While serving a sentence of 28-years-to-life in New York State prisons for killing a rival drug dealer, John J. Lennon, a leading incarcerated journalist, has published works of journalism in a wide range of mainstream publications, including The Marshall Project. His first book, “The Tragedy of True Crime: Four Guilty Men and the Stories That Define Us,” newly published by Celadon Books, examines firsthand the cases of four killers — including Lennon himself — to cut through the sensationalism and reveal the humanity of the people behind bars. He is currently residing in Sing Sing prison, and will become eligible for parole in 2029.

Bill Keller is the founding editor of The Marshall Project, and the author of “What’s Prison For: Punishment and Rehabilitation in the Age of Mass Incarceration.”

Their conversation, conducted via email, has been edited for length and clarity.

Bill Keller: Prison newspapers have been around for a long time — reportedly since the debtors’ prisons of the 19th century. But incarcerated journalists who work as independent freelancers, without the support of an authorized publication, are a relatively recent trend.

John J. Lennon: For much of the 20th century, most prisons had a newspaper, and whenever a jailhouse journalist gained notoriety, it was for their writing in those papers. Wilbert Rideau was a leading incarcerated journalist, perhaps the most famous prison journalist. He edited and wrote articles for The Angolite, a newsmagazine that operated in Louisiana’s Angola prison. Its best work was at the tail end of the rehabilitative era of American corrections. Rideau’s success came, in large part, from a unique relationship he had with the prison warden who would go on to run the whole prison system in the state. By the ‘90s, a more punitive era began, and most of the nation's prison presses went by the wayside.

The Angolite is still running today, but it’s highly censored. San Quentin, the infamous prison in California, has the San Quentin News, the “Ear Hustle” podcast, and a media lab, where participants enjoy a collegial environment, computers, and can walk the facility. Few prisons in America offer anything like this, but what I’ve learned over the years from talking to some of San Quentin’s best writers — Juan Moreno Haines and Rahsaan Thomas and Joe Garcia — is that they preferred to publish stories in outside newspapers and magazines, to reach bigger audiences, work with professional editors, rack up clips for their CVs, and to save money for their return. (Writing for the San Quentin News earned them about $16 a week.)

Read the full article about prison journalism by Bill Keller and John J. Lennon at The Marshall Project.