Day 87: Two Days and a Wake-Up

Sorry for the lag, dear readers. Brenda and I have been frantically preparing for my next phase of incarceration: House Arrest. Anything remotely resembling contraband had to be boxed up and removed, and a place prepared for the base unit of my "Shock Collar". I call it that because the concept of the thing is just like the one my dog has, except his is to protect him from the big bad world (instead of protecting the big bad world from criminals like me), and he can actually use the entire yard.

These last two weeks are dragging, dragging, dragging! House Arrest is going to be miserable, but at least I will have a climate controlled, clean place to live, and a kitchen to cook in (instead of a bathroom). But it can not come soon enough.

For the last three months Brenda and I have been trying to figure out the right way to calculate how many days I have left. I never count today, nor do I want to count the last day, as I leave the prison at 7:15AM. When you count down the days until Christmas, you don't count Christmas Day, right?

Well a fellow inmate agrees, and like everything else, there is appropriate lingo: The Wake Up is the day you get out. Today is Tuesday, so I have two full days, and then Friday I get out: I have two days and A Wake Up left in prison!

I've been taking out my books the last couple of days. Today, I left carrying Theodor Adorno's lectures on History and Freedom and another inmate asked about it.

"You read much philosophy?", he asked.

"Some, but not as much as I'd like."

"I have the Nieztsche reader downstairs, and I found some Engels that I am going to read next."

Awesome. We had a short conversation about the similarities between rejecting Liberalism and rejecting Metaphysics before I left for work. Too bad I didn't run into this guy earlier, maybe we could have started a Prison Philosophy Club.

Day 75: Don't You (Forget About Me)

One of the things I and a couple of friends I've made often talk about in prison is: will any of us acknowledge another prisoner if we meet some time later, on the street?

Because there is a mix of all types here. A few other professionals. A couple homeless drug addicts. Some wayward teenagers. Guys who work in construction, guys who own their own small businesses. People in food service and health care. Some Black guys with gang affiliations, and some of their Latino rivals.

But on the block we are all the same and there is virtually no cliquishness. I am even addressing some Latino guys as "tu", instead of "usted", and am amusing myself with this just like Larry David did.

So last evening I was explaining this to Brenda, hoping she found it as amusing as I did. Such a band of misfits, nothing in common, but everything in common.

She replied, "So you are saying prison is like The Breakfast Club?"

Bravo!

Day 72: All About the Benjamins

This weekend there was quite a flurry of activity on the block. One inmate noticed that money was taken from his paycheck for his Fines & Costs but his Fine & Costs balance did not go down.

Recall, it works like this:

1. The inmate's full paycheck is sent to the prison directly. Or in the case of employer direct deposit, the inmate brings his pay stub and a cashier's check for the net pay amount.
   
2. The prison deducts 20% of the paycheck, no less than $50, no more than $204, per week since last pay.
   
3. The prison deducts $3 per week for drug tests which are never performed.
   
4. The prison deducts 50% of the remaining amount and allegedly credits it to the inmate's Fines & Costs balance.
   

This accounting is done only once per week. After it is done, the inmate receives back the pay stub and a small slip of paper indicating itemized deductions. It also shows the new Fines & Costs balance.

As the news spread about this one inmate's error, more people checked their statements. At least a dozen other inmates also have the problem: the 50% taken for the Fines & Costs has not been credited to the balance; i.e. since their last pay, the Fines & Costs amount has not changed, even though more money was taken off. Where did this money go?

I reviewed my statements in detail and while there are not large errors, the math is incorrect by a few dollars. Incomprehensibly, this must mean someone is doing it by hand and not checking their math. Or they are doing it on purpose and pocketing the cash. But the idea that there is no automatic error checking amongst the Fines & Costs balance, the pay check deduction system, and the system that prints the balance sheets for prisoners, is absolutely incredible. Can't the prison afford a copy of Excel?!?!?!?

I am not sure what is going to happen. A call to the County Treasurer would be considered a "personal call" and punished as a misconduct, with up to 90 more days spent in prison. I intend to submit a request form asking to see an itemized list of all my fines and costs on County Treasurer's letterhead (instead of the prison's) so I can compare it to what they have been taking and reporting as my balance. Or, I may just ask for permission to call the Treasurer directly. I see no reason they should not grant this, unless rather than incompetence, the prison is literally stealing from inmates.

Day 68: The Bibliography

You may have noticed that I added a Bibliography section to this blog. Part of this is admittedly hubris - of course the world cares what I am reading while doing time! snicker

Really, it is to help me remember, forever, the details of the experience. A list of what I chose to read, turns into a list of materials for the collage of my state-of-mind during this whole debacle.

I am trying to balance the page turning thrillers, by far the most popular books with prisoners, with classics, and non-fiction works to supplement some of my current interests. The most recent addition - and the one I am currently reading, is Hyman Minsky's John Maynard Keynes. The timely reprint is quite apropos in the middle of the current credit crisis.

It seems like every decade or two we have to go through one of these crises for people to start caring about the economy. The '87 Crash, Savings and Loan Scandal, Long Term Capital Management, Asian Crisis, Tech Bubble, and now a Subprime meltdown precipitating a worldwide credit crunch.

Those are just in my lifetime and memory, but the message is clear. People will exploit any power which they feel they can wield without accountability. In prison, the administrators and guards ruthlessly enforce rules which serve no purpose other than to dehumanize.

Similarly, the ruling class privatizes their profits and socializes their losses, the ultimate act of financial power without accountability. Hence, we have a gigantic gift to JP Morgan Chase (Bear Stearns at below-market prices, courtesy of the US taxpayers).

Which brings me back to Minsky, whose enhancements to Keynes's General Theory is a crystal clear insight into why we continue to have these crises. I am smitten with his analysis - but now even his solution is starting to sound better and better - socialized investment.

Day 64: Chi Chi

I've mentioned this topic before, but it is so important that it deserves an entire post.

The prison administrators are petty low-level bureaucrats who enjoy cruelty and showcasing their power. The COs are abusive and seem to suffer from varying degrees of antisocial personality disorders.

It is hot, humid, and filthy. Basic sanitation is not practiced. You can not purchase your own paper towels or tissues. Toilet paper is the only general purpose paper product. Somehow they have managed to insert large chunks of wood into paper thin sheets of toilet paper, so it is unpleasant to use for its main task.

We are forced to purchase expired and limited products from an overpriced commissary provider.

One wrong look and our jobs and livelihood can be taken away.

Yet none of that - NONE - is as bad as the food.

The meals are served on brown plastic trays. It smells grotesque and looks even worse. A plate of vomit? The remains of 3 day old salad removed from a garbage bin? Hair and insects? Ground mystery meats? Yes, yes, oh yes!

Very few prisoners eat their entire meals. A small minority are fortunate like me, and are able to eat while we are out at work. I get my tray though - I am, after all, paying for it twice (taxes and my boarding charge) - and give it away to anyone who wants it. The unfortunate other minority have no money and no job and no choice but to eat the slop.

The government does mandate a range of calories for the meals, but it is obvious the service provider is meeting these requirements by slapping butter and other fattening condiments (mayo, ketchup) on to trays. It also explains why every meal is served with a large piece of chocolate cake or a large danish.

So most prisoners receive the bulk of their calories through items bought from the store. Which is, of course, all highly processed, instant junk food. Not just candy bars, but instant rice and beans, instant ramen noodles, instant beef stews, and processed meats and cheese-like products.

At first I was really surprised that a lot of the guys in here are putting on weight. And I mean serious weight - some have clearly gained 25 pounds in the two months I have watched them. But once I realized what most people were eating, it became obvious.

The culprit is something called Chi-Chi. Chi-Chi is a generic term for prison cuisine made by prisoners in their bathrooms and cells. Since the food that is provided is not just awful, but bland and awful, prisoners search for flavor in bizarre ways.

Chi-Chi starts with some kind of base. Since we have a lot of Latinos per capita, rice and beans is a popular choice. Then pepperoni sticks or jerky are broken into tiny bits and mixed in. Spiciness is achieved by crushing up Doritos or some other kind of zesty chip and stirring it into the concoction. Given the ingredients, a single-serving bowl of Chi-Chi is easily 1500 calories, and some guys eat 3 or 4 bowls a day.

If you Google Chi-Chi, you do not get many relevant results. I was able to locate one article which mentions it in the correct context.

Day 62: House Arrest

Now that I am in the final month, I was able to meet with the County Probation Office, which is what handles the House Arrest process. I and three other prisoners met with a young guy from the office who [literally] read the rules to us.

Most of it was what I expected. No guns; no booze; you must notify your P.O. of your work schedule. You are permitted to go to the grocery store and doctors in addition to work, but not permitted to mow your lawn. You are required to comply with all Federal, State, and Local laws, although I am not sure how you are supposed to comply with weed-height ordinances if you aren't allowed to do yard work. Maybe city hall is bending to the powerful Lawn-Care Services lobby.

Oh, of course you are permitted to go to church, but not any other sort of hobby meeting.

I was able to slip in a question about the manufacturer of the monitoring devices while the guy was explaining how it worked. Based on his description, I believe I will be using the BI 9000 Series. Their company site is worth a look; it definitely is more polished than some of the other companies involved in the big business of imprisonment. On at least one of the product data sheets they refer to the people forced to wear these devices as "customers". One almost can imagine these people are marketing GPS location devices for luxury cars.

So the unit will be connected to a traditional landline - VOIP over DSL or cable Internet will not work. The P.O. will login to the BI website and create a schedule for me. Regularly, BI Inc's computers will dial into my device and download the log of when I cross the perimeter, comparing it to my schedule. I would expect it permits a certain amount of flexibility - I can not imagine P.O.s want to be notified every time I leave for work one minute late - and registers exceptions which it then reports to the P.O..

The perimeter is established by making me stand at each corner of my house and then configuring the device. While it is possible that the devices have a GPS receiver, based on the monthly price I will be paying, and the description of the hardware, the ones we will use appear to be a simple RF transmitter (ankle) and receiver (base unit). This means it probably only recognizes distance based on the time it takes for the signal to reach the base. Without two other units, it will not know location, so if I place the base unit strategically, I should be able to do some simple geometry and identify the true border and gain access to my back porch.

Most of that is deduction based on what I know and what info I can glean from publicly available information. But it is probably right.

Other, more interesting, opportunities for exploit are possible. If the device were extremely sophisticated, it might use public key cryptography to ensure the base can verify the anklet is the right anklet, but not visible to someone snooping the transmission. Although it probably just broadcasts an ID signal using spread spectrum, which is probably good enough to prevent the average electronic hobbyist from emulating the broadcast. If this sentence was for more than 90 days, I might build a spread-spectrum receiver and see if I could capture the signal and then emulate it.

But instead I will probably just end up playing a lot of XBox and PS3 (or the amount Brenda will tolerate).

Day 55: Gay Talk

Derick leaves soon. He made me a nice parting gift: a jailhouse calendar, hand written on a sheet from our tablet. This way, I can do what he did, and attach it to our (my) locker with toothpaste, and cross off each day.

He also told me an amusing story. Apparently when he and I arrived, some of Derick's friends asked if I was gay.

When I arrived I didn't display my masculinity by punching the first person I met, but on the other hand I was not exactly strutting around the Day Room in assless chaps, singing Judy Garland songs. So I was a little perplexed why I was setting off more than one prisoner's gaydar.

"Well, you talk different than everyone else in here, kinda funny, and that sounds gay," Derick explained.

"I do?"

"You use big words and shit, and to a lot of guys, that just sounds gay."

Wow, I never new.

"But I told them it is just 'cause you went to college."

Glad he cleared that up.

Or maybe it was my look of shock and confusion when I walked by the shower back at the beginning of my sentence, and I saw a grown man lathering up while wearing his briefs. I did do a double-take, but only because I haven't seen anything quite that strange since junior high gym.

Day 45: Gimme Some of That Old Time Religion!

We have a lot church in prison. And not just services, but propaganda hanging on the walls and in our library, and a very regular presence of proselytizers.

Bibles, pamphlets, and various novels from the Left Behind cult series are available for anyone to read. The last time I saw this large of a stack of Guideposts was on the back of my Grandmother's toilet. If this still is not enough religious literature for us prisoners, we can buy a copy of the Christian Bible for seven dollars. Muslims, however, must pay $13 for a Qur'an. I guess religious equality includes a premium charge.

Each Sunday evening has a church service - Christian, of course. There are also two Bible Study sessions each week. Aesthetically, all of this is incredibly revolting. These services are held in the Day Room, with music via boom-box and the make-shift congregation of ten led by the nasally, off-key jail house preacher. A far cry from the majesty of Notre Dame.

Obviously I do not attend these services, as jail and church top the list of most excruciatingly dull ways to spend time. Experiencing the combination would likely send me straight to a bed sheet noose. But recently a jail house preacher had taken one of the prisoners aside, away from the church service, and I overheard their conversation.

Derick is cynical of the prisoners who choose to participate. "If you are out there on the street, never in church but getting drunk and smoking crack, and then you come here and all of the sudden care about church - well, you are probably hiding something."

I am cynical too, but not about the people who choose to seek out help. Because that is what they are doing by attending these services, albeit in a very wrong-headed manner. The conversation I overheard was very blunt: the prisoner was here due to his moral failure at not avoiding Satan's temptation, and if he would only choose a righteous path in the future, he would never be back in jail.

I am angry at this message, because it absolves society of our collective responsibility for the sorry state many of these people must live: a life in poverty or a life as a member of the working-poor, in a country ravaged by a Government War against Drug Addicts, Users, and The Poor.

Moralizing and lecturing others is a luxury of the wealthy, fat, and happy. It would be far more helpful if this time was spent helping the prisoners who need it in their current life rather than their alleged afterlife. Instead of job programs, educational opportunities, health care, and child care, they get lectures on how their own personal moral failure is the only reason they are where they are.

I admire people who wish to help those less fortunate. But sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

Day 32: From Russia, With Love

You may notice that the day count advanced faster than real-time. This is because I am actually more into my sentence that I initially indicated, and plan to "catch up" as my release date approaches.

Politics to me is a sport, and I watch it and follow the players and their peculiarities the way American Football fans obsess over athletes' minutia. Even though I am on Work Release and get access to the Internet all day I have not been able to follow things as closely as I once did. Following the political and financial blogs and Indy media during the day; watching CNBC in the early AM and late PM (to know what the ruling class are thinking, of course); nightly fixes of The Daily Show and of course The Colbert Report - these were my bread and butter. Now I stay current with day-old New York Times and our local daily morning paper, when they can cover something beyond local high school sports. The horror, the horror!

One of my favorite journalists is Matt Taibbi, who is a celebrity of sort in the world of journalism (he makes appearances on Bill Maher's show and also on Stewart and Colbert, so it counts). I think I first read him in print copies of The Nation, and then AlterNet online. Through Taibbi, I found out about eXile.

So it is with sadness that I must share that the eXile is closing up shop. Being a Russo-phile of the "wore a CCCP shirt during my junior high punk days" sort, I will miss the eXile's irreverence and brutally honest analysis of the West. But thanks to the Internet, I can still read a lot of the great journalists who were what made the eXile so grand.

Ironically, people are going to hear a lot more about the eXile in the Western mainstream media now that it is dead. Which is too bad, because the Western media could have learned a lot from the eXile, if they could fit it in between being an uncritical supporter for the Bush administration's Iraq War run-up, getting to the bottom of flag-pin-gate during 2008 Democratic Presidential primary debates, and reminding us that Hillary Clinton has a vagina.

Farewell, eXile!

As I was googling for Russian coverage of the eXile's demise, I came across Sean's Russia Blog, which was pretty interesting. The most recent post covered web videos of David Harvey lectures. 13 two-hour episodes, which of course I don't have time to watch due to being in prison. Something else for the post-release to-do list!

Days 26-29: Screw You, MPAA!

There is one funny thing about prison which is actually kind of nice. We watch a lot of "guy movies", and many of them are new releases. Robbins brings them in, and we watch them on the Work Release DVD player. I am pretty sure he has a friend who downloads them via BitTorrent.

Legally, this is definitely in the murky grayness of trading "bootleg" or "pirated" videos, since many of the movies we've watched are still in the theaters. A Video Camera is placed in the projection room, with the complicity of theater-workers, and audio is dubbed from the stereo output used to broadcast on the low-power FM system for use by the hearing impaired. Prisoners certainly can't be choosers, so a lot of them are a welcome change from the homo-eroticism of a prison viewing of professional wrestling. I, sitting in prison, was able to see Prince Caspian before many friends had a chance to make the theater.

I cry no tear for you, the poor MPAA, and your alledged lost revenues. I am sorry to hear that the Internet is forcing you, like the RIAA, to adapt your prehistoric business model (or perish). How well did fighting the relentless march of technology work out for Carriage Makers at the turn of the 20th Century? Anyway, if you want me to pay for a movie, I will be more than happy to download a DRM-free video for $10 (my market price for a DRM-free audio album is $5, which I happily paid Radiohead). Theater-going, with screaming children, high ticket prices, disgusting restrooms, cell phones, over-priced food, and no rebates for crappy films, is out of the question. I'll can easily sit at home on my couch, than you very much, so price the movies for the market or stop whining about us using BitTorrent.

So the possible illegality (to date, the only legal precedents are related to file sharing, not downloading or viewing) of this doesn't really bother me. Stick it to the man, and all that.

But, considering the venue, Robbins could pick his movies more wisely. The problem is the horror genre that I like to call "torture porn".

We've watched two of them recently - Timber Falls and the insulting Rob Zombie remake, Halloween. These movies are not frightening - they are just disturbing, and well, gross. Mutilation and torture are common themes, to the point of literal interpretation: usually the bad guys tie up a woman and do all sorts of horrible things to her. Including, but not limited to, cutting, slashing, hitting, etc. And of course, rape. The latter movie I mentioned had a scene featuring the rape of a mentally ill girl. Young women identified as 15 year olds are featured prominently in nude sex scenes and then quickly cut and covered in blood.

I'm no prude, and I think the 1st Amendment is the Bee's Knees. But considering we have some people even in Work Release with Protection From Abuse orders against them, one guy with an assault charge, a few people who have had charges of making terroristic threats against their spouses or partners, and one rumored pedophile (where the victim was a cop pretending to be a teenage girl), maybe, just maybe, these films are not appropriate.

Days 24 & 25: PrisonCare

Only someone living under a rock, or the CEO of an Insurance Company, does not realize that health care in the USA is a serious mess. You can not turn around without coming across an article showing just how bad things are, like how it isn't just the uninsured struggling, but the growing numbers of under-insured.

So it is interesting that in prison we get some basic health care. It is outsourced and care is not completely free to the prisoners, but the rates are pretty reasonable. Each visit to the infirmary costs a small amount, about $3.00. This gets you a nurse who examines you and then decides if you need to see a doctor. If you do - then there are no additional charges. If the nurse decides you do not need a doctor, you can still insist on speaking to one - but for an additional $5.00. The theory is that by putting at least a marginal cost to this "free" service, prisoners will be discouraged from abusing it. That seems to be a reasonable fear, because the infirmary is comparatively clean, air-conditioned, and staffed with females.

I did some digging to see if I could find a copy of the prison's contract with the provider, but I could not. I did find some news reports of the contract though, which indicate that it is costing the County about $2000 per prisoner per year for full health care.

So, despite the claims of the far-right, it is possible to provide some basic affordable health care for all, even in a prison. The prison is a mini-socialist medical scheme, if you ignore the profit motive of the provider. The staff are all hired by the provider (government), and they deliver as much service as they can for a trivial fee ($3 and $5 visits). A market does not exist to set prices, so insisting to see a doctor to remove your appendix costs the same as insisting to see one for a mild cold.

The USA certainly would not be ready for such a scheme, much like the UK's, where most doctors work for the government. The natural first step, of course, would be mandated private insurance combined with price controls (like in Japan or Germany). But the USA needs to do more, first as a moral issue to take care of our less fortunate, but also to remain competitive (health care costs are one of the largest differences between the cost of producing a car in the USA vs. in Japan). The US Government as single-payer for health care costs is the right answer in the long-term, with optional private care available if one would like it (much like Canada).

So the PrisonCare model wouldn't be too bad, except they get a few things drastically wrong. First, I am sure HIPAA applies, so it would be nice if the nurses didn't wander around leaving an inmate's records open on the computer with other prisoners sitting nearby.

But most importantly prison needs to spend time and money on preventative care. If this means the moralizing county residents who insist that prisoners suffer while they are there, are overruled by a State or Federal authority, so be it. Climate control will go a long way to reducing the growth of bacteria, as well as reduce the number of prisoners being taken away due to heat exhaustion (our day room was near 100 degrees the other day). Public spaces, especially bathrooms, should be regularly inspected for cleanliness and receive regular maintenance. For example, one of the urinals in the Work Release area randomly overflows, spilling urine and water all over the floor of the bathroom, where many inmates are only wearing sandals on their feet. Some windows in cells do not open, reducing the amount of fresh air circulating through the prison.

The prisoners should be given an opportunity to get some basic exercise. Since free-weights are unacceptable, some cardiovascular exercise options would be perfect. What is served as food should follow USDA guidelines and the food pyramid, with whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables supplying the bulk of the calories instead of instant cakes and ground mystery meats and greasy sauces.

CA-MRSA is the biggest concern of the entire prison - the medical provider, the inmates, the COs, and the administration - but it does not seem like common sense is being applied. It certainly is not surprising that a largely sedentary prison population, living on a low-nutrition, high fat/sugar/cholesterol diet, confined to a small area where surfaces are dirtied by human waste, where humidity and temperatures both approach 100, contracts serious infections.

The only gap to be filled which would make it the perfect disease breeding ground is that we aren't sharing our quarters with both swine and fowl...

...yet.

Days 20-23: Maybe One Sigma?

The industry I work takes process improvement very seriously. We've adopted the Six Sigma methodology and apply it from basic widget production up through our business processes like widget supply chain management. Even "soft" processes like on-boarding new employees gets smacked with DMAIC methodology.

So one of the ways I amuse myself in prison is to map in my head some of the processes that could use some improvement. Well, which means, just about all of them.

The most wasteful and inefficient process I've seen is prisoner-to-cash. As I've mentioned before, I am required to bring in a certified check along with my direct deposit notification. Here is what happens after I hand it to the CO:

1. CO drops it in a locked check box.
2. Work Release Administrator takes the checks form the box and sends them to a different office (next business day).
3. The funds are split: first to the prison for their cut; second to the County for fines and costs; third to my prison account (next business day).
   
4. Statement updates are prepared by the outsourced Commissary and financial service provider (same day).
   
5. The statement is sent from the office to the Work Release Administrator (next business day).
   
6. The Work Release Administrator hands it to the on-duty CO (same day).
7. The CO distributes it back to the prisoner.

So the processing of cash is 3 days, when in the real world, this process would take about 2 seconds. But it gets better! Now I want to send my balance back out to Brenda, so I can use it to pay my bills:

1. I request a Check Request Form from the CO.
2. CO says he is out and will get some soon (repeat for approximately one week).
3. Fill out Check Request Form and return to CO, with addressed and stamped envelope.
4. CO sends to Work Release Administrator (next business day).
5. Administrator approves or denies request, and if approved, sends to office (next business day).
6. Office processes and issues check, mails in envelope (2-3 business days).
7. Envelope arrives (2-3 days).

Recall my offer to just write, up front, the prison a check for their full 90 day cut of my pay, and pay my fines in full? That was, of course, denied, as it is against the rules (as an aside, the reason something is against the rules in prison is because "that is the rule" - the answer I keep receiving when I ask why). So bottom line, the process from prisoner pay check to cash back in all parties' hands is about two and a half weeks.

The general request process follows the same model, with the required form processed at best in one day. But the blank forms frequently run out. Apparently the COs can not be trusted with access to a photocopier.

This pattern repeats itself in all aspects of prison life. There are the occasional modern innovations bolted on to the antiquarian paper-based processes, like an art student's junk yard sculpture. Commitment was completely paper based except for a brand-spanking-new LG Corporation retina scanner. Which, doubtless, was used to print something that was stapled to the other forms. Commissary orders are done using scantron sheets, but after they've been sorted and packaged by the service provider they are all dumped together into giant bins and then hand sorted again.

Prison is an excellent example of how a government-run operation can go horribly awry. I am not advocating prison privatization by any means, but our legislatures ought to require prisons to adopt some process improvement exercises and efficiencies which would benefit the prisoners.

Day 19: How to be Homeless

A reader commented privately that my posts of the last few days have been "whiney". Far be it from me to bring you, dear reader, down with tales of my prison woes. It is after all prison and like Jesus said, "when someone does something wrong, they must suffer." I guess Jesus did not say that but based on how all the people who name Jesus as their number one philosopher act, they sure think he meant it.

So some light-hearted fare on this fine Friday. In case you find yourself in a Work Release prison (as one of the other inmates observed, at the rate the prison population in the USA is growing, half of us are going to be guarding the other half before too long), this information may be useful to you.

Brenda and I have our routine down, and I mean down. I've stopped into the house a few times to get the mail, retrieve a few things, adjust the thermostat, etc. But I'm not living there: I haven't showered there, changed my clothes there, or even used my own bathroom (well, once - but still!).

But I am not really living at the prison either. As the weather has turned hotter and more humid, the smell has become awful. The cleanliness of the restrooms and showers that surprised me earlier as been replaced by the odor and discoloration of the bacteria that loves to fester where heat and humidity meet a high-density of men. As a result, I am not showering, or using the bathroom for you-know-what unless it is an emergency (the commissary doesn't sell quilted TP or bath wipes so to hell with that). I do that business at work!

So, Brenda and I are kind of living like how I would imagine a generous homeowner (Brenda) and her homeless ward (me) would live, if such a situation existed, and people actually gave a crap about the real homeless, which I am not trying to make light of.

I have my jail house clothes and my work clothes. I thought about trying to come up with some middle ground, something between business casual and formal jail house, but I really couldn't.

So at prison, in my smelly, rusted, ancient prison locker, I have a few pairs of tightey-whiteys (bought for prison - I'm a boxers kind of guy), some socks, a couple pairs of jeans, sneakers, and a collection of plain T-shirts. I did recently order some vacation attire, all linen, to wear there on Sundays to help handle the heat. So those are there too. Maybe I will burn those when this is over, or maybe I'll save them for the very expensive vacation to the very luxurious beach resort to which I damn well better take Brenda when this is all done.

Each morning I leave prison wearing the T-shirt and jeans I wore in the night before. When I get to work, I go to my locker and grab my real work clothes - the dry-clean-only stuff I certainly can't have in a jail - and my gym clothes, and then work out. At the gym at work I can use a private shower, a clean toilet, and a clean sink, before changing into my work clothes.

Brenda is driving my car, a "compact SAV", and in the back are laundry bags for darks and whites, and a basket of clean clothes. At lunch, I place the dirty jail and gym clothes into their respective laundry bags, and replenish my gym bag with clean ones. After work, I change out of my work clothes and back into my jail clothes. As the work clothes get dirty, I drop them off at our corporate dry-cleaner station.

All of the crap I traditionally carry in my pocket - chap stick, small knife, tissues, wallet, cell phone - is left in my briefcase at my desk. I leave each day with only my petty cash, bus pass, and badge.

Brenda also refreshes a supply of fresh fruit, granola bars, and vegetable snacks in the car every few days. I grab those on my way back from the gym (and freshly ground fair trade coffee, bless her sweet heart) and take them to my desk.

So, I am able to avoid the worst part of being in prison - feeling that it is my home. I am sure the bureaucrats would be enraged that I am doing this, but I am not violating the rules. I am not leaving work, and since Brenda works here too, she isn't visiting me.

Luckily at work I am considered a bit of an eccentric so wandering into the back door of my building in jeans and a T-shirt, keeping a dozen work shirts and pants in my locker, and leaving each day in a similar T-shirt and jeans outfit, has only elicited one or two humorous questions, which I easily deflect.

So, there you have it. How To Go To Prison But Not Look Or Smell Like You Are Living In One.

Days 17 & 18: Breakin' The Law

Yesterday I had the pleasure of a scolding. Two days ago, on Day 16, on the advice of counsel, I placed a call to an office number regarding some bureaucratic requirement that was part of my sentence. Some sort of appointment for a meeting, ordered by the judge, with the phone number handed to me by counsel. Innocent, right?

I could not have been more wrong. The petty-clerk at this office phoned me back in a fit of rage.

"You aren't supposed to be making personal phone calls, are you!?!?!?!?"

"Well, I was told I could call the office about my sentence, which is what I did, under advice from counsel, but that is a true statement - 'no personal calls'. But anyway, what can I do for you?"

The notion that I could classify calls in all sorts of ways - personal, business, legal, emergency - was foreign to the enraged civil servant, whose simple mind seems comfortable in a black and white world of personal and non-personal calls. "Well you aren't supposed to talk to anyone but Jim! We'll call you for obligations so never call here again", he screamed before slamming down the phone.

For sport, I follow national politics. I dabble in some minimum knowledge about our state. But the county's bureaucratic organization is not clear to me (they don't give you an Org Chart in the Welcome to Jail Kit). Unfortunately I had upset the natural balance of things. I had bypassed Jim's authority by contacting someone above him and I was going to learn why that was bad. The hard way.

What occurred then, I did not learn until later. Mr. Furious Petty Clerk apparently called Jim, enraged that one of "Jim's guys" was contacting his holiness directly, rather than through Jim. He most likely reprimanded Jim for not minding his house. Jim became furious with me. Rather than simply picking up his phone and calling me, he crossed my name off the Blue Sheet and planned to keep me in prison that day (with no warning), and meet with me.

But that night, safely back in prison, watching TV in the 85 degree, humid day room, I decided to go to my cell early and call it a day. I missed the Blue Sheet, which was actually a blessing in disguise (since I didn't lie awake all night worrying about what the hell was wrong) and only learned I had been removed the next morning.

I had a lot of work planned for Day 17: out of town visitors, a working lunch, and a brainstorming session to lead. I scrambled to come up with workarounds, operating the jail house pay phone like a movie computer hacker, bouncing through our corporate voice mail system to leave messages in the appropriate mailboxes, asking others to cover for me in light of my ambiguous "crisis at home from which I can not get away." Brenda dove in and helped, fronting the costs for the lunch I had planned to buy my work comrades. I still had no idea why I was being kept at work, but the morning CO was nice enough to check Jim's schedule to ensure I would talk to him that day.

I kept making calls all morning - the prison's cut of the pay phone revenue probably covered a month's room and board - to the food delivery service, back to Brenda, then back into the voice mail system. My crisis was averted for work, but only due to the efforts of Brenda and my unknowing cohorts. The burden of missing a day of work is put upon the shoulders of others, not me. Unfair, of course, but prison is not about justice - it is about power, cruelty and suffering.

I finally saw Jim in the early afternoon. I had come prepared, with my entire prison folder, assuming I was meeting regarding my follow-on court-ordered probation.

"Why did you bring papers," he asked.

"I was not sure what you wanted to talk about so I wanted to be prepared."

"We're talking about your personal phone call, and you don't need any of that."

Jim, like the other petty civil servant, sees a black and white world. I tried to explain that this was an innocent mistake, I was following counsel's advice, and that a call regarding my sentence is not a personal phone call.

"You are only supposed to be making work calls, so yes it is," Jim countered, while fetching the 1990 rulebook from his piles of coffee and cigar-stained papers, plopping it in front of my face. The rulebook states not to make personal calls, but not 'do not make non-business calls, including calls about your case, even under advice of counsel, to comply with orders by a judge'. I see a distinction between those two things. I, however, am alone.

It was clear that this was not a time to teach Jim some basic philosophy of logic - that it could be simultaneously true that "all personal phone calls are non-business", and also, "not all non-business phone calls are personal" - if you entertain more than one classification set to the superset "phone calls".

My friends and family might say I am a stubborn mule, prone to arguing, always wanting to be right. True perhaps, but only when I get to play by the rules of logic, reason, and can appeal to the subtleties of the English language. This was not one of those cases.

So Jim went through 20 minutes of berating attacks, lecturing about how I am supposed to be kicked out of Work Release and have 90 days added to my sentence, and I replied with 20 minutes of apologies and appeals to mercy. It wasn't difficult to realize that Jim had been reprimanded himself - he became adamantly defensive when I apologized for "causing any trouble for him". He was making himself feel better by castigating me.

It is hard for me to explain how foreign this world is to me. For all its imperfections, the corporate world is a fairly polite and easy one to navigate. Generally, if you are pleasant, the people you work with are also pleasant. Those that are not pleasant, are usually fired. [I always wondered what happened to people who would get fired for disrespectful, unprofessional conduct. Some of them must find natural homes in the criminal justice bureaucracy.]

I can only contrast this to how I handle an issue when someone working for me makes a mistake - perhaps through haste, carelessness, or inattentiveness - but a mistake, not a malicious act. I explain the situation, explain we are going to work through it together, and then offer to help in any way to ensure it doesn't happen again. Documentation? Training? A mentor? Whatever we need to all feel comfortable for the future. Since everyone is trying to do their best, there's no reason to belittle someone for an error.

But in prison, that is not how things work. Imagine if in that example above, I instead threatened them to be fired, to have their life ruined, thrown out of their home, their children possibly taken, etc. I offered them no hope that they could recover from this mistake, that all was lost, and that there was no excuse for their error or misunderstanding. "The rules are the rules" I would repeat, and then quote them the punishment. I would go on like that for 20 minutes, watching them as they sit, let them practically beg for mercy, ask not to have those awful things happen.

Well, that is exactly how prison handles mistakes. If they revise the prison rulebook, they ought to include chapter headings. One could be "There Are No Mistakes in Prison, There Are Only Violations and Punishments."

Granted, I was emotionally fine during my meeting with Jim, but I can imagine this psychological abuse would get to many people. I played my role, throwing myself upon his mercy. Jim asked me what punishment I thought appropriate for my rule violation. Oh, how sweet to say "here's a thought - stop wasting my time with this stupid bullshit, douchebag", but I completed the role-playing without incident. Instead, I offered this gem: "I can't sit here and ask you for special treatment, or for the rules not to apply to me, I can only ask that you consider that I am not trying to be a troublemaker and then use your judgment as you see fit."

"We'll call today your penalty, but don't do it again."

Day 16: Life Lessons

Prison has to be one of the most primal displays of patriarchal hierarchy found on the planet. As a transitional step for prisoners from the normal blocks before they re-enter the community, Work Release is a profoundly disastrous environment.

I am not so naïve as to believe that among some tiny minority of prisoners, the violent psychopaths, a brutal display of authority, without mercy or accountability, is perhaps the only way to keep order. Those prisoners might expect minimal civility from their captors.

But likewise, in a minimum security area, shouldn't the prisoners expect, if not maximum civility, a certain modicum of civility? For, there is none. Based on the shared experiences and anecdotes of some of the prisoners who have been to the other blocks, the guards all act alike no matter where they are assigned (to wit, guards frequently work different blocks). This may explain why the prison-wide announcement system routinely calls in a "Code 13" - CO being attacked - or a "Code 26" - two COs being attacked. Everyone has a breaking point for how much psychological abuse they can withstand.

It is very easy to assume that COs and prison administrators only behave in this barbarous manner when they are at work, and they do so only because the prison culture requires it to ensure the safety of both they and the prisoners.

However this assumption breaks down when considering Work Release. The assumption is therefore generally suspect.

What lessons are the prison CO and administrators teaching by example before sending prisoners back into communities?

• Power is absolute, never to be questioned.
• He who has power can wield it arbitrarily, without accountability.
• The ambiguous nature of some rules and contracts is no excuse for an alleged violation, if he who has power decides there was a violation.
• Polite speech ("yes sir", "no sir", "please", "thank you", etc.) , greetings, and salutations are a sign of submission and will never be used or acknowledged by one who has power.
• The primary way to get someone to change their behavior is to publicly raise one's voice at them in anger. This is most effective if he who has power says things intended to humiliate him.
• If raising one's voice does not work, then violence should be threatened.
• Kindness (e.g., offering to help someone) and honesty (e.g., turning over found money to the CO) are signs of weakness, to be derided by those in power.
• A request for assistance or a question may be treated as an appropriate act of submission, and addressed in the manner of a benevolent despot. Alternatively, the same request or question may be treated as an annoyance or rule violation.
  

The average age of the Work Release block is young - probably under 25 - and recidivism must be considered in the context of the lessons these young men are learning from the COs and staff.

It is also reasonable to conclude that the mental state of the COs has a direct impact on the frequency of domestic violence committed by them, if we draw an analogy from the 3 to 5 fold increase of such incidents in the military. Unfortunately, I was not able to find a reputable source for domestic violence incidents by occupation to test the theory (for law enforcement and corrections personnel, such data might be intentionally suppressed). As many of the COs and staff of the prison, parole, and probation systems seem to exhibit the symptoms of antisocial personality disorders, while the inmates are there mostly as a result of poverty and the lack of a functional social safety net, members of society are most at risk by the people who claim to be protecting it.

Days 13-15: Ritual Cleansing

During college my foray into Anthropology led me to a class focused on the various indigenous cultures of Melanesia. Melanesia, or Papua New Guinea, offered 20th Century ethnographers a chance to observe cultures which may have been only mildly influenced by Westerners; and due to the terrain, each other.

The Trobriand Islanders were studied for their practices around sex, marriage, and family life. Ritual Washing was a common practice, accompanied by appropriate use of oils, garments, and of course, magical spells. Returning each day from "the street", I feel like a Trobriander being purified by ritual.

Each CO has his own manner of searching anyone returning from the street. Only a few will actually do a strip search, including the charming "squat and cough twice" command, but even they only go to that extent occasionally. The more regular a guard is, the more regular and simplified the search will be.

Pockets are usually checked for contraband. It is an equal chance that they will search shoes or a folded jacket, as they may simply ignore both. Each CO seems to have his own particular pet search spot: one is obsessed with socks (like a puppy) and will ask you to pull them down, then yank them up; another, belt loops and pant cuffs.

No CO has ever compared what I am wearing or bringing in with what is listed in the logbook of approved articles. I have smuggled in, in plain sight, a rain jacket and a watch, purchased at a drug store. I always bring in the petty cash that I am supposed to get via a request form and deduction from my prison account.

But all of these things appear to be legitimate, so they are ignored. At this point I've clearly identified a system and it would be trivial to actually smuggle contraband, if I choose to (but I have no intention to). I would imagine many of my fellow inmates are smuggling in at least tobacco, if not more.

Day 12: The Ant Farm

In T.H. White's retelling of the Arthurian legend as an allegory in defense of liberalism, The Once and Future King, young Arthur asks Merlin to change him into an ant and place him near an ant colony.

The Wart, as the young Arthur is known, encounters a world of confusing and illogical language used by ants who live in an insane authoritarian society. A sign at the entrance to the ant colony reads "EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY".

Almost four decades later Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea lift that phrase for their anarchist mind-trip, the Illuminatus! Trilogy, to describe liberalism driven to its extreme conclusion: everything not forbidden is compulsory, and everything not compulsory is forbidden.

If that is the theory, prison is the praxis. Two walls in our day room are completely covered in bulletins and many of them contradict one another. They are an English teacher's nightmare, littered with extraneous apostrophes and commas, and gratuitous misuse of homophones. The bulletins may describe compulsory procedures, optional requests, as well as things deemed forbidden. The only thing consistent about these postings is that they are always surrounded by at least one bulletin contradicting the original, and one offering up the same notice but in a context which negates both the original and the contradiction.

Many of the postings are notices which announce ambiguous changes to policy. My favorite is one announcing the availability of $.01 stamps to add to stamped-envelopes which had been purchased earlier. Near the bottom of the notice an available purchase date is listed. But for how long are they available?

"1 cent stamps are only available for at leased[sic] two weeks."

Day 11: Prison, Inc.

The PA system sprang to life today at 4:00AM. Our orders from the commissary were here and we were being called down to retrieve them.

The prison store is outsourced, like so many of the essential services. The company buys generic and/or expired versions of products and sells them at above what the retail price would be (if they were real and non-expired). Nothing creates a high margin like a [literally!] captive customer base, so the store service provider doesn't have to bother matching prices with, say, Wal-Mart. As you can see on their site, their core business is imprisonment. Please peruse the site, as the cartoon animal characters in alternating guard/convict garb are quite entertaining (Penitentiary Penguin is definitely my favorite). I think they are missing a big opportunity by not selling these as stuffed animals so inmates can give them to their children on visiting day.

Some of the incidentals have exclusive contracts so you have no choice in what to buy, like this gem of a toothbrush.

The prison food is managed by a different service provider. As bad as the prison store is, the food service provider makes the store look like a Bloomingdale's. I've already mentioned the feet-flavor to some items, which is really nice, but not as nice as the various goos served on different days, usually with breakfast. Today happens to be yellow-goo day; there's a white-goo day and a gray-goo day, too. The food-services company was acquired by a Private Equity group so it is no longer publicly traded, but they did over $10B in sales in 2006 (what remained in the public record indicated prisons weren't their exclusive business).

Lastly, the health care is also outsourced. Millions of working Americans are without adequate care, but we get it in prison (most people - including prisoners - ought to have adequate care). This company is also privately-owned and regional, so I am not going to disclose many details.

It is too bad all of the companies involved in the business of imprisonment are privately owned; I can't imagine a more certain profitable investment than a balanced mutual fund of prison businesses. With the USA having the highest per capita rate of imprisonment in the world, it is safe to be Long on tyranny and suffering.

Day 10: Going Green with the Blue Sheet

Today was my first day using the bus. My workplace conveniently lies along one of the major transportation arteries but this was my first time using the public transit in my town. Like many higher income white Americans, I never really thought much about the bus, other than that it was for people who for some reason or another didn't own or couldn't afford a car.

The ride was very pleasant and I've convinced myself I might as well feel the same sort of pretension found amongst many hybrid-auto owners. Who cares that I am riding the bus due to being a criminal instead of some sort of progressive green political consciousness? Think globally, commit crime locally!

When I returned Robbins had a scowl on his face. Apparently, I was late according to the CO's schedule. Luckily, I still had my approved request form (secured in the Welcome To Jail Kit) and showed him that whoever added my schedule to their logbook must have misread.

"It is OK this time, Presario," said Robbins, "but this is why you need to come to the office when we call Blue Sheet each night." I had heard that announced through the garbled speaker but had no idea what it was. Prison creates a self-doubt and submission that is hard to explain; when I did not know what "Blue Sheet" was I did not ask for fear of irritating the COs with my ignorance.

"Blue Sheet" is actually the book containing everyone's work schedules on the block. Anyone who expects to work the next day is supposed to check their schedule each evening, after the CO calls Blue Sheet.

Instead of calling this the "Work Schedule", it is called "Blue Sheet", naturally because the paper happens to be blue.

I do not believe this cognitive dissonance - obligation to follow rules and procedures but no communication regarding them - is unintentional.

Days 8 & 9: The Art of Requests

Last week I had submitted a request form to the Work Release office. Up until now, my schedule had been pretty rough: Brenda was picking me up too early for her work day, but too late to give her time to drop me off and then use her gym before work. The end of the day was too early for her to have time to run an errand or use the gym before taking me back, but later than her normal time to leave work. It was an incredible burden on her, so I asked to switch to the bus.

I proposed a bus schedule that would get me out of prison for more than 2 hours longer. I feared though that they would realize that this was quite a bit of extra time and force me to take a later bus out, an earlier bus in, or both.

I also requested to go to a work meeting in a neighboring County. This was clearly prohibited (no leaving the County - ever!) but I had hoped that this denial-distraction would help my bus request fly under their radar.

It seems that enforcing rules - denying people things, or scolding them for things - is one of the parts of the prison administration job that people seem to enjoy. I would not be surprised if prison workers receive a sexual thrill doing this job, similar to what is found in people who practice sadism.

If this theory is correct, then my plan worked because the bus was approved! Or maybe I am completely wrong and the bus schedule would have been approved regardless of my additional request. But I plan to keep us this charade, occasionally asking them for something innocent that they can deny. This should re-enforce their feeling of superiority over me, which I can then use to offset my real requests, which might otherwise challenge their position of authority.

Day 7: Commissary Order

Smoking is prohibited in the prison. But this was not always the case. "You used to be able to buy cigarettes from the Commissary", says Derick. "But now they don't sell them because of second hand smoke. I understand non-smokers have rights, but what about us smokers? Don't we have rights as Americans? Oh, right, we aren't in America when we are up in here."

Derick hands me the Commissary order sheet. It is a Scantron-type form, with little circles to fill out the numerals for item number and quantity. A single serving of Raisin Bran, number 65173. Two aspirin, number 32076.

I stock up on some toiletries and non-perishable food to eat on Sundays, the day I can not go out to work. I order a deluxe flexible shank-proof toothbrush, a bar of soap, toothbrush holder and soap case, and shampoo. For food I get 5 granola bars and 5 single servings of Raisin Bran. Also, a yellow tablet, two pens, and 4 two-pill packets of aspirin. Together, these items will cost me over $38.00. Brenda had dropped off a $50 Money Order so I have some spending money on my prison account until I get paid.

While I was sitting at our metal desk doing the Scantron my neighbor from across the hall stopped by. "Man, you have to make your bed, man," he scolded me. "Didn't your cellie show you what to do?"

Derick responded "I did but he don't listen."

Which was true. Derick tried to explain why his sheets stayed on the bed but I didn't really care. It is, after all prison.

"Look how nice mine looks," my neighbor said as he pointed across the hall. His cot actually looked like a made-bed with fitted sheets. "Have some pride while you are in here, Presario."

I felt compelled. I made my bed by tying together ends of the larger sheet around the bottom of my mattress.

Later, during evening Blockout I drop the Scantron form into the box labeled "Stores". Derick says we will get our orders on Thursday morning.

Day 6: Sanctity of the Commons

Back in Commitment, the cells were what most people imagine a jail cell to be like: the delightful toilet/sink combo (if you have to use it, it helps to pretend you are an astronaut), the electronic big metal sliding door with tiny plastic window, and the feeding slit. The Commitment cell walls are also covered in graffiti done using the pencil in the Welcome To Jail Kit:

• "I am So Over This Place"
• above followed by "Me 2", "Me 3", "Me 4",...,"Me 18"
• "Each Day Is a Challenge So Meet It Proud"
• "You Have One Day Less To Your Sentence Than Yesterday"

In a way, it is much like the Motivational Art one finds in corporate offices and conference rooms. I wonder why no one has started a line of inspirational prison art - it would be a welcome change from the health posters showing grotesque wounds ("if you have one of these on your arms please request to see a nurse..."). I am sure my prison would be all over it.

But here in Work Release the setting is much like a dormitory. The rooms are still jail cells, but the doors aren't locked except by the inmates. We have communal restrooms, but the stalls have no doors and there are of course no privacy shields separating the urinals. The showers are across the hall and similar to showers in a high school locker room.

I am not bothered by many things save for one: hygiene. I don't share the hypochondriac-like obsessions of some people here in the States - I don't carry hand sanitizer or refuse to touch any door handles - but I have little tolerance for public bathrooms that aren't clean, and people who go a week without showering and who think the best thing to do with a disease is to share it. So naturally the living conditions were worrying me the most.

As it turns out, everyone here is quite courteous with the restrooms. The people here are careful to leave the restroom as clean or cleaner than before they used it, which is unlike my corporate office, where notices have been posted to "put all paper towels in the trash bin instead of just throwing them on the floor", and "please flush toilets after use". In Work Release, unless someone is in a hurry, the communal shower is only used by one person at a time. In a place like this, privacy is a luxury and the men all seem to understand that you offer it to your comrades as often as possible.

Even back in Commitment, I was confused to see someone across the hall using his Welcome To Jail Kit spares (fatigues and small towels) to cover the feeding slit, the window, and the floor-to-door gap. I thought perhaps he was going to kill himself or something, but then quickly realized he is providing himself with as much privacy as possible to use the toilet. A courtesy also for his neighbors in nearby cells.

When we leave our rooms to get a meal or to use the restroom we are supposed to lock our doors, but most do not. The door is not difficult to unlock with your key, so this seems to be about establishing a bit of trust with your fellow inmates. A paranoid person who wouldn't even leave his room unlocked for 30 seconds would quickly stand out, and the single-most important thing about prison is not to draw attention to yourself.

Derick tells me "because we leave the door cracked and unlocked when we go get our chow, just make sure you don't leave nothing you care about laying out on the desk, someone may grab it, even on this block."

"Well," I reply, "it is not like I have much stuff in here anyway."

"Yeah" says Derick, "but when you don't got much, that's when what you have matters most."

Perhaps this is why do my co-workers show far less regard than prisoners for shared restrooms.

Day 5: From Race to Retirement

"I don't know what it is, but white people don't stick together in here", Derick tells me. He is referring to the way that when a new Latino or African-American comes onto the block, the other Latinos or African-Americans talk to them and make them feel welcome. A new white guy on the block is ignored.

I think to myself, well naturally because of the institutionalized racism in this country, some minorities have responded with a solidarity that seems foreign to us white people of privilege. But Derick isn't exactly looking very privileged now so I keep my thoughts to myself.

"Even the guards", he continues, "are like that. The Spanish guards treat the Spanish guys better, just like the black guards do. But white guards don't never cut a white dude a break. And the young white guards are all either scared to death of black guys or they are wiggers so they end up kissing their black asses."

In my corporate world of mandated sensitivity and diversity this kind of blunt talk is making me beyond uncomfortable, so I change the subject to the demeanor of various guards.

"Carpenter seems alright though", I say, "like, he's just here to do his job and not mess with anybody."

"Yeah, he's alright", Derick agrees.

When I had arrived back from work and Carpenter asked me how the day was I told him it was good....up until now. "It is a beautiful spring day and the streets are full of lively, happy people, pretty girls showing off, and kids looking towards the end of school and summer break. But, I have to come back here."

"Well I've been here all day in this place, looking at dick and balls while I search guys, so it isn't fun for me either", Carpenter replies.

I jokingly ask "hey, you want to switch places"?

Carpenter, brooding, looks down at me while I hand him my pants to search. "How long do you have here?", he asks. I tell him 90 days. "Well I have been doing this, spending every Saturday here, for 10 years. And I'll probably be here until I retire. Do you really want to switch places with me?"

Point made.

Day 4: The System Works, Doesn't It?

Today I was picked up and went to work. Brenda and I are still reacting to this life changing situation, and haven't hammered all the bugs in our routine. We will, eventually.

When I get back to prison Derick asks me how my day was. I tell him it was great, but don't want to go into too many details about my morning workout at our employee gym, private shower and shave with a real razor, and lunch of Italian herb chicken and a spring vegetable medley. I ask if he has had any luck with his work request form. He shows it to me and is clearly frustrated - it is covered everywhere with red marks, indicating missing information. Derick has 8 brothers and sisters spread across the country and can't recall any of their street addresses and phone numbers. He does not have a family physician.

"Accuracy isn't what they want, here", I tell him. "I think someone in the office is just verifying that the info is there, not actually checking it for accuracy. This is the form they hand to the cops if you don't come back, that's all. For the things you don't know, just make them up. Pick a doctor from the phone book downstairs and use that address and phone."

I can see Derick is still confused - or rather, doesn't care. "They won't let me out anyway. I work under the table doing construction, and they'll never approve my job. See, I am not like you. I don't have one of those kinds of jobs. And there is no way I would be able to get one while I am in here."

"But", I protest, "the whole point of this place is to allow us to be productive members of the community - to get jobs. Surely they will help you find one they will approve."

Derick laughs like I just told him about a great deal I got on a bridge in New York. "They don't give no shit about us. And they aren't helping." I am naive, because I thought there would be some social service here for job placement. But there is nothing of the sort. If a prisoner doesn't have a job lined up, he has to find it himself. Here is a way it would work:

1. Someone on the outside arranges to have a newspaper sent to the prisoner.
2. All mail is delayed at least 24 hours by the prison.
   
3. If the prisoner finds a job lead, he has 20 minutes a day, possibly, to make calls about the job. Of course, if the block has their afternoon Blockout revoked, he can't make calls. If he does not get to the phone sign up sheet in time before it fills, he can't make calls.
   
4. If he is able to speak to someone about a job, he has to have hard copies of a job application mailed to him - at the prison.
5. A prisoner is not permitted to leave for a job interview - the interviewer must come to the prison.
6. Employers aren't pre-screened or pre-approved. Once the prisoner has the job offer, he submits a work request form. The prison contacts the employer and screens the employer to ensure compliance with the Work Release program.

As Derick told me - some employers don't really feel like bothering with all this. And why should they, for unskilled labor? If the point of this system is to enable working, why is the system designed to make working as difficult as possible? Even with the resources of a large company at my disposable, there was still a lot of mundane compliance questions and forms before I was allowed back out.

I was initially surprised by what seemed like half the prisoners never going out to work. I think it is pretty obvious why.

Day 3: Getting to See Jim

Prison, like any unique culture, has its own sub-language. Part southern hillbilly, part urban street, all hip. After immersion here for over 2 full days, I am starting to adopt some of the slang. Brenda is no longer "my girlfriend", she's "my girl". Most of the words make sense after I understand the context, but at least one does not: "CQ". A CQ is a prisoner who works for the prison. We don't share chores such as scrubbing the bathrooms, mopping the floors, or serving the chow trays. All of that is done by CQs.

Today is exactly like yesterday. In fact, Derick says all days are the same here. It is the small stuff that I take for granted which seems to bother me the most. There's no sleeping in until even 7AM on weekends, and no Sunday prison brunch. Days are days, and chow is chow.

Prison is an extremely infantilizing experience. Earlier I called it dehumanizing; that is mostly true, but a lot of it just assumes prisoners are toddlers. You lose your adulthood much quicker than your humanity. So I literally jumped off my cot with childish excitement when I heard my name called - with instruction to bring my Work Release rulebook - in the late afternoon, before evening Blockout. I was getting to See Jim!!!

Actually, I was meeting with Mark, Jim's assistant. My lawyer had led me to believe that everything could be arranged in advance, but as I found myself waiting for 3 days, I knew either one of us messed up or he was sorely misinformed. The latter turned out to be case.

Mark said I had some of the most persistent callers from the outside world working on my behalf he had ever encountered. My girlfriend phoned every day, and my attorney and our HR department called to ensure I was being expedited through the system. What felt like a slow, lagging process to me, was actually the fastest they've ever turned someone back out: 3 days. Tomorrow, I get to go to work. But, I must have many rules explained to me and plenty of paperwork to sign.

I asked Mark why the Work Release rules and the forms aren't available on the prison web site. It might allow them to pre-process some prisoners and get them out faster. At a minimum, prisoners would understand what to expect when they arrived. Mark didn't reply, and why should he? Prisoners are not customers of the prison, and there is really no incentive for them to create efficient processes. In fact, if helplessness and despair is the mood they are trying to create, then this is the perfect way to run things.

Mark states I can go to work tomorrow, and based upon the work schedule the HR department and I invented, he gives me pick-up and drop-off times. I am also permitted to have some personal clothing dropped off: 7 pairs of briefs (no boxers), 7 pairs of socks, 10 shirts, 7 pairs of pants, 2 towels. I am actually permitted to call Brenda and tell her when to pick me up tomorrow, and what clothing to drop off and where. Brenda, of course, has already packaged the clothing and is prepared.

The conditions of my Work Release are restrictive. No stopping in the car for any reason, no diversion from the most direct path to and from work. No visitors at work, and no personal phone calls. The rules haven't been updated since 1990 or so - meaning no restrictions on SMS text messages, IMs, or email. I don't ask about those though since obviously personal use of such things violates the spirit of the rules. If caught, I'd prefer to ask forgiveness rather than permission.

I am salaried for my work, paid two times a month via direct deposit. Normally the program requires that my employer mail - yes, mail - a real check payable to the County Prison. In my case I must go to the bank and get a certified check for my pay stub net deposit, and bring the check, minus the fee, and my pay stub back to the prison. The check must be payable to them. There are prohibitions in the rules regarding deductions for credit unions or tool leases, but after I ask I am told 401K contributions are permitted. An idea of maxing out my 401K for the next 3 months crosses my mind. That would keep them from having anything left over to confiscate, but of course keep me from having anything left over to pay my bills. I'll table that thought.

The prison first takes a fee for a drug test they are not performing each week. After that, they help themselves to 20% of my income to cover room and board, up to a per capita max of over $200 per week. 50% of what remains is put towards my fines and court costs (I have yet to be told what my court costs actually are). I am permitted to keep the remaining 50% in a prison trust account, which I can withdrawal for petty cash to spend in the stunningly overpriced vending machines in the day room, use at the overpriced commissary ($4 bars of soap, $2 granola bars, $5 briefs, etc.), or have sent to someone on the outside.

According to the most recent US Bureau of Labor Statistics data on spending, the average cost for food at home is $3297 and $11,988 for shelter and utilities. Considering the inhumane living conditions and the horrible thing passed off as food, the prison is doing quite well for itself by setting a max of almost $11,000 per year they can pocket from a prisoner's paycheck. I am curious whether this rate is tied to any BLS data, or if it is set by my State legislature. Perhaps it is determined by decree of a County official or bureaucrat.

I return to my cell, suppressing my thoughts of the expropriation racket feigning rehabilitation and justice, content that tomorrow I can return to work. I am called down later to retrieve my belongings which Brenda as dropped off. A new guard, Carpenter, is on duty. Carpenter is very pissed off.

"I am not mad at you, but I need to explain something," he says. "I have worked here for 10 years and I've never stolen from someone or done anything like that. I had to have a background check just to work here." Brenda made the mistake of saying to Carpenter as she handed him my clothes "so you will give this right to him?". Carpenter felt she was accusing him of being a likely thief. Carpenter was legitimately offended, but has to realize it is a natural concern (and it happens on Oz, so there you go). In reality, Brenda had put some pictures of us and our dog, and a letter to me, in with the clothes and was worried they would be discovered. Of course they were. Carpenter and Robbins give them to me to read and look at but say I can't keep them; those things must come through the prison mail system.

Later, when I speak to Brenda about it, she is naturally upset. I agree with her, of course, but the problem for me is that I have NO RIGHTS. When you are in prison, everything is a privilege that can be revoked by anyone for any reason, and there is no appeal to a superior or right to try and argue. If Brenda looks at a guard funny and he decides to take it out on me by confining me to my cell for two weeks and forbids me to call my employer, and I lose my job, that is my problem. If I try and argue with him and he submits a report indicating I am a troublemaker on the Work Release block and recommends I am sent to General Population, potentially to room with a murderer or rapist, it will happen.

My advice to anyone with a loved-one in the US prison system: treat everyone who works for the prison as if the prison-worker is a psychotic armed kidnapper who has your loved-one locked in a closet, and you are trying to ensure your loved-one stays safe. Because that is exactly what it feels like.

A Captain and his thimbleful of power is far more dangerous than any King.

Day 2: A Day in the Work Release

Luckily, last evening, I grabbed a book from the meager collection, spanning two narrow shelves. The Sigma Protocol, a genre spy-thriller by Robert Ludlum. There were many such books to choose from - Danielle Steele, more Ludlum, John Grisham, John Le Carre. After my day in Commitment, I was not going to be trapped in a cell unprepared for boredom. Unfortunately Derick was not so foresighted and had nothing to read.

But perhaps I am getting ahead of myself.

Our day began at shortly after 5AM. I think this was the time because we have no clocks in our rooms or in the hallways of our floors. "First call for Chow". Derick explained that they do a first call, then a second, then finally our actual call to come down and get our food. "Chow call, top floor, rooms 1-25, no extras, no stragglers", said the CO, with the intelligibility of the Peanuts adult characters in the animated specials. Half awake, we wander down in a line, like cattle, and get a brown tray, a single serving milk carton, and fill our cups with something claimed to be coffee.

Derick thinks the drink - "juice" is the generic prison term for whatever is being given with a meal - is made from chicory root, a coffee substitute popularized during the Civil War. I use the word "popular" loosely, as I've never heard of it until now. The rest of the meal is a yellow goo of some sort, feet-flavored pancakes, and a piece of chocolate cake. I force myself to eat the feetcakes and the chocolate cake. Derick happily accepts my gift of the yellow goo.

Following the meal there is a bit of activity in the hallways - restroom use, a few guys getting ready for work, and some slight banter. Derick and I go back to sleep, as we have a very long day ahead of us, and the more of it spent unconscious, the better.

I awake a couple of hours later - I am guessing at 8AM. The hallways and restrooms are more active now. Derick is still asleep but the rising sun casts a bit of sunlight into our room. I read my book until Derick awakens and he becomes again the prison oracle.

"Just be careful who you talk to in here. The place is full of drunks, deadbeats, punk kids, and especially snitches. Some of these guys will snitch on you because they are jealous, or just because they can." What exactly would they snitch about, I ask. "Oh, maybe you leave work, or see your girl, or anything like that. Just be careful." Certainly sound advice. As I will find, this is more difficult than one would think. Caged here like an animal, dehumanized in every way possible, conversation with others might be the only way to prevent an entire loss of self.

The next phase of the morning routine is "Meds", when prisoners receiving prescriptions through the prison line up for their drugs. Within the hour, it is again meal time. The same calls for Chow occur, and we wander down for what is supposed to be lunch, even though it is 10:30AM. I force myself to eat the mystery bologna and two slices of bleached-flour bread. Apparently every meal here comes with a piece of cake for dessert. After we eat I read more while Derick tries to start conversations between his naps; we're counting down until our afternoon "Blockout" - the time when the entire Work Release block is permitted in the "day room" - the common areas. Blockout is called at 1PM.

I was able to call Brenda again. She is still feeling combinations of anger, frustration, and loss. I can not really offer any comfort, as I have no idea yet when I will be allowed back to work. I ask her to contact my administrative assistant and cancel my meetings. She has already informed my manager that I may not be in all week. The only info I have at this point is what the other inmates are telling me: I will first need to "see Jim" - the man in charge of the block - and that can take up to a week. Daytime TV in general is painful to watch, and in prison with basic cable, we flip between faux court shows and syndicated 90s sitcoms. In a day I am halfway through my book. 3PM comes and we return to our rooms.

Unlucky for us there is some kind of Christian Evangelical program tonight. This means we have only two choices for the evening: stay in our rooms longer than usual, or go sit in front of a TV watching some preacher. After the last Chow call of the day - some kind of Salisbury steak and mashed yams - I opt for the room and the book. At 8:30 PM the Evangelical presentation has finished and we begin our evening Blockout. Naturally, the television is showing professional wrestling. Now that I am more than two-thirds through my book I peruse the shelves again for something else to read.

My eyes literally pop out of my head when I see Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. Why is this book here, I wonder? Is this someone's idea of a joke - putting a book with disturbing tales of assault, murder, and adolescent-rape, that also has a prison system performing cruel acts of brain-washing and mental-programming - in a real prison? I grab the book to read after I finish my current choice, and continue to peruse. I also find Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Other inmates look at me curiously while I laugh out loud. It was at this time I decided I was definitely going to write this blog, and I knew instantly what the title would be.

I sign up for a late phone call to Brenda. While watching the minutes tick by, pretending to give a shit about the homo-erotic soap opera known as Professional Wrestling, I hear my name called by Robbins, the CO currently on duty. He hands me my work request form, which I submitted last night. It has been rejected due to missing information.

The work request form was straight out of some Kafkaesque bureaucracy. The form is clearly intended to provide information to Sheriffs should one choose to do a prison escape while away. What are the names, addresses, and phone numbers of all your relatives? Your employer? Your doctors? Etc. The problem with the form is that it reads as if it has been designed to trip you up. It looks like this:

1. NAME/PHONE/AGE/ADDRESS OF ALL BROTHERS SISTERS
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________

2. NAME/PROFESSION/ADDRESS/PHONE OF PARENTS
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
3. NAME/AGE/ADDRESS/PHONE OF 2 CLOSE FRIENDS (NOT RELATIVES)
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________

And so on. Note how the same information is requested in a different order each time. Sometimes one thing is not needed for one of the questions, such as age, but then it reappears as a requirement later. This form goes on for 5 pages like this. Using the 3 inch dull pencil that was included in our Welcome to Jail Kit, it is difficult and frustrating to complete. I missed a phone number in one place, an age in another, and did not complete the full street address for my physician. I find a phone book - 2 years old and halfway torn apart - but luckily it has the street information for my physician. I add the ages and make up some phone numbers (who memorizes phone numbers in 2008?). Robbins had volunteered to look it over for me, which he does, and points out some stuff I did not fill in - my girlfriend's home number, since I've never called it. I tell him I will call her tonight and get the info. I return to watching the clock.

Robbins has a very short fuse, and little tolerance for noise. He is young, mid 20s to early 30s. Part of him seems to enjoy his job, particularly the authority and control. The other part seems constantly irritated and on edge. The day room is not designed for sound control; the walls and floors reflect and amplify the noise from conversations, television, and the clanging of vending machines. With 50 men, most of them young and energetic, it is easy for noise to escalate. Robbins loses his temper and screams that Blockout is ending early and we must return to our rooms. Unfortunately my time to call has not been reached. As most of the inmates shuffle to their rooms I linger around. Earlier I had appealed to Robbins authority and knowledge by asking for his help with the form. I also made him aware I planned on getting the final info via my phone call. I decide to take a chance and ask him if I can still make my call - figuring that as he has already established himself as master due to my appeal to his authority, and he has a chance to grant me an exemption without the large audience - which would imply weakness. However, I've already submitted my form back into the request bin. I ask to make my call - Robbins nods and gives his final yell at the stragglers - and then points at me and says "YOU can stay". Woohoo! I now hope Robbins is too annoyed and preoccupied with the troublemakers to notice I've already submitted my form. I call Brenda and this time I have some kind of good news: it is rather easy for someone familiar with various personality types to be in control without asserting control. All those corporate classes and seminars in dealing with people are actually pretty helpful. In prison.

Day 1: Commitment (Part 2)

"Don't talk while we're in these halls - some of these guards can be real pricks about the rules." I and another inmate were ordered to walk with a "White Shirt" and she left us unattended. I had asked how far it was to Work Release, and Derick, my prison oracle, replied with the advice. Prison is full of all sorts of rules, very few of them reasonable, and even less of them communicated to the prisoners. As I was learning, the unwritten rules were the most important ones to follow.

This White Shirt - which I've concluded are some kind of above average guards involved in prisoner transport - passed Derick and I off to the CO minding the Work Release block. The other prisoners were taking part in some kind of free time and watching TV in a large room, with laminate floors and concrete walls. Unsurprisingly, the architecture of the place seems to be simply utilitarian, constantly in flux. The remnants of previously constructed and torn away walls are clearly visible. Conduits for cabling and pipes run up and down the walls. Electrical outlets for 240V circuits are in random corners, presumably for appliances relocated and removed. It has the stale cleanliness of highly toxic, bulk oxidizing agents and janitorial mops wielded by forced labor.

"This your first time in prison?", asks the CO whose name tag reads "Robbins". Derick answers in the negative and Robbins informs us we will be "cellmates" - AKA "cellies" to us prisoners - and that Derick should make sure I understand how things work (rather, how things do not work...). We are given our key, copies of the Rulebook, and copies of the work request form. Derick and I head upstairs, carrying our Welcome To Jail Kits in the big green tubs, and our new paperwork.

I formally introduce myself to Derick. We exchange a few pleasantries and minimal background to set the context for our time we will have to spend together. The cell is concrete walls and floor, with two metal cots, separated by about 24 inches. We have a broken locker to share (the door will not close as it is bent, presumably used for fending off gang rapists or bludgeoning a CO). We have a small metal desk and a small wooden chair.

Derick has been in and out of the system his entire life. He inherited a small fortune when he was young - some 40 years ago - and in his youthful recklessness spent it all on women, drugs and booze. Foster care, juvenile detention, and almost a decade Up State, plus several small-time sentences in this County Prison. This is Derick's 4th or 5th time in Work Release.

Derick seems like a nice guy, considering he is a crack and heroin user who has spent half his life behind bars. He already knows some of the guys in here, and wanders off to acquire some contraband. Not drugs, booze or cigarettes - but shower shoes and some clean clothes. Another unwritten rule is that sharing or giving a fellow inmate anything is prohibited. Derick has found a friend who had some spare pairs of shower shoes. "If the CO asks how you have these already, just say you found them under the cot in the room", he says as he hands me a pair. "We'd get my friend in trouble since he gave these to us, but you sure as shit don't want to shower without them." I can understand why we might not be permitted to SELL things to other prisoners, but why no gifting? "They need to make their money", Derick informs me as he shows me the list, found in our desk, of items available for purchase from the commissary. While the prison claims that the Work Release program is an effort to integrate long-sentence prisoners back into the community months before their real release, for someone who was stolen away from the community like me, it is a 100% reversal of the values my allegedly Christian community claims to cherish. Kindness and generosity are strictly prohibited.

Robbins told us that "blockouts" - times prisoners were permitted in the Day Room - occurred twice a day, usually 1PM to 3PM and 7PM to 11PM. During these times we could shower, do laundry, watch one of the two televisions, or play cards or boardgames (if we purchased them). During each blockout we are permitted to place calls using the pay phones for no longer than a 20 minute time slot. At all other times we are to remain in our rooms except to go and use the shared bathrooms.

After settling in I sign up to use the phones. I have no cash and can't remember my credit card number. Signs near the phones prohibit phone card numbers. On a hunch, I call my house collect hoping that my girlfriend would be there.

Brenda answers, crying. As hard as the last 12 hours have been on me, they have been worse for her. She is my lifesaver as she has informed work I might not be in all week, based on the non-answers she was given by the Work Release administrators as to what was happening to me. I give her as much of an account of what has happened as I can. We are both a wreck, and spent most of the time in emotional turmoil. I hasten to end the call as I hear my name called by the CO through a garbled, barely intelligible PA system.

I say "you called me?", and Robbins answers something that sounds like "yeah, Shin-nah-tawl". He rolls his eyes so I don't ask him to enunciate. I wait and another CO arrives, and one of the other prisoners follows him. Robbins screams at me "PRESARIO GO WITH YOUR RIDE, SHEESH!". Apparently I am supposed to be a mind-reader and have a clue what is happening. I ask this CO where we are going. "The infirmary." Ah, so I am off for a Day 1 Prison Physical. I ask him what the other CO was mumbling, and he laughs as he says "Sick Call. SICK CALL! Get it?!?!". Ah, must be some kind of military jargon.

The physical only involves checking my pulse and blood pressure. The rest of the exam is question and answer, intending to ascertain my mental state and identify potential suicide risks. Without a hint of irony, the nurse asks me "How do you feel about being in prison - good, fair, or poor?" I can not resist bursting out with laughter - "seriously? 'Good' is one of the choices? Does anyone ever answer 'good'?!?!?!" She emerges from her dry, emotionless cocoon and a hint of a sense of humor emerges. "Actually some do, and I guess the question is pretty silly." You think? I tell her to put me down as "fair to middling regarding my incarceration, lack of amenities, and new found crackhead roommates." Thankfully, there is minimal poking and prodding - I certainly do not want to catch Hepatitis or Staph infections due to the carelessness of the types of health care workers who find themselves assigned to work in prisons (the health care here is outsourced to a for-profit provider, just like the meal preparation). I do receive a TB test. I'm given a cotton ball to use until the bleeding stops and am sent back to the waiting area.

Before we leave with our "ride" I ask him if I can throw away the cotton ball, as the bleeding as ceased. He nods towards the large trash bin. "Isn't there a Biohazard container I should use, since this has blood"? He rolls his eyes and tells me it is only a little blood and not to worry and just throw it away.

On our way back I wonder how many of the Staph and Hepatitis warning posters are necessary simply because of this concept that "it is only a little blood".

Day 1: Commitment (Part 1)

No sooner had the sound of the judge's gavel reached my ears than I found myself being hand-cuffed by two Sheriff's Deputies. I was searched, pockets emptied, and taken away through "that door" - the door in a courtroom reserved for officers of the Courts and those pleading or found guilty. This was quite the shock as my lawyer told me that the norm was to allow "walk-ins" to the prison: the Judge grants up to 48 hours to report to the prison, but apparently, not for me. I was not even permitted to kiss my girlfriend goodbye.

The only thought I can muster at this point was that I have surrendered all my rights as an American citizen, and hopefully I will survive whatever happens after this, alive and well. It is an awareness that my life is now at the whim of my new masters - the Deputies and eventually the Prison Guards - and from here on out I will have absolutely no control, and they will have no accountability. There is no recourse for me, no appeals or airing of grievances. Shackled like a head of cattle, I am led into a holding area and put in a 5' by 5' room with six other men.

"Whoa, Sopranos shit up in here", says one of my new cell-mates. I did kind of stick out, in my one-and-only tailored suit (for interviews, wedding, funerals, and most recently: court appearances!). This waiting around was frustrating, but as I would learn - amazingly short. Only 30-40 minutes to get to know these chaps at various stages in the prison world: from County to be sent "Up State"; from State for additional County sentencing; newly convicted, like me; out of County temporarily to receive additional sentences.

Two other gentlemen and I were uncuffed, ordered to interlock arms in the same manner as when ushering Grandmothers to their seats at weddings. Except then we were handcuffed again. This process is quite comfort-inhibitive when your arm-mates are of varying heights. It being a hot and rainy spring day, the ride in the back of the County van to prison was the first of what would become many Worst Points.

"Y'all got time?" we were asked as we crab-walked into the van. Our van-mate had a broken, miserable look about him. At the time I wasn't quite sure what he meant - were we on our way to prison? Did we get serious time, measured in months or years? I just answered "90 days" in the most robotic tone as possible, to indicate neither apprehension nor relief that my sentence was that length. He nodded, and talked to the other of our usher-arm-trio who answered "6 to 12 Up State". They discussed their relief at getting to be Up State, where at least there were TVs, you could smoke, and there were things to keep yourself occupied. Optimism is clearly our most advantageous evolutionary adaptation.

This drive is miserably slow - especially given it is only a dozen city blocks. At the prison I am searched again and temporarily dumped into a holding cell. For a short time I share it with one of my new friends, but we are soon processed and separated. This cell is where I would expect them to keep serial killers. A small plastic window in the immense metal door - which is operated electronically. A small feeding slit in the door at knee height, perhaps 18 inches long by 4 inches high. There is a toilet and sink combination, and a metal cot attached to the wall. The waiting is simply maddening. There is no one in there to talk to; nothing to read, no television or radio. I welcome any calls from the COs (Corrections Officers) to sign forms, answer questions, and surrender my belongings.

I am strip searched and my clothing is taken. "Bend over, spread your ass, and cough twice. Turn around and lift your dick." Given the hour I spent interlocked to two other men, hand-cuffed in the back of a van with no fresh air, I take comfort in knowing I certainly wouldn't be attractive for whatever latent desires are smoldering in this CO's loins.

The Commitment COs are the worst kind of assholes. Grouchy old men who take pleasure in causing misery in others. Questions for their forms are asked in an ambiguous way: "Who is your emergency contact?" "My Girlfriend", I answer. But before I can giver her name, the CO asks the other "did the girl you fucked last night scream out this asshole's name?" "No?" "Then how the hell are we supposed to know who your girlfriend is, asshole?" This treatment is not so much upsetting as it is disorienting. Luckily I am blessed with a rather strong will and resolve and little bothers me, but the playground rhetoric of these guys is something I am not prepared for. I pretend they didn't say a word and reply with the information they need. I sign a form that is my receipt for my belongings, and the fact that I am came in with absolutely no cash is quickly noted by the COs. "This guy didn't bring in our pizza money for lunch!" Fine, I think, I can play this game and pass their little test. "So what does that mean?" I ask, and am told "now we just treat you like shit the whole time you are in here." For an instant my mind flashes with the image of The Pizza List - the list of prisoners who didn't provide some petty cash for the COs to steal, who are repeatedly gang raped and branded on the ass with swastikas by the Aryan Brotherhood (yes, I suppose being a fan of HBO's prison drama Oz might not be helpful). "I guess I'll just have to make it up by being polite." "If you are polite you'll end up someone's bitch." They asked if I knew what was happening to me and I said of course, and mentioned "I am supposed to be given immediate Work Release, whatever that may means for you gentlemen." "It means you get there when we decide to get you there." This is going to be a long 90 days.

All day I sit. An entire 8 hours - a full workday. I try to nap to no avail. Just at the point I start to drift off, I am called for more administrativia. An interview regarding my mental health by a pretty young co-ed; a retinal scan; fingerprinting; more paperwork. There is no order to this madness, and clearly efficiency is not a requirement for their processes. I overhear prisoners' conversations through our feed slits. Discussions of bail bondsmen, concerns about destinations ("they better not put me on the block with the faggots and pedophiles"). Another prisoner reports his receipt is not correct, and $100 is missing. CO shifts change to younger, more pleasant characters. I see the first of what I expect from watching Oz - evidence of CO corruption. An inmate calls a CO over and they have a whispered chat. A note is passed from CO to prisoner. The CO meets my eyes, and I yawn and turn away.

As our paperwork is returned my spirits are lifted as something is about to happen. At this point, any change is good. During my fingerprinting I asked the guard where I was going and when, and shared my sense of frustration and helplessness. He said that as long as there wasn't a big problem, I'd be in the Work Release area sometime after 7PM. Already I have noticed something about Prison Culture: guards will be belligerent, nasty, and hurtful when there is an audience. Alone, they may be helpful, so rather than plead for information in my cage, I waited until the guard could answer without breaking his role.

My paperwork was supposed to be just my receipt for my belongings. However I received someone else's receipt and someone else's form for requesting a Public Defender! I immediately notified the CO who looked annoyed (by the error, not by me). I don't know who that poor chap was who didn't get his paperwork, but I reckon when he offers the excuse "but I never got it!" it will not do him well. 7PM approaches and I'm informed I am about to be moved. Wearing my green canvas fatigues over the used undergarments, I place my blanket and alleged pillow into my green tub.

The green tub contains my complete "Welcome to Jail, Now Go To Hell" kit. Two sets of green fatigues. Two used white tees. Two used white briefs, with or without skid marks. Two pairs of socks with multiple holes. A flexible 3 inch toothbrush, and a combination toothpaste/body wash/shampoo that would probably be handy, say, after the apocalypse. A short pencil, a spork, and a cup.

Gathering all my belongings in the world, now contained in this green tub, I line up for transfer to Work Release.