White-Collar Journal

Prison Camp: Daily Life

John DiMenna — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 22:01:05 GMT

The following is another portrait from A Muddled Brotherhood, my prison memoir and collection of portraits of the men with whom I served in a federal prison camp. Steve was my closest friend in camp, mentoring me through the traumatic early days of incarceration and the difficult period of adjustment that followed.

THE QUIET MAN

Steve was the quintessential ‘Quiet Man.’ His strength was understated and it was easy to underestimate him. But over time, no one did. Sixty years old, unlucky and unfairly accused, he remained an optimist. He was one of the few I met who seemed legitimately innocent. Most, if not all of the others, me included, sold polished and edited resumes. Part of it was his great faith. He led a bible study group that focused on the bible rather than any religious institution. But I didn’t believe that was the foundation of all his optimism. There was nothing manufactured about him. His was an inherent gift. Nothing could break him. Even prison.

He was respected by everyone, including the Black guys and he had a special relationship with the Spanish guys. I never learned the genesis of it, but they brought him fruit every day from the kitchen. He had few enemies, but those he did have feared him. Even the staff grew to respect him. There was a dog training program at the prison camp and Steve was the most skilled dog trainer in the program. He was the only inmate to train several “certified” dogs—the highest level of accomplishment. He had left the program when I arrived. But all the guys who were still in the program kept coming to him for advice.

He had had a hard life in many ways. You wouldn’t know it to look at him. I would have guessed that he was brought up just like me: a comfortable solid family life. But his father abandoned the family, and he went out on his own at 15. He was somehow able to work and go to school. He was an exceptional athlete, which was the baseline to keep him out of trouble and lure him to college.

He found me, seemingly, from out of nowhere on my second day. He just appeared in front of my bunk. I was barely awake, sitting on my bed, the lower bunk, and freezing cold from the meat-locker that was the dorm from October to May. We said we would always remain friends. We talked about guys who made promises to others, only to bail after being released. Together, we spoke harshly about those kinds of people. But I’m out now. And I haven’t reached out to him. And I don’t think I will. I don’t know what that is. That’s what prison does, I guess. It takes everything you came in with and everything you left behind. I never knew anyone like him. I probably never will.

When Steve was released it was just about the time when the period of adjustment was over. Prison had become what he predicted: “you finally realize that prison is home.”

After he was released, I went back to being the ghost.

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.

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.

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Notes from Exile: Laughter

John DiMenna — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 22:01:35 GMT

Last week my brother reminded me that I used to write humorous food reviews. “We miss him,” he said.

His comment stayed with me. Prison was often lonely, frightening, and tedious, but it wasn’t without laughter. In fact, there was a surprising amount of it. Most people imagine prison as a place without humor. The reality is more complicated. We laughed often, especially at the endless stories we told one another. Those stories became a kind of currency, a way to pass the time, to remember who we had been, and, for a few moments, to forget where we were.

This poem grew out of that realization.

LAUGHING

There is laughing

in prison,

lots of it.

At times it’s just another

workplace.

But more stories

than jokes.

All fear the punch line

of an ill-timed

joke,

while the stories

leave us

laughing.

They’re really all

we have.

Justice Notes: Origins of A Memoir

Wed, 29 Jul 2026 22:01:22 GMT

PRISONERS LAMENT (Original Memoir-hybrid form)

As I’ve been going through the original outlines and notes for the hybrid manuscript that eventually became A Prison of My Own, I came across this explanation of what I was trying to accomplish.

At the time, I wasn’t simply struggling with what to write. I was struggling with how to write it. Prison seemed to occupy a different dimension, and I wasn’t convinced that a conventional narrative could capture it.

This is what I wrote:

My goal is to illuminate the dimension where an inmate’s experience resides. It’s somewhere between a dream and real life, a kind of twilight zone per Rod Serling’s 1950’s series. But that isn’t it either. It’s not fantasy. If it’s fantasy, the reader can’t experience it.

A traditional, long-form narrative can’t capture it, and the code in poetry is recognized almost exclusively by its author. So I chose a kind of stream of conscious, imagistic, lyrical prose, or some such variation. I’m not sure what you call it. Others will decide if it’s effective.

Maybe the prison experience is just ineffable. Nothing I’ve read captures it.

Reading this now, I’m struck by how deliberate the choice of form was. I wasn’t experimenting for the sake of experimentation. I was trying to solve a problem.

How do you describe incarceration to someone who hasn’t experienced it?

The routines and indignities can be described. So can the guards, the inmates, the bunk, the chow hall, the commissary, the endless hours and the count. But those are the architecture of prison. They aren’t necessarily the experience of it.

What I was trying to capture was something more elusive: the altered sense of time, the dislocation, the separation from the life you once inhabited, the strange community that becomes your entire world, and the realization that the world outside continues perfectly well without you.

I believed conventional narrative imposed too much order on an experience that didn’t feel orderly. So I wrote in fragments—stream of consciousness, images, lyrical passages, journal entries, profiles, poems. I didn’t know what to call it. I called it a hybrid manuscript.

Something unexpected has happened as I’ve returned to these early pieces for Origins of a Memoir. Many of the pieces I’ve been publishing on Substack come directly from, or grew out of, those fragments. And they seem to work particularly well here as individual pieces.

Perhaps the form wasn’t the problem. Perhaps I was asking it to do something it couldn’t do—to sustain an entire memoir. What couldn’t carry a book can capture a moment, an inmate, an image, or a particular experience of incarceration.

Maybe I wasn’t entirely wrong about the problem.

I’m still not sure prison can be fully explained to someone who hasn’t experienced it. Maybe, as I wrote all those years ago, some part of it is simply ineffable.

Justice Notes is an ongoing series examining incarceration, rehabilitation, storytelling, institutional power, and the lives that exist behind prison walls.

Prison Camp: Daily Life

John DiMenna — Sun, 26 Jul 2026 22:00:30 GMT

The following is another portrait from my prison memoir, A Muddled Brotherhood, a collection of portraits of the men with whom I served my sentence in a federal prison camp. Bill and I were the oldest inmates in the camp, and there was more than age that we had in common.

THE OLD MEN

Bob and I were the oldest inmates in the camp, and both of us were in for financial malfeasance. Bob had a private investment company that was faltering, and he used the company’s funds for his personal use. The company’s principals discovered his misallocation of funds before he could complete the turnaround. He was arrested, plead guilty and was sentenced to twenty-four months. Then his wife left him, and his son, a lawyer in Boston, sided with his mother, and Bob entered prison abandoned. His sister and daughter still supported him and visited from time to time. He seemed to be managing it all, but I’m sure it was more than he let on. Everyone keeps their real feelings inside in prison. Steely is the pose to survive in prison.

There were many like Bob and me, all convincing ourselves that the misallocations were temporary, that no one would know, and that eventually all would be well. He didn’t edit his bio, like so many, including me. But he refused to believe that prison was the right decision for him.

“I could be helping that company now,” he insisted. “How does it serve the investors with the only guy who understands the company in jail?” he repeated often. Or some version of this.

Bob was always pitching the value of his release for the investors he had impacted. The company was still operating after his imprisonment. He believed that if he were released, he could navigate the company back to profitability and repay all the money his investors had lost.

“I did an analysis,” he said. “It makes no sense for the government to pay for the costs to imprison me when I could be out there repairing things. I could help them sell the company or some assets. I know I could make a difference.”

He even wrote a letter to the judge, saying this. But he never mailed it.

“Bob, no one gives a shit about your proposal,” I argued. “I know you don’t want to hear it. Everyone is angry at you. Same with me. They just want us to be punished. That’s the goal. It’s not what you want to hear. Me neither. But that’s the bottom line.”

“I know,” he persisted. “But it makes no sense.”

“It’s not about sense. And actually, it does make sense. People lost money because of us. They hate us. Makes a lot of sense.”

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 Language of Prison

John DiMenna — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 22:01:09 GMT

Another excerpt from my prison journal, written while I was still incarcerated

THE LANGUAGE OF PRISON

The language of prison
is not
words;
it is time and scars
which are
everywhere.

But only we
can see
them.

Time here is the only
measure that
matters.

But once here,
even for a
day,
you carry the language
with you.

Justice Notes: Origins of A Memoir

John DiMenna — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 22:01:46 GMT

One of the earliest versions of my memoir wasn't interested in chronology as much as psychology. I was trying to capture the state of mind that preceded my downfall rather than recount the events themselves. Reading it now, I recognize both its limitations and its urgency.

BEFORE THE FALL

I loved my life.

Our converted carriage house in that pristine village of ours. The greenery of our backyard out the bay window in our bedroom or some other color of another season’s magic when all of them were beautiful in their own way because our life was beautiful and only me to ruin it which I knew I was capable of but convinced myself that that was past and I was a changed man and of course I was because everyone was telling me that I was, in fact, I was now a seer and becoming a legend and failure only a ghost I had overcome, and of course I believed it.

So we went on that way for years, decades even while the creeping conundrum festered opaquely and I purchased one new beautiful property after another so that the next one saved the other one and if that one didn’t then we could find another one that did until we had all of these beautiful properties that looked like a mini empire but were not an empire but together they hid the flaws because they were the opposite of the sum is more than their parts because the sum was less than the parts but I went on purchasing until there was no more purchasing to be done and my time was up and everybody fell with me which is the worst part about all the purchasing because the more of it you do then there are more people that go down with you and it is them that haunts you because the web of them is so much more than you can stand, so much more that the only way to survive it is to become vacuous and delusional which is what Bill said I was and maybe he was right and when I finally realized that the sky was falling and the world was starting to figure it out and pursued me day and night, it was my office that became a haven, especially in the early mornings when it was quiet and I was alone and no calls coming and no one else in the building except the solo guard at reception who always greeted me with a warm smile and acknowledging me in that way that made me feel like all was well and I was going to figure it all out because I’m a kind boss and a good man or at least he seemed to think so and at least made me believe that he felt that which is just as good after a night of nightmares or wakeful lying in bed planning and plotting exits and tactics and outcomes and saving graces and last-minute turnarounds and replaying turning points as if there are any or do they go back so far that there were no turning points because they were just events leading up to the inevitable failure that was always there inside me and all of it was just forestalling and foreboding.

This excerpt is from one of the earliest versions of my memoir. During a writing workshop I took with Tom Jenks, one of the country’s most respected editors and the author of The Poetics of Fiction, he told me there was “a lot of good writing in the manuscript.” But he also believed it lacked the coherent narrative structure needed to sustain a book. His suggestion was to use this manuscript as source material for a longer, traditionally structured memoir. That advice ultimately formed the basis for A Prison of My Own, the memoir my agent is currently submitting to publishers.

Justice Notes is an ongoing series examining incarceration, rehabilitation, storytelling, institutional power, and the lives that exist behind prison walls.

Prison Camp: Daily Life

John DiMenna — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 22:00:56 GMT

The following is the original introduction to A Muddled Brotherhood, a collection of portraits of the men with whom I served my sentence in a federal prison camp. Over the past several weeks, I’ve been publishing some of those portraits here.

A MUDDLED BROTHERHOOD

When I arrived at federal prison, a minimum-security camp north of Boston, a muddled brotherhood was waiting for me. It was a diverse group of one hundred and twenty inmates, comprised of Hispanic drug dealers, Black gang members, violent offenders, insurance fraudsters, internet scammers, income tax cheats, sex offenders and white-collar offenders like me. Those with more serious violations had earned their transfers to the camps through good behavior at higher security prisons, and most were serving the last few years of their sentences. I was the oldest inmate at the camp, having turned seventy-six a few months before my arrival.

At first, it was more wilderness than community. But over time, we coalesced into a community, a true melting pot if there ever was one. Since my release, I’ve had time to reflect on those who were most impactful, whether they were friends, inmates I worked with or those I didn’t interact with but were present for me in some fashion and were a significant part of my experience.

Below are portraits of those inmates who continue to haunt me as I try, like all of them, to reassemble my life after prison.

THE SALESMAN

Jimmy worked at a family company that sold sea-food internationally. He had been good friends with Jack, the Sea-food King. They also owned some restaurants. Jimmy was a principal and head of sales. I never knew what actually happened except he was in for wire fraud and some kind of financial malfeasance. There were a lot of us. Jimmy was the quintessential salesman, full of stories, personality and fun. He had been in the main prison for a few months when he arrived.

“No fuckin way you want to get transferred there,” he said. “This place is the Four Seasons compared to that.”

“That bad?” I asked.

“Shit yeah. But I learned a lot of things there.”

“Like what?

“Restraint. Most important lesson in prison. Restraint. I come across easy going here. But believe me, I was a pain in the ass in my old life. Doesn’t work here.”

Jimmy transferred to the kitchen when Eddie, the baker, left and he showed a lot of restraint there. He knew nothing about baking, but he taught himself somehow. He was always joking and making light of everything. He gave no shit to the staff or anyone else. He’d give me a fresh muffin during my shift.

“Hey Big John. You look like you eat too many salads.” And he’d slip it on top of the washing machine so the CO wouldn’t see it.

But one day, he crossed a line and showed us his teeth. Shaw, a prickly Black guy who was in kitchen maintenance for a while, had a problem with the TV in the mess hall. There were two TVs there. Usually set to news on one and sports on the other. Shaw would turn the sports TV to a Black talk-show when he arrived in the kitchen. The rest of us just put up with it. Jimmy too. Except one day he called Shaw out. Shaw was in the mess hall taking a break. The kitchen TVs hung from the ceiling. There was no remote for them. A pole from a broom lay in the corner under the TVs to change the channels. Jimmy came out and without saying a word, grabbed the pole, shut off the TV and went back to the kitchen. Shaw just sat there for a minute like he couldn’t believe what happened. I was washing trays and was the only guy to witness this. Finally, Shaw reacted and stormed into the kitchen after Jimmy. The CO was in his office and never came out. Shaw didn’t touch him but went nose to nose while everyone stopped in still frame.

“Hey you little fucker. I’ll waste your fucking ass you do that again.”

Jimmy didn’t push back, walked away and, fortunately, Shaw went back to the mess hall and turned his program back on. Shaw was serving his last year. Guys don’t want to scuttle their release. Especially long-termers like Shaw who was in for twelve years. That was the end of it. The whole episode didn’t make sense and Jimmy never talked about it. Something about it I admired, but it didn’t change any of my ways. If anything, I just committed to low profile all the more. It didn’t make me feel any better about myself though. It’s almost an oxymoron in prison. Feeling good about yourself. There were a lot of moments like that. Opportunities to reframe the narrative about yourself. Do something heroic. Defend Jimmy. Confront Shaw. But nothing like that ever happened. I just knew I let everyone down in my former life. So much money lost, lives shattered, especially people I loved the most and those who most relied upon me. It didn’t seem like I could ever make up for that. And the worst part, I didn’t even try.

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: Home

John DiMenna — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 22:58:43 GMT

Another excerpt from my prison journal, written while I was still incarcerated

HOME

My bunk is seven feet by

eight feet.

I face a cinder block

wall,

a favored view.

And over time I’ve come

to embrace

it.

Even the constant passing of

other inmates,

morph into a pleasant

rhythm.

And occasionally they

peer inside,

but nothing more than

a passing

glance,

that neither of us

acknowledge.

Justice Notes: Origins of A Memoir

John DiMenna — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 22:01:43 GMT

One of the earliest versions of A Prison of My Own wasn't written as a conventional memoir. This excerpt comes from the original hybrid manuscript, before I found the narrative structure that ultimately became the book. The stream-of-consciousness style was a deliberate attempt to capture the breathless disorientation of entering prison.

THE CAMP

I was released from solitary after three days. Turns out they send every new guy there. A warning, the guys tell me. “Scare your ass so you don’t fuck around inside,” said Rasta, one of my new brotherhood along with Mohammed, in fact two Mohammeds, Big Mohammed and Little Mohammed, The Codfather, Lumi the killer, Mac the Knife, Primo the Spanish brawler and Steve, regular, nice guy Steve. And thank goodness for Steve till I met Mike the Greek and Dark Tony and sad Bob, not scary but old and still in prison and compromised, can barely walk to meals and back, which will be me in a few years, and Smitty, a long timer, ten years and counting, a once wealthy guy, bitter, no longer fighting, angry at those who still are. I mentioned my appeal, which pissed him off, so hard to know what will trigger reactions, and hard to figure out a seat at meal time even though my bunkie, a young Spanish guy with a long sentence and sad eyes but a good attitude, tried to break me in, a kid younger than all my children and all of them looking at me like what did I do?, a life sentence, an old man like me, and I learned early on after that to craft your bio like everyone else so that you were screwed by somebody: a lawyer, a judge, a girlfriend, a colleague, whatever; but whatever it was, it “sure as shit” wasn’t you.

And then there’s the staff. The motherfuckers, the assholes, the douche bags who have it worse than us because they don’t get to leave as if that’s really something even though they go home at night, take vacations, have wives, children, lives, even divorces—so what, they have lives. At least that’s the way I see it but you don’t let on. You just go with it because you better learn early to make your way in prison and I’m just getting started.

Justice Notes is an ongoing series examining incarceration, rehabilitation, storytelling, institutional power, and the lives that exist behind prison walls.

Prison Camp: Daily Life

John DiMenna — Sun, 12 Jul 2026 20:52:55 GMT

The following is another profile from my prison memoir, A Muddled Brotherhood, a collection of portraits of the men with whom I served my sentence in a federal prison camp. I call him the Walker because I can’t remember his name.

THE WALKER

He was an old man, a long termer who served in several federal prisons before arriving in our camp. He arrived with a checkered reputation: some said he was a lifetime criminal, stole from his mother-in-law and others said he was a Vietnam vet and an honorable medal winner. He evoked neither. Quiet and unassuming, he was a slight man with thin spindly hair pacing the halls at all hours of the day with a set of rosary beads in hand. He’d offer fruit to new arrivals pretending they were a gift but over time he’d request a favor or something from the commissary in return. Other inmates chastised him, openly cursed him. But he never responded, he just kept walking the hallway from the dorm down to the kitchen and back over and over again. Occasionally a corrections officer would scold him and he’d go out to the track carrying the same set of rosary beads and continue with a frenetic pace, as if holding back a desire to run.

He was deferential to me, offering “Good Mornings” passing in the hall. I asked him about the fruit for the new arrivals and he got very upset. He said he never asked for anything from anyone. Than he showed me his locker. It was empty of any food or snacks or anything from the commissary. Only his clothes and a broken radio. I never did come to a decision about him. He was still walking the halls when I was released. He was the last inmate I saw when I walked out the door.

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 Community

John DiMenna — Thu, 09 Jul 2026 22:00:09 GMT

Another excerpt from my prison journal, written while I was still incarcerated

THE COMMUNITY

Ours is a community

of lonesome

souls.

Collectively the bonds

are razor

thin,

and razor

ready.

Our only real bond,

the shakels we

share,

and the growing daily

resentment of the

staff that rule

us.

But sudden uprisings of

little things:

the jump in line,

a light turned on,

confirm the fragile

nature of our

peace,

and it’s pretentious

thread.

Justice Notes: Origins of A Memoir Part IV

John DiMenna — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 22:00:38 GMT

One of the earliest versions of A Prison of My Own wasn't written as a conventional memoir. Before it became the book my agent is now submitting to publishers, it began as a hybrid manuscript—part memoir, part prose poem, part journal, part meditation. Rather than simply recounting events, I was trying to capture the emotional landscape of entering prison. Looking back, I can see this opening was searching for a truth that later drafts expressed in a different way.

DRIVING TO PRISON

My brother said it would be an hour. But it was longer. I’m not sure how much longer, but it was longer. And it shouldn’t have felt longer. I was driving to prison after all. My brother was driving, my wife in the back, my nephew also in the back. Not sure how we did that. It didn’t really matter as everything was going to be awkward, just nobody wanted to say it. The weather met the mood. Rain. Heavy rain most of the way. My brother’s driving a bit fragile, his age showing, his discomfort too, even more so, evidenced by the silence, and long silences. I could feel my wife’s discomfort the most because only she knows and she knows they don’t want to know. If they could turn the car around and pretend, they would gladly do it. The desperate palpable call for laughter; and there was. I said something funny, intentionally so. And it was funny but not that funny. It didn’t matter; my brother and nephew responded heartily. I couldn’t see my wife but I didn’t have to. I’m sure she wasn’t laughing, probably not even smiling. Her husband on the way to prison, what’s there to laugh about: the dreadful arrival looming, the awkward goodbyes in everyone’s mind, each planning their own. But you can’t really plan for a goodbye like this. You think you can and in fact you do but then something else comes out and it’s never right because there is nothing right to say because there is nothing to say. And at the end of the day, all everyone wants is for it to be over: the arrival, the goodbye, the drive there, the drive home and maybe tomorrow it will be over.

The desperate, palpable call for laughter, and there was.

There were many roads, changes of routes, exits to manage, a pause in the GPS, lost for a while and the rain relentless. In some ways, welcome distractions and finally the false relief to find the right exit and manage the confusing entrance only to realize we were there and there it was, the steel building right in front of us like it moved there in front of us instead of driving up to it. Nothing like you imagined but everything you feared. There was no plan nor rehearsal for the drop off: would it be a walk-in or should we stay in the car or come in or just my wife or all of them or none of them and what parting words, hopeful or sad or encouraging or preachful or humorous (certainly not that) and what about my words: steely or brave or resigned or clueless (nobody would believe that one, denial yes, but not clueless) or no words, just the embrace, the wave or tears maybe. No tears. Numb more like it. But numb with fear. I’ve always been good at hiding that.

“Are you as brave as you seem?”, my wife asked me at the prison door. I don’t remember what I said, something reassuring. But I wasn’t being brave and she knew it. She just was kind and let me pose it. There were no tears. Embraces yes. But no tears. I left them all at the car and walked through the door alone. I wasn’t brave.

Justice Notes is an ongoing series examining incarceration, rehabilitation, storytelling, institutional power, and the lives that exist behind prison walls.

Prison Camp: Daily Life

John DiMenna — Sun, 05 Jul 2026 22:15:13 GMT

The following is another profile from my prison memoir, A Muddled Brotherhood, a collection of portraits of the men with whom I served my sentence in a federal prison camp. Jack was the camp wise-man. Everyone went to him for advice at one time or another.

THE SAGE

Jack, known as the Seafood King, was the unofficial wise man of the camp. Most inmates sought him out for advice, including the Black guys. A burly, imposing former Marine, he quelled that initial impression with a radio voice and a welcoming expression. His voice had a baritone staccato rhythm that made you feel comfortable when he invited you into his bunk, always with a knowing smile. Dr. Phil would have been envious of his voice and demeanor, his calm reasonableness about all things.

He was in for income tax fraud, although he claimed it was merely a miscalculation by his accountant. It’s hard to know because all inmates edit their bios. I was no exception. But I always believed Jack because there was nothing phony about him. He bunked next to me upon my arrival. He offered me toiletries, snacks, and an extra blanket on my first night there, a freezing cold evening due to a howling snowstorm raging outside.

His wife, who lived nearby, visited him every visiting day, three days a week. She was a plump, dear, shy woman who Jack said was lost without him, rumbling around in a large colonial near Boston—the only asset the Feds didn’t attach—as FedEx packages and foreclosure notices arrived daily. Jack spent all of their visiting time walking her through them. She was in a constant state of high anxiety. On those visiting days, she always tried to be friendly to the guards who checked her in. It was sad to watch how none of that ever seemed to work. They greeted her each time as if they had never seen her before, while she endured all of the same protocols: searches, pat downs, and identifications.

Certain inmates are given a party before they are released. Jack’s was a notable one because every ethnic group contributed something, including tacos and enchiladas from the Spanish guys and a cake from Izzy the gangster rapper. The mess hall was packed for Jack, and he gave a lovely speech telling everyone that he had learned from all his interactions with others that “everyone deserves a second chance.” When he got out, he said, he would make sure that anyone who called him would have a job, once he got his company back. A lot of guys make those promises. Few ever follow through. But I believe Jack did. I never could find out because I’ve never followed up with anyone. That’s probably why there wasn’t a party for me when I was released. I arrived as a ghost and I left as a ghost.

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: Grief

John DiMenna — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 22:01:39 GMT

Another excerpt from my prison journal, written while I was still incarcerated

A DIFFERENT KIND OF GRIEF

Crossing over from the sleep that holds the secrets, I’m confronted by a different kind of grief. Not death, lifes regular order, but my lost life still playing out in dark background, retracing and revising all those turning points and crossroads that know the secrets, revealing themselves only in dreams of ambiguous code. All the epiphanies that wakeful promises disappoint, leading me back at the end of the day, to that uncomfortable sleep and its terrifying nocturnal reels.

Justice Notes: Origins of A Memoir Part III

John DiMenna — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 23:00:12 GMT

Continuing the series regarding the origins of my memoir, this was the introduction to the first manuscript I assembled after leaving prison. Long before A Prison of My Own took shape, I believed the prison experience demanded a different form—part journal, part poetry, part memoir, part meditation. Looking back now, I can see how dark my thinking still was. But I can also see the beginnings of the manuscript that would eventually evolve.

INTRODUCTION

I’d been crossing lines and running from my sins since kindergarten. They finally caught up with me at age seventy-six, and I was sentenced to eighty-five months in prison for two counts of wire fraud. The presiding Judge told me that I had already sentenced myself to a prison without bars, but a prison nonetheless, a prison of the soul, that I was not connected to humanity, disconnected to what makes life meaningful and worthwhile. I had a challenging life ahead, he said, and I must figure out how to release myself from this prison of my own making. When I entered prison, the disconnect from humanity was complete. It appeared to me that my life, with eighty-five months of incarceration looming, was essentially over. Fortunately, I received a reprieve after eighteen months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and I was subsequently released and confined to Home Incarceration for the remainder of my sentence.

During those eighteen months of incarceration, I embraced a life of contemplation, of renewal and the agony of self-reflection. I kept a daily log/journal. But the effort evolved into a more nuanced, hybrid form of writing that is, hopefully, more likely to overcome the ineffability of the penal experience. 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 day-to-day confinement. I have added to that post-prison. I’ve tried to recall the visceral presence of prison in my post-prison writings as best I can. Much of the enclosed was written at my bunk with other inmates passing, 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.

You can survive prison, and you can recover from prison, but prison never leaves you. The most painful part of prison is that it confronts us with ourselves and furthers in each inmate an excruciating self-loathing. During my time there, I determined that my failure was a failure of character, something inherent, intrinsic and inevitable. Crisis is the test of character; the crisis came and I failed the test. I concluded that men can always dream of a new start and redemption but can never extinguish the history of their malfeasance. Based on that conclusion, and the reality of my age, now at seventy-eight, I can only focus on the depiction of my experience as a cautionary tale and leave the prospect of new starts to the next generation. The leadup and the narrative that presaged my incarceration, I’ll leave to another project that will require 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 it.

During a writing workshop I took with Tom Jenks, one of the country's most respected editors and the author of The Poetics of Fiction, he told me there was "a lot of good writing in the manuscript." But he also believed it lacked the coherent narrative structure needed to sustain a book. His suggestion was to use this manuscript as source material for a longer, traditionally structured memoir. That advice ultimately formed the basis for A Prison of My Own, the memoir my agent is currently submitting to publishers.

Justice Notes is an ongoing series examining incarceration, rehabilitation, storytelling, institutional power, and the lives that exist behind prison walls.

Prison Camp: Daily Life

John DiMenna — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 22:01:51 GMT

The following is another profile from my prison memoir, A Muddled Brotherhood, a collection of portraits of the men with whom I served my sentence in a federal prison camp. Dee was one of the quietest men I met there. His kindness was never announced, only revealed in the small, everyday acts that often said the most about a person's character.

THE JAMAICAN

Everyone called him Dee. I never knew his real name. He was a Black Jamaican in his mid-60’s, who worked with me in the kitchen. He was “number two” in the kitchen (prison speak for assistant chef) on the AM shift. As the number two man, most of his work was in prep, slicing and dicing. A deliberate, meticulous worker, he moved so carefully in the kitchen that he never seemed to be in the way, despite the tight quarters we worked in. He had a kind face and never once lost his temper. He never appeared to be in a hurry, walking to or away from the dorm with the same deliberate stride. Although not estranged from the Black community, he was independent from them. He was more educated than most of the Black inmates who were there for drugs and/or gang membership. He had a deep, sonorous voice and a distinct island accent that was rich and hypnotizing.

Although he had a kind, even-keeled temperament, he was passionate about politics. He loved Donald Trump, guarding the television during our work hours in the kitchen to make sure it was always tuned to Fox news. We didn’t connect at first. He told me later on that when I first arrived to work in the kitchen, he thought I would be a prima donna. He said that he changed his mind about me after I didn’t shy away from the “dirty work.” After that he was always friendly, never missing to say good morning or acknowledging me in the halls with a nod and a smile. He approached me once about politics but I told him that I didn’t discuss politics with anyone. And if I did, he wouldn’t want to be my friend. He smiled broadly and put his hand on my shoulder. “That’s ok John John,” which is what he called me. “Not everyone is born with brains,” he said with an even bigger smile.

He had great patience, never complained and he was always the last to finish his meal. When he’d place his tray for me to clean, he’d always bow slightly and say “Thank you.”

I never did find out what he was in for. We never communicated outside of the kitchen except for one time when someone told him that my mattress needed fine tuning. There was a way to tie your sheets to make the mattresses more comfortable. I don’t even know how he knew about it. But he arrived unannounced, proceeded to push me out of the way and remade my bed, tying the sheets in the prison fashion—a complicated process using shoelaces and bits of toilet paper—to make the mattress more balanced and supportive. Almost everyone in the kitchen pilfers some food, especially apples and bananas. But I never saw Dee take anything.

The night before I was released, he came by my bunk, put his hand on my shoulder and shook my hand. “Good luck John John. I’m happy for you. You’re a good man.” I don’t feel like a good man any more. It meant a lot to hear that from Dee. But for some reason, every time I think about him, I’m overcome by remorse and guilt.

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: God

John DiMenna — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 22:02:08 GMT

Prison has a way of turning conversations toward ultimate questions. God. Justice. Redemption. Fate. Men who had never prayed found themselves praying. Others who had always believed discovered that belief had become more complicated.

I wasn’t searching for certainty so much as understanding. During my time at the camp I copied passages into my journal that seemed to articulate questions I couldn’t yet answer. This was one of them. It has remained with me ever since.

“I had always gone about my days with the assumption of some unseen but dimly legible order beneath the bright clatter of Creation. In leaving the theism of my Muslim childhood behind, I never did entirely abandon it’s deepest underlying logic. I didn’t know if there was anything like a God. I didn’t care. But it was mostly clear to me we were not just castaways in some tohubohu bearing an ensign of meaning only for those desperate enough to concoct one: I felt mostly certain more was going on than met the eye-despite not having a real clue just what “more” might entail. My assuredness on these matters owed less to faith than it did to experience, for I’d been hearing echoes of the uncanny since early childhood.”

Ayad Akhtar

I never did figure it our for myself. It seemed to me that in prison, the only true God was freedom.

Justice Notes: Origins of A Memoir Part II

John DiMenna — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 21:21:31 GMT

Last week I wrote about the origins of my memoir—how the project came into being and why I felt compelled to write it. But another question lingered throughout the process: Why tell the story at all?

After a guilty plea, a public sentencing, and imprisonment, wasn’t the account already complete? This draft, written as a possible preface to the manuscript, wrestles with that question.

PREFACE

Writing a confessional memoir is always a challenge. Considered a pejorative, something for knaves and weak hearts, it’s a daunting task, especially describing a criminal biography. Despite entering a guilty plea, admitting all wrongdoing, and a high-profile public airing of my fall from grace, the retelling, depicting in detail all the events that transpired, was a painful enterprise, almost worse than the experience itself. All those dirty little secrets come to light, like the naked bathers at low tide. I have been so fortunate to have so many continue to support me despite my inexcusable behavior. People who will continue to be burdened by my criminal legacy.

I’ve deliberated during these many months while writing this whether this cautionary tale is worthwhile, because it will impact all of them again, especially my wife, children, and other family members. What purpose would be served by a public rehashing of the events that so disrupted their lives and that continue to impact them? But they have encouraged me to do so, not to offer a defensive alternative narrative─none is justified─but to honestly chronicle the events because it is noble to do so. Redemption can only take place after complete and honest accountability. And by doing so, achieve a measure of redemption for both of us, because they need it as much as I do, having been smeared along with me. Such is the tragedy of criminality. It has long legs.

Justice Notes is an ongoing series examining incarceration, rehabilitation, storytelling, institutional power, and the lives that exist behind prison walls.

Prison Camp: Daily Life

John DiMenna — Sun, 21 Jun 2026 22:01:19 GMT

The following is another profile from my prison memoir, A Muddled Brotherhood, a collection of portraits of the men with whom I served my sentence in a federal prison camp. Like many of the inmates I came to know, Robert (Bubba) was far more complicated than the crime that brought him there.

THE FOOTBALL PLAYER

Bubba (Robert to me) was a former NFL lineman who became a successful mortgage originator after his playing days. A big, intimidating man, he still carried the presence of the violent game with him. He had a compelling face and a fearless demeanor. But he was more of a businessman than an athlete. He looked like he should be commissioner of the NFL or, at the least, the player’s union president.

He was in prison for financial violations. He arrived at the camp with a chip on his shoulder, aloof and above the fray. He told me he didn’t ‘come to prison to make friends. Just do his time and get out. He was reading Mandela’s memoir when he arrived. He told me that “Nelson Mandela used prison to plan for the future.”

He sat where he wanted in the dining hall, taking a seat allocated to another inmate. Seats in the dining and TV rooms were unofficially reserved for specific inmates. A new arrival usually had to wait several weeks to identify an unreserved seat. Robert sat wherever he wanted. Surprisingly, no one confronted him.

According to Robert, a former employee embezzled funds from his company. However, when indicted by federal regulators, she negotiated a plea deal based on irregularities she claimed she had witnessed at Robert’s company. Robert denied the irregularities, but for reasons I never understood, he pleaded guilty to wire fraud and was sentenced to 24 months. He was someone who spoke endlessly about his case and the injustice of it, repeating the story ad nauseum. I didn’t like him initially. I was intimidated by him like other inmates. But we became friends when I was relocated to a bunk next to him. Someone told him I was in the real estate business, like him. After that, he was in my bunk all the time. Mainly with the exact retelling of his mistreatment: the employee who embezzled him and subsequently turned him in for nothing he did, and what his lawyer didn’t do and the Judge didn’t understand, and the prosecutor didn’t give a shit, and he and I should have been partners.

He had a wisdom about him. Maybe it was from growing up as the only Black family in a white-only town. His father, a contractor, installed septic systems, and his mother was an educator. He had five siblings, all solid and productive. An impressive presence when he arrived, he was six feet five and two hundred and ninety pounds. But he worked out soon after arriving, and by the time we became friends, he was down thirty pounds.

When we first connected, he was reading a book about grammar. He became consumed by it and constantly asked me about past participles, conjunctions, prepositions, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, and advanced grammar: direct and indirect speech. I don’t know why he thought I knew. I’d answer him like I knew just to end the conversation. His grammar book was thick. I never thought he’d finish it, but he did. He said he always tried to complete anything he started. No matter how insignificant. He said there’s always growth when you complete something. Anything.

Like him, I had been in real estate, and he had become convinced that we could start our own company once we were released. I never took it seriously. I was approaching eighty and couldn’t see myself with the energy to launch a new career. I was hoping to find anything to make it the rest of the way when I got out. I had given up on all the big ventures. But I never told Robert that.

I was released in May 2020. Robert was scheduled to be released a few weeks after me. He said just before I was released, “Promise me we’ll connect when you get out.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Lying fuck,” he answered with a rare smile. Then he waved his arm down and went back to his bunk.

He was right. I never reached out. I can still see him pouring through that thick book of grammar, lying on his bunk, small strips of loose-leaf paper sticking out like ribbons between the pages. I don’t know why I haven’t called him. But I try and complete everything now.

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: Being Here

John DiMenna — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 22:01:13 GMT

Another entry from my prison journal.

BEING HERE

The being here never

leaves[ you,

not even for a

moment.

Every morning starts

the same.

Day one or a thousand

and one,

I should be somewhere

else.