I’m at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility (MSDF), an institution in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS), participating in the Earned Release Program (ERP). My routine has been adjusted thanks to my swamper role. I’m getting up at 5 am every morning, mostly because with my release 37 to 47 days away, I want to get accustomed to getting up early like I did in my days as an Information Technology professional. After getting the rags we use to clean all over the pod out of the washer and putting them in the dryer I take down the 40 chairs stacked on the tables in the dayroom from the night before so the floor can be cleaned. Then I read my bible for about a half hour until about 6 am. Then I get ready for 6:15 am count. After count I return to the dayroom and get the breakfast cart. Fellow swamper David Sussex counts the cereals and I count the milks and juices making sure there are 40 for our pod and 34 for the pod on the other side. This particular day both our counts were off which mean the pod on the other side were short. Guard Roscoe Peters let us know that annoyed him. Then breakfast is called and we hand out the food. Inmates will try anything than can to get extra food out of us but both of us are pretty firm mostly because we each have ideas of what to do with the extras! At the end, the extras are split in half between us. I give some to my cellies and some to the guys at my table. Once breakfast is complete, I wipe the tables, take out the trash and clean the counters while Sussex cleans the trays they’re served on and gets the cart back so we can load the trash. I get back to my cell about 7 am where I write a blog entry, do homework and a journal entry. I had been going back to bed about 7 am till 8 am when program starts but I’ve decided to stop doing that as I can’t do that after release. I continue working on things until 9 am, or when ERP Social Worker, Ms. Grey, comes by usually shortly after. Today our ERP group got into part 5 and 6 From the Inside Out video series by Earnie Larson. After watching the videos (quite good), we did the evaluations in the accompanying workbook in section 5-1 and then went around the room to reveal our scores. It didn’t start out too well as ERP group member Scott Dietz nearly had a meltdown as Ms. Grey and others challenged how he scored himself on several points. He did this early in group too but fortunately he pulled back before it was too late. I have to say though this was the first group session where we freely provided each other with constructive feedback, challenging what the other person said about himself when needed. When they got to me, people expressed shock at my taking the swamper job as I had stepped out of my comfort zone. They did say I’m hypersensitive to some things though. I won’t argue with that. At lunch, as well as supper, I go clean the tables and put out napkins. Once the trays arrive, I count out milk and open bread while Sussex counts out trays. He has really struggled with this. While waiting, we have time to talk. Talking to him makes me very conscience of how my language has deteriorated while I’ve been locked up. I didn’t cuss and swear like that before prison. You can’t around kids and at work. I’m going to have to work on that. Once we serve, I clean the tables, change the trash and help Sussex keep the trays steady while he’s stacking them. At ERP group in the afternoon, we finished the evaluations. But the highlight was when Ms. Grey let us know the huge workload in store for us until graduation on June 10. Most groups took it easy on Phase III but not Ms. Grey. We scrambled in the evening hours to get the goals and objectives plan for Phase III done by Friday, pages 1-31 of the Living With Others workbook series from The Change Companies. We found out cellie Corey Ball will most likely be gone by Monday. He and his fellow cellie Brian Whalen graduate this Friday because he’s done so much of his time. He’s already planning on how and where he’s going to get drunk. It’s too bad too because he’s a very good guy. But that’s not the point is it? At about 8:45 pm, when dayroom closes, Sussex and I go to put up the chairs, take out the trash, sweep and mop the dayroom floor, and wash the rags. Peters, who worked a double shift, let me take a shower after count. Clearly he doesn’t trust me but he is professional, courteous, and kind. I still have nightmares but I’m out pretty hard now when I sleep with this schedule.
Posts Tagged ‘himself’
A Karma Lesson
Posted: January 7, 2011 in UncategorizedTags: aisle, antenna, bravado, bulb, bunk, Correctional, desperation, didn, examples, fits, FMCI, friends, guilt, haven, himself, inmate, inmates, Institution, insulation, intimidation, item, Karma, Lake, lamp, lamps, lesson, life, Milwaukee, Minimum, misfortune, moment, Once, Part, pieces, possessions, Present, Prison, Saddlebag, Saddlebags, self, socket, System, tactic, theft, wasn, wire, Wisconsin, word
I’m at the Fox Lake Minimum Correctional Institution (FMCI), a facility in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS). The call had come the previous day letting several inmates know that they should pack up because they were going to be moved. I was not among them. One who was included was Saddlebags who himself was headed to a facility in Milwaukee. Once it became known an inmate is on his way out the vultures come out after their canteen and other possessions. They use various manipulations or guilt trips on the departing inmate such as lying to them about what they’ll be allowed to have at the next facility or about how pathetic it is to take their canteen with them. In his case another tactic is employed – theft. He resides in the aisle next to me and in the early morning hours he discovered the light bulb in his lamp on his bunk had been taken. Saddlebags tried intimidation and pleading to try to get the light bulb back. Those in the aisle clearly enjoyed seeing him squirm and gave him replies that only fueled his rage and desperation. It wasn’t about the light bulb anymore. They were exposing him as a punk, one who couldn’t protect himself or his things and Saddlebags was attempting to regain a measure of self respect by getting the light bulb back. What he didn’t understand was the more he tried and failed, the more he put himself on display as the laughing stock of those in his aisle. I must confess at the time this was going on I was laughing too. I simply don’t like him, haven’t since the moment I met him. I tired of listening to his bravado, his disregard for others well being, and how he had hurt others. But the lesson of why someone shouldn’t laugh at someone else’s misfortune would become evident soon. Part of the fallout of the first shakedown was that lamps, radios and other electronics that had been altered had either been confiscated, or what had been altered was confiscated often rendering the item useless. Since we’ve had an epidemic of theft of things you wouldn’t consider stealing under normal circumstances. Wire that is used for an antenna, insulation in a lamp, cardboard and string are such examples. If it wasn’t part of the device in its original state it got taken. Inmates often will use materials to enhance or prolong the life of a device. With much of that material gone, people are scavenging for such. When I returned from lunch, I found that the insulation in my lamp had been tampered with. But whoever had tried to take it had ripped too hard on the socket connecting the light bulb, ripping some of the wiring with it. The lamp had been rendered useless. Present were my cellie (bunkmate) and those next to my bunk. They all looked at me out of the corner of their eye but not saying a word. They knew, they had seen whomever tampered with the lamp but hadn’t said a word then and weren’t saying a word now. As I’ve said before, though we all act as friends, there is no loyalty. I didn’t say a word. I took the lamp down and locked it up having determined I would destroy it rather than give the pieces to anyone else. I acted like nothing happened. It kind of fits. It wasn’t my lamp to begin with. I don’t dare act like I own it with any credibility. And I had laughed when Saddlebag’s light bulb had been stolen though the circumstances were different. I deserved what had happened here and I resolved not to be so smug in the future.
The Dysfunctional DOC Family
Posted: November 11, 2010 in UncategorizedTags: actions, allegations, article, aspect, breath, Call, Chien, collection, contraband, conversation, Correctional, Corrections, crime, degree, Department, destruction, Dysfunctional, enemy, fact, failure, FMCI, Gazette, Hayes, himself, image, inmate, inmates, innocence, Institution, institutions, investigation, James, Lake, lawsuit, Lawyer, life, manipulation, Many, Minimum, misdemeanors, moment, negotiations, November, oath, parents, payout, possession, Prairie, predator, Predators, Prison, prosecutor, realization, reports, Second, sexual, siblings, Some, statement, strength, System, teachers, testimony, Thomas, Time, tragedy, Trentin, victim, victims, Wisconsin, words, world, younger
I’m at the Fox Lake Minimum Correctional Institution (FMCI), a facility in the Wisconsin Prison System (WPS). The Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) Family has got an offer you can’t refuse – especially since they control every aspect of your life, potential release and they know that your financially destitute. You feel like your not bargaining on an equal footing, though you had more strength than you knew. But the deal pleased the “Family”, as they keep the secrets of where the bodies are buried, who killed them and who knew about it safely hidden. The “Family” will offer that deal and more 8 days a week to keep you silent and feel they got off light. The past couple days around here the conversation around many has revolved around the media reports (original article entitled “Lawyer: Prison could have stopped alleged assaults” was not found, but was printed Wednesday, November 3, 2010 in the Green Bay Press-Gazette) of the payout to an inmate to not file a lawsuit concerning alleged sexual assaults by a former guard, James Trentin (I’m using his real name – I don’t usually use staff or inmates real names – but I’m using his because he was named in the media) at Prairie du Chien Correctional Institution and the at best incompetent and at worst intentionally misleading investigation by “prison officials” who then compounded their failure to protect inmates by returning the alleged predator to work where he had access to the inmates. It was after this point, with the realization he now could act with impunity, that he allegedly assaulted the victim, acted with the supposed consent with 4 others, while several others rejected his advances. Lets be clear on a couple things. ANY sexual activity between staff and inmates is sexual assault by staff. Inmates cannot consent. They can’t walk away and are largely powerless to stop the activity. Second, inmates are not above using manipulation over staff actions to get what they want. Really, it can begin to be a contest between who the bigger predator is and which one appears to have more power at a given moment. Many inmates have perfected their con game. But based on my readings of the facts, I use the words “alleged predator” in regards to James Trentin because of the fact he is not viewed as a predator by the legal system. Why you might ask? In exchange for guilty please to misdemeanors, 22 counts of second degree sexual assault were dropped. Trentin didn’t do a day because the prosecutor felt inmates weren’t credible despite video evidence of Trentin giving them contraband, testimony of inmates who refused his advances (thus no crime but a pattern of conduce emerges), and testimony of those who were assaulted. In light of that, I submit the idea that inmate victims are viewed less than worthy than say a collection of victims of a single predator on the outside world, largely because there is no political group with any kind of base to speak for those victims that anyone will listen to. If this prosecutor treated a group of victims in this fashion in the outside world, they surely would lose their job. I challenge anyone to disagree with that statement! But isn’t it interesting how this whole tragedy resembles the abusive family dynamic? You’ve got generational teachers who educate the parents that run the institutions that you must protect the family at all costs and the secrets that must stay that way, or the irrational fear of family, and individual destruction is planed. The older siblings, the guards, all know one of their own is a predator on the powerless younger siblings, inmates, but won’t tell because they know the parents really don’t want to know about it. Some of the powerless younger siblings see no way out so try to bargain with the predatory older sibling for their silence thus gaining an illusion of power and favor. But one younger sibling complains to the parents about the abuse. They ask their predator child about the allegations who of course blames the victims – everyone but himself using negotiations of some of the siblings as proof of his innocence. The parents running the institution go to the complaining sibling and decide for the good of the family’s image to do something extraordinary for the child – to give him $150,000 and extract a promise that they’ll never get put under oath and have to reveal all the family secrets. Meanwhile, as with all family secrets, they hold their breath and hope no one else comes forward. Secrets have become their most treasured possession. Predators (alleged) like James Trentin almost always have had or will have another victim out there somewhere. Time is a secret’s enemy. The question isn’t a matter of if but when it comes out. When it does, will the predatory older sibling go down himself or will all the dominoes fall threatening the whole family for having kept silent? Do you know something about this or have a similar secrete no one knows? Call Thomas Hayes (414) 271-9844), a lawyer looking into this, or email this blogs sponsors. Don’t sit in silence any longer.
Life in Wisconsin Prisons and Beyond 