Kenneth E. Hartman

Who is Kenneth E. Hartman?

Kenneth E. Hartman is an American writer and prison activist. A convicted murderer, he is serving life in prison in California.

When he was 19 years old, he murdered a homeless man after an alcohol and drug binge. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. While in prison, he has married and has fathered a daughter.

He 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. Hartman wrote about his experiences in prison and this program in his essay "A Prisoners' Purpose", which won one of the John Templeton Foundation's 2004 Power of Purpose awards. In a 2009 New York Times editorial, he described the effects of the recession on the prison system. He has also written against the penalty of life imprisonment without parole, calling it "the other death penalty".

His 2009 memoir Mother California: A Story of Redemption Behind Bars won the 2010 Eric Hoffer Award for memoir.