NOTES FROM THE PEN
Bobby Caldwell-Kim: Notes From The Pen
First things first…
You can find our podcast, Notes from the Pen, on all platforms, shooting off at the mouth about prison, life, and all our unsolicited opinions. Come listen to a crew of childhood friends, fellow inmates, and recently-freed friends become pebbles in the shoe of the prison industrial complex.
You can start from Episode 1, and watch the boys get their feet wet in the podcasting world, or skip through their stories in any order. Not sure where to start? The NFTP crew recommends episodes 6, 9, and 52 as a good starting point. Apple podcast link:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/notes-from-the-pen/id1518819034
Don’t use Apple? Search for us on your favorite podcast platform.
On Twitter? So is @notesfromthepen, where Mama C shares Bobby’s thoughts, jokes, and roasts from a cell in Michigan.
We can also be found on Instagram, @notesfromthepen, where you can find snippets, writing excerpts, and more unsolicited vanity from the Michigan Department of Correction’s most extroverted inmate.
Meet Bobby (also known as Chino, depending on who’s asking)
I've been in prison going on ten years now. I started getting serious about writing when I got locked up. At first it was just about expression. An attempt to hold onto a little bit of freedom in a place otherwise designed to kill such things. A few years in I started writing about the things I was watching unfold. I figured, somebody should do it.
Over the years I've written pieces about corrupt officers, nonsensical policies, the cruelty of solitary confinement, censorship, corruption, and dangerous parole processes. I've written about the slave wages and the financial fleecing of inmates and their families; about the benefits of good time and Michigan's failure to offer positive reinforcement to inmates. I've written about everything I've seen along the way, the ridiculous, hilarious, and serious alike. My goal was to give a fuller voice to the prison experience, something deeper than stereotypes, and to share my story with others who may be suffering with depression and addiction.
WAYS TO HELP
1) Contact your Michigan Legislator & ask them to support prison reform - Earned Credit Bill (good time).
We love creating content for the NFTP community, but our funds are limited, so we’ve created a way to lesson this financial weight.
2) Join Notes From The Pen podcasts on Patreon (red button above)
Your gifts/donations help with maintaining this website, help offset the expensive prison phone calls, aid with Bobby's eye glasses, and allows us to send him bits of food and coffee.
(gifts/donations are not tax deductible)
A Thank-you From Mama C
I’d like to thank everyone that has donated. It is your generosity that has enabled us to carry on.
When we started this project, this human experience behind bars, we knew how important it was to share the failures of mass incarceration, and give a realistic view of what it is to be incarcerated. Over the years we’ve grown from simple social media platforms, to this website, and now there’s a podcast. Our stories, both family members and the incarcerated, are being heard. All along the way we’ve had several people reach out asking how they can help, how they can donate, and we are truly grateful for that support.
These social media platforms allow us to share our experiences, and it’s making a difference. We’re creating the emotional connection needed for prison reform, and for that we are truly grateful.
Thank-you for being a part of our journey. We love you guys!
And the issue at hand: mass incarceration
A note from Mama C, the woman behind the curtain, who has been fighting Michigan’s archaic sentencing for years
We share our thoughts and solutions on why we fail with mass incarceration. You get to hear it all. The sad, ugly, enlightening, truthful, funny, real time…ok ok ok. You get the idea by now. It’s told in real time from my son who’s living it all as I type this, and who will continue to be in prison when I update this site next year. And if you’ve stuck around this long, then you too will: learn, laugh, cry, and rethink what it’s like to be in prison, and how much it effects families & loved ones. We keep it real by sharing what life is really like behind bars; not what you see on the big screen, or TV. You’ll see and hear gut wrenching sadness, loneliness, pain, sorrow, and even some lightheartedness. We’ve learned that if you don’t smile or laugh you end up crying all the time, so we try to inject humor when we can.
I started this website for my son in order to give him hope, and to share his thoughts, ideas, and writings with the outside world. He shares his life with us, “warts and all”, with the hope that others might learn, and not make the same mistake he’s made. His writings are all original and meant to give him an outlet, and perhaps for others to gain some insight.
My son is currently incarcerated in the state of Michigan, a place where there is no hope if you’re locked up. I had no idea how bad our nation’s prison systems really are until my son ended up there. If you have a loved one locked up behind bars then you know what this is like, and if not, consider yourself lucky.
America uses prison to treat people with drug addiction, mental illness, homelessness, poverty, and depression. The big problem with that approach is there’s no treatment! Inmates are often released worse off than when they went in. That’s bad for everyone when that happens.
So this website is not only to give my son hope during his time behind bars, but to use it as a platform for change. Our goal is to seek changes one tweet, one letter, and one phone call at a time.
The U.S. leads countries worldwide in incarcerations per 100 thousand of population. Check out the 2024 stats.