This morning I spoke with my friend Ron, a new prisoner from Chicago who built a career as an accountant in Southern California, and who began his term at Taft Camp with an extended stay in the Special Housing Unit (SHU). After speaking with him I had more understanding of what happened, and he suggested that I write about his experience for other prisoners who may self-surrender to minimum-security prison camps. It’s a good idea.
When I initially wrote about Ron, I mistakenly assumed that he had not read one of my previously written articles that provided suggestions for people who were self-surrendering. Those articles urge incoming prisoners to ensure their defense attorneys have done everything within their power to confirm the U.S. Marshals or judicial official has provided the receiving prison all of the necessary legal paperwork. When those papers are delayed, the incoming prisoner suffers because his incoming process takes much longer. Whereas most prisoners who self-surrender reach the camp within a few hours of processing, those who have paperwork delays may languish in a segregated cell for several days or several weeks.
Ron corrected my understanding this morning. He said that he had indeed read my articles for people self-surrendering and he felt confident that his defense attorney made the appropriate confirmations. Ron said that he waited in the SHU for 11 days because the prison staff was too busy to complete the admission.
I’ve heard of delays for a day of two because staff members don’t have time to complete paperwork but in my nearly 23 years of prison experience, I’ve never heard that staff would delay a prisoner in SHU for 11 days. In some crowded prisons, prisoners may sit locked in SHU for up to a few weeks while they wait for a bunk to become available. Taft Camp doesn’t have this overcrowding problem; generally speaking, I’d rank it as the best managed prison with the friendliest staff of all the prisons where I’ve been confined. I don’t have an explanation for what complicated Ron’s processing. He called it “the luck of the draw”.
In light of this new information from Ron, I’d suggest to all prisoners who worry about self-surrendering to a minimum security camp that they should expect nothing, and prepare their minds for the possibility – - although remote – - that they could spend some time in a segregated cell before they reach the camp. To prepare for that possibility, they should order a few paperback books from Amazon.com addressed for delivery to them at the prison. They should time the order so the books will arrive on the day they self-surrender, or maybe the day after. That preparation ensures the newly arriving prisoner that he will have literature to comfort him in the unlikely (but possible) event that administrators leave him in the SHU for a while.
For those self-surrendering to prison: First, ask the defense attorney to confirm with officials that all paperwork is in order; second, order four to five paperback books from a bookstore for delivery on the day of anticipated arrival; third, self-surrender between eight and nine in the morning.
Today I ran 10 miles in the early morning and then went to Toastmasters. In the afternoon I did 600 pushups.
[consecutive running log: 3,693 miles over the past 416 days]
[pushups in 2010: 10,800]
Monday, 1 February 2010
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