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Life Inside

“Life Inside” is a weekly series of first-person essays from people who live or work in the criminal justice system.

We're looking for 1,000- to 1,400-word nonfiction pieces about a personal experience you’ve had with the system. We want slices of life rather than full autobiographies. Focus on telling a good story — one that is vivid, surprising, instructive or enlightening to a reader who may not share your frame of reference.

Our writers include people who are currently or formerly incarcerated and those on probation or parole. We also publish work by people who otherwise interact with or work in the system. This includes family members, crime victims, judges, lawyers, police and corrections officers, prison workers, educators, volunteers, social workers and retirees.

We don’t accept poetry, fiction, op-eds or essays that are not related to criminal justice. We don’t publish claims of innocence, and we don’t provide legal help or publicize advocacy campaigns.

To submit a piece, send us a short note introducing yourself and the piece you want us to publish. You can email it to lifeinside@themarshallproject.org or mail it to us.

Please note that we can’t respond to all the messages we receive. If we choose to work on a piece with you, there will be an editing process. Click here for answers to questions people ask us the most.

Ryan Inzana
Life Inside
This Motivational Speaker Faced Down a Tough Crowd: Fellow Lifers
Over 27 years behind bars, Bobby Bostic learned to inspire people in dark places. It all started with the “complete failure” of his first big speech.
An illustration depicts Bobby Bostic, a Black man wearing glasses, a yellow flannel shirt and a gold watch, speaking into a mic at a podium. There are yellow waves and an orange glow surrounding Bobby in the background.
An illustration of a parole board table with two women seated and looking through paperwork while a man in a tie stands as he reads papers in his hands. Images of parole board hearings hang on the walls.
Life Inside November 8
Life Inside, Remixed: A Criminal Justice Reformer Takes on ‘Conveyor Belt Justice’
Carol Shapiro joined the New York parole board to make change. Marathon days, copious paperwork and dysfunctional hearings brought her to tears.
By The Marshall Project
An illustration of a dark-skinned man in an orange jumpsuit carrying a painter’s palette while using a small paintbrush to create a purple comet above him.
Life Inside November 1
Life Inside, Remixed: An Incarcerated Artist Learns to Paint Through the Chaos of Prison
Rafael Rodriguez’s artistic mentor and cellmate, Memo, taught him how to pour his anger and pain into oil painting.
By The Marshall Project
A black-and-white illustration of a man alone in a prison cell with his left leg up on his bed, as light streams in from the windows.
Life Inside October 25
Life Inside, Remixed: Inside the Underground Economy of Solitary Confinement
Here’s how people in “the box” use their ingenuity, collaboration skills and a form of “fishing” to get the goods they need.
By The Marshall Project
An illustration of a pink-colored woman sitting on a chair with her back to the viewer, holding a phone, while her young, bushy-haired son sits across from her, one hand holding a phone to his ear and his other on his face in a distraught pose.
Life Inside October 18
Life Inside, Remixed: The Emotional Toll of Visiting a Son in Jail
Ymilul Bates’ first visit to her son exposed her to cold, distant corrections officers and left her with a question: Did they know her son was loved?
By The Marshall Project
An illustration of a Black man with a goatee and glasses seen from the waist up holding a pile of dirt in his hands from which a plant rises. He is surrounded by flowers and other plants.
Life Inside October 11
Life Inside, Remixed: How I Found Peace in the Prison Garden
Bobby Bostic was only 18 when he was sentenced to 241 years behind bars. To his surprise, weeds, water and soil put the St. Louis native on the path to healing.
By The Marshall Project
An illustration of a brown-skinned man wearing a yellow jail jumpsuit sitting at the edge of a bunk bed, as two bunk beds sit empty in the background.
Life Inside October 4
Life Inside, Remixed: What 90 Days in Jail Taught a Poet About America
Ravi Shankar was born in D.C. to South Indian parents. But it took going to jail for him to fully understand what many other Americans of color face.
By The Marshall Project
An illustration shows a yellow and orange illustration of a person, wearing a tank top, pants and shoes, laying down in a fetal position within a box.
Life Inside September 19
How We Survived Extreme Heat in Prison
Incarcerated journalists detail the first signs of a heat wave in prison — and how they’ve coped with record-breaking temperatures.
By Prison Journalism Project Contributors and
An illustration shows two torn images. In the left image, a medium-skinned man, wearing a green prison uniform, sits at a red table in a visiting room with people in the background. On the right, the image is upside down. It shows the man's parents also sitting at a red table. The mother wears a burnt orange hijab and dark green sweater, while the father wears a jade green long-sleeved buttoned-up shirt.
Life Inside September 6
A Serious Case of Prison Visit Blues
Tariq MaQbool reflects on disruptive COVID-era visitation restrictions that remain in effect at New Jersey State Prison.
By Tariq Maqbool
Three Black women looking pensive toward the right.
Life Inside August 16
A Mother on a Mission for Full Police Transparency
Troy, Alabama, police severely beat Ulysses Wilkerson when he was 17. Seven years later, his mom, Angela Williams, is still fighting for answers.
By Angela Williams as told to
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