A workplace injury derailed Alfonso Cobb’s progress, but the Arkansas wood factory worker is still holding on to his freedom dreams.

On the outside, most discussions about incarceration and sexual desire are limited to exploitative “reality” shows, violent movies and terrible jokes about homosexuality and prison rape. But like all humans, we deserve some semblance of dignity.

After decades in the system, I was acting like a wild horse roaming the countryside. Memo taught me how to paint through the chaos.

“Sudden cardiac death,” is the cause listed on my uncle Bryan’s death certificate. But it didn’t feel sudden at all — not when you factor in his underlying mental and physical health problems, years of poor prison medical care and the fact that he caught COVID-19 in his Arizona jail.

While Corey Devon Arthur was quarantining, people in the unit got tablets equipped with telephone apps. “If we all had the option to use a phone app, the value of violence would plunge,” he writes.

This spring, a judge ruled that the healthcare at the Louisiana State Penitentiary violated prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights. Lois Ratcliff tells the horrifying story of her son Farrell’s decline and death.

His disrespectful classroom antics could have sparked a fight. But as a former “hard case” myself, I was determined to help him.