A Question of Freedom : A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison / R. Dwayne Betts

Part I: The new world. Thirty minutes ; Things I know and don't know about my father ; Fairfax County Jail : R cells ; Will you accept this call? ; Halfway to hell ; A need for space ; The meaning of a tattoo ; Running from trouble ; The tale of a high school diploma ; Joseph's hand ; Another bullet to the brain ; The forgiveness parade ; Penalties and broken illusions ; Transfer -- Part II: Running toward the past. A different kind of road trip ; An old story ; Prison 101 : SRC, an intro ; The mathematics of reunions and a nation ; Names and naming ; Finally, the knowledge or something close to it ; Another trip in the wrong direction ; Weed ; The people I knew ; The cost of a knife ; Fishing from the hole -- Part III: We never know. Fifteen hours to a super max ; How to make a knife in prison ; Sussex 1 State Prison ; Back in the hole ; A pile of hair around my feet ; Drinking age ; Names ; Most of the way home ; The color line ; Pronouncing the word Soledad ; Every admission amounts to this -- Epilogue.

At the age of sixteen, R. Dwayne Betts--a good student from a lower-middle-class family--carjacked a man with a friend. He had never held a gun before, but within a matter of minutes he had committed six felonies. In Virginia, carjacking is an offense requiring treatment as an adult. A bright young kid, weighing only 126 pounds, he served his eight-year sentence as part of the adult population in some of the worst prisons in the state. This is his coming-of-age story. Utterly alone--and with the growing realization that he really is not going home any time soon--Dwayne confronts profound questions about violence, freedom, crime, race, and the justice system, and above all, a quest for identity.--From publisher description.