Helping Ourselves by Helping Others: An Incarcerated Men’s Survival Guide

How do you do time without letting the time do you? Helping Ourselves by Helping Others is a guidebook in three sections for surviving life behind bars … and transforming oneself in the process. In the first section, 44 long-term inmates from a broad spectrum of ethnic backgrounds seasoned by grief and qualified by experience offer advice that covers subjects ranging from the practical to the profound. Section two focuses upon the specific needs of incarcerated veterans and summarizes the pioneering methods of the first inmate-run veterans service office in the USA, created at the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, CA. Section three focuses upon inmate-nominated writings by mental health professionals, veterans, and child abuse survivors outlining steps towards healing and recovery. Helping Ourselves by Helping Others empowers those ‘inside the walls’ to educate the public about the realities of prison life while equipping the incarcerated with tools to transform a jail sentence from the beginning of the end to a new beginning.