If You Build it They Will Come

The work continues at the Lompoc Camp to replace the old bunks with the newer, narrower bunks. The reason for this is to provide for even more bunks in each unit. Where there were 150 beds there are now 174 if I remember correctly. They added 24 more bunk beds in Coreys unit by making all the bunks narrower. Sleeping quarters were ‘close’ prior to this, but now even more so, as the men lay on their bunks there is perhaps 6 inches from one imates head to anothers, on either side of him. The pictures I posted a while back of the crowded California State Prisons is how this Federal Prison Camp at Lompoc is looking now I imagine, only the bunks are more your standard metal frame type. Corey is somewhat fortunate in that his bunk is up against a wall, so he has only the one very close neighbor. There used to be passageways between the rows of bunks for easy access to the bathrooms, but with the additional rows of bunks many now have to walk much further to get there in the mornings and evenings, there is no cutting through isles anymore, one must basically walk the perimeter of the room to get to the door leading to the bathrooms.

When one reads of the marijuana arrests statistics its easy to see why so many new beds are needed. I was reading a report recently that stated there has virtually been no change in the number of marijuana arrests in 2012 over 2010 and 2011 numbers. About a week ago I read in a US NEWS article “Data released Monday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation show there were an estimated 1,552,432 arrests for drug-related crimes in 2012 – a slight uptick from the 1,531,251 drug arrests in 2011. Marijuana offenses accounted for 48.3 percent of all drug arrests, a slight reduction from 49.5 percent in 2011, which itself was the highest rate since before 1995.

Most marijuana-related arrests were for possession of the drug. By mere possession, there was one marijuana arrest every 48 seconds in 2012. Including arrests for distribution, there was a pot-related arrest every 42 seconds, the same interval as in 2011."

Views on our morning drives to Lompoc

I've meant to post some pictures from along the way to Lompoc every saturday morning, as we make the drive to visit Corey. All summer long, after we've driven about an hour out of Bakersfield (of the 2 1/2 hr drive itself) and crested the first major incline from the valley floor, to drop down into another vast valley called The Cuyama Valley. Its about here the sun breaks for the day, and it is always magnificent to see. Now that our summer has passed, and 'fall' has come to the Valley, it is dark as we leave Bakersfield, and still dark as we drive through this valley where I took these pictures. I wanted to post these because I daresay I won't see the these views ever again, yesterday was our last trip to the visitation room at Lompoc Prison. That part of this journey is behind us.


Look not at the days gone by with a forlorn heart. They were simply the dots we can now connect with our present, to help us draw the outline of a beautiful tomorrow. ~Dodinsky, www.dodinsky.com

Musings in These Final Days...

As I sit here with my first cup of mornin

g coffee, thinking of the packing I need to start today, I find myself musing at how the last almost 9 years suddenly now seems to have passed so quickly. If I think back I can still remember though how it hasn’t always been so. At the beginning of this prison odyssey, when we first made our journey here from Washington State to southern California, the years stretching ahead of us, my sons long 12 ½ year sentence for a nonviolent drug offense having brought us here to be closer to him, seemed they would never come to pass. How very very long it would be before he was returned to us a free man. It was 2005 when we first started our lives in California, and with the small amount of ‘good time’ Corey would ‘hopefully’ benefit from in the Federal system, that date would not be until 2015. I know I wondered back then, “who” we would all be at the end of the sentence, how much I, my husband, and my son in particular, would change from the experiences that awaited us. For time, but mostly experiences, changes us all. This wasn’t just any journey, it was a journey into a whole nether world, the American prison world, of which we knew virtually nothing. What could possibly have prepared us for such a journey? The fear of the unknown can be a terrible thing.

I watched a movie on tv recently, the newly released-to-dvd, The Great Gatsby. In one part of the movie the characters conversation is about the long, long 5 years that had passed since Gatsby and Daisy had last seen each other, and how the emotions being projected were of this being almost a lifetime separation. I found myself thinking that sounded silly almost, for what is five years, in a whole lifetime? A mere drop in a bucket. Right? But then I caught myself, and remembered this is from the viewpoint of a now 65 year old woman, to whom time is passing so very quickly. I can’t stop the sands passing thru the hourglass, faster and faster every year, if I wanted to! And my thoughts reeled back to the day of my sons sentencing, when the judge pounded his gavel and decreed sanctimoneously he must be sent away for 12 ½ years as punishment. How the shock of that announcement, how very, very long that sentence had to have sounded, had to have FELT, to my son, standing helpless before him. Shattering all his dreams for the future he’d envisioned up till then, those beautiful dreams of marriage and family, among other things, having just recently been engaged to the woman he believed, at the time, of his dreams. The daunting realization he was soon to be exiled far away from his friends and family, from everything he had ever known and loved, for over a decade…which to a young person feels an endless stretch of time, a road leading far out into the distance, with no end in sight.

To my son, entering a federal prison in his mid 20’s and knowing he would leave it in his late 30’s, this pronouncement of over 12 years in prison must have crushed his young soul at the time. I know when I was 20 years old, it seemed I would have an almost eternity of living between 20 and turning 30, 30 being by my own measure ( at THAT time of my seemingly forever youth mind you, when each year seemed as ten) the time I would officially be old. My own heart was literally shattered as I heard the sentence, even as we had been somewhat prepared for it for months, from all we’d learned by that point, the very oxygen I breathed, left my body fully as I slumped into my husbands arms, watching my strong, tall, beautiful young son noticeably slump at the judges’s anouncement. Never will that image be swept from my memory, never will I forget the all encompassing pain of that moment, even now as I write of it, its force hits me anew.

Our perceptions of time and its passing evolve as we age and live and gather experiences, and all too often we ‘elders’ forget what it is to be young, to be 20 and yes, even 30 (not so very old anymore). Our ” representatives” in the Government, who are responsible for passing the laws that govern our society, are all ‘old’ by those measures, by the time they are in positions to pass laws that affect every citizen, and clearly, to my way of thinking, most have long forgotten their youth - their mistakes, the heightened passion for life and all it promises. For otherwise how could they have, in majority, passed the Sentencing Guidelines in the 80’s that have sent millions of young, first time, non violent offenders in the prime of their lives, to be warehoused for decades, and more, in america’s sprawling prison industry. To simply take up space there, simply count down the calendar days, to make it through each and every long day, with no measures in place that might allow them to earn an earlier release day.

I am not a religious person, although I do consider myself ‘spiritual’, formal religion has never been something I sought out, a club I felt the need or desire to belong to, but of the Ten Commandments I was taught in those early years of my sunday school days (my mother determined we three girls have a baseline religious education), that I have always tried to live by is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. Clearly this basic rule governing our moral actions, set forth in the commandments that most all believe in, was long swept from (perhaps forgotten or even ignored, in their drive for polital power and wealth?) the minds of elected officials and Congressmen, those often self-promoting themselves as Christians, who passed, and continued to pass ever more laws that would send more and more of mostly young, non violent, first time offenders, to prisons, in the past 30 years.

To answer how we have changed, may have changed, with this experience now almost behind us, if I would answer, honestly, for myself, it would be that I am more cynical, less trusting, more questioning of all things, our justice system in particular, yet more compassionate and generous, definitely more patient and less judging. I feel absolutely no regrets at, in fact I feel an utter peace inside, at my and my husbands decision, and thankfully our ability at the time, to have relocated nearby our son so as to remain a constant in his life. I believe it has deflected in many ways what could have been damaging aspects, the institutionalizing if you will, that ten years in prison may have had on Corey. I don’t see us as heros by any measure, I don’t hold us up as examples of sacrifice, not hardly! We did what, thankfully, we were able to do, what we could do, and my heart goes out to all parents and loved ones of the encarcerated who are so distanced, so separated. I believe my husband feels much the same as I do. He has been my rock, and my sons, all these long years. Ultimately I feel a richness inside, a pride, at how Corey has lived these years of his imprisonment, maintained his goodness, his wonderful sense of ‘fun-ness’ and humor, has himself grown more accepting and less judging, wiser, and only grown his eternal optimism. I know not how my son feels he has changed in HIS own eyes, perhaps once home again we will visit that in depth.

“There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.” ~Napoleon I, Maxims, 1815

Relief in a phone call

My cell phone rang Monday morning and I immediately learned it was Corey calling from the message “You have a call from a federal inmate. If you wish to receive this call press 5”, yada, yada. Even after almost ten years of prison phone calls I still feel an immediate pang of anxiety when I hear that message. Because we email every day, a phone call can mean something is wrong or not so great has happened. But it can also mean something good has happened and he wants to tell us immediately. I hold my breath those initial minutes waiting to see which is the case.

My apprehension evaporated as Corey informed me he’d just come from a staffer’s office where he was told he had been assigned to the Spokane RRC (Halfway House) and was given his timetable of events…what his bus schedule was and when he would arrive in Spokane and be expected to arrive at the RRC itself. As is procedure he was also fingerprinted at this time.

Finally! The confirmation we’ve all been waiting on now for the past months! As simple as certain procedures should be, they rarely are in the prison netherworld. Even as we have known his release date for years, and learned a few months ago his Case Manager had sent off his designation papers to the Spokane RRC, he’s never been given that ‘all important’ confirmation of his acceptance there. Usually the men, a month, sometimes several months, prior to actual release, receive a packet from the RRC itself to confirm their designation there. This packet contains not just their ‘reservation’ there, but the facility rules and a list of what items the inmate may and may not bring into the house upon arrival. Several men Corey knows had already received their confirmation packets from the RRC they were going to be sent to, or had at least had their designation to the house verified by their Case Managers. And several of these men were being released weeks and months AFTER Coreys release date. So you can understand why we were all starting to get a little concerned.

Despite assuring ourselves all would be just fine, my husband and I started making calls to the Spokane RRC, as well as the BOP Western Regional office in Dublin, to see if we could get some, any, information regarding our sons status. I should explain that it didn’t help that his Case Manager had called Corey to his office over a month ago to inform him in filling out the documents and sending to the Spokane RRC, the CM himself had made some errors and twice the documents had been returned. But that in this, his third attempt, all should be good. Uh huh. Mmm hmmm….

We didn’t have much luck with our calls, the first time around neither place showed any updated Status re Coreys RRC status. No record of his being submitted to the Spokane RRC. This was prior to his learning of his CM’s errors. After learning of the errors and the CM’s assurance he’d sent of the corrected docs, we waited a few weeks and made our calls again. This time no one was forthcoming, not even to inform us there was no change in status. Neither facility would give us any information. I must tell you, it always, ALWAYS, depend on luck of the draw, who you happen to talk to at any given time. First time around we got someone helpful and understanding, the next time not so much. Persistence is key. Had we not learned this week of the good news, I’d be calling the RRC again this week in hopes of getting the first young man I’d talked to, who was kind, helpful and offered suggestions.

AND SO the next four weeks passed without any packet from the RRC arriving, and with no mention either way of Coreys RRC status from the CM himself, whose job it is to keep Corey updated. Though still fairly sure all was fine, I couldn’t shake the feelings that something would skew the works. Worried that on his release day he’d learn, at the last minute, his paperwork had never reached the RRC or more errors had happened and not been corrected, and they currently had no room for Corey, and he’d have to go elsewhere, perhaps to an RRC in the Seattle area. See what I mean? This isn’t an easy life. What is too easy is to start imagining all the ‘what ifs’. With years of dealing with prison beaurocracy, staffers, errors and ommissions, and the fact few give a damn, the one thing we always could count on was Murphy’s Law. If something CAN go wrong, it WILL go wrong”. And so, this being in limbo re the RRC status wasn’t helping us relax especially and I must say, was keeping us from celebrating this final count down to release. Well, almost. Nothing could suppress those giddy feelings.

BUT, as I started out this post with, we now finally can relax, we have the confirmation we needed. But still I will not exhale until I see my son for our first visit at the Spokane RRC. Old habits die hard.

"I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once." ~Jennifer Yane

MICHAEL DOUGLAS SPEAKS OUT AGAINST THE PRISON SYSTEM

I didn’t watch the Emmy Awards the other nite but I did catch up on the winners, the glitZ and the glamour, the gowns (!!), the next day. What specifically caught my attention however was Michael Douglas’s acceptance speech for his Emmy for his portrayal of Liberace in “Behind the Candelabra”. Michael Douglas has a son, Cameron, serving a 10 yr sentence for a drug crime … actually in 2010 he was sentenced to 5 years in prison for possession of heroin and for dealing meth (.23 kg, or half a lb). In 2011 he was given another 4 1/2 years for possession of drugs while in prison. Cameron’s drug addiction has been followed and publicized since he was a very young man, he is clearly someone who needs help, medical treatment, not more punishment.

To make things even worse the young man is currently serving 2 of those years in solitary confinement. An apparent urinalysis came up ‘dirty’, meaning he failed a drug test, resulting in the prison hierarchy sending him to solitary confinement as punishment. Many, like myself, would feel two years in Solitary seems excessive and extremely harsh by any measure. Why there hasn’t been more information forthcoming from the mainstream media, especially in light of Cameron coming from a prominent family, troubles me. I’m not suggesting he deserves preferential treatment, I AM saying if Cameron Douglas, with all his family celebrity and connections , can be tossed in an obscure solitary cell for years at a time, for simply a “dirty piss test”, and the mainstream media isn't all over the story, what chance do we ordinary citizens have of anyone hearing OUR voices, our stories, when our children, our sons and daughters, are treated in such a cruel and inhumane manner.

Furthermore, Michael Douglas is apparently unable to even visit, to see his son while he is in solitary. This puzzles and concerns me. That the Prison is forbidding Cameron visitation rights as well. How on earth this young man can be expected to come out of prison, be released into society, as a normal, balanced human being after being stuck in a cell by himself, deprived of all manner of stimuli, for two years, is beyond me. How is this punishment of Cameron making any of us safer in society?

These acts committed every single day in our nations prisons should concern all Americans.

Michael Douglas has opened up in front of millions of viewers while taking the stage to accept his award, and he's shared his anger at discovering the system, the american justice system, is not what he thought it was..."I’m questioning the system,” he added. ”Obviously, at first I was certainly disappointed with my son, but I’ve reached a point now where I’m very, very disappointed with the system.” Douglas also said his son, a nonviolent drug addict for most of his life, has spent almost two years in solitary and that the actor was told he might not see him for another two years (ABC NEws, 9/23/13).

"The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime." ~Max Stirner, The Ego and His Own

DRIVE SAFELY. CHP ON DUTY

As I read the flashing sign on our way over to visit Corey this long Labor Day weekend, I couldn't help but wonder, how many people reading this would view it as a "comfort" or as a "threat"? I wonder what a poll would show? It occurred to me that not that long ago it would have been comforting to me, to know the police were on hand to assist in any emergency. Today, with what we have learned about the mass spying on of Americans (of everyone worldwide), in this new era where police are part of what many see has turned America into a "police state", my instant feelings were not as they once were even a few short years ago.