Still Doing Life

22 Lifers, 25 Years Later

Howard Zehr, Barb Toews

• Publisher: The New Press
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781620977217
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Law
• Subtopic: Criminal Procedure
• Index: Law

Side-by-side, time-lapse photos and interviews, separated by twenty-five years, of people serving life sentences in prison, by the bestselling author of The Little Book of Restorative Justice

“Shows the remarkable resilience of people sentenced to die in prison and raises profound questions about a system of punishment that has no means of recognizing the potential of people to change.” —Marc Mauer, senior adviser, The Sentencing Project, and co-author (with Ashley Nellis) of The Meaning of Life

“Life without parole is a death sentence without an execution date.” —Aaron Fox (lifer) from Still Doing Life

In 1996, Howard Zehr, a restorative justice activist and photographer, published Doing Life, a book of photo portraits of individuals serving life sentences without the possibility of parole in Pennsylvania prisons. Twenty-five years later, Zehr revisited many of the same individuals and photographed them in the same poses. In Still Doing Life, Zehr and co-author Barb Toews present the two photos of each individual side by side, along with interviews conducted at the two different photo sessions, creating a deeply moving of people who, for the past quarter century, have been trying to live meaningful lives while facing the likelihood that they will never be free.

In the tradition of other compelling photo books including Milton Rogovin’s Triptychs and Nicholas Nixon’s The Brown Sisters, Still Doing Life offers a riveting longitudinal look at a group of people over an extended period of time—in this case with complex and problematic implications for the American criminal justice system. Each night in the United States, more than 200,000 men and women incarcerated in state and federal prisons will go to sleep facing the reality that they may die without ever returning home. There could be no more compelling book to challenge readers to think seriously about the consequences of life sentences.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Introduction
• The Portraits and Interviews
• Acknowledging Our Bias and Language
• Kimerly Joynes: You have come to a point where you believe goodness feels better than the pain you have endured
• Charles Diggs: Hope, the echo in my brain, keeps me stimulated
• Craig Datesman: Meeting with the victim’s family was the best thing
• Marilyn Dobrolenski: Getting through one day at a time
• Commer Glass: This is our community, but it’s not our home
• Brian Wallace: I always believed I was getting out—I just didn’t know when
• Marie Scott: You aren’t the only one being punished—your family is too
• Ricardo Mercado: People care—you just have to cross paths with them
• Betty Heron: I’ve always felt like a tightrope walker
• Bruce Norris: I’ve learned that no matter where you are, you always have to give back
• Yvonne Cloud: I took a life, now I try to save lives
• Joseph Miller: I pray every day for the victim and his family
• Aaron Fox: You have to have a dream in life
• Diane Weaver: I’m running out of things to do
• Bruce Bainbridge: I struggle with keeping my humanity
• Hugh Williams: Everything we do has a purpose
• Harry Twiggs: We can draw from the first life and see our mistakes
• Gaye Morley: Seeking that inner peace
• Kevin Mines: It’s part of my spirit to help people
• James Taylor: I was in a prison of my own mind
• Cyd Berger: If you let your crime define you, you will never see your potential
• John Frederick Nole: The meaning of life is to try to live it to its fullest, regardless of where you’re at
• Life Sentences: Trauma, Race, and Restorative Justice by Barb Toews
• Resources for Further Learning
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• Copyright