A first-hand account of the death penalty's wholly destructive nature.
In Witness, Lyle C. May offers a scathing critique of shifts in sentencing laws, prison policies that ensure recidivism, and classic "tough on crime" views that don't make society safer or prevent crime. These insightful and analytical essays explore capital punishment, life imprisonment, prison education, prison journalism, as well as what activism from inside looks like on the road toward abolishing the carceral state.
No outside journalist can adequately report what happens inside death row or what it is like to live through thirty-three executions of people you know. May's grounded writings in Witness challenge the myths, misconceptions, and misinformation about the criminal legal system and death in prison, guiding readers on a journey through North Carolina's congregate death row, where the author has spent over twenty years of his life.
With a foreword by activist, lawyer, and professor Danielle Purifoy, and drawing on the work of Angela Y. Davis, Mariame Kaba, and other abolitionist scholars, Witness shows there is more to life under the sentence of death than what is portrayed in crime dramas or mass media. Lyle C. May's life, journalism, and activism are a guidebook to abolitionism in practice.
Recenzijos
"Lyle May is a tempered writer; hes wise enough to trust the power in his message and to avoid overstating it. He deserves enormous respect and credit not only for what he has already committed to paper, but for the fact that he has written at all. As May points out, incarcerated activists are not popular among those who are charged with confining them. Its not surprising that May is no stranger to solitary confinement."
Arts Fuse
Daugiau informacijos
Provide galleys and excerpts to prison abolitionist groups and prison writing programs across the country
Pitch excerpts, interviews and profiles to editors that cover prison abolition and criminal justice: VICE, Broadly, Truthout, The Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Guardian, The Nation, among others; pitch radio, podcast, and TV outlets
social media campaign of influencers
Co-op available
Section AState of Violence: Capital Punishment and Death Row
On Death Row, Eating to Live
A Confirmation of Faith
Secrecy and the Death Penalty
Beyond the wall
Death Row Phenomenon
Jesus as a Man on Death Row
Learning to Die
Section BCarceral State: Life imprisonment
Life Without Parole is a Silent Execution
A Tale of Two Henrys
Paroling Michael Pinch
Death by Incarceration
Mob Mentality and Politics: The viral space where bad laws are made
Section CCulture of Control: Higher Education and Prison Journalism
Draconian Ideals
Obstructing Reform
Resilience and Resistance
Freeing the Press in Prison
Prison Journalism: Fighting the Narrative of Control
NC Innocence Inquiry Commission Does Not Save Every Innocent of Death Row
Section DWitness: Speaking Out
The Digital Abolitionist Twitter Feed: Lisa Montgomery
Science vs. Anti-Intellectualism and the Death Penalty
Inside the Tinderbox: COVID-19 in Prison
The Economics of Capital Punishment
Qualified Immunity
When the Thermometer Breaks
The Myth of Deterrence
No Man Left Behind
Section E. Activism
Front Line Snapshots of Activism
On Retaliation against Incarcerated Writers
The Hole: To Live Means to Resist
The Fury of Our Resistance
Lyle C. May is a prison journalist, abolitionist, and Ohio University Alum currently pursuing a bachelor's degree in sociology, with a criminology major. He is a member of the Alpha Sigma Lambda Honor Society and the Author's Guild. Lyle's writings have appeared in Scalawag Magazine, Perspectives on Politics, The Intercept, America Magazine, Inside Higher Ed, and elsewhere. Lyle is also a coauthor of Inside: Voices from Death Row (Scuppernong Editions, 2022) and contributor to Right Here, Right Now: Life Stories from America's Death Row (Duke University Press, 2021). He routinely lectures to high school and university students, church groups, and community organizations on the politics, policies, and experiences of mass incarceration. As he pursues every legal avenue to overturn his wrongful conviction and death sentence, Lyle advocates for greater access to higher education in prison.
