land of the unfree

Seventeen years into his 45 year sentence, Michael Santos has written two books on prison life. Here, he writes about the life and rhythms of the ever-growing American prison population.
Friday 20th January

oD Drug Policy Forum: Front Line Report - Week of January 20th 2012

Juliana Willars and Charles Shaw, 20 January 2012
The US celebrated the birthdate of civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. this week, as several states consider legislation to require drug tests for those applying for government assistance. While drug use is certainly not restricted to minorities or the poor, they are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement and subsequently imprisoned. The Dutch government, continuing its swing to the far right, has outlawed a psychoactive plant used almost exclusively by Muslim immigrants -- as one critic of the ban noted, "in other words, black men".
Thursday 8th December

Gaza: reflections on resilience

Jonathan Chadwick, 8 December 2011
There is a danger in giving an account of the human damage sustained there that an image will be given of Gaza as a society of victims. Gaza is an exceptional social, political and economic space full of extraordinary paradoxes. It is not a bomb-site.
Thursday 23rd December

My literary escape from punishment

Michael Santos, 23 December 2004
Inside the prison walls, books can set the mind free. In his eighteenth year of confinement, Michael Santos reflects on a life redeemed by imagination.
Tuesday 21st September

Race in the anti-society

Michael Santos, 21 September 2004
The American high–security prison is a primitive and violent world that encourages a retreat to racial bonding as one of the few guarantees of security. At the borders of white, Hispanic and black gang affiliation, between a criminal past and the hope of a future on the outside, long–term inmate Michael Santos takes us inside a multicultural battleground.
Sunday 25th April

Growing up in prison

Michael Santos, 25 April 2004
Tattooed, tough, and looking to make his name inside, the future seems to hold only more jail time for Jessie. Michael Santos, a veteran of seventeen years, and numerous maximum security prisons, watches, and helps, Jessie grow up inside.
Thursday 11th March

The land of the unfree: America from inside

Michael Santos, 11 March 2004
The Unites States prison population is 2.1 million – over twice the number in 1988, when the first President Bush was elected. Most of them are non-violent drug offenders. Sixteen years after his incarceration for cocaine distribution, Michael Santos reflects on the political cycle he has witnessed from the wrong side of the prison walls.
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