Articles
In a letter to the Durham County Commission in North Carolina, prison journalist Lyle C. May, who is incarcerated in Raleigh, N.C., opposed its unanimous vote to spend $30 million on a new juvenile jail.
Published on Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. May 26, 2022
Letter from Death Row.
Published on Scalawag Magazine. October 26, 2020.
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Published on Scalawag Magazine. May 18, 2020.
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Published on Scalawag Magazine. July 8, 2019
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Published on Scalawag Magazine. October 29, 2018
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Published on Scalawag Magazine. November 29, 2016
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Published on American Magazine. February 17, 2022.
Or, what happens when guards and prison staff interact as just human beings.
Published on The Marshall Project in collaboration with Vice. August 30, 2018.
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Co-authored with Frank R. Baumgartner, Tamira Daniely, Kalley Huang, Sydney Johnson, Alexander Love, Lyle May, Patrice Mcgloin, Allison Swagert, Niharika Vattikonda and Kamryn Washington. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the American Political Science Association. November 20, 2021
North Carolina's aging death row population faces looming health care crisis
Co-authored with Jacob Biba; Published on The Intercept. November 20, 2021
Why law enforcement willfully ignores wrongful convictions— for decades.
Published on Scalawag Magazine. June 23, 2021.
Why freedom of the press should be extended into prisons.
Published on Scalawag Magazine. June 15, 2020. (Originally published in Winter 2020 print issue).
A sudden change in prison policy regarding access to higher education for death row inmates like Lyle and his continued pursuit for knowledge
Published on Scalawag Magazine. October 28, 2019
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Published on Scalawag Magazine. December 31, 2018
Always playing against the clock.
Published on The Marshall Project in collaboration with Vice. March 16, 2017.
Higher education is a basic human need. The opportunity should be available to anyone who pursues it, writes prison inmate Lyle C. May.
Published on Inside Higher Ed. March 18, 2020.
“Three strikes” laws and life without parole mean inmates are aging in prison — long after they’re a threat to society.
Co-authored with Frank R. Baumgartner, Tamira Daniely, Kalley Huang, Patrice McGloin, Niharika Vattikonda, Kamryn Washington, Sydney Johnson, Allison Swagert, and Alexander Love; Published on the Washington Post.
; Published on The Intercept. August 26, 2021.
After September 11, 2001, the federal government saw an opportunity to legalize torture in a way that targeted another BIPOC community, and legitimized what it already does to its own citizens.
Published on Common Dreams on May 11, 2024
PC: One of dozens of drawings by Guantánamo prisoner Abu Zubaydah depicts the torture he and other detainees suffered at the hands of U.S. interrogators. (Image: Abu Zubaydah)
For decades, I relied on a communal TV to teach me about technology outside prison. Then came “streaming.”
Published on Slate on December 12, 2023
PC: Photo illustration by Anna Ruiz.
Read Lyle's publication focusing on the intersection of capital post-conviction appeals, ineffective assistance of counsel, capital defense strategies, and unacknowledged conflicts of interest between attorneys, their clients, and the organizations that guide them.
Published on the Journal of Law and Policy, Volume 31, Issue 2. May 1, 2023
PC: Photo from Wix.
How Lyle tackled education while in prison and the attacks on higher education posed by prison structures that he had to overcome.
Published on Open Campus Media. February 1, 2023
PC: Shutterstock
See actor Asia Dillon Kate read Lyle's essay at the Break Out: PEN Prison Writing Awards & Readings livestream (at 45:30)
'A modernized, streamlined incarceration experience.' New prison technology surveils life on both sides of the wall.
North Carolina distributed free pay-to-play tablets to everyone behind bars. But the only private conversation in prison is the one you don’t have.
Published on Scalawag Magazine. September 29, 2022
What started as a simple escape from the prison noise became transformative for May
Published in American Magazine. February 17, 2022
PC: Lyle May
North Carolina's Aging Death Row Population Faces Looming Health Care Crises
Co-authored with Jacob Biba. Published on The Intercept. November 20, 2021
PC: Justin Cook
Why law enforcement willfully ignores wrongful convictions - for decades.
Published on Scalawag Magazine. June 23, 2021
PC: Gabriella Wyatt
Prisoners lack freedom of press
Published on Scalawag Magazine. June 15, 2020
Depriving prisoners of basic human decency increases the dangers behind bars
Published on Scalawag Magazine. October 29, 2018
PC: Rawpixel on Unsplash
Higher education is a basic human need. The opportunity should be available to anyone who pursues it, writes inmate Lyle C. May
Published on Inside Higher Ed. March 18, 2020
May argues that life without parole is the death penalty by another name.
Published on Scalawag Magazine. December 31, 2018
PC: Tim Evanson
Lyle reflects on his first trip from the prison grounds in 17 years: the hospital. The everyday sights and sounds commonly tuned out have May in awe.
Published on Scalawag Magazine. July 3, 2017
The importance of providing prisoners with an access to education
Published on Scalawag Magazine. November 29, 2016
PC: Iris Gottlieb
Lyle reflects on his adolescence, his arrival to death row at the young age of 21, and the subsequent impact of his incarceration on his crusade for knowledge.
Published on Prison Writers
The threat of a death sentence creates a crucible of dehumanization that no one should have to experience and no one has the right to inflict.
Published on Prism on December 21, 2023
PC: Photo by Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
Read Lyle's article on the real cost of prison e-messaging platforms. In North Carolina prisons, we’re charged for every minute we want to look at family photos or read messages from friends.
Published on Slate on June 19, 2023
PC: Photo illustration by Slate.
Read Lyle's review of the book by Christopher Seeds, Assistant Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine.
Published on Social Forces journal by theOxford Book Review. March 9, 2023
PC: University of California Press
How cultural brutality creates a standard of violence towards incarcerated people and obscuring in-custody deaths.
Published on Vera Institute. January, 2023
PC: Michelle Garcia
In a letter to the Durham County Commission in North Carolina, prison journalist Lyle C. May, who is incarcerated in Raleigh, N.C., opposed its unanimous vote to spend $30 million on a new juvenile jail. Its 10 signers, including May, were under 18 years old when they went into the juvenile justice system
Published on Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. May 26, 2022
Tough on crime laws and their undeniable negative impacts on society
Published December 2021. Co-authored with Frank Baumgartber, Tamira Daniely, Kalley Huang, Sydney Johnson, Alexander Love, Patrice Mcgloin, Allison Swagert, Niharika Vattikonda, and Kamryn Washington
"Three strikes" laws and life without parole mean inmates are aging in prison - long after they're a threat to society
Published in The Washington Post. August 26, 2021. Co-authored with Co-authored with Frank Baumgartber, Tamira Daniely, Kalley Huang, Sydney Johnson, Alexander Love, Patrice Mcgloin, Allison Swagert, Niharika Vattikonda, and Kamryn Washington
Lyle discusses the publics view of a removal from execution as being a positive outcome and a relief. He shares both the opiniions of himself and his fellow prisoners on this act.
Published on Scalawag Magazine. October 26, 2020
PC: Ellen O'Grady
The conditions within North Carolina prisons in the COVID era
Published on Scalawag Magazine. May 18, 2020
PC: Ellen O'Grady
The denial of access to higher education to May and his fellow prisoners
Published on Scalawag Magazine. October 28, 2019
The issues with North Carolina parole and the barriers keeping individuals behind bars are subject of this piece
Published on Scalawag Magazine. July 8, 2019
PC: Zoe Litaker
Or, what happens when guards and prison staff interact as just human beings
Published on The Marshall Project. August 30, 2018
PC: Sally Deng
Always playing against the clock
Published on The Marshall Project. March 16, 2017
PC: Dola Sun
Lyle reminds us all of what we take for granted: a good nights sleep
Published on Prison Writers
Lyle describes incidents that occurred within the North Carolina prison system and how that affects his view on altruism.
Published on Prison Writers
