Thank you for joining us for another issue of The Beat Within! We have been so proud and humbled to continue our relationship with Urban High School of San Francisco. Thank you also to the team of student interns that have helped us over the last few months to process writing and help us meet editing deadlines so that we can deliver you another issue of amazing voices! This group of student interns has completed their service hours, and they have all taken additional time to write a reflection on their personal experience with The Beat Within.
My time at The Beat Within has introduced me to a new community, one that although I’m a part of only externally, I feel I know pretty well. Through each and every transcription I’ve completed, another piece of the puzzle has been added to my understanding of an inmate’s experience in California’s penitentiary system. It’s taken me time to hone my editing skills, but I’ve learned that practice lends itself to improvement, and each day I’ve been able to more authentically communicate the histories of each writer.
Some stories, from my experience, have elements of humor and lightheartedness, some are more straightforward, and some, a select few come to mind, are extremely touching and vulnerable. Some of the simpler stories I transcribed dealt with a simple haircut, listening to the advice of family members, or even a childhood pet. Some of the ones that, to me, felt more vulnerable and open offered apologies to family members or shared teenage traumas.
Reading these stories have reminded me that every single person I see has a life just as intricate as my own, feels love, hate, despair, and hope. I read a number of responses from repeat writers, and more recently when a familiar name appears it feels to me like I’m acquainted with them. Sugarbear, is an example of this, a writer that I’ve transcribed several times throughout the term, and one whose story has become more whole each and every time I’ve come across a piece of his writing.
One of the most full circle moments for me was receiving a copy of the magazine after having worked on transcriptions for eight or nine weeks in a row. I wasn’t exactly sure at the beginning of the term how my work was going to pay off, but I soon realized the reward of seeing your own transcriptions and responses published. It felt as though I was giving back in some way, offering what I could to the community I was starting to learn the intricacies of.
There were both distinctions and similarities between the writers, especially when two individuals were responding to the same prompt. One prompt that comes to mind is one from a couple of months ago: “Have you ever been stood up?”. The variety in the answers were apparent, with many inmates telling similar stories of being stood up for dates, by friends, and even by their family, while others took the prompt very literally, talking about how they were never stood up because they never are caught sitting down.
Another prompt I remember focused on forgiveness and whether it was possible, and what it looked like to the writers. This one struck me particularly hard because of how differently each person approached it. Some believed forgiveness was something they’d never earn, while others wrote about the importance of forgiving themselves first. Reading those responses forced me to confront my own assumptions about people who are incarcerated. I had always understood, in an abstract way, that every person carries a story, but these writings gave that idea a heartbeat. Each submission felt like a window into the writer’s humanity and one that’s too often overlooked or dismissed.
Over time, I began to notice patterns, not just in the tone or subject matter, but in the emotional rhythms of the writing. There’s a mix of resignation and resilience, anger and hope, regret and faith. I think what has resonated with me most is how these stories reveal that transformation and self-reflection can emerge even in environments designed to suppress individuality. The Beat Within provides space for that transformation to exist on the page, even if it can’t yet exist in the world outside prison walls. I realized that my work as a transcriber isn’t just administrative, it’s an act of witness. By carefully preserving the words of these writers, I’m helping ensure that their voices don’t fade into silence.
-Jack
Reflection
I believe, before The Beat, I felt very detached from incarcerated individuals, even if I learned about the justice system. I think I never really formed a strong opinion about specific people affected, not from lack of empathy, but just from lack of exposure. I have been lucky enough not to find myself in circumstances that required me to make hard choices, that might have brought me to the harsher side of the system.
The position I had this term was very moving and very powerful. I was tasked with typing up, editing, and responding to the work of writers in the system, and because I had to literally word-for-word report someone’s experience, I got the privilege of being forced to engage deeply with their words. And after I did that, the additional task of responding forced me to consider the entire person, the author themselves, and their life experience. I would attempt to provide them with my own intentional words in the hopes that they would be helpful at all.
A few writings brought me close to crying. Some spoke about people they had lost or hopes they had for themselves and the loved ones in their lives. Others discussed difficult past circumstances, maybe even things that had led them to being incarcerated. Because of the honesty and engagement of the writers, I felt like I understood a little piece of everyone, even if I didn’t know exactly who they were.
One more difficult element of the assignment was finding a balance between being engaged enough to respond to the whole piece and the whole person but also accepting the fact that I would never know more about them than the small sliver I was provided. I always felt excited when I read multiple pieces from the same author. However, I always wanted to know more.
The work was connecting. I appreciated it both when writers wrote about how they themselves were growing inside the system, and how the system needed to change. One writer wrote about how difficult it was that government funding was going into detention centers rather than schools and spoke of the children who would be affected. I know that unintentional circumstances play a large role in the path to incarceration, and I couldn’t help but think, if more money was spent on stopping people from committing acts that led them to incarceration than actually forcing them to be there, the world and these individuals, would all be better off. If as a whole, we spent resources on teaching rather than trapping. Overall, I found myself agreeing with most perspectives, even if they contrasted. I found empathy in the few times when I disagreed. Anyone’s reflection, any new learning, made me happy.
I think what was also striking to me, for a chunk of the writers, was the hope they shared. They didn’t have to write or be in that space, but they wrote with intentional reflection and shared their goals. They shared what they were going to do when they got out with productivity and intentionality. It felt like an honor for me to see them, to know this of them.
Another stark challenge for me was editing, even if it was something as simple as minor grammatical errors. I couldn’t ever fully get used to it because I was never truly confident that I deserved the power to shift someone else’s heartfelt words, especially if I hadn’t even met them. I didn’t feel comfortable representing them. It felt like I would irrevocably change their point somehow, even if all I did was capitalize a word. But I did what I could carefully. I think it did get easier over time, as did translating handwriting, in the hopes that I pass a piece along with the intended meaning. I very much owed it to the authors, and I took the work very seriously.
I appreciate the entire program of The Beat Within. Just from the small portion of the writing of the small portion of the people in the system, it seemed their work could make a portion of the experience of incarceration productive, rather than punishing. And if the experience was negative and felt punishing, writing could be an outlet. Publishing an individual’s experience, being able to share that frustration with the outside world, creates a powerful and necessary window for someone with privilege to understand someone with much worse circumstances. I think that everything, positive and negative, was very valuable for me to engage with. Thank you Beat Within and thank you to all the writers.
-Zoe
Thank you again, Jack and Zoe for all your efforts in typing and editing and helping us meet the editing deadlines every week. We are so glad to know that you enjoyed the experience and found times for your own growth along the way. You help The Beat Within in sharing stories and voices with the community helping to make sure The Beat goes on.