IN TRANSIT

Yesterday as I whiled the day away with Corey at Camp visitation, he spoke of his “Bunkie’s” recent transfer to another prison where he has been accepted into the BOP’s Residential Drug and Alcohol Program (RDAP). Stan had learned a few months back his application had been accepted and this past Wednesday morning a guard came to his and Coreys cube and told him to “rack up”. That meant Stan was to put his affairs in order, box up all his personal possessions (which must fit into 2 small boxes, that is all they are allowed to take with them, not that they have much, all an inmate has for property storage is a very small locker, maybe 4ft X 1ft), as shortly (in the next day or two) he would be transferred out of Taft.

“Of course” they will not give the inmate any specifics, such as what day or what time he‘ll actually be leaving as that is considered a “threat to the security of the institution”, but the inmate knows the move in emminent and can make a few personal calls to family and friends to inform them of what is happening. AND from that point on the family sits on pins and needles until their loved one has made it through the transition process and arrived at his ultimate “destination” as all communication is cut off indefinitely. The inmates personal “bank” account, phone acct and email acct (if he has finances enough to afford the rather expensive fees of using Jpay.com’s e-messaging system) will be closed. until he has been processed back into the new facility.

Stan began the process Thursday very early morning, at 3 am, when the guard came to the cube to take him away. Corey was awake, they had had a going away party/dinner for Stan that evening, and though Stan was able to fall fast asleep after the late ending event (1:30 am), Corey was unable to fall asleep, so was awake when the guard arrived. He woke Stan up, and walked with him to the Housing Units door where they said their goodbyes. Having been cellmates for the past year, they had developed a very close friendship, bond if you will, and this parting was bittersweet for them both. Corey has gone through the losing of close friends and “bunkies” many, many times in the past 8 years of his encarceration, at every farewell there is the sadness of the loss of a good friend, and that of being the one left behind, but the hopes and fantasy again of when it will be his turn. When HE will be the one leaving on the journey towards release.

So Stan would have been escorted to R&D (Departure), after final processing would have been loaded on the facility van or bus with whatever other inmates were designated to the same or another close by facility. If the prison is within a few hours drive, which in Stans case it was (he’d learned a week ago he’d be going to Lompoc, over on the coast, a 2 ½ hr drive away) he would arrive within hours, and within 24 hours no doubt be back in touch with family. Of course he could have been designated to a prison further away, and that could have been ANY Federal prison, ANYWHERE in the USA, in which case he’d have been either given a furlough (and a bus ticket) to that facility, or driven on a prison bus or van to an airport and been loaded on ConAir, the BOP‘s private airline service, to be flown to Oklahoma, from whence, at some time, week/month, he’d be transitioned to the Federal prison where he’d enter the RDAP program. The transition (or transfer) process can be a very long, exhaustive, grueling and dehumanizing process, or it can be a simple 2 ½ hour bus ride as Stan was expecting, to Lompoc. Such was not to be the case.

It wasn’t until I arrived back home after my visit with Corey that I saw I had several voicemail messages from Stans wife. We had gotten to know her and her baby boy over the past year that Stan has been Coreys bnkie, having met them in the visitation room itself. Often Rhonda has stayed at our home in Bakersfield after flying from SLC, Utah, from our house it is a short 30 minute drive to the prison camp to visit her husband. Obviously in the past year we’ve become good friends and supporters of each other, as only those in such situations as ours can be (more on that in another post). Rhondas voicemail and tone of voice indicated her stress and worry at what has transpired since Stan left on the prison bus out of Taft. The only way she has, at this point in the transition, to know whether Stan had arrived at his designation, is through the BOP’s website, via the Inmate Locator, or in her case, when she tried to wire money to Stans account for his use once in the new prison’s system. It was only then she realized Stan had not gone to Lompoc but to Victorville, California!!!…hundreds of miles to the southeast of Taft, not the short jaunt over to the coast to Lompoc! She immediately called Victorville and was told she couldn’t send any money to her husband at this time, that she couldn’t visit him (as only “family” was allowed, and she and Stan are not yet formally married, - he was arrested before the planned event could happen) and it could be many weeks or months before she would be able to next see him. She couldn’t get any answers as to what his status was, where he was going, was Victorville where he was going to be interred for the drug program, and final months of his encarceration, or given any answers to her questions regarding her “husbands” future. Such is the brutal, punishing ongoing way this system works and how it affects all who are clenched in it’s ironclad grip.

Stan could very well be staying in Victorville, or he may yet, at some point, a few days, a few weeks, or a few months from now, be loaded back on a prison bus and driven back UP the coast to Lompoc, you see neither logic nor financial expense (for the Amercan taxpayer) are ever part of the BOP’s transfer (or any) process. Its archaic and downright stupid. In the meantime, Stans wife and family will live with the “need to know” policy. Each has to find a way, it’s an individual and introspective journey, to find peace to assuage the stress accompanying these difficult times.


Nearly all men die of their remedies, and not of their illnesses. ~Jean Baptiste Molière, Le Malade Imaginaire