Prisoner Perspective
A Jail Journal
Published November 17, 2009 @ 05:19AM PT
A Michigan man who spent five months in the Washtenaw County Jail in 2008 has been posting about his experiences in installments on the Ann Arbor Chronicle site. It's a moving and detailed account of life on the inside, and well worth a look.
The journal started as a twitter feed, doling out jail experience 140 characters at a time. It grew into well-written chapters, covering day-to-day life in a local jail -- the challenges, the characters, the slang, the work-arounds, the danger.
Here's an excerpt:
The holding cell is so crowded now, there is no room for anybody to lay down. Some inmates tuck their arms into their uniforms and curl up.
I’ve been in a holding cell for about three hours, added to 56 hours in “suicide watch.” Now, I’m waiting for a vacancy in the overcrowded jail.
At last my name is called. After spending 60 hours in three holding cells a few feet away from the entrance, I am now going to see the jail. As I pass by Bam Bam, Frank smiles and gives me a thumbs-up. It’s an ending, of sorts. Phase I of jail ends.
But it’s all really beginning.
Read his first three chapters at the Ann Arbor Chronicle.
What We Believe
Published November 03, 2009 @ 06:59AM PT
Thanks to Gideon at A Public Defender, I recently came across some powerful essays from prisoners on the beliefs they hold at their core.
The essays come from “This I Believe, ” an essay and podcast series exploring the core beliefs we hold in our day to day lives, inspired by a 1950s radio show hosted by Edward R. Murrow. I’ve heard some incredible personal stories on this podcast and on NPR over the last few years, and this group of prisoner essays is no exception.
John, a prisoner in Massachusetts, writes of the cruel Catch-22 of his life: it wasn’t until he got to prison that he realized he had value to others, and now that he’s there he worries that he can’t have the impact he’s meant to have:
The worst part about prison isn’t the violence or the loss of freedom, it’s not being a part of anything that’s good and decent. And it’s the fear that I don’t matter to anyone.
‘A Really Bad Person’
Published September 29, 2009 @ 07:21AM PT
Steve Poizner, a candidate for governor of California, recently told the Sacramento Bee: “You have to be a really bad person to get into state prison.” He went on to explain that because everyone in prison must be dangerous, he can’t support any early releases.
Last week, I wrote about labels like offender, prisoner and inmate. Where does ‘ really bad person’ fall on that scale? This is about as clear as you hear it from politicians: any ideal of rehabilitation is false, once you go to prison, you may as well disappear.
Just A Guy, a California State Prisoner (and therefore a really bad person) who writes a blog at the San Francisco Chronicle wrote about Poizner’s blanket dismissal recently and the wrongheaded way California is confronting the court order to reduce its prison population from 150,000 to 110,000 by 2011.
Welcome Uncertain, Success Essential
Published September 20, 2009 @ 12:30PM PT
A great column in Friday's Washington Post by former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson makes the most compelling case I've heard in a while for post-incarceration services.
In less than 800 words, Gerson lays out a clear case for federal and state governments to act swiftly and strongly to provide services to the 600,000 people we release from prison each year, from expansion of the federal Second Chance Act to approval and support for the small state programs that make a break new lives. Coming from a conservative like Gerson, the case is particularly powerful.
Take Action on Long-Term Imprisonment
Published July 30, 2009 @ 04:35AM PT
Perceptions of time puzzle me. I’m about to begin my 23rd year in prison, and since I’ve been living inside for so long, prison feels completely normal for me. When I write that I’ve been incarcerated since 1987, that doesn’t sound like such a long time ago.
To put the term in perspective, I have to think back to when I was first locked inside a federal prison. Had I met someone then who had served as much time as I’ve served now, he would have begun his term in 1965. From that perspective, I can understand how much time has passed.
Another way for me to put how much time I have served into perspective is to contemplate my age. Yesterday I saw a photograph from much earlier in my term, when I was still in my early 20s. Today I am 45. Although I feel physically fit, the photograph provides incontrovertible proof that I am aging.
What Will Freedom Bring?
Published July 21, 2009 @ 05:34AM PT
By devoting the majority of each day to writing or thinking, I sacrifice time I would otherwise spend reading. I wake every morning between three and four, gather paper, pens, my dictionary, and journal from my locker, then walk to a room where I sit at a Formica-topped table in solitude. I am alone for these first few hours of each morning, and I feel grateful for the silence. I hear the ventilation system’s forced air, but no loud voices or blaring televisions. I welcome the gift of these peaceful hours, as few prisoners ever find such space.
I serve these final months or years of my sentence at the minimum-security prison camp in Taft, California, about 30 miles southwest of Bakersfield. Administrators of the Bureau of Prisons transferred me to Taft Camp in June of 2007, after I had concluded two years at Lompoc’s prison camp. Before Lompoc, I served 18 months in the prison camp at Florence, Colorado. For the 17 years before my transfer to Florence camp, I was locked in various U.S. Penitentiaries and Federal Correctional Institutions across the United States.
I have been a prisoner for so long that I cannot really contemplate what liberty means. The time approaches when I will walk out of prison boundaries, I know. My release date is scheduled for August of 2013, though halfway house placement, parole eligibility, and possible relief through prison reform could mean I return to society even sooner. But what does that mean?
Getting Married in Prison
Published July 07, 2009 @ 05:33AM PT
[Editor's note: This is the second part of Michael Santos' post on waiting for visits and building relationships from behind bars. Part one is here. Above are Michael and Carole Santos in April 2009.]
While I was serving my 15th year, I received a letter from Carole. We had both grown up in a North Seattle suburb and gone through school together. After graduating from Shorecrest high school, our lives went in separate directions and we lost contact. Carole found some of my writings as she worked to coordinate our 20th high school reunion, and she wrote to me. My response to Carole’s letters led to a correspondence, then a romance, and we fell in love through our written words.
I was 38 years old. Despite my having lived as a prisoner for my entire adult life, once I fell in love with Carole I began to need her. I wanted to feel her touch, to smell her hair, to taste her kiss. She lived in Oregon and I was imprisoned in New Jersey, so we had to nurture our relationship through the mail and telephone calls. Once we committed our lives to each other, Carole moved to New Jersey so we could visit whenever rules would allow.
With Carole in my life, visits became extremely important to me. I was scheduled to serve 11 additional years, and through our visiting privileges, Carole and I would build our prison family. We could not enjoy the physical intimacy that other couples took for granted, but life became so much richer for me as Carole and I tied our futures. Carole became my partner, and in many ways, that meant she would serve the remainder of this sentence alongside me. Through our weekly visits, I was privileged to build a life that few long-term prisoners can enjoy.
