narratives of incarceration_1_

"All right, he has now put me in my cell. My name is John Mills, 21, black male, prison...
I wanted to be a police officer, you know what I'm saying?

When I was smaller, I used to think about that all the time, be a police officer.

All the sirens and loud noises and blue lights and stuff....

I know my life just took a big turn somewhere. I just don't know where.

...and I started getting in trouble, kicked off the bus, kicked out of school...

And then when I turned 15, I robbed a store.

Yeah, I'm — I don't think I'm fully recuperated... don't know.

I mean, I look at it like this: I'll always be someone able to rob you...

shoot your house up, take your car, cash a check.

You know, I'll always be that person, I believe.

Can't nothing change this.

It'll always be a memory.

Sometimes I can still remember my first night in prison. I cried like a baby, man.

That's all I did, walk around in circles and cry in my room.

I felt like I was in a cage. You know, I couldn't get out.

Once they turned out the lights, it's pitch black and there's so much yelling going on,

it made me feel I was just sick, I was real sick.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten — that's ten months. I got five years left.

Being in prison, I mean, it's like playing a tape back or something, the same thing over and over again. Nothing changes, nothing at all.