Dwayne Betts did not fit the stereotype of an underachieving, trouble-bound black youth on Pearl Harbor Day, 1996. He was well read and college bound when he and a buddy committed the crimes for which he was ultimately sentenced to serve eight years in the Virginia prison system. Sixteen years old, a relatively recent amendment to the Virginia penal code allowed the Commonwealth to "certify" him as an adult. A Question of Freedom describes his prison experiences. More often than not during the first five years of his sentence, he was the youngest prisoner in his unit, although not necessarily the most vulnerable. Smart, resourceful, if, sometimes, too defiant for his own good, he made good use of his time, much of it spent in solitary confinement. He kept in shape (200 push-ups a day), read voraciously, wrote poetry, learned Spanish, completed a paralegal training course, and, took advantage of the diversity of the prison population to expand his horizons. His book provides a full account of the how, what, where and when of his experience. It is less definitive when it comes to his explanation of why he stepped out of character for the ten minutes that forever changed his life. It is to his great credit that he refused to blame his failings on his absent father or, more generally, on the failure of the community to help him steer clear of the crime. He seems to say that he did what he did because he thought he could do it and not mess up.
Today, Dwayne Betts has become a role model for young black boys and a much sought after speaker and talk show guest. He is working for the repeal of the laws that allowed him to be certified as an adult. The question is before the U.S. Supreme Court and should be decided this spring. He is married, he and his wife Teresa have a two-year old son. His first book of poetry Shahid [his prison name] Reads His Own Palm is to be published in May. Just so you know, my wife and I had the good luck to make Dwayne and Teresa's acquaintance recently during an airport stopover in Baltimore.
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About the author
Reading and Writing From Prison
Betts, R. D. (2009). A question of freedom: A memoir of survival, learning, and coming of age in prison. Avery. Reginald Dwayne Betts is poet, lawyer, and founder and director of Freedom Reads, a first-of-its-kind organization that empowers people through literature to confront what prison does to the spirit. This book tells the story of Betts’s years in prison when at the age of 16 he committed a crime (six felonies) that landed him in jail. According to Betts, "This story tells how a son can scar everyone he's ever loved in the time it takes to walk to the convenience store and back" (p. 231). He vividly described prison life and its affect on him, including "what it meant to lock your thoughts inside of yourself and survive in a place governed by violence, a place where violence was a cloud of smoke you learned to breathe in or choked on." Reading and writing became ways he endured, "Writing was my major rehabilitative tool. My poems let me see the world in a way I hadn't before. Not simply a world of cause and effect, but of all the nuance that goes into surviving a life sentence. "
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- Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2010
- Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2022
Betts, R. D. (2009). A question of freedom: A memoir of survival, learning, and coming of age in prison. Avery.
Reginald Dwayne Betts is poet, lawyer, and founder and director of Freedom Reads, a first-of-its-kind organization that empowers people through literature to confront what prison does to the spirit.
This book tells the story of Betts’s years in prison when at the age of 16 he committed a crime (six felonies) that landed him in jail. According to Betts, "This story tells how a son can scar everyone he's ever loved in the time it takes to walk to the convenience store and back" (p. 231). He vividly described prison life and its affect on him, including "what it meant to lock your thoughts inside of yourself and survive in a place governed by violence, a place where violence was a cloud of smoke you learned to breathe in or choked on." Reading and writing became ways he endured, "Writing was my major rehabilitative tool. My poems let me see the world in a way I hadn't before. Not simply a world of cause and effect, but of all the nuance that goes into surviving a life sentence. "
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