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.
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
by Guest Blogger | Aug 24, 2022 | Guest Blogger
Photo by Dustin Humes on Unsplash
We received permission to share a response to a woman’s question on Quora, after her 20-year old son received a 15 year prison sentence. “I don’t want him to feel depressed and give up. Is there anything I can do for him while he is in prison?”
Don Erving responded with the following, based on his own experience in a California prison:
I’ve been out a year after doing 22 years off a 15-to-Life sentence in the California Dept. of Corrections, and I will say to you that you have NO IDEA what your son will HAVE TO deal with in there, depression, though prevalent, being low on the list. There are no pretty words to alleviate your worries, Ma’am, because prison in America is in no way constructed to be a relief of any kind. Your son will face hardships and challenges and experience loneliness that is quite literally unspeakable, especially in such an environment. And he will either grow and gain knowledge and maturity, and physical as well as inner strengths, and be of so intimate an understanding of the harshnesses of Life that he chooses for himself a greater path than the one he’s known…..or not. What you can do for him, Mom, that would be a godsend through the hardships and conducive to his growth and gaining, is to accept them as the reality they are, and encourage him to be not just ‘strong,’ but to be steel. To be iron. Say to him how you have always known that you gave birth to a lion. A leader. Let him know that there is wisdom to be gained from every situation he may be confronted with, and to analyze EVERYTHING. Not with fear, but for what he can learn from it. You tell your son, Ma’am, that YOU are a warrior, and that YOUR blood is HIS blood, so in THAT way, you are always with him. However unlike you these words may be, it is TRULY the only way your hopes and wishes will have as deep down an impact as they must at this point in his life. Pretty words and cliches phrases of love and care, though meant with all your heart, PALE against the blinding light of a flashbang grenade exploding, guntower block-gun firing, smoke-filled, alarm blaring, prisoner rioting prison yard, Ma’am. It will do his courage and Will To Survive immeasurable good if he can draw from YOU a Warrior Mother’s strength and bravery and love, because, please understand, he resides now, and for a generation to come, in a place that can, does, and will become a battlefield, within the span of a second. And it takes a certain level of mental and physical strength to maintain such a constant awareness. To always be ‘on your toes.’ And you, Mom, must be the steel that sharpens that steel in him. I wish I could apologize to you for the picture I painted of your son’s life, Mom, but you can’t apologize for the truth, however harsh. It would mean to live a lie. And sugarcoated lies are not what you and your son need going forward. Be brave, Mom. As brave as you need him to be. BRAVER than you need him to be. The road is long and rougher than you can imagine, Mom. I pray the Lord’s Intervention, but minus that, I wish you, for your son, a Warrior Mother’s heart. This is the best thing you can do for him, Mom. The best thing to BE for him. May God bless you all.🙏❤️🙏❤️🙏
We’re glad you made it through, Don. Thank you for letting us share these uncompromising words of wisdom and experience with our readers.
by Inmate Contributor | Aug 17, 2022 | From the Inside
Photo by tristan on Unsplash
This morning we woke up to gun fire right outside our windows. We look out and there are targets posted in the yard shaped like humans. Officers from the tower were doing live fire target practice drills in our yard. In my whole time ever in prison, I have never not one time seen anything even similar to this. It is an obvious attempt at intimidation. Tensions on both sides are up. We are not animals, we are human beings, we have names!!!
I was in the office this afternoon with the onsite Ashland Unit staff. I was recording my speech and afterwards I was speaking with him and checking his temperature to see were he’s at mentally ya know. So I ask him what he thinks about this place and he says the way they treat the inmates is mind blowing. He never thought, especially in the United States, that it would be even legal to treat human beings like this. He also said that one of the female administration staff asked him why he “talked to us like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like people.”
“They are animals, they aren’t people.”
He told her “I don’t see a zoo, I see nothing but human beings here.”
And she copped an attitude and walked off.
Anyhow, that is the culture I’m dealing with and have been dealing with. I’m dealing with a group of people that don’t even think I am human. How can that be in the twenty-first century? How is something like that acceptable? How can people with that kind of disregard for human life be in a position working for the Arizona government? That is a viewpoint that clearly displays dysfunction, and they have no problem voicing that viewpoint out loud which displays a kind of mental instability. Yet, I’m the one that deserves to be in prison for years and years?
I have never been more scared for my own well-being and safety as I have in the last couple of months. This does not stem from my peers either, this genuine fear is rooted in my captors and comes from their utter disregard for human life. How am I to feel safe when my captors legitimately think I’m equal to a dog that needs to be put down?
Arizona Prisoner
by Inmate Contributor | Aug 3, 2022 | From the Inside
Summer in many prisons can be unbearable, as very few have any temperature control or much ventilation, and staff do little to nothing to provide relief. Prisoners suffer heat-related illnesses, and sometimes death, every year. Temperatures inside a cell can be over 110 degrees, at which point a fan does nothing but blow the hot air around. See Boiling Behind Bars, an article from The Intercept earlier this year, about the conditions in Texas prisons.
We received this today from a prisoner in Arizona:
Times on the yard are hard and its getting real. The heat waves are literally killing us as we don’t have any AC, only swamp coolers. The temperature we have been forced to endure all month has been a consistent 97° with 77% humidity inside all day into the night all due to the swamp coolers. This is absolutely insane, and when we have recreation we get locked on the rec field for hours at a time, very limited water supply and when that runs out we have to argue and cause trouble just to get the jugs refilled. A plan that everyone refuses to lockdown is in talks right now. When we engage could be soon. The danger we are being forced to endure with these temperatures is outstanding. I can only imagine with climates changing how bad it will be in the years to come.
by Inmate Contributor | Jul 21, 2022 | From the Inside
From one of our contacts in an Arizona prison:
My yard organized a peaceful protest to our neglect and mistreatment. For all the empty promises made and unfulfilled by the administration. For everything that they have taken from us over these last couple years since Covid. We organized a food strike as a whole cohesive unit over the weekend. It started on Monday, July 18, 2022. The whole yard refused chow at breakfast. They didn’t know what to make of it. Then lunch came around, and again we all refused to eat. Then they start showing concern because they hate it when we show organization against the system. They came around asking questions, and some designated speakers explained what was going on. Our requests aren’t anything that we shouldn’t have coming, food portions, food quality, rec time, extra curriculum, programs, medical, etc. So they tell us to hold back, and give them a week to remedy, if it can’t happen do what y’all gotta do.
So this morning we wake up to an army of K9 units and ninja turtles kicking in doors as a massive show of force and attempted intimidation obviously in retaliation to our peaceful demonstration. This tells me two things, one we touched a nerve, and two we have them worried. I haven’t seen unity like this among the population for a decade. This says that things are truly unbearable and we will not stand idle and just let it happen anymore. There will be consequences for their lack of action and attention. I haven’t heard word about what our next move is yet, but in my opinion we need to step it up if they are gonna answer with attempted intimidation.
The fact that they request we stand down so they can look into things and then they attack says we can’t trust anything they say. When they say peace, they really mean war. That’s what I’m getting from the situation as a whole. If that’s what they want I know the majority of inmates here are down for it because we are all sick of the overstep of power with no accountability. And if no-one is gonna stand up for us, we have to stand up for ourselves.
I may get interrogated for writing this because I know they don’t want this getting to the outside world especially in the wake of the recent scandal this complex was already plagued with concerning Chuck Ryan.
(Two days later …)
Also, there was no more raids today. So I think they just wanted to make a statement that organization will not be tolerated. They won’t stop it though, everyone here is fed up with out treatment and we are realizing that we hold power in numbers especially since they are short staffed. I’m down for the cause but at the same time I can’t get too involved because I have my own future to concentrate on and need to stay out of trouble.
by Inmate Contributor | May 31, 2022 | From the Inside
I was watching the news last night and saw the story of those 19 children and 2 teachers murdered….how does something like this happen? Why does it happen? I don’t even know what to say about a situation like this, what do I say about an act of torment like this? What do I say!!!!! It’s just a shame all those little babies going to school, and get murdered! what the HELL!!!! Then they’re talking about gun bans, but they talked about gun bans every other time some guy woke up on the wrong side of the universe and decided to bring hell to earth. What makes this time any different? It seems like politicians just say what they know people want to hear even if they know what they’re saying doesn’t really solve anything, because it’s politics, and playing politics is a game that affects real lives. As we can see, playing politics has cost us 21 more precious, innocent lives. This drastic event has really saddened me, it angers me, it runs my emotions wild.
The spiritual needs of the people are not being cultivated, their psychological needs are not being meet. take a second and actually evaluate the mental condition of the people in this country, and everything that we are going through.
in the past two years people’s whole lives have flipped on them, starting with covid-19. People being locked down in their homes, stripped from their social lives, some stripped from their jobs losing their economical independence, some losing the lives of family members, friends, neighbors. Correctional facilities for example became under staffed because the staff were quitting and dying. This lead to mandating the remaining officers in order to keep the facilities up and running, so they went from working 40 hours a week to 112 hours a week – that’s everyday for 16 hours ….on top of that, every time you look on the news they’re talking about inflation, they’re talking about recession, then every time you stop to get gas for your car, the price just confirms everything you’re hearing on t.v., the prices of food increase, the price for renting homes have more than doubled in some places, little babies are being hospitalized because of the lack of formula, we are fighting for the rights of the woman to govern her own body, police shooting and killing our children, our neighbors, our friends, our loved ones, people losing their family members to wrongful convictions….think about this…really think about this..this has become the everyday normal for us, Every American is going through this alone, on top of the day to day stresses of surviving, without any counsel, and without any psychological support. Statistics show that more Americans are suffering from depression and mental illness dis-eases now than ever before….ask yourself why????
Because to every action is a reaction. and everything that’s going on now is a product of the decisions being made at the top…. Americans need mental support, every American is suffering, we each may deal with it differently and some of us may not know how to deal with it at all, but we Americans need the support If not from our government then from each other during these times of discomfort … .it’s like sending a solider who just fought in a war back home to his family without any psychological evaluations, knowing that the war has impacted him mentally in ways he can’t understand, and he starts drinking and abusing drugs trying to cope with the discomfort. This is us America, we need to get the help we know we need. and stop trying to be strong on our own. stop overlooking what you’re going through and talk about it, or it will come out in ways that will lead to regret and even more discomfort.
People need more counsel, people need to talk more about how they’re feeling and what’s going on around the world and how its effecting us, WE have the right to speak freely, you shouldn’t have to be afraid of a consequence to speak out, the world is changing and the government doesn’t want us talking to each other about it.
Let’s talk about it, Tell everyone what you’re going through. We are at war against our own psychological position and the only way to fight back is to start talking about it, and coming together and being here for one another, listen to one another, comfort one another, we are living through some real drastic times let’s stand together and stand for Justice for all.
If you don’t have anyone to share your suffering with feel free to drop the load off on me I stand with you. for prayer request, a listening ear, and a brother in arms.
contact me Via jpay: www. jpay.com
Sean Daniels #839717
or Via snail mail: Sean Daniels # 839717
Chippewa correctional facility
4269 west m-80
Kincheloe, MI 49784
