A DAY AT THE CAMP

Friday I was up early to shower, dress, and make the 40 minute drive to Taft to spend the day with Corey. Since Rods been back to work, after a 2 month leave post surgery, his work load has been such he won’t be able to accompany me to visits on Fridays for awhile. Much as we’ll miss him it will be nice to have my son all to myself now and then. Our conversations are somehow different when its just “mom” and Corey, don’t ask me why. As I am sure they are those times its been just “Dad” and Corey, the times when I have left them to visit, just the two of them, generally times they haven’t been able to see each other every week. Anyways, my visit with my son today was lovely! I don’t know where the day went, I arrived at 9 am and left at 2:30, and it seemed a mere few hours had passed.

When I had first arrived this morning, as the guard in the Control Room was “processing” my paperwork, I noticed a young inmate sitting alone in one of the empty chairs along the lobby wall. He nodded respectfully and said hello to me. At that time a guard approached him and started to lecture him, something about a very poor decision…should have known better…yada, yada, yada. I thought to myself “Uh oh”. The young man looked morose, a little worried, but merely nodded now and then. Then another guard arrived, keys clanging noisily against his thighs, handcuffs at the ready, and together they took the young man away.

During the course of my and Coreys visit another young inmate, a good friend of Coreys, approached our table to say hello and chit chat a while. He mentioned how so and so had been just given a shot and sent to the SHU (otherwise known as “the hole“). This young man he spoke of turned out to be the one I’d seen in the lobby. Seems he had been cited with bringing “contraband” into the visitation hall when he came for a visit with someone, supposedly a letter or something similar. The guards generally always perform pat downs and/or full body searches prior to letting the inmates into the Visitation hall (they always perform full body searches prior to letting an inmate leave the visitation hall, back into general population. An indignity my son has suffered too many times to count in these past 6 years, but the "price" an inmate must pay for the privilege of a visit with someone from the "outside"). Sadly this young man was either ignorant of all the Visitation rules, of the process prior to entering the hall, or made the decision based on some urgency, I don’t know. However, I do know the consequences for introducing contraband into visitation are severe, and generally result in the inmates loss of all visitation privileges for some time, months or a year, maybe more, as well as weeks or many months in the SHU. Depending on his security level, the extra points he will accrue against him could even cause him to be transferred to another prison.

Both Corey and his friend who was telling us the story knew and liked this young man, and felt very bad for him, seems he had been “down“ a year or so and this was to be his very first visit. If he is found guilty of the charge (and speaking from past experiences, there is little chance he won’t be, the kangaroo court system within prison walls is skewed towards the prosecution), it will be a long time before he has an opportunity to enter the visitation hall again. It must also have been difficult for whoever had made the journey to visit him. Most have to travel some distance as Taft Correctional Complex is not exactly close to any major city. It sits in the middle of the desert, 2 hours from LA, 2 hours from the coast, and many hours south of hubs like Sacramento.

Choices are the hinges of destiny. ~Attributed to both Edwin Markham and Pythagoras