This past month, Germantown born and bred Sergio Hyland, also known as UptownSerg, celebrated his three years home after nearly 22 years of incarceration. His newest milestone — a self-authored book — also made it to the party.

The “Jailhouse Commandments” debuted in February, releasing exclusively on Serg’s website. The commandments, styled similarly to the popular 48 Laws of Power, are a street code of sorts in prison, drawing mainly on Serg’s experiences to set an example for it all.

“When you get to prison, they give you a handbook. And the handbook has all the rules in it,” Serg explained, running down a list of examples like tucking your shirt, keeping your shoes tied, keeping your air vent uncovered, and more.

But he makes it clear that those are the “official” rules, that help to keep you out of solitary confinement, which Serg endured for at least a quarter of his total sentence. However, they don’t embody the “unwritten rules” that keep you safe.

“It’s sort of giving you the blueprint on how to survive,” Serg says, providing examples like not looking into another person’s cell while walking down the tier or not smoking things someone else has rolled (in case it’s laced with an unknown substance).

While this book is hot off the press, the page’s contents are much older than you would think. 

During his time in prison, Serg often snuck and wrote these commandments and the tales to accompany them, using the computer he had access to as a business tutor. He says he had to cleverly organize and hide his writings to keep from being placed in solitary confinement, sometimes even having to delete his work.

Eventually, he sent the manuscript out to a couple of people. They didn’t like it, so he kept his writings concealed. Now, what was once hidden can be shared with the world. 

As mentioned, readers may skim this text and see the parallels between what Serg lays out and what they know as street codes. And they’re right.

While Hyland provides a literary tool kit to navigate life behind bars, he wants to make it clear that this isn’t “glorifying street code,” but rather “explaining it.” So while folks may find the contents often uneasy, he can’t change the realities of what happens within the prison system.

Serg even says his book encourages people to be their best self and avoid things that could potentially harm them in the long run, encouraging folks to stop doing things like gambling, smoking, and borrowing.

Since his release, Uptown Serg has used what he learned from mentors like Russell Maroon Shoatz, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Saleem Holbrook to advocate for abolition — the dismantling and diminishing of the prison system. It’s how he got his other nickname, The Hood Abolitionist.

Currently, he works as the Abolitionist Law Center’s parole justice advocate and the Pennsylvania Working Families Party criminal justice organizer, in line with his jailhouse lawyer work.

Among the greats he lists as influential, Shoatz, who passed away in December 2021, stands out the most for the Serg.

He uplifts Shoatz’s ability to meet him where he was — culturally and socially. At the time, Serg was a young Black man from a heavy street culture in Germantown, and Shoatz spoke his language.

“Maroon was an expert at relating to people,” Serg shares, identifying the key to his work. “You can’t be a leader if you can’t relate to the people that you’re leading.”

That’s what Serg always wants folks in the hood to know — that he’s no better than anyone else.

Serg says this book is for those who want to know more about the prison system and those who eventually go to prison. The Germantown Info Hub was interested in understanding more about the latter half of that sentiment, and he explained.

“Over 10% of people on death row are innocent… So if there are a thousand people on death row, a hundred of those people could be illegally murdered. So, yeah, it could be you. It could be anybody.”

While no dates are set, Serg hopes also to release a rendition of the Jailhouse Commandments for women. To get your copy of the book, visit uptownserg.com, where you can learn more about him and his works.