Annual Insight to Incite and Inform / Prison Update
9/2007
Fall "06 was a slow and steady time at Arkansas Valley prison. I had returned there in September "05” and was in a single occupancy cell by the spring. Work in the library was consistent and gratifying. Access to the music room averaged 4 days/week, which was insufficient but not enough to discourage my struggle for more access and insight into musicality. There were some disruptions as various housing units were singled out for shake downs, the occupants sequestered in the gym (where the music room is located) while their cells tossed-up.
It was our turn in unit 3 in early December; ostensibly a gift from a gang called the 211 crew whose extortion activities had become too prominent. Actually it was a 100 person excuse for pre-Christmas over-time, and New Years comp time. My largest complaint was that the music room was not open during our sequestration.
A pre-dawn raid Dec. 17 to send 50 inmates to an out-of-state subcontract incarceration, further bolstered the over-time drive for staff and stripped the inmates of possessions and ability to contact family for Christmas. My turn came one month later. Jan. 17, 5:00 am, better than 2:30 am for the Dec. guys. The procedure was slightly modified also.
Two goon squad members inform each potential traveler of their reservation on con-air that afternoon to western Oklahoma and await one's acceptance, in lieu of two years segregation at the state penitentiary. Since I am writing from Oklahoma you may surmise that my temper tantrum was well below state pen standards; probably amusing since they said, "Get packed" while walking away.
That afternoon 120 inmates flew on the second rendition flight of the day from Pueblo Colorado. The Dec. and Jan. shipments of people doubled the population of the barely functioning North Fork Correctional Facility, thereby rendering it un-functional and inducing an operational desperation lockdown by ground hog day.
Lockdowns are not sustainable by for-profit prisons, so operations stumbled on and I took a job in the kitchen in March. On my second day the occupants of my living unit called the bluff of histrionic staff in the dining hall and everyone stood up against the verbal abuse. I returned from work to another lockdown. During that 12 day stretch I was re-assigned to the library. (This is quite unusual, as kitchen jobs are un-quitable much less de-assigned.) The library is a joke. I read a news magazine or textbook for two hours week day evenings, nothing more.
I acquired an electric keyboard in early May, to have in my cell, only 2.5 months after placing the order through inmate accounts. Practice 3X/day has not yielded proportional improvement but did make the June 26 - July 3 lockdown pass much more easily. I shook the post-lockdown complacency with the desire to jog for the first time since being paralyzed in 1990. It is ugly but the heat and humidity guarantees an aerobic workout and vascular headache.
Technical studies of organic chem. & thermodynamics had progressed to bio-chemistry, that took a back seat to a 10 "CD” French language course. il est un bon debut.
In the spring a fellow Colorado inmate - there are Wyoming and Vermont inmates here too - filed a “writ of habeas corpus”, making a cogent v-argument that Colorado relinquished custody of him. 250 peers have joined the claim that CCA Corp. has no custodial authority over them. How would you respond if your executive branch appointees dropped legal custody of 480 inmates (=2% of state prison pop.)? I can tell you how it will play out, if you ask. The environment of false hope for release has been refreshing ;)
Now Washington state inmates have been added to the facility and Idaho is en route. Five co-mingled states bodes ill for operations and the fall promises to be as chaotic as the spring.
Since the Jan. move the positives and negatives have come into starker relief and doing time is still the same paradigm of life -minimize the negatives, maximize the positives, persevere.
Jason
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