Category Archives: prisoners rights

Je Pay

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VINCE

I’ve been reading “Always Looking Up” by Michael J. Fox for a day or so during my short periods of free time. I’ve always been interested in reading about him. He was a good part of my entertainment when I was young, on Family Ties, and in movies such as Back to the Future. I don’t believe he’s acted since 2000, so when I saw his face on a book in our small library I picked it up.

He and I have a lot in common. He’s a famous actor with Parkinson’s Disease, and I’m a prisoner that takes medication for Parkinson’s Disease. It’s like we’re twins.

Anyhow, I don’t really have anything more to say on that subject, except that I was just mentioning it’s a good book so far. Inspirational is the word I think I’m supposed to use.

[ANNE: A few updates:

Someone from the Department of Corrections called and asked if I was indeed Anne Maertz, if I was willing to house Vince upon his release, if I owned my home. I said yes and yes and yes. Then she said, “I need to confirm that you have no firearms or alcohol in your home.” I stifled a laugh because I have learned that DOC people don’t like it when you laugh. “You mean when Vince comes to live with me, right? Not as of this moment?” She said yes and I confirmed that I don’t have any firearms and my house will be alcohol free when Vince is released. But I could not resist saying, “You realize there are 50 bars and liquor stores within walking distance of where I live, right?” She said she did realize that but that this was their policy.

When I’m not feeling contrary, I can see the logic of the policy. Most suicides are committed with firearms found in the home. Without instant access, many suicides could be prevented. Same for chemical dependency relapses. Say Vince is feeling despondent at 3am. If there’s beer in the fridge, it would be so easy for him to walk 10 feet down the hall and medicate himself. But with nothing in the house and no bars or liquor stores open at that time, he would be forced to deal with his feelings and cravings until morning, and as the AA slogan goes, “Each day a new beginning.”

My other interaction was with the prison industrial complex. As I wrote a couple weeks ago, the Minnesota DOC has switched email vendors. This sent me into a tizzy because email is the one cheap, dependable system that actually had worked for us to communicate. I finally found time to set up an account with the new vendor. They asked for my address, phone number, credit card number, and date of birth. That last one seemed unnecessarily intrusive.

The new vendor, J Pay, has a slick website with photos of people who look like they are having the time of their lives.

It calls account credit “stamps.” Is that so you don’t realize it’s money? After multiple failed attempts, I was able to buy $2.00 worth of “stamps,” which is the maximum one can purchase at a time.

It costs .40 per “stamp.”  The emails you can send are only about 1/3 as long–it’s difficult to tell before you hit “send.”  Most people are not going to do the math, but I am not most people. The old system worked out to about 10 cents per page, while this one will be 40 cents per page. I would say, cynically, that they count on people being too overwhelmed or math-impaired to figure this out, but actually it doesn’t matter – we are prisoners to J Pay and other such legal scams. The only other option is to send only postal mail. If I am realistic, that’s just not going to happen. I like to send Vince newspaper articles about baseball, and those are not allowed to be mailed to prisoners. Don’t ask me why.

At the bottom of the J Pay website were the usual social media buttons—“Like us on Facebook!” they implored. Right! As if J Pay is some sort of uber cool product I want to give free PR.

The One I Love

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VINCE

I passed a drug test and breathalyzer. I knew I would, but I did get a little nervous. Well, nothing to fret over now.

—

I remember a lot of good from Aspen Glen [the subsidized housing complex where we lived until Dr. Wonderful came into our lives]. Twenty plus years later, I still think about my daycare family—Duane and Mary and their three kids James, Shawna, and Michael. I spent years with them after school and playing with the kids on weekends. Even after we moved I stayed in touch for years. I really do miss them. I wonder if they wonder about me.

I also remember fondly my years at Bel-Air School. Years later I drove by it, and was surprised at how small it was. Everything is big when you’re a kid.

I remember when the suburb of New Brighton itself was small. Woods everywhere. Again, driving through years later, it looked commercialized. The town I grew up in, plastered with big city names. Big City businesses. I remember when the employees at the Red Owl grocery knew me. That was the first place I ever stole from. I got caught the first time. Oh, how things change.

—

I went out on another RJWC this week (Restorative Justice Work Crew). We spent five hours at a nursing home in Moose Lake. We cleaned all the exterior windows of the facility, then picked at the never-ending supply of weeds in the various gardens. I found quite a few agates in the landscaping. We’re not allowed to keep them so we put them in a bird bath for all the residents to enjoy. They always look nice underwater.

Agate

One of the hundreds of agates Vince collected before he was incarcerated.

—

So far, it’s been raining all day. This is the first time that it’s a rained on a Saturday while I’ve been at boot camp.

If it’s raining, we don’t have to go out and do work crew stuff. I don’t mind working, I never have, but this is a good opportunity to catch up on a lot of things, including writing.

One of my friends sent me a picture of my dog Willie. I instantly became sad. I miss him so much. It’s amazing how close we can get to an animal. He has been through so much with me. He’s about 12 years old now. I can’t wait to see him again.

Who knows how or what dogs think about. Somehow, I know he misses me, and we will both be just as excited to see each other, only I will have tears in my eyes.

79 days and a wake up, and I will have the ability to start figuring out how to get him back in my life.

[ANNE: At first read I thought these passages of Vince’s were not very interesting. After typing them and re-reading them, several things struck me.  1) He is capable of reviewing the past and remembering both good and bad things.  Most of us need to live more in the now, but addicts need to be able to reflect back on the past before they can move forward.  2)  He has at least one hobby, agate collecting.  Hobbies will be important diversions for him once he’s released.  3) He has someone (his dog) he misses; he can’t wait to be reunited.  Someone to miss, and who misses you–I would hope that’d be an strong deterrent to ever being locked up again.  I hope Willie lives a very long time.]

Nap Denied

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VINCE

They tore up part of the running track last week and never put it back together so I haven’t been able to run for a week.  Some people are happy about it, I am not.  But, there is nothing I can do about it.  78 days to go.

The list of “Things I will need” that I sent my mother a few days ago, well, some of them will be easy/cheap at the Salvation Army or Goodwill, I think.  I have a lot of resources at my disposal, but I don’t want to take advantage of the system unless I have to.

I will qualify for food stamps and maybe unemployment still, so those may help.

—

RJWC:  Restorative Justice Work Crew, basically community service.  Earlier this week I got to leave the grounds for only the second time in three months to do some work in the community.  Specifically, in the city of Barnum.  Our job: clean out 10 school buses, only the insides, from front to back.

It was particularly hot out, 90F, and most of the buses had routes that utilized gravel roads for the past nine months, so we were quickly covered in dust.

Nine men, six hours, 10 clean buses.  My job was to vacuum the area around and on the driver’s seat and to clean the windows and mirrors.  It was hard work, but it felt good to be doing something productive.

And of course it was nice to be out and about, almost like free men.  As in St. Cloud, I only realized how long it had been since I last heard music when I heard a song.  It was some crappy pop song, but it was beautiful.  The radio was on for the ride there and the ride back, 25 minutes each way.

—

I’m exhausted.  I haven’t taken a nap for over 90 days.  But it’s less than 90 days until I can.  Naps, and good food, are what we talk about on boring days.  Today is boring.  I want a nap but they’re not allowed.

We got some new guys yesterday.  This time they’re in the bunks next to ours.  They’re loud, confused, and completely unorganized.  Three months ago, we were them.  I better go help them out.

Have a Nice Day

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ANNE

The drum beat of stories about prison continues.

Last week, every day on my drive in to work, I heard a different story about prison on National Public Radio’s Marketplace Tech Report. At the end of each segment they said, “Go to our special website for this series to read more” but I can’t find it. The series is called Jailbreak (clever, huh?) and if you can find the link please let me know.

But in the process of trying to find the Jailbreak series I found a dozen great short podcasts on NPR. There’s one called, “Connecting inmates with their children through books,” another about for-profit prison companies adjusting to a new era. Apparently the prison population has decreased slightly, which is bad for their business model. What a shame!

There was a story about keeping mental health patients stable and out of jail. I don’t expect you to listen to all these stories, but they are a good representation of the economic, health, and social issues that all intersect in prison.

There was one story I could barely stand to finish listening to. From Solitary to the Streets was much as the title implies: prisoners, kept in solitary confinement for years, then set free with no support or resources. It’s an 11-minute podcast that will break your heart, if you have one. This is the kind of story that gets me so mad and upset that I worry I might drive off the road. Vince was in solitary confinement for less than a week and I think he would say it was the worst part of his one-year in prison so far.

This same week, there was news that Ross Ulbricht, creator of the Silk Road black market website where people could buy drugs and fake IDs, launder money, and conduct all sorts of other nefarious activities, was sentenced to life in prison. Life in prison. He’s 30 years old. Obviously the guy is a jerk with no moral compass. But life? I don’t know enough about the story yet to be suspicious about the government’s motives, but I’m sure that will come.

Back to the subject of jail breaks, the story that’s been fascinating to me is the real New York prison break. I won’t post a link because there are frequent developments. How did they get power tools? How did they communicate with each other and their presumed accomplices to create such a brazen and fine-tuned plan? How did they cut through the walls of their cells and the steam pipe without being heard? And the smiley face! Was that part of the plan that they snickered over for months, or was it spontaneous?

Smiley

I have caught myself cheering them on, then remind myself that these guys are murderers. I have to check my allegiances; I firmly believe in the rule of law and the 10 Commandments. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t succumb to the sweet-talking B.S. of a lifer and smuggle in power tools to help him escape. But I can’t wait for the book and the movie to come out.

Money for Nothing

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ANNE

Today, June 26, is United Nations Day in Support of Victims of Torture. Today also marks one year since Vince entered prison.

My organization will host a potluck supper at our clinic in St. Paul. We’re supposed to call it a healing center, not a clinic. It’s in an old renovated Victorian home. I think it’s actually Edwardian, but in Minnesota, we call everything “Victorian,” if it’s more than 100 years old. You can take a virtual tour of it if you like, or you can take a physical tour if you live in the area.

You would think I’d be used to dealing with the corrections system by now, but it still has the ability to throw me off guard. First, in keeping with my accidental theme of critiquing every word, why can’t we call it the prison system? Just what are they “correcting”? I have an image of them straightening out Vince’s limbs and brain with ratchets and wrenches.

On June 23 I got the following message from the corrections system email provider:

This email is to inform you that effective June 30, 2015 the Minnesota Department of Corrections will no longer utilize CorrLinks for inmate message transfers. The MNDOC agency option will no longer be available effective June 30th.

If you would like to request a refund of your balance you may do so by removing all of your contacts and closing your account.

Sincerely,

CorrLinks Support

I so wish I could be an emotional ninja all the time—ducking serenely to avoid upsetting news like this—but instead I flipped out.

UNBELIEVABLE! was my immediate reaction. CorrLinks is the one thing about the entire MNDOC that has actually worked. It’s affordable, simple, and it’s the one effing way I could reliably communicate with Vince.

I assumed they had found another vendor that would cost five times more and was owned by the warden’s brother in law. Or were they just going to discontinue the email option completely? What a joke.

—

I checked the DOC website and it had no information about the change. So I called the them. The person who answered knew nothing about it. She put me on hold and when she came back read me a memo she had managed to track down that said the same thing as the email. But it did go on to say there would be a new system called J Pay. (I wonder if J is for Jail?)

It will cost 40 cents per message instead of 30. Okay, I guess I can afford that.

I currently have a $4 balance with Corrlinks. Am I going to bother requesting a refund? Hell no! I’ll bombard Vince with emails—articles from the Atlantic are good for using up words.

But I bet there will be thousands of people who don’t ask for refunds.  Let’s face it, one week’s notice is not very much, especially for wives of prisoners who are working full time and have kids.  So let’s say there are even 1,000 people who leave $4 on the table. That’s a cool $4,000 for Corrlinks, or for the DOC.   In fact, I wonder if they switch systems every now and then just to get some quick cash.

Oh I am so cynical!  Probably the money will be donated to some prison-related charity, right?

Life Imitating Work

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ANNE

Once or twice a year, my organization sends out a list of items that our clients need.  I got the latest list the first week in June.  It had the usual things on it, like Target gift cards, quarters (for laundromats), umbrellas (they travel on foot or via public transport and it’s been a rainy spring), and shoes (in this case, men’s size 8, “preferably tennis shoes”).

Someone needed a suitcase.  As an asylum seeker he is not allowed to work and he also is not eligible for any public benefits, like housing.  So he is sleeping on someone’s couch—probably a friend of a relative of a friend who is the same nationality as he is.  The most common nationality we see right now is Ethiopians.

I had a giant suitcase that I was never going to use again so I arranged for him to have it.  Win-win situation: I didn’t have space for it; he needed it, good deed done.  I am so glad I’m not a social worker; our clients’ needs are endless and their stories are so sad.

A week later I got this letter from Vince:

Ms. Mom:

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my release.  I’ve been here 100 days.  82 to go.

I’ve mentioned before that I won’t have much when I get out.  Nothing really.  But there are some necessities and even some convenience items I will need your help with.  You’re the only one I feel comfortable asking, but you may know some others that are willing to help.

So here’s my list of things.  Some of them explain themselves.  Some may not, so I will:

  1. Bed and bedding related items
  2. Clothing (from the ground up, figuratively and literally)
  3. Eye exam and contact lenses
  4. A vehicle and insurance. For this I may (will) need to take out a loan from a loving family member.  With only four hours of personal time per week, not to include AA meetings or physical activity, time management is going to be critical.  For me, a vehicle is one of the more important needs.  We’ll talk.
  5. Gym membership. We’ve talked.  [I told him the YMCA has a sliding scale system.]
  6. Cell phone, if my ISR agent allows one. I think I can pay for it.
  7. Well, that’s a good list so far.

This list wasn’t entirely my idea.  We are all encouraged to write to family asking for help when we get out.  They know we leave with nothing, and it’s good to prepare as soon as possible.

I have a new copy of my driver’s license in my file here, and soon I will have a new Social Security card, so I will leave here with the requirements to obtain legal work anywhere.  My chemical dependency counselor says it would be good for me to get work outside the foodservice industry, so keep your eyes peeled for factory work or anything really that you think I could do that would be felon friendly.

I’m not intentionally trying to add stress to your life so if I am, say so.  They say the more we prepare, the better our chances.  And our resources here are limited.  I know I’m going to be a bit of a burden for a while.  But I’m willing to pull my weight however possible.

I’m coming home with a positive attitude, a good work ethic, and a desire to be productive always.

I need to fill 90 hours of community service/volunteer work.  You mentioned a good volunteer is hard to find.  I volunteered in a nursing home the other day in Moose Lake.  It was very rewarding.

I love you, Mom.  Thank you, again, for all you continue to do.

Vince

Sticker Trippin’

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ANNE

I thought I would show you some of the envelopes that go back and forth between Vince and me. First, here is the standard return address on a letter from him. Just in case I’ve managed to keep his incarceration private from a few people, the DOC makes sure that the US Postal Service and my fellow neighbors in my apartment building know he’s in prison.

Return Address

I know, I know. I could be a battered woman who wants nothing to do with her abuser, who is locked away in Moose Lake. It just seems like most people are suspicious enough that they would see a letter from someone they don’t want to hear from, a mile off, without the use of MN CORRECTIONAL FACILITY. I mean really—all caps? Who uses those anymore unless they are angry?

On the positive side, here is the standard postcard they send. I like the tree, nice touch.

Postcard

Here is a sample of a letter that was returned to me. Why? Because I used a return address sticker, apparently.

Return to Sender

Again, I understand that every one of these “rules”—I use quotation marks because they are enforced inconsistently—probably originated from some incident. In this case, the myth is that someone tried to send the offender LSD using address stickers. Apparently you might try to send LSD in lipstick, perfume, bubble wrap, white out, or even create a fake stain. It’s true that a lot of criminals are pretty imaginative.

Imaginative, but dumb. If you wanted to get high in prison, and I can understand why you would, would you really want to go on an acid trip? I’ve never dropped acid. If I were going to, I’d want to be in a lovely cottage in the countryside somewhere, where I could safely ponder bunnies and fawns.

Tripping in a prison cell? That’s one of the ways our clients where I work have been tortured. They’re shackled to a bed, forced to ingest acid, then tormented in an endless variety of ways.

A Room with View

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VINCE

Today we watched a movie in treatment called 7 pounds.  (The number is shown in that form in the title so I can’t be faulted for not spelling it out.).  It stars Will Smith.  And it’s one of the better movies I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s really sad.  Funny in the right spots.  And at one point in the beginning he says to a man when asked why he was deserving of his help, “Because you’re a good person, even when you think nobody is looking.”

I liked that.  I want to be like that.

Throughout my life, I have always thought of myself as a good person.  Unfortunately, I haven’t actually acted like one very often.

From dealing drugs to stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down, to abandoning friends and family alike, I’ve done nearly everything possible to be a bad person.

I’ve looked into that a lot over the last two months, done a lot of soul searching, taken my moral inventory.  I can see the harm now in the things I’ve done.  Now I’m starting to build myself back up.  To gain the confidence I never had.  I can be that good person I’ve claimed to be.  I am going to be a good man.

—

Last night at 2100, like every other night, we stood at the POA at our bunks, waiting to be counted.  This time I noticed that it was still light out.  It reminded me of my childhood in Aspen Glen, the suburban subsidized housing complex we lived in until my mom met Kermit.  I remember staring out the window at the other kids still playing outside.  I don’t remember how old I was, or what time I had to go to sleep, but I do remember hours of boredom.

No boredom here.  Today we were allowed to raise our Reebok Step up to ten inches.  Ugh. What a difference.  For 40 minutes, they extra two inches made me sweat like a hog.  (That’s what she said?)  It was a good workout.

[ANNE: I feel myself getting defensive as I read Vince’s memory of Aspen Glen.  There must have been hundreds of kids who lived there.  We moved in when Vince was four.  Maybe he was staring out the window at the other kids because he was four and I actually enforced a bedtime, unlike a lot of the other parents.  There were good parents there, but there were terrible ones too.  And a lot of them, like me, were completely overwhelmed and exhausted with work, school, household chores, and parenting.  Sometimes I couldn’t stay awake past 9:00.  Unlike me, Vince is a night person, so I can imagine he was bored because he couldn’t go out and play and he couldn’t go to sleep.  But it’s not like I kept him locked in his room and slid trays of food under his door—just to be clear.]

Brown Hat, Hurrah!

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VINCE

We finally had our red-hat reviews. A week late—better late than never.

I did about as well as I thought I would. No formal discipline. No major issues in Physical Training, Chemical Dependency, or Military Bearing. I will get my brown hat tonight.

What does that mean? Well, all of us that passed (14 out of 17) will have a higher level of responsibility.

We will be lifting weights now twice a week. And we have to do 30 pushups when we are informally disciplined. It’s time to really step it up. I will.

The three members of our squad that didn’t make it will have a chance in a week to get their brown hats. They accumulated too much discipline over a short amount of time. My prediction: one of them will be held back a month. He hasn’t lost his attitude. But…it’s not my job to worry about him. I can only control myself.

—

We got a new squad in our barracks. There are 12 squads, four in each of the three barracks. Two squads leave and arrive each month. Anyhow, it’s amazing to see the new guys and see how far we’ve come in 2½ months. They are a mess. They have a constant look of fear about them and are totally disorganized. I can’t believe we were like that, but all new squads are.

—

Yesterday I worked KP for the first time. It was nice to be back in a kitchen setting, however I was quite disappointed with the overall operation.

First, for what their labor cost is, it should have been the cleanest place in the world. But I saw obvious signs of neglect. After breakfast, lunch, and dinner service, I spent my time cleaning nooks and crannies using only a large towel. There are no useful cleaning tools (like steel wool or green scrubbers). And we aren’t allowed to spray cleaning chemicals, only pour them on towels.

The worst parts were two equally horrible things:

  1. I have never seen so much useful food thrown away in my life. Hundreds of pounds of cooked, edible food, tossed in a garbage can. They only let the offenders eat a certain amount of food. It’s plenty, but I don’t see a reason to not let us get seconds on things like broccoli, bread, or salad. Or how about doing something cliché like somehow getting the extras to homeless shelters? I dunno. Things like that get to me. What a waste.
  1. The kitchen staff (not state employees) use the power they have to degrade and belittle the offenders. Unfortunately I can’t write more on that, but I will when I am a free man.

[ANNE: I kind of feel like one of the old geezers on Sesame Street, commenting from the peanut gallery on Vince’s posts. But since we only get 13 minutes to talk on the phone every two weeks, we don’t waste time clarifying the finer points of the blog. So. I don’t get why he was so looking forward to getting his brown hat. It sounds like it just makes life more demanding—I mean, 30 pushups? I can barely do three.

I think this goes to show that many of us thrive when more is asked of us. I see this at work with volunteers. The ones whose supervisors “don’t want to overwhelm them” by giving them too much work usually don’t stick around. The ones who we pile work on, rise to it and usually do even more than we asked of them.

I always thought Vince’s problem was that he couldn’t handle stress; that was why he lived in the boon docks, didn’t own a car, never aspired to become a chef rather than a cook. But maybe I had it wrong. He seems to be thriving under high expectations. It’ll be interesting to see how he manages when he’s outside, with just the minimal expectations that he not use chemicals and not break the law.]

Dying for a Smoke

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ANNE

I’ve written about how I’m so lucky / grateful to not be an addict. However, quitting smoking was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, so I guess that makes me … an addict? Is having a Swisher Sweet cigar once a month a slippery slope? This is something I started in the last year or so.  I don’t inhale. But I must get enough nicotine to give me that instant stress reduction effect. I go down to the river with a beer or a flask of tea and smoke one little cigar and watch the water go by. Is that really so bad? Can’t I just enjoy one vice, once in a while?

—

I tried everything to quit. Setting a quit date. Cutting down. Smoking myself sick so I’d never want one again–until the next day. The patch, the pills (which caused frightening hallucinations), chewing on cinnamon sticks. Willpower. Phone counseling through my insurance plan. Not smoking til after I’d worked out for two hours. Never smoking in public. Never smoking until after work. Meditation.

I quit over and over. I’d quite for six months then cave in. Once I quit for FOUR YEARS! And then I started again after Dr. Wonderful broke our engagement. I was so sick the next day, after smoking one cigarette, that all I could do way lie on the couch and moan. But I started and kept on smoking for another 10 years.

In the end it was a silly thing that got me to quit. I read somewhere that the average age of women who get lung cancer is 42. So I’d had that in my mind for years—that I had to quit by the time I was 42. And I did. But as with the depression that I battled for decades, I think it was all the things combined, plus this final silly thought, that made it stick. That was 14 years ago.

Meditation helped, too. After all, it involves inhaling and exhaling, just like smoking. I still found myself tearing off the nicotine patch so I could have “just one” cigarette, then slapping the patch back on and yelling to myself out loud, “No—NO!!”

I know I can never pick up a cigarette again, not even to have one drag. I know this I went to Jamaica with a friend 15 years ago. She had quit smoking years earlier. But I was smoking, and she picked up one of mine, just to have a few drags—we were on vacation, after all! She smoked all week and has been smoking ever since. My sister smokes. Yes, the one with cancer. Yes, she knows that smoking can be a contributing factor to colon cancer. She tries and tries to quit. Now there are e-cigs, and she says they’re ok up to a point and then she Just Has to Have a Real Cigarette. I don’t blame her. Like I wrote above, they’re an instant stress reliever. Until you think about lung cancer and heart attacks; that’ll raise your stress level.

There has been no smoking allowed in Minnesota prisons for over 20 years. This is good; Vince’s lungs will get a chance to regenerate. But will he light up again the minute he’s out? He didn’t fight to quit, like I did; he was forced. And he wonders why he was so moody the first few weeks he was inside!