Hello, my name is John Evan Lott, 29, MDOC# 198245, and I’m from Marion County. I’d like to share a little of my story and experience with you in the hopes it may save someone a trip to prison or their life.
I am currently serving an 11-year sentence for a possession of a controlled substance with intent while in possession of a firearm charge and a grand larceny charge.
Before I was locked up, I was a pretty normal guy. I had a bunch of “friends,” a newborn son and a fiancé with a trailer and land. Life was getting better daily until a drug called crystal meth entered my life.
Crystal meth and a drug called spice began to run my life. After I lost my job, I started selling to provide and this whole lifestyle made my home life with my fiancé, family and friends suffer.
Drug court eventually violated me, and I got my first sentence to long-term therapeutic alcohol and drug rehab. A couple of months passed, and my fiancé left me for another man and my home and almost all I had was lost.
When you are locked up all you do is think. Cellphones, work and daily things keep a person too busy on the street to sit down and read or write. Texts and Facebook have made hand mail almost a forgotten art.
This is the bad part about doing time because we are only allowed to write our friends and family and call off of a wall phone that a person must set up an account to use. A person is usually forgotten about before too long.
Out of sight out of mind.
Addresses and phone numbers are hard to find from the inside if nobody is helping from the outside. For me receiving mail is the best feeling and keeps my spirit high.
So my advice to anyone with a loved one in jail or prison is please keep in touch because it means a lot to an incarcerated individual. Also, once released, a person might fall into a depression, which could bring them back to their old ways. One who has never been locked away can’t understand, and that’s why I wrote you this letter to hopefully help.
My biggest help came from slowing down. I finally had enough time to read my Bible, which saved my life. The biggest advice that I can give to anybody who has recently been released from prison or rehab is to never lose sight of God and never let the busy world make you forget when you were.
Trapped in time,
John Evan Lott
Mississippi State Penitentiary, Parchman
