White-Collar Journal

Prison Camp: Daily Life

John DiMenna — Sun, 03 May 2026 22:01:42 GMT

The following was taken from my prison journal. This continues the prison camp theme of daily life: the underground economy, commissary rituals, and the strange currency of food, favors, and trust.

A La Carte Menu:

Slimer and the Spanish guys ran an underground take-out of sorts. The PM kitchen was dominated by the Spanish guys and Slimer, the lone Gringo. Payment was in the form of commissary trade (prison store.) So, there was a lot of trading and, over time, a lot of confrontations. Only guys who had a lot of money in their commissary account participated, or guys who provided other services could afford it. Slimer was the primary ‘hawk’ of the camp, slipping menu options on torn loose leaf. Most of the food came from the food they stole in the kitchen. One of the Spanish guys would monitor Hip-Hop (the night CO) in the guard’s office and then Slimer and others would sneak out the back door, move down the back of the camp dorm to the waste area and claim the food they had stuffed in garbage cans. Some of the food they bought at the commissary. But most of their ‘menu’ came from the kitchen. One night they stole most of the roast pork (a favored dinner at the camp) and sold sandwiches. There wasn’t enough for dinner, so they ground it up and served it as a patty. Some of the guys were irate and several confronted Slimer back at the dorm. He was one of those slippery, creepy guys who always denied everything. Eventually the other inmates decided it wasn’t worth the ‘Shot’ (rule infraction and subsequent discipline) to take him out. I never took part. My commissary account was always compromised. The Camp Counselor took half of it for restitution. Probably did me a favor. There were endless battles and conflicts. Seems the accounts rarely reconciled. Inmate trades of goods and services make you appreciate the value of a currency.

Commissary:

Lumi, one of my bunkies, used to call it Christmas. Commissary is the prison store. Every Thursday, the commissary truck arrives right after lunch. The truck pulls up. Guards from the main prison distribute the goodies: snacks, ice cream, tacos, rice, soups, tuna in bags, batteries for the radios and comfortable clothes for non-working hours: t-shirts, sweat shirts, sneakers and even underwear. The truck backs up in front of the camp, filled with paper bags with inmates’ names. Inmates stand around waiting for their name to be called. A lot of waving to get their bag first. Never seemed to help. There’s a rush in the halls and the dorm. A rare moment of energy and almost celebration. Guys paying off debts, services, trades and the like. An actual din in the dorm as guys devour their ice cream and treats. I never missed ordering the ice cream. An entire pint all by myself. When you’ve lost 30 pounds, you can eat as much as you want. And at 78, you can eat whatever you want. Maybe Lumi was right: Christmas.

If this piece resonated with you, consider sharing it or leaving a comment. To support this work and help spread awareness about justice reform for white-collar defendants, subscribe to White-Collar Journal and stay connected. John DiMenna is a member of the White Collar Support Group.

Up Next on White Collar Journal:

Wednesday (Justice Notes): Criminal Justice Reform

Thursday (Notes from Exisle): Log/Verse: Daily, fragmented reflections

Sunday (Prison Camp): More Stories from prison

If you’re new to White-Collar Journal, you can read earlier chapters and essays on incarceration, justice, and reentry at whitecollarjournal.com.

Thank you for reading White-Collar Journal. Subscribing is free, and I hope you’ll continue with me as I explore stories of incarceration, justice, and redemption.

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Notes from Exile: Regret

John DiMenna — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 22:01:20 GMT

Sam stayed with me for a lot of reasons. Around the same time, I asked another friend what he regretted. “Nothing,” he said. I’ve been thinking about that answer ever since.

REGRET

I have a friend I asked
what did he
regret.

Nothing he said.

How lucky I
thought.
Was his a
lie?

When I look
back,
regret is the
gate.

I only see that I
never saw,
and it was always
there,
right in front
of me.

I just couldn’t
see it.

Still can’t.

Justice Notes: The Longest War

John DiMenna — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 22:01:22 GMT

A Necessary Departure

Most of what I publish here lives squarely in the white-collar experience—preparation, adjustment, survival, and, ultimately, rebuilding. It’s a specific lane, shaped by a specific kind of sentence and a specific kind of fallout. But every now and then, something crosses my desk that makes staying in that lane feel too narrow.

A colleague in our White Collar Support Group, Gina Pendergraph, shared the essay below with me. It’s a departure from the themes you typically see here—not because it’s unrelated to incarceration, but because it confronts a dimension of it that is too often ignored, minimized, or kept out of sight altogether.

Her work takes aim at a reality that exists across the system but rarely gets the sustained attention it deserves: the vulnerability of women and transgender individuals inside prison walls, and the structural conditions that allow abuse to persist.

If you’ve read my Guide for New Inmates , you know I focus on helping people navigate what can be an overwhelming transition. But Gina’s essay is a reminder that for many, the challenge is not just adjustment—it’s basic safety.

I’m sharing it here to support Gina’s voice—and to broaden the conversation we’re having about what incarceration actually looks like, depending on who you are.

Guest Essay by Gina Pendergraph
“Sexual Abuse in Prisons: ‘The Longest War’ – Behind Bars Edition”

Guest Essay by Gina Pendergraph Re: “The Longest War”

The War That Doesn’t Stop at the Prison Gate

Sexual violence against women and transgender people is not confined to the outside world. It exists—and often thrives—inside America’s prisons, where vulnerable inmates have little protection and even less recourse.

Rebecca Solnit famously described violence against women as “the longest war.” What happens behind prison walls is not separate from that war—it is one of its most extreme battlegrounds.

A System That Enables, Not Prevents

The prison system presents itself as a structure of order and protection. But for many incarcerated women and transgender individuals, it functions very differently.

Power imbalances between staff and inmates, lack of oversight, and institutional culture create conditions where abuse is not only possible—but normalized.

This is not about isolated incidents or a handful of bad actors.

It is structural.

Transgender Inmates: The Most Vulnerable Population

Few groups face greater risk than transgender inmates.

Placed in facilities based on birth sex rather than gender identity, many are housed in environments where their vulnerability is immediate and constant. Research shows transgender individuals are dramatically more likely to experience sexual violence while incarcerated.

Reporting that abuse, however, often comes at a cost—retaliation, isolation, or transfer to even more dangerous conditions.

Silence, in this context, becomes a survival strategy.

When Laws Exist Only on Paper

The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) was intended to create a zero-tolerance standard.

But implementation has been inconsistent.

Gaps in training, oversight, and enforcement leave many inmates unprotected, particularly those already marginalized. Recent funding cuts have only deepened the problem, stripping away resources meant to prevent abuse and support victims.

The result: a system that acknowledges the issue in theory, but fails to address it in practice.

FCI Dublin: A Case Study in Failure

If there is a single example that illustrates the depth of the problem, it is the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California.

Over years, widespread sexual abuse by staff went unchecked. It took a class action lawsuit to force accountability—resulting in a historic $116 million settlement for survivors.

Even then, the consequences for perpetrators fell far short of the harm inflicted.

Dublin is not an anomaly.

It is a case study.

The Myth of Safety

There is a persistent belief that incarceration, by definition, creates safety.

For many, the opposite is true.

The same cultural and institutional forces that enable violence outside prison walls do not disappear at the gate—they intensify in a closed system where accountability is limited and power is absolute.

What Real Reform Requires

Addressing this crisis requires more than acknowledgment.

It requires:

Restoring and expanding PREA funding
Rethinking housing policies for vulnerable populations
Enforcing oversight and accountability measures
Confronting the broader culture that allows gender-based violence to persist

Most of all, it requires refusing to look away.

Why This Matters Here

This platform has focused largely on helping people navigate incarceration—what to expect, how to endure it, and how to come out the other side.

But understanding prison life also means confronting its hardest truths.

For some, prison is not just a place of consequence.

It is a place of ongoing harm.

Following is a link to Rebecca Solnit’s essay, The Longest War

Prison Camp: Sam

John DiMenna — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 22:01:19 GMT

There’s a lot of time in prison to think. More than you ever had on the outside, and far more than you might want. And what fills that time isn’t always strategy or plans for what’s next. More often, it’s the regrets and failures that sit there, unresolved, asking nothing more than to be acknowledged. This is one of those.

SAM

Sam, a brilliant guy, was hidden behind a whimsical, sunny personality that belied his brilliance and fierce determination. He enjoyed my simplistic financial overviews, and I think, to some extent, was seduced by them due to my success, but, in reality, they were, as he probably surmised, evidence of the happenstance rather than the substance of my rise.

When I read his offerings—complex and detailed algorithms—I realized the inadequacy of my own efforts and the real lack of understanding of the business. Sam had been able to create real equity through good and bad economies because he was truly grounded in the business of real estate and all its financial complexities.

To think that I was able to secure his respect is a testament to the dynamics that were driving me forward to the delusional belief in my business plans.

At the end of my run, our collaboration ended in disaster, precipitated by a horrific and inexcusable betrayal on my part that still haunts me.

He had become a friend.

Wonderful early breakfasts, lots of laughter, personal intimacies shared, and warm attachments. All blown up after my outing.

The kinds of sins that linger.

I really loved the guy.

You just don’t get over those.

Up Next on White Collar Journal:

Wednesday (Justice Notes): Criminal Justice Reform

Thursday (Notes from Exisle): Log/Verse: Daily, fragmented reflections

Sunday (Prison Camp): More Stories from prison

If you’re new to White-Collar Journal, you can read earlier chapters and essays on incarceration, justice, and reentry at whitecollarjournal.com.

Thank you for reading White-Collar Journal. Subscribing is free, and I hope you’ll continue with me as I explore stories of incarceration, justice, and redemption.

Notes from Exile: Letters

John DiMenna — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 22:01:36 GMT

In the early days of incarceration, letters become a lifeline. This verse reflects the arc of that experience.

LETTERS

Plentiful in the beginning.
Surprises—both good and bad.

I never thought that one.
How come nothing from this one?
I really thought.
I didn’t think.

Did I answer that one?
Should I answer this one?

Doesn’t matter.

Eventually they trickle in—
and finally,
they stop.

And I thought
I wouldn’t care.

Justice Notes: Writing

John DiMenna — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 22:01:50 GMT

This week’s Justice Notes is a bit different. Instead of focusing on the issues of criminal justice reform and what we write about. I wanted to pause and reflect on the effort behind the writing itself.

Justice Notes is usually a place for essays, reflections on criminal justice reform, and the lived realities that shape both. It is meant to inform, to challenge, and, at its best, to move something in the reader.

This week, I found myself thinking less about what we write and more about how we write. I’ve written before about why I write. But I haven’t said much about the process itself.

For me, organizing words into something coherent, something with rhythm, something that carries meaning, is like hammering nails. Each sentence has to be driven into place. Sometimes it bends. Sometimes it has to be pulled out and started again. Most of the time, it resists.

My wife, who writes reviews of cabaret shows in New York City, can craft a 500-word summary in one sitting, with few revisions required. Always clear, organized, and flowing. How I envy her, as my first drafts are often a kind of clumsy, disorganized pig-Latin

That’s why I rely on a method often attributed to Ernest Hemingway: I never begin where I left off. Each session starts with everything I’ve written before, revising as I go, reworking sentences, adjusting tone, trying to hear whether it still holds together. Only then do I go on from there and write until, as Hemingway says, “come to a place where you still have your juice,” know what’s going to happen next, but stop to hit it the next day.

It’s the only way I’ve found to return to something with some sense of direction. It is a slow process. As a result, my long-form manuscripts take years to write.

There are moments when an idea feels fully formed in my head. Clear and organized in my mind. I can almost hear the sentence. But getting it onto the page, in a way that feels true and compelling, is something else entirely. The transition from thought to coherent prose is rarely clean. More often, it’s strained, uneven, and incomplete.

And so the revision process never really ends. Each time I sit down, I am not continuing. I am reworking, reconsidering, reshaping. Starting again, in some sense.

I suspect this is not unique to me.

So this week is simply a note of appreciation to those who have contributed to Justice Notes, and to those who may in the future. Writing something worthwhile rarely comes easily. It asks something of the person doing it: time, patience, and a willingness to wrestle with the page.

I never take that effort for granted. Thank you to all who have contributed to Justice Notes this past year. I look forward to hearing your voices in the year ahead.

Prison Camp: Letters

John DiMenna — Sun, 19 Apr 2026 22:00:49 GMT

There are long stretches in prison where routine takes over. You work, you read, you exercise, you pass time. But underneath, things you avoided for years line up and wait. Some of those thoughts take the form of letters. Letters you write but don’t send. This is one of them.

Letter to Sherman (unsent)

How many times I almost opened to you,
those regular lunches we both savored
and treasured like lifesaving gatherings,
which they were to us, each in our own
despairing. You disclosed yours to me but
I declined, much to our collective demise,
although in different ways, and then an
unforgiveable betrayal. No taking back.
And how I tried to heal your pain but
only served you a final confirmation of your
natural belief in hopelessness of outcomes.
No worse sin than that my friend, forgiveness
muted out the last day we met and spoke
only in code.

Up Next on White Collar Journal:

Wednesday (Justice Notes): Criminal Justice Reform

Thursday (Notes from Exisle): Log/Verse: Daily, fragmented reflections

Sunday (Prison Camp): More Stories from prison

If you’re new to White-Collar Journal, you can read earlier chapters and essays on incarceration, justice, and reentry at whitecollarjournal.com.

Thank you for reading White-Collar Journal. Subscribing is free, and I hope you’ll continue with me as I explore stories of incarceration, justice, and redemption.

Notes from Exile: Bunkies

John DiMenna — Thu, 16 Apr 2026 22:01:24 GMT

Life in a federal prison camp compresses everything. Sixty-four pods, each roughly the size of a walk-in closet, house two inmates at a time. You don’t always choose who shares that space with you. Sometimes you ask. Sometimes they ask you. Often, the decision is made for you.

Like much of prison life, the experience unfolds slowly, then all at once.

BUNKIES

Anxious moments
when he
arrives.

Sometimes you pick
him,
most times you
don’t,
and sometimes he asks
you, the worst of
times.

You can’t choose your
moments,
a space too small for
that.

And over time you both
emerge.
No hiding in the prison
camp.

Justice Notes: Ambition Addiction

John DiMenna — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 22:01:45 GMT

Member Spotlight: When Ambition Crosses the Line

One of the most powerful aspects of our White Collar Support Group is the lived experience within it. Professionals who have not only faced the system, but have taken the time to understand why they got there.

Today, we’re sharing a new release from a fellow member whose perspective is especially unique: a former licensed therapist who has experienced both sides of maladaptive behavior, professionally and personally.

After going through the full arc many here know too well: the knock on the door, the courtroom, the headlines, and time in a federal prison camp. She set out to answer the question that doesn’t go away:

“How and why did I do this?”

Her new ebook, AMBITION ADDICTION, explores a provocative idea:

What if the same drive that helped you succeed is also what led you off course?

This is not theory. It’s real, reflective, and rooted in both clinical insight and personal experience.

Reading the book led me to a broader reflection on ambition itself, and the subtle ways it can contribute to decisions that ultimately cross the line.

Ambition

Ambition is rarely questioned.

It’s rewarded. Encouraged. Celebrated.

Work harder. Push further. Win.

For many professionals—especially those who later find themselves navigating the federal system—ambition isn’t just a trait.

It’s an identity.

But what happens when that identity doesn’t turn off?

The Line No One Sees

There’s a version of ambition that builds careers.

And there’s a version that quietly erodes judgment.

The problem is—you rarely see the line between them while it’s happening.

There’s no defining moment where someone says:

“This is where I lost control.”

Instead, it happens gradually.

A small rationalization.
A justified shortcut.
A pressure-driven decision.
A belief that this one time will be different.

And from the inside, it still feels like ambition.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

In white-collar cases, the issue is rarely chaos.

It’s narrative.

Smart, capable people don’t think they’re making reckless decisions. They build frameworks that make those decisions feel reasonable:

I’ll fix this later.
This is temporary.
I’ve earned this.
No one is really getting hurt.

These aren’t throwaway excuses.

They’re operating systems.

Over time, those systems reinforce behavior that drifts further from reality—and further from values.

When Everything Stops

For most, the interruption is sudden.

A phone call.
A knock on the door.
A courtroom.
A headline.

Forward motion—gone.

And in that silence, one question remains:

How did I get here?

The Work That Follows

That question doesn’t go away.

And answering it isn’t optional—at least not if the goal is to move forward differently.

Time inside, difficult as it is, creates space for that kind of reflection.

As we often emphasize in this community, this period can become “a powerful experience that can provide a heightened self-awareness and new perspective”

But that outcome isn’t automatic.

It requires intention.

Without reflection, the experience is something to survive.
With reflection, it becomes something to learn from.

Rethinking Success

Before everything stops, success is usually external:

Status.
Income.
Recognition.
Winning.

Afterward, it becomes something else entirely:

Clarity.
Accountability.
Stability.
Alignment.

That shift isn’t easy—but it’s necessary.

Because ambition itself isn’t the problem.

Unexamined ambition is.

A Better Question

Why did I do this?

It’s the question that lingers.

But over time, better questions start to emerge:

What patterns was I operating under?
Where did I ignore warning signs?
How did my identity shape my decisions?
What does ambition look like now?

These questions don’t offer quick answers.

But they create something more valuable:

Awareness.

Final Thought

We don’t talk enough about the hidden side of success.

The part where drive becomes compulsion.
Where identity overrides judgment.
Where winning becomes the only metric that matters.

Ambition Addiction explores that space.

Not as theory—but as lived experience.

And sometimes, seeing the pattern clearly is the first step toward breaking it.

You can order Juliet’s book here: AMBITION ADDICTION

Prison Camp: First Day

John DiMenna — Sun, 12 Apr 2026 22:01:44 GMT

Back to Daily Life Inside

After a brief detour sharing an Author’s Note from my book, I’m returning to the depiction of daily life. What follows is not edited, polished, or reconstructed. It’s a journal entry I wrote in real time, the first full day in federal prison camp.

Journal Entry: 11/2/2018

Day two at the Camp. First night at my new home. Better get used to it, 84 months and 30 more days to go. A lifetime at my age. If I live that long. If it’s anything like my first night, not likely.

Lights and sounds all night and more sounds crashing at 5:00AM when the Camp rises, at least the maintenance crew—long hoses almost on my bed, buckets landing hard on the concrete floors, some guys arguing:

“I told you that fucking thing didn’t work.”
“The fuck you did, fucking asshole.”
“All right forget about it, swing that shit in here.”

And then silence, and just a lot of racket coming from the bathrooms right next to my bunk, where they put me—which is where all the new guys go, bunk number one, right next to the game room and the bathroom and the night light which stays on all night. In fact, shines right in your face.

So you wake up at the first sound and you get up because the noise is so loud but you don’t want to because it was freezing last night and bundled up in a ball of sheets and torn blankets—but at least it’s warmer under there—but there’s no point and you just get up and start but not knowing what to do because all the maintenance guys are in the bathrooms with mops and buckets and throwing liquids everywhere so you don’t have a clue where to begin.

The PA speaker is on the wall right next to my bed and a CO has been calling guys for the past hour to report to the guard station and I can see outside because my bunk is near the front of the dorm and now it seems like half the dorm is rising and storming past my bed and a parade of sorts going to the bathroom.

And I can see it snowed during the night and the snow piled pretty high and I figured out they’re calling guys to shovel the snow that looks fresh still piled high in a beautiful symmetry on the big pines so you can tell it’s been snowing probably since midnight.

And I think how funny that everywhere—even here—there is beauty in the worst of times and the worst of places, and it made me feel good, at least good enough, at least better than when I woke up. And it did give me some comfort despite that I saw guys outside struggling with shovels, snow blowers, and bags of salt—even poor Bill, 78 years old, struggling to hold the heavy bag and distribute salt on the entrance path.

Even then, it was still beautiful.

Nothing like fresh snow to keep you believing, though you’re not sure what—believing, nonetheless.

I get up and see my bunkie still sleeping, must be used to the noise, and doesn’t even wake up while I figure out how to make a cup of coffee.

I have a long way to go to figure out prison.

Up Next on White Collar Journal:

Wednesday (Justice Notes): Criminal Justice Reform

Thursday (Notes from Exisle): Log/Verse: Daily, fragmented reflections

Sunday (Prison Camp): More Stories from prison

If you’re new to White-Collar Journal, you can read earlier chapters and essays on incarceration, justice, and reentry at whitecollarjournal.com.

Thank you for reading White-Collar Journal. Subscribing is free, and I hope you’ll continue with me as I explore stories of incarceration, justice, and redemption.

Prison Camp: Authors Note

John DiMenna — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 22:01:10 GMT

Over time, I’ve shared pieces from A DIFFERENT KIND OF HELL, written during my eighteen months in a federal prison camp, often in real time, under conditions that made sustained writing difficult. Some of you may have encountered them in earlier forms, including the Moonstone Press edition, or through occasional excerpts posted here. But I’ve never really introduced the work directly. A new edition of the book is available on Amazon for the first time (linked here). What follows is the Author’s Note from this edition.

Author’s Note

From 2018 to 2019, I served eighteen months in a federal prison camp. During those eighteen months, I committed myself to journaling my experience. But in prison, a journal just doesn’t get to the emotional cellar you fall into, the inner turmoil that prison life presents, the day-to-day wearing down, and the darker and solitary realities of enduring prison life. Over time, my journaling evolved into a collection of memoir fragments, a better vehicle to convey the trauma, the gruelling regimens and protocols and the true center of gravity.

It was challenging to write in prison: no library, freezing cold in the dorm, and no privacy. A long-form narrative was out of the question amidst such conditions, relegating me to musings and spontaneous outpourings whenever and wherever there was opportunity and/or inspiration to compile something. My goal was to convey the experience of incarceration as I was living it, the agony, sense of exile, isolation, and the misery of confinement.

I have added to that post-prison. Much of the enclosed was written at my bunk, with other inmates passing by, gawking and often interrupting. Other times, I’d write in the common computer room where an inmate could draft an email to himself. The sessions were terminated after thirty minutes. A two-hour intermission was required before an inmate could return to a computer. There were always lines and other inmates standing behind me.

Prison is a kind of Dantesque “Dark Wood,” half dream and twilight zone, while the tactile world plays out in confusing rhythms. The most painful part of prison is that it confronts us with ourselves and furthers in each inmate an excruciating self-loathing.

The lead-up and the narrative that presaged my incarceration I’ll leave to the forthcoming, A Prison of My Own—the full narrative: the lead-up, the fall and the aftermath—another kind of and more challenging introspection. The following is solely an attempt to profile the experience of becoming an inmate and the dark corridors of incarceration as I lived them.

The stream-of-consciousness style, the long unpunctuated sentences, and the breathless forward momentum is intentional. It is an attempt to recreate on the page the experience of entering prison: the sense of falling down a well, of losing footing, of one thing tumbling into the next with no pause for reflection or breath.

A DIFFERENT KIND OF HELL is now available on Amazon. As always, I’m grateful to those of you who read, share, and support the work. This is the first time the book has been available on Amazon Books, linked here.

Up Next on White Collar Journal:

Wednesday (Justice Notes): Criminal Justice Reform

Thursday (Notes from Exisle): Log/Verse: Daily, fragmented reflections

Sunday (Prison Camp): More Stories from prison

If you’re new to White-Collar Journal, you can read earlier chapters and essays on incarceration, justice, and reentry at whitecollarjournal.com.

Thank you for reading White-Collar Journal. Subscribing is free, and I hope you’ll continue with me as I explore stories of incarceration, justice, and redemption.

Notes from Exile: Mornings

John DiMenna — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 22:00:30 GMT

Notes From Exile: Mornings

In keeping with the them of daily life in prison, I’m publishing the following poem, MORNINGS, written at my bunk. More than any other time, early morning reveals the emotional temperature of prison.

MORNINGS

Mornings are quiet
in the camp.

A gradual rising
of misery,

as we stumble one
by one,

toothbrush in
hand,

or in our mouths through
the halls, passing in
silence.

No good mornings. An
unspoken rule.

Sometimes there is accidental
jostling
when the season
is dark,

as we enter and leave
the steamy
baths.

More than any other
time,
the long days
loom.

Justice Notes: Books in Prison

John DiMenna — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 22:14:06 GMT

This week, I’m sharing an important conversation from PEN America on a topic that resonates deeply with our work: the transformative power of reading in prison.

Books are not just a way to pass time behind bars—they are a lifeline. They create structure, expand perspective, and help people imagine a different future. As one formerly incarcerated writer put it:

“There is a lot of dead time in prison, and reading is essential to fill that slow time.”

That insight echoes what we hear again and again from people inside—reading isn’t a luxury; it’s survival.

Below is a short excerpt from PEN America’s recent interview about a new book exploring why reading matters in U.S. prisons and how everyday citizens can make a difference.

BOOKS IN PRISON

In prisons across the United States, access to books can be limited, inconsistent, or actively restricted. Yet for many incarcerated people, reading becomes a crucial tool for self-education, emotional survival, and personal transformation.

Books offer more than knowledge—they provide connection, dignity, and a sense of possibility beyond confinement.

At the same time, grassroots efforts—from book donation programs to advocacy organizations—are working to expand access and challenge censorship, proving that ordinary citizens can play a meaningful role in supporting incarcerated readers.

Why This Matters

Reading in prison is not just about rehabilitation—it’s about humanity.

When people have access to books, they:

Build discipline and routine
Develop critical thinking and empathy
Stay connected to the world beyond prison walls
Begin to envision life after release

As many of you know, these are the exact building blocks of successful reentry.

Read the Full Interview

👉PEN America Interview

Prison Camp: Prisoners Anthem

John DiMenna — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 22:01:52 GMT

In keeping with the recent focus on daily life in the camp, this essay captures an unexpected moment of shared experience—drawn from a portrait in my collection, A MUDDLED BROTHERHOOD, a collection of prison portraits.

Prisoners Anthem

In prison, sleep is the only balm. But there’s no more solitary feeling than settling into our tiny beds, in the darkness after lights out. Mine a lower bunk, staring at the steel frame above me and waiting to hear the heavy breathing of my bunkmate after falling asleep. It was at those moments, I’d think about Judge Bolden telling me I was not connected to humanity and disconnected to “everything that makes life meaningfull and worthwhile.” One night changed everything.

Brian Nelson, a long-termer at the camp, walked the track with a guitar. Everyone called him Nelson. He told me that there were three sex offenders in the main prison, named Brian, and he didn’t want to be confused with them. He didn’t walk the track often and only during the summer. A former long-hauler, he was seasoned, having served eight years when I met him, but surprisingly not bitter. He was always on a diet, but none seemed to work. He told me that during his time in prison, he had lost fifty pounds twice and put it back on twice. He was one of the few balding inmates who didn’t succumb to the popular shaved head. He certainly didn’t look like a singer-songwriter. But he was. Every once in a while, you’d see him strumming while meandering around the track, moving from the inside lane to the outside lane in a deliberate stride. Pausing, stopping, and never acknowledging anyone, he seemed oblivious to those passing him by. I’d hear melodies and lyrics that were very familiar. Still, none were anything I’d ever heard, because he made them up as he walked.

I was aware of Nelson from the first day I arrived. He was a big man and had a notable presence—a “been here and figured it out” aura about him. He didn’t greet the newcomers, but he seemed to know everybody, and everybody knew him, even the guards. Like he was part of the furniture or the fabric of the prison. I’d see him passing in the halls, always looking straight ahead and seemingly comfortable with that. Passing in the halls was a serious matter to deal with. We passed each other tens of times each day, going to the mess hall, the bathrooms, traversing the dorm, attending programs, or making calls to the office. Everyone adopted their own protocols. Saying hi each time, waving, a grunt, a “what’s up,” or just looking straight ahead. Most of those looked forced and uncomfortable. But Nelson looked like it was no problem for him. Like he’d been doing it for so long, he wasn’t even aware anyone was with him walking those prison corridors.

For a short period, he relocated to a bunk next to mine. Inmates are often relocated to be near a friend, change bunkmates, or for a perceived preferred location: near the bathroom, a windowed bunk, or distance from a problem. Geography, more than anything, makes friends or enemies in prison. So, Nelson became part of my life. Just before and after the last Count, he’d end up in my bunk or me in his, and I got to know him.

“I had a co-conspirator,” he told me one night. “Mother fucker sold me out. I didn’t get it. I don’t think it even helped him. He got more time than I did. Truth is. I’m not even pissed at him. These cocksucking prosecutors sell you all sorts of shit and then don’t help anyone.”

“What’s a co-consipirator?” I asked. Not really wanting to know. But I wanted to hear more about the story.

“You know. Another guy in it with you,” he said. But paused at first, looking around as if concerned that he was vulnerable to further punishment if someone overheard our conversation.

I had nothing to add, so I changed the subject.

“How did you like long-hauling?” I asked.

“Fucking loved it. Not great for the marriage. But, shit, I loved it.”

“So what got you here?”

He smiled, then began to laugh to himself.

“My buddy. Co-conspirator. What a joke. Believe me. Neither of us could conspire to shit. Two assholes with a dream. Had a scheme to pack some drugs into a haul through Canada. A piece of cake, we thought. Anyway, didn’t work out. We got twelve years. Eight down now. What’s your story?” But before I could answer, he followed up with, “How the fuck did you get 85 months at your age. Jeeze. Kill somebody?”

I didn’t want to get into it. I’d been editing my bios like everyone else. But Nelson’s honesty won me over.

“Long story. But I fucked up, and a lot of money was lost.” Then I changed the subject.

“How’d you start writing songs?”

“There’s a guitar in the workout room. I just picked it up one day. Listening to country songs while long-hauling kept me alive. So, while guys were working out, I’d fool with the guitar. The guys complained, so I took it out on the track and played there while walking. I figured I’d do two things. Learn to play the guitar and exercise. When I started playing, I was in a “put on weight” phase.

Nelson tapped me on the shoulder with a knowing look, like we were comrades, if not new friends. After that, he was in my bunk almost every night.

Then, one night, just before Count, he came into my bunk and told me he was going to organize a camp sing-along of the Inmate’s Anthem, which I had never heard of. He said I might not know it, but I would be able to figure it out and sing along with the rest of the camp. I was skeptical as I don’t have a great ear, but I said I’d try. He had a loud voice, and he was able to surprisingly quiet the entire dorm. The start was intermittent and soft; the Spanish guys weren’t even trying at first. But with each verse, more inmates joined in, and eventually everyone got into it. It was so loud I was afraid a CO would come back and start sending guys to the Shoe.

FIRST VERSE:
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU GO FUCK YOURSELF
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU

SECOND VERSE:
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU GO FUCK YOURSELF
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU

THIRD VERSE:
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU GO FUCK YOURSELF
FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU

And on and on. By the third verse, the whole camp was singing loudly, lustily, heartily, and everyone was smiling and laughing. I couldn’t name the melody, but it was familiar and easy to sing along to. One of the best nights in camp. In some ways, the obvious was more nuanced than when I first heard it. But at the moment, I enjoyed the fun, the laughing, and the place. Over time, the words began to sink in. I thought about Judge Bolden and his words about being disconnected from humanity. When I arrived, I entered a community of the disconnected. All wary of each other, none wanting to be connected to each other. As if our connection to each other only confirmed our disconnection from the world we longed to return to. And so, we quickly gravitated to our tribes: Hispanic, Black, and White. But on this night, we were a community. You could almost feel a collective hug. One of the Spanish dishwashers flashed me a thumbs-up while shouting the lyrics. And so I came to understand that, upon arrival, all inmates experience this detachment and are branded as outcasts from society. And this is the anthem of the exiled. FUCK YOU.

Up Next on White Collar Journal:

Wednesday (Justice Notes): Criminal Justice Reform

Thursday (Notes from Exisle): Log/Verse: Daily, fragmented reflections

Sunday (Prison Camp): More Stories from prison

If you’re new to White-Collar Journal, you can read earlier chapters and essays on incarceration, justice, and reentry at whitecollarjournal.com.

Thank you for reading White-Collar Journal. Subscribing is free, and I hope you’ll continue with me as I explore stories of incarceration, justice, and redemption.

Notes from Exile: The Track

John DiMenna — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 22:01:41 GMT

The selection this evening for Notes from Exile is in keeping with the theme of Recreation, posted this past Sunday.

A decaying recreation area lay next to the prison camp, comprised of a crumbling cinder track where I walked every evening just before dusk. Despite its grim condition, the area was formerly a golf course with giant pines surrounding the track. With a small portable radio I purchased from the prison store, I listened to a station that played classical music while I circled the track. Every night, a particular disc jockey played what he called “a long piece for the drive home.” It broke my heart every time he said it. I wrote the following poem after one of my walks.

THE TRACK

Plodding and weaving my way around
the quarter mile of footprints in the ash
and mud, I calculate the dreams and
tipping points that brought me here.

But tempered by its lovely rural beauty and
transcendent silence, the comforting solitary
radio and it’s bridge to life and freedom.

And how many footprints have disappeared
in too many seasons that you can see in its
condition of overgrowth, rivulets and disrepair,
my own already disappearing with each turn.

Today I walk the best of winters breath,
and the falling sun at my favored hour,
a Beethoven riff, a séance of sorts to
heal the despair of the fading light.

Justice Notes: Sentencing Guidelines and AI

John DiMenna — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 22:00:18 GMT

I’m publishing today an excerpt from an essay by Jonathan Wroblewski, author of Sentencing Matters, exploring a question that’s no longer hypothetical:

Could AI do the work of sentencing commissioners—better than humans?

Wroblewski has been running a series of experiments testing how large language models handle real sentencing-policy problems. In this installment, he asks two leading AI systems to resolve actual circuit conflicts identified by the U.S. Sentencing Commission—and to explain their reasoning like commissioners would.

The results are worth your time.

From Sentencing Matters:

Lots of us these days are wondering whether AI is coming for our jobs. There is already ample evidence that AI can do many jobs better, faster, cheaper than human beings, including many jobs that involve processing words, ideas, and code. So, it seems worth exploring here whether AI could be a better sentencing commissioner than most people?

This is the fourth in a series of experiments we’ve run about artificial intelligence and its place in sentencing and corrections law, policy, and practice. We will have more experiments over the coming months. Among them will be to ask various large language models to undertake the responsibilities of a sentencing commissioner and see how they do.

This experiment asks two AI models to each resolve two circuit conflicts that the U.S. Sentencing Commission published for public comment back in January and for which it has received written and oral comment this year.

The responsibilities of a sentencing commission include not only deciding among proposed guideline amendment options, but also explaining its decision. For some time, I’ve felt that the commissioners of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, in general, do not adequately explain their votes — and the reasoning behind them — on proposed guideline amendments.

It seems that it would be best practice for the Commission, like the Supreme Court, federal appellate courts, and many federal district courts too, to issue at least one detailed written opinion explaining each of its decisions…

The Experiment

Wroblewski then gave both AI systems a realistic assignment:
act as sentencing commissioners and resolve two live circuit conflicts involving the definition of “controlled substance offense.”

Each model had to:

Choose between competing legal options
Apply statutory and constitutional principles
Write a 500-word judicial-style opinion explaining its reasoning

What the AI Said (Excerpt)

One of the models concluded that federal sentencing should rely on a uniform national standard, not varying state laws:

“Option 1 best advances [the statutory] mandate because it anchors a federal sentencing enhancement to a single national drug schedule, rather than to fifty-plus sets of evolving state schedules.”

On another issue—whether courts should look at the law at the time of sentencing or at the time of the prior conviction—the model emphasized a core principle of fairness:

“The career offender guideline is, at bottom, a recidivist enhancement… That enhancement rationale is most coherent when the legal status of the prior conduct is evaluated as of the time it occurred.”

Why This Matters

What’s striking isn’t just that the AI reaches plausible legal conclusions—it’s that it does something Wroblewski argues the Commission often does not:

👉 It explains itself clearly, systematically, and transparently.

That raises a deeper question:

If AI can produce reasoned, consistent, and transparent sentencing policy analysis…
what exactly is the comparative advantage of human commissioners?

Read the Full Essay

This is just a small slice of a much longer and more detailed experiment—including full AI-written “opinions” on both circuit conflicts.

👉 You can read the full piece here:
Sentencing Matters-Jonathan Wroblewski

Prison Camp: Recreation

John DiMenna — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 22:01:40 GMT

Excerpts From My Prison Journal

I’m continuing to publish excerpts from the journal I kept during my time in federal prison camp. These entries were written in real time, without the benefit of emotional distance. Today’s excerpt is about the adjustment to daily life. Recreation, such as it was, played its own role in that world.

RECREATION

I walked the track mostly. The main prison in the foreground: its long, looming profile, the barbed wire surrounding it, and the staff cars in the huge parking lot next to it, flashing their own message, that we’re here to watch you and you’r not getting out. The crumbling structure of the recreation area in its foothills, decaying like the camp’s interior. There was a field in the middle of the track, overgrown, and a baseball field, a fallow wreck of dirt. But for the inmates, it’s still an escape of sorts, an amenity even. The track, reduced to a crumbling path of ash and mud, remains every inmate’s daily prayer. In any weather, solo, in pairs, groups even, running, walking (most popular), guys in the dog program walking their dogs, picking up their poop along the way and even once in a while, this one inmate walking with a guitar playing and composing and always, Crazy Lou with his wild routine of stopping every fifty feet or so, leaning to the right and left and spitting.

There was some basketball play. Less than I thought. The court not bad. No one very good. Sometimes 20 or more back-and-forths before a basket. It looked like form over substance. Baseball the same. Except the Spanish guys liked to challenge a team of ‘others.’ Neither side very good. Balls through the wickets, ground ball home runs, outfielders dashing in and dashing out, plenty of arguments and shouting. Bocci had a following, horseshoes too. Same guys at handball. No one very good. And the hardwood, dented, damaged picnic tables that guys used to exercise on: pushups, sit-ups, and the like. Some creative moves I couldn’t figure out. The workout trailer had two treadmills and an aerobic machine, vintage 1955. Barbells are not allowed in federal prisons. Fear by the staff, I’m told.

In the early days, I walked with Steve until he departed a few months after my arrival. After, I walked alone, talking to myself, as had become my way with just my radio most of the time. There was a native American area. A teepee and all. Always some fires burning there. Steve said it’s all bull shit. The guys were there mainly to smoke. A rag-tag fence of fragile planks surrounds the teepee. A sign in front: “Only Native Americans allowed.” No one there looked like an Indian.

Up Next on White Collar Journal:

Wednesday (Justice Notes): Criminal Justice Reform

Thursday (Notes from Exisle): Log/Verse: Daily, fragmented reflections

Sunday (Prison Camp): More Stories from prison

If you’re new to White-Collar Journal, you can read earlier chapters and essays on incarceration, justice, and reentry at whitecollarjournal.com.

Thank you for reading White-Collar Journal. Subscribing is free, and I hope you’ll continue with me as I explore stories of incarceration, justice, and redemption.

Join my new subscriber chat

John DiMenna — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 23:20:46 GMT

Today I’m announcing a brand new addition to my Substack publication: White-Collar Journal subscriber chat.

This is a conversation space exclusively for subscribers—kind of like a group chat or live hangout. I’ll post questions and updates that come my way, and you can jump into the discussion.

Join chat

How to get started

Get the Substack app by clicking this link or the button below. New chat threads won’t be sent sent via email, so turn on push notifications so you don’t miss conversation as it happens. You can also access chat on the web.

Get app

Open the app and tap the Chat icon. It looks like two bubbles in the bottom bar, and you’ll see a row for my chat inside.

That’s it! Jump into my thread to say hi, and if you have any issues, check out Substack’s FAQ.

Notes from Exile: Doing Time

John DiMenna — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 22:01:36 GMT

In keepiing with this week’s theme of Daily Life in a prison camp, following is an entry from my prsion journal, CLOCKS.

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

CLOCKS

There are six clocks in the camp, and all are wrong. They’re close enough to manage our schedules. Other than that, they’re no concern to us. Only the calendar matters.

But there is another clock in prison. It has no instruments. It runs on increments between realizations and daydreams while trudging the days’ menial priorities. Lurking in those increments, the clock recalibrates and the calendar never stops.

Everyone counts the days. Some say the days go slow but the weeks go fast, and the months even faster. I haven't decided which is which. I only know my days are running out, and too many to count.

Justice Notes: Prison and Justice Writing

John DiMenna — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 22:00:57 GMT

Each week, through Justice Notes, I try to spotlight work that reminds us why creative expression matters in the justice system. One of the most powerful engines for that work today is the PEN America Prison and Justice Writing Program, which supports incarcerated writers across the country and helps bring their voices into the public conversation.

This week’s piece comes from Curtis Dawkins, a writer who discovered—almost accidentally—that storytelling could survive even in the most restrictive conditions. While serving a life sentence in Michigan, Dawkins began writing stories by hand in prison, eventually publishing the acclaimed collection The Graybar Hotel with Scribner. His journey through panic attacks, handwritten manuscripts, prison mail, editors, and unexpected literary success illustrates exactly why programs like PEN America’s matter.

The Prison and Justice Writing Program exists to ensure that people inside prisons have access to the tools, mentorship, and platforms that make writing possible. Without that support, many of these voices would remain unheard.

In the essay below, Dawkins reflects on how writing became both survival and vocation while incarcerated—and how the act of putting words on paper can persist even in places designed to silence it.

I tried writing in the county jail, but it was too intense. The events that had landed me there, the ones I was trying to write about, were much too fresh. Plus, we only went outdoors twice during the eleven months I spent awaiting trial and sentencing—the latter a foregone conclusion, as the state of Michigan has mandatory sentences and mine was Life Without the Possibility of Parole, basically a death sentence for states without the chutzpah to actually inject that lethal cocktail of drugs.
I tried to write, but couldn’t. Instead I had debilitating panic attacks where my heart would beat wildly and I would hyperventilate, spending all day, every day in a 10×10 cube with three, sometimes four, others. I was finally put on my own cocktail of drugs: Trazodone, Depakote, Seroquel, and Paxil. Thankfully, the panic vanished, but a side effect was shaky hands–the writing looked like a toddler’s. I read constantly, though, keeping the books stationary, splayed open on my knees, the ones I’d said I would read if only I had the time: War and Peace, Ulysses, Infinite Jest, the oeuvres of Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner.
I must have been writing in my mind because the first day in quarantine—a 4 to 6 week period where the new inmate is tested physically and mentally to see where he might fit in and what programs might benefit him—a sentence kept repeating itself, and not the one I’d heard the judge proclaim: “Sicilian Joe was a saucier until a Cadillac hit him doing sixty and knocked the recipes out of his head.”
I still wonder where this came from. Sicilian Joe, an apparent amalgam of those I’d known over the past several months, showed up fully-formed in a twelve page story called “County.” Six weeks later, when I was no longer so heavily medicated, the story was written in longhand. I read it aloud to my first bunky, a twenty-five-year-old kid named Ryan who had shaken his infant son to death. Ryan didn’t like the ending. He said he wanted something more concrete, exact, less “shady.” I knew that I’d nailed it. It was a good story, one I could never get published, in even the smallest literary journal. I probably sent it to twenty.
I used to save my rejection slips. At one point I counted 100. If writing is mysterious, publishing is its freakish, maddening, passive-aggressive, cousin. Those rejection slips (I still get hard copies) seem to come only on the days already full of maudlin ennui.
A man I’m still friends with today, Jarrett Haley, read a couple of my flash fictions in Hobart and asked if I had other writings. I had, and over the next couple of years I published several short stories and wrote over a hundred book reviews for Jarrett’s literary journal, BULL. He was the first editor of The Graybar Hotel, back before it had a title. We worked on one story at a time, run through an Apple program (not this prisoner’s area of expertise, so take all computing talk with a grain of salt) that allows the user to highlight questions in what look to be thought-bubbles. I would send back revisions via snail mail. From my end, it worked seamlessly and easily.
If you’d like to read the whole article about his journey, here is a link to PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing site..

Curtis Dawkins authored the critically-acclaimed short story collection, The Graybar Hotel (Scribner, 2017), and has been published in Vice, The Hudson Review, Hobart, and Beloit Fiction Journal while incarcerated in Michigan’s semi-Arctic Upper Peninsula.