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United States
Phillip Vance Smith, II is an incarcerated journalist who uses his experience behind the wall to amplify attention to issues affecting him the most. He is serving a life without parole sentence in North Carolina.
During his twenty-plus years inside, Smith has published everything from poetry to legislation, but journalism has proven to be his most effective craft. Currently, he works as Editor of the longest running prison newspaper in North Carolina, The Nash News, which can be downloaded for free from JSTOR.
Window on the world: incarcerated journalist Phillip Vance Smith, II delves into how people in prisons watch movies-the streaming devices available, the viewing options, the costs of renting a film, and more
"Prison violence should concern everyone, because most incarcerated people reenter society."
Prison relationships have always found a way to breach walls.
predatory company exploits incarcerated people with low-quality computer system replacement called TextBehind for traditional mail
I thought of Socrates when I saw Mouse's mugshot plastered on the six a.m. news for killing a prison guard at Bertie Correctional Institution the night before. Socrates, the disgraced scholar who once taught a handful of thinkers that "people who have been harmed are bound to become more unjust."
Phillip was featured on the hit podcast Criminal talking about his work as a prison newspaper editor. Listen here.
the Prison Resources Repurposing Act would allow release of exceptional people serving life without parole while making North Carolina safer
As analog forms of surveillance and social control are renegotiated toward digital ones, incarcerated people are isolated and made especially vulne...
Recommended Citation Phillip V. Smith II & Timothy W. Johnson, Hope for the Hopeless: The Prison Resources Repurposing Act, 100 N.C. L. Rev. 713 (2022). Available at: https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/vol100/iss3/2 DOWNLOADS
I'm not what most would consider a typical prisoner serving life without parole. I'm black, but I didn't grow up in an impoverished inner city with other African Americans. I was reared on the mean, manicured streets of upper-middle-class America. As a child, it was hard to fit in with my white peers.