I’m connected to many of you outside of my website so this may feel like old news, but Junior Wilson is now home! After getting his notification Thursday that he would be released from his bogus incarceration on a parole violation after a mistaken arrest, he spent most of yesterday getting processed, then was sent to Bellevue for some reason on his release. But he called me at 2am this morning to let me know he was home and would be sleeping in his own bed for the first time since last August!
Many of you have kept up with Junior’s story since I met him inside last October. The story of his incarceration is one of overpolicing, inept parole personnel, and non-responsive judicial bureaucracy.
It’s also a story of hope and heroism. During the past week, both fellow inmates and corrections officers have stopped him to thank him for speaking for them to the media, telling their stories with his, speaking from the front lines of this public health crisis.
I’ll be having lots of conversation with Junior in the coming days, as I’m completely free to write and talk about him now that’s he’s no longer held in city custody. He told me last week that he just wants to lie down on a couch and talk about everything. I’ll be helping shape and tell his full story, which is representative of so many of the ineptitudes of our criminal justice system, in the weeks and months ahead. I’ll also continue advocating for the many people still in the hellish crux of our carceral apparatus and this global pandemic. In the meantime, let’s just sit back in our respective solitudes and enjoy this victory.
Have a great weekend, fam.
This post comes from my newsletter, Dispatches from the Carceral Apparatus. If you want to subscribe, you can here:
