Well, we think of prison.

We often think of a place with a lot of restrictions and rules, like lots of rules, right?

But the way Kerry Blakeinger sees it, prison is actually a place where there are no rules.

No one's going to stop a guard from being unnecessarily cool and invasive or abusive.

If you are getting strip searched and the guard makes you pull out your tampon even though

that's not the policy and they just make you do that, there's no one who's going to

win in that moment to stop it from happening.

And that's what I mean by, like, there are no rules because in the moment they can

pretty much always do whatever they want.

Blakeinger is a journalist who covers life in prisons.

And her reporting is very much informed by her own experience.

She spent two years behind bars.

Last year I spoke to Blakeinger about her memoir Corrections in Ink.

And she described in detail just how agonizing her experience in prison was, especially

in solitary confinement.

I just as soon as the door shut behind me, I just sort of burst out into tears because

I immediately realized how maddening and claustrophobic this was.

And while telling her own story involves digging up some of the most traumatic chapters

of her life, Blakeinger says she finds meaning in her work because it's about more than

just herself.

To me, it's just been so deeply meaningful to be able to tell stories about people who

are in the places that I've been and to help amplify those voices and, you know, make

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