This state often referred to as "Killer Cali" has 33 adult prisons and hundreds of county jails that house a majority of active gang members. I have been to five different prisons and have seen, and done, some crazy things. I have rightfully earned my prison "stripes" fighting with Crips. Before we get transferred to these prisons we experience th biggest test of our reputation, in L.A. County Jail. You cannot hide in there because your enemy is right there waiting on you. The weak are preyed upon with no mercy. Even the sheriff's custody staff has become a gang their own, acting without restraints as if the Law or rules don't apply to them. They are crazy too, taking a great deal of satisfaction violating and beating inmates to a bloody mess. These pigs are building a formidable reputation of their own, and they have not yet hit the streets. So many men have lost their manhood--tortured and raped--Behind These Walls.
-Albert "Ru-Al" Jones

Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy has taught America how to attend to the whole lives of our men and women on Death Row. Behind These Walls was written from the Death Row in California's San Quentin Prison. The author, Albert "Ru-al" Jones, has been on the Row since 1996. Jones is a proud member of the Blood street gang and a devout Christian. In prison he has nearly completed a college degree. He is the author of "Our Last Meals?: San Quentin Death Row Cook Book" and of "I'm in God's Confinement", which tells of his life of Christian faith in prison. Behind These Walls is the final book in Jones' trilogy of memoirs. It tells of events that happen at the same time as the second book of the trilogy, 10 Toez Down, when Jones is in his late teens and his twenties. The book is just three chapters. In the first, Jones goes into great detail into the experience of his first trial and of the process, over several days, of being sent into a County Jail and his harrowing experience of acclimation into a hazardous new world. The tension between Bloods and Crips is only intensified in the jail, with the added complexity of prison guards and other gangs. In the second chapter, The Blood Modules, Jones makes it clear that he went in and out of that jail several times and so is able to add depth and nuance to his portrayal of life behind bars. He includes affectionate portrayals of some of the men whose wisdom help him negotiate the perils and temptations of jail. The third chapter, Prison Life, tells of Jones' experiences in five different State Prisons, which turn out to be relatively safe and stable compared to the LA County Jail. He is baptized, makes some unusual connections and alliances and needs to continually negotiate new challenges and sub-cultures. The first book of the trilogy, Put on the Shelf to Die, tells of his childhood up until the time he is recruited by the Bloods, and then jumps ahead to the time he is arrested for murder, tried by a nearly all white jury, sent to San Quentin's Death Row and then settles into life there. The next book, 10 Toez Down, spares no details of his life as a "gangsta" out on the streets with stories of drugs, sex and violence as well as the brotherhood among the Bloods and his intimate relationships with his family and his girlfriend.
-The Rev. Christopher H. Martin
Rector
St. Paul's Episcopal Church, San Rafael, California.