Photo by Lanju Fotografie on Unsplash RCW 72.09.010 - Legislative intent. It is the intent of the legislature to establish a comprehensive system of corrections for convicted law violators within the state of Washington to accomplish the following objectives. [...]...
Jacob Schmitt

A Meal
There are just over 800 prisoners at the Twin Rivers Unit of the Monroe Correctional Complex, a medium custody institution located in a semi-rural area northeast of Seattle, Washington. The prison has four living units: A, B, C, and D, and each unit has three "wings"...
Destiny Altered
Note from Melissa Schmitt, She-EO of Adopt an Inmate: My husband Jacob (he tells the story below the player) is what they call a "jailhouse lawyer." He has a heart of gold, and a compulsion to help everyone around him, especially with their legal work. Within hours of...
Correctional Industries: Valuing Profits Instead of Lives
For those of you that do not know what Correctional Industries ("CI") is, I'll give you a brief explanation. If you're a member of the community or legislature, CI is touted as a saver of money and savior for the thousands of men and women within the Washington State...
Correctional Staff: Harbingers of Genocide
From Inside the Wire Local and national news has carried coverage informing us that roughly 100 incarcerated individuals at the medium security unit (MSU) of the Monroe Correctional Complex "rioted" last night. We should all vehemently reject the application of the...
An End To “Us Against Them”
Convicts against the guards. When I first began my life within the prison industrial complex over 28 years ago, this maxim was a hard and fast reality. Since then, I have witnessed it fade into an often intangible concept - and I am grateful to see its decline. The...
HOPE
Walking out the front door of prison. For those of us that live inside these walls and fences, this is the moment to moment dream that permeates our incarceration experience. We yearn to be reinstated to a status where we feel human again -- to begin anew the gift of...
We All Matter
This is an email I received from our remarkable friend Jacob, incarcerated in Washington’s Monroe Correctional Complex. Jacob is organizing an inmate fundraiser, to help us pay for our new website after we lost our funding. Oddly, America, and I suppose humanity as a...