Prison Radio
Jamil Pirant

My name is Jamil Pirant. I’m calling out of Indiana Department of Corrections, and this piece is called “Uplift Michigan City.”

I was transferred from Wabash Valley to ISP in like 2019. Now I went from one situation to another not knowing that one plantation ain’t better than another plantation. I just knew that one was closer to my mother and my father.

So when I got there, I seen the conditions of it. It’s a very dark place. It’s a very, very, very dark place, so when I seen what was going on at the suicide rates in, it’s a hundred some people dying on a yearly rate. And oldies and things like this and the administration not doing nothing about it. People can’t go to school.

And if you is rallying and fighting for something, they come through messing with you. I was down there striving, campaigning about going home and things like this over my tablet. They come through and took my tablet. They wrote me up for having socks come out STG, security threat group, for painting on socks, so internal affairs snatched people up for socks, I knew something was going on.

They were trying to do anything to stop my communication to the world. Once again, had I been on something that was gangbanging or something or selling some dope or smoking some dope, they would’ve left me alone. They would’ve knew, “okay, he cool, we know what he doing. We with cool with what he doing.”

But Michigan City is a dark place. All the brothers that’s down there that’s striving, that’s still holding they head up and making it through, man, all praise to the creator to keep them alive, to keep them upbeat. I was next door to people who was cutting theyself. This one man, he was cutting on himself, then he’d snap out of it like, “Yo, this ain’t me. I don’t know what’s going on, y’all this ain’t me,” then he snap right back into it and get on cutting himself.

I’m watching this happen over a period of days. I watched three people die in like one month just on the darkness of the place. I’m not talking about the murder part. It’s them killing themselves. It’s different from watching somebody turn on theyself. It’s a different kind of evil that circulate through that, and the administration ain’t do nothing about that. On the part they can do something about. I’m watching brothers give up.

I had a friend I grew up with, and he was going through terrible conditions down there at Michigan City, and he died. I ain’t just grow up when he was in prison. I knew him when I was in the world, the free world, and I’m just thinking in my head and said, “Damn, I’m going through a lot of anxiety, whoa, I hope this ain’t me.” I have friends that I grew up that when I went down and I seen them, they was lost. They was gone. They spirit was empty. It was void.

These places are dark places, man. ISP is a dark place. People ain’t doing nothing. They want it dark. They want to keep it dark. We just praying that they could be supportive. I send out prayers for Michigan City ISP. for his Michigan city ISP, Indiana State Prison. Y’all send out y’all prayers for them, please do that. I’m glad I made it out of there. I’m in a middle security prison. I’m a step away from home. But I know my story ain’t nothing if I can’t tell nobody else. So I thank y’all.

These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.