Grand rising!
A lot has happened since the last time I posted anything to the website. No excuses, but I wear many hats at Prison Nation. I’m the founder, CEO, administrator, editor, and voice of Prison Nation. My name is John, and I served 17-consecutive years in the MDOC. I spent most of my 17-years in Level IV-V, or segregation–a.k.a. “the Hole”–which in Michigan means I was in maximum security.
I’ll go into detail about my experiences in the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) another time. But I wanted to give a little background behind the concept of Prison Nation.
Prison Nation is a multimedia platform that aims to give a voice to the voiceless; a forum and platform for prisoners. I remember when I was a prisoner writing letters to organizations, groups, and attorneys all over the United States, and even to the United Nations in Switzerland. I was just trying to be heard, recognized, and possibly receive some help. I didn’t have a valuable resource or website like Prison Nation that was devoted solely to prisoner issues and causes . . . so, after I was released from prison in 2014, I created one.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: Prison Nation is not anti-police. Rather, Prison Nation stands in solidarity against bad policing. Unfortunately, a lot of the policing in the Prison Nation is bad. The United States leads the world in mass incarceration, and it all begins with policing. It was bad policing when I was 11- or 12-years old, that set me on a path of incarceration, making me a “Ward of the State” by the age of 13, and spitting me out into the PIC in an abusive prison for boys known as the W.J. Maxey Boys’ Training School in Whitmore Lake, Michigan.
It’s funny, and not so funny that Maxey was called a “Boys’ Training School,” and today is still in operation as a MDOC prison. I mean, when I was there in the early eighties, the place was decripted, and needed to be shut down because of the mental, physical, and sexual child abuse that occurred there. Then, following a Department of Justice investigation in 2004, W.J. Maxey was finally shut down in 2015, ostensibly because of budget cuts. Since then, W.J. Maxey was converted into a prison for adults, and I can’t help but wonder how many adults incarcerated there now were incarcerated there as juveniles to receive treatment in W.J. Maxey’s so-called treatment programs. But I digress.
Well, a lot has happened since my last post, and I’ll try to post more often and bring everyone up to date. For now, stay safe out there and remember, it’s a Prison Nation out there, but together we are one; alone we are none.
All for one; one for all.
John A. Dorn, Editor
About The Author
