Other essays on this theme

Essay: "Nothing to Lose"

by Michael J. McKinney
This is my second theme essay on the topic nothing to lose. When I turned 18 years old, I was on my way back to the Florida prison system for the rest of my life, because a Tampa, Florida judge by the name of Harry Lee Coe had sentenced me to a natural life term and a great number of years. I was sentenced to never see the outside world again. I was young and wild with no understanding, and I went back into the Florida prison system as if I had nothing to lose, and I was ready to hurt anybody that got in my way because I was mad at the world. At least that was the way I was feeling at the time my outside world freedom was taken away from me for the rest of my life. I could not help but feel as if I had nothing to lose, and when I got to Baker C.I. in 1989 at the age of 18, I was going to lock up all the time, in and out of disciplinary confinement, for fighting and all kinds of other disciplinary reports. When on the compound, I was getting into fights on every corner, as if fighting was going out of style. If someone just looked at me wrong they had to get it down. That was the kind of mind set I carried around with me, I stayed in more than a little trouble. So many times I thought of jumping the prison gate just to make the gun tower shoot me off the gate, because my mind-set was that I still had nothing to lose.

-

-Michael J. McKinney