I’ve been incarcerated in New York State for 20 years straight, serving a 28-years-to-life sentence for murder and selling drugs. I’ve also been married twice, meeting both wives from ads I placed on prison pen-pal websites.
Category: Writing
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Who Deserves Mercy?
When I was on trial for murder almost twenty years ago, I remember moments of civility between my lawyer, the prosecutor, and the judge. I could tell that the prosecutor and the judge resented me for the same reasons my mother did.
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A Canon for the American Prisoner
In 2001, Reginald Dwayne Betts was about five years into a nine-year sentence in a Virginia prison for a carjacking he’d committed at age sixteen. That was the year that I shot and killed a man on a Brooklyn street, when I was twenty-four years old.
In this essay for The New York Times, John J. Lennon writes to Gov. Hochul about how she can transform New York’s clemency process.
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The Shakedown at Sing Sing
In this essay for Esquire, John J. Lennon writes about an ultimatum he was handed at Sing Sing: pay up or get shivved (again). But John chose a third option.
In this essay for Quinnipiac Magazine, John J. Lennon writes about the need for an increase in educational offerings in our corrections system.
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How Vaccine Hesitancy Spread in My Prison
In this essay for The New York Times, John J. Lennon writes about how distrust for the American government may effect the vaccine rollout throughout our corrections system.
As one blockmate after another fell ill, John J. Lennon and his fellow prisoners tried to stay safe and care for one another. In this essay for the The New York Times Sunday Magazine, John recounts the arrival of Covid-19 — and its aftermath — to Sullivan Correctional Facility.
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The Cost of Calling My Mom From Prison
For incarcerated people like John J. Lennon, access to communications comes at a steep price.
In an op-ed for the New York Times, John discusses the impact JPay — a prison communications platform — has had on him, his career, and his day-to-day existence, both positive and negative.
In this article for The Chronicle of Higher Education, John J. Lennon writes about the endless opportunities for people like himself, now that the ban on Pell Grants for prisoners has been lifted.