Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Prison Journalism: How have you changed as a person while in prison?

17/04/2024

Prison Journalism: How have you changed as a person while in prison?Jeffrey Shockley is a writer serving a life sentence in the State Correctional Institution-Fayette in Pennsylvania.

by Jeffrey Shockley

17-04-2024 15:13

in Prison Journalism

Prison

Image via Unsplash

I would like to first thank TheSouthAfrican.com community for allowing this opportunity to communicate from beyond the region of South Africa.

--

As simple as it might seem to answer the topic question of how have I changed as a person while in prison, it is a pretty profound question to answer. In prison or out of prison it is the duty of every human being to continue to grow and evolve, yes?

My life before prison was not so much a troubled life; I was gainfully employed, maintained a relationship and was even a member of my community in good standing.

Behind closed doors however, it was a more disruptive environment saddled with depression, alcoholism and drug usage to self-medicate from unresolved childhood issues stemming from abuse, abandonment issues and identity crisis.

--

I was raised by my maternal grandmother from the age of three in a predominately white but diverse neighborhood which stunted my Black education and Black identity.

Coming to prison was a culture shock and by my speech and socializing more with white people it would be remiss to say that I was not readily accepted within the prison's Black population. That is until it was discovered that I could write.

Requests from my brothers to write letters to lawyer's, girlfriends and wives became a means to socialize in a community I was familiar with and yet could not fully identify with because these Black people acted differently from the ones I was raised around.

--

Time tends to take a toll on an individual and serving time in prison makes it that much harder to live. The endless constraints of being told what to do, where you can or cannot go. The constant threat of punishment as you try to live this life in honor of those I have caused harm to adds stress. What if the victim's family member was in this prison?

When I was younger I was the class clown, the jokester to make people laugh. Did not take accountability for anything I did. However, I did accept whatever the punishment was for whatever it was that I had done.

Basically, I had a troubled past going in and out of [county] prison for things like unauthorized use of a motor vehicle; driving under the influence, breaking and entering of a business. All of which came back to haunt me when I received the punishment of a life sentence.

As the comedian Kevin Hart says, you gon' learn today and learn did I do.

How I have changed or what I have learned is that I MUST LIVE FOR ME. In the past it was about who could I impress, make to like me, validate me because of the self-identity issues? Being raised by my grandmother I watched her being of service to many people and that is where I learned it from.

Being a church lady it was nothing to wake up in the early morning hours to find her making fresh baked bread, or cakes or some other form of delectable treat for the church committee; a neighbor who needed, or some other organization that made a request for two dozen this or that.

Grandmom worked as a Private Duty Nurse for several Jewish families which meant for the most part she lived-in; taking care of the elders of that family and the children, cooking and cleaning. Coming home periodically, weekends, to take care of me her 12-13 year old grandson.

What control of my life do I have if my emotions are tied up in what others may think of me?

What goes on around me? Should I strive inside myself to be what everyone thinks I should be, will I know if I lose my identity to who I want to be in my own life?

Prison has its walls and fences around it but the freedom I seek from a yesterday I once lived does not have to define me or confine me to some eternal grave of mistakes made. Will I forget what it is to be free inside my own mind behind time spent living for others who now no longer need me for me?

Those so called friends never heard from again as the prison doors swallow you up, shutting you off from the outside world.

It has been 24 years and I am much older than I was when I got here at the age of 37. Those who know me would say that I am more serious in my attitude, more mature. While the masses may confine their lives inside the prison I am looking beyond these walls and chain link fences to reach out to those who love me.

Those I have hurt with my past deeds.

I am willing to help whomever may need it but in prison that comes at a cost. People will sidle up to you and befriend you to get what they want that you have. So I had to become strong and confident. More self-assured as to who I am in this grand scheme of the prison industrial complex.

One thing that has not changed with me is still being of service. The institution has provided an opportunity to be a Certified Peer Specialist (CPS) worker and I reach out to the men in the Restricted Housing Unit (RHU) helping those with mental health issues or just being an ear to those who need it.

Prison has afforded me the ability to grow into a responsible individual and take an account of my past to lead a better life for tomorrow. Who among us is perfect? So I cannot say that I do not have some of the issues that have held me captive, however, I am able to reach out to some family and friends who love and care enough about me today that yesterday would have locked me out of the house no matter how hungry or dirty I was.

The things I may have lost by coming to prison are nothing compared to the endless, priceless and eternal growth that otherwise may not have occurred in my life.

The joy of a slow walk in the rain, or to sit and stare out the window watching a spider spin a w
LINK: https://www.thesouthafrican.com/culture/prison-journalism/prison-journ...
See more stories from thesouthafrican

Most recent headlines

06/10/2025

France Tlvisions Wins Prestigious 2025 EBU Technology & Innovation Award in Groundbreaking Collaboration with Dalet

France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...

04/09/2025

Monumental Sports & Entertainment and Dalet Win Prestigious 2025 NAB Show Project of the Year Award

Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...

30/08/2025

FCC Slightly Raises Regulatory Fees for TV Stations

WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...

29/08/2025

Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight against Modern Slavery

Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...

29/08/2025

Call for entries is now open for the 19th Annual South African Film & Television Awards (SAFTAs19)

The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...

29/08/2025

L3Harris Launches Counter-Unmanned Systems Initiative

L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...

29/08/2025

The CW Network Extends Pac-12 Deal Through 2030-31 Season

BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...

29/08/2025

Global FAST Channel Count Continues to Spike

NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...

29/08/2025

Harmonic Unveils New Capabilities for Its Live Sports Streaming Solution

SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...

29/08/2025

Youtube TV, Fox Settle Differences, Renew Carriage Agreement

NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...

29/08/2025

Lightware MTR integration brings advanced flexibility and...

Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...

29/08/2025

Frequency Launches Studio Live - a Unified Platform to Br...

Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...

29/08/2025

Scality Day 2025 Celebrating 10 years of global innovatio...

In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...

29/08/2025

Disguise Drives New Immersive Racing Experience - F1 Box

Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+ Technology solu...

29/08/2025

Disguise Supports Fellow Entertainment Tech Leaders at IB...

Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show Disguise, the industry-leading tech...

29/08/2025

Accedo to Highlight Compose AI-Agent Enhanced Orchestration Layer

STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...

29/08/2025

Cineverse Launches Streaming Apps for In-Vehicle Video Streaming

LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...

29/08/2025

Gray Media to Simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL Games

DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...

29/08/2025

Comcast NBCU and Amazon Ink New Distribution Agreements

NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...

29/08/2025

RED Digital Cinema To Highlight Cine-Broadcast Module At IBC2025

FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...

29/08/2025

Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and Highlighting Ukraine's Investment Case

29 Aug 2025 Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...

29/08/2025

Sky Sports to show more NFL games than ever as part of new rights agreement

More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025 Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...

29/08/2025

'RIV4LRIES': The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino Only on Netflix October 1

Back to All News RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...

29/08/2025

Steps ahead: RT to air inspiring documentary on 12-year-old Irish dance star

Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...

29/08/2025

TODAY WITH DAVID MCCULLAGH TO AIR ON RT RADIO 1 WEEKDAYS AT 10AM

RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...

28/08/2025

Meet the 2025 Sundance Institute Documentary Edit Residency Artists

By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...

28/08/2025

Watch These 9 Sundance Institute-Supported Documentaries That Spotlight Workers' Rights

Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...

28/08/2025

Motivational Corridos: The New Sound of Resilience in Msica Mexicana

Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...

28/08/2025

Corridos Motivadores: El Nuevo Sonido de la Resiliencia en Mxico

Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...

28/08/2025

Verano Forever Brings Myke Towers, Bele, Elena Rose, and More to Miami for an Unforgettable Latin Summer Celebration

Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...

28/08/2025

Poland Selects L3Harris Electronic Warfare System for F-16 Fleet

L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....

28/08/2025

AgileTV consolidates its technological leadership with the development of Lowi TV in Spain

Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...

28/08/2025

Craft Interview: Ken Wilkinson, Audio Engineer

Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...

28/08/2025

Fubo to Launch Fubo Sports Skinny Bundle for $56 Per Month

NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....

28/08/2025

Telestream to Launch 'Global Ingest Workflow at IBC2025

NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...

28/08/2025

Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Education

Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...

28/08/2025

TAG Strengthens Regional Presence with Appointment of Oli...

TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...

28/08/2025

DHD to Demonstrate AI-Based Voice Enhancement at IBC 2025

AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...

28/08/2025

Telefonica Servicios Audiovisuales Hit the Back of the Ne...

Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...

28/08/2025

Optical Media Anchors LiveU IQ into its On site Productio...

To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...

28/08/2025

WNED Adopts Calrec Type R console to weather any storm an...

Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...

28/08/2025

Cleeng unveils first ever free D2C subscription platform...

Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...

28/08/2025

Zixi and OKAST Partner to Power Scalable Global FAST Chan...

Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...

28/08/2025

Nixer to unveil CV1 AoIP monitoring tool to address evolv...

Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering Nixer Pro Au...

28/08/2025

Cinegy Announces Strategic Partnership with One Touch Pro...

Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...

28/08/2025

Telestream Global Ingest Workflow Powered by Vantage Open...

Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...

28/08/2025

Telenor partners with Broadpeak for multi-country content...

Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...

28/08/2025

24 Frames Digital goes live with Synamedia Quortex Play f...

Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...

28/08/2025

VisualOn at IBC 2025 - Whats Next in AI Powered Video Str...

Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...