We get dozens of letters, calls and emails from incarcerated people every week. We don’t have the bandwidth to respond to most of them, but they do help us to tailor our content to what our readers need and want to know.
This is the spirit of our new advice column, “Reader to Reader.” For this first edition, we asked folks to share the tastiest recipes they’ve developed using ingredients they can get from home and commissary. Over 2,000 of them responded with road maps to yum like “Honey Bun Samich,” “Chip Flavor Ramen Pizza” and “No Flex Zone Fruit Salad.” In my down days, I knew some serious cooks who made something out of nothing. I’ve seen pies get made using tools like toilet tissue, a wick and a metal seat for a cooking appliance. The food was crude but delicious, and these recipes aren’t much different.
Also in Issue 9 is our original comic strip, “The Peeps.” This time, the incarcerated characters — Pedro, Aaron, Sean and Malcolm — discuss the pros and cons of gun ownership, a conversation I’m betting not many people on the outside imagine taking place behind prison walls.
And of course, we’re delivering hard-hitting journalism:
“Everyone on Death Row Gets a Lawyer. Not Everyone Gets a Kim Kardashian,” gets to the heart of the debate about the role of celebrities in criminal justice reform.
“These Meds Prevent Overdoses. Few Federal Prisoners Are Getting Them” reveals why fewer than 2% of the federal prisoners eligible to receive medicine for opioid dependence have actually gotten it.
“There Are Fewer People Behind Bars Now Than 10 Years Ago. Will It Last?” dives into the latest census numbers and whether they will hold up over time.
“An Ode to Memo, the Cellmate and Art Teacher Who Saved My Life” is an inspiring piece about a man who gave up violence for art lessons.
There’s much more in Issue 9, but I’ll let you peruse the PDF for the rest. And before you go, here’s a link you can use to order a free subscription of News Inside for someone in prison or jail. If they are anything like the men and women who write to us, I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.