by Ed Lyon
Jennifer Bowen Hicks wandered the United States for many years freelancing for literary magazines and teaching writing classes before making her home in Minnesota. In 2011, she decided to share her unique writing skill with state prisoners, thinking of her own incarcerated relatives and friends.
Of the …
by Ed Lyon
Kentucky in December 2020 reopened Otter Creek Correctional Center (OCCC), leasing it from CoreCivic, formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), but staffing it with state employed Department of Corrections (DOC) staff. Its new name is the Southeast State Correctional Complex (SSCC) and it’s now a …
by Ed Lyon
"Watch out for the kids, he’s here,” was one of the hurtful comments Dion Harrell often overheard whenever he attended a neighborhood barbecue or get-together. In 1992, 22-year-old Harrell, an African American man, was wrongfully convicted of raping a 17-year-old girl, based on flawed eyewitness testimony.
This …
by Ed Lyon
In a public move, shrouded in a cloak of utter secrecy, the Bedford County, Pennsylvania Board of Commissioners suspended with pay their jail’s senior and assistant wardens, ceding operational authority to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC).
The board announced its move on Monday, November 30, 2020, …
by Ed Lyon
For over 200 years the United States Constitution has been revered by some, regarded as a nearly perfect bedrock governing document. Except ... it has not been, and still is not. There is a movement fast gaining momentum to remove by amendment the Constitution’s most glaring, unjust …
by Ed Lyon
COVID-19 has been particularly virulent in Colorado’s relatively small prison system. In the months between April 2020 and January 21, 2021, over 1,400 prisoners tested positive for coronavirus at the Sterling Correctional Facility alone. Nine of those men did not survive. Over 9,000 COVID-19 cases have been …
by Ed Lyon
Two facts concerning prison are apparent to those who have been there, as well as to their loved ones: assimilating into prison is difficult at best but re-assimilating back into society after release can be exponentially harder.
Whether a former prisoner’s conviction was for a violent, nonviolent, …
by Ed Lyon
A teenager in Salinas, California, Sy Newsom Green, began his high school year on a high note. Green was accepted to attend the prestigious Palma School, an all-male, Catholic institution.
Unfortunately, near the end of his freshman year both of Green’s parents lost their jobs due to …
by Ed Lyon
On November 27, 2020, Efrain “Stone” Reyes died in his mother’s Bronx, New York apartment from COVID-19 he contracted while at the Queens, New York Correctional Center (QCC). He was 51.
Prior to his stay at the Queens lock up, Reyes was housed at the Manhattan Correctional …
by Ed Lyon
Early in 2020, health and penology experts warned that prisons would become hot spots for COVID-19 contagion, primarily because of overcrowding that effectively prevents the ability to socially distance among many other factors. Some prison systems have managed to do better than others in mitigation measures, …
