DENNIS APEL

Nothing about prison is rehabilitative. It’s all punitive with some serious dehumanizing thrown in for good measure. Here is a story as an example. I’ll call him “Durk” although that is nothing close to his real name. I met Durk during intake. When I first reported to the prison, he was handcuffed with me, strip-searched […]

Within a few weeks of my arrival at the prison, things began to fall into place. I settled in a cell with another white man (something that on the outside wouldn’t matter but is essential in prison). I finally, after what seemed like an eternity but was actually a little less than a week, got […]