by Melissa Bee | Dec 9, 2016 | From the Staff
Thanks to our supporters on both sides of the wall, we are less than $600 away from our goal of $3,000 for our website fundraiser!
From the letter above, which included a donation of six stamped envelopes from an Arizona prisoner:
“You have taken on an enormous task, and placed on your shoulders a heavy burden, because on your shoulders you now carry the hope of those who were hopeless.
Prisoners who have jobs get paid 35¢ an hour (some a bit more). So please keep in perspective that each letter you receive with a SASE represents two hours of raking dirt in 105° Arizona heat, or sweating in a humid upholstery shop. Their letters to you are no small investment but they are worth it to these men. Because they carry hope.”
Volunteers have been working around the clock in preparation for the launch of our re-designed website. Completion of this project will enable us to reach more adopters, and in turn, more forgotten inmates.
Send us some love this holiday, please help us raise
the final $600
We are a registered domestic non-profit and rely solely on donations. no one at AI receives a salary, and 100% of donations benefit prisoners directly. If everyone reading this gave a few dollars, our goal would be met in an hour.
♥
by Melissa Bee | Dec 8, 2016 | From the Staff
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Everyone at AI headquarters and all our volunteers are pulling together to help get some of the backlog of mail cleared out by the end of the year. The office cats, Scout (top) and Boo (bottom) are always doing their part.
Check out the recent stamp donations – we’re so grateful!
by Melissa Bee | Nov 24, 2016 | From the Staff
Leah and I are using the holiday to put in a solid four days of work to clear out some of the back log of mail.
About 11:00, we had a surprise visitor bearing a holiday meal for each of us (provided by the local Elks Lodge:
AND, a personal donation of $500 to go towards our website fundraiser!
We are so grateful.
A blessed Thanksgiving to our entire AI family.
by Melissa Bee | Nov 1, 2016 | News
In response to a letter we sent to Congressman DeFazio in Oregon, we received the following:
Dear Ms. Brown:
Thank you for contacting me about mandatory minimum sentencing. We are in complete agreement on this issue.
You will be pleased to know that I have consistently supported legislation to either reduce or eliminate mandatory minimum sentences. For example, I was a cosponsor of the Smarter Sentencing Act last Congress. This bill would have reduced mandatory minimum sentences for certain non-violent drug offenses. The bill also would have directed the U.S. Sentencing Commission to review and amend its guidelines for sentencing and requires the Attorney General to submit a report on how cost savings from these changes will be used to further reduce prison overcrowding and invest in prevention, intervention, and improved law enforcement.
With federal prisons currently operating at between 35 and 40 percent above their rated capacity, there is no question our federal sentencing system needs reform. I have long had serious concerns about the increased use of mandatory minimum sentences, particularly for non-violent first time drug offences. I have met with many judges who felt sentences they were required to hand down were excessive, but were unable to apply any discretion to the sentences because of mandatory minimum laws. The effects of such sentences from these failed policies are making hardened criminals out of non-violent offenders.
In place of mandatory minimums I support reinstating federal parole, among other policy options. I am also interested in alternatives to incarceration where appropriate. For example, I have always supported funding for drug treatment courts. Drug courts play an important role in breaking the cycle between drug abuse and crime. They combine substance abuse treatment, mandatory drug testing, sanctions and incentives, and transitional services to help substance-abusing offenders get back on their feet and prepare for re-entry into the community. These services are not only critical for past abusers by helping individuals become self-sufficient and contributing members of society, but drug courts also help build safer communities. Additionally, as a County Commissioner I fought hard to establish a work camp that served as an alternative to incarceration. I believe that it would be worthwhile to look into similar alternatives on a federal level.
Thanks again for contacting me. You can be sure I will continue to fight for long overdue reforms to our criminal justice system. Please keep in touch.
Sincerely,
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE PETER DeFAZIO
Fourth Congressional District, Oregon
by Melissa Bee | Oct 24, 2016 | From the Staff
Inmate Fundraiser Update:
We have seven days to make a payment of $750.00 to our dream web-design team. Prisoners, whose average earnings are $35 a month, have donated $350 in a single week.
After we unexpectedly lost funding for our new website, inmates rallied to help.
“I discovered a nonprofit promoting the dream of every man and woman incarcerated: for people in society to see our continuing human value — despite the mistakes we have made.”
The words above are from a speech delivered by a Washington inmate, kicking off their fundraiser to benefit Adopt an Inmate.
♥
In addition to the inside fundraisers, we continue to receive encouraging letters from inmates – thanking us for our work and donating what little they have, so that more inmates can be helped.
We have seven days to make a payment of $750.00 to our dream web-design team. Prisoners, whose average earnings are $35 a month, have donated $350 in a single week.
Can you match the generosity of a prisoner?
Seven days left, every single dollar helps.
♥
AI is a registered domestic non-profit, all donations are tax-deductible. Please share with anyone interested in criminal justice reform.
by Melissa Bee | Oct 11, 2016 | From the Staff, News
There’s good news and bad news …
Many of you are aware of our website re-design which is underway. We were lucky enough to find a talented design team that is both excited about the project, and supportive of our cause – so much so that they have adopted an inmate.
On the verge of the relaunch, our funding fell through. Our designers have honored their end of the contract, and we need your help to get them paid.
Upon learning of our predicament, some of the inmates have rallied and are sending personal donations and organizing fundraisers on the inside to help us get our vendor paid for their outstanding work, so we can move ahead with the project, and avoid late fees.
The Inside Campaign
Our friend, we’ll call him Joseph, is a Tier Representative in Washington’s Monroe Correctional Center who believes in the mission and spirit of our organization. He and his fellow inmates have chosen Adopt an Inmate as the recipient of their in-house fundraisers for the next three months. Their campaign will kick off today, with a speech and a challenge delivered by Joseph to donate a portion of their own monthly pay (an average of $35 per month) over the next three months. Joseph is starting off their campaign with a personal donation of $200.00!
We have a short time to raise $3,000. Please help by matching the goodwill and efforts of the Washington inmates. Completion of the website project will ensure that more volunteers are reached, and ultimately more forgotten people will have support from the outside.
Can you donate more than a guy who makes $35 a month at his prison job?
AI is a registered domestic non-profit, all donations are tax-deductible. Please share with anyone interested in criminal justice reform.
by Melissa Bee | Oct 3, 2016 | From the Staff
Click on the image to open the PDF. Enter your email in the sidebar to the right and receive each new issue in your email.
This publication was created for you – family members, friends, and advocates of prisoners. In each issue you will find useful resources for and from inmates; artwork, stories, and recommendations from both adopters and adoptees; and news from the staff. Don’t forget to print and send a copy to your inmate loved one. We welcome your feedback and comments.
by Michael Henderson | Sep 30, 2016 | book review, Inmate Contributors
It’s not very often I can say that I’m sorry I missed the contemporaneous contributions to humanity by any particular human being. The recent passing of Elie Wiesel has left me feeling that loss.
The vivid portrayal of Mr. Wiesel’s Second World War atrocities were nothing less than shocking and left me with an urgent need to know more about the boy who survived some of the most inhumane conditions ever perpetrated by man, and the man who endured and grew from those conditions.
Much of the treatment meted from the German SS was, I am sure with good reason, not described in Night. Nonetheless, Elie Wiesel is an author I plan on learning more from — even posthumously.
This edition was translated by the person who knew him best — his loving wife — who lost nothing in translation. I was moved for the entire Jewish populous for their ordeal, but I felt uniquely helpless for the author who found the strength to re-live his pain in order to heal the world.
With intense, gripping narrative, I was unable to put the book down until I was overcome by the need to sleep. But sleep doesn’t come easy with the realization of what humans are capable of doing to each other, and how hard Elie Wiesel worked, through his writings, to change the world — his and ours.
5 stars and I’m looking for more.
Michael Henderson, FL
by Martin Lockett | Sep 28, 2016 | book review, Inmate Contributors
What a book! This indepth, candid memoir depicts a prominent man’s epic fall from being a young hot shot politician with a sky’s-the-limit career staring him in the face to a convicted felon serving hard time in a federal prison among some of society’s most degenerate criminals. And yet, this 5′ 2″ suburbanite with a Ph.D was able to not only successfully conform and navigate his new survival-driven surroundings, but also thrive in numerous ways while coming away with a wealth of knowledge that has spurred his efforts to reform the criminal justice system from, once again, a position of prominence and privilege.
It’s not everyday that a politician is convicted of a campaign indiscretion (well, an illegal act in terms of campaign laws) and sent to federal prison, but Smith acknowledges and admits fault for his poor judgement, despite the fact that most who commit such crimes do so routinely and with impunity. He does not dwell on this fact, however, but instead chooses to focus on how he can best utilize his time — and that he does.
In his book, Smith takes his readers through a vivid depiction of prison life by narrating many personal anecdotes of his prison experience, relationships, and the peculiar dynamics that characterize prison life. He provides succinct translations of all institution jargon that he uses throughout the book for his readers’ comprehension, giving the full effect of his experience. We learn about his awkward adjustments to certain situations that could potentially get someone beat up or even killed, his run-ins with Aryan Brotherhood members who detested his association with black inmates, and his resourcefulness in using his superb athletic prowess to make friends while simultaneously building alliances. But this book is so much more than a memoir of intriguing tales of prison exploits and riveting episodes of survival among career criminals — so much more.
Former State Senator Smith was astonished to discover the plethora of untapped human talent locked away in state and federal prisons while he served time for a year. He began to draw the many connections between the prison population and the political world: both require a fierce tenacity in order to gain an advantage over others; both demand assertiveness and attentiveness to details in a world where complacency can be one’s literal or figurative demise. But even more than that, says Smith, there lies a mountain of human potential in the drug dealers who possess inherent, extraordinary entrepreneurial attributes, the embezzler who has superb accountant skills, and the con artist who is charismatic and possesses the gift of gab better than most. The issue, however, is the illegal ways they have used their gifts.
Smith advocates for rehabilitative mechanisms to be implemented in the criminal justice system that would not only educate and transform these men into productive members of society, using their gifts for the benefit of us all, but also demonstrates how investments in such resources would save the American taxpayers billions of dollars over time. He cites many studies that substantiate his claim, bolstering the legitimacy of his proposed solutions and causing the average, rationally-minded reader (regardless of where ones stands ideologically or politically) to think critically about the issue of mass incarceration and our philosophy as a nation on the criminal justice system.
This man’s tumultuous, unlikely journey is a compilation of entertaining stories of how anyone who didn’t grow up in a criminal environment might successfully adjust to the violent, predator-prey, perpetually volatile prison setting they are thrust into. It is also a very insightful, thoughtful manifesto of what is glaringly wrong with our current prison (and political) system and how it can begin to be rectified, benefiting all of America at the same time. Mr. Smith Goes to Prison is one of my favorite books this year, and I am confident it will be one of yours. Give it a read — you won’t be sorry you did.
by Melissa Bee | Aug 29, 2016 | News
Spotted in today’s Newsday: my letter to the editor about prison reform. While some of my words were eclipsed or altered, I’m grateful for being given the space to share the importance of treating all people as human beings and worthy of respect, support, and understanding.
Sending love to Adopt an Inmate, especially founder Melissa, for inspiring change, educating me, and offering your continued support.
