We Need a New Inmate to Feature...

Hey all!!!! The time has come to feature a new inmate on this page... I am looking for one or more male or female inmates in either state or federal prisons who are willing to share their lives with us and give America a glimpse of what prison life truly is like. Please email me if you know anyone who may be interested in featuring themselves online as done with Yraida through her release (who is, btw, doing quite well from what I have been told). An inmate can write me at my email if they have access, and I can post their letters, such as Yraida did, or they can write me at my snail mail address and I can either retype their letters, or scan them in their own writing to post. You can email me at steffimarie79@msn.com. Let's get this blog back up and running again!

Steffi

Time to Feature a New Inmate

Hey all!!!! The time has come to feature a new inmate on this page... I am looking for one or more male or female inmates in either state or federal prisons who are willing to share their lives with us and give America a glimpse of what prison life truly is like. Please email me if you know anyone who may be interested in featuring themselves online as done with Yraida through her release (who is, btw, doing quite well from what I have been told). An inmate can write me at my email if they have access, and I can post their letters, such as Yraida did, or they can write me at my snail mail address and I can either retype their letters, or scan them in their own writing to post. You can email me at steffimarie79@msn.com. Let's get this blog back up and running again!

Steffi

1, 2, 3, and 4

1, 2, 3, and 4 of my fellow prisoners were sent to the county jail this week as punishment; creating so much commotion on the camp that I felt that I was getting close to collapsing from an anxiety attack. Some of you may know that federal prison CAMPS do not have holes(isolation units) so when an inmate misbehaves, she is taken to the county jail, until the investigation is done or until she is transferred to a higher security facility.

You may wonder: "Why a county jail?" Years ago the misbehave inmates were sent to an isolation unit (hole) at the adjacent prison facility, but more than a decade ago a female inmate from a camp (not this camp) was sent to the isolation unit in the adjacent male prison, and a few males in the unit paid the staff to allow them to rape the female inmate. She was brutally and repeatedly raped. She brought the case to the court and the judge issued an order to the BOP prohibiting them from placing female inmates with male inmates in an isolation unit. You may wonder now who are the 4 inmates and why they were removed and stripped from camp status.

Well the first one was an inmate that I told you about in one of my first PTO's: a toothless, funny looking lady that was named TITI. She went on a 7-day pre-release furlough and instead of looking for a job and getting her documents straight, she ended up in a crack house. I heard (rumors) that she was picked up from the crack house or from the police station and when she was brought back, she was high on drugs.

The second one is a lady in her early thirties who has been incarcerated for 5 years and has 15 more to do. Not too long ago she suffered a stroke, and after the stroke she was confined to a wheelchair. She courageously managed to walk again and use her help with the help of other inmates (no rehabilitation treatment). We were told that she had escaped, and we were ordered to go inside our housing units for a bed-count ( a standing count next to our bed with our I.D.), some of us were not even allowed to finish our lunches. It was a very tense situation, officers were screaming instructions over the speakers, and so on. Finally we learned that it was not an escape; it was just that the inmate chose to go off the camp for a few hours to have sex with her husband that was released from prison more than a month ago. When she was coming back to the camp she was handcuffed, shackled and taking straight to the county jail. I heard rumors) that it had been the second time that she had done that.

The third and fourth one were a lesbian couple in love and they were caught giving each other a long good night kiss in front of the housing unit after the compound was closed at 10:30 p.m. They were caught by the cameras located in front of the units. I heard (rumors) that this was not the first time that they did that.

After all the annoyance, I was so stressed that I was unable to sleep. It was almost 1:00 a.m. and I was still full-awake, I decided to meditate and analyze the situation. I wondered "why did those inmates do that, their behavior is affecting all of us". I put myself in their shoes and thought: The first one has a very serious addiction problem, and she needs a drug treatment program (rehabilitation) instead of a work prison camp. The second one almost lost her life from the stroke and still has 15 years to go; she does not know if she will still be alive in 15 years, or if her husband will wait for her. She had the opportunity to have a little bit of pleasure in her shattered life. What can I say? Only that she had courage. I do not have that kind of courage. I am too chicken for that, my courage is only with my pen and with words. The third and fourth were in love. I do not judge people for their sexual preference as long as they are happy. I only expect discretion from them.

At the end I concluded that the problems were: addiction, illness, sex and love. Shall we really punish people for these kind of problems? We must answer honestly to ourselves and we must dig deep into this issue because we need to be clear whether we need a social change (abolish draconian sentences for first-time, non-violent offenders) or is our society changing toward a Mayberry Machiavelli reign. 1, 2, 3 and 4; addiction, illness, sex and love, four problems that affect our society as a whole. Is our punishment just?

I love you all.
Yraida L. Guanipa.

Feel free to share this e-mail and/or write to me at:
Yraida L. Guanipa # 44865-004
F.C.C. Coleman-Camp
P.O. Box 1027
Coleman, Florida 33521-1027

Jump-- Jump On!!

Jump, Jump-On and bounce on our new luxury mattresses! It is unbelievable that we have a brand new 10" box spring mattress. This has been a magnanimous event.

Last week, Friday the 21st we got new mattresses, "not prison mattresses", real mattresses. How did this happen?, I really do not know. The first night that I slept on my new mattress, I woke-up in the middle of the night and I thought I was dreaming. I dreamt I was on my 7 day furlough already and I was looking for my sons. Then I realized that I was still in prison, sleeping on my comfortable new 10" box spring mattress. After sleeping more than 10 years on a 2" springless, nasty, raggedy old mattress, I am sure you can relate to what I am feeling. When we were told that the prison was going to buy mattresses for all of us; I said:"yeah, yeah, lies and more lies, that's never going to happen". I must admit I was wrong-- completely wrong. I am still in shock, but enjoying my new mattress before someone on top takes them away again.

A few months ago we had an ACA inspection. The American Correctional Association (ACA) is an organization that inspects prisons and enforces prison regulations. In their last inspection they ordered us to remove the polyfill that we had placed on our 2" mattresses. It was what we relied on for cushion and comfort. The majority of my fellow prisoners bought bags of poly fill from the commissary to make the mattresses thicker. The poly fill that they sold in commissary is for hobby craft purposes (to stuff our crochet animals), but we were authorized to use it on our very thin mattresses. Some of us spent more than $20 on poly fill. Suddenly ACA said we could not have it because poly fill is a fire hazard and was highly flammable. We were ordered to throw away our poly fill. We saw our dollars and the little bit of comfort we had over flowing in the trash cans and dumpsters. We were all upset, cranky and sleepless. Our metal bunk bed has 3 metal support bars for the metal spring that we could feel sleeping on those 2" mattresses. There were days when I got-up that I was feeling like those support bars were beating my kidneys all night. Like me, my fellow prisoners were in the same predicament, especially the elderly and the sick.

The mattress change came along with a lot of other changes that are happening inside our prisons systems. There are so many changes that I can hardly keep up with then. Of course all the changes are for the worse-- we are getting overcrowded, the food is less and worse everyday, there is less staff to process paper work and to enforce the rules, more inmates fighting, much more noise and the mattresses came like an Oasis in the desert. I was so excited that day that I volunteered myself to work to take the old mattresses out and bring in the new ones. We came together in line-ups with each other down the hall, military style, and passed down the old mattresses and the new ones. A total of 256 mattresses per unit were moved. We did the work in our Unit in less than a hour. We worked as a team for a good cause: "to sleep better". It please me to see how we get together and work as a team. The little child inside of me still loves to jump on beds, but with a 2" mattress on 3 metal support bars, it was not a good place to bounce, however with my new 10" box-spring mattress, the child inside came out again after 10 years and I am bouncing away. I just hope that my fellow prisoners do not get too comfortable in prison, because this is not our place and NEVER WILL BE.

I love you all.
Yraida L. Guanipa (Leo).

Feel free to share this e-mail or write to me at:
Yraida L. Guanipa # 44865-004
F.C.C. Coleman-Camp
P.O. Box 1027
Coleman, Florida 33521-1027