Jimmy Iakovos

Jimmy Iakovos is a pseudonym for a writer who is incarcerated in Georgia. It is illegal in some Southern states to earn a living while under a sentence of penal servitude. Writing has enabled Jimmy to endure over 30 years of continuous imprisonment.

Georgia’s Death Penalty Reform Bill Has an Odd View on Life Sentences

Georgia is on the brink of reforming its death penalty law for intellectually disabled defendants, a move being heralded as…

April 18, 2025

A Eulogy for Prison Wakes, Which There Are Too Many Deaths for Now

We used to hold funerals in the prison chapel. There was a sheet-covered table with a dais in front of…

April 14, 2025

Prison Visits Should Have Always Been a Right, Not a Privilege

Adam* has been incarcerated in Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) facilities for somewhere around 40 years. His wife Ruth* has…

April 10, 2025

What Jobs Are Prison Correctional Industries Training Us For, Exactly?

At every Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) prison I’ve ever landed in without a work detail already assigned to me,…

April 2, 2025

GA Prisons Padlock Our Cells. Will We Die in a Fire? Let’s Ask a Lockpicker.

In October 2024, the Department of Justice published the long-awaited findings of its investigation(s) into violence inside Georgia Department of…

March 25, 2025

Escaping From Prison Is Easier Than You’d Think. We Just Know Better.

On March 9, someone made a rare escape from a Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) probation detention center. He was…

March 18, 2025

All the New Guards Hired to Improve Security Are Making Prison Less Safe

In the wake of a Department of Justice investigation that confirmed conditions in Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) prisons are…

March 11, 2025

Prison RSAT Has a High Success Rate of Continuing to Exist

In 2020, Bill* was awaiting trial in a northern Georgia county jail when he asked his lawyer about getting into…

March 4, 2025

Profits and Violence in the Prison Commissary Resale Market

The weekly limit of coffee I can order from the prison commissary is enough for about two days, so for…

February 24, 2025

Ask for Reasonable Housing in Prison and It May Get You Forcibly Medicated

Jack*, a loner by nature, requires a single-man cell to remain mentally stable in prison. He requires nothing else; just…

February 20, 2025