Michael Bennett and Denzel Glover
Editor’s Note: This is part of our series exploring the juvenile justice landscape in Pittsburgh with a focus on education and mental health. These stories were funded by Staunton Farm Foundation and The Grable Foundation. You can read other essays from inside of the juvenile justice system here and here.
Over 20 juveniles are incarcerated at the Allegheny County Jail under Pennsylvania’s Act 33, a law which mandates that children as young as age 14 are charged as adults for certain crimes considered to be serious by lawmakers. Read our investigation into ACT 33 cases and juveniles at the Allegheny County Jail here.
Many incarcerated people report that being unable to help and lend emotional support to friends and family contributed to feelings of deep isolation. This disconnection from community is one of the most difficult aspects of life for them.
The following are correspondence between Michael Bennett and Denzel Glover, a young man who is incarcerated. Bennett and Glover met when Bennett was teaching creative writing in the Allegheny County Jail. Glover was a juvenile at the time, housed at the ACJ. They have maintained correspondence now that Glover is an adult and is housed in a Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution.
This is the second part of a three-part series. Read the first installment here.
Part 2
11/4/23
Dear Denzel,
I was so glad to receive your response. I worried that my letter would get lost, or that your response would take months to move through the system, or that I wouldn’t see the envelope when it arrived; I thought I might mistake it for junk mail and throw it into the trash. But last Friday, when I came home from teaching, there was a white envelope on my porch. It was not in the mailbox, but wedged into the soil of a plant next to my front door. I picked it up and saw that it was from the DOC, with your name in blue ink, and I opened it to find the yellow paper inside with your words.
I have never received a letter in that place before. I don’t know how it ever got there. Did someone mistakenly receive it and deliver it to my address? Did it fly out of the mailbox and float, five feet across my porch, into the plant? Whatever it was, the envelope caught my attention, as if the letter, the paper, the very words themselves demanded to be read.
I am so sorry to hear about all the struggles you’ve endured in prison. Five years and counting, with 220 days in solitary. How in the world do you keep track of all these hours, all this time? The years you’ve served, and the years you might have left, and the years you will face even when you are done upstate—it must be so overwhelming. I imagine it is like being locked in a room, knowing that even when you escape, there is another door, another lock. I realize how silly that sounds, because it’s not like that, it is that. You are locked in a room, within a building, within a compound of barbed wire, and even when you escape this room, this building, this compound, you will be bussed to another compound, another building, another room. There are no metaphors strong enough to describe the reality you’re facing. The truth is brutal enough.
But your words do give me hope. If you told your parole board anything like the plan you wrote to me, I think it would be hard for them not to see that you deserve your freedom, that you’re fully prepared for a life outside of prison. I know that parole hearings don’t always go that way, that they are not always judicious or reasonable. But I hope they saw what I see in you, and what you see in yourself.
Do they know that you are facing another 5 years when you are done here? Does that have any influence on your release? They are not determining when you are ready to be free, after all, but when they are ready to be done with you. It feels barbaric to me. They have confined you
for long enough. I hope that this letter does not reach you upstate. I hope I get it back and I have to send it somewhere else, where it will find you serving the last of your time in prison.
When I taught at SCI Pittsburgh, a lot of the guys in my writing group were older men who were serving long sentences, some of them for life. I saw them mentoring younger guys, teaching them or giving them advice about how to navigate the system. They knew that they weren’t getting out of the prison, so they wanted to make a different for the people who were. Is anyone helping you in there? Do you have any mentors in your pod? Are there older folks who have offered their friendship, or support? Is it too hard to trust people? I know you said that all you have in prison is your respect, but there must be other ways to earn respect besides fighting.
Last night, I was eating dinner with my family at a little sushi place in Market Square. While we were waiting for our sushi, three girls came in and sat down next to us, and one of them had a plastic bag full of yellow paper that looked just like the letter you sent me. They ordered their sushi and then they sat down and plugged in their phones, and the girl holding the plastic bag started facetiming her friends and family. “I’m home,” she said, almost singing it. “I’m out of jaillll, I’m out of jaillllll!”
It was a small restaurant, so we could hear every conversation. She called a few friends, and told them to come and meet her downtown, and then she called her mother, who kept telling her to be careful, to behave herself and do all her community service. She said she was worried about her going right back to jail. Her father didn’t pick up at first, but he did on the second try, and all these people were sharing her joy, happy to see her face out in the world, as she put tiny pieces of sushi into her mouth, her first meal out of ACJ.
Of course, I could only think of you, having a moment like this in the future. Will you have friends or family pick you up from the prison, or meet you somewhere and treat you to dinner on your first night home? Or will there be a party for you at someone’s house, with all your favorite homemade food and snacks and drinks and people waiting for you?
How often are you able to see your son, or your mother? Do they visit you in person, or via video chat? Who else do you keep in touch with? Has anyone surprised you by being more supportive than you imagined? When my grandfather died this past year, I was so surprised by the amount of people who came to his funeral, or reached out to me. It made me realize how showing up for other people can really make a difference, whether it was in person or over a
call. And now I regret all the times I didn’t send a text, or made some excuse for not attending a funeral, or didn’t reach out when I knew someone was low. I imagine it must be like this in prison—you see who is really there for you, when you’re really struggling.
I’m sure there will also be pain in your homecoming. It will be difficult to see that the home you find is different than it was nearly a decade prior. All the family and friends you lost who won’t be there to welcome you. I imagine there will be some fear, too, of falling back into situations that might put your life in danger, or land you back in prison. If you stay out of the streets, will that be enough reason for the streets to leave you alone? I hope there is a place you can go where you feel safe and supported, where you can rebuild your life and set your master plan into action. Was there ever such a place for you? Do you have any memories from your childhood where you did feel safe and happy? Could you share some stories of joy, when you were surrounded by people who loved you? Maybe, by remembering those moments, you can manifest them in the future.
I will send you Brothers and Keepers and another book called Writing My Wrongs by Shaka Senghor. He visited ACJ a little after you left the juvi pod, and spoke to the writing classes, and read from his book. He wrote a lot about his time in solitary, and how he kept getting into fights in prison. But he did turn his life around from the inside. He started reading and writing and when he got out of prison all that writing turned into a book. Oprah read it and put it on her booklist and all of a sudden he was a best-selling author. I was thinking of his story, reading your letter. I think you might find some inspiration from his journey, and at the very least, it will give you something else to read to pass the time. Do you still write at all, besides letters? Do you ever journal about your time and your thoughts? It might be a good way to keep your head right. And who knows, maybe you could publish it! Thank you for your patience, and for your words, and for your friendship.
Sending strength and solidarity,
Mr. Mike
01/10/24
Dear Denzel,
I hope this letter finds you safe. Did you receive my last letter? I sent it early November, along with a few books shortly after. Did you receive those? The system for sending books is a little confusing. You have to purchase them through certain sellers that ship them to the prison. Is there a library you can use at Chester? What else are you reading these days? I enjoyed Brothers and Keepers a lot, mostly because it alternates between the two brothers’ points of view, the author and his brother. It makes you see how putting people in prison affects more than just that person. Their absence damages the entire family. I’m sure you and your family can relate. I hope you enjoyed reading it, or at least enjoyed receiving something in the mail. Anything to break up the monotony of the day. Are there any other books you’d like me to send?
Do you have any update on your parole? When do you think you will be leaving the state facility to serve the rest of your time? Are you worried about changing environments? Are there any friends or other parts of your life there that you will miss?
How was your holiday? Did you get to see your son or mother? Does the jail do anything special for Christmas? Do they serve any special food or decorate? Do you guys trade gifts with each other? Or does everyone pretend like it’s just a normal day? There is a story to be written about Christmas in prison.
I just received news that I will be going back into ACJ to teach creative writing to a group of men. They haven’t had creative writing in there since the pandemic. I am excited to go back inside, because I know it’s a service that is greatly needed, that there are lots of guys in there that could use some time off the pod to write and share in a space where they don’t feel threatened or watched. I have to start thinking about some writing prompts to use. Any ideas?
Sending strength and solidarity,
Mr. Mike
Michael Bennett (he/him) is a writer and educator from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Chatham University. He teaches young writers at Pittsburgh’s Creative and Performing Arts High School, and facilitates workshops with incarcerated writers at the Allegheny County Jail through Write Pittsburgh. Michael’s work has appeared in The Normal School, JMWW, Sport Literate, and elsewhere.