Interior of San Quentin Prison (1950s)

Malcolm Braly spent almost 17 years in several prisons including San Quentin and Folsom State for various burglary convictions. He wrote three novels while incarcerated. After he was released from prison in 1965, he wrote On the Yard, False Starts: A Memoir of San Quentin and Other Prisons. The following is an excerpt from False Starts which describes his incarceration experience:

The hardest part of serving time is the predictability. Each day moves like every other. You know nothing different can happen. You focus on tiny events, a movie scheduled weeks ahead, your reclass [reclassification by the prison staff], your parole hearing, things far in the future, and slowly, smooth day by day, draw them to you. There will be no glad surprise, no spontaneous holiday, and a month from now, six months, a year, you will be just where you are, doing just what you’re doing, except you’ll be older.

This airless calm is produced by rigid routine. Custody doesn’t encourage spontaneity. Walk slow, the Cynic says, and don’t make any fast moves. Each morning you know where evening will find you. There is no way to avoid your cell. When everyone marched into the block you would be left alone in the empty yard. Each Monday describes every Friday. Holidays in prison are only another mark of passing time and for many they are the most difficult days. Most of the outrages that provide such lurid passages in the folklore of our prisons are inspired by boredom. Some grow so weary of this grinding sameness they will drink wood alcohol even though they are aware this potent toxin may blind or kill them. Others fight with knives to the death and the survivor will remark, “It was just something to do.”