldn’t imagine the pain and the suffering
I begged them to help me and they ain’t do nothing
Then felt like a rod went straight through the roof of my head
Ain’t I supposed to be dead?
Listen for the rest
#prisonwriters #prison #lifebehindbars #fyp #raps
El Presynt went to prison when he was 21 years old. Today, two decades later, he’s a completely different person. He explains why young people deserve a second chance. He points out that many of the kids who go on to commit a crime were exposed to far more trauma, violence, instability, and neglect than most people ever have to imagine, and that those experiences can shape behavior in ways we still do not fully understand. His point is not that actions should be excused, but that punishment without context misses the bigger truth. If we looked more honestly at childhood damage, the science of brain development, and what young people are actually capable of becoming, we might think very differently about prison and second chances.
#prisonwriters #storytelling #fyp #lifebehindbars #prison
After he told me he killed 60-65 people to “liven up his day,” we talked about how he found his victims. It started with him going out to the airport and picking a random city. Three or four days later, he was back home.
Stay tuned for Bill Zamastil Part 3
#prisonwriters #prison #lifebehindbars #storytelling #serial killer
Should trans women be living in men’s or women’s prisons? A transgender woman could be in a women’s prison in California or New York, but in a men’s prison in most other states and the federal system is currently in legal flux, with the Trump administration pushing hard toward birth-sex-based placement. Reports of biological males transferring to women’s prisons across the country simply by self-identifying as transgender have led to investigations, allegations of sexual assault, and intense debate over inmate safety
#prisonwriters #prison #lifebehindbars #storytelling #fyp
“Michigan school shooter Ethan Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing four students. No one understands what Crumbley’s life behind bars is like quite like our writer Chris Dankovich, who grew up in the same county as Crumbley and became incarcerated in the same prison around the same age.
“I know what Ethan Crumbley is going through in prison because I went through much of the same thing. I wrote an article on his mental health treatment in prison…
I hear from guards that have worked with Ethan Crumbley that he has expressed to them that he regrets the crime that he committed, as well as that he wishes that he could have got his mind right before he committed the crime.” - Chris Dankovich writes.
Read more thoughts from Dankovich on PrisonWriters.com
#prisonwriters #ethancrumbley #schoolshooter #schoolshootings #lifebehindbars
mentalhealth
One of my Prison Writers contributors introduced me to then 70-year old Bill Zamastil because Bill said he wanted to confess to more murders — beyond the four he’d already been convicted of. For nearly three years, I have spoken with him on and off, researching all the cold cases I could find of people murdered during the 11-year stretch he was active before he was caught. I then took the details of those cold cases to Bill, hoping to help trigger memories of his victims with enough detail to tie him to any of the murders. (So far, he remembers the murder of a young man in California and a college student in Wisconsin with the most details.)
After receiving his confession, I brought the information to the FBI and to district attorneys in the three states where he said the killings took place. They have been meeting with him for months now, pouring over old maps of the areas to help him remember.
In this first post, I ask him the most basic and disturbing question: How many people does he believe he killed?
Stay tuned for Bill Zamastil Part 2
#prison #prisonwriters #storytelling #lifebehindbars #serialkiller
