DATELINE: JANUARY 6, 2011
Thirty years ago, when Florida’s prison population reached an estimated 20,000 inmates, no one could have foreseen the present situation: 103,000 prisoners in 146 facilities, 30,500 employees, and an annual budget of $2.5 billion. With the world economic crash, the bleak housing market with foreclosures forcing thousands of families into homelessness, widespread unemployment and reduced tax revenues, one doesn’t have to be an economist to realize that we can’t maintain the present system.
Governor Rick Scott has sent shockwaves through the Florida corrections industry by vowing to cut one billion dollars from the bloated prison bureaucracy and budget. Employees fear the loss of their jobs and pensions, with good cause. Hard times call for drastic measures. Can it be done? Can a major part of the prison budget be cut without endangering the public safety while releasing thousands of prisoners? For that is the reality. In order to reach the governor’s goal, the entire prison system must be reduced and trimmed back. The only way to do that is to release prisoners and close prisons.
The past few years the prison system has dealt with budget shortfalls by gutting educational and vocational programs, the very things that reduce the recidivism rate and give released prisoners a fighting chance to become employable, law-abiding citizens and not return to incarceration. More recently, robbing Peter to pay Paul, the Florida DOC has cut the prison food budget, virtually removing meat from the menu, substituting the controversial textured vegetable protein (TVP) into a starchy diet increasingly filled with potatoes, rice, cornbread, dried beans, macaroni, and grits.
The meager food budget, which is a minor percentage of prison costs, can only be squeezed so far. On the other hand, the largest proportion of expense goes to salaries, payrolls, and the lucrative state pension fund, sacred cows that have been off limits to reduction.
Following are four proposals that go a long way toward addressing this controversial subject, proposals that could initially save the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. A large percentage of savings would be realized in the first year.
This is only a beginning. Additional proposals will follow. As a man who has served over thirty-two years in Florida prisons, who has witnessed the wholesale squandering and waste of valuable resources over the years with little accountability, I present a viewpoint that has been previously unconsidered. It is time for everyone to step forward and present fresh ideas to solve our mutual societal problems before the entire system grinds to a halt and implodes. We haven’t reached the breaking point yet, but it is getting dangerously close.
Revamp the mandatory sentencing laws. The prisons are chock full of minor drug criminals who are better dealt with in drug treatment and rehab programs than overcrowding the prisons with the harsh minimum mandatory sentences imposed on them. Many of these draconian drug laws were passed in the 1980’s and ‘90’s as kneejerk responses to the crack cocaine epidemic that threatened to overwhelm our country. Rather than focus on the interdiction of ships and airplanes loaded with tons of drugs sent from the source in South America by the billion-dollar cartels, our government decided it would be easier to lock up all the customers, the users and addicts, the vulnerable bottom of the food chain, rather than tackle the bigger societal issues that plague our population.
This myopic view resulted in thousands of young drug users packed into the state prisons at a cost the taxpayers can no longer afford. A new sentencing commission composed of objective experts and professionals, rather than politicians who seek a tough on drug crime label, should be charged with revamping this out-of-touch statutory mess. Only by focusing on a holistic approach to drug addiction, intervening at an early age, tackling the social problems that fuel addiction, rather than the “lock ‘em up and throw away the key mentality that has filled prisons to bursting, can we hope to funnel our children away from incarceration and toward productive lives.
Stop selling cigarettes and tobacco products in prison. The Clean Indoor Air Act is violated thousands of times a day in every Florida prison. Prison officials respond to complaints of dangerous air pollution by stating that cigarette smoking is banned inside all state facilities prisoner housing areas, and anyone caught smoking is subject to disciplinary measures. This is not true. Even in lockdown solitary confinement cells, prisoners are able to obtain cigarettes and smoke, despite regular searches and shakedowns. As long as cigarettes and tobacco products are sold in the prison canteens, the illegal smoking endangering everyone’s health will continue unabated.
A high percentage of prisoners are addicted to nicotine. They can’t stop. Locked in cell blocks, dorms, and sealed secure housing, the unchecked smoking results in choking clouds of secondary smoke and spiraling health care costs in the millions of tax dollars. The unsafe environment threatens the health of thousands of prison employees, as well as the prisoners. The state of Florida is stuck with paying the tab for lung cancer, emphysema, and other smoking-related illnesses.
A few years ago, a study of cancer in Florida found that the highest per capita rate of lung cancer occurred in Union County, which also had the highest percentage of state prisoners, a damning statistic. Nicotine is more highly addictive than many banned narcotic drugs. When the state of Florida becomes the purveyor of these products, the tax revenues from prison tobacco sales are offset by the escalating health care costs the state incurs.
Tobacco products are banned in many county and state corrections facilities nationwide, eliminating the problem and saving millions of dollars in health costs, despite the doom and gloom predictions of tobacco advocates that depriving prisoners of their nicotine fix would result in widespread violence and protests. Such arguments proved to be unfounded. In fact, many prison smokers, unable to quit the deadly habit on their own, were grateful for the tobacco ban. It is time for Florida to wake up and rid the prisons of cigarettes and tobacco products.
Release five thousand prisoners with the shortest times left on their sentences. They will be getting out in the next few months anyway, so let them go now and save at least $120 million. How? Simple. The Department of Corrections budget is about $2.5 billion a year. Divide that $2.5 billion by the 103,000 Florida prisoners for an average annual cost of incarceration of a little over $24,000 per person. Five thousand early releases translates into a $120 million saving.
The logistics are tried and true--extra gain time awards. Do it in phases: grant 180 days gain time across the board to all prisoners, bringing down their release dates six months. Those who fall into the release category with the gain time awards go home, with the exception of course, of those prisoners who, by the nature of their charges, are ineligible for release. This would include sex offenders who fall under the Jimmy Ryce Act, those who have detainers or pending charges in other jurisdictions, or anyone else who otherwise pose a public risk, as a case-by-case review would determine.
Once the first batch of short-timers are released, an additional 180 days gain time would be awarded the same way, resulting in a further prison population decrease. When the 5,000 figure is reached, the extra gain time awards would end for the year.
Release the five thousand oldest prisoners at a cost savings of well over $120 million. Elderly, sick prisoners account for a disproportionate share of the burgeoning health care costs, and the older and sicker they get, the more each one costs the taxpayers. It was reported recently that prison dialysis patients cost $190,000 a year solely for that procedure, not counting the rest of their care. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, HIV, mental illness, and a host of other illnesses are epidemic among the thousands of elderly prisoners, many who led dissolute lives of drug abuse, alcoholism and smoking that damaged their health at an early age. To many of these, the prison system has become a harsh nursing home and hospice that tends them until they die. It would be far cheaper for society to deal with these people outside the corrections framework, rather than inside.
The June, 2010, issue of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, published by the U.S. Department of Justice, “Prison Inmates at Midyear 2009-Statistical Tables,” reveals that 2,096,300 inmates were held in custody in state or federal prisons or in local jails as of June 30, 2009. Table 17 breaks down this figure by sex, race, Hispanic origin, and age. The data is revealing. An estimated 1,908,400 inmates held in custody, over 91% are between the ages of 20-54 years old. Barely 5%, 104,200 inmates, are in the age range of 55-59 (58,000), 60-64 (25,200), and 65 or older (21,000). 68,200 are 18 or 19 years old.
That is for the entire United States, over two million prisoners. Applying that 5% figure to Florida, we are incarcerating a little more than 5,000 prisoners aged 55 or older. Releasing those elderly prisoners, with the obvious exceptions of dangerous sex offenders, mentally disturbed prisoners, and those deemed incorrigibly violent, would free the taxpayers from an increasingly onerous burden.
Crime and punishment is a young man’s game, heavily weighted toward youth. By the time a prisoner has served twenty, thirty, forty, or even more years in prison, he or she is usually a broken man or woman, in body, mind, and spirit. Continued incarceration serves little purpose beyond vengeance. Let them go.
Conclusion. These measures alone would reduce the prison population by a minimum figure of 10,000 inmates the first year, resulting in closing eight major institutions at a cost-savings of hundreds of millions of dollars the first year. Job training and placement of the unneeded prison staff would have to be addressed, as well as educational, vocational, and job placement opportunities for those released who were capable of working. While not a complete solution to the problem, it is a beginning in the right direction.
Charlie
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Sunday, December 26, 2010
MICKEY MOUSE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION: LET DISNEY PRIVATIZE THE FLORIDA PRISONS
DATELINE 12/16/10
MICKEY MOUSE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION: LET DISNEY PRIVATIZE THE FLORIDA PRISONS
Florida is broke, and treasure chests full of cash have been squandered on the $2.5 billion state prison budget every year, with no relief in sight. Governor-elect Rick Scott has proposed cutting the costs by privatizing Florida prisons, reducing the funding by one billion dollars. What most people don’t realize is that the lion’s share of those billions of tax dollars are spent on--payroll! Excellent benefits, medical insurance, and pensions are guaranteed to anyone who lucks into a secure job at the state prison. Cutting labor costs, replacing those "certified law enforcement officers” and highly-paid administrators, cutting the morbidly obese labor costs are crucial to financial liquidation.
Can it be done? Yes! Hard times breed drastic measures, and we must seek solutions outside the tired thinking of the past-- new ideas that will not only cut the prison budget, but turn a profit. How can we do that? Walt Disney saved Florida once already back in the 1970’s, when he bought thousands of acres of empty land and built Disneyworld. Let Disney do it again, and turn the prisons over to Mickey Mouse and Company.
Think about it. Mickey Mouse Correctional Institution will be the world’s first prison theme park. Tours of the facility will highlight sights you’d never see in free society.
“On your left is a cage full of bank robbers. Notice the shifty eyes. On your right are rapists; don’t worry, the unbreakable glass protects us. Next, we have some serial killers--they are caged alone for obvious reasons. The mild-mannered man in the next cage is a white-collar criminal, an embezzler, and beside him, playing with matches is an arsonist. And we’re walking…”
A ride similar to the Haunted House would take the tourists past displays of imprisonment and executions throughout history, with robots acting out scenes such as Daniel in the lions’ den, the Crucifixion of Jesus, the burning of Joan of Arc, the Tower of London, scenes from an 18th Century English prison, hangings, beheadings, firing squads, Alcatraz, a prison shower scene, a riot, stabbings, escapes, electrocutions, and lethal injections. The fascinating life -- and death -- scenarios are endless.
Customers would pay high prices for authentic prison swill, and adults could sample prison wine mixed in genuine mop buckets and fermented in plastic jugs. Souvenir stores would sell striped prison uniforms, bull whips, canisters of pepper spray (useful to make rowdy teenagers do their homework), miniature electric chairs (batteries not included), and other interesting knick knacks unavailable elsewhere.
Mickey Mouse C.I. would also be a fully-functioning prison, with the staff dressed as Disney characters. The prison warden would be Mickey Mouse, of course, constantly smiling. The head guard, the colonel, would be Goofy. Donald Duck would be the prison doctor (quack!), and the Three Little Pigs would be the goon squad, armed with clubs to hurriedly put down any disturbances. The Seven Dwarfs would be in charge of the prison work squad, and every morning would lead several hundred prisoners to the fields to harvest crops with everyone singing, “Hi ho, hi ho! It’s off to work we go!” all the way. The Big Bad Wolf would be in charge of solitary confinement, and threaten to eat anyone who misbehaved. Cinderella’s evil stepmother would run the religious programs, and her daughters would pass out cookies and coffee to the visitors ($10.00 each).
The guards would be dressed as the other Disney characters and would be required to speak in their characters’ voices. The possibilities are mind-boggling, as are the potential profits.
With the paying customers taking daily tours in the thousands, it would not be long before Mickey Mouse C.I. began turning a healthy profit. The program could be expanded to more prisons and more theme parks each year. Imagine Sea World in charge of Death Row -- instead of lethal injections, the condemned prisoners could be fed to Shamu the killer whale. A special 50,000-seat circular arena like an oversized Roman Coliseum would surround a huge tank for Shamu. A crane would lower the chosen prisoner--feet first or head first, flip a coin--Shamu would leap higher and higher, until he could take a bite, piece by piece, complete the ritual; pay-per-view would broadcast worldwide to enraptured audiences. How much would the tourists pay to see that?
In no time at all, the State of Florida, Inc., would be a model for fiscal responsibility, the crime rate would drop, and a new era in correctional sciences would dawn. Let’s get to work!
Charlie
MICKEY MOUSE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION: LET DISNEY PRIVATIZE THE FLORIDA PRISONS
Florida is broke, and treasure chests full of cash have been squandered on the $2.5 billion state prison budget every year, with no relief in sight. Governor-elect Rick Scott has proposed cutting the costs by privatizing Florida prisons, reducing the funding by one billion dollars. What most people don’t realize is that the lion’s share of those billions of tax dollars are spent on--payroll! Excellent benefits, medical insurance, and pensions are guaranteed to anyone who lucks into a secure job at the state prison. Cutting labor costs, replacing those "certified law enforcement officers” and highly-paid administrators, cutting the morbidly obese labor costs are crucial to financial liquidation.
Can it be done? Yes! Hard times breed drastic measures, and we must seek solutions outside the tired thinking of the past-- new ideas that will not only cut the prison budget, but turn a profit. How can we do that? Walt Disney saved Florida once already back in the 1970’s, when he bought thousands of acres of empty land and built Disneyworld. Let Disney do it again, and turn the prisons over to Mickey Mouse and Company.
Think about it. Mickey Mouse Correctional Institution will be the world’s first prison theme park. Tours of the facility will highlight sights you’d never see in free society.
“On your left is a cage full of bank robbers. Notice the shifty eyes. On your right are rapists; don’t worry, the unbreakable glass protects us. Next, we have some serial killers--they are caged alone for obvious reasons. The mild-mannered man in the next cage is a white-collar criminal, an embezzler, and beside him, playing with matches is an arsonist. And we’re walking…”
A ride similar to the Haunted House would take the tourists past displays of imprisonment and executions throughout history, with robots acting out scenes such as Daniel in the lions’ den, the Crucifixion of Jesus, the burning of Joan of Arc, the Tower of London, scenes from an 18th Century English prison, hangings, beheadings, firing squads, Alcatraz, a prison shower scene, a riot, stabbings, escapes, electrocutions, and lethal injections. The fascinating life -- and death -- scenarios are endless.
Customers would pay high prices for authentic prison swill, and adults could sample prison wine mixed in genuine mop buckets and fermented in plastic jugs. Souvenir stores would sell striped prison uniforms, bull whips, canisters of pepper spray (useful to make rowdy teenagers do their homework), miniature electric chairs (batteries not included), and other interesting knick knacks unavailable elsewhere.
Mickey Mouse C.I. would also be a fully-functioning prison, with the staff dressed as Disney characters. The prison warden would be Mickey Mouse, of course, constantly smiling. The head guard, the colonel, would be Goofy. Donald Duck would be the prison doctor (quack!), and the Three Little Pigs would be the goon squad, armed with clubs to hurriedly put down any disturbances. The Seven Dwarfs would be in charge of the prison work squad, and every morning would lead several hundred prisoners to the fields to harvest crops with everyone singing, “Hi ho, hi ho! It’s off to work we go!” all the way. The Big Bad Wolf would be in charge of solitary confinement, and threaten to eat anyone who misbehaved. Cinderella’s evil stepmother would run the religious programs, and her daughters would pass out cookies and coffee to the visitors ($10.00 each).
The guards would be dressed as the other Disney characters and would be required to speak in their characters’ voices. The possibilities are mind-boggling, as are the potential profits.
With the paying customers taking daily tours in the thousands, it would not be long before Mickey Mouse C.I. began turning a healthy profit. The program could be expanded to more prisons and more theme parks each year. Imagine Sea World in charge of Death Row -- instead of lethal injections, the condemned prisoners could be fed to Shamu the killer whale. A special 50,000-seat circular arena like an oversized Roman Coliseum would surround a huge tank for Shamu. A crane would lower the chosen prisoner--feet first or head first, flip a coin--Shamu would leap higher and higher, until he could take a bite, piece by piece, complete the ritual; pay-per-view would broadcast worldwide to enraptured audiences. How much would the tourists pay to see that?
In no time at all, the State of Florida, Inc., would be a model for fiscal responsibility, the crime rate would drop, and a new era in correctional sciences would dawn. Let’s get to work!
Charlie
Monday, December 20, 2010
Merry Christmas from Charlie and Libby!
Santa came to see me in the form of my dear friend, Libby. I borrowed her elf hat for this photo in front of the Christmas tree. At least that hasn't been taken from us.
2010 has been a difficult year for us, but we pray that 2011 will bring better outcomes.
On behalf of both of us, I want to wish you a blessed, safe, and joyous holiday season.
With our love,
Charlie and Libby
Sunday, December 5, 2010
ANATOMY OF A PUNITIVE PRISON TRANSFER
Dateline November 30, 2010
ANATOMY OF A PUNITIVE PRISON TRANSFER
You heard the news. On Thursday, November 18, 2010, at 2:30 AM, I was awakened by the little, bald-headed, myopic prisoner in the next bunk telling me he was being transferred.
“You? Are you sure?” I asked. “Did you put in for a transfer?”
“No. I only have two months left before I go home.”
That didn’t sound right. I was still groggy, having been awakened from a dream about – I couldn’t remember. You know how dreams are. But I told him he should double-check with the guard, to make sure. I had a sneaking suspicion they’d mistakenly awakened my neighbor in bunk 116, when they meant to wake me up. I’d been fighting the prison warden and his minions at Tomoka C.I. (Daytona Beach, Florida) since the previous February, when the self-righteous mailroom clerk informed me she had confiscated a book , Wordsmith 2010, an anthology of award-winning short stories, essays, and poems, published annually by the Tampa Writers Alliance, mailed to me.
Why was the book confiscated? She said she’d read the article I’d written, and felt it was “a threat to security.” A threat to security? How could that be? The article in question, “To Protect the Guilty,” was a 2400 word excerpt from the “Prison Diary Project” sponsored by the Anne Frank Center USA in New York City, in 2008, in conjunction with the PEN American Center’s Prison Writing Program. That particular essay—a memoir—recounted my negative experiences with Ku Klux Klan (KKK) prison guards at a North Florida prison several years before. I couldn’t imagine how that could be construed as a threat to security. The recollection was from years before, at a distant, unnamed prison, and involved unnamed guards who had retaliated against me in retribution for my perceived insults to the character and intelligence of KKK members, prison guards or otherwise. Hmmm…perhaps she was in the women’s auxiliary of the Klan, the little women who sewed up the sheets and pillowcases into those white robes and pointed hats worn by the menfolk as they danced around a burning cross in a cow pasture, reminiscing about the good old days, when they were the masters and the slaves answered “yassuh” and “nahsuh” to the overseers as they hoed those endless rows of cotton.
Word came down a few days later that “The warden wants your ass in jail!” The mailroom clerk had gotten the formal complaint I’d filed about the improper confiscation, had taken the book to the warden, who read the KKK memoir and was offended by it, too. Hmmm…why was he offended? Had I touched a sensitive nerve? How deep did the KKK roots go in the Florida prison system? With the head of the 30,000-plus employee DOC being a black former police chief in Tallahassee, the state capital, one would think that any prison employees who professed white supremacist, racist organization links would keep their heads down, maintain a low profile, not draw attention to themselves. But no, they couldn’t resist the impulse to retaliate against the messenger, the prisoner who talked about them, the urge to strike back was too strong. And they did.
The offended warden ordered his subordinate to write a bogus disciplinary report against me for multiple unwarranted “mail regulations violations,” for violating the strictures against advertising for a pen pal (never did, don’t have any pen pals), running a business while incarcerated (absolutely false), entering contests and sweepstakes (nope-not even a Saturday night Powerball ticket), and commercially advertising for money, goods, and services (they should have checked my account—the court found me indigent, a fancy word for “poor”). Never happened. Didn’t matter.
They call prison disciplinary hearings “Kangaroo Courts” for a reason. I don’t know why Kangaroos have such animosity toward us, but the two kangaroos who presided ever the two hearings I had refused to listen to a word I said, as I was standing against the far wall with my hands cuffed behind my back. I presented evidence refuting the false charges, and requested staff witnesses who could verify my statements. Denied without any reason. Guilty. Thirty days in solitary confinement, thirty days loss of gain time. Do not pass “GO.”
It snowballed from there. I went to lockup, served every day of the thirty, no “good behavior,” unlike those caught smoking pot, possessing drugs or other contraband, who got out early. The colonel told me, when I asked why, “There’s a reason for that.” Yes, it’s called retaliation.
One characteristic of Normans is that we fight. We’ve been fighting for over a thousand years of recorded history. It doesn’t matter if we’re outnumbered. A hundred Norman knights on horseback attacked and scattered ten thousand Saracen (Muslims) foot soldiers besieging a city in Sicily on the way back from the Crusades, a long time ago. I once fought eight attackers to a draw at Raiford in my much-younger days. But all I had to fight these false charges was my pen, and they took that!
I fought and fought, on paper, lost every battle (of course), and finally filed a lawsuit in the circuit court in Leon County, the state capital. Once you get out of the prison decision chain (denied, denied, denied) and into judicial review, one’s chances of receiving a fair hearing are increased.
What else could the prison officials do to me, to fire another arrow, now that my appeal war is in the hands of the court? Punitive transfer!
My neighbor double-checked with the guard. He came back. “It’s you,” he said.
Just what I suspected. The guard had made a mistake, woke up the wrong guy. I packed.
We’d been hearing about it for weeks, even months. One dorm was falling apart, collapsing, had been condemned, and 150 prisoners had to be sent elsewhere before Thanksgiving. Like the tomato fields on the side of the road, it was “U-PICK-EM.” The very people who’d retaliated against me were the ones who picked the 150 chosen to go. The word was that they were taking the opportunity to get rid of all the “troublemakers.” I knew my time there was short.
A “punitive transfer” can usually be identified by certain characteristics. Traditionally, it is accomplished by putting a prisoner on a bus and shipping him to a distant, less-desirable prison much farther from his family and loved ones. Not only does that get the troublemaker out of their hair, but it also punishes him by imposing physical and financial hardships on those who would visit him. In this economy of foreclosures, unemployment and prohibitive travel expenses, the possibility of aging and infirm loved ones making difficult treks to distant prisons are greatly reduced, effectively punishing the prisoner’s family members, too, who are only guilty of caring about their loved one in prison and wanting to support and reassure him to keep him connected to the “outside” world.
A second characteristic of a punitive transfer is that it was unrequested. There is a procedure in the prison rules for requesting a “good adjustment transfer” to the prison of one’s choice. Maintain a clean record, behave yourself, don’t get in trouble, work hard, earn “gain time” each month, participate in programs, and the prison authorities will approve you to go to a better prison, usually closer to one’s family or visitors.
That is a great incentive for good behavior and positive accomplishments. “Give me a year of hard work and I’ll transfer you wherever you want.” We’ve all been told that. Some favorable prisons with good vocational programs, education, or paying jobs (PRIDE Prison Industries), have long waiting lists of a couple of years to get there.
Not so for “punitive transfer,” however. Few if any want to go to some distant prison out in the boondocks, far from the major population centers, unless they live down the road. I had been previously approved to go to Sumter C.I., near Bushnell, forty miles from my family. No more. The defendants in my court case made the decision for me. They didn’t like seeing me in the visiting park each week with my loved ones. “Let’s ship him to Alabama,” they most likely said, gleefully. “That’ll teach him.”
The third and most crucial characteristic in this anatomy of a punitive transfer is that it is retaliatory in nature. It punishes a prisoner for some act on his part. In my case, it is perfectly clear. They were offended by the KKK prison guard article. They retaliated by concocting false disciplinary charges and throwing me in solitary confinement. I responded by filing formal complaints and appeals to higher authorities, as the law says I am entitled to do. The Bill of Rights, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guarantees several rights to all citizens, freedom of speech, and the right to redress grievances to the government –to officially complain of government actions— among them.
Even prisoners are guaranteed these rights, the freedom to pursue legal remedies without fear of reprisals by government officials. Think again.
Reprisals and retaliation have a “chilling effect” on prisoners, who already suffer hardships and denials of “due process” by the very nature of their incarceration. The message is clear to all—complain at your own risk, see what happened to him?—it will happen to you.
Former D.O.C. Inspector General Dave Brierton once said, “Prisoners are put in prison as punishment, not for punishment.” That statement was in response to an investigation into abuses and brutality by guards at Florida State Prison. Brierton understood that being in prison was the punishment, and the guards’ jobs weren’t to inflict their own brands of additional punishment as they saw it.
Chained in leg irons, carrying heavy bags of my court documents, I stumbled onto the crowded, rickety prison transport bus with 45 of my fellow prisoners. Who were they? The vast majority were Jamaican, Latino, and Miami ghetto prison gang members, drug dealers, and strong-arm robbers who preyed on weaker prisoners. One older white prisoner was infamous for having castrated himself with a razor blade years before. The monthly testosterone shots he got at medical resulted in occasional rages and assaults, keeping him in and out of lockup, an obviously mentally-ill person. Get rid of him. Another transferee was a mentally-deficient younger man whose sole possession was a pair of flip-flops he carried in his back pocket. Not a toothbrush, nor a pair of socks. He helped carry one of my heavier bags, since his hands were free. And then there was me, the troublemaker.
The first question the prison gang members asked me was, “What are you doing on the bus with us?” They knew why they were being transferred. “Norman, you never get in trouble. Why did they get you?”
I explained that I had filed a lawsuit against the administration. “Oh—okay.” That explained it. They knew the drill.
That was Thursday. The occupants of the Friday and Monday transport buses were mostly those who had been filing institutional grievances, one of them a man with hepatitis C, Crohn’s disease, and other highly infectious terminal illnesses who complained about being assigned to the kitchen. I didn’t want him in there, either. Ship him. One thing about their strategy—ship out everyone who filed complaints and the assistant wardens’ workload drastically diminish, not that they have a lot to do anyway. For the past several months, a dozen or so “officials” from the warden down to the assistant wardens, colonel, majors, classification officers, and others spent one day a week going into each housing area “shaking down,” (searching bunks and lockers), and supposedly “inspecting” each dorm, ranking them in an arbitrary order of feeding. What a waste of taxpayers’ money! Close to a million dollars in annual payroll, and they are going around doing the dorm officers’ jobs for them.
Who was running the prison while the entire administration was confiscating extra rolls of toilet paper from lockers? The secretaries! Fire the administrators, Governor Rick Scott, and let the secretaries run the prison! They’re doing it already.
That’s what I was up against at Tomoka. The truth can be told at last. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the reprisals and retaliations are over. They have telephones, and can easily call their friends at other prisons and ask them to continue the process for them. Hopefully, by illuminating the tactics, that will lesson the chances of more adverse actions. Or maybe not.
The law says that once a plaintiff makes allegations of reprisal, backed up by specific details and facts, the burden shifts to the defendants to prove that they would have taken the same disciplinary actions in the absence of the constitutionally--protected activity. That’s a legalistic way of asking would they still have locked me up if I hadn’t written the KKK article two years before, or punitively transferred me later? The answer seems clear—no. Everything proceeded from the constitutionally-protected activity. If I were a functionally-illiterate prisoner, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
That’s the way it is in prison in Florida. Stay tuned for further developments.
Charlie
ANATOMY OF A PUNITIVE PRISON TRANSFER
You heard the news. On Thursday, November 18, 2010, at 2:30 AM, I was awakened by the little, bald-headed, myopic prisoner in the next bunk telling me he was being transferred.
“You? Are you sure?” I asked. “Did you put in for a transfer?”
“No. I only have two months left before I go home.”
That didn’t sound right. I was still groggy, having been awakened from a dream about – I couldn’t remember. You know how dreams are. But I told him he should double-check with the guard, to make sure. I had a sneaking suspicion they’d mistakenly awakened my neighbor in bunk 116, when they meant to wake me up. I’d been fighting the prison warden and his minions at Tomoka C.I. (Daytona Beach, Florida) since the previous February, when the self-righteous mailroom clerk informed me she had confiscated a book , Wordsmith 2010, an anthology of award-winning short stories, essays, and poems, published annually by the Tampa Writers Alliance, mailed to me.
Why was the book confiscated? She said she’d read the article I’d written, and felt it was “a threat to security.” A threat to security? How could that be? The article in question, “To Protect the Guilty,” was a 2400 word excerpt from the “Prison Diary Project” sponsored by the Anne Frank Center USA in New York City, in 2008, in conjunction with the PEN American Center’s Prison Writing Program. That particular essay—a memoir—recounted my negative experiences with Ku Klux Klan (KKK) prison guards at a North Florida prison several years before. I couldn’t imagine how that could be construed as a threat to security. The recollection was from years before, at a distant, unnamed prison, and involved unnamed guards who had retaliated against me in retribution for my perceived insults to the character and intelligence of KKK members, prison guards or otherwise. Hmmm…perhaps she was in the women’s auxiliary of the Klan, the little women who sewed up the sheets and pillowcases into those white robes and pointed hats worn by the menfolk as they danced around a burning cross in a cow pasture, reminiscing about the good old days, when they were the masters and the slaves answered “yassuh” and “nahsuh” to the overseers as they hoed those endless rows of cotton.
Word came down a few days later that “The warden wants your ass in jail!” The mailroom clerk had gotten the formal complaint I’d filed about the improper confiscation, had taken the book to the warden, who read the KKK memoir and was offended by it, too. Hmmm…why was he offended? Had I touched a sensitive nerve? How deep did the KKK roots go in the Florida prison system? With the head of the 30,000-plus employee DOC being a black former police chief in Tallahassee, the state capital, one would think that any prison employees who professed white supremacist, racist organization links would keep their heads down, maintain a low profile, not draw attention to themselves. But no, they couldn’t resist the impulse to retaliate against the messenger, the prisoner who talked about them, the urge to strike back was too strong. And they did.
The offended warden ordered his subordinate to write a bogus disciplinary report against me for multiple unwarranted “mail regulations violations,” for violating the strictures against advertising for a pen pal (never did, don’t have any pen pals), running a business while incarcerated (absolutely false), entering contests and sweepstakes (nope-not even a Saturday night Powerball ticket), and commercially advertising for money, goods, and services (they should have checked my account—the court found me indigent, a fancy word for “poor”). Never happened. Didn’t matter.
They call prison disciplinary hearings “Kangaroo Courts” for a reason. I don’t know why Kangaroos have such animosity toward us, but the two kangaroos who presided ever the two hearings I had refused to listen to a word I said, as I was standing against the far wall with my hands cuffed behind my back. I presented evidence refuting the false charges, and requested staff witnesses who could verify my statements. Denied without any reason. Guilty. Thirty days in solitary confinement, thirty days loss of gain time. Do not pass “GO.”
It snowballed from there. I went to lockup, served every day of the thirty, no “good behavior,” unlike those caught smoking pot, possessing drugs or other contraband, who got out early. The colonel told me, when I asked why, “There’s a reason for that.” Yes, it’s called retaliation.
One characteristic of Normans is that we fight. We’ve been fighting for over a thousand years of recorded history. It doesn’t matter if we’re outnumbered. A hundred Norman knights on horseback attacked and scattered ten thousand Saracen (Muslims) foot soldiers besieging a city in Sicily on the way back from the Crusades, a long time ago. I once fought eight attackers to a draw at Raiford in my much-younger days. But all I had to fight these false charges was my pen, and they took that!
I fought and fought, on paper, lost every battle (of course), and finally filed a lawsuit in the circuit court in Leon County, the state capital. Once you get out of the prison decision chain (denied, denied, denied) and into judicial review, one’s chances of receiving a fair hearing are increased.
What else could the prison officials do to me, to fire another arrow, now that my appeal war is in the hands of the court? Punitive transfer!
My neighbor double-checked with the guard. He came back. “It’s you,” he said.
Just what I suspected. The guard had made a mistake, woke up the wrong guy. I packed.
We’d been hearing about it for weeks, even months. One dorm was falling apart, collapsing, had been condemned, and 150 prisoners had to be sent elsewhere before Thanksgiving. Like the tomato fields on the side of the road, it was “U-PICK-EM.” The very people who’d retaliated against me were the ones who picked the 150 chosen to go. The word was that they were taking the opportunity to get rid of all the “troublemakers.” I knew my time there was short.
A “punitive transfer” can usually be identified by certain characteristics. Traditionally, it is accomplished by putting a prisoner on a bus and shipping him to a distant, less-desirable prison much farther from his family and loved ones. Not only does that get the troublemaker out of their hair, but it also punishes him by imposing physical and financial hardships on those who would visit him. In this economy of foreclosures, unemployment and prohibitive travel expenses, the possibility of aging and infirm loved ones making difficult treks to distant prisons are greatly reduced, effectively punishing the prisoner’s family members, too, who are only guilty of caring about their loved one in prison and wanting to support and reassure him to keep him connected to the “outside” world.
A second characteristic of a punitive transfer is that it was unrequested. There is a procedure in the prison rules for requesting a “good adjustment transfer” to the prison of one’s choice. Maintain a clean record, behave yourself, don’t get in trouble, work hard, earn “gain time” each month, participate in programs, and the prison authorities will approve you to go to a better prison, usually closer to one’s family or visitors.
That is a great incentive for good behavior and positive accomplishments. “Give me a year of hard work and I’ll transfer you wherever you want.” We’ve all been told that. Some favorable prisons with good vocational programs, education, or paying jobs (PRIDE Prison Industries), have long waiting lists of a couple of years to get there.
Not so for “punitive transfer,” however. Few if any want to go to some distant prison out in the boondocks, far from the major population centers, unless they live down the road. I had been previously approved to go to Sumter C.I., near Bushnell, forty miles from my family. No more. The defendants in my court case made the decision for me. They didn’t like seeing me in the visiting park each week with my loved ones. “Let’s ship him to Alabama,” they most likely said, gleefully. “That’ll teach him.”
The third and most crucial characteristic in this anatomy of a punitive transfer is that it is retaliatory in nature. It punishes a prisoner for some act on his part. In my case, it is perfectly clear. They were offended by the KKK prison guard article. They retaliated by concocting false disciplinary charges and throwing me in solitary confinement. I responded by filing formal complaints and appeals to higher authorities, as the law says I am entitled to do. The Bill of Rights, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guarantees several rights to all citizens, freedom of speech, and the right to redress grievances to the government –to officially complain of government actions— among them.
Even prisoners are guaranteed these rights, the freedom to pursue legal remedies without fear of reprisals by government officials. Think again.
Reprisals and retaliation have a “chilling effect” on prisoners, who already suffer hardships and denials of “due process” by the very nature of their incarceration. The message is clear to all—complain at your own risk, see what happened to him?—it will happen to you.
Former D.O.C. Inspector General Dave Brierton once said, “Prisoners are put in prison as punishment, not for punishment.” That statement was in response to an investigation into abuses and brutality by guards at Florida State Prison. Brierton understood that being in prison was the punishment, and the guards’ jobs weren’t to inflict their own brands of additional punishment as they saw it.
Chained in leg irons, carrying heavy bags of my court documents, I stumbled onto the crowded, rickety prison transport bus with 45 of my fellow prisoners. Who were they? The vast majority were Jamaican, Latino, and Miami ghetto prison gang members, drug dealers, and strong-arm robbers who preyed on weaker prisoners. One older white prisoner was infamous for having castrated himself with a razor blade years before. The monthly testosterone shots he got at medical resulted in occasional rages and assaults, keeping him in and out of lockup, an obviously mentally-ill person. Get rid of him. Another transferee was a mentally-deficient younger man whose sole possession was a pair of flip-flops he carried in his back pocket. Not a toothbrush, nor a pair of socks. He helped carry one of my heavier bags, since his hands were free. And then there was me, the troublemaker.
The first question the prison gang members asked me was, “What are you doing on the bus with us?” They knew why they were being transferred. “Norman, you never get in trouble. Why did they get you?”
I explained that I had filed a lawsuit against the administration. “Oh—okay.” That explained it. They knew the drill.
That was Thursday. The occupants of the Friday and Monday transport buses were mostly those who had been filing institutional grievances, one of them a man with hepatitis C, Crohn’s disease, and other highly infectious terminal illnesses who complained about being assigned to the kitchen. I didn’t want him in there, either. Ship him. One thing about their strategy—ship out everyone who filed complaints and the assistant wardens’ workload drastically diminish, not that they have a lot to do anyway. For the past several months, a dozen or so “officials” from the warden down to the assistant wardens, colonel, majors, classification officers, and others spent one day a week going into each housing area “shaking down,” (searching bunks and lockers), and supposedly “inspecting” each dorm, ranking them in an arbitrary order of feeding. What a waste of taxpayers’ money! Close to a million dollars in annual payroll, and they are going around doing the dorm officers’ jobs for them.
Who was running the prison while the entire administration was confiscating extra rolls of toilet paper from lockers? The secretaries! Fire the administrators, Governor Rick Scott, and let the secretaries run the prison! They’re doing it already.
That’s what I was up against at Tomoka. The truth can be told at last. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the reprisals and retaliations are over. They have telephones, and can easily call their friends at other prisons and ask them to continue the process for them. Hopefully, by illuminating the tactics, that will lesson the chances of more adverse actions. Or maybe not.
The law says that once a plaintiff makes allegations of reprisal, backed up by specific details and facts, the burden shifts to the defendants to prove that they would have taken the same disciplinary actions in the absence of the constitutionally--protected activity. That’s a legalistic way of asking would they still have locked me up if I hadn’t written the KKK article two years before, or punitively transferred me later? The answer seems clear—no. Everything proceeded from the constitutionally-protected activity. If I were a functionally-illiterate prisoner, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
That’s the way it is in prison in Florida. Stay tuned for further developments.
Charlie
Sunday, November 7, 2010
WINTER FASHION IN PRISON
Dateline November 6, 2010
It is 43 degrees in Daytona Beach, and I wanted to show you the latest in winter prison fashion. This is the winter jacket they issued me a couple weeks ago. No, Ralph Lauren didn’t design it, nor did Armani or Brooks Brothers. This is a prison industry product. The Chevy logo in Magic Marker was applied in some previous year by a prior owner. Notice the unique distressed lining around the collar. Pretty ragged. Perhaps a previous wearer got caught in the razor wire.
Also note the fashion unbuttoned bottom button look. Of course, there is no bottom button, and the top two are barely holding in the frayed button holes.
The material is the same thin cotton cloth they make the prison blue pants from, affording little protection from the blasts of cold North winds that accompany the cold spells. 37 degrees in Ocala in the morning, Sunday, Nov. 7th.
I don’t know how old this jacket is, or how many times it has been recycled. Each year they take them in spring and box them up for warehousing until fall. This one has been around. The lining has been slit so food from the chow hall can be smuggled out, and the pocket was filled with old loose tobacco and crud. The smell was pretty bad, as you can imagine.
You should see the jackets the taxpayers buy the guards. Really nice winter-weight material, insulated, with fake fur collars that can be turned up to cover the ears. You can also wear them to go hunting, and people might think you’re a game warden, with the colorful state patches . Big difference. “You wanna nice jacket?” one asked me when I commented on his arctic warmer. “Git outta prison and go buy you one,” he said.
Or get a job in prison, and let the state buy me one like his. For now I’ll shiver and shake in my thin prison issue, and hope they get the heaters fixed in the dorm before summer.
Charlie
WINTER FASHION IN PRISON
It is 43 degrees in Daytona Beach, and I wanted to show you the latest in winter prison fashion. This is the winter jacket they issued me a couple weeks ago. No, Ralph Lauren didn’t design it, nor did Armani or Brooks Brothers. This is a prison industry product. The Chevy logo in Magic Marker was applied in some previous year by a prior owner. Notice the unique distressed lining around the collar. Pretty ragged. Perhaps a previous wearer got caught in the razor wire.
Also note the fashion unbuttoned bottom button look. Of course, there is no bottom button, and the top two are barely holding in the frayed button holes.
The material is the same thin cotton cloth they make the prison blue pants from, affording little protection from the blasts of cold North winds that accompany the cold spells. 37 degrees in Ocala in the morning, Sunday, Nov. 7th.
I don’t know how old this jacket is, or how many times it has been recycled. Each year they take them in spring and box them up for warehousing until fall. This one has been around. The lining has been slit so food from the chow hall can be smuggled out, and the pocket was filled with old loose tobacco and crud. The smell was pretty bad, as you can imagine.
You should see the jackets the taxpayers buy the guards. Really nice winter-weight material, insulated, with fake fur collars that can be turned up to cover the ears. You can also wear them to go hunting, and people might think you’re a game warden, with the colorful state patches . Big difference. “You wanna nice jacket?” one asked me when I commented on his arctic warmer. “Git outta prison and go buy you one,” he said.
Or get a job in prison, and let the state buy me one like his. For now I’ll shiver and shake in my thin prison issue, and hope they get the heaters fixed in the dorm before summer.
Charlie
Thursday, October 28, 2010
RESCUED CHILEAN MINERS PROVIDE LESSONS FOR PRISONERS
DATELINE OCTOBER 14, 2010
RESCUED CHILEAN MINERS PROVIDE LESSONS FOR PRISONERS
I am writing this on Thursday, October 14, 2010, from prison. Along with most everyone else on the planet with access to a TV, this morning I watched the last of the thirty-three Chilean miners trapped deep in the earth be rescued after sixty-nine days underground. I couldn’t help but be moved to tears by the genuine emotions of love and relief expressed by the miners, their joyful rescuers, and everyone looking on. Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Belgium, said she couldn’t take her eyes from the screen.
Rescuers from around the world rallied to the Chilean desert to drill the hole that freed the men. Hundreds of newscasters provided round-the-clock coverage. The Chilean president put all his country’s resources to work to save the miners. Even NASA got involved, offering advice on the adverse effects of being isolated under such rigorous conditions. Poorly-paid, anonymous laborers have become “cause celebres,” international figures, their lives and the lives of their families irrevocably changed simply because they were determined to survive.
My fellow prisoners and I were deeply affected by the drama and the videos sent up from deep down inside that unsafe mine. We rooted for the men while doubtful that it could end any way but tragically. To see the last man come up—the foreman, the man who kept them all alive for the first seventeen days by doling out scant spoonfuls of food and water—we shared in the euphoria, cheering along with the rest of the world.
For myself, I can’t help but compare the trapped Chilean miners to my own life and situation, for I am trapped deep inside the pit of imprisonment, with no rescue in sight, no news reporters, no one drilling, no politicians lining up to greet and embrace me when the rescue pod finally opens outside the razorwire—topped fences.
The miners survived sixty-nine days. Today marks my 11,610th day of captivity! When the American Embassy hostages were captured in Tehran in 1979, I watched the drama unfold from a cell. They spent over 400 days as captives of the Ayatollah, which seemed like an incredible length of time at the time. Those folks—the ones who haven’t died—have been free for close to 11,000 days now. I am still trapped in the pit of wrongful imprisonment, but I survive.
One of the rescued miners said that both God and the Devil were with them in the mine, but God won. It’s no different in prison, except that the battle isn’t over, but is fought every day.
I am a Christian, and my faith in God, the promise that God has a plan for my life, has been a major reason I have survived these 11,610 days in the hell pit of prison. I’ve spent years reading The Bible, and the lessons I learned from my study have given me strength and understanding.
Joseph was the first person imprisoned in The Bible. First, his brothers put him in a pit. I can relate to Joseph’s story of imprisonment and redemption because he was also wrongly accused and imprisoned. There is a lesson there. He was eventually freed and went on to greater things.
One of my favorite jailbirds in The Bible was Jeremiah, the prophet, who was cast into a dung pit for speaking the truth. The vision of that good man deep in a hole full of excrement, depending on passers-by to provide him with bread and water, provides great meaning to many prisoners, especially me. Those in authority didn’t like what Jeremiah said, so they tried to silence him by throwing him in the hole. I can relate to that. Been there, done that, as they say. No First Amendment protections in Biblical days, or even the present day, in some places, as we have found out.
What was the last mention of imprisonment in The Bible? Wouldn’t you know it? It is in Revelation, and the lucky person is the Devil. May he stay there. Just let me out. I don’t expect to see the camera crews, the President, or cheering crowds when the prison gate opens for me. Just one or two people who love me and care about me will be enough. I do need some help, though. NASA’s not interested, and neither is Hillary or Diane Sawyer, but if you can tear yourself away from the TV set for a little while, and are willing to help, it will be appreciated. You don’t even need a drill
Charlie
RESCUED CHILEAN MINERS PROVIDE LESSONS FOR PRISONERS
I am writing this on Thursday, October 14, 2010, from prison. Along with most everyone else on the planet with access to a TV, this morning I watched the last of the thirty-three Chilean miners trapped deep in the earth be rescued after sixty-nine days underground. I couldn’t help but be moved to tears by the genuine emotions of love and relief expressed by the miners, their joyful rescuers, and everyone looking on. Even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Belgium, said she couldn’t take her eyes from the screen.
Rescuers from around the world rallied to the Chilean desert to drill the hole that freed the men. Hundreds of newscasters provided round-the-clock coverage. The Chilean president put all his country’s resources to work to save the miners. Even NASA got involved, offering advice on the adverse effects of being isolated under such rigorous conditions. Poorly-paid, anonymous laborers have become “cause celebres,” international figures, their lives and the lives of their families irrevocably changed simply because they were determined to survive.
My fellow prisoners and I were deeply affected by the drama and the videos sent up from deep down inside that unsafe mine. We rooted for the men while doubtful that it could end any way but tragically. To see the last man come up—the foreman, the man who kept them all alive for the first seventeen days by doling out scant spoonfuls of food and water—we shared in the euphoria, cheering along with the rest of the world.
For myself, I can’t help but compare the trapped Chilean miners to my own life and situation, for I am trapped deep inside the pit of imprisonment, with no rescue in sight, no news reporters, no one drilling, no politicians lining up to greet and embrace me when the rescue pod finally opens outside the razorwire—topped fences.
The miners survived sixty-nine days. Today marks my 11,610th day of captivity! When the American Embassy hostages were captured in Tehran in 1979, I watched the drama unfold from a cell. They spent over 400 days as captives of the Ayatollah, which seemed like an incredible length of time at the time. Those folks—the ones who haven’t died—have been free for close to 11,000 days now. I am still trapped in the pit of wrongful imprisonment, but I survive.
One of the rescued miners said that both God and the Devil were with them in the mine, but God won. It’s no different in prison, except that the battle isn’t over, but is fought every day.
I am a Christian, and my faith in God, the promise that God has a plan for my life, has been a major reason I have survived these 11,610 days in the hell pit of prison. I’ve spent years reading The Bible, and the lessons I learned from my study have given me strength and understanding.
Joseph was the first person imprisoned in The Bible. First, his brothers put him in a pit. I can relate to Joseph’s story of imprisonment and redemption because he was also wrongly accused and imprisoned. There is a lesson there. He was eventually freed and went on to greater things.
One of my favorite jailbirds in The Bible was Jeremiah, the prophet, who was cast into a dung pit for speaking the truth. The vision of that good man deep in a hole full of excrement, depending on passers-by to provide him with bread and water, provides great meaning to many prisoners, especially me. Those in authority didn’t like what Jeremiah said, so they tried to silence him by throwing him in the hole. I can relate to that. Been there, done that, as they say. No First Amendment protections in Biblical days, or even the present day, in some places, as we have found out.
What was the last mention of imprisonment in The Bible? Wouldn’t you know it? It is in Revelation, and the lucky person is the Devil. May he stay there. Just let me out. I don’t expect to see the camera crews, the President, or cheering crowds when the prison gate opens for me. Just one or two people who love me and care about me will be enough. I do need some help, though. NASA’s not interested, and neither is Hillary or Diane Sawyer, but if you can tear yourself away from the TV set for a little while, and are willing to help, it will be appreciated. You don’t even need a drill
Charlie
Thursday, October 7, 2010
PRISON GUNSLINGERS
DATELINE: 08/25/2010
PRISON GUNSLINGERS RISK FIVE-YEAR FELONY FOR MASTUBATION
SODOMY AND OTHER HOMOSEXUAL ACTS DRAW SIXTY DAYS IN CONFINEMENT
You always thought that Billy the Kid, John Wesley Hardin, the Earps, and Marshall Matt Dillon were “gunslingers,” a breed of man that died out a hundred years ago, didn’t you? You never imagined that Florida prisons are filled with modern-day gunslingers, not men armed with six-guns, but perverts who will whip out their “equipment” in front of employees at the drop of their pants. A new law designed to cut down on such exhibitionism has created a brewing controversy.
A “gunslinger” in the prison setting is someone who exposes himself to a female employee, usually, but males are not immune to being “gunned down.” This involves a “solo act,” but the ramifications could be far-reaching, since homosexual acts between prison lovers result only in a punishment of a maximum sixty days disciplinary confinement (the box) and ninety days loss of gaintime, a disparity, some say.
The new law is Florida Statute Section 800.09, “Lewd or lascivious exhibition in the presence of an employee.” The new law reads in part:
(2)(a) A person who is detained in a facility may not:
1. intentionally masturbate;
2. intentionally expose the genitals in a lewd or lascivious manner; or
3. intentionally commit any other sexual act, that does not involve actual physical or sexual contact with the victim, including, but not limited to, sadomasochistic abuse, sexual bestiality, or the simulation of any act involving sexual activity, in the presence of a person he or she knows or reasonably should know is an employee.
(b) A person who violates paragraph (a) commits lewd or lascivious exhibition in the presence of an employee, a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s.775.083, or s.775.084.
Whoa! I understand what the legislators are saying in numbers 1 and 2, but number 3 worries me. Read that one again. What is with the sadomasochistic abuse and the sexual bestiality? Perhaps I led a sheltered life. Will someone please tell me what “sadomasochistic abuse” is, so I don’t unintentionally commit it when some employee observes me soaping myself in the shower? And I could have sworn that “sexual bestiality” was having sex with animals, as grotesque as that might be.
I don’t get it. I don’t know where he would find one in prison, but let’s say some weirdo was having sex with a chicken in front of an employee. The freak could get arrested, go to court, and possibly sentenced to five more years in prison if found guilty, but what about the chicken? Would it be “put down,” euthanized by a veterinarian, or what? No one is really talking about that. Where is PETA when you need them?
What they are talking about is “sodomy” and other homosexual acts. This is prison, after all, and most folks have heard scary rumors about what happens to innocent young boys in those showers when they drop the soap and get cornered by tattooed, muscle-bound bikers.
Not that such violent acts don’t happen, but consensual homosexual acts are much more prevalent. I can’t count the number “men” with shaved legs, plucked eyebrows, skintight hot-pants, and lisps, who’ve swished across prison yards over the years, or the number of “war daddies,” “boys,” “sissies,” and “punks,” who carry on their chain gang homosexual affairs in front of God, the guards, and fellow prisoners without shame. Many have “chain gang weddings” and carry on like husbands and wives, with young boys coming under their protection as members of the “family.”
But what happens when “mom and dad” are in the shower, doing the “wild thing,” when an employee strolls by making the rounds, pulls back the curtain and spies the couple “in flagrante delicto,” caught in the act? The Ick Factor is in effect, and forbids me from going into more graphic detail. To hear more about that, you’ll have to read, “Chain Gang Mating Rituals,’ copyright 2009.
In most cases nothing happens. The employee keeps walking, pretending nothing happened, and the prison lovers consummate their passion.
Trust me on this—it is “anything goes” in those showers. Not that I have ever partaken of such forbidden acts—I’m old fashioned, a diehard heterosexual—but many of these people are not very discreet. I’ve seen things and turned my head from sights I wish I’d never seen. But on the rare occasions when an employee witnesses such an act and decides to write up “disciplinary reports” against the offending parties, the worst punishment they could get would be sixty days in lockup and ninety days loss of gaintime. Compared to the love sicko who pulls out his “tool” and gets five more years in prison, it doesn’t seem fair.
Some say that the prison authorities favor and condone homosexuality. The truth is that guards and officials have always made use of and taken advantage of homosexuals, exploiting their vulnerabilities.
When I first went to Union C.I., Raiford, and wanted to get a cell change to another building, I was told right off the bat not to approach the sergeant in charge of housing. He would turn me down. Instead, I was told to buy a carton of “Kool’s” ($6.50 in those pre-tax days) and take them to the prison “runner,” who ran errands for the sergeant and acted as his “do-boy.”
The runner was a freakish-looking prison drag queen who accepted the offering of cigarettes and told me to go ahead and pack up property, the move was approved. Just like that.
That prisoner was under the protection of the sergeant, who allowed him to live his life as he chose in exchange for being his snitch and personal servant. He also earned a good living making moves, and if a couple wanted to hook up and become lovers, it was no easier said than done.
It was that way all over Raiford. The prison gays controlled various little fiefdoms, doing “the man’s” bidding in exchange for living their lives unmolested.
I’m not saying that what “gunslingers” do in the modern prisons isn’t detestable. It is. As more and more women go to work as guards, the worse it gets, it seems. Perverts are everywhere, and give the “normal” prisoners a bad reputation because of what they do. We are all tarred with the same brush.
The five-year felony charges for solo exhibitions arose after a number of female employees sued the state, fed up with being exposed to such acts of gunslingers, and little being done about it. Some male prison employees even thought it was funny. Those were usually men who didn’t agree with women working alongside them and earning the same pay, perhaps feeling that they didn’t earn it. I’m not going to get into all that.
I will say that it seems weird and unfair that the same prison employee who turned his head when he saw an act of sodomy would threaten to terminate someone’s visit because he was kissing his wife in the visiting park. That has happened. Bottom line—heterosexuals want equal rights, too!
Charlie
PRISON GUNSLINGERS RISK FIVE-YEAR FELONY FOR MASTUBATION
SODOMY AND OTHER HOMOSEXUAL ACTS DRAW SIXTY DAYS IN CONFINEMENT
You always thought that Billy the Kid, John Wesley Hardin, the Earps, and Marshall Matt Dillon were “gunslingers,” a breed of man that died out a hundred years ago, didn’t you? You never imagined that Florida prisons are filled with modern-day gunslingers, not men armed with six-guns, but perverts who will whip out their “equipment” in front of employees at the drop of their pants. A new law designed to cut down on such exhibitionism has created a brewing controversy.
A “gunslinger” in the prison setting is someone who exposes himself to a female employee, usually, but males are not immune to being “gunned down.” This involves a “solo act,” but the ramifications could be far-reaching, since homosexual acts between prison lovers result only in a punishment of a maximum sixty days disciplinary confinement (the box) and ninety days loss of gaintime, a disparity, some say.
The new law is Florida Statute Section 800.09, “Lewd or lascivious exhibition in the presence of an employee.” The new law reads in part:
(2)(a) A person who is detained in a facility may not:
1. intentionally masturbate;
2. intentionally expose the genitals in a lewd or lascivious manner; or
3. intentionally commit any other sexual act, that does not involve actual physical or sexual contact with the victim, including, but not limited to, sadomasochistic abuse, sexual bestiality, or the simulation of any act involving sexual activity, in the presence of a person he or she knows or reasonably should know is an employee.
(b) A person who violates paragraph (a) commits lewd or lascivious exhibition in the presence of an employee, a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082, s.775.083, or s.775.084.
Whoa! I understand what the legislators are saying in numbers 1 and 2, but number 3 worries me. Read that one again. What is with the sadomasochistic abuse and the sexual bestiality? Perhaps I led a sheltered life. Will someone please tell me what “sadomasochistic abuse” is, so I don’t unintentionally commit it when some employee observes me soaping myself in the shower? And I could have sworn that “sexual bestiality” was having sex with animals, as grotesque as that might be.
I don’t get it. I don’t know where he would find one in prison, but let’s say some weirdo was having sex with a chicken in front of an employee. The freak could get arrested, go to court, and possibly sentenced to five more years in prison if found guilty, but what about the chicken? Would it be “put down,” euthanized by a veterinarian, or what? No one is really talking about that. Where is PETA when you need them?
What they are talking about is “sodomy” and other homosexual acts. This is prison, after all, and most folks have heard scary rumors about what happens to innocent young boys in those showers when they drop the soap and get cornered by tattooed, muscle-bound bikers.
Not that such violent acts don’t happen, but consensual homosexual acts are much more prevalent. I can’t count the number “men” with shaved legs, plucked eyebrows, skintight hot-pants, and lisps, who’ve swished across prison yards over the years, or the number of “war daddies,” “boys,” “sissies,” and “punks,” who carry on their chain gang homosexual affairs in front of God, the guards, and fellow prisoners without shame. Many have “chain gang weddings” and carry on like husbands and wives, with young boys coming under their protection as members of the “family.”
But what happens when “mom and dad” are in the shower, doing the “wild thing,” when an employee strolls by making the rounds, pulls back the curtain and spies the couple “in flagrante delicto,” caught in the act? The Ick Factor is in effect, and forbids me from going into more graphic detail. To hear more about that, you’ll have to read, “Chain Gang Mating Rituals,’ copyright 2009.
In most cases nothing happens. The employee keeps walking, pretending nothing happened, and the prison lovers consummate their passion.
Trust me on this—it is “anything goes” in those showers. Not that I have ever partaken of such forbidden acts—I’m old fashioned, a diehard heterosexual—but many of these people are not very discreet. I’ve seen things and turned my head from sights I wish I’d never seen. But on the rare occasions when an employee witnesses such an act and decides to write up “disciplinary reports” against the offending parties, the worst punishment they could get would be sixty days in lockup and ninety days loss of gaintime. Compared to the love sicko who pulls out his “tool” and gets five more years in prison, it doesn’t seem fair.
Some say that the prison authorities favor and condone homosexuality. The truth is that guards and officials have always made use of and taken advantage of homosexuals, exploiting their vulnerabilities.
When I first went to Union C.I., Raiford, and wanted to get a cell change to another building, I was told right off the bat not to approach the sergeant in charge of housing. He would turn me down. Instead, I was told to buy a carton of “Kool’s” ($6.50 in those pre-tax days) and take them to the prison “runner,” who ran errands for the sergeant and acted as his “do-boy.”
The runner was a freakish-looking prison drag queen who accepted the offering of cigarettes and told me to go ahead and pack up property, the move was approved. Just like that.
That prisoner was under the protection of the sergeant, who allowed him to live his life as he chose in exchange for being his snitch and personal servant. He also earned a good living making moves, and if a couple wanted to hook up and become lovers, it was no easier said than done.
It was that way all over Raiford. The prison gays controlled various little fiefdoms, doing “the man’s” bidding in exchange for living their lives unmolested.
I’m not saying that what “gunslingers” do in the modern prisons isn’t detestable. It is. As more and more women go to work as guards, the worse it gets, it seems. Perverts are everywhere, and give the “normal” prisoners a bad reputation because of what they do. We are all tarred with the same brush.
The five-year felony charges for solo exhibitions arose after a number of female employees sued the state, fed up with being exposed to such acts of gunslingers, and little being done about it. Some male prison employees even thought it was funny. Those were usually men who didn’t agree with women working alongside them and earning the same pay, perhaps feeling that they didn’t earn it. I’m not going to get into all that.
I will say that it seems weird and unfair that the same prison employee who turned his head when he saw an act of sodomy would threaten to terminate someone’s visit because he was kissing his wife in the visiting park. That has happened. Bottom line—heterosexuals want equal rights, too!
Charlie
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