Christmas-Mom

Sadie works Visitation Canteen and when she came back to the dorm after a few of the women put together a "Christmas party".  They put some little decorations up and made a Christmas Bingo game.  They played Bingo, Christmas Trivia and a woman had made a reindeer and a red nose and they played "Pin the Nose on Rudolph".  They gave each other little "gifts". 

Bunkies

OMG I'm eating white cheddar cheese crackers from one of my packages mom got me-so so good.  I am probably annoying my bunky by crunching them-but she is not asleep yet-definitely have to be conscious of your bunky's likes and dislikes if you are going to live cohesively.  In a lock-down dorm you are shut in your cell during count and all night.  The last thing you want is to not get along with your bunky.  I have seen blood baths-literally-from two bunkies not getting along.  They cut each other, throw pee at each other, dump their belongings everywhere.  It can be insane if the bunkies are crazy and on edge.  Most are heavily medicated and sometimes the ones who are the scariest are the ones who really need it (not just to get high).  They need it!  There have been nights where some do not get their pills and I guarantee you they end up naked running around, attacking people, banging on the windows to get out or attack an officer.  Please give them their meds!  The inmates with mental health problems live in the general population because there is no psych ward or housing for them.  They can make life unbearable for everyone else.

"Baizing" - (showers)

We are in count right now.  It is 7:45 PM and they are recounting which means someone counted wrong on the compound.  At night most inmates are in their dorms.  The highlight of the week is packages.  We can get packages ordered for us from the outside if we are fortunate enough to have family or friends who care to order one for us.  We can do it twice a year.  My mom and my sister bought 3 100.00 packages for 3 indigent inmates (see www.inmateslivesmatter.net for info on packages).  You have no idea what that means to them.  It is awesome to receive packages because it is stuff that we don't get on canteen and will never get if we don't get packages.  These packages have shampoo that smells sooo good-cheap but way better than anything we ever get.  Our shampoo is 1.12 on canteen but it is cheap and watered down called Prescription Care-ever heard of it?  Sounds a little suspicious.  Our bars of soap are now SILK.  Most girls probably use about one a day between bathing (2 to 3x daily) and washing their clothes by hand.

Bathing or as some women here call it "baizing" is a whole job in itself.  It's a pet peeve of mine I will probably not get over until I leave here because I have to get a shower before I start my day.  Our showers are usually locked during the day.  Most girls put their towels up on the bars (cell barred doors on shower) of the shower.  Sometimes you can get in from your day and their are 3 or 4 towels hung up already.  If you have people who care, they will put your towel up in line while you are gone.  It sounds orderly-but it is not.  A girl will put her towel up in the early afternoon knowing she is not going to try to get in the shower until after 8pm count.  So, when she wants to get into the shower and someone is in the shower she is going to yell at that person.  Showers are serious business.  I don't know how many fights I have seen over showers.  This happens every day-crazy right?  So once you find a shower you have to gather all your shower stuff into a bag and grab your clean clothes. You always wash your underwear in the shower and if you do your own laundry, you wash that also.  I hate the shower ritual.  The showers are nasty-full of mold and rarely cleaned by the dorm workers who sit around and sleep all day.  So, god forbid you drop something on the floor of the shower.  I have almost thrown up dropping my soap on the floor and picking it up with a clump of who knows what on it.  I could throw up thinking about it.  I am a very neat person so it is really disgusting.  We do shower in shower shoes so that's good. 

The showers only have one button that has a timer on it.  The temperature is either too hot or too cold.  You would die if you saw what squirts out of these showers-it is literally the width of a water fountain stream.  No joke.  And if you don't shower at least once a day then you are a "dirty b---h".  And don't forget to cover your neck with baby powder to let everyone know you "baized" so no one talks about you-and they will.  Then you trudge back to your cell, hang your towel and wet clothes.  I cannot wait for the day I can step into a nice hot shower with my shoes, all my fragrant body washes and a poof ball already there and no underwear to wash.  Now that's living!  And don't even talk about a bath-do they still exist anymore?  Next time you all take a nice hot shower, remember how lucky you are.  We take a lot of things for granted on the outside.

So, that is my shower rant.

Your Story

If you have a story of a loved one about their incarceration and want to speak out, I can post it as anonymous.  I feel it is important that the general public know what the truth is and how families are coping and what we go through.

Had to share this-a Christmas card from Sadie

Merry Christmas Everyone!

We hope everyone has a fantastic Christmas and New Year.  We will continue posting after Christmas.

A FB Post from a Guard in an Ohio Prison

People who have been treated less then human will come home dehumanized. We can not expect a person who has been subjected to never being called by their name, never being shown respect for themselves or their things, being told day in and day what a piece of shit they are to come home and act appropriate, to think everything is flowers and rainbows. To come home and not be able to get a job and then not revert to old habits . The same companies that will use Prison labor (at a very minimum cost) to produce their product will not hire the same people once released who were working for slave wages on the inside. Why won't they? They wont because they are Felons, the same man or woman , the same Felon on the inside working for pennies on the dollar to big name companies are not employable by said companies when they return home with families to help support and society to prove wrong because they are Felons, there debt is never paid off and neither is their families. Their families will suffer monetarily because if the offender is able to secure employment it will probably be low paying, the family will also suffer because with society's stigma of felons the individual is more likely to reoffend to be able to support the family and even themselves. We have to better as a society for all our people. We are not allowed to disregard a person because of race, sexual orientation, male or female citizen, non citizen but yet we discriminate because of a felony . When a person goes to prison their debt to society is being paid, no it doesn’t make the crime go away but they are punished for it. When they are released supposedly their debt is paid , this is not true. Society continues to make them pay , makes finding a place to live, a job nearly impossible. If they do not have a strong family background more then likely they will become homeless , and even more likely to reoffend. I used to think like the majority of society and thought "screw them, their fault" , then I went to work in a Prison . My eyes were opened I was stuck their most of the time 16 hours a day and I watched the men be disrespected by CO's White Shirts, Doctors, Mental Health Professionals. It sickened me. And people wonder why these men and women come out and act the way they do. They wonder why in prison the offenders treat each other like crap. Shit rolls down hill. It is a constant rotation of degrading human beings and regardless of their crime that is the bottom line, they are humans! When I was a CO I addressed every man by Sir or Mr. why, because I want a human walking out of those doors not an animal not someone who has NO regard for the next person, I want someone who has respect for the next human being living next door to me not someone who has no regard for human life or respect for anyone else let alone themselves. Yet this is what we make these men and women into. We make them into these people by disregarding them as humans, not addressing their mental health issues (mental illness runs rampart in the prison system, it is not addressed or helped by handing them a crossword puzzle or word search game or solitary confinement). We do not rehabilitate the incarcerated at all, we don’t allow enough if any family time, a few visits a year. People in business suits telling the people who can visit , who is important to the incarcerated. Moving the incarcerated far from their families sometimes making visits almost impossible. Prisons make money off of keeping the beds filled, each year a new budget is made off beds filled , the people waiting to fill these beds, the so called programs they have, overtime because the CO's are over worked and management and the DOC do not care because the money (your tax dollars) is there to make payroll, to house your family members your neighbors, and the people you don’t know every day for the rest of your tax paying life and their life. So when reading this and you do not think that because you don’t have loved one incarcerated this doesn’t affect you , think again!!