Life inside

LIFE INSIDE

It all happened along time ago in Mississippi when there was a robbery in the local bank and two of the cashiers were shot dead. The robber/killer had a mask on but the witness knew that he was black because he wasn’t wearing any gloves. When he left the bank he jumped into a white car just like my one but no one got his registration number.

Since it was a long time ago there was a lot of racists in the town were I was living and nearly all my life I had to stick with the abuse that they threw at me.

A few days later the police came knocking at my door and arrested me. I ended up in court in front of an all white jury and a white judge. I knew I had no chance even though I was innocent. With no evidence except for a witness saying that the robber was black I was sent down for life not just for the robbery but for the killing of the two cashiers as well.

My first sight of the prison was when the jail bus pulled up outside with the convicts and I inside. I stepped out of the bus and seen a big scary place with fences and barbed wire all around. I was wearing my jail clothes that you see in movies with my number 1657 printed on it. The minute I stepped inside I knew it wasn’t going to be very pleasant. The guard to see if I was trying to sneak anything in checked me.

I was guided to my room. I looked in and thought how much I was ...

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I was guided to my room. I looked in and thought how much I was going to miss the comfort of my own bed. It was a dirty and smelly room with a set of bunk beds and a toilet. I was sharing the room with a man called John and he was white and from then on he made my life a living hell. He hit me, punched me and kicked me. He was just a bully.

It was as if the guards were on his side because when he was kicking me about they stood and watched. They were even laughing. I would have stood up to John but he was 6 foot big and he had a lot of friends who were out to get me for no reason except that I was black. Apart from him and all the other racists in the prison I thought it wasn’t as bad as it is made out to be.

The dinners weren’t as bad as they looked in the T.V and I made a few friends who I still stay in contact with and two of them are white.

There were a lot of drugs being passed or sold around the prison but I never touched them even though I was given the biggest hiding ever by John for not taking it. I knew that if he was giving me it for free there had to be something wrong with it so I took the hiding rather than dying by taking the drug he was giving me.

When I was in there I wrote a book about my innocence and why I shouldn’t be in prison. Not many copies were sold but one time I got a letter from a young boy called Peter saying that he read my book and that he loved it and was influenced by it. He came into the prison to visit me and we became great friends.

He and his friends started up a lawsuit trying to get me free because out of a lot of people he believed that I was innocent.

When I was in the prison I stayed awake at night when everyone else was asleep and I went to sleep during the day when everyone was awake. I asked to be transferred into my own cell and the guards weren’t going to allow it because they loved seeing John beat me about but luckily the chief of the prison let me move. I got a lot more sleep and I didn’t have to worry about John.

In the end up Peter and his friends won the court case and I was set free after 25 years. It’s a very long time to be in prison.

BUT IT’S A LOT LONGER IF YOU’RE INNOCENT!!!