Prison Journal: Day 7,934
April 30, 2009
This morning our TOAD group addressed a group of high school students from Taft High School. The 70 students were from the junior and senior class and did not appear to be troubled youth. What struck me was the number of students who had a family member or friend who served time in prison. Nearly every person raised a hand when I asked.
My wife and I graduated from Shorecrest High School in 1982. The world has changed considerably since then, as neither of us knew a single person who had gone to prison. None of our friends knew anyone who had gone to prison either. Now, it seems, prison has become a normal and accepted part of American life. I would think the mass imprisonment in our country would repulse most Americans. That may show how out-of-touch I’ve become over the years.
I don’t think this imprisonment trend will continue. Our country incarcerates 2.3 million people now. Reports show more than 1 in every 100 of American citizens are locked in a prison.
Our presentation went well, though I don’t like a portion at the end when the TOAD participants rant about various aspects of prison. To my ears, the group sound like a bunch of whiners, complaining about food, living conditions, control. It’s one thing to describe, quite another to whine like petulant children.
In the afternoon the mail delivery brought my envelope from Carole. It included three copies of my sample chapter that Carole had our friend Josh type. I read through the chapter and realized that I would have to invest more hours to strengthen the prose.
The writing process begins for me in this way. I draft the docunment in longhand and rewrite a few times before I send it home for typing. By the time it returns to me, at least two weeks pass. Stepping away from the chapter for that time allows me to review it with a fresh perpsective. When I read the work this afternoon, I was not pleased with the way I had written the story. I shared it with Rafael, another prisoner. He praised it, though I suspect he liked it because he could identify with the descriptions of confinement. I’m intending to write this book for a broader audience, so I must work through each sentence and paragraph again.
I’m easing up on my weekly running total to give my body a rest. Today I stopped the run after three miles and I’m not following with any strength training. My tally now stands at 1,223 miles over the past 139 days. Carole said that I need some Gatorade to replenish my electrolytes after sweating through daily exercise sessions. I’ll purchase some next week.
Thursday, 30 April 2009
Prison Journal: Day 7,933
April 29, 2009
I received a package of mail from my wife that included a book review on Inside that a history professor published. The professor’s review was generally favorable though he implied that I was too biased against prison guards and thought I wrote too much about prisoners having sex with prison guards. I appreciate reading these reviews of my books. They help me as I plan future writing projects.
In the next book I hope to publish, Earning Freedom, I want to offer readers a more personal description of what it has meant to mature through imprisonment. I’ve been waiting a long time to write this book, as I did not want to reveal so much about my own adjustment until I advanced closer to my release date. My previous books have described what I have observed and learned from other prisoners. Writing this next project will challenge my writing skills, though I look forward to it carrying me through the remaining months or years I have to serve.
This evening I watched President Obama address the nation in commemoration of his first 100 days in office. He continues to inspire me with his mastery over such a broad array of issues. I know the nation has many concerns that demand his attention, though I expect we’re moving closer to the time when the president and his leadership team will make decisions with regard to reforms within our federal prison system. Those discussions may not come until after Senator Webb’s commission concludes its work, though Senator Spector’s switch to the Democratic side of Congress may advance this issue. Either way, my release date continues to approach and I must keep focusing on steps I can take to prepare for the challenges ahead.
Today I ran eight miles. My tally now stands at 1,220 miles over the past 138 days. I’ll run a shorter distance tomorrow. I think my body may need a rest.
Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Prison Journal: Day 7,932
April 28, 2009
Michael and Carole Santos, April 2009
Many prisoners ask whether I’ll be faithful to my wife once my prison term ends. I don’t identify with the logic that leads them to ask me such questions. They assume that as a consequence of the decades I’ve served I would want to enjoy relationships with many women. When I respond that I will build and nurture a stronger, thriving relationship with Carole, they tell me that I’ll have to wait and see what the world is like when I get out. To me, such statements are ridiculous.
Living in and maturing through a long prison term has been like living on a planet separate from the Earth. I’ve been watching the world turn as I aged through my 20s, 30s, and 40s. During all of that time I’ve kept one vision in my head, which was how I wanted to emerge from this experience. Such a vision has led to the values by which I commit to living the rest of my life. The concept of fidelity is at the top of those values.
Falling in love is a simple act, but building a thriving marriage takes work and commitment. The other prisoners who tell me that I don’t know what it’s like in the world may be accurate in that I don’t know what they have experienced. But I do know that I love my wife and that I intend to measure every decision I make by the metric of whether it strengthens the thriving marriage I’m committed to building.
Carole and I have grown together through conditions that would challenge any relationship. Despite the hardship that comes as a part of imprisonment, we continuously grow closer as husband and wife, as partners, as friends. She inspires me to work harder, as I’m always striving to prove worthy of the love she gives. I pledge the rest of my life to her with love because she is the only woman with whom I want to share the good times that will accompany my release. It is not that I owe her my life because of what she has given to me through all these years. Rather, she is the central part of my life, the woman to whom I want to grow closer and with whom I want to experience the liberty that comes with my release. I choose to grow closer to Carole every day, to make deeper commitments to our marriage. When other prisoners insinuate that I will see the world differently upon my release, such suggestions seem as preposterous as statements that after all these years, I may make decisions that could return me to prison.
I do not have to experience freedom to know that I will live faithfully to Carole. I value my marriage and the relationship that I share with my wife. That certainty gives me clarity that I rely upon. All of my decisions begin with the end in mind, and in the end, I know that I will be with Carole, my wife and my love. That vision guides everything I say, everything I think, and everything I do. Those are the reasons I know that I will live as a faithful husband to Carole, and I will do so with enthusiasm.
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Prison Journal: Day 7,391
April 27, 2009
Both my case manager and my counselor have implied that prison has dehumanized me. They spoke more tactfully, and were polite, but I’ve thought about what they meant when they observed that I had suppressed my emotions for too long. As I was in the midst of my work today, I knew they were right.
Yesterday I spent time interviewing a man who served a four-month sentence for human smuggling. The name of the crime sounds more sinister than what he did, which was to make an attempt to bring a Mexican citizen into the country illegally. I wrote a story for the profile section of this blog, but as promised, I read the story to Ricardo before I sent it home. As Ricardo listened to me read, he began to cry.
I felt sad for Ricardo, though I didn’t really grasp the tears. He had been in prison for one month, and he would return home in three months. This was a 35-year-old contractor, weighing north of 200 pounds. He had life experiences, a wife, two children. The story I wrote was more descriptive of how normal citizens can make decisions that ensnare themselves in the criminal justice system through poor judgment. Nevertheless Ricardo could not withhold the tears as he listened to the story.
Prison no longer elicits such emotions from me. As a survival mechanism, I have conditioned myself to life with expectations of loss, sadness, helplessness, hopelessness, loneliness, and pending discomfort. I expect to face some type of conflict or assault on my sense of self every day. It doesn’t always come, but I expect it.
In retrospect, the tumultuous events that uproot my life come less frequently than they did earlier in my prison term. That may be because I have conditioned my adjustment, or because I have transferred to minimum-security. Still, during the six years I’ve served in camps, prison administrators have disrupted my life on numerous occasions without prior warning. They have transferred me twice, they have locked me in segregation, they have changed my job assignment. The interruptions have come because of my writing about the prison experience, as administrators would prefer to contain information about what transpires inside these boundaries. As an American, I feel more allegiance to people in society than to preserving what I consider the absurdity of prison cultures.
Prison administrators may disrupt my sense of peace, but they cannot elicit an emotional response from me. Too many years of trying to condition myself to live within this system has dehumanized me in that way. I expect administrators to make decisions that will determine where I live, how much contact I may have with my family and community, how the hours of my day pass, what food I eat, what clothes I wear, what I read, what music I hear, when I can feel natural elements and when I must exist within the confines of a concrete cage. I have to know that whatever privileges I enjoy today may not exist tomorrow, or in ten more minutes.
Whereas Ricardo feels the natural shock of imprisonment and loss of liberty, for me prison has become the only life I know. It is not punishment, it is my life and I have conditioned myself to live within the system administrators create. It means I don’t allow the institution to pull highs and lows or normal human emotions from me. Only my family can influence my emotions, though my conditioning has even tempered those feelings. I will have to learn how to live with such feelings again, because as a prisoner I’ve had to suppress them.
The exercise of will has taken precedence over feelings. Today I exercised that will by rising to begin writing at 3:13 AM, and adding another 10 miles to my running tally. I have extended my record of daily exercise to 136 days.
Monday, 27 April 2009
Prison Journal: Day 7,930
April 26, 2009
Two years ago today I was locked in the SHU at Lompoc. SHU stands for Special Housing Unit, though those in prison refer to the SHU as the hole. Administrators had locked me in the SHU because they suspected that I was using a word processor to type manuscripts. I had indeed used the word processor, though I had done so with my staff supervisor’s knowledge and awareness. The investigators didn’t believe me because they said a prison staff member would not authorize an inmate to use a government word processor to type personal work. I pointed them to files showing that I not only typed my manuscripts, but also typed personal work for my staff supervisors who had authorized my use of the word processor.
Those records resulted in authorities from a higher level exonerating me from all wrongdoing. The incident resulted in my spending 65 days locked in the SHU, then my transfer from Lompoc to the camp at Taft.
I struggled with some anxiety during my time in SHU, as I didn’t know where administrators would send me or what sanctions they would impose. Mostly I worried about my wife, as I knew the tighter restrictions on me would make her life difficult.
We had adapted as a prison family and we had grown accustomed to the challenges of my confinement. While in the general population I was able to call Carole for a few minutes each day and we visited every Saturday and Sunday. In the SHU I would not have access to the telephone and we were limited to one visit per week.
To cope while I was locked in the tiny cell I exercised each day. I ran in place for one hour every day and I did 300 pushups on the floor of the cell. I read several books, I slept, and I prayed. Some people describe the SHU as a horrible experience, but over the years I’ve grown more conditioned to solitude.
If I could have access to better running or exercise conditions, a writing table that came with a chair to sit, and more access to my wife, I would prefer to serve the remainder of my sentence alone. The solitude doesn’t bother me. I prefer the silence and alone time. That solitude could enable me to think more about what to value in my future and enjoy my writing time.
I create that solitude as best I can here at Taft Camp while enjoying the excellent recreation privileges, access to telephone, and more liberal rules of personal property. I would not object to concluding my sentence from this camp, though I continuously remind myself that administrators may order a change for me at any time. I will feel more secure in 2011, when I will be much closer to the completion of my prison time.
This morning I ran 10 miles, lifting my tally to 1,192 miles over the past 135 consecutive days.
Sunday, 26 April 2009
Prison Journal: Day 7,929
April 25, 2009
I’ve read many books that authors wrote on the subject of blogging, though I have to admit that I don’t know as much about keeping readers’ interest through a blog as I would like. I intend to learn. I face challenges because I do not have access to a computer or the internet, so I cannot browse around in the blogosphere to experience effective blogging strategies. That limitation comes as a consequence of my predicament, like so many other restrictions.
I may compare my challenge to someone who wants to learn how to fly an airplane. That student may read many aviation manuals. He may familizarize himself with all the gauges, switches, levers, and cockpit mechanisms. Until he sits in the pilot’s seat and practices, however, the student will not fully grasp the complexity of flying.
I write my blog entries by hand. When I begin I create an index that identifies the number, the category, the title, and what I perceive should be the tags. As soon as I finish one blog article, I fold the page and insert it in an envelope to send to my wife. From that moment, the blog is lost to me as she coordinates the typing and publishing and I move to the next article or writing project. The writing itself is therapeutic for me, though I’d like to become a more effective blogger on the prison experience.
Carole and I have been very fortunate to have guidance and support from Bean, a former classmate of ours. Bean has sent books, lesson plans, and lengthy, instructive letters to help my understanding of effective blogging techniques. My slowness in picking up all the intricacies of blogging may come from an incorrect belief that I’m always writing for a new reader, for someone who does not have any familiarity with my work. I’m always striving to build my network of support, or advance the call for prison reform. My thoughts were that by writing frequently, more people would find my work through search queries.
During a brief conversation I had with Carole today, I learned that Bean advised me to write fewer entires. My continuously mentioning the length of my prison term, or how long I had been confined, could be overkill. I won’t know the full message until Carole sends it to me through the mail. I’ll follow the guidance Bean gives, however, as she has taken more time to help me through this learning process than anyone else. I feel grateful for her patience and her instruction.
If I am to limit my blogging to fewer daily posts, I will focus more time writing on other subjects. I can always profile other prisoners; I can write more articles for PrisonTalk.com; and I can write for change.org. I also can devote more time to this book proposal I’ve begun. Writing helps me through each day, helps me feel productive. I still need to create this meaning in my life.
I ran 10 miles today, lifting my tally to 1,182 miles over the past 134 consecutive days.
Saturday, 25 April 2009
Prison Journal: Day 7,928
April 24, 2009
I’ve been reading from two books and a published paper on California’s prison system that Dr. Joan Petersilia wrote. She is a distinguihsed professor who publishes extensively on issues pertaining to crime and corrections. As I read these academic writings I remember my early years as a prisoner, and the reality of how much of my life has been lost to the prison system slams me in the head.
As I move through each passing day I feel strong and purposeful. This morning, I woke at 2:10 and I was writing at 2:19. I expected a visit, so I had to finish my writing goals and my exercise early. These incremental goals I set power me through each hour. Instead of dwelling on how many years must pass before release, I focus on the projects I want to complete, the exercise targets I want to reach, or the next time I will see my lovely Carole. Moving forward does not challenge my spirit as much as looking back.
When I read these descriptions that Dr. Petersilia writes about the corrections system, I cannot help but remember the day I first heard the guards locking the heavy steel door behind me. I remember sitting on that bench in that closet-sized room back in August of 1987. Nicotine residue stained the walls. The dank smell made me want to puke. I couldn’t really believe that I would sleep in a prison that night. Yet ever since then, I’ve slept in prisons every night. It exhausts me to look back, to think about how much time has passed.
I no longer feel as if I’m a real part of my extended family. The rules of prison prohibit me from having a normal relationship with them. I have one niece in college and another entering junior high school I think; they don’t know me and I don’t know them. My relationship with my two sisters feels distant despite my love for them both. I don’t know much about my mother’s life. My father died several years ago and I could not even attend the funeral. When I look back, I feel very much a prisoner.
These books force me to revisit and accept the costs of my imprisonment, though I feel as if I must read them in order to prepare for the challenges ahead. I hate to look back. The solution for me is looking forward, moving through each day to the completion of my next set of goals. Traffic problems caused Carole to postpone our visit until Sunday, so I now look forward to embracing her then.
I ran three miles, boosting my tally to 1,172 miles over the past 133 days.
Friday, 24 April 2009
Prison Journal: Day 7,927
April 23, 2009
At 3:30 this morning I resumed work on an article I began writing yesterday about a need for a new Director in the Bureau of Prisons. Although citizens may not feelt that bureaucratic role has much influence over their lives, I’m convinced that the policies set by the BOP Director have an influence on prison recidivism rates. Those rates have an indirect influence on every American, and a direct influence on some. We need a Director who has the capacity and the courage to think in creative ways that will help more offenders emerge as law-abiding citizens.
As I am coming to the end of my prison term, this concept of preparing for the obstacles I will encounter upon release stays on my mind. I read of the high unemployment numbers, the lack of credit, the foreclosures, and the other elements of this economic crisis. They concern me, as I expect the numbers for people with a record showing they’ve just come out of prison must be even more troubling.
I deem the responsibility mine to ensure that I can overcome the obstacles that await my release. By my scheduled release date I will have served more than a quarter century, and it would be foolish to assume the prison system has not had some type of negative influence on me. I must overcome those influences, even if I don’t recognize them myself.
The main hurdles I must overcome include having housing, clothing, transportation, community support, and proximity to a steady income. With my wife, Carole, I feel as if I am well positioned to have the resources in place that will assure I am ready. Yet policies set by the Director of the BOP and enforced by prison administrators hinder my ability to make further preparations. I need more access to the telephone and to visits so I can strengthen my ties to my wife and to others who will help me transition as a law abiding citizen.
I am grateful, at least, that I have more freedom of time here at Taft Camp to work on my preparations for release. I am assigned to a janitorial position here that requires me to sweep and mop floors, clean windows and ledges of the quiet room where I write and another television room. This job leaves me with sufficient time to work on my writing projects, and I devote several hours each day. My only activity besides this reading and writing is exercise, which I also deem an essential component of my preparation for release.
Today I ran 10 miles in the early morning. I expected to follow my run with strength training, but for some reason the equipment room was closed so I came back in to write. I now have 1,169 miles recorded over the past 132 consecutive days of running.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Prison Journal: Day 7,926
April 22, 2009
At 2:38 this morning I woke and hopped down from my rack in the Taft prison camp. A few minutes later I was in the quiet room where I write early each morning. I have come to really depend on the quiet time alone. If I am not awake before 3:00 in the moning, I feel as if I have lost some of that time I value so much. Every minute of my time alone has meaning to me.
Today I used my time to write one journal entry, an article on the need for sponsorship, and a lengthy article for Q Magazine of England; the editor of that music magazine asked me to write about what Phil Spector could expect in prison.
If Phil can learn to live with solitude and isolation, he may pass through the term easier. After nearly 22 full years of imprisonment, I strive to create opportunities to be alone. I find the five hours in the early morning helpful. When I’m exercising, I steal another two hours. Although other people exercise outside at the same time as me, when I’m running or strength training I’m really alone with the elements and the sounds of my shoes hitting the crushed rocks of the track.
When I finish my run, I do my pushups alone or I return to the housing unit and shower. By then the unit has come alive and it’s not so easy to find the alone time. I sit in my cubicle and read. If the cacophony disturbs me, I tune into Rush Limbaugh and laugh at the sycophants who call into the hate radio prgoram. I get a real kick out of the people who begin their calls by saying what an honor and privilege it is to speak to the most well known hypocrite on the radio. Rush harps on the importance of conservative family values but has failed through divorce numerous times; he talks about how he loves the military despite his avoiding military service; he talks about self restraint despite his obesity, his dropping out of college, his tobacco use, and his history with abusing oxycontin. He is an articulate buffoon who entertains me with his invective.
When the officer releases the unit for chow, I return to the quit room and either write or read. By six each evening, I’m in my rack again, happy to have advanced another day closer to my life with Carole as a man rather than a prisoner.
Two years ago on this day I was locked in the SHU, the special housing unit at Lompoc. Administrators had charged me with using a word processor to write. Although I was eventually cleared of all wrongdoing thanks to help from Carole, I served 65 days in that locked cell. I didn’t mind. I am conditioned to the time alone. If I could have access to a comfortable writing table, a place to exercise more completely, and an ability to communicate with my extraordinary wife, I would prefer to serve my time alone. This is the conditioning prison has had on me, which differs from other prisoners that I’ve read about. Atul Gawande, the famous physician from Harvard who writes frequently for my favorite magazine, The New Yorker, published Hell Hole that describes very different experiences with solitude.
I ran 10 miles early this morning to beat the heat. My tally now stands at 1,159 miles over the past 131 days.
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Prison Journal: Day 7,925
April 21, 2009
At 3:00 this morning, as I waited for officers to walk by my cubicle for a morning census count, I listened to an NPR broadcast reporting on Pesident Obama’s mandate to cut hundreds of millions in wasteful spending from the U.S. budget. That report inspired me to write a few blogs on the need for prison reform.
It really troubles me to read of how massively our nation’s prison population has grown. I feel a sense of duty and a responsibility, a calling, to influence others to support prison reform. I know that Americans do not generally think about imprisonment until it has a direct influence on their life, or happens when someone close to them is arrested. As a long-term prisoner, however, I can think of myriad ways that our dysfunctional prison system afflicts the life of every taxpaying American.
As I continue reading this wonderful book by Professor Joan Petersilia, I’m amazed at the statistical data. In When Prisoners Come Home, I read that our country incarcerated 196,000 people in 1970. Since then the incarceration rate has grown by more than 1,000 percent. the costs for incarcerating so many people have risen to upsetting levels. American taxpayers now spend well more than a billion dollars every week to isolate and punish offenders.
Where do those tax dollars to fund prison expenditures come from? According to the recently released Pew Report, those funds have been redirected from educational funding, health care funding, and funding for other social services. This year I heard news reports that funding was not available for college programs at California State University to the extent necessary; 10,000 university students could not work toward their degree as a consequence.
Prison spending hits every American, and much of it is unnecessary. I have served 22 years in this system, despite my having been ready to make significant contributions to society a decade ago. We need prison reforms to cut this ridiculous program that causes more harm than good to society. I will keep writing about the need for prison reform.
I ran 10 miles this morning, lifting my tally to 1,049 miles over the past 130 consecutive days.
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
Follow Michael on Facebook and Twitter
Michael G. Santos
Promote Your Page Too
Books by
Michael G. Santos
Inside: Life Behind Bars in America
About Prison
Profiles From Prison
Subscribe