Prison visitation (Full Version)

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slaveboyforyou -> Prison visitation (5/19/2009 3:10:34 PM)

Since I already mentioned I'm doing this, and I posted about my friend being extradicted from Texas on a probation violation......I was wondering if anyone else is visiting a prisoner.

My friend got sentenced to 2 years in a RPF (regional punishment facility). It's a minimum security joint; it's basically run like a rehab. She has to finish a nine month program to get paroled basically. It pisses me off, because her good time and parole date comes off the back end. She doesn't get any credit on her incarceration for the 2 months jail time, but she gets it on the parole. So essentially, she will serve a year for writing a bad check on $1200. After that, she serves a year on supervised parole. It's the law, and I get that.

But I don't understand the stupid program she is in. She is not a drug addict or alcoholic. But she still has to go throught the 12 step program. She is going through a modified community therapy program. She has to walk with her hands behind her back everywhere in the building. She has been in college, but she still has to take GED courses. She has to ask for permission to speak in front of other "residents" (convicts). I don't get what this "therapeutic community" is supposed to accomplish. I understand learning humility and following directions, but I'll be damned if I'd ever submit to people who are less than me. When I say less than me....she is in there with people that have committed much worse crimes than her...why in the fuck should she be listening to them. I wouldn't. I know she fucked up, but I know her. It just seems overly ridiculous. She wrote a bad check, she got put on probation, she left the state without permission......m'kay.....who did she kill?





cpK69 -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 3:17:54 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: slaveboyforyou

I don't get what this "therapeutic community" is supposed to accomplish. I understand learinging humility and following directions, but I'll be damned if I'd ever submit to people who are less than me. When I say less than me....she is in there with people that have committed much worse crimes than her...why in the fuck should she be listening to them. I wouldn't. I know she fucked up, but I know her. It just seems overly ridiculous. She wrote a bad check, she got put on probation, she left the state without permission......m'kay.....who did she kill?




[sm=seesaw.gif] 




kittinSol -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 3:18:27 PM)

I feel for your friend, slaveboy... incarceration for non-violent crimes is just plain wrong (well, unless you're someone who's been pracising thieving haute-voltige, like Bernie Madoff). I think she's a perfect example as to why the law needs to change. Not that it's any consolation for her, of course... be there for her - if she's intelligent, as you say, it's going to be tough to abide by the ridiculous rules that are in place where she's going, so support her all you can.




JonnieBoy -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 3:27:46 PM)

I don't know all of the situation but it sounds familiar ... killing over there is fine (it seems) but crime against money is not welcome.

I wish your friend well and, should you choose to, you can share my words with her.

Pirate




marie2 -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 3:34:38 PM)

The rules do seem rather ridiculous as far as having to suck up to the senior convicts, get a GED  if she's graduated HS and attended college etc, but they've gotta put her somewhere, and it seems like the less hardcore option between this or a regular type of prison.

Seems like one of those cases where a person does something bad, but not really that bad in comparison to what others have done.  Like it almost falls in the middle or the low end of middle....But the system is stuck having to put her into some type of "rehabilitative" program, whether she needs it or not, so that they can meet the regulations on what they're supposed to do with "criminals" of this level.  

If she were to get out and commit another crime, then the state is going to be held accountable for not having put her in a "program" to rehabilitate. It's probably more political than anything else.  I'm sure it sucks ass for her, but it sounds like the lesser of the evils.  It's not really like she's submitting to them,  it's more like playing the game by their rules, and sucking it up,  in order to keep her ass out of trouble and just get the hell out of there asap. 




slaveboyforyou -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 3:36:11 PM)

I do support her Kittin, but it still angers me. She was arrested in Austin, Texas. She was kept in isolation (the hole) for 10 days. She was picked up by a private company after that. She was moved in a van wearing ankle chains, a belly chain, and handcuffs to Solano County, California jail; that took two days. So she spent two days chained in the back of a van. After a day, she was moved in the same fashion to an Oregon jail. She spent two days there. She was then moved to Seattle. She spent two days there, than she was moved from jail to jail picking up other prisoners until Colorado. She spent two days there. She was then moved to Mississippi; along the way she was moved through the Arkansas city receiving her. When she said something about it, she was told, "It's not on the schedule." She was than kept in a Mississippi jail for 10 days, before finally being sent to Arkansas. All of this took 28 days. It took 28 days to move her from Austin, Texas to Conway, AR. Normally, that's a 9 hour drive.

She was sentenced to 2 years in a RPF, which I explained earlier. It is minimum security, but it's just as bad. In fact, my brother who was incarcerated for a violent crime (battery, *bar fight*) was sent to ADC (Arkansas Department of Corrections) said it was worse because of the rules. MY brother didn't have to do shit but his time. My friend is having to go through a rehab program because she is mimimum security. She is still in there with sex offenders, drug dealers, etc. I just don't get what the point is. It really pisses me off.
'




JonnieBoy -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 3:50:07 PM)

You did a good job of explaining things to us foreigners slaveboy, if this is a first offence, her journey seems very harsh, even if not, the penal route you describe sounds counterproductive.

Pirate




marie2 -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 3:52:14 PM)

It's god damn freaky.  When I was going through my divorce...on one of our court dates in "family court", we were waiting for our turn to go up in front of the judge, and in the meantime, these detainees were brought in wearing orange prison suits with ankle chains and chains around their middle cuffing their hands in front of them.  It was so freaky.  They were people who were being held for not paying child support.  There was this one woman there....poor poor soul, I felt so sorry for her....she was rocking back and forth and her eyes were roaming to the ceiling with this glazed look.  Clearly she was either mentally ill or on drugs or something.  She was taken in for not paying....get this...her TEN dollar per week child support.  She didn't look like she could find her way back to the curb she was living in when they found her, so I have no idea how she was going to come up with that ten bucks.  But these people were being handled like violent criminals. 




kittinSol -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 3:53:23 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: slaveboyforyou

I do support her Kittin, but it still angers me. She was arrested in Austin, Texas. She was kept in isolation (the hole) for 10 days. She was picked up by a private company after that. She was moved in a van wearing ankle chains, a belly chain, and handcuffs to Solano County, California jail; that took two days. So she spent two days chained in the back of a van. After a day, she was moved in the same fashion to an Oregon jail. She spent two days there. She was then moved to Seattle. She spent two days there, than she was moved from jail to jail picking up other prisoners until Colorado. She spent two days there. She was then moved to Mississippi; along the way she was moved through the Arkansas city receiving her. When she said something about it, she was told, "It's not on the schedule." She was than kept in a Mississippi jail for 10 days, before finally being sent to Arkansas. All of this took 28 days. It took 28 days to move her from Austin, Texas to Conway, AR. Normally, that's a 9 hour drive.

She was sentenced to 2 years in a RPF, which I explained earlier. It is minimum security, but it's just as bad. In fact, my brother who was incarcerated for a violent crime (battery, *bar fight*) was sent to ADC (Arkansas Department of Corrections) said it was worse because of the rules. MY brother didn't have to do shit but his time. My friend is having to go through a rehab program because she is mimimum security. She is still in there with sex offenders, drug dealers, etc. I just don't get what the point is. It really pisses me off.
'


But this is absolutely CRAZY! Have you considered writing a letter to a newspaper?




Rule -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 4:03:41 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: slaveboyforyou
she will serve a year for writing a bad check on $1200.

I google that one prisoner costs 189 dollar per day. One year then comes to about 69 thousand dollars in costs. For a 1200 dollar offense? Them USA politicians are incomprehensible. Who elects them?




slaveboyforyou -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 4:12:04 PM)

quote:

But this is absolutely CRAZY! Have you considered writing a letter to a newspaper?


Kittin, welcome to America. I could write letters to every paper in America, and no one would care. What I described is a common procedure for interstate extradition of prisoners. Google it...you won't believe what you read. Rapes, abuse, violence....it's all common. I have been against private companies doing this for years, but I never really felt it until it happened to a friend of mine. It's awful. I really don't think the majority of Americans know what goes on in our jails. The food is horrible. The mattresses are as thin as a phone book. The clothes are as cheap and thin as possible. Jails typically keep the temps at 60 degrees or lower. If you think I'm kidding.....get put in jail sometime.

People in this country are mad at criminals, and they want them treated harshly. But they don't understand how many people go to jail for minor things. We notice it, when Paris Hilton gets popped. But we don't notice it when a waitress gets popped. We ignore them, and we allow them to have high bonds and to be sentenced to high times of incarceration. We laugh off the incidences of rape where minor offendors are forced into prisons with predators. We make jokes about it. It's accepted. We think it's funny.......why am I not laughing. It's not funny. Non violent offenders deserve another chance. All criminals deserve an evironment without violence.




Vendaval -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 4:12:54 PM)

Fast Reply -
 
It is not uncommon for people who are homeless to committ petty theft and other lower levels crimes in order to have food and shelter in the local jail for a while.  And add in the mentally ill and substance addicted populations + violent career criminals and gangsters and you have a volatile mix.




MstrPBK -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 4:22:39 PM)

FAST REPLY Part II

IT is true what Vendaval has said... but it is also a sad statement for this country.




kittinSol -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 4:26:42 PM)

What slaveboy describes is utterly barbaric. It's not that surprising, unfortunately, but it looks as though it's high time the system changed [>:] . If only to appeal to the new sense of thrift that has taken over the atmosphere in this country, since so many people don't give a shit about human rights, but care a whole lot about their 'tax dollars' being wasted [>:] .




Vendaval -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 4:36:00 PM)

And keep in mind that there are all sorts of differences from one state to another, different counties or cities, etc.  Over-crowding is a continuing problem and one that is not likely to get better in the near future.




GYPZYQUEEN -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 4:47:42 PM)

its fucked up here(CA) too and scarey..
I was arrested at a car impound in JAN and they said I had 6 warrants...
I said WTF?..they said
"Dont know  have to come with us"

I was cuffed...taken to jail and put in with 2 women...one a gang member named COBRA( yep name says it all..had been on the run for 4 years))...and a woman vomitiing mouth wash  who had lice and was coming down from meth..
13 hours later after saying I was diabetic over and over...I got a sandwich..
then went before a judge..
the 6 warrants were actually 1..someone fucked up..
and it was for....get this...

failure to appear for a vehicle fine...

yet I could have been fucked over by Cobra..who did try to dominate( to no avail).[:@]..got lice plus had a diabetic reaction and they did not give a shit..

I Am so sorry about your friend... I wonder how you could advocate for her..??
and pls  forgive me for using your forum to tell my story..

Are there support groups..advocates...??

THE MAIN thing is to be there...listen..and and from what I have been told
"Play the game" to get out early

GQ  keep us posted.............prayers to you and her




camille65 -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 4:56:36 PM)

A friend of mine in Michigan was in jail nearly a year for a first offense non-violent crime. He had had his license revoked and owed on tickets when he got pulled over. In the end he did 11 months and has been tethered on house arrest for going on 10 months. He cannot make phone calls over 10 minutes, he has to answer every call coming in, no caller ID permitted. He cannot leave his apartment (which means friends have to bring him groceries) and his 95 year old mother is in the hospital dying, he cannot go see her. He can't work because he cannot leave his house.

All that for a revoked license and unpaid tickets.

Oh. And he also has to pay the state for the tether every month! He asked his parole officer if he could just go back to jail and they said no. They also can't seem to tell him when the tether will be removed.

It is a seriously messed up system when non-violent offenders get punished more than rapists.

Slaveboy, dehumanizing them makes them easier to control. Rigid schedules also do the same thing. It is easier to have everyone go by the same system rather than try to accomodate any differences.




DomImus -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 4:58:43 PM)

I know I'm gonna regret saying this but she violated the law, got probation and then violated the probation and got busted doing that. I'm struggling here to see her as the victim in all of this. What was she doing in Austin without permission if the terms of her probation required her to remain in Arkansas or get permission to leave? Was she aware that she was not to leave the state without permission? Could all of this recent strife she has been through been avoided if she had simply followed her probation guidelines or am I missing something here?

Flame away.




marie2 -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 5:16:37 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: GYPZYQUEEN

its fucked up here(CA) too and scarey..
I was arrested at a car impound in JAN and they said I had 6 warrants...
I said WTF?..they said
"Dont know  have to come with us"

I was cuffed...taken to jail and put in with 2 women...one a gang member named COBRA( yep name says it all..had been on the run for 4 years))...and a woman vomitiing mouth wash  who had lice and was coming down from meth..
13 hours later after saying I was diabetic over and over...I got a sandwich..
then went before a judge..
the 6 warrants were actually 1..someone fucked up..
and it was for....get this...

failure to appear for a vehicle fine...

yet I could have been fucked over by Cobra..who did try to dominate( to no avail).[:@]..got lice plus had a diabetic reaction and they did not give a shit..

I Am so sorry about your friend... I wonder how you could advocate for her..??
and pls  forgive me for using your forum to tell my story..

Are there support groups..advocates...??

THE MAIN thing is to be there...listen..and and from what I have been told
"Play the game" to get out early

GQ  keep us posted.............prayers to you and her


Are you saying this was mistaken identity?  Man o man, that is some scary shit.  I can understand that mistakes happen, but until they're sure, they should NOT have put you in with lice girl and Cobra.   See here is the problem with our fucked up system....If you ended up in a scrap defending yourself from Cobra, then you'd be guilty of assault or whatever.  It's like you might not be a criminal going in, but you're likely to become one before you get out, just because you protected yourself from these nuts. 

And the courtrooms are no better. It's more corruption and bullshit because the judge wants to get to his golf date on time, so there's no time to bring in that DNA evidence.... ah, it's not that important anyway.  Have a great weekend everyone...see ya on the course....(Take him back to his cell)....
 
Best thing is to do whatever it takes to stay out of this crazy system. The smallest thing can snowball into your (generic) biggest nightmare. 




barelynangel -> RE: Prison visitation (5/19/2009 5:21:52 PM)

Okay this is not going to be a popular answer i can tell.

Umm okay so she wrote a bad check which means there is a victim in this case - has she paid the restitution that is usually part of probation sentences? From what you said she is being extradicted back to Texas on a PROBATION violation (which is different from parole). Unless things have changed, probabtion is given to first time and yeah many times second time offenders and this means usually if they follow the probation, they aren't required to serve the jail sentence. Or many times they aren't even initially sentenced to any length of jail time and are simply given probation and then IF its violated they get sentence with jail time.

So your friend isn't necessarily law abiding if she screwed up on her probation, she WAS given a chance through probation to not have to serve jail time. She didn't HAVE to serve ANY time (which is usually what probation means), so if you really want to be pissed off, you should be pissed off at her for violating probation which kept her OUT of incarceration in the first place.

Perhaps you should consider that -- probation is a concept where SHE WASN'T SENTENCE to do ANY time (except maybe what she seved while waiting for her trial). She not only violated her probation but she left the state, which is usually LARGELY spelled out in all probation sentences. So your friend really didn't seem to take seriously her sentence on her first violation of the law.

I really don't get why she has to take GED courses either, has she gotten a copy of her transcript and given it to her lawyer to deal with this? The State is wasting money educating her in something she has already been educated on, when they could be having her take college courses. To me it sounds like they have rules, and structure that they established in order to maintain order. If she watches her p's and q's perhaps one day she will be the one someone has to ask permission to speak. Does it matter what the other people did? If they have gone through the program and achieved the level they have -- perhaps they are better than your friend who it seems CAN'T FOLLOW directions because she VIOLATED her PROBATION -- which was a set of rules and such for her to follow. So she has shown she needs to establish she can follow directions and directives and exist within rules given to her (kinda like laws).

Why should she listen to them? Because maybe their experience COULD help her realize that when a judge says DO THIS and you won't be incarcerated -- YOU DO IT or you deal with the incarceration.

Sorry but if she wasn't given the opportunity to REMAIN NOT INCARCERATED -- i would be like damn that was a hanging judge but she CHOSE to violate her probation, she thumbed her nose not only at the law and well the law won. Sorry to even remotely have sympathy for her -- sorry i can't. For those who believe she wasn't given a chance to avoid this -- she was -- probation.


You know her sure -- but the system she thumbed her nose at by not following rules for a year or so her probation was, doesn't know her all they know is she breaks laws and when given a chance to show she will not do so and follow some basic rules, she doesn't.

Does some of what she has to do seem ridiculous -- yep. But to me, it seems ridiculous that she couldn't for a couple years follow her probation. Catch 22, which is more ridiculous? A system that makes her do seemingly ridiculous things because she decided her probation rules weren't important, or a girl who was given a chance NOT to spend time in that system who decided the rules didn't apply to her?

AGAIN -- its wise to NOTE -- SHE WAS GIVEN A CHANCE TO NOT BE INCARCERATED via probation.

I know its not the popular answer on this thread, but how many chances should she be given when there are people all over the country who actualy abide by probation because THEY MADE A MISTAKE and by following their probation they show understand that.

Tell your friend to suck it up, she put herself there and now maybe she is learning to follow the rules -- imagine if she had just done that with the rules of her probation. If you notice, i am not even speaking of her initial crime of writing a bad check, i am speaking of the chance the system initially gave her not to be incarcerated that she decided wasn't very important.

angel




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