Kenneth E. Hartman (born December 28, 1960) is an American writer and prison activist. In 1980, Hartman was convicted of murder at the age of 19 for beating a homeless man to death in a Long Beach park,[1] and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.[2] While in prison, Hartman became known as a prisoner-rights advocate, and on April 15, 2017, Hartman was one of 2 prisoners to have their lifetime sentences commuted by Governor Jerry Brown.[3] Hartman was released from prison in December 2017.[4]
Hartman was one of the proponents of the "Honor Yard" in California State Prison in Lancaster; the program involves "600 inmates who have promised to avoid drugs, gang activity and violence against each other or prison staff and who live in a section of the prison separated from the general inmates" where they may take training and classes.[5] Hartman wrote about his experiences in prison and this program in his essay "A Prisoners' Purpose". In a 2009 New York Times editorial, he described the effects of the recession on the prison system.[6] He has also written against the penalty of life imprisonment without parole, calling it "the other death penalty".[7] In a December 2014 feature for Harper's Magazine, he described three decades of prison Christmases to illustrate the progressive attempts to dehumanize prisoners in the United States.[8]
His 2009 memoir is Mother California: A Story of Redemption Behind Bars .