I write to my friend Ryan in Alabama every day. He has lived on death row since 2012. During that time, Alabama has executed more than 25 people.

“I have been keeping a count on my fingers of all the guys that died since January last year,” Ryan wrote to me in June 2024 of the deaths at his prison. In those 18 months, the state executed four people, three by lethal injection and one by nitrogen gas. The latter marked the first time nitrogen gas was used to carry out a sentence of capital punishment, a move widely condemned by the United Nations and human rights groups. Ryan added another number to his vigil. He told me this between reveries about what he had for breakfast and what was on TV the previous night. 

For incarcerated people like Ryan, death becomes something that just happens. Someone dies, belongings are cleared out of their cell, someone else moves into the space, and everyone moves on. After all, Alabama’s state prison system has the highest rates of murder, suicide and overdoses in the U.S., according to the Department of Justice.

“Everything is back to normal around here,” he wrote the day after an execution that May. “It’s as though nothing had happened the day before. I suppose that is the way the state wants it to be — business as usual.” 

It is all “rather routine,” he said. 

You may think that’s heartless, that surely people in prison must grieve. They do. But to cope in an environment where every day is a struggle, where you are constantly reliving past traumas and guilt, it can be easier to compartmentalize death and move on.

It is not just on death row where time washes over the ends of lives, seemingly uninterrupted. 

I have friends in other prisons who feel this same loss. I’ve been corresponding with incarcerated people across the United States for six years. I live in Worcester, England, and I first started writing to people for a United Kingdom-based charity looking for people to write to prisoners on death row in the U.S. 

Through hundreds of letters, I’ve come to understand how death becomes routine inside prison — and eventually becomes routine beyond prison walls too.

Violence is normalized

In 2019, more than 4,000 people died in state, federal and private prisons across the U.S., according to the latest data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. That same year, there was an all-time high of 143 homicides in state prisons over the 19 years BJS tracked the data.

These are just statistics for many people. But for my friend in Ohio, who works for the hazardous waste cleanup crew at his prison, the aftermath of violence is a visceral part of his daily routine, as he wrote to me in November 2024 through electronic communication.

“I had to splash chemicals on a puddle of blood Friday where the prison SWAT [team] repeatedly slammed a guy on his head that was in handcuffs,” said my friend, who asked to remain anonymous.

People inside face the threat of violence every day. Simple things can escalate when someone says the wrong thing, looks at someone the wrong way, sits in someone’s preferred seat. When tensions are already high, it doesn’t take much for someone to snap, as Lance, my friend in Texas, wrote to me in February 2025.

“There was a statewide lockdown because of extreme violence,” Lance said, noting that close to 10 people died at his prison in 2024. “In the midst of a 5-foot-by-8-foot concrete bathroom tensions escalate. Deaths are drug-related mainly. … Individuals have been killed in the dayroom over $5.”

You can see how violence, and death, become easier and easier to partake in.

No space for grief

When this routine violence turns inward, incarcerated communities are often left alone with their grief. My friend Robert, who is incarcerated in a Washington state mental health unit, spoke about the silence that follows suicide in prison. 

“It is not talked about,” Robert wrote. “A person in here kills themselves and three hours later everything returns to normal.” 

The Washington State Department of Corrections reports around 23 suicides across its facilities from 2021 to 2025. But Robert said those numbers don’t capture the experience of those left behind. Robert recalled at least 14 people he’s known personally who killed themselves in that timeframe, either while incarcerated or shortly after being released. The extent of suicide remains unrecognized because the method or timing of how people kill themselves often don’t fit into clear institutional boxes. If someone dies by suicide immediately after release, for example, their loss will be felt by those left behind but remain unrecognized by official statistics. 

In the cases of suicide inside prison, Robert said the administration rarely provides information in the aftermath of these tragedies. In many cases, Robert is left to guess how and why his friends died, or ask staff in hopes of finding an answer. He said some of these deaths have not been officially categorized as suicides, but he knows the person made a choice to end their life. One man Robert knew stopped taking his heart medication, knowing the decision would kill him.

“‘I’m sick of waiting,’” the man told him. “‘I am ready to get out of this place. This ain’t no life.’” 

That death was recorded as heart failure, not suicide, according to a prison nurse Robert spoke with and multiple guards who corroborated the information.

The silence from administrators, Robert said, makes it feel like there is no real acknowledgment of the person’s passing. No reflection on their life or who they were to those left behind. No space for grief.

Loss from afar

When death touches a family on the outside, the system’s approach is often the same — a mechanized response that denies basic human dignity. Death is not treated as sacred; it’s treated as a process.

As Lance told me, his grandfather was his best friend, a great confidant, a mentor and the nucleus of his family. He was also the only person who would help with Lance’s legal issues. But when his grandfather died on Sept. 2, 2025, Lance was not allowed to grieve near his family, or even virtually attend his grandfather’s memorial.

He only received an electronic message from his mom to relay the news of his grandfather’s death. His family tried to send materials from the memorial, but the prison wouldn’t let them in, as he wrote to me in an electronic message in February 2025.

“The photo books, pictures and obituaries were all thrown in the trash,” Lance said.

The disappearance of these mementos reminded me of Ryan’s unusual vigil for those executed at his Alabama facility.

“You can always feel their absence in the dayroom,” he said. But there was nothing left beyond that to mark their death. Ryan had to figure out his own way, counting deaths on his fingers until he ran out of room.