“Y’all know how to write,” he said. “So can you help me write to my daughter?”

It turned out that Dave, incarcerated for the past 40-plus years, had never learned to read or write. Decades ago he had tried to send his daughter a letter, but it got sent back, and without knowing how to contact her he’d given up.

The writing club helped him compose a letter. A few weeks later, he got one back:

Dad,
I wrote you a long letter years ago, and when you did not respond I thought you didn’t want to talk anymore. I never knew you could not read or write. I hope it’s not too late to get to know each other.

Dave’s daughter now visits him often. He’s gotten to meet his three grandkids. This sparked the writing club to begin helping others in Dave’s position write similar letters (always checking first that the courts have not restricted contact with the recipient). As a result, more than a dozen men have reconnected with their families. If it’s not possible for someone to physically write the letter then a writing club member will put pen to paper for them and add a disclosure that the handwriting is not the author’s, but for the most part we’ve been able to support people in writing out their letters themselves. 

A lot of pain has been healed at the crochet club table.

When people saw Travis and Jeremy crocheting hats and scarves to send to family members on the outside, they asked to commission a few items to send to their own families. Travis and Jeremy always asked if they’d like to learn the skill themselves, and soon there was a full circle of big burly men crocheting and talking about their lives.

A lot of pain has been healed at that table. More recently the group crocheted enough hats and scarves to send to a homeless shelter in Nashville. They’re currently working on crocheted animals that will go to kids in the foster care system over the holidays. 

Each night Corey and Matt, both military veterans, can be seen working out together around the unit. They do burpees in the dayroom. They climb over the railing in front of the upper tier of cells and use the ledge as a pull-up bar. They have fashioned a barbell out of a broom handle and two water bags. A sign they posted in the unit reads:

THE MAN DOESN’T
CARE IF YOU
LIVE OR DIE
IT’S UP TO YOU
SEE COREY OR MATT
FOR DETAILS

Soon they were leading a group of trainees through military-style exercises. Many of those who joined were taking medication for high blood pressure or Type 2 diabetes. After eight weeks, the eight guys who’d stuck with Corey and Matt’s workouts had lost an average of 20 lbs each and in some cases no longer needed their medications. Corey and Matt’s boot camp has a waiting list now.

Many of the men in my living unit, including myself, are over 60. A couple are in their 90s. They use wheelchairs and walkers, and have mostly outlived the friends and family they had on the outside. They are unable to earn even a few cents an hour through prison jobs, and have no one else to support them, yet they still need money for basics like food and toiletries, and batteries for hearing aids. Denture cream is one of the most expensive hygiene items sold at commissary, at around $9.

Prisoners with a balance of zero on their account are eligible to receive a free hygiene pack once a month. This pack includes a small container of body wash, a small razor, a small toothbrush and a small tube of toothpaste. Not enough for a month for anyone, young or old.

A few years back I began ordering whatever essentials I could afford for the older men in my living unit, and soon formed a mutual aid collective with others who were moved to do the same. We try to be present in their lives, ensure that they’ve been able to bathe or that their bedding gets changed and cleaned, or sometimes read to those who never learned how or can no longer see well. But the financial need was much greater than we could meet with our own funds, and so we began writing letters and making calls to friends on the street. Over time we’ve managed to pair up many of the older folks in need with a “sponsor” in the free world, someone willing to help them with their basic needs and perhaps be a pen pal. 

Something remarkable is that all of these services are being offered for free.

Sponsors don’t always last, and so there’s a never-ending campaign of letters and calls. But we remember our own fathers and grandfathers, and can’t imagine them being mistreated or forgotten. 

After three decades of incarceration I’m becoming one of these old men myself, my body debilitated by heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure. These days my fingers can barely feel the pen in my hand. Building community in prison can be a source of purpose, and even joy, but for me at least it’s never been a completely selfless endeavor; I’ve always quietly hoped that the eldercare collective would still be there when the day comes that I need someone to read to me or make sure I have denture cream, too.

Something remarkable is that all of these services are being offered for free. Everyone in prison needs to hustle to survive, and on the outside it would be customary to charge for many of these things anyway. But these communities all began with someone just trying to make prison bearable, or to grow as a person, and finding that others around them were trying to do the same. The impulse to lend a helping hand, even in a place of such deprivation, reminds us all that we’re human.

My mamma was a great cook. The vegetables we grew on our small plot of land kept us fed, but without much to spare. A pot of vegetable soup with some cornbread was a great prize at the end of the day of farm labor. One day she accidentally over-salted the soup. We couldn’t afford to throw it out, and so as I watched, puzzled, she peeled two potatoes and dropped them into the pot to simmer. An hour later she fished them back out, tasted the broth, and declared it perfect. I learned her lesson—that there are ways of working with what we have, and that some things are too valuable to throw away.

Image (cropped) via Oregon Department of Corrections

The post The Communities We’ve Built in Prison appeared first on Filter.

“I just couldn’t bring myself to plead to something I didn’t do,” he told Filter. “[But] if I had known how unjust the justice system was, I may have sucked it up and took the deal.”

People who oppose decarceration will often say that sentences need to be served in full, otherwise victims don’t get justice. But one problem with this is that sentence length is arbitrary—if T needs to die in prison in order for justice to be served, why was he offered 15 years?

For T and others across the country who received life or de facto life sentences after they refused a plea bargain, the extra decades behind bars come from the well-established phenomenon prisoners call “trial tax.” The government isn’t punishing them for whatever events led to their conviction. It’s punishing them for taking up time and resources by exercising their right to go to trial, and it’s sending a warning to whoever might want to go to trial next. Almost all convictions in the United States come from plea deals.

Filter surveyed 35 people currently incarcerated at South Central Correctional Facility, one of the four Tennessee prisons privately operated by CoreCivic, about the plea deals they were offered and whether they’d accepted them. Twenty-four had taken plea deals. Of the 11 who chose to go to trial, 10 are now serving life or de facto life sentences. The offers they rejected averaged 17 years. The sentences they are serving instead average 53.6 years. One of the men sentenced to life had been offered a plea for six years.

“The state offered me eight years. When I told them I needed to talk to my family first, they said, ‘Tomorrow it will be 10 years.’” 

“I always felt like my attorney was working harder trying to get me to sign a deal than he was trying to defend me,” J told Filter. Like T, he is serving a life sentence after turning down a plea offer for 15 years.

Trials are expensive. Most people can’t afford a private attorney, and end up with court-appointed counsel too overloaded with cases to spend any real time on theirs. So the public defender will push them to take the plea deal, to close the case more quickly and with the least amount of work. This was a common thread among the 35 prisoners reached by Filter, many of whom recalled being pressured with phrases like:

You have one hour to decide.

This is a one-time deal.

If you don’t take this deal, you’ll never get out of prison.

We’re giving you a chance to still have a life.

“The state offered me eight years,” said B. “When I told them I needed to talk to my family first, they said, ‘Tomorrow it will be 10 years.’” He took the deal for 10 years.

Another man who took a plea deal told Filter that after his plea hearing and sentencing, his family had seen his court-appointed attorney and the prosecutor outside shaking hands and laughing.

“I wanted to go to trial … but the lawyer wanted $100,000 just to get started.”

Most of those who went to trial did so because they thought they’d be acquitted. They wanted the opportunity to challenge the evidence, and to appeal if necessary—both of which you forfeit when you take a plea deal.

“I just knew I would be found innocent,” said H, who rejected a plea deal for 15 years. “Then my attorney said he couldn’t find my main witness.” He is now serving 50 years.

None of the 35 people surveyed had had a private attorney during their case.

“I wanted to go to trial, ’cause the state trumped up the charges against me,” said S. “But the lawyer wanted $100,000 just to get started.” He went to trial with a public defender, and is now serving 60 years.

Filter did eventually find two men who had private attorneys when they were sentenced, which is almost unheard of in a place like South Central. Their experiences were basically the opposite of what was shared by everyone who’d had a public defender.

If he hadn’t been able to afford counsel, D would almost certainly be serving life with parole; that was what the state had originally offered him. His attorney negotiated a plea for 12 years on a lesser charge.

“That $30,000 was money well spent, I’ll be home soon,” D said. “My attorney was a retired judge in my hometown, so he knew all [the prosecution’s] dirty laundry.” 

C had originally been offered 60 years. His family paid $120,000 to an attorney who hired a private investigator and got evidence that contradicted the state’s case. He went to trial and was sentenced to eight years.

Like most parts of our so-called justice system, the “trial tax” shows that justice only exists for those who can afford it. And whether people go to trial or take a plea deal, long sentences are usually more about poverty or something subjective in the courts than they are about justice.

Almost 20 years ago, while housed in a different facility, I took a class taught by a former federal prosecutor who’d gotten sick of the system. He told us that every year on January 1, a bunch of prosecutors would put $100 into a pool, and on December 31 whoever had gotten people sentenced to the most years—whether through plea bargains or at trial—would get the pot.

Like his colleagues, he’d thought this was all fun and games until one day a relative of his got into trouble with the law. He realized the prosecutor on the case would be going after the longest possible sentence, not because it was in the interest of justice but because they wanted to win the office pool.

Names have been changed

Image (cropped) via Brazoria County, Texas

The post Trial Tax: Long Prison Sentences as Punishment for Rejecting a Plea Deal appeared first on Filter.

There’s always been demand for jailhouse lawyers. But in 2026, those in South Central Correctional Facility in Tennessee are being flooded with requests like never before. This is due to a relatively new phenomenon: artificial intelligence.

“This week I’ve had eight guys bring me remarks generated by AI,” Brad*, a longtime jailhouse lawyer, told Filter.

We don’t have internet access in prison, but many who can afford contraband cell phones or are fortunate enough to get help from loved ones in the free world have been checking their relevant case details with generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT. Recently someone brought Brad a motion drafted by an AI program that had found that their sentence had been calculated incorrectly based on case law that was evolving at the time. The findings checked out.

An outside lawyer might easily charge $5,000 just for a retainer, and many folks inside don’t trust them anyway.

Like most jailhouse lawyers, Craig* began learning court procedures out of necessity. He had only a middle-school education when he entered the prison system. But facing a life sentence, the one thing he knew he had for sure was time. 

“My family hired a lawyer 15 years ago, paid him about $5,000. And that was used up before any real examination of my case took place,” Craig told Filter. “No one was going to work harder for me than me.” 

Craig exhausted his appeals long ago, but he and his family have found a different use for AI: helping him draft a request for commutation. Governor Bill Lee (R) is serving his last year in office, and this is the period when pardons and commutations are more likely to be considered. Craig’s family plugged information from his prison record into a generative AI program, which instantly found his sentencing and case history details online.

“It approached my plea for relief in a manner I’d never considered,” Craig said. “Looking at … similar cases and the time served as compared to mine.”

Jailhouse lawyers here typically charge $100 to $300 to file a motion that doesn’t require research, and up to $1,000 for one that does. An outside lawyer might easily charge $5,000 just for a retainer, and many folks inside don’t trust them anyway.

“The key is asking the right questions,” said Phil*, who’s currently working on a motion based on information his mom found using AI. When they narrowed the focus to a particular part of his court transcripts, the program pointed them toward a case where the conviction had been reversed due to inappropriate instructions to the jury regarding premeditation—very similar to Phil’s case.

It’s too soon to tell whether the AI boom will actually get anyone here back in court. But so far none of the AI-inspired motions have been rejected.

People know AI is often wrong. But it gives them new case law or other information to bring to jailhouse lawyers, who will check to see if it’s worthwhile. If it is, they’ll go ahead with the motion.

Henry*, a jailhouse lawyer for over 10 years, told Filter that AI seems to be especially promising for stagnant cases.

“We get focused on one thing we think is wrong, [and] often we lose sight of relevant issues that can get us back in court,” he said.

The responses AI comes up with can help simply point the person in a new direction to investigate, like making a legal challenge based on a retroactive reform they hadn’t known about. It might have taken countless more hours of research and years in prison for them to have made the same discovery on their own.

“I’ll be reading the hundreds of pages of court documents on someone’s case, and forget what I read previously,” Henry said. “AI can review thousands of documents in the blink of an eye.”

In particular, he’s seen AI provide people with useful information around ineffective counsel, prosecutorial misconduct and improper jury instructions. And the AI-drafted motions people bring to him have given him new ideas for how to write arguments, too.

It’s too soon to tell whether the AI boom will actually get anyone here back in court. But the jailhouse lawyers reached by Filter said that so far none of their AI-inspired motions have been rejected. It’s pretty common that motions are rejected, because of a time bar or some other factor affecting someone’s case that they didn’t know about.

Craig stressed that it’s important to always confirm that the cases AI suggests are actually real, and not misinterpreted or pulled from inaccurate sources. If your argument doesn’t hold up, the court is going to hold you accountable, not AI.

Names have been changed

Image via Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

The post AI Chatbots Bring Unexpected Business Boom to Jailhouse Lawyers appeared first on Filter.

In late 2025 Mateo* completed his 14-year sentence at South Central Correctional Facility, a CoreCivic-run prison in Tennessee, and was handed over to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. In 2018, ICE agents had visited him and informed him he had a federal detainer and would be deported upon release from prison. That was the last he’d heard from the agency.

Back in 2000, Mateo and his niece—both teenagers at the time—had left their family in Mexico and made the dangerous crossing over the border into the United States. Over the next decade as Mateo lived undocumented in Texas, he worked, paid taxes, got married and had a child. Now, rather than being reunited with his wife and daughter when he was released from prison, he didn’t know whether he’d ever see them again; both are US citizens.

The two ICE agents who picked Mateo up from prison took him to a detention center in Mason, also run by CoreCivic. He was booked into the system, medically screened and then placed in an open living area with six bunks. There was one phone, three small tables in the middle of the room and a connected bathroom with two stalls, one urinal, one shower and two sinks. The room measured 50 steps by 40 steps; he counted as he paced back and forth, waiting to find out how long he would be there or what would come next. Everyone in the room was awaiting their interview, and no one came back afterward.

“They want to keep you wondering what’s about to happen to you,” he told Filter.

He used the phone to call his wife, holding onto the hope that he could see her and his daughter one more time before he was deported. 

“My husband was finally free, but not free,” Mateo’s wife told Filter. “I wanted to wrap my arms around him and tell him face to face that I loved him.”

She was prepared to come visit him from Texas. But when she finally reached a live person at the detention center after several days of calling, she was told visits wouldn’t be possible.

“I threw my phone across the room, I was so mad,” she said. “Then I ran over and picked it up, hoping I didn’t break it; I sure could not afford a new one.”

“[The agent] told me they would keep me there until I helped them find my people.”

After three days, Mateo was told to gather his belongings—sleeping mat, toothbrush, soap bar, towel, shower shoes. Two agents took him to a small conference room, much like the one he remembered being questioned in after his arrest.

“I hadn’t really slept much because I didn’t know what was coming,” he said. “I was so scared my legs were shaking. I knew these two men were about to tell me my future.”

He was told that within the next one to six weeks, as soon as a seat was available on ground transport, he’d be moved to a staging facility. Ground transport was how most people were being sent to Mexico.

A few days later, he was questioned by two ICE agents who told him the interview was being recorded. They were looking for his brother, and other relatives who had crossed the border undocumented years ago. As far as Mateo knew, no one else in his family had had any encounters with law enforcement. He didn’t give the agents any information.

“One was so mad his face was blood-red,” Mateo recalled. “He told me they would keep me there until I helped them find my people.”

The agents told him his wife and daughter would be “hounded” for information if he didn’t cooperate—that ICE could show up at their home or at work, and that employers sometimes fired workers for embarrassing them like that.

“Hearing them talk about harassing my family made me sick,” Mateo said. “I had to sit on my hands to keep from punching that asshole in the mouth.”

But his experience with law enforcement had taught him to not believe everything they were saying, so he refused to answer and hoped for the best.

After 11 days at the detention center, Mateo and four others were transported by van to a holding facility in Louisiana. There he sat for three days in a crowded room. Then he and about two dozen others were put on a bus and taken to Mexico.

Once in Mexico, he still wasn’t free. Mexican officials first needed to verify his citizenship and that he had no outstanding charges or fees. He was fingerprinted, photographed and given six pages of written questions to respond to—about his family in Mexico, his family in the US, where was he going to live, how was he going to earn a living, whether he’d been mistreated by anyone in the US while free or in prison or under ICE custody. He didn’t know what the information would be used for, so he gave generic answers to everything.

Those with no one to pick them up had to wait for a shelter to accept them before they could be released. Mateo was fortunate enough to have his uncle pick him up, with a sack of food for the hour-long trip home. Mateo took a bite and tasted his mother’s cooking, and burst into tears. Twenty-five years after he crossed the border, Mateo reunited with his parents, who are now in their 70s. None of them ever thought they’d see each other again.

“I thought my mother was going to squeeze me to death,” Mateo said. “Seeing my parents crying joyfully was a nice change from the tears shed while I was locked up in America.”

Once settled in, Mateo called his wife and daughter. They all celebrated his freedom, even though it seemed wrong not to be celebrating together. 

For an hour, ICE agents questioned her about where to find various undocumented people they believed she knew.

Around Christmas, Mateo’s wife and daughter got passports and made plans to visit him in Mexico. They’d been talking about the possibility of moving there. But when they presented their passports at the border crossing, they were stopped. Officials told them they were on a watch list for human smuggling, and could not enter Mexico. No other details were given.

In February, they were awakened at 5 am by ICE agents at both the front and back of their house. When Mateo’s wife opened the door, armed men walked in and began looking through every room without explanation. 

“I was crying and screaming for my daughter,” she told Filter. “I thought I was going to die.”

For an hour, agents questioned her about where to find various undocumented people they believed she knew. She said she didn’t know. They told her they would be back, and that they knew where she worked and might see her there, too. She packed a bag and left with her daughter to stay at her parents’ house an hour away.

In March, two ICE agents came to her parents’ house. They wanted to know if she’d been in contact with Mateo or with his brother. When she explained that she talks to Mateo every day, they asked to see her phone. She refused. At the time of this writing, she has not heard from ICE since.

“Me and my daughter are US citizens,” she said. “But every time someone knocks on the door, I’m scared to death.”

More than anything, what Mateo wants people to grasp is what this process was like for his family.

Mateo was one of many undocumented prisoners at South Central Correctional Facility, and they had been bonded by the fear of the unknown. Since being deported, he’s contacted some of his friends who are still incarcerated to describe what the process was like.

“Maybe they won’t be as scared as I was,” he said.

But more than anything, what Mateo wants people to grasp is what this process was like for his family. He and his wife didn’t want her name, or their daughter’s name, said over the phone during interviews for this story, because they know the prison phones are recorded. His wife and daughter still haven’t returned to their home, and didn’t want to reveal their location over the phone for the same reason. They are terrified that at any moment, ICE will show up again.

They pray that one day they will be together again, and have not lost hope. Mateo’s wife was given a number to call for further details about being denied entry into Mexico, but they’ve yet to reach a live person and are scared to push for fear of retribution. Mateo thought about trying to cross the border into the US again, for the chance to be with them no matter the risk. But his mom told him her heart could not take losing him again, and begged him not to go.

He got a job with a landscaping company, working on rich people’s properties; mostly Americans.

“I feel weird helping Americans’ lawns look all pretty, when they put me out of their country,” he said. “Sometimes I piss on the flowers.”

Name has been changed

Image (cropped) via Immigrations and Customs Enforcement

The post ICE Picked Him Up From Prison. Then Agents “Hounded” His Family. appeared first on Filter.

The scarlet letter in prison is any conviction related to child sexual abuse (CSA). People aren’t judged for other convictions, no matter how serious or violent; murder convictions even mean a certain amount of respect.

In the struggle to find community in prison, those with CSA convictions are lone soldiers. They are universally targeted by gang-affiliated prisoners, and ostracized by everyone else for fear of being viewed as a sympathizer. This includes staff.

Albert*, three years into a 40-year sentence for CSA, was visibly shaking during our discussion. He stayed keenly aware of people walking around our table in the pod, afraid they would hear what he was saying.  

The day he arrived at his current living unit, he was approached in his cell by three gang-affiliated prisoners who attempted to extort him. They had a lot of his personal info, like the names of his family members, and wanted $50 a week for protection against others who might want to beat him and take his “manhood.” He swung at one of them, and woke up in medical with several broken ribs and a “messed-up head.” 

He told staff about the threats, but they sent him back to the same cell that same night. He recalled an officer telling him: That’s prison. Get ready to fuck or fight.

Later that night the same three men came into his cell again. Armed with shanks, they put him on his knees while one of them took out his penis and put it in Albert’s mouth. But instead of forcing Albert to perform oral sex, they took a photo using a contraband cell phone and left—telling him that if he ever resisted again, the photo would be sent to his family.

“I had already caused my family such shame,” Albert said. “I didn’t know what I’d do if I had to explain that pic to my kids.” 

He called his wife, and they agreed to pay the protection fee. This went on for about two years, until the fee was raised. Albert refused, got beat, tried to request protective custody but was turned away, went on suicide watch instead and then was sent right back to general population. 

“I don’t expect to live much longer,” he said. “I don’t have the stomach to kill myself, but it looks like I won’t have to at this place.”

Albert says his wife will probably leave him soon. He feels his family gradually pulling away, accepting that he won’t be coming home. They’ve stopped visiting and rarely take his calls, and he doesn’t blame them. He sees himself as a burden.

“I put myself in this war zone, but I’m scared,” he said. “So scared my guts shake most of the time.”

Before the days of contraband cell phones, gang-affiliated prisoners preyed upon people with CSA convictions the exact same way—they just got the information from staff. If your conviction has the word “child” in it, you enter prison with a target on your back knowing no one will help. Albert has recently found a bit of solace in the church community, but doesn’t want to get his hopes up that it will last.

Marty’s hair, beard and clothes are unwashed. This is a common defense strategy among those who are trying to avoid assault.

Marty*, also in prison for CSA, never knew his dad. His mom was just 14 when he was born. He thinks he was around 9 when his uncle and his mom’s boyfriends began raping him. At 12, he was sent into a foster home.

“I thought I’d finally be safe,” he said, “but I was so wrong.”

The sexual abuse continued in foster care. Twice he had to be treated for sexually transmitted infections. At 14 he ran away, and then lived mostly in homeless encampments until he entered the prison system at 21. The night he arrived, three men came into his cell with shanks and gang-raped him. 

“Hit me in the head, dazed me,” he recalled. “All I could hear was them saying, Fresh meat. Like I was their hunting prize.”

The next time someone came into his cell, a few days later, Marty had a shank of his own and hit his assailant in the neck. The man died.

“I was crazy crying, waiting on the guards to get him off me,” he said. “[But] I knew then, no one would ever hurt me again … people know I’m half-crazy and will kill any motherfucker that comes at me wrong.”

He spent the next few years in maximum security and worked his way back down to general population, where he’s now been for most of the 14 years he’s served so far. He has 46 to go.

Marty lives in a state of constant rage. He spends his days hoping someone will come at him to start a fight, so he can “destroy them.” Despite his reputation now, the fear of being raped has never left him. He copes by isolating himself, owning nothing of value and maintaining a deliberately unkempt appearance. His hair, beard and clothes are unwashed. This is a common defense strategy among those who are trying to avoid assault. 

“Being clean is a welcome sign to rape. If you want to get me, you got to get past my smell first,” he said. “I look like I feel inside: disgusting.”

Nearly everyone facing CSA charges takes a plea deal.

At the end of March, Tennessee lawmakers passed a bill expanding the circumstances under which the state could pursue the death penalty in child rape cases. One of them is if the defendant is on the sex offender registry. This will make it even easier to pressure people into the kinds of plea deals that nearly everyone facing CSA charges takes, partly to avoid the pain and humiliation of a trial for themselves and their families. 

Albert was told that if he didn’t take a plea deal for 40 years, the state would ask for 75 years. 

“I was not going to be alive for decades in prison,” he said. “So 75 or 40, it really didn’t matter.”

Marty pled for 60 years after being told that if he went to trial, the state would ask for 210 years. His lawyer told him that a 60-year sentence could be reduced if the laws ever changed, but that there was basically nothing he could do if he was sentenced to hundreds of years by a jury.

In my three decades in prison, and many articles about painful subjects, these were some of the most difficult conversations I’ve ever had. It reminded me of right after 9/11 happened, when suddenly it was normal for everyone to be talking about torture as an option to use on those who might have information. Some people were openly in favor of torture, by whatever means got results, while others thought only certain interrogation methods were appropriate. 

When people hear that someone has a CSA conviction, that’s all they need to know to dismiss the person’s humanity. From other prisoners, I hear: “I don’t care what happens to those bastards”; “They’re just disgusting perverts”; “They’ve got to be sick in the head”; “I can see how someone may need to kill somebody, but I could never imagine hurting a kid.”

One in four people on the sex offender registry was a juvenile when they were convicted. Often people who sexually abuse children have similar abuse in their own backgrounds. But we seem to only care about victims when we’re trying to put people in prison. 

Marty says he deserves to be in prison. But he finds it strange that the system wanted to “nail me to the cross” for doing the same thing others had done to him the whole time he was growing up. The system had never cared when it was happening to him.

Names have been changed

Image (cropped) via North Dakota Legislative Branch

The post “Fresh Meat”—How Prison Punishes Child Sexual Abuse appeared first on Filter.

A coalition of media organizations had sued for the right to witness steps like the preparation of the syringe, and for the curtains to remain open from the moment the condemned person enters the execution chamber until they are pronounced dead. It is not clear where the ruling will stand on May 21 when the state plans to execute 57-year-old Tony Von Carruthers, who has maintained his innocence for 30 years.

“This is an important first step toward more transparency in executions in Tennessee,” Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press attorney Paul McAdoo said of the initial ruling, according to the Tennessean.

News outlets fight hard for transparency around executions. Personally, I wonder if this is more about voyeurism than newsworthiness.

Executions were once public spectacles, and news coverage of them is still rooted in that perspective. Do journalists need to watch the syringe being prepared and administered in order to determine whether the punishment was carried out humanely? I am sure that it was not.

The death penalty is not an event; it’s a process. People condemned to death spend decades in tortuously restrictive conditions prior to execution. Where is the news media during this time? And a larger question: Where is the fight for transparency on behalf of the 20,000-plus people in Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) custody, who are also hidden from the public?

Only a handful of prisoners are executed each year; the number of in-custody suicides and homicides the state allows to happen is significantly higher. Where is the media coalition to object to that?

In 2025, 158 people died in Tennessee state prisons.

Media organizations often portray themselves as “watchdogs” over government processes. But since the 1974 rulings in Pell v. Procunier and Saxbe v. Washington Post Co. the Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment does not grant the press any more access than the general public has when it comes to prisons. And for the most part, the press accepts this.

TDOC does not allow media to bring cameras inside prisons. Outside journalists are not allowed to interview prisoners in person, nor can they speak by phone unless a prisoner adds them to their list of approved phone numbers, which is capped at 10.

TDOC policy offers one exception: Outside journalists “may request an interview with an unspecified inmate on a specific department program or topic.” TDOC will then hand-pick the prisoner who goes in front of the media to talk about the approved topic. It’s like having a hostage read a prepared statement from their captors. Yes, I am being treated well. The food is good. The programming teaches me a lot.

In addition to executions, news outlets are also eager to cover war, to report and photograph the horrific violence so that the public can make an informed decision about whether to support what the government is doing in their name. There is war inside prisons right now.

In 2025, 158 people died in Tennessee state prisons. At South Central Correctional Facility, the CoreCivic-run prison where I’ve been housed for the past decade, there is currently a 20-person Special Operations Response Team (SORT) team deployed because of the out-of-control gang violence.

People are being subjected to rape, torture and organized violence on a daily basis, but the media does not crusade for greater access to witness it and show it to the public, and so the public does not really understand. 

Our lives should be at least as important as our deaths.

Image (cropped) via Washington Courts

The post Media Fights for Access to Executions, But Not the Rest of the Prison System appeared first on Filter.

An “inmate helper” is paid $0.59 an hour to push Ralph’s wheelchair to designated places like the chow hall, or to medical appointments. They can help Ralph get his wheelchair into one of the shower stalls, which since there is no ramp means lifting the chair over a nine-inch base. But that’s where the help stops. The shower itself has a single handrail, and the shower head is not adjustable. So, like many of the disabled prisoners here, Ralph’s only real option is to use the sink. Our cells are “wet cells,” meaning they have sinks and toilets. None of them are designed to be wheelchair-accessible either.

“Sometimes I can smell myself,” he told Filter, “so I try to stay away from people.”

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires prisons to have accessible cells and bathrooms. Federal courts have determined that the provision of showers is part of standard prison operations and that lack of accessible showers is a violation of the ADA. At one point Ralph decided to file a grievance about the lack of ADA-compliant showers, but changed his mind after talking to a staff member who told him it would be risky to file any paperwork that could cost the facility money. He recalled them saying: There are worse places you could be living.

Even though that staff member has since left, Ralph figures a grievance is still too big a risk.

He’s not the only one. In my living unit there are currently eight people using wheelchairs and another four using wheeled walkers, but according to South Central’s grievance staff there have been no grievances filed about ADA compliance in at least the past two years. Those were just the records that were within reach, so it could easily be longer.

South Central is one of four Tennessee Department of Correction prisons that is privately operated by CoreCivic. I’ve been housed in two of the other three, and both had ADA-compliant bathrooms. Over the course of my three decades of incarceration I’ve also been housed in other TDOC prisons with the same layout as South Central, and they also had ADA-compliant bathrooms, at least when I was there. TDOC did not respond to Filter’s request for comment.

When so many people in wheelchairs are locked inside a place that is not wheelchair-accessible, they become vulnerable to other kinds of harm.

Many of the harms older prisoners are suffering here is the result of infrastructure that needs to be updated. Prisons weren’t built to be nursing homes, but that’s what they are now. Within the next couple of years, one-third of the United States prison population will be over age 50. TDOC has just one medical facility, with space for about 100 prisoners who need nursing home-level care. According to a prisoner who worked there before transferring to South Central in late 2025, it’s almost impossible to get a bed there.

When so many people who use wheelchairs are locked inside a place that is not wheelchair-accessible, it makes them vulnerable to other, more predatory kinds of harm. For example, there aren’t enough assigned helper positions for everyone who actually needs help, so those who do get a helper assigned to them are lucky. And the helpers know that.

Buster*, who also uses a wheelchair, takes medication three times a day. That means he needs to go to the pill window three times a day. He also has to go to a lot of medical appointments, not to mention back and forth to the chow hall. At South Central this involves going up and down a steep hill with very uneven terrain. Even someone young and fit who could normally push their wheelchair themselves would find this hill not just difficult, but dangerous. So Buster needs help. But because of the vulnerable position he’s in, he’s often found himself with an assigned helper who would only do the job if Buster paid them a fee. 

“A bag of coffee a week, or a box of cakes,” he said. “It’s all about the hustle.”

One time he objected, and found his wheelchair broken shortly after. It took weeks to get a replacement. So Buster tries to just pay the fees and not complain. If he was younger he’d confront his assigned helpers about the extortion, but he’s not; that’s why they’re assigned to him in the first place.

If someone’s having problems with their assigned helper, they’re supposed to have an opportunity to say so during a quarterly medical assessment. Filter spoke to three people with assigned helpers about whether this assessment was useful. One said that when medical staff asked if they were happy with their assigned helper, it was while the helper was still in the room. So naturally they’d said they had no complaints. The other two people reached by Filter had never had any such assessment.

One man in our pod has been incarcerated for 56 years. He walks around asking people what time the bus is coming.

At South Central we’ve formed an “eldercare collective” where we pool resources to try to make sure everyone who needs denture cream or hemorrhoid ointment gets it, and no one falls through the cracks just because they don’t have any money or outside family to help them. But we can’t change the fact that prison has become an abusive environment for the older members of our community.

When four gang-affiliated prisoners robbed Eddie*, they took every piece of property he owned—even his dirty laundry. He recalled how one of them picked up his denture cup and laughed at the sight of Eddie’s teeth inside it.

“I asked them, Please don’t break my dentures,” Eddie told Filter. “He threw them on the floor and stomped them with his boot.”

That was in 2024, and Eddie still has no teeth. He’s lost considerable weight as a result. He’s nearing the end of his 25-year sentence, and will be 70 when his release date comes.

“I really don’t think I’ll make it to the home stretch,” he said.

Decades ago when I began my sentence, older prisoners were more or less left alone, out of respect. As long as they didn’t get into debt, they were relatively safe. But these days, the influx of young men with ridiculously long sentences and little to lose has created a generation that doesn’t distinguish between victims.

Another argument against the trend of longer and longer sentences is that the prison system is increasingly filled with people who no longer remember what they’re being punished for. One man in our pod has been incarcerated for 56 years. He walks around asking people what time the bus is coming.

Imagine a nursing home in the free world full of grandpas and great-grandpas with black eyes, broken limbs, no shoes, no teeth, isolating themselves because they haven’t been able to shower in years and don’t want to subject anyone else to their smell. One hopes there would be outrage and calls for change, but often such conditions persist because the residents are unable to object and because the abuse and neglect is hidden away from the public. Imagine how much worse the situation could get if the nursing home is in prison.

*Names have been changed

Image (cropped) via Oregon Department of Corrections

The post Prison Can’t Be the New Nursing Home If It Isn’t Wheelchair-Accessible appeared first on Filter.

Up until 2019, monitoring the people in the suicide watch cells at South Central Correctional Facility in Tennessee was a job for staff. This meant for each shift watching each prisoner under observation, an officer making somewhere around $20 per hour had to be pulled from their post elsewhere in the facility. So it saves quite a bit of money to decide that prisoners can do it for less than $1 an hour instead—especially these days, when there are usually about five times as many people on suicide watch as there were back then.

I was in South Central’s inaugural class of “inmate observers.” We were told that the federal Bureau of Prisons had already been doing this for years, but that Tennessee would be among the first state prison systems to try it. There were 20 of us at first, enough to monitor three people. South Central usually only had one or two people on suicide watch at a time, so it seemed like we would be enough. 

My job involved sitting in a chair outside one of the four suicide watch cells and looking inside through a large window in the electronically operated door. From the chair we were required to make an entry in our log book every 15 minutes. For example:

9:00 am—Inmate sleeping, breathing
9:15 am—Inmate sitting up, later back down
9:30 am—Inmate walked around room

The situations that require informing staff are when the person under observation makes requests for items, like toilet paper, or engages in self-harm.

In 2019 the job paid $0.84 per hour, and today pays $0.94 per hour. That’s around double that of most jobs here, other than the jobs in the correctional industries program. But at first the observer slots were hard to fill. It seemed weird for prisoners to be given responsibility over our peers. Staff said we’d be helping our fellow prisoners get home safely, and that we’d do the job more efficiently than they might.

Today, the job has changed quite a lot. South Central now has 54 observers. This is because it’s normal now to have at least eight people on suicide watch at a time, and often up to 14. Observers are supposed to work four-hour shifts, but the six observers reached by Filter said that with so many people to watch, they often have to work double shifts. It’s intense work, constantly watching what someone else is doing, and you’re not allowed to leave your chair until the next observer relieves you. So four hours is long enough already.

Medical staff are required to check on the suicide watch prisoners every 30 minutes. That simply means walking by and checking that each person on suicide watch has an observer outside the door. But this was easier when it was just the four suicide watch cells, which are on the other side of a secured door from the rest of the medical building. 

Those four cells are no longer enough, so makeshift ones are popping up anywhere there’s room. Some of these makeshift cells are in other parts of the prison outside the medical department. Observers told Filter it can be very difficult to concentrate in some of these areas. Especially for eight hours at a time. They also reported that medical staff rarely check in with them there.

Suicide observation here might cost well over $7,000 per day if officers still did the job, but under $320 per day to have prisoners do it. Though in recent years many officer duties have been delegated to prisoners, this may be the only instance of one being formally outsourced as an hourly paying job. The Tennessee Department of Correction did not respond to Filter’s request for comment.

From what staff members reached by Filter remember, there’s been little to no increase in the number of people at risk for suicide since 2019. Most of the people going on suicide watch are there because the protective custody (PC) cells are full. PC is for those who have people waiting to hurt them in general population, so they need to be housed somewhere physically separate.

The mental health policy states that suicide watch is not supposed to be used as a means of segregation or isolation. Officers asked by Filter about this policy were not familiar with it.

“I just do what’s necessary to keep the place running,” one said with a shrug.

Security staff mainly suggested sending violent prisoners to a different facility with the resources to handle them.

There are several reasons why there is so much more demand for PC, and thus suicide watch, than there used to be. Like in many prisons across the United States, understaffing that worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic allowed South Central to descend into out-of-control gang violence, which means more people need to be housed in PC. But there is no more room in PC, so those prisoners are being sent to suicide watch even though most have not tried to harm themselves.

The PC situation has also become worse because of changes to how the facility punishes violence. It used to be that when a prisoner stabbed someone, they would be taken to maximum security and we wouldn’t see them again for years. Now they might be released back onto the compound within a few days, or even the same day. 

In 2023, shortly after the arrival of new TDOC Commissioner Frank Strada, we learned that there would be no more “incentive transfers”—meaning no one’s request to be sent to a particular facility would be considered, whether it was to be closer to family or simply out of desperation to go somewhere less violent. Now you’re just stuck where you are, which is particularly hopeless for those who’d landed at South Central or one of the other facilities privately operated by CoreCivic. So for many people here, there is not much reason to change their behavior.

The situation has recently gotten worse as South Central has received more and more transfers from Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, the CoreCivic facility under investigation by the Department of Justice.

Prisoners do make better observers than staff.

In addition to federal BOP facilities, many county jails have long used incarcerated observers. More than a dozen state prison systems also have some version of “inmate observers” described in their policies, but that does not include those like TDOC whose policies do not appear to mention them.

Staff at the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction, which also began to use observers in 2019, have said that this wasn’t intended to address understaffing but was particularly helpful because it freed up staff resources.

It did turn out to be true that prisoners at South Central make better observers than staff. One member of the mental health staff who began working here prior to 2019 told Filter that though they don’t have hard numbers, incidents of self-harm by those on suicide watch decreased after the job was handed to prisoners.

“Observers provide more consistent and considerate watch than officers,” they said. “And [are] quicker to bring problems to the attention of medical staff.”

Image (cropped) via Nebraska Unicameral Legislature

The post Prison Suicide Watch Was Once a Staff Job. “Inmate Observers” Are Cheaper. appeared first on Filter.

South Central has dozens of cells reserved for PC, which prisoners can request when someone in general population is after them and they need to be housed somewhere that’s physically separated. PC is mainly full of people who are fleeing drug debt or are otherwise being victimized by gang-affiliated prisoners who would harm them if they could reach them. In recent years, as South Central has descended into out-of-control gang violence, it’s become commonplace for people who request PC to be turned away. Sometimes they’re simply left to their fate, but sometimes staff tries to find other places to put them. So now there’s no more room in suicide watch, even for people who are suicidal.

Prisoners on suicide watch are supposed to be kept in one of four highly restricted, specially designed cells where they can be closely monitored by prisoners who are paid 85 cents an hour as trained observers. But because all the suicide watch cells are full, the overflow of prisoners has spilled into the medical examination rooms. Those rooms don’t even have doors that lock; they just shut. Every single exam room has been converted into a makeshift suicide watch cell by ripping out the tables, sinks and electrical outlets, and removing everything else that used to be in them like wastepaper baskets. So now there’s no longer anywhere to do our medical exams, except for the emergency room, which as one medical staff member noted, “needs to be reserved for actual emergencies.”

Even the medical waiting room has been converted into a suicide watch cell.

Even the medical waiting room has been converted into a suicide watch cell. That room does have an electrical door that locks, but it’s also directly visible from the pill line window. Every day when general-population prisoners line up to receive their medications, everybody can look straight into the room and see the person being kept there.

“Medical has become the dumping ground for security problems,” said one medical staff member.

Filter spoke to five staff members who work in medical and mental health, and all of them expressed enormous distress about the situation. The influx of people on suicide watch, most of whom they feel weren’t screened appropriately, has completely disrupted their ability to provide care for the rest of us.

Some of them resent that medical resources have been taken over because no one’s addressing the problems with gang violence, and they feel that security officers are taking advantage of the suicide watch program as a way to avoid paperwork. Before someone can go to PC, they have to wait in the segregation unit for 10 days while security conducts an investigation to determine whether the threats against them are legitimate and then submits a report about the findings. The minute someone goes on suicide watch, they’re no longer the security staff’s problem.

But for the most part, the medical and mental health staff recognize that the security officers are just doing their best and that the prisoners in fear for their lives have nowhere else to go. None of them sees any sign that administration is going to address the situation. One said that the medical staff feel as desperate as the prisoners.

“I don’t feel most days that I ‘do no harm,’” they said, pressing their hand over their heart. “That hurts me deeply.”

TDOC and CoreCivic did not respond to Filter‘s request for comment.

Holding cells down at intake also been converted into suicide watch cells.

There are three holding cells down at intake where new prisoners are processed into the facility. They have also been converted into suicide watch cells. These are the old-school kind with bars you can stick your arm through. The actual suicide watch cells have electronically operated doors with food flaps so that no contact can be made with the person inside.

South Central has a mental health pod with 128 beds. Often, when a bed opens up, staff will take someone off suicide watch and put them there, if they think the person should really have been in PC all along. So this also disrupts the mental health pod, which is supposed to be for people whose mental state is too precarious to expose them to general population.

This still isn’t enough room for all the people on suicide watch, so sometimes they’re housed in the segregation unit. This means that observers have to monitor the people on suicide watch over the commotion of everyone else screaming at each other or at them.

“Sometimes guys in segregation will yell out trying to annoy guys we are watching,” one observer told Filter. “Stuff like, Do it! Do it!”

Three people in custody who have been placed on suicide watch within the past six months told Filter that they weren’t suicidal. They were being victimized by gang-affiliated prisoners in their living unit. Each of them had tried requesting PC by reporting the assaults or extortion they’d already experienced. They’d been taken back to their assigned unit, two of them in handcuffs.

In all three cases, when they eventually ended up on suicide watch it was due to an officer “prompting” them to say they were thinking about harming themselves, which are the words that compel staff to place you on suicide watch. They understood that suicide watch was their best option, so they said what they needed to say.

Filter also spoke to four security officers, who described the situation similarly.

“I have told them, ‘There’s no cell available [but] if you feel like you could harm yourself, I can get you on suicide watch,’” one said. “I don’t know what to do when there’s no space to put someone who really needs PC.”

The observers noted that staff seem to do their best to put the people really at risk for suicide in the actual suicide watch cells, and put the “frequent fliers” who need PC in the makeshift spaces. But it’s difficult to assess people properly under these conditions. And of course, there are still only four cells intended for suicide watch. These days, on average there’s a suicide attempt that results in someone from general population being transported to an outside hospital at least twice a month.

Read Part 2 of this story here

Image (cropped) via Nebraska Unicameral Legislature

The post With Suicide Watch Full, Prisoners Now Kept in Makeshift Cells appeared first on Filter.

The Tennessee GOP wants to push the LGBTQ+ community back in the closet, then nail the door shut. Through a rising tide of bills currently moving through the legislature, they’re trying to dismantle rights and protections associated with everything from same-sex marriage to preferred pronouns, queer-inclusive books and Pride Month.

South Central Correctional Facility, where I’ve been housed for the past decade or so, has the only openly LGBTQ+ community in the Tennessee prison system; it’s the only community like this that we’re aware of in any prison system. We’re very concerned about the changing attitudes we see among corrections officers and through the broader prison population, not only for our own safety and wellbeing but because we know that prison is a microcosm of the free world.

LGBTQ+ prisoners here are already feeling the tension. These days, staff feel at liberty to openly mock queer prisoners, and especially trans prisoners. Not just because of laws that have already been passed; there’s so much hateful rhetoric that comes with all the bills being proposed that they seem to already be having an effect, too. 

Here at South Central we have a big community of lesbian corrections officers, and the hatred sowed by these proposals makes prison more hostile for them, too.

SB 2118/HB 2498, for example, would prohibit the state’s Medicaid program from covering gender-affirming health care. It has a committee hearing on March 17. HB 1666/SB 1665 would apply to public schools and would discourage people from respecting others’ preferred pronouns, or preferred name, if they wanted to call them something else. The legislation has a committee hearing March 18.

SB 2319/HB 2449, which has a committee hearing March 18, would require public libraries to create a “materials reconsideration policy” so that people could request particular books be removed, or moved to a different section. The point is to make it easier to get rid of books that are inclusive to LGBTQ+ people.

For a while now, the corrections officers here at South Central would ask trans and gender-nonconforming prisoners their preferred pronouns. Recently they’ve started to say they’re not going to do that anymore. Some of the officers who have been here a while feel empowered to change their stance, and there are so many new ones cycling in and out that they just follow their lead. Prison culture can change very quickly that way.

Here at South Central we have a big community of lesbian corrections officers, and the hatred sowed by these proposals makes prison more hostile for them, too.

In late 2025 we noticed that the prison mailroom was rejecting more books for “promoting homosexual activity.” Earlier that year, prisoners here who are prescribed hormone-replacement therapy were told that no new prisoners entering the system would be able to access the same treatment. Prisoners in federal Bureau of Prisons custody, meanwhile, are facing forced de-transitioning.

As prisoners, we’re always on government property.

Sexual violence is rampant in prisons, and heavily targets LGBTQ+ prisoners. As our rights and dignities are eroded, it becomes easier than ever for the system to turn a blind eye when LGBTQ+ prisoners are raped or killed.

HB 1472/SB 1745 would mean that “sex discrimination” cannot be interpreted to protect people from discrimination related to sexual orientation, gender identity or abortion. It’s calendared for a committee hearing March 18. Under HB 1473/SB 1746, which was passed by the House in late February, private organizations would no longer have to recognize same-sex marriages. This would make it so that even private hospitals, banks or insurance providers could deny people any legal rights as spouses. 

HB 1474/SB 2409 is the “No Pride Flag or Month Act,” which is also calendared for its next committee hearing on March 18. It would ban government buildings from displaying any “flag or emblem intended to display support for lesbianism, homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism, gender non-conforming behavior or individuals who engage in such conduct.” It would also ban government employees, volunteers or agents from acknowledging Pride month while they’re at work. The House versions of those three bills were introduced by Rep. Gino Bulso (R), who has for years claimed that teachers use the rainbow pride flag to indoctrinate students.

Prisons are government buildings, and corrections officers are government workers—or “agents” in the case of private prisons like South Central, which is managed by CoreCivic through a contract with the Tennessee Department of Correction. The legislation is quick to point out that it doesn’t infringe on anyone’s First Amendment rights because they’re still allowed to express themselves when they’re not at work. But as prisoners, we’re always on government property.

South Central’s LGBTQ+ community, Be The Change, uses rainbow flags and colors. During a recent church service, staff remarked that they wouldn’t be able to display those much longer.

Image via Tennessee Department of Veterans Services

The post How Tennessee’s Anti-LGBTQ+ Bills Are Already Playing Out in Prison appeared first on Filter.