Growing Up in Prison: Why Age Matters in Sentencing for Juveniles and Young Adults

Timothy Johnson and Tyler Bowman explore how age matters in sentencing, explaining how juveniles and emerging adults experience diminished capacity that shapes decision making, accountability, and the consequences they face in the criminal justice system.

Jon Adams and Joey Kearney are dedicating their lives to serving others.

Resembling Timothée Chalamet, with the exuberance of a young Willy Wonka, Adams is the rare person who makes everyone around him feel better about their lives and themselves. He’s a junior at a ministry training college, where his kindness makes him an effective writing tutor. Students seek him out for his writing guidance and because his amiable demeanor eases  their stress from an intense academic workload.

Kearney graduated from that college in May 2024. While a student, he won the Foot Washer Award, awarded to the person most likely to be found humbly serving others, like Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. He set himself apart as the most selfless servant in a dorm filled with students training for ministry. Kearney looks like the teenage version of Bob Marley, with thick dreads, a playful smile, and a walk bounces with kinetic energy.

Adams, 25, and Kearney, 27, share two key elements. Both young men are in prison for violent crimes. And both are members of the North Carolina Field Minister Program (NCFMP). This program offers long-term incarcerated individuals a chance to receive four years of education training from Judson College at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, culminating in a bachelor’s degree in pastoral ministry with a minor in counseling. After graduation, program participants deploy to North Carolina prisons to change the prison culture from the inside by counseling, mentoring, and teaching others who are incarcerated.

Adams resides at Nash Correctional Institution in Nashville, North Carolina, the site of the NCFMP’s college. Last year, Kearney deployed to his mission field of Albemarle Correctional Institution, where he works as a field minister.

Despite growing up in prison, both men have become high-character individuals and selfless servants. The Adams and Kearney who committed violent crimes were reckless teenagers who didn’t consider the consequences of their actions for others or themselves.

When Juvenile Impulsivity Leads to Adult Consequences

At 15 years old, Adams killed his grandfather, for which he received a second-degree murder conviction and sentence of 20-25 years. He describes himself at that time as extremely impulsive, saying, “I rarely gave any thought to my actions and never considered the consequences. One word described who I was as a young teenager: reckless.”

He doesn’t think he had the capacity to consider long-term consequences. “On the day of my crime, it never crossed my mind one time that what I was doing would cause permanent harm to my family,” he said. “And I never considered that it would change the trajectory of my whole life or result in going to prison.” Those thoughts reflect the thinking of a child, not an adult, and definitely not the thinking of the kind of man Adams is today.

Kearney was one year older than Adams when he committed the crime that earned him more than 30 years in prison, but his thinking was equally immature. Kearney says, “At the time of my crime, I didn’t exercise any consideration for others, nor did I think about possible consequences. I was selfish and immature.” He also said his impulse control was so deficient as to be practically nonexistent. His older brother taught him that gang affiliation, violence, and crime were normal. He never considered questioning these norms. Like many children, he acted with little thought. Now, he pleads with individuals involved in gang life, including the brother who taught him that life, to abandon the trail of destruction and tread a path of positive impact.

Why Juvenile Brains Struggle With Consequences

Children struggle to consider even obvious consequences of their behavior. A key aspect of maturing is learning to think consequentially, which means first considering an action’s consequences, then choosing how to act based on that consideration. Adams and Kearney have matured from decidedly childish to mature thinking and behavior.

The brain drives this thinking and behavior. Neuroscience, the scientific study of the nervous system and associated behaviors, explains the brain’s mechanisms and development. Decision making is an executive function (EF), along with planning, impulse control, and working memory. The brain area that facilitates EFs is the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Located in the frontal lobe, the PFC is the last brain area to complete development, continuing to develop into a person’s mid-20s. Maturation comes even later for individuals with impairments such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

The PFC and corresponding EFs serve as behavioral regulators. To plan and make decisions, impulses must be controlled. Then working memory selects which information is relevant for specific plans and decisions. For a still-developing brain, working memory is likely to select information that helps complete a task, but is less likely to select information that evaluates right or wrong of the task or long-term consequences.

EFs enabled by the PFC continue to develop after development of the brain area. The PFC is fully developed by the mid-20s, but a person continues to develop their EFs into and throughout adulthood. PFC maturation creates the capacity for consequential thinking, but time is needed to fine-tune the ability.

In every way—biological development, maturity, and legal age—Adams and Kearney were still juveniles (under 18) when they were first incarcerated. But they were sentenced as adults because they committed violent crimes.

Sentenced as Adults Despite Juvenile Development

Until the past 20 years, legal practice unfailingly held it just to sentence juveniles to the same punishment as adults when crimes were serious or violent. Despite long-term legal precedent, an Eighth Amendment legal principle holds this practice to be unjust.

The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, deeming it cruel and unusual to punish people without considering their respective capacity. In plain language, a less than fully developed capacity to understand and make decisions should result in a lesser punishment than someone with a fully developed ability.

Starting in 2002, a series of Supreme Court cases addressed Eighth Amendment protections with regard to the principle of diminished capacity/diminished culpability. The first group deemed to be receiving excessive punishment based on capacity were people with intellectual or developmental disabilities. Atkins v. Virginia (2002) deemed it unconstitutional to execute anyone with this category of disability.

Juveniles were the next group to receive capacity-based Eighth Amendment protection. Roper v. Simmons (2005) banned executing juveniles due to their incomplete brain development. Graham v. Florida (2010) also used neuroscientific evidence in ruling it unconstitutional to sentence Graham to life without parole (LWOP) for a non-homicide offense. Miller v. Alabama (2012) followed the same reasoning in prohibiting mandatory juvenile life without parole (JLWOP). The Miller ruling still allows sentencing juveniles to life without parole, but the sentence must be decided in a sentencing phase separate from determination of guilt.

Why Emerging Adults Fall Through the Cracks

More than half of American states plus Washington, D.C., decided the Miller ruling did not go far enough in protecting juveniles. They passed legislation banning JLWOP. North Carolina introduced legislation to ban JLWOP in 2021, but the bill, House Bill 424, did not pass. The North Carolina Sheriff’s Association and North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys used their formidable influence to stop the bill.

Several states also decided the Miller ruling did not go far enough with the age range being protected. Since PFC development continues into the mid-20s, young, or “emerging,” adults (18-24) also lack the capacity to think consequentially compared to mature adults. These states decided this lesser capacity in emerging adults should result in reduced sentences compared to mature adults.

States extending Eighth Amendment protection to young adults include California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Vermont, and Washington. Confusingly, the age to which this protection extends varies between locations. For example, Massachusetts caps young adulthood at 21, while Washington extends it to 25. This inconsistency seems like a situation of political practicality, choosing the age based on what will get the legislative or judicial votes, rather than following science.

In April 2021, then North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed Executive Order 208, which created the Juvenile Sentence Review Board. This board’s creation was a response to a recommendation from the Governor’s Task Force for Racial Equality in Criminal Justice, which was created in 2020. The board’s purpose is to evaluate cases of individuals serving long sentences for crimes committed when they were juveniles. Between the board’s creation and the end of his term, Governor Cooper commuted the sentences of about two dozen people serving juvenile sentences.

Every juvenile who receives an opportunity for release is a step in the right direction, but it is a step on a million-mile journey. Advocates expected Governor Cooper to grant dozens of commutations based on the high number of juveniles serving life and other long sentences and based on the impressive records of the candidates. But every six months, Cooper granted three to five commutations. Advocates were left frustrated. They hope his successor, Governor Josh Stein, not only renews the executive order, but grants clemency to more of the board’s recommendations.

One organization hopes to convince Governor Stein to create a similar executive order review board for emerging adults. Michelle Aab created the Sentenced Too Young (S2Y) initiative in June 2024, the same month she received the disheartening news that her breast cancer had re-metastasized around her spine and ribs. The threat to her life propelled her into the S2Y mission.

The initiative’s purpose is to bring awareness of diminished capacity, as it applies to emerging adults, to the rest of society and use that increased awareness to create age-appropriate sentence reduction opportunities for people who committed crimes as young adults.

A northerner who has never lived in North Carolina, Aab is an unlikely advocate for criminal justice system change in the state. She works as a professional website designer and digital media creator. While helping an individual in prison in North Carolina through her work for a prison pen pal service, she was impressed with his character and accomplishments, which prompted her to ask about his release date. She learned he was serving a long-term sentence for a crime committed as a young adult. She considered it an injustice for a young adult to receive this sentence without any opportunity to earn leniency, so she decided to act.

Life Sentences for Crimes Committed as a Juvenile

Aab created an online platform where people can interact with blog stories of true-life prison transformation, read scientific evidence explaining continued neurocognitive development into a person’s mid-20s, view a legislative bill, and sign a petition. The site’s blog humanizes the people the bill is designed to affect, allowing the community to get to know them on a personal level and become invested in their change and growth. A platform providing such exposure for reformed individuals is rare. For many of the people whose stories are published, this is the only outlet they have to share and express their development with the outside world. Aab said the site’s blog draws the most attention from viewers and drives a lot of the conversation on social media.

The bill proposed by S2Y, known as “Modifications for Developmentally Appropriate Sentencing,” is presented as a solution to North Carolina’s violation of emerging adults’ Eighth Amendment rights. In an effort to combat the oversentencing of underdeveloped youth to the state’s harshest punishments, the bill is “designed to address youthful offenders who were convicted of crimes before the age of 25, have served at least 15 years on their sentence, and have exhibited genuine growth while proving themselves as highly potential members of society.”

According to Aab, “Society does not do enough to protect its youth.” Even when they have committed a crime, “they are biologically different from their fully matured counterparts.” In her mind, this disparity created by diminished capacity should lead to a level of diminished culpability that the courts need to consider. “This window of emerging adulthood is being neglected by the courts. Science has definitively proven that not only have people not fully developed by this point, but they also fall within a range of people who statistically are more likely to outgrow their criminal ways.”

Transformation Through Education, Mentorship, and Time

Growing up is hard. It’s as difficult as navigating a class three whitewater rapids without any experience. Large waves and intermittent obstacles can turn travel from relatively safe to dangerous. Every choice is like a paddle stroke that could capsize the raft.

Anyone who enters prison as a juvenile or even as a young adult has to grow up in prison, which is difficult to the extreme. It’s like a novice taking on class six rapids, which is dangerous even for pros. The rapids are violent and unpredictable. One mistake could kill any hope for a meaningful future.

Despite the extreme difficulty, Adams and Kearney are doing it.

When Adams graduates in May 2026, he wants to return to Foothills Correctional Institution, where he spent five years. He wants to serve as a field minister at that facility, because he knows the pain of coming to prison as a teenager and the power of choosing the path of transformation while growing up in prison. “On July 6, 2015, I walked into Foothills as an immature and devastatingly broken 15-year-old kid. Nearly 10 years later, I occasionally pull out my old ID card and study the angry, boyish face printed on it. I grieve at how badly that kid failed. Then, I pick my head up, stare into the mirror, and commend the mature, driven young man looking back.” He wants to go back to Foothills to help the kids and young men there accomplish the same maturation.

Kearney and his field minister team have been at Albemarle Correctional Institution for one year. He admitted that some officers, other staff, and incarcerated people were reluctant to his team’s presence. His servant’s attitude aided in thawing that icy reception. “Being a field minister entails living with a compassionate heart, a positive attitude, and willingness to serve. Living this way cultivates transformation. That’s the goal.” The winner of the Foot Washer Award continues to serve.

The maturation of these individuals is admirable. Although they were not mature when they committed the crimes for which they are in prison, they were held to the accountability level of a mature adult with a developed brain. Adams and Kearney were juveniles with juvenile brains.

Their growing up in prison corroborates brain science: Juveniles and young adults shouldn’t be judged and sentenced as mature adults, because they and their brains are still developing. But, really, we already knew that. We’ve always known that.

Young adults often think and act much more like children than adults, although every teen would disagree and argue they are adults. Young adulthood is generally defined by risky behavior. Risky behavior is pervasive in young adults because their PFC and corresponding EFs are still developing. Their behavioral maturation trails their physical maturation.

Rehabilitation Proves Maturity Is Possible

Like Adams and Kearney, James Gordon and Christian Pascasio have matured from individuals defined by reckless behavior to considerate servants while in prison. Both Gordon and Pascasio committed crimes at 18, for which they are serving life without parole (LWOP).

Gordon’s girlfriend needed money to pay for a speeding ticket so her mom wouldn’t learn about it. His childish brain came up with the idea to rob someone for the money, without even considering the possibility that someone could get hurt or he could get sent to prison. But the catastrophic consequences he didn’t imagine were the results of the robbery: a life was taken, and his life was stripped away. He has now been in prison for 25 years.

Gordon said impulses ruled his life at 18. “As a teenager, the immediate present felt like all that really mattered. I gave no thought to tomorrow.” People who observe him now cannot understand how this person ended up in prison, especially with a life sentence. In Gordon, people encounter a calm and considerate person, a problem solver who adeptly thinks through potential choices and assesses short- and long-term consequences.

His 18-year-old self was the opposite. He was intelligent, but his immature brain wasn’t developed enough to control impulses or make consequence-based decisions. The adults in his life thought his intelligence would prevent stupid and reckless choices. “No one ever sat me down to have a serious conversation about my future. Perhaps this is because the adults in my life assumed that by the time I reached high school, my intelligence should have naturally translated into a working knowledge and understanding of how to plan and make sound decisions. It hadn’t.” In prison, he aged into adulthood, and his maturation accompanied his aging. “I began to understand how even minor choices could impact my life in major ways.

During his 25 years in prison, he has worked mostly service-oriented jobs, including chaplain clerk, Inmate Construction Program worker, and dog trainer in the New Leash on Life program, where he has trained dozens of rescue dogs. Now, he is an NCFMP sophomore.

Pascasio’s crime was equally rash. When a rival gang member threatened several of Pascasio’s friends, he had only one thought: I have to protect my friends. Determined to do so, he shot and killed the person who made the threats. He didn’t think he had another choice. But to see only one choice is a childish way of thinking.

“I wasn’t able to make good decisions or consider the consequences of my decisions,” he said. “My mind didn’t work at that level. When stressed, my mind would go blank. My decision making and thinking through consequences had not come close to fully developed.” His EFs have developed since then. “Now, I’ve had plenty of years of practice to work through tough decisions and really consider consequential outcomes.”

Pascasio now spends his time urging others to leave the life of gangs, drugs, and violence. The person who thought he had only one choice now works to convince others they have choices. “My advice [to them] is to completely focus on growing and working for future success. To achieve success, the past life must be left in the past. In this quest, no one gets hurt and everyone wins. People’s lives get transformed, chains get broken, minds get set free, and our communities get new opportunities.” For anyone willing to make that change, he patiently guides them on the path. He sets the example for them, then passes on the lessons they need to be able to follow him.

Gordon and Pascasio were young adults when they committed the crimes for which they are in prison, but they received sentences that a mature adult would for the same crime: LWOP. Courts considered them full adults, but many facets of society wouldn’t have considered them that way. Neither of them could have walked into a bar and ordered a pint of Michelob, nor could they have rented a car from Hertz. They couldn’t have rented a hotel room at the Comfort Inn or traveled unaccompanied on a Royal Caribbean cruise. And Citibank wouldn’t have lent them a dollar.

Despite society judging young adults as lacking the capacity necessary to make basic decisions, courts judge them as if they have the capacity to fully understand the long-term consequences of life-altering decisions, punishing them at the same level as mature adults. Judging and punishing juveniles, young adults, and mature adults equally violates legal principles and a common sense understanding of age and maturation.

Why Juvenile and Young Adult Sentencing Must Change

Brain science establishes that neither juveniles nor young adults have the same decision-making capacity as mature adults. The maturity needed to make wise long-term choices requires brain parts and functions that are not developed at 15, 18, or even 22. But we don’t need science to convince us that young people don’t think as well as they will when they mature. Personal experience and observation prove this lesson.

Most of us reflect on something we did as a juvenile or young adult and ask, “What was I thinking?” Our mature brains immediately identify obviously bad choices. Our still developing brains often never stop to think through choices or evaluate consequences. The regulator—the mechanism that should control impulses—in our brains doesn’t work yet.

Neuroscience explains the mechanisms governing the EFs of planning, decision making, impulse control, and working memory. Legal explanations are not needed to know that a person’s capacity should directly and significantly impact consequences. More is expected of a teenager than a toddler, and that expectation variance determines the reward or punishment for an action. A toddler being potty trained could get rewarded for using the toilet, but not punished for failing to do so. Being potty trained would be expected of a 10-year-old, who would get punished for failing to do so. It would be ridiculous to reward a teenager for using the toilet, but failing to do so would deserve punishment.

Drawing From Personal Experience

The authors personally understand the stark difference between the immature thinking of young adults and mature adults. We both entered the prison system at age 22.

Timothy has been incarcerated since 2004. His decision-based thinking at that time mirrored his thinking at age 13, and it was nothing like his thinking now at age 43. Despite being 22 years old and a college senior before prison, he did not consider consequences, understand permanence, or focus beyond himself. He made life-defining decisions without any regard for the future or consideration of long-term consequences, for himself or others. That childish thinking and behavior caused irreparable damage.

On September 4, 2004, Timothy killed two men during a drunken altercation while tailgating at an NC State football game. He is wholly responsible for that tragedy, not only for his actions that day, but also because of every bad decision that led to what happened. For years, he’s asked himself the same question: “How could I be so stupid?” Many hours, days, and especially nights during the past 20 years have been spent reflecting on the consequences of his choices and actions for the many impacted.

Timothy came up with the phrase “downward spiral of compromise” to describe the gradual degeneration of his choices and character. One compromise led to the next, which led to the next. Each compromise brought but an incremental drop, so small as to be indistinguishable, but the overall direction was steeply downward.

The compromise began in high school, with smoking marijuana and drinking, then selling marijuana and later cocaine. At the end, selling cocaine and carrying a gun felt normal. No choice involved conscious effort. He didn’t deliberate or analyze the positives and negatives.

Timothy’s foolish choices caused immense harm that can never be undone. Thankfully, he’s no longer who he was. He doesn’t think or reason the same as he did 10 or 20 years ago. That selfish, foolish child has developed into a person who lives by values and principles, a person who prioritizes others over self. He values people more than things. And he understands the importance of making choices based on consequences, especially long-term consequences and the impact on others.

He didn’t, and never can, deserve the chance to go through the transformation process after taking the lives of two men. His foolish choices took their future, their goals and dreams, from them and everyone who loved them. No amount of good can ever undo or even lessen that harm.

Yet, remorse compels him to live each day to serve others. Every day finds him teaching, tutoring, mentoring, and encouraging. Timothy works as a field minister at Nash Correctional and graduate assistant for the program’s college. He gets to help others learn, grow, and overcome the challenges of living with a commitment to transformation in prison.

Tyler became incarcerated in 2015 for crimes committed at age 22. Prior to incarceration, his life consisted of dramatic ups and downs, a cycle reminiscent of a classic coming-of-age tale. Long periods of good decisions and success were undone by bad decisions. He thought he knew what he was doing, but in hindsight he can point to many pivotal moments that prove he had an immature mind. His decisions—to drink and drive, drop out of NC State, or commit the crime for which he’s in prison—clearly demonstrate the absence of an orderly thought process. He takes responsibility for his actions, but he’s simply not that person now.

As his brain has developed—mentally, emotionally, and spiritually—it’s clear that he’s very different from that young man. Today, his thoughts no longer concern just himself. Growing up in prison has taught him patience, empathy, and integrity. Immaturity blinded him to the necessity of these qualities, but he’s learned that life is not full without them.

Tyler’s life experiences have taught him about the enormous disparities in thoughts and actions between juveniles, young adults, and mature adults. These lessons spur his participation in prison reform advocacy, along with efforts to educate the public with a clear narrative of the criminal justice system.

He also uses the lesson that brain development facilitates character development to encourage others in prison, through writing and mentorship, that youthful decisions don’t have to define them. They, too, can overcome immature mistakes and grow into mature adults.

Aligning Sentencing With Brain Science and Human Development

Legal practice has been catching up to brain science, but it still has a long way to go, including in North Carolina. In addition to joining most of the nation in removing JLWOP, North Carolina should join the dozens of states following brain science to its evidence-based conclusion by punishing emerging adults less severely than mature adults. Following brain science leads to three age-appropriate reforms.

First, having a single sentencing chart for everyone contradicts the principle of diminished capacity. Courts in most states, including North Carolina, currently have two choices for resolving cases involving a juvenile. The case can remain in Juvenile Court or be sent to Superior Court, where a defendant is judged the same as an adult of 40 years of age. Juvenile courts limit sentences to ranges that many people consider too mild for violent or serious offenses.

A juvenile who commits a crime may deserve a stiffer penalty than what is currently sanctioned in Juvenile Court, but that doesn’t mean they deserve the same sentence as a mature adult. Likewise, an emerging adult shouldn’t be held to the same standard as a mature adult, who has a considerably greater capacity to make decisions based on understanding of perceived consequences.

Therefore, three distinct sentencing categories should be created: juveniles (under 18), emerging adults (18-24), and mature adults (25 and over). A simple formula for determining the distinction between the categories would be two-thirds, or 65%. The emerging adult sentence ranges for specific crimes would be two-thirds that of mature adults. The juvenile range would be two-thirds that of emerging adults.

Having three separate criminal sentencing categories would provide a lesser degree of culpability based on diminished capacity. Compared to mature adults, emerging adults have diminished capacity, thus diminished culpability, or lesser degree of accountability, which should be reflected in sentencing. Juveniles experience an even further diminished capacity, so a corresponding diminished culpability, or even lesser degree of accountability, should be reflected in sentencing.

Second, both juveniles and emerging adults should receive opportunities to earn sentence reductions or early release for demonstrating rehabilitation over a long period of time. The S2Y plan could be used to re-create the framework for this system of meaningful incentives.

Third, neither juveniles nor young adults should be eligible for LWOP. Both groups should be able to earn release. Release wouldn’t be automatic. Each person would have to earn that opportunity by demonstrating comprehensive rehabilitation and the ability to live effectively outside of prison.

Juvenile lifers could earn parole eligibility after 20 years by accomplishing a list of meaningful behavioral, educational, and rehabilitational objectives. An emerging adult could earn parole eligibility after 25 years.

Juveniles and emerging adults deserve a lesser sentence than mature adults, but juveniles and emerging adults sentenced to life actually get a longer sentence. Life at 16 means longer in prison than at 30, and life at 22 means longer in prison than at 40.

A Lifetime Consequence for a Juvenile Decision

Growing up is hard. Numerous individuals are forced to grow up in prison as a consequence of their mistakes, choices made without the understanding and maturity that come with the experience of living into adulthood. Without the meaningful incentive of earning a substantially reduced release date, or any release date at all, trying to become a mature adult in prison feels like navigating deadly rapids against the current, in a bucket instead of a raft, with a spoon instead of a paddle.

Despite the extreme difficulty, Pascasio and Gordon have done it. They’re just a few of many who are accomplishing, or already have accomplished, this monumental achievement. Gordon hopes to form a ministry that uses tabletop gaming to reach people who don’t feel part of any group. “I want to minister to the disenfranchised, the outsiders among outsiders.”

Gordon understands that many incarcerated men need to learn new, positive ways to interact with others. Group sports offer those benefits, but some have no interest or physical skill required for conventional sports. He wants to use tabletop gaming, including role-playing games, to help this group learn the social skills essential for reintegration into society. “Gaming has a great potential to meet this need by fostering community and building social skills.”

Pascasio wants to create an intensive gang intervention program. The program wouldn’t be anything easy and quick, or just go through the formalities, but really give help to those who seek it by providing a guided process and strenuous set of objectives. “The program will help participants solidify the ‘I’m out!’ commitment. By completing the program, individuals will earn trust that allows them to go back into the prison yard and show the rest of the troubled men that there’s a better way.” It would also help ex-gang members transition into a college program or a good job.

The maturation of these individuals is admirable. Although they were not mature when they committed the crimes for which they are in prison, they were held to the accountability level of a mature adult with a developed brain. Gordon and Pascasio were young adults with young adult brains. Their growing up in prison corroborates brain science: Juveniles and young adults shouldn’t be judged and sentenced as mature adults, because they and their brains are still developing. But, really, we already knew that. We’ve always known that.

Want to read more? Don’t miss Consider Brain Development When Sentencing Juveniles

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Author Bios

Timothy W. Johnson is an incarcerated author, serving life without parole for felony murder in North Carolina. He is editor of The Nash News, a prison newspaper, and editor of NC Prison News Today, a statewide prison publication. He works as a graduate assistant and field minister with the NC Field Minister Program, teaching academic writing to incoming freshmen and training writing tutors. He cowrote “Hope for the Hopeless: The Prison Resources Repurposing Act” (https://scholarship.law.unc.edu/nclr/vol100/iss3/2/), a legislative proposal and bill for prison reform in North Carolina.

Tyler Bowman is an incarcerated writer serving a minimum sentence of 42 years in the North Carolina prison system. His passions range from experimental fiction to narrative nonfiction. He writes for his facility’s news publication, The Nash News, and instructs a creative writing class, where he teaches aspects of the writing process and journalism.

Contact Information

Timothy W. Johnson #0778428
Nash Correctional Institution
PO Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

Tyler Bowman #1267568
Nash Correctional Institution
PO Box 247
Phoenix, MD 21131

Note: North Carolina Department of Adult Correction permits only legal mail to be sent directly to people in its prisons. Other mail must be sent to TextBehind, an intermediary, at the above address or electronically at TextBehind.com, to be scanned and placed on an app for digital viewing on tablets. Johnson and Bowman can also be contacted through the Getting Out messaging app (gettingout.com). This messaging app is the quickest and most direct means of contact.

Writings by Timothy Johnson

“The Impact JSTOR In Prison Has Made on Me”

Hope for the Hopeless: The Prison Resources Repurposing Act, in UNC School of Law’s North Carolina Law Review

“Prohibiting Young Adult Life Without Parole: Examining Diminished Capacity and Diminished Culpability” in The Harbinger, NYU Review of Law & Social Change, Vol. 47 (May 23, 2023), pp. 83–89

“Books Have Made My Time in Prison Better”

Prison Journalism Project has an author’s page for Timothy Johnson, with links to several articles posted on the site.

“Twenty Years Later” in Technician, NC State’s student newspaper (go to Opinions page, search “twenty years later”)

Creative Nonfiction Essays Available at Walk In Those Shoes:

https://walkinthoseshoes.com/my-two-voiced-muse

https://walkinthoseshoes.com/i-asked-for-a-friend

https://walkinthoseshoes.com/my-downward-spiral-of-compromise

https://walkinthoseshoes.com/ambassadors-of-change

https://walkinthoseshoes.com/the-luckiest-man-on-the-face-of-the-earth

Articles in The Nash News (2019–2025), available through JSTOR

Articles in NC Prison News Today

Writings by Tyler Bowman

“Why Prison Education Matters” Dollars & Sense, July/August 2023

“Forced Labor vs. Forced Idleness” Dollars & Sense, March/April 2024

Articles in The Nash News

Articles in NC Prison News Today

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