Everyday stands still when you’re in jail. Your life is at a stop, and you can’t move forward into your future. Everyone you left on the outside of the prison walls gets to move on and make a life. While you wait for any news of the outside world, everything changes, but you. Or that’s what Scottie once said bout being locked up. Since July 27, 2009 Scottie has been in West Chester County Prison, awaiting his court date. He only owes about twenty-seven months, from the past and is only in on a V.O.P this time around. For the years that I knew him Scottie was always laid back and always looking for a good time. Scottie’s unruly lifestyle always got him into trouble. Before he got booked in 2002 Scottie thought he had everything. Owned two cars, a nice place and a girl he thought was about something. Scottie grew up getting messed up though, and he was selling the drugs as well. “To be real when I sold drugs I was happy, it’s easy money, and I was good at it,” Scottie admitted with no shame. Still he tries not to let his current position bring him down. Instead he throws himself into books, getting his G.E.D, and writing.

After About two months of being in jail Scottie finally went to court. They gave him a bid of one to three years, when he only owed about twenty-seven months from the past. But there’s still a really good chance he’ll get out of there in one and a half years if that long. The only things he’ll have to look forward to while they keep him is mail, phone calls, visits when he can get them, and the day he’ll finally get out. Already though Scottie is making plans for when he is finally free. He talks of going to a trade school to learn about doing anything with cars, starting a family and leaving his old life behind.

Fifteen years ago last month Scottie’s dad passed away. Sometimes he wonders if things would have been different if his dad could have been around longer. Though he knows that he was better than the life he was making for himself, no one really knows if he can change, you just got to love him and hope that he can. “To be real at times I wanna go back to it all, but something stops me, I don’t know what, yeah I do I’m lying, I know I’m better than that and deserve much more out of life, than just being in a cage and wasting my life,” he said when asked about if he would ever go back to selling drugs when he is home again. His eyes though shine with pride when he brags about where his life is going after he gets everything straight. Scottie said he was never close to his mom but this past year they have grown closer. Admitting that he knows what he is doing to her being in jail, he said he hates it, having to see her cry and having to have her see him in his current position.

When you’re in jail you have to deal the best way you know how. You have to do your bid not let your bid do you. And it helps of you know someone on the outside willing to be there for you to write to and come see you, when they can. When you’re in jail everything you ad before you went to jail is gone, it’s no longer yours. I don’t see why so many people find it funny doing drugs, or getting in trouble, it’s not worth it at all. It’s not cool or funny being in jail. People are stupid enough to do what they want until breaking the law ends them up in jail and even than some of them be laughing and doing it all over when they out. What I don’t get is why anyone would do all this just for the money. But when Scottie is finally free he’ll no longer live life behind them bars.