Section 1: Violence Before Incarceration

• Date: 01 May 2022
• Published date: 01 May 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/10439862221096894

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862221096894

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2022, Vol. 38(2) 160 –161

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/10439862221096894

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Essay

Section 1: Violence Before

Incarceration

Essays:

My Story, by Jana Bergman

A Prodigal Son? by Virgil Lee Hawks

Conditioned Emotional Response, by Shon Pernice

Violence and Prison, by Patrick J. Pantusco

Scar’d Up but Still Goin’, by Jessi Fernandez

I Did Not Know I Would Be Forever Labelled “Violent” by Quintin Williams

Brothers in Solidarity, by Charles Tooker

Return to Shelton, by Demetrius Morgan with David Lovell

Introduction to Section 1

People who have been around the corrections system get used to the fact that violence

is a more or less universal life experience for everyone touched by the penal system.

While living in death row, Jarvis Jay Masters noticed how many of the people sur-

rounding him had grown up in the face of violence, just as he had. It became the sub-

ject of his award-winning essay on prison tattoos (Sheff 2018). In the foreword to his

monumental study of people in their first year of reentry from prison, Bruce Western

(2018) remarks on how most of the people in his study had either been involved in a

killing, personally seen one, or had a loved one who was killed. A person might make

the same observation about corrections officers. There can be no getting around the

fact that violence is a seminal experience for those who end up in prison—living there,

for sure, or working there, as well.

In this, the opening section of the special issue, authors explore violence outside of

prison life, often with an eye to the way prison life reflects it. Jana Bergman, in “My

Story,” provides the longest essay in this issue. It is a heart-rending tale, chilling to

read. In “A Prodigal Son?” Virgil Lee Hawks tells his life story—also one of violence

and abuse—and ends by asking, “Will I ever get my chance of a normal life, even for

a little while?” In “Conditioned Emotional Response,” Shon Pernice describes how his

life as an army medic during war became the foundation for his violent acts when he

returned home. Patrick Pancuso, in “Prisons and Violence,” links the violence people

experience before incarceration to the violence of prison and prescribes education as a

1096894CCJXXX10.1177/10439862221096894Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeSection 1

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