Gary T. Carrillo, born in Escondido, is serving a 39-to-life under California's Three Strikes and You're Out law. He did not kill anyone. He asserts he cut someone on the hand. This is only his second time in prison. He won second prize in the PEN American Center's memoir in 2004. In Good Company drew on his experiences in the Department of Mental Health in Vacaville State Prison in California. "I am doing better than I ever have while serving this sentence—still laughing at the absurdities of human nature," he writes, "my own included". A lifer now at New Folsom (California State Prison in Sacramento), he reports that these psych programs basically saved his life: "What matters is what's in your heart. And if you can look into your heart and find something good, if you can find love-for life and all its creatures-then you can call that God. And you'll be alright regardless of what hell you find yourself in".
