Tony Vick

    Tony has served almost three decades of a life sentence in Tennessee. He is the author of two books, Secrets From a Prison Cell (Cascade Books, 2018) and Locked In and Locked Out (Resource Publications, 2023). His writing has also been published at Solitary Watch, the Progressive, Truthout, Shado and in multiple books and anthologies, the most recent of which is Storms of the Inland Sea (Shanti Arts, 2022). His Filter story about CoreCivic medical care won “Best News” at the 2025 Stillwater Prison Journalism Awards. You can reach him by USPS.

    Tony Vick #276187
    South Central Correctional Facility
    PO Box 279
    Clifton, TN 38425-0279

    The Recipes I Use to De-Escalate Violence in Prison

    In 2015 I was transferred to West Tennessee State Penitentiary, a prison with a ...

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    Tony Vick

    As a Prison Fills With Wheelchairs and Walkers, an Eldercare Collective Forms

    From our table in the prison day room at South Central Correctional Facility in ...

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    Tony Vick

    A Prison Drug Recovery Unit Provides Refuge, If You’re Abstinent

    At South Central Correctional Facility (SCCF), a Tennessee prison privately operated by CoreCivic, those ...

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    Tony Vick

    As Prisons Shutter Classes and Mental Health Care, Drugs Fill the Gap

    I first met David “Lucky” Kestner about 15 years ago, when we were both ...

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    Tony Vick

    The Tightrope of Talking About Mental Health in Prison

    Dan*, a 40-something prisoner in Tennessee’s South Central Correctional Facility (SCCF), wants to make ...

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    Tony Vick

    The Right to Consensual Sex—and Condoms—in Prison

    Greg* has been incarcerated in Tennessee for about 18 months. He’s been on a ...

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    Tony Vick

    Selling Meth Sent Him to Prison. It Also Saved His Life.

    Louis Bell was a type of person we typically didn’t encounter in our Tennessee ...

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    Tony Vick

    Amid the Trauma of Prison, an Unexpected Oasis: Crochet Club

    Travis learned to crochet from his grandmother. He was 10 when she showed him ...

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    Tony Vick

    Sex Offender Registry Reform Is a Harm Reduction Issue

    In the United States, anyone convicted of a sex offense is punished with two ...

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    Tony Vick

    The Only Openly LGBTQ Prisoner-Led Community in Tennessee

    I thought I was too old to have to worry about being raped in ...

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    Tony Vick