My Time Behind Bars

It looked like something out of a nightmare—the Fishkill Correctional Facility at Beacon, NY. It was a huge, rambling series of buildings surrounded by chain link fences and concertina wire. I shivered at the thought of spending twenty years in this hellhole—amid society’s castaways, extruded from the world. It reminded me of the ninth level of Dante’s inferno.

I was patted down and wanded. I walked through a metal detector. I removed my shoes, which were examined. I was led by a guard down a...