Chicago, IL, May 26, 2025 -- What is life really like in prison? Not just the tough guys flexing muscles or wise old long-time convicts offering sage advice seen in the movies, but the drudgery, the small victories and losses, and the philosophizing, that mark day-to-day prison existence—and existentialism.

Deric Whaley tells the real story in his book The Ride.

Whaley, a former Haymarket Center O’Hare Airport outreach worker with roots in Chicago’s North Lawndale, Humboldt Park, and Bridgeport communities, did some time as an inmate in Illinois’s prison system and provides a perspective that only an insider can.

“It’s called The Ride because once you open up the first page, you know you’ll be going on quite a ride when you read this book,” Whaley says.

“I wrote this book so people could experience the personal journey of an individual being incarcerated,” he explains.

“The first group I hope will read it would be teenagers, because reading is fundamental to education and if you can motivate youngsters to read, you’ll motivate them to become educatable,” Whaley continues. “When they read the book I want them to become educated as to what’s happening in society and be educated to avoid having to undergo the experience I did.”

He notes that early in the book, “I write about a teenager on the bus to prison, and he began to cry because at 18 he realized he would never, ever be able to go back to the life he had before.”

Whaley also hopes college and university students, particularly those studying the social sciences, will read The Ride, “so they can get a firsthand experience of an individual going through that incarceration process,” he says. “Maybe somewhere down the line, when they become psychologists or sociologists or work with the public, they could look at the behaviors that cause individuals to become incarcerated and help them avoid committing antisocial acts in the first place.”

The Ride is “a different kind of prison book because it has a personalized experience of the day-to-day internal feelings and emotions of being incarcerated,” Whaley explains. “Those raw emotions are there in the book so you can feel what an incarcerated person feels and experiences—without having to be incarcerated yourself.”

Whaley thinks by reading The Ride, “people will learn that prison is a society, but there also is a society of formerly incarcerated people living in a civilization of incarceration of the mind,” he says.

People of all ages who read the book “will be able to know that crime doesn’t pay and the consequences of actions,” Whaley says.

Prison gives people a lot of time to think, and philosophizing is part of the experience. In The Ride, Whaley writes:

“An individual should help as many people as possible. When you share, you’re blessed with more.”
“Faith is the substance of all things hoped for, the evidence of all things not seen.”
“I’m a survivor, and I’ll survive.”
“Losers do what they want to do. Winners do what they must.”

Not only does The Ride discuss the day-to-day in prison and the philosophical lessons learned, but it also covers Whaley growing up in North Lawndale and how easy it was to fall into a life of “drug-dealing, stealing, clothes boosting, and anything that came to mind,” he writes.

In prison, Whaley writes, there are “different people from all walks of life,” and “each individual had their own personal story and reason for being here.” Whaley writes of a fellow inmate, Ricky, who recounted his story: “My hot-headed cousin ran up the stairs and pushed me to the side. He pumped two rounds from the .38 into the dude. Dude fell to the floor like a ragged doll.” Ricky ended up being sentenced to eight years just for being there.

Whaley also writes of the benefits of Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, and Alcoholics Anonymous. “They taught me that I had to change my people, place and things,” he writes. “That I had to for once in my life be honest to myself.”

Compared to the extremely long sentences of some other inmates, Whaley writes, “My time was a piece of cake. It was cake, but it’s still hard to swallow. You’re disconnected from family, friends, and associates. The greatest gift in life is to be connected to the sources of family and friends you’ve developed during your existence on earth And before you know it, it could be gone. Live life to the fullest. Take nothing for granted.”

The Ride is published by Newman Springs Publishing of Red Bank, NJ, and is available in paperback and digital version from Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, and other booksellers. For more information, email [email protected] or call (312) 622-6029.

For more information, contact: William S. Bike, [email protected], (773) 229-0024.