The Beat Within

by KC The Dreaded Poet, California Men’s Colony State Prison, San Luis Obispo, CA I am aware of my place, I put me where they could seeThose that hate me I helped plot on meI was engaged in activities the opposite of preventing clashesBetween the cops and meAin’t no stoppin’ me was the prevailing thoughtUntil my unhealthy desires allowed me to get caughtAn onslaught of valid charges and true accusationsLed to a barrage of guilty verdicts and consecutive terms of incarcerationMy revelation, came when a man with a name I didn’t knowEnded my life with a sentenceLife888 months to serveLife

by Harry Goodall Jr., San Quentin State Prison, CA I have no idea what TV and movie writers had up their sleeve. It was a lot of movies that came out and validated dying young. I guess it can be said that these movies glamorized this ideology. At the same time, gangsta rap was taking off. It was the battle of the East Coast versus the West Coast rap styles. It was a situation of most urban or ghetto areas visualized the police as enemies. The thought left people feeling it was, “me against the world.” Our ears were filled

by Frederick Mason, United States Penitentiary Tucson  in Tucson, Arizona (The Flaws of the Administrative Remedy In Prisons) In prisons, there are venues for inmates who have been abused or treated unfairly or inhumanely. When things like this happen, an inmate has a right to sue, if he can get his case to court. The problem is that because of PLRA (Prison Litigation Reform Act), it is much more difficult for an inmate, even if he is right, to get his case to court. In essence, PLRA requires inmates to first exhaust the Administrative Remedy Procedure…or a grievance procedure. In

by Jon D Goldberg, San Quentin State Prison, CA A good deed is when you can be there for someone when they are at their lowest low. Sometimes that could just mean an ear to listen, while they unload all their emotions and feelings.  Just recently a friend that needed to talk came to my cell. He just needed someone to listen to him. I sat and took in all he had to say. He had just been found suitable for parole a couple months before and was anxious about support that was promised to him.  I first sought to