I Went to Prison and Found Support and Community

Mr. Sittenfeld is a freelance writer working on a memoir.

On my second day into my 16-month sentence at Federal Correctional Institution in Ashland, Ky., I surprised myself by doing something that I well understood you aren’t supposed to do in prison: I cried.

I had joined the inmate-led Bible study in the prison’s small, drab chapel, pulling a chair up to the circle of a dozen men. A member of the group introduced a short scriptural reading followed........

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