Poetry by Shaquille Davis

Is This Justice?
By Shaquille Davis

Almost every day a person under the age of 21 is given a life sentence, rather it’s state or federal. Several studies have demonstrated that the human brain isn’t fully matured until the age of 25. Yet we charge children like they’re grown adults when they are not. I am one of those people, I got a life sentence at the age of 18 and was sentenced to more time than my age, twenty years to life.

Between the years 2016 to 2023, 706 people under 21 have received life sentences in the federal prison system. The number is doubled for state at 1,465. Living in what is supposed to be the greatest country, but also the only one that gives a child under 18 the sentence of life without parole. Even the supreme court establishes that children are constitutionally different than adults in their level of culpability and that their difference in maturity and accountability informs on the protection of the Eighth Amendment, prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment that limits children to die in prison. This Amendment that has been around a long time and gets violated everyday as children are sentenced to die in prison. Every single state has violated this Amendment by making draconian laws that gives them the opportunity to give out these sentences, like it’s a type of justice, furthering the issue of mass incarceration.

Even though research on adolescent brain development confirms common sense understanding that children are different from adults in ways that are critical to identifying age-appropriate criminal sentences. They didn’t take any of this into consideration when I was a scared child in the county. Turning 19 and getting sentenced to 20-Life, they didn’t give it a second thought. Knowing that my chances of dying in prison was greater than getting paroled, which is slim to none.

As the number of people getting paroled declines every year, the glimmer of hope getting smaller every year, waiting on a second chance. As I watched others take that stressful walk to be scolded and demeaned by people that never met them for a crime they committed over 20 years ago.

Getting denied so many times, that so many of them have doubled and even tripled their original sentence of 15 to life and have well over 45 in. These actions are counterproductive to public safety and rehabilitation, cause who would try to better themselves if they know their dead anyways. What hope is the justice system giving people like me when I have watched so many die in here from old age because of a mistake they made as a child. To have met a man that has been locked up since he was 13 and only kissed a girl on the streets and is now over 50.

We are a prime example of a violation of the Eighth Amendment, what we are going through is cruel and unusual punishment and all we ask is for a second chance. Don’t we at least deserve that, a chance to prove we deserve another chance at a free life for a mistake we made as a dumb kid. I’m asking you, the person reading this now. Don’t you think we at least deserve that?

The Voices
By Shaquille Davis

I’ve been in solitary confinement for six years now, the only thing worse than the starving and boredom is the voices. They don’t start on the first day, no it’s a couple weeks in you’ll hear the whispers. That continue to get louder as they begin to visit you more consistently. They are harsh and pray on your deepest fears, they will try to break you mentally.

Which will be all you have left, as you went from 215 pounds to 145 just in a couple months. Your body giving bare minimum to survive, nothing to do but lay on your rack to conserve energy, to get that next tray. But those voices will do any and everything to break the last thing you hold dear, your mind. And they get worse as the time go by, digging up more and more stuff to make you hate yourself.

Making you question yourself as you begin to lose your mind. You will scream and try to pace to keep your mind clear and keep the voices out, but they always find a way back in. You will do anything to get them out, even hurt yourself. Not knowing you’re playing right into their hands, because no one wants to admit it. But they know who voice it is, that is pressuring you into hurting yourself, it’s the voice of your insecurities. The thing you fear most and they are using your worst fears as artillery, using everything in their arsenal to break you down to nothing. Less than a child, losing sleep every night, calling the darkness and pain your friend. As you slowly drive yourself crazy.

Can’t Break Me
By Shaquille Davis

I was always taught to fight and never let anyone break me, not even when the prosecutor gave me a life sentence as a child. I kept pushing, not when the COs cuffed, mased and beat me. I will never let them break me; I will always keep fighting. Not even after being in solitary confinement for the last five years, I still won’t let them break me.

Prison is more mental than physical; they will try everything in their power to break you down mentally but they will never break me. I will always keep fighting, keep fighting my case, keep fighting for my life because righteousness will always prevail over bitterness. The day you hit the county the deck will be stacked against you. It’s never innocent until proven guilty; it’s guilty until proven innocent.

They will slander your name in the papers, make your family and friends look at you different as they peddle their own narratives of who you are. Trying to force the ones who love you most, turn their backs on you. You can’t let them break you; keep fighting; don’t let their narratives define who you are. You know who are, even when they starve and beat you, always remember who are.

You are a human; you can’t let them break you because when you do, then they have won. So I don’t let them break me; I keep fighting no matter what, no matter the head games, no matter the physical and verbal abuse. I wake every day ready to see what type of warfare they are going to come at me today with. Will they try to take my rec? Will they make up a fake excuse, so I don’t get my hour out? Or will they try and trick me again and take me off camera and beat me? All bruises, lumps and splits will heal; they can beat me all they want but they will never break me.

One of my first real motivations was to make it back home to my family but since starting this life bid ten years ago, I have a new motivation and that is not to let them win. They give me strength as I look in the mirror at the scars that they gave me. I know who my oppressor is, the people that hate me just for breathing. I let them be my motivation to keep fighting every day, to never let them win as it gives me a type of gratification deep in my belly that they can never break me; my mental is too strong. So I will never stop, no matter what.

Shaquille Davis