With a scathing critique of shifts in sentencing laws, prison policies that ensure recidivism, and classic "tough on crime" views that don't make society safer or prevent crime, Lyle C. May explores capital punishment, life imprisonment, prison education, prison journalism, and activism from inside to abolish the carceral state.
No outside journalist can adequately report what happens inside death row or what it is like to live through thirty-three executions. Lyle C. May's grounded writings in Witness challenge the myths, misconceptions, and misinformation about the criminal legal system and death in prison, guiding readers on a journey through North Carolina's congregate death row, where the author has spent most of his life. Witness is a first-hand account of the death penalty's wholly destructive nature.
With a foreword by activist, lawyer, and professor Danielle Purifoy, and drawing on the work of Angela Davis, Mariame Kaba, and other abolitionist scholars, Witness shows there is more to life under the sentence of death than what is portrayed in crime dramas or mass media. Lyle C. May's life, journalism, and activism are a guidebook to abolitionism in practice.

Lyle C. May is an Ohio University alum, member of the Alpha Sigma Lambda Honor Society, and member of the Author's Guild. His writing regularly appears in Scalawag Magazine and he guest lectures at universities, high schools, and academic conferences around the US. To sign up for May's newsletter or to contact him, visit www.LyleCMay.com.

Section A-State of Violence: Capital Punishment and Death Row
On Death Row, Eating to Live
A Confirmation of Faith
Secrecy and the Death Penalty
Beyond the wall
Death Row Phenomenon
Jesus as a Man on Death Row
Learning to Die
Section B-Carceral State: Life imprisonment
Life Without Parole is a Silent Execution
A Tale of Two Henrys
Paroling Michael Pinch
Death by Incarceration
Mob Mentality and Politics: The viral space where bad laws are made
Section C-Culture of Control: Higher Education and Prison Journalism
Draconian Ideals
Obstructing Reform
Resilience and Resistance
Freeing the Press in Prison
Prison Journalism: Fighting the Narrative of Control
NC Innocence Inquiry Commission Does Not Save Every Innocent of Death Row
Section D-Witness: Speaking Out
The Digital Abolitionist Twitter Feed: Lisa Montgomery
Science vs. Anti-Intellectualism and the Death Penalty
Inside the Tinderbox: COVID-19 in Prison
The Economics of Capital Punishment
Qualified Immunity
When the Thermometer Breaks
The Myth of Deterrence
No Man Left Behind
Section E. Activism
Front Line Snapshots of Activism
On Retaliation against Incarcerated Writers
The Hole: To Live Means to Resist
The Fury of Our Resistance