Jason's Annual Prison Update
2008
I like to review the year around Halloween to beat the holiday rush and punctuate the seasonal change with reminiscence. The state of Colorado incarceration is not changed but is much better than the Oklahoma conditions I returned from on June 4th. I was able to cap­italize on the few advantages the out-of-state contractor offered in lieu of proper standards of custody - it's all a placation game. These were; French language audio CD's, a piano keyboard in the cell and tying hemp twine bracelets. The library remained, as previous­ly reported, farcical; such that I spent minimal time there and max­imized recreation with yard time and the activities mentioned. The move was unit delta south en masse: the 120 of us from a remote air­strip in the western Oklahoma plains, on an unmarked rendition flight over Las Animas Colorado to Pueblo and by bus back to Las Animas (no rendi­tion airstrip in S.E. Colorado?)
The five months here at Bent County Correctional Facility are markedly improved over the last stay (8/03 - 11/04) by living in
new cell houses that are dislocated from the administrations snake pit which remains in the orig­inal facility. The loss of access to a piano keyboard and language CD's was easily supplanted by a job as an assistant teacher in the electronics shop and a collection of books maximized for my chemistry and electronics obsessions and a few inter-library loan volumes of French verbs and idioms. Also knowledge of rudimentary crochet stitches has grown into a hat making/experimenting enterprise (photos attached)
I am still misplaced in private contract incarceration and hope to return, through the political maze, to civically grounded state custody. If you are a politically active person watch for the en­croachment of privatized government; prisons, military, parole, half-way houses, social services ... , they are terrible lesions on the U.S. civic tradition.
May we all feel our way forward well, in all situations. Best wishes and regards,
Jason