The Boiling Point

I have been reading about prison population growing more frequently, not only did I read but I see it everyday especially in this complex. I see more and more prisoners each day. Just yesterday I was reading an article about how the BOP has become the largest single jailer in the USA ( I believe in the world) and that the BOP was 40% overcapacity in 2004. I wonder what is the overcapacity % in 2006. It feels like 75%. We are not only living like sardines in a can due to the overcapacity problem, every day there is a new restriction or a new change, but the changes are not for our comfort or benefit. On the contrary, it is always for the worst. We now have to pay for our doctor's visits, we have to pay for our medicines, we have to pay to wash/dry our cloths, the phones rates have gone up, we have less recreatio, education and religious programs and the food gets worse and worse every day; a second locker have been taken away, smoking has been barred, so the ones addicted to cigarettes are having nicotine fits and driving the rest of us insane, and our paper work for furloughs and half way house are not getting done on time due to staff shortages. At the same time our human capacity to tolerate is strickening, I see that my fellow female prisoners are more willing and less afraid to protest, so they complaint more, they raise their concerns and little by little are more willing to stand for their beliefs and rights. For example last Saturday March 25 was the last day of an officer that had been an officer at the camp for almost 3 years 9even thought they suppose to rotate officers every 3 months). This particular officer has a few nicknames such as "La Muerte" spanish for "The Death", "Gestapo", etc, etc. He even looks like a nazi-police, white, very skinny, small mustached, smokes like a chimney, with a military hair cut and a very mean facial look. He was always spying on us, writing us incident reports, shaking us down, padding our bodies and looking for something to made us feel even more miserable. Well when he finished his last count on March 25, he said: "this is my last count"; and we all started, clapping, screaming, jumping and celebrating. It was mayhem. I was even told that the mayhem in one of the other units was even worse than ours. In the past, this type of behavior would have been punished by locking us down, closing the TV rooms or blocking our phone usage, because it was considerated disrespecful to the officers, but this time nothing happened. I said to myself: "wow, things are changing in prisons, if the females prisoners are losing their patience, I wonder how the male prisoners patience and tolerance is?. Changes are sometimes good, but at the same time it is scary, because I truly believe that prisons accross the nations are becoming crock pots coming close to a BOILING POINT, when those pots (prisons) hit the BOILING POINT, we will witness riots, killing and who knows what else. It is my hope that our law makers will prevent a disaster inside our prisons by preventing from filling our nation's prisons with first-time, non-violent offenders to serve draconian sentences. I love you all. Yraida L. Guanipa (Leo) Feel free to share this article with your friends or anybody on your e-mail list.

******Note from Web page Editor: Yraida also included her mailing address on here, but for safety reasons, I chose not to add it. Anyone wishing to have it can email me at prisontalk@hotmail.com.