Prison Camp: Daily Life
A White-Collar Journal forum for criminal justice, lived experience, and the personal search for redemption
More excerpts from Becoming an Inmate, my account of daily life inside a federal prison camp.
Letters
I wrote letters. Never sent most of them. To the Judge (never sent it), to my enemies (sent one or two; never heard back), to those I betrayed (I think I did; probably didn’t), to my children (never sent any of those), to my wife (only cards — too much of a coward for more).
At first, I received many letters. I didn’t want them. At least I thought I didn’t, until they stopped. And they do.
Reading
Mostly old news from the major journals: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, all the Boston papers. Guys pass them to friends. A kind of pecking order emerges. Every issue arrives late. At first, you care. News from home matters in the beginning.
Eventually, less and less.
After a while, I stopped reading them. My fading eyesight didn’t help.
In the library, I found New England weeklies from towns I’d never heard of. I read the obituaries — the best place to discover a world. Lives that still read like 1955, some other America than the one I knew. There was surprising comfort in them. In prison, you grasp at straws.
My daughter sent me The New Yorker. For books, I scavenged the computer room shelves for large-print editions. Not a great collection. A lot of Stephen King and James Patterson. Somehow, I found Elena Ferrante. Must have belonged to somebody before I arrived. No one I met there would have read Ferrante.
The library looked like the back aisle of CVS. Nothing in any order. Once, an inmate organized the books, but one morning a CO on a rampage dumped them all onto the floor, and that was the end of that.
My sister sent me large-print books I could actually read. Even then, it was a battle. When I found something with print big enough, it was often too cold to stay in my bunk and read.
Nothing’s easy in prison.
Television
The remote was everything.
Ralph controlled it in the big room. In the kitchen, it moved around. My bunkie Mike started a war over that one. Eventually they put him in the Shoe (Solitary.)
I stayed away from it.
Over time, I watched television less and less and missed it less and less.
Only my radio, after lights out, huddled in my bunk with earphones pressed tight against my ears — blocking out the dorm sounds and the Spanish guys praying — provided the solace I craved.
Neighborhoods
Even inside 10,000 square feet, there were neighborhoods.
No Man’s Land. Spanish Harlem. Harlem. The Middle East. Jerusalem. Northern Boulevard (Queens). Park Avenue (Manhattan).
Those were my names for them.
Not everyone bought in. There were some diverse sections. But over time, inmates chose new bunkies and the tribes converged.
I moved around. Started in Harlem, moved to Park Avenue, then Northern Boulevard, then back to Park Avenue just before release. But by then, Park Avenue was a neighborhood in decline.
Mack the Knife presided.
I was more cautious that time. Learning to become an inmate takes time.
Bunks
As my friend Jack described it:
“Fifty-four square feet with another guy.”
A cubicle six feet high. A steel bunk bed. A three-inch plastic mattress. Two lockers. Two plastic chairs.
One thermostat for 10,000 square feet and no air conditioning in the summer.
It’s not supposed to be comfortable. And they got that right.
Freezing in winter. Oppressive in summer.
Directional fans hung on the walls. Only a few worked well enough for nearby bunks to feel them. The fans could be adjusted, and they caused endless confrontations.
Some guys kept them on in winter to mask their mobile phones after Count. Others needed the white noise to sleep.
I bunked in both sections — with the fan noise and without it.
I slept regardless.
In prison, sleep is the only balm.
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.
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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John, this is excellent writing. What stood out to me most is the restraint in it. You never force emotion onto the reader, which actually makes the loneliness, adaptation, and emotional erosion land harder.
The details are what make it work. Reading obituaries from small New England papers. Discovering Ferrante in prison. The library looking “like the back aisle of CVS.” Those observations humanize the experience in a way statistics and arguments never can.
I also thought the line “In prison, sleep is the only balm” was devastating in its simplicity.
What you capture especially well here is how incarceration changes perception over time. The shrinking of the outside world. The way routines, noise, television, fan placement, and even newspapers begin to structure emotional survival. That feels deeply authentic.
Strong piece, John. Quietly powerful writing.