Prison Pen Pal

Alcatraz

During a Prison & Literature class, my professor assigned us to spend the semester writing to a prison pen pal. I found the idea intriguing, but it also scared me to death.

I was young, probably 27 or so, and was a single mother. I’d had a few run-ins with crazy boyfriends and potential stalkers, so opening myself up to a convicted felon unnerved me. Still, I was curious enough to follow the assignment and picked a prisoner from the line-up.

I wrote a letter introducing myself, though I was very vague about who I was. I used a pseudonym, refusing to give away my real name. I used my work address and hoped that he would never get out of jail and look me up, and I told him almost absolutely nothing about me.

He wrote back a very nice, extremely articulate letter that completely flustered me. He seemed polite and genuine. He said he was serving two years in jail for writing bad checks. He’d fallen into hard times, but that was no excuse for his actions. He vowed never to give in to such desperation again.

He described prison life to me, though he kept it clean. I couldn’t help but wonder how much of his letter was a lie and if any part of it was truth. I wrote back, and looked forward to getting his next letter. But I still worried that I was being stupidly naïve, and somehow putting myself at risk.

I kept up the correspondence while I took the class and read works by admitted criminals and those who adamantly pleaded their innocence. I struggled with the concept of people being falsely accused and imprisoned and wanted to believe that my prison pen pal was truly an upstanding citizen who’d been reformed by his sentence.

Then he wrote and asked me for a picture of myself. This was too personal for me. His request was expected, yet frightening. I felt vulnerable all over again, and worried that he might find me someday. That was the end of the experiment for me. I never wrote back.