“Heaven, Hell, and Here”: Understanding the Impact of Incarceration through a Prison Newspaper

Prison newspaper stories capture the quotidian atmosphere of the penitentiary as it is lived and understood by people confined there. This article analyzes a newspaper produced since 2001 at a state prison for women in the northeastern United States. The publication comes out of a journalism class taught by the author and a colleague, and is produced entirely by inmates of the prison. After situating the prison newspaper as a tool of ideological struggle, the article uses symbolic convergence theory to provide a fantasy theme analysis of the texts and to illuminate the rhetorical vision they create for their authors and audiences. The newspaper expresses inmates' struggles to overcome the degradations of confinement with spirituality, compassion, pragmatism, and even humor.