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. Read the rest of this post...

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. Read the rest of this post...

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. Read the rest of this post...

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. Read the rest of this post...