Mr. Blackwell is an incarcerated writer. This essay is part of How to Live With Regret, a series exploring the nature of regret and the role it plays in all our lives. Read more about this project ...

We’re taught to think of it as some hardened mental posture—the ability to push through pain, to “toughen up,” to bend and not break. But real resilience doesn’t come from brute strength. It comes ...

On the Friday, March 6, 2026, episode of The Excerpt podcast: “The Alabama Solution” offers rare, unfiltered access inside Alabama’s prison system, exposing the stark human cost of mass incarceration.

The play's author, Gary Farlow, has become a prolific and acclaimed writer over his more than three decades in prison.

Most of us only know what prison life looks like thanks to movies and TV shows — and those tend to exaggerate almost everything. In reality, a lot of what people believe about prison is a mix of myths ...

Daily life in prison and jail isn’t quite what you imagine it to be. While some movies and TV shows manage to capture the essence quite well, they still leave some things out. If you want to get the ...