Interview with Shaun Attwood

Published 2014-10-12.
What did you learn about yourself during almost six years of incarceration?
In prison, I went on an amazing journey of self-discovery. Previously, I’d zipped through life without considering the consequences of my actions, especially the harm drugs cause to society. Prison forced introspection and sobriety. After years of drug use, I felt a cloud lift from my mind. The clarity of vision made me wonder how on earth I was still alive after taking so many drugs and putting myself in so many dangerous situations. In jail, Gerard Gravano – the son of Salvatore ‘Sammy the Bull’ Gravano, a Mafia mass murderer – told me he’d once headed an armed crew dispatched to take me out to the desert. Prison forced me to grow up. I saw how emotionally immature, selfish, and foolish my behavior had been. The pain I caused my family made me ill, but added extra motivation to my soul searching. My mum had a nervous breakdown, which haunts me to this day. I regretted sending people down the road of drug use, which inevitably devastates not just users, but also their families. Shocked, I set out to try and make sense of my behavior. I submerged myself in psychology and philosophy books. I had counselling with a brilliant neuro-psychotherapist Dr. Owen, who helped strip the layers of my personality down in order to analyze my inner dynamics. I learned that the bad decisions that led to my arrest stemmed from anxiety and my addictive adrenalin-junkie personality type. I started doing drugs as a shy student to socialize because I lacked the strength of my mind to enjoy myself at a party sober. Dr. Owen said the key to staying out of trouble is to channel my energy into positive things, which is what I do now via writing, karate, gym classes, yoga, and meditation. To this day, I fall back on what he taught me and I’m forever grateful. Meditating for hours on end in prison, going deep inside of myself, gave me a great insight into my personality, especially how my brain manufactures excessive worries and anxiety through thoughts. Over time, I learned to stop such thoughts by concentrating on breathing, which short-circuited my anxiety. We have the ability to heal ourselves with our brains. Thanks to yoga and meditation, which I practice daily, I’m still tapping into that power.
Do you remember the first stories you ever wrote?
The first stories I wrote were at my blog, Jon's Jail Journal. Here are excerpts:

19 Feb 04

The toilet I sleep next to is full of sewage. We’ve had no running water for three days. Yesterday, I knew we were in trouble when the mound in our steel throne peaked above sea level.

Inmates often display remarkable ingenuity during difficult occasions and this crisis has resulted in a number of my neighbours crapping in the plastic bags the mouldy breakfast bread is served in. For hours they kept those bags in their cells, then disposed of them downstairs when allowed out for showers. As I write, inmates brandishing plastic bags are going from cell door to door proudly displaying their accomplishments.

The whole building reeks like a giant Portaloo. Putting a towel over the toilet in our tiny cell offers little reprieve. My neighbour, Eduardo, is suffering diarrhoea. I can’t imagine how bad his cell stinks.

I am hearing that the local Health Department has been contacted. Hopefully they will come to our rescue soon.

20 Feb 04

My cellmate couldn’t hold his in any longer. He pinched his nose and lifted the towel from the toilet. Repulsed by the mound, he said, “There’s way too much crap to crap on, dog. I’m gonna use a bag.” So as jail etiquette demands in these situations, I rolled over on my bunk and faced the wall. I heard something hit the rim of the seatless toilet, and him say, “Damn! I missed some!” When he was done, he put the finished product by the door and the stink doubled. He had no water to clean where the piece had fallen on the toilet, so it remained forming a crustation on the rim. We were hoping to be allowed out to dispose of the bag, until a guard announced, “There will be no one coming out for showers and phone calls, as we have to get one-hundred-and-twenty inmates water from an emergency container!”

The water came back on in stages. In our toilet, its level slowly rose.
“Oh no,” I said. “It’s about to overflow, and we’ll be stuck in here with sewage all over the floor.”
“One of us needs to stick his hand in the crap to let the water through,” my cellmate said. “And you’re the closest.”
The brown soup was threatening to spill from the bowl, so I put a sandwich bag on my hand. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I said, plunging my hand into the mound. The mound took the bag from my hand. Almost up to my elbow in sewage, I dug until the water level sank.
“I owe you one, dog,” my cellmate said.
“It’s your turn next time,” I said.
Because the tap water hadn’t come back on, I couldn’t wash my arm. Not wanting to contaminate anything in the cell, I sat on the stool until a guard let us out for showers hours later.
What is your writing process?
Top down. Plot first and start writing chapters.
What did writing your blog “Jon’s Jail Journal” mean to you during lock-up? How did you hide the logistics of writing secret documents from other prisoners and guards during the day?
Blogging meant a tremendous amount to me and my family – it was a team effort. My dad came up with the idea of starting a blog after he read about it in the news. My aunt smuggled my writing out of the maximum-security Madison Street jail, and typed up some of my early blogs. My parents handled all of the administration, typing blogs up and handling the correspondence with the public, which became a full-time job in itself over almost six years, taking up all of their spare time. Writing about the conditions – dead rats in the chow, cockroaches trying to crawl in my ears at night, gang murders, mayhem and violence – helped me deal with the situation and contributed to saving my sanity. Jon’s Jail Journal was inspired by a guard who said to me, “The world has no idea what’s really going on in here.” With a golf pencil sharpened on the door, I started documenting everything. I hid what I wrote in legal paperwork and letters. My aunt took the blog entries – still hidden in paperwork – out through Visitation, typed them up, and emailed them to my parents in England, who posted them to the Internet. As the blog became well known, kind strangers started to mail me books and letters from around the world. Their outpouring of support helped restore the faith in humanity I’d lost after experiencing inhumane conditions and witnessing constant brutality. It was as if my blog readers were there with me in spirit, and I’m forever grateful to them. On a mission to get the conditions changed, I was delighted when the BBC reported my blog. International media attention to the human rights violations followed. The maximum-security Madison Street jail was shut down a few years later, but Sheriff Joe Arpaio runs six different jails. He opened a new maximum-security high-tech house of horrors down the street. I even have footage of him on my YouTube channel bragging about his Tent City jail being a concentration camp. I still use the blog to campaign against Arpaio. Although incarceration worked for me, it was a disaster for most people I saw. Young people came in, were recruited by the gangs, started shooting up drugs, and committed acts of violence to earn racist tattoos. Perhaps that’s why Phoenix has the highest crime and re-offending in America, and Arpaio is the most sued sheriff.
How did you feel when you returned to England again, a free man?
I got off the plane with a small box containing my scant belongings. Walking through Gatwick Airport, I worried that UK officials might want a word about my criminal activity and lifelong ban from America, but I breezed through customs, which was a relief. With blurred vision, I had difficulty locating my parents among the hundred or so people thronging around the gate. Out of nowhere, Mum ran at me, her jacket flying and landing on the floor, my sister behind, tears streaming. I dropped my box, and with an adrenalin rush hugged Mum off her feet, and hugged my sister and Dad. After I reassured them that I was OK, we made jokes about me looking like a Russian dissident due to my lengthy stubble and gaunt face. On what felt like the wrong side of the road, Dad drove us away. For the first time, I read Jon’s Jail Journal on a computer, and posted a blog entry myself:

13 Dec 07

I’m free!

This is Shaun.

I can’t thank you enough for all of your comments and support over the years. My prison journey is finally at an end! I’m at my sister’s flat in Fulham, London. Tomorrow, I’m heading for my parents’ house in Cheshire. Tonight, I’m being treated to Indian food with my family, and I hope to get a good night’s sleep after several harrowing days spent in transportation (no food, sleep, showers, etc).

Much love. Talk to you soon.

Shaun

Blog comments poured in from all over the world, congratulations and well wishes, raising my spirits. A documentary maker arrived to capture my return to society on film. At night, we went for an Indian meal. I tried chicken tikka masala, my former favorite, but the meat activated my gag reflex, and brought back memories of the mystery-meat slop known as “red death” in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jail that sometimes had dead rats in it, so I decided to remain vegetarian.

The next day, I did two BBC interviews. We traveled home on the motorway, a five-hour drive. We stopped at a fish ’n’ chip shop. I tried to order curry and rice – popular in in the northwest – but the young server’s thick northern accent was incomprehensible to me. He fetched a girl who spoke to me slowly and concisely as if I were disturbed.

The drive through my town brought back memories as if I were in a dream. Inside my parents’ home, the feeling intensified as I checked out each room. I ate, read the latest blog comments, and tried to sleep. Wearing socks, a beanie, a dressing gown, and buried under two fifteen-tog duvets in a room with a radiator on, I couldn’t stop shivering as I was so used to the desert heat of Arizona. My ears turned to ice. I sneezed. My nose ran. I only slept for a few hours, and woke up with my vision still blurred.

The next morning, I went on a food-shopping spree, loading up on fruit, nuts, cheese, bread and beans. Going from aisle to aisle, being able to buy a banana was the height of ecstasy for me. At home, I filled a spoon with peanut butter and a cup with milk, and tried to consume them like I did daily in prison, but they wouldn’t go down, so I spat them out. After it being my main source of protein for almost six years, I could no longer eat peanut butter.

One of my best friends, Hammy, showed up with champagne, and offered to hook me up with a local nymphomaniac, so I could make up for lost time.

In the day, my mood was mostly up, but exhaustion came in waves. The next night, I slept for thirteen hours.

Still traumatized from the journey and the whole experience, I sat down at a desk upstairs in my parents’ house and wrote about my release to the people who understand Arizona prison the most and with whom I feel a lifelong bond because of the intensity of what we went through: my prison friends I left behind. Longing for their company, I filled with sadness, almost wishing I could return to prison just to be with them. An ache expanded from my jaw up through my face. Tears fell on the paper, moistening it like my sweat did when I wrote from Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jail. My teeth chattered. I missed them so much, I couldn’t stop crying – no matter how hard I tried.

It took months to adjust back to society. My parents helped tremendously. I was institutionalized, and used to being told what I could and couldn’t do. My mum said I was like a puppy dog following her around the house, awaiting orders. At first, it was hard to stop reacting as if I was in prison, but over time, I returned to normal. To adjust in a healthy way, I structured my life around positive activity. Exercise keeps me mentally strong. Writing books and talking at schools keep me focused.
What advice would you offer someone who is enamored with the glamour and money of a drug-dealing lifestyle?
I can understand why you are enamored, but it ends with the police, prison or death. Every time you do drugs, the pleasure slowly decreases, the pain increases, and the addiction gets a stronger hold of you. The addiction is extremely demanding. Over time, it will devastate your life and the lives of your loved ones. You may make fast cash in the short run, but in the long run, dealing will ruin you financially when you get busted and the police confiscate your assets. Your addiction will take your health, and in some cases – as happened to several of my friends – you will die young. In jail, I was surrounded by people who’d gone much further down the road of drug use than me. Most of them were injecting drugs and had hepatitis C, which is hard to treat and can kill you by slowly destroying your liver. All of the fun, glitz and glamor were gone, but they still couldn’t stop taking drugs. They were committing slow suicide. They had yellow-jaundiced skin and eyes, and their teeth were rotting out. Seeing their condition put me off doing drugs for life, and made me ashamed that I had dealt Ecstasy. You have the opportunity to avoid a road that ends in so much misery. Life is meant at times to be tough and challenging. It takes a strong mind to remain sober and refrain from the lure of drugs. There are better ways to put meaning into your life. Take a look at all of your interests, and try to channel you energy into positive ones. Physical activity in particular will put you on a natural high.
When you decided to give up the Ecstasy business and get back to trading stocks, where did you go? Did you tell your friends or just leave town, knowing that the Mafia was after you?
I fell in love and moved into an apartment in Scottsdale with Claudia. She talked me into quitting the Ecstasy business. I never let anyone from the drug scene know where we lived. I enrolled in Scottsdale Community College to study Spanish. Unfortunately, my addiction to the drugs and the lifestyle was such that I still heard wolves howling for me to come out and party on the weekends, and I’d sneak off getting high, which was my downfall. The evidence the police used against me was mostly calls around that time when I was dumb and desperate enough to talk about personal use on the phone. Although I’d quit dealing Ecstasy by the time the police caught up with me, I’d committed a lot of crimes over the years, so I certainly deserved to be punished. I take full responsibility for putting myself in jail.
At the height of your Ecstay-dealing career, what was a typical day in your life like?
At the peak of my Ecstasy business, a typical day involved rising around noon in a million-dollar mountainside home in Tucson. Sometimes when I went outside, deer would be gathered around. When it rained, a beautiful waterfall would form behind the house and a stream would gargle past our little wooden gate. With the sun high in a usually cloudless sky above the Sonoran Desert, I would wake myself up by jumping in the pool with my ex, Amy, an undergraduate who became a strip-tease dancer in order to seduce a female co-worker. After swimming, we’d head to our favourite Indian restaurant. Later on, my right-hand man, Cody, would arrive to discuss my illegal business, including who needed more Ecstasy, who was having problems paying for drugs, and how much cash he’d collected and secured in an apartment I rented for that purpose. Hoping to avoid police detection, we only discussed business in person. If everything was running smoothly, I’d splurge at a fancy restaurant with Amy, take drugs and make love all night. If problems arose or key business associates such as the New Mexican Mafia wanted a face-to-face meeting, I’d head to Phoenix, pick up my two toughest friends, Wild Man and G Dog, and try to fix things.
What was going through your mind as you drove to Los Angeles to pick up your first supply of 500 Ecstasy pills? Did you just have the $7,500 cash payment in the car with you?
Driving to LA, not knowing what I was getting into, I was terrified of getting robbed at gunpoint, or kidnapped and held for ransom, or even shot. I thought the police might have Sol’s place under surveillance as he was a known Ecstasy supplier, and maybe follow me, pull me over, search my car and find the drugs, or track me all of the way back to Phoenix, and arrest me there. I was concerned about Sol selling me pills cut with something other than Ecstasy, which is why I insisted on testing one by chewing it. Driven by greed for fast cash, I put myself in a lot of danger. It was foolish and selfish of me not to consider the harm that drugs cause.

In the car apart from the $7,500 cash was my best friend, Wild Man, twice my size and not lacking in fighting skills. He had instructions to smash Sol’s door down if I didn’t return in fifteen minutes. I had a Sasha and Digweed CD, Renaissance, which I listened to on the way home.
What was the worst thing that happened to you in jail?
The shock of going in, and all of the violence was scary, but one of the worst parts for me was getting used to sleeping in a cell infested with cockroaches. In reality TV shows, people have bugs crawl on them for a few minutes or so, but imagine having to sleep locked in a tiny room with cockroaches crawling everywhere, including on your body, all night long. It takes some getting used to. I ended up getting put on medication, so I could get to sleep. Even after my release, I was seeing cockroaches that weren't there.
What are you up to these days?
I credit incarceration with sending my life in a whole new positive direction. I tell my story to schools across the UK and Europe to educate young people about the consequences of choosing the drugs lifestyle, in the hope they don’t make the same mistakes I did. The endless feedback I get from students makes me feel that the talks are a better way of repaying my debt to society than the sentence I served.

When I’m not talking at schools, I’m usually on my computer writing. My first book, Hard Time, was published in 2010, and I'm just launching the second edition, rewritten and beefed up with a lot more content. Many of the scenes in Locked Up Abroad “Raving Arizona” are based on Hard Time. Now my life story as a trilogy is complete, I'm focusing on the biographies of some of the larger-than-life characters I met in prison such as T-Bone, a massive African American ex-Marine who risks his life saving vulnerable inmates from rape, and Two Tonys, an old-school Mafia murderer who left the corpses of his rivals from Tucson to Alaska.

In prison, I formed friendships with people serving long sentences, some of whom are never getting released. My brief taste of their suffering instilled me with a long-lasting desire to do what I can for them, including keeping their voices being heard on the Internet at Jon’s Jail Journal. It’s my hope that this episode of Locked-Up Abroad and Hard Time raise awareness of the conditions in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jail system. I’d like to see Arpaio get voted out of office, and a new sheriff put an end to murder, mayhem and human rights violations. It’s also my hope that by posting to the Internet what I’m doing in the schools and how I’m developing as an author, prisoners will be inspired to achieve positive goals. I have a lot of friends in prison who are rooting for me to succeed, and looking at me as a role model.
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