Prisons wreak havoc on mental health — the isolation, chaos, and daily humiliations of life behind bars cause emotional scars that can take years to heal. To stave off depression, many incarcerated Americans rely on mail from loved ones. Letters from home were so important to Johanna Mills — a formerly incarcerated woman and prisoners’
In 2018, when I reported for Future Tense on a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections program that restricts physical mail, I collected scans from incarcerated people of photos and cards sent by their loved ones. Under the program, loved ones send mail to a facility in Florida, operated by the private company Smart Communications, which then scans and sends correspondence to the
The liquid hit her straight in the right eye. On a Monday afternoon in January, after an officer in New Jersey’s only women’s prison searched a cell, a prisoner appeared to use a bottle to squirt something at the officer’s face, according to a new state report. It might have been milk. It might have
SHREVEPORT, La. (KSLA) – The #MeToo Movement sent shockwaves through social media in 2018, however, it began in 2006. Now, in 2021, KSLA News 12′s Destinee Patterson sat down with sexual assault allies and activists about how it has shaped awareness around the issue. “I think, like with anything, the #MeToo Movement has been taken
After spending the better part of three decades in prison, trying to find my way in the outside world felt like trying to fly a spaceship. The digital revolution had passed me by while I was locked up. When I was sentenced to prison in 1993, the internet was relatively niche. But when I got