![]() ![]() The true-crime genre and reality TV shows like Love After Lockup can be pretty exploitative. As an incarcerated journalist, I’m a bit skeptical of outsiders who write about my world. Recently, lying on the bunk of my cell in Sullivan Correctional Facility in upstate New York, I read Elizabeth Greenwood’s Love Lockdown: Dating, Sex, and Marriage in America’s Prisons, an immersive journalistic account of five couples who all met while at least one of them was incarcerated. When I discovered my passion and created a full-blown career as a writer, that became my priority. Twice, because of my anxiety, I couldn’t, and our conjugal was canceled.Īlthough I’ve experienced love in prison, these relationships are difficult to sustain. This one guard in Sing Sing would be in a small bathroom with you, hands on his hips, staring. To be approved, you have to piss in a cup under a guard’s gaze. Danielly and I have been on conjugal visits but not consistently. And if you have a heinous sex crime on your record, then you probably won’t be approved. New York is one of four states that offer conjugals, but not every prison has them. “You want people to forgive you for murder,” she often tells me, “but why can’t you forgive me for cheating?” Still, we stayed friends. She’s fun and feisty, Dominican and a dominatrix (but I ain’t no sub). I’m still technically married to my second wife, Danielly. ![]() I broke it off because I didn’t feel the connection when we started conjugals - the visits officially called the Family Reunion Program and unofficially called “trailers,” which allow some incarcerated people to spend 48 hours with loved ones in a private module home within the prison. ![]() My first marriage lasted three years, 2012 to 2015. I’ve also been married twice, meeting both wives from ads I placed on prison pen-pal websites. I’ve become an immersive journalist in the joint. I’ve been incarcerated in New York State for 20 years straight, serving a 28-years-to-life sentence for murder and selling drugs. Photo-Illustration: Vulture Photo: Simon & Schuster ![]()
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