His father worked as a prison guard at the New York State Reformatory, now called the Elmira Correctional Facility.

His wife, Kathryn (1887-1937), died on October 31, 1937, at Ossining Hospital after she fell at the Cortlandt, New York, end of the Bear Mountain Bridge.

The heel of her shoe got caught between two boards, which caused her to fall and break her leg.

[10][11] Invisible Stripes in 1939, with George Raft, was based on his novel of the same name, while Humphrey Bogart starred in You Can't Get Away with Murder in 1939, an adaptation of Chalked Out, a play Lawes co-wrote.

His papers are archived in the Special Collections of the Lloyd Sealy Library, John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

[13] The show offered various stories based on the lives of the 2000 inmates at the prison, some with positive outcomes and others with negative results.