Prison Photo ID

Some of you may know that I was here in Coleman-Camp in 97 until 2000. In December of 99 I began a hunger strike. As punishment for my hunger strike I was sent to the hole at a high security facility in Tallahassee, with a one way only ticket. The camp administrator's assistant at that time told me that I could rest assured that I would never be able to come back to Coleman.

It took me 3 years of fighting the BOP to come back to Coleman. When I finally reached Coleman by a furlough transfer from Marianna Camp, I was already paranoid. There is no doubt that years of incarceration made us paranoid, but the fact that I knew that Coleman-Camp did not want me, made my paranoia worse. I was afraid that i was going to be sent back to Marianna, that the officers would be watching and following me. All of those weird thoughts crossed my mind. The day after my arrival, first thing in the morning, I was in line to get my laundry bag and of course I was at my highest paranoid stage. Here came the camp officer who approached me and in a friendly tone said: "are you Ms. Guanipa?" My legs were shaking, ten thousand thoughts crossed my mind at the speed of light. I answered: "How do you know who I am? I have never seen you before." He replied: "It is my job to know any new inmate in this camp." Since he was very friendly, I said to him: "Are you sure it is only that?"; he answered: "yes!" I asked again: "Are you sure nobody sent you to follow me?" he said: "No, I am not following you, I just wanted to take your picture for your ID." I replied: "Oh, no, no, that's not going to happen, you are not the R and D (release and detention) officer; he is the only one who can take my picture." He said: "The R and D officer is my buddy, and he will allow me to take your picture." I did not want to continue the conversation and I said: "We will see..." Then I left.

A few hours later I was paged by the speaker system to go to R and D, when I got there I saw the camp officer and he said to me: "I told you that I was going to take your picture." I was scared to death and was thinking: "Oh, Lord, he is going to send my picture to the FBI, to Homeland Security, to the CIA, to the INTERPOL, and to God knows where else." After arguing back and forth with the R and D officer and him, asking both of them for a satisfactory reason, he finally said: "OK, Ms. Guanipa, relax, all I want is to catch your smile in the picture." I replied: "Catch my smile? Are you out of your mind?" He said: "Why not?" I continued arguing and he said: "Ms. Guanipa, relax, relax, I am not going to let you go until you smile at the camera... you are always smiling anyway, even when you are arguing, so why not smile for the camera?" I said; "OK."

The result: a big smile picture on my prison ID (you will be able to see the picture soon, at this moment I can not post the picture from here). I really do not know why the officer wanted to do that, but I can honestly say that he had never disrespected me nor any of my fellow prisoners that I know of. The problem begins every time that an officer or an inmate asks for my ID. It seems like they both staff and inmates get upset when they see my big smile in the picture, and they always asked: "Why are you smiling in that picture?" I come out with different answers (of course I could not tell the truth or the story over and over) such as: "Why not?"; "because I love to smile"; "because smiling is good for your health"; etc, etc; but none of my answers pleased them. They all gave me that weird look like they were thinking: "She must be stupid, or on some kind of pills."

One day when I was coming back from work, an officer that we all know for being very rude, stopped me on the road, searched my vehicle and asked for my ID, and of course he asked: "Why are you smiling in the picture?" I knew that he would take any of my previous answers as a smart answer. I said to myself: "I have to come out with a different answer." I answered him: "Because I am stupid, sir." He did not reply and just let me go. I was so happy with his reaction that I was jumping up and down on my way back saying to myself: "I got it, I got it now, my answer from now on is: 'because I am stupid.'" It seems like that is what the people inside prison want to hear.

Dear friends , all of us have been stupid in some point in our life, but no matter what: KEEP ON SMILING. I love you all.

Feel free to share this article or write to me at:

Yraida L. Guanipa # 44865-004
FCC Coleman-Camp
PO Box 1027
Coleman, Florida 33521-1027