Photo by marianne bos on Unsplash

For all the world to see, Hello my fellow travelers in the A.I. Universe, I will be as plain spoken about about the issues concerning incarcerated persons as I can. Sometimes I may have to backtrack to clarify things because this environment gets so damn convoluted it’s hard to follow even from the inside. Convoluted: adj: marked by extreme and often needless or excessive complexity.

No better word exists to describe the daily life of a prisoner. To be fair that there are a number of prisoners who make life difficult for themselves and others. This number is nominal. Some of the idiotic actions by these prisoners are mind blowing. Like stabbing someone because of some perceived disrespect. Just like on the street this behavior should never be tolerated. However when an incident happens in the outside world you don’t punish the whole neighborhood where the offense took place. For some reason this blanket punishment has become a necessary component of a reasonable penological interest. Whatever that means. The only result of this type of mass punishment is that of a negative nature. In all its forms. For instance, the controlling mentality driving daily life is that an officer’s job is to punish the inmates even though the stated duties are care, custody, and control. Nothing more. Not judging a person’s charges and physically abusing them for that which they are being punished for already. Nor keeping them from a job or educational assignment they are eligible for as added restrictions just because an officer has the ”power” to do so.

When there is a physical altercation between two inmates, the entire dormitory is placed on some form of restrictions ie loss of recreation or canteen access. Or as in the events that took place two weeks ago that led to a weeklong lockdown. This brings me full circle to the censored article that I attempted to post two weeks ago. The reason given for the censor was simply ”weapon.” However my reference to the possibility that the phone call alleging the threat may have originated from a phone smuggled into the prison by a staff member is more likely the reason for the censorship. If all of this seems to be arbitrary and capricious from the outside looking in, imagine the sheer chaos that prisoners are forced to live in everyday. And they wonder why the recidivism rate is so high … or do they?

Peace and love. Namaste’.

PS. I never did get my socks back or even my grievance responded to. 🙂