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get part of we the members of the rules of correction board voted in penalty
for filing charges for charge of class 2 rule 1 to span a direct order with
finding guilty for the charge of class 2 rule 9 dealing for which any payment of
any kind is made do or expected when finding guilty penalty imposed 15 days
disciplinary control in March 14 2001 out March 28 2001 recommend a LC
placement howler we're putting it on the shelf 90 days you understand penalty
pose yes we wish to appeal step forward inside documentation on that center
underneath my name you want to be consistent on the penalties that you
oppose and discipline that you oppose I think we try and do that here I think
we're free free consistent that's the big thing once an enemy goes before the
RAB if he's found guilty he can be assessed what's called disciplinary
control time which is time back here segregated away from general population
I wouldn't be in here I mean it's you see throughout the day the only guys do
sit in there you know oh yeah you can smell it right here and it's been
scrubbed I mean like two or three times this guy was rubbing human
defecation all over herself man I don't know this is this is mental I don't know
why he did it the one day we caught him putting some feces on his tooth brush
brushes teeth like that he took and drew a window on his wall and feces it's
crazy
I think that's where a lot of the problems in this unit come from they're in
there in their cells and there's nothing to do and they just got a notice
what is it what is that for because the population water drew deep mess
with my food probably busy busy all this making threats and all that man I've
been trying to lay back you know I've been cool are you still on that you're
still on that this is the amount of rust you got in the water out of it that's
rust
piece of t-shirt I stuck this in the hole right so you don't hear all the noise
it's costly great so I stick this up in there we kind of buffers it a little bit
this white t-shirt since Saturday make this do they prepare it on Tuesday
officer called two times yesterday to the for repairs I work make it but that
don't hold no no we come to the home oh we got a t-shirt draw
sounds for it cannot get right now is in the fall
We all got no prize.
Look look right here.
Switch it on.
Switch it on.
Here we got a new stuff like this.
Take this.
It's like a special...
Money and beer, right?
It makes you really interesting to look to stuff.
It makes me really interesting to look to stuff.
Do you like those?
Yeah.
Ain't enough air in here.
Is it hard to breathe?
Yeah.
Is it hot in there?
Yeah.
Let's see what we get.
Let's see what we eat.
Let's see what we get.
Let's see what we eat.
Let's see what we get.
All push-ups, chin-ups, pull-ups, walking.
Just keep in shape.
I'm talking to myself, talking to the birds.
What kind of thing do you say to the birds?
Oh, I'm just telling them to shut up.
Quit turping. Making all that goddamn noise.
Concentrate on my workout.
What kind of stuff do you say to yourself?
Just keep going, working out. Keep going.
Keep going. Drive.
That's what life's about. Drive, dude.
There's not much else you can say to yourself.
Get out of the hole and try to stay out.
I ain't never getting out of prison anyway, so...
Uh, it's a nature of the beast.
Private punishment.
I can always hope there ain't nothing wrong with that,
but it just don't look good.
How strong you are.
We get that belt, man.
I was just pretty much part-time doing construction
and doing that part-time, and this came open.
Got on here. Been here ever since.
Probably be here until I die.
Really? Pretty good package for it.
Must stay for a reason, right?
Yeah. Insurance.
Until you die? You gonna say it until you die?
I'm probably gonna die young. Good die young, brother.
Shoot, I've got 22 years left before I can retire.
I plan on dying here.
If you stay here long enough, you become this.
Well, I mean, it's prison, you know?
You're locked up.
Eight hours a day, I'm locked up the way I see it.
It's like, damn, this is crazy.
Well, if they weren't before,
this job would make you a different type of person,
and it would gradually change your personality.
It makes you incredibly cynical and cautious and distrusting.
You're gonna forever be bringing your logical and your rational
and your normal way of thinking in here,
trying to incorporate it in an illogical, irrational,
and dysfunctional environment.
It's a balancing act.
We have a saying, leave your work problems here
and pick up your home life problems at the door and vice versa.
If you mix both of them, it's just a bad mix.
Is that here problem on it?
I want to get walked up and bring drugs to this institution.
I've been on the investigation for three years.
It makes a lot of times keep us in check,
and it makes it gonna turn you over eventually.
You mess with that stuff, you do that stuff, you go.
That's the spot in life.
Oh, yeah, if you can't deal with the stress,
you know how to deal with that for a while.
You turn into a real asshole,
and that's what my wife told me anyways.
When you're going through the grind every day,
you get kind of burnt out,
tend to take your problems home with you.
If you take us home with you, it'll ruin everything.
You go home and ask you how was your day,
and it's like I don't want to talk about it.
Let's talk about something else, how was your day?
He doesn't talk about it a whole lot per se,
but you can tell his actions.
So, for the most part, he keeps it together.
Every now and then, you know, he'll blow up,
you know, just over something small,
just because of what he experienced.
When he gets mad and talks, you know,
you have to differentiate, you know,
it's the family and not the prisoners.
Turn that shit off of you out of there now,
you know, turn it off.
These are gentlemen who have separations
from general population.
They may have felt like they were threatened
by certain corrections officers.
They have a separation from one person,
or there's been a death threat.
You have a lot of baby rapers,
that's what we call child molesters,
pedophiles up in this section too.
These are child molesters and things
that are held in very high regard
within the prison population.
Some people here have extreme cases
of mental problems, you know,
and in some instances,
actually, you know, mental retardation.
And as you know, people like that,
a lot of times, are not always responsible
for their actions.
I guess he would be kind of
functionally retarded,
maybe the guy that's sucking his thumb.
He committed a felony,
but he's actually very childlike.
They take different types of psychotropics.
It depends on what they've been diagnosed
as having.
It has different reactions.
Some of them make some sleep, like,
continuous, and other ones,
others that make some lock.
I supposed to be getting out this year sometime.
Oh, yeah?
Yeah.
I got six more years to do
on a life sentence.
What are you in there for?
A rape.
How long ago was that?
This was back in 96.
I think it messes with a person's mind
being locked up in the cage,
like an animal.
I've been through psych.
I've lost, I guess you said,
my mind and shit when I first got my sentence.
I had to go through psych rehabilitation
to get back sane,
get back my sanity,
but other than that,
I'm fine and shit.
I'm just waiting to get out,
hoping to pray and I'll get out one day.
They're all basically insane.
You just see funny stuff.
Just the way they talk,
their mannerisms.
We had one guy up there
that thought he was the anti-Christ.
Another guy thought he was Jesus.
There was actually a white dude up there
that thought he was Wesley Snipes.
But they were something wrong
in the head with him
before they got locked up anyways.
But it's free entertainment.
No new service like that everywhere.
No matter where you go,
you have to deal with idiots.
Just we have 1,500 of them.
As far as this environment here at 1B,
it's four guys that stay out of trouble.
This block is very laid back.
It's relaxed and it kind of runs itself.
But it's just trying to stay out of the way
and respect the staff members' job.
There's nothing different about this pod.
The only difference and privileges
is that you can take a shower anytime you want.
You can an extra visit a month.
You can go to a library anytime you want.
You can go to the recreation apartment
anytime you want when the hours are called.
It takes stress away from me.
Sometimes when it's pretty much stressed out,
she's almost like a kid herself.
She's going to show you her affection.
She's willing to more or less come towards you.
More or less come towards you sometimes
and find out what's your mood the other day
because sometimes your mood can swing
by being in a prison.
In here it's almost like a monster type thing.
Everybody must remain hard.
You can see guys sometimes
that would normally be a hard type.
A dog would come up to her
and the first thing she would do is pet it.
You know what I'm saying?
Next day you hear a grown man talk like a baby.
Once again, that's a bridge gap right there.
How long did it take you to build that?
Well, working time almost a year.
It's all made out of popsicle sticks
and Elmer's glue.
You've got to use toenail clippers
for all your tools and that's it.
Try to get it done by this Christmas
to get it out to my granddaughter.
That's the worst part about being locked up.
Being away from your family.
You can get along with yourself
and everything else, but that's not family.
It's not like being able to holler at the youngins
and stuff like that or anything.
How long are you in here for?
I got 85 to 250.
Hopefully I'm going back to court
to get a drop down to 15 to 60
and be like a reprieve.
This area is used also as a classroom,
part-time classroom to confer GED classes.
A lot of cutbacks.
96, 97 was the year that that happened
and we fell from 250 students to 40.
That's one of the things that has been
a negative impact.
98% of these guys are going to get out
back on the street some day.
Close to 70% don't have a high school
Palmer or GED when they come in here.
Would you rather have them sitting in here
playing cards or playing chess in the spot
all day long or would you rather have them
have some kind of degree or skill
that they can get back out and take back out?
People have to realize it's all well and good
to lock up somebody for the rest of their life.
The problem is if you lock that person up
then you have to deal with that person.
You have to feed him, you have to house him,
you have to take care of all his medical benefits.
There's a lot more involved to it
than just turning that key and forgetting about that person.
We got a couple of guys here now.
When I first got here, they were kids.
I mean, no facial hair.
Babies, my children were older
than these guys were.
They used to put little green stars on their ID badges
so that they knew to give them whole milk
so that their daily nutritional requirements
were being met.
They were just that young.
Chad, I think Chad and Jones were both about 16.
Like I said, when I first got here,
they were short and they looked like
little bitty kids amongst all these men.
I had been here about a year and a half
before I ever talked with them at the JLP program
and he was talking to a group of youngsters
that they brought in and I said,
why are you here?
And he said, oh, for murder?
And I said, well, what about Jones?
He said, oh, he's here for murder too.
I said, how much time are you doing?
20 years, flat time.
So you come into the system when you're 16.
You do 20 years. 16, you can't see this far.
You know, this becomes family.
This becomes normal.
You don't have to worry about people judging you
or looking at you and talking about the baby
that you raped or the woman that you sliced up
or the bank that you robbed or the cop that you killed.
So what happens when he gets out of 20?
Technically, 36 is not old.
36 is young.
But at 36, he will have never had a driver's license,
a checking account, a bill, a responsibility, a baby.
Probably never even had a sexual relationship
with anyone.
And he's supposed to get out now
and become productive in society.
I venture to say not.
I venture to say that he'll probably end up
right back in the system.
It's like a paradox, you know?
Because the police doesn't make any sense.
Because it's not rehabilitation.
It's not correction.
And it's really not punishment either.
We can't make them rehabilitate.
You know, I mean, we can't step on their necks
and make them rehabilitate.
And they have to really want to do that.
And if this is all that they've ever known,
they're not going to change.
I'd say at least 95% of the people that get out
come back, 95% of the people that I've seen
on the streets, they back in.
I watched this guy get a GND.
I watched him get a two-year degree.
He said, one day, I'd like to be able to meet you on the streets.
You and your family, me and my family,
we could go to somewhere and sit down
and have dinner together
without me having to look behind my shoulder.
You know what I'm saying?
I've often dreamed about doing this.
I really thought that young man had a chance.
He got out, man, and it wasn't six months
he had killed somebody.
Out there trying to, you know who I am.
You know, I'm tone, tone deliones.
Back in jail.
I'm in prison.
I know there's something that I'm supposed to get out.
And honestly, no, you know that it's true.
Everyone will know that you decided to make a change.
What you do will show
that you and I can make a difference.
Yeah.
