Millions of Americans are in prison. Writing them will change you.

According to the Immigration Council, 70,000 people were in detention in the U.S. in mid-January this year. Nearly 4,000 children have been detained since January 2025, per the Marshall Project.

“The U.S. locks up more people per capita than any other independent democracy,” says the Prison Policy Initiative. Their data show those detainees as a fairly small slice of the 2 million people now incarcerated in state, local and federal prisons and juvenile lockups, plus those involuntarily committed to mental institutions.

The current U.S. population is around 350 million. Two million people behind bars is less than one-tenth of 1%.

But for each prisoner, there’s a supporting cast of the nonincarcerated: friends and family (for the lucky ones); lawyers, public defenders, parole officers, judges, clerks and bailiffs who work for the courts; wardens, guards and other prison employees; architects who design prisons and construction companies that build prison and detention centers; corporations that contract with governments to run them; academics who specialize in criminology; activists seeking prison reform and less (or more) detention of immigrants; doctors and nurses who treat sick prisoners; chaplains and other clergy who minister to prisoners; educators who teach in prisons; publishers and distributors allowed to deliver books, art supplies, etc. to prisoners; firefighters who respond to prison fires; bus drivers and maintenance people associated with prisoner transport; volunteers who run the “houses” that welcome and support prison visitors — and the list goes on.

Incarceration is a big industry in the U.S. Some call it the “prison-industrial complex.” Prison guards make good money and belong to powerful unions, unlikely to push for rethinking or reforming the prison system.

This vast, hidden sector became specific and personal when I visited someone in prison. In 1975, a friend of ours was sentenced to 25 years to life in the California system. After an altar boy/cheerleader youth, Joe did two tours of combat in Vietnam, was a hippie for a while, then morphed into a ’60s radical. He served more than 40 years at various prisons. We visited him at San Quentin and Pelican Bay.

My husband John got to know Joe by writing to him in prison. They played chess by mail and kept up a frequent correspondence. Each time we visited, we crossed our fingers that the right paperwork was on file, we were dressed correctly and visiting hours hadn’t been canceled. We would surrender everything but our eyeglasses and change for the vending machines, before passing through an X-ray machine and a double-locked cage, surveilled from above.

Inside, the atmosphere in the visiting room was friendly. Kids played with games and toys, families hung out, loaded up on junk food, strolled in the tiny “yard,” had a photo taken in front of a mural, etc. (No cell phones allowed, of course!) The last time we saw Joe in prison, we were chatting over coffee when we heard gunshots. Something scary was happening in a nearby recreation yard. We were hurried out, and prisoners were locked down for the next several weeks. 

Soon after that, he was transferred to Lancaster, restricted to men over 50 who have never been in a gang. His pro bono lawyer never stopped advocating for him. When the parole board finally unanimously recommended his release, guess who opposed it: then-California Gov. Jerry Brown. But after a delay, they let Joe go. He now lives quietly in the Bay Area, with loving family and friends who never gave up on him.

More recently, John was asked by a prisoner-support organization to write to a man on death row in another state. That prisoner’s typed letters over the past decade have been a revelation. Bill (a pseudonym) is articulate, a country boy who served in the military, loved to hunt, fish and garden, and had the bad luck to get into meth. It made him crazy and, in the fog, he killed his dear ones. He’s been sober for years. His politics are liberal, he sees through B.S. of all varieties and keeps himself busy doing craft projects: models, sculptures, sun catchers. He even fills special orders from the prison administrators. His mother visits him regularly. Though he’s imprisoned in a death penalty state, so far so good.

Do you know someone who’s incarcerated? Write to them, and ask if you can visit. See for yourself.