by Rick Fisk | Mar 10, 2016 | From the Inside
An excerpt of a letter from Rick in February of 2014, when he was still in county jail, and about six months before he was moved to prison. He writes about his idea to start Adopt an Inmate.
I feel as though I am the most well-taken-care-of inmate in Del Valle. Having friends and family who have professed faith in my innocence and pledged support through cards, letters and books is a blessing more valuable than can be conveyed or repaid. It has allowed me to maintain my sanity. Without these blessings I believe I would have fallen into a bottomless pit of despair. This belief and the eye-opening real-life stories revealed to me by fellow inmates drives me to make some difference here. Now and in the future. For a good while I have been contemplating a non-profit I have tentatively dubbed āAdopt-an-inmate.ā
The organization would seek to provide the blessings I have received as well as other services possibly required for those caught up in the system without local resources to help them.
While I suspect it is by design, there is no solid proof of a conspiracy to deprive an inmate the means to defend himself. Conspiracy or not, a confluence of jail conditions can prevent the incarcerated from effectively participating in his own defense. It is this predicament that Iād most like to eradicate. Hope is a scarce commodity in jail. Those who provide it to us are Godās own angels.
by Eric Burnham | Jun 30, 2024 | Eric Burnham, From the Inside
Photo by FlyD on Unsplash
Prison time can feel a lot like quantum physics. Sounds crazy, I know. But itās true. Quantum physics is an obscure, often confusing field of particle science. The short version explains that quantum physics involves the study of particles smaller than an atom and how those particles behave when separated from their natural connection with other particles. The laws of quantum physics are completely foreign to the physical realities that help you and me understand the world.
For example, isolated particles exist in what is knownĀ to physicists as the quantum realm and particles in the quantum realm can actually be in two places at once, a phenomenon known as superposition. In addition, a recent experiment took place in Germany that demonstrated how a single particle of light, which exists in the quantum realm when isolated, can move both forward and backward in time at the same moment, which essentially means it is moving neither forward nor backward in time while simultaneously moving both forward and backward in timeā¦at the same time, which is a confusing place to be, for sure.
Doing time in prison can feel much like that ā abnormal, confusing and uncomfortable. In prison, the aim of your days is often about getting time to move more quickly, but movement through time is relative ā the perception of motion depends upon your frame of reference. If youāre in a moving car and the car next to you is moving in the same direction at the same speed, it can seem like youāre not moving at all, but turn your head and look out the opposite window and fence posts are zipping by. Time in prison can be similarly disorienting.
A popular saying holds that time heals all wounds. That may sound good, but it isnāt always true. Even when healing takes place over time, the reason healing occurred was not the mere passage of time. Otherwise, both victims and perpetrators of crime would heal through the prescription of time, butā¦neither do. Healing takes place because we have the courage to look at our pain, to engage it and figure out how to process it effectively enough to move forward and connect with the important people and significant events that help us navigate our emotions and actualize our growth as human beingsā¦and time just ticks away while weāre not looking.
I have been incarcerated for over 23 years and I experience the movement of time very differently than you. In the outside world, the movement of time feels natural, like a burden of overwhelming rapidity even. Like a massive river carving its way through a canyon, years rush by in a blur of laughter, tears, birthdays, graduations, weddings, barbeques and Superbowlās. Before you know it, lives are built, kids are grown and decades are gone, like a snowflake on your tongue.
In prison, however, the flow of time is pinched to a constipated trickle. Significant experiences are few and far between, sprinkled in among years of meaningless moments drawn out into droplets and splatters. Each one is broken up into incomplete portions, delivered one by one in an emotionally exhausting holding pattern that constantly leaves you waiting to feel.
The incarcerated dwell in that liminal space where inner darkness meets outer darkness. Unfulfilled expectations of a life well-lived galvanize shame, breeding self-hatred. Emotions become manipulative illusions that pull the strings of a desperate attempt to find meaning, to feel worth, to find hope and to heal. We find ourselves grasping for a life that isnāt there in order to comfort the life that is. Anger, anxiety and depression take root in the personality as you realize your friends and family on the outside have been carried away by the river while you sit in your cage waiting on your drips.
Eventually, a shroud of detachment becomes refuge, insulating you from the pain of a life lived without purpose in a warehouse for the discarded, where even laughter feels hollow. It is like living outside of time while being forced to feel every minute of the separation. Pictures of a world moving on without you dance through the haze in your mind. You call out, but nobody listens ā for they donāt have the time.
The emptiness of prison culture, the exploitative nature of the prison system, the unrelenting violence within the prison environment and the lunacy of trying to remain focused on emotional and spiritual growth while being packed in elbow to elbow with narcissists, sociopaths and predators seems to conspire against your resolve, almost granting you permission to give up trying to become a better person. You can feel compelled to join the crowd and lie, cheat and steal in order to get whatever you can from anyone you can. To secure power, pleasure and material possessions by any means necessary can be the perfect distraction, but the pursuit of shiny things in the dark will almost always destroy you. The danger of moving beyond the point of no return increases when getting becomes more important than becoming.
Virtually everyone in prison has experienced some kind of trauma prior to incarceration, used alcohol, drugs and sex to numb the pain and learned maladaptive coping methods to mask the shame of feeling broken and irredeemable. Prison time doesnāt teach you how to move beyond your past or even how to process your present and the prison system doesnāt care about your struggles. Youāre a number to be counted and cattle to be corralled.
Prison time is slow and lonely and difficult and dangerous. Youāre never by yourself but youāre always alone. Youāre daily presented with problems that have no solutions and you canāt truly trust anyoneā¦ever. Youāre separated from everything you know and everyone you love and regularly required to follow often arbitrary directives in order to satisfy somewhat abusive authority figures.
Without question I am here as a direct and correct consequence of my own actions, but people, like particles, were not designed to function properly when disconnected from their reality. You have to move differently to find light in prison and if you donāt find it, youāll be consumed by the darkness. Yet, if you do find it, the search will inevitably contort your spirit in permanent ways. No matter what, youāre never the same, and admittedly, that can produce a positive or negative outcome, depending on the response of each incarcerated individual. Trying to convey time in prison is complicated. I might as well be explaining quantum physics.
by Eric Burnham | May 25, 2024 | Eric Burnham, Inmate Contributors
Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash
We are happy to share these courses offered by Wise Communications and developed by our featured writer Dr. Eric Burnham.
The information in our home-studies is based upon the finest work done in the field by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, and other leading professionals in the field.
Wise Communications Home Study Programs is pleased to offer several new courses developed by Dr. Eric Burnham for the substance use disorder counseling community from a faith-based perspective.
This course will equip counselors with an integrated Christian view of Emotional Intelligence. The findings of neuroscience and contemporary psychology will be key areas of focus, but biblical wisdom and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit will be emphasized, showing that when scientific principles and findings are deployed in concert with biblical truths, a grander vision of the human condition becomes clear. This course is designed to build on the skills of a mental health professional, and provide a targeted approach to emotional growth that can be implemented both personally and professionally.
This course encompasses the publication and worksheets in one document, unlike other Wise Communications courses. As communication is critical for Substance Use Disorder counselors, this biblically based course, Communication in Substance Use Disorder Counseling: A Christian View, will explore the counseling and communication topics important to a follower of Christ working in the field of chemical dependency counseling. Developed by Eric Burnham, Ph.D., topics in this course include authentic communication, how to integrate your faith into your counseling, how to improve listening skills, ways to strengthen a scriptural worldview, and looking at the listening element in prayer.
Counseling those who struggle with SUDs can be a formidable endeavor under the best of circumstances, but it can become overwhelming if the counselor does not spend the necessary energy on professional wellness and self-care. The goal of this course is to look at professional and personal wellness through the lens of Scripture.
The intent of these courses is to provide up to date information in concert with a faith-based perspective that can help the Addictions counselor understand how to better serve their clients while simultaneously using their faith in a professional and ethical manner. They are fully written by recovering addict Eric Burnham.
by Eric Burnham | Oct 20, 2023 | Uncategorized
Photo by Feliphe Schiarolli on Unsplash
I still canāt believe it. When I think about it, it still feels impossible, but you guys are really gone. Honestly, it is difficult to resist an encroaching sense of bitterness toward a bureaucratic system that failed to take care of the people who made more of a rehabilitative impact upon me than anyone else has during my 22 years in prison, or in my entire life for that matter.
For those readers who are wondering what Iām on about, I was a tutor in the GED program for the last 16 yearsā¦and nowā¦Iām unemployed because Blue Mountain Community College felt it prudent to allow a 37 year contract with the Department of Corrections to expire without even an attempt to renew it. Consequently, the GED program at EOCI died along with the contract ā and what is worse, there was no effort made by the Department of Corrections to retain the dedicated teachers who made the GED program so successful over the years. The teachersā¦are goneā¦moved on and found new employment elsewhere, and even now, months after the contract ended, there is still no GED program at EOCI.
It sometimes feels like the administrative bean counters who think shit up while sitting around an oval mahogany table with their rolled up sleeves, starched white shirts and party approved power ties seem to believe that the task of effectively educating and positively impacting the disenfranchised, broken and discarded is such an easy job that anyone can do it. Well, not just anyone CAN do it, and we are all worse off for that assumption. It is a harsh reality that people often matter so little in the halls of power that support is not given to the change-makers responsible for lifting up those left behind by the fast-past, results-orientated, self-centered nature of contemporary culture. Makes you sort of wonder how the decision-makers feel about those of us who depend on the change-makers. At least the beans are counted, I guess, but I feel like people deserve better, at least those people did.
Soā¦Thank you Mr Villers, Mrs Reed, Ms Doherty, Ms Bennett, Mrs Youncs, Ms Bose and Mrs Shutte. Thank you for weaving love, compassion and respect into your professionalism. Thank you for your time, effort and expertise. Thank you for the knowledge, the skills and the moments. Thank you for the tolerance, patience and acceptance. I took away something special from each one of you and I wonāt ever forget you. I will never be the same because I knew you and Iām forever a better person because I was known by you. Working with you over the last 16 years was an incredible and invaluable experience for which I will always be grateful. I may never see you all again, but you are people who exemplified what it means to be teachers ā in every sense of the word. I miss you all so much, but I guess teachers are supposed to be missedā¦at least the good ones are.
by Melissa Bee | Aug 24, 2023 | From the Inside
From a person who has been locked up almost 30 years in the custody of the Illinois department of corrections, I would have thought that communication married to reunification with family & friends would be the foundation (next to protecting society) to their rehabilitation goals. At every turn here in the Dixon correctional center in Illinois those goals have been abandoned! Cruel and unusual punishment under the eighth amendment is exemplified in many ways by administrations throughout the United States by its treatment of inmates and their families and friends.
Here in Dixon, we have been on lockdown exactly 121 days since I arrived from Pinckneyville prison on January 26, 2023. We’re on lockdowns because staff have figured out a way to extend the pandemic benefits for themselves by demanding through their unions that no mandates be allowed related to them being required to come to work (because of virus), so that’s still in play. For this reason, our families and friends are turned away after traveling for in-person visits. Video visits are cancelled. No phone calls. No programs! Nothing. The idea that a correctional center is closed all the time because of unions stopping mandates is ridiculous & violates the Illinois constitution by shutting down programs to restore inmates to productive citizenship! The federal rehabilitation act gives millions of dollars to all state prisons for these programs that are inactive because of lockdowns – three years after the pandemic started. Prices in the commissary are New York City prices! A burger in the staff’s commissary is $5.00 – but in the visiting room the same sandwich is $15.00! A water $4.00, a small bag of chips with exactly 11 small chips in it $4.00! We have no voice nor do our family members or friends. The union AFSCME in Illinois wants to stop the Jpay/Securus tablets from coming in as a new way for inmates to communicate, they want us in this medium security prison to be locked down and oppressed.
Interstate Compact Inmate
Kurtis M. Williams N53299
Dixon, Illinois
by Eric Burnham | Apr 23, 2023 | From the Inside
Prison is a place I have been for over half my life. I was 21 years-old when I stabbed a man during a fight that I started while drunk in 2001. I am guilty, and prison is a place I have been ever since. Prison is a place where I will turn 44 this month (April of 2023).
Prison is a place where nothing is soft. It is a place with concrete walls, chain link fences, razor wire, and gun towers. It is a place with rigid routines, emotional and intellectual atrophy, and long periods of mind-dumbing boredom, interrupted only by sudden bursts of violence. Prison is a place where nothing and no one is safe. It is a place where I have seen a man beaten and kicked while unconscious, a place where I have seen a man sliced open with a razor blade, a place where I saw a man shot and killed for fighting on the yard, a place where I have seen correctional officers stabbed. Prison is a place where I felt the vibrations in my bunk and up into my body as they cut through the belt that a man in the cell next to mine used to commit suicide.
Prison is a place you must fight with your fists to defend against financial, emotional, or even sexual exploitation, a place where brutality is the vernacular. It is a place where men group together for safety but eventually become intoxicated by the power of numbers. Prison is a place where you can go years without hearing your first name, but not a day without hearing your bunk number. It is a place where kindness is considered weakness and therefore not reciprocated, and respect is confused with fear. Prison is a place where the cost of peace is social isolation and emotional withdrawal.
Prison is a place where you are never by yourself but you are always alone, a place where the rare opportunities to make social connections are fractured when people are transferred or released. it is a place where loved ones on the outside forget to remember you for years at a time. Prison is a place where your friends and family can only hear about your growth because they are never allowed to remain close enough to see it. It is a place where your friends and family can only hear about your growth because they are never allowed to remain close enough to see it. It is a place where you can go years without being hugged, a place where the only time you’re even touched is when you’re being patted down by an officer wearing rubber gloves. Prison is a place where you r emotions go unexpressed because they might be taken out of context and used against you. It is a place where you feel cold inside and can never get warm.
Prison is a place where you are expected to live by unrealistic standards of behavior, and your inability to live by them is perceived as evidence of your moral contamination; therefore, disproportionate consequences for minor rule violations are considered justifiable by administrators who are insulated from the counterproductive results of their policies. Prison is a place where security staff will reflexively do an abundance of research into every minor rule violation yet refuse to put forth the slightest effort to input positive observations of your behavior into the record. Prison is a place where the state will pay for your hormone replacement therapy but not for educational programs that demonstrably reduce recidivism. Prison is a place where you are afraid to discuss your struggles over mental health, depression, anger, violence, sexual orientation, or chemical dependency with staff members because if what you say is put into your file, a case worker or the Parole Board may use it against you.
Prison is a place where evil advances freely, unfettered by the pangs of conscience, shaping the culture by working diligently to snuff out any goodness found within you. It is a place where hatred and hypocrisy are so insidious that they will define you if you’re not careful. Prison is a place where you can scream as loudly as you like, but nobody cares to hear you; in fact, the louder you scream the more they laugh at you, so you hold it inside. it is a place where you witness staggering levels of treachery, duplicity, and corruption, but render yourself an outsider if you express a negative opinion about it.
Prison is a place where I grew up and became a man, a place where I took responsibility for the pain I have caused, for my past, my present, and my future. It is a place where my mother gave me the gift of paying for my university education. Prison is a place where I earned by GED (2003), an Associate of Arts degree (2013), a Bachelor of Arts degree in Counseling (2015), a Master’s degree in Counseling (2017), and a Ph.D. in Psychology and Counseling (2021). Prison is a place where I have taken an additional 350 educational units specializing in substance use disorder counseling through an outside academic institution.
Prison is a place where I have earned over 30 certificates from every class and program the Department of Corrections has offered. Prison is a place where I have been a tutor in the GED program for over 15 years, helping over 750 men earn their high school equivalency credentials. it is a place where I have authored four courses for alcohol and drug counselors that have been published for use by clinicians all over the country. Prison is a place where I work to positively impact others every day.
Prison is a place where the stained are hidden from society, a place where no matter how much you change, you are still considered irreparably damaged. It is a place where the regret and empathy you feel and the remorse you display are questioned by those in authority over you and marginalized by those in authority over the system. Prison is a place where the governor told me my efforts at rehabilitation did not warrant an opportunity to see the Parole Board three years early after 22 years of incarceration. Prison is a place where I watched men with less merit and less dedication to rehabilitation be granted early release.
Prison is a place that threatens your perseverance because you know you cannot win. It is a place where enough is never enough, a place where you can never do enough, never accept responsibility enough, become enough, give back enough, positively impact others enough, actualize your own potential enough, or overcome adversity enough to be defined by how you got back up, rather than by how you fell. Prison is a place where rehabilitation doesn’t mean anything.
Prison is a place where the brightness of your accomplishments gets dulled by the uniform you’re required to wear, a place where the lens through which you are viewed is not pointed toward your future but focused on your past. Prison is a place where years of incarceration transform correctional staff into representatives of society who weave resentment into your personality by using dehumanization as a tool, making positive change ever more difficult. It is a place where case workers and rehabilitation managers ware completely absent from your daily experiences but are always present to take credit for your progress in order to make it appear as if they have personally contributed to the success of an otherwise ineffective system.
Prison is a place of emptiness and meaninglessness. It is a place of egocentrism and stagnation. Prison is a place where almost everyone wears a mask, making it impossible to trust anyone. It is a place where people have done horrible things, a place where men run from themselves. Prison is a place where the collective pain left behind by the men in any given room is profound and ugly but almost never thought about by the men in that room. Prison is a place where you can get clean and sober and discover that you are actually a very loving person but have nobody to give that love to, so it decays. Prison is a place where you work your body until the sweat runs down your face in order to hide the tears already there. Prison is a place where freedom is only a confusing sound. It is a place that hurts … all the time. Prison is a place where I am … every … single … day. Prison is a place.
by Melissa Bee | Feb 9, 2023 | Interviews
Our friend Bobby Bostic has a familiar name for many with an interest in prison reform, and juvenile life sentences.
Locked up at 16 years old for crimes committed as a juvenile, Judge Evelyn Baker sentenced him to 241 years in 1995, believing that teens had no ability to rehabilitate. In the end, that same judge, now retired, worked with the ACLU to see him released him on parole after 27 years behind bars.
Now 43, Bobby has been home since November 2022, and is demonstrating what Judge Baker came to realize, that people do deserve second chances. Hear Bobby and Judge Baker tell their intersecting stories. Bobby reads from one of his 14 published books, Life Goes On In Prison.
by Melissa Bee | Feb 1, 2023 | From the Staff
FL, TX, and WA State Adopters: If your adoptee is in TDCJ (Texas state), FDC (Florida Dept. of Corrections), or WA DOC (Washington state), be aware that for emessaging, you’re going to be faced with a Jpay to Securus conversion. If you have an existing Jpay account, you will be prompted to convert it to Securus when the facility for your contact(s) has made the switch. Your contact(s) and stamps will transfer. See the links below for more information.
Other Jpay articles: Jpay
by Melissa Bee | Nov 23, 2022 | From the Staff
Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and Giving Tuesday follows quickly after. If you haven’t selected a nonprofit to donate to this year, this is a perfect time to support our work. Even small amounts make a big difference to those who can’t be with their families. Your support is most appreciated.
We have three easy ways to give.
Ā Click on the grid and choose a square.
Donate through Donorbox on our website.
Send something from our Amazon Wishlist.
by Melissa Bee | Nov 22, 2022 | From the Staff
Our dear friend Tricia in Arizona is looking for a little help to brighten the holidays for as many as 40 other prisoners. If you’d like to contribute a few bucks to this cause, just go to our Donate page and note that it’s for the AZ Secret Santa Project.
Hello Friends,
Every year I do a secret Santa for those less fortunate on the yard. I have purchased 40 pairs of socks, soap, shampoo. I need your help! I’d like to also include a treat for them and I am in need of your financial help. If are able can you please donate? Any amount is welcome and its for a great cause. All you need to do is go to JPAY and donate funds, select my TRUST ACCOUNT. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas! Thank you! trish
by Inmate Contributor | Nov 19, 2022 | From the Inside
To the nonunscrupulous inmate, with a question about your fate, & whether you’re alone?
While pacing in that cell, within that prison hell, without friends or family or home.
There is a rarity in life, born of heart not violence or knife, but by a leader or two,
A teacher or a guide, call her what you will with pride, Melissa Schmitt is there for you.
There are other volunteers, to stem & quell your fears, & lead others under her grace,
To your biographical plane, with picture, place & name, with a picture of your face.
Leading Mentors to an adoptee, for you & for me, supporters, financiers, with the likeminded,
Whether you’re disabled, or bravado enabled, or whether you see or blinded.
Blinded by time & walls, roaming the prison halls, but need a conduit or a place,
To think beyond the clouds, avoid the crushing crowds, to exercise your inner grace.
Not unlike any School, Miss Schmitt has a rule, That screening be done for protection,
This is about inmate adoption, not a love option, but a way to make a connection.
For educational book reviews, Mentors guiding by two’s, networking while your doing time,
Voids in your rhyme, voids in your mind, while doing art with your talent’s you find.
To the prospective visitor, the web site inquisitor, who may be interested to test,
The waters of what’s disloyal, lowly without any toil, to hurt or harm our best.
We are led by compassion, not status quo fashion, but extension to a heart inside,
Where they’ve paid their price, in more ways twice, where they don’t have to live & hide.
Help us help them, create from a loss a win, from their cells where they loom,
While we give them a place, a place filled with grace, adopt an inmate homeroom.
By Kurtis M.Williams N53299 11-18-2022 For Adopt an Inmate and Ms. Schmitt
