A review by bibliophage
A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison by Reginald Dwayne Betts

challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

“Or that if they were more than faces to me, or I was more than a face to them, they were more backdrop for me. I didn’t see them as confronting the same system I confronted in court. I’d look at them and always assume they’d had to do something heinous to get sent to prison, because it was all over the news and the grapevine that white folks were treated differently in courts. Maybe that’s why I never really thought of any of the white men I met as friends. The world was becoming more diverse for me, but the ground that we all stood on wasn’t becoming any more even.”
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Reginald Dwayne Betts went to prison at 16, after committing six felonies in Springfield, Virginia—including armed carjacking. Betts was tried as an adult and spent his young, formative years in prison. In this memoir Betts tells his story, reflecting on his choices and his identity. Betts writes about the bigger picture of the problematic justice system and also his daily lived-experience moving from cell to cell. The end of the book was a strong reflection on redemption and how Betts now navigates a life that is forever connected to his prison experience. 

I was especially moved when he shared his poetry and talked about his efforts to write. The story does move around in time and space, and may feel disjointed—but Betts says that's what his experience in prison was like, incomprehensible and at times disjointed.