I can't count the number of times I've been asked what books and movies I'd recommend to get a better understanding of prison. It's the very nature and design of this world, with all the barriers both real and metaphorical, that makes getting a clear understanding difficult to gain.

Most...

Prison is a world divided up along a series of arbitrary lines. Different races won't even speak to each other in some places. Men of the same race, but of different geographical locations will shun one another, and occasionally try to kill each other, based on longitude and latitude points....

On my locker is a stack of books that fills the space between the lower and upper metal boxes bolted to the wall. In a world too often devoid of books, my collection of heavy, hardbound reference works is a source of constant attention from my fellow prisoners and the...

People send me books all the time. They read articles I've published and assume I would enjoy something else to read. In this age of instantaneous, one-click online shopping, it's easy. And fun, I suppose.

What folks don't know is I'm restricted to ten books, no hard covers.

"Okay Hartman,...

The first time I read Solzhenitsyn's The Cancer Ward I was in the hole for inciting a riot. At the time, I'd served only the first ten years of my life without the possibility of parole sentence. The stark scenes of medical torture performed in dismal Soviet hospitals paralleled my...