> Nothing posted so far is particularly damning to this prison or the
> prison system.
That's not the point. The point is to give you insights into life at what appears to be a minimum security prison. I think he's captured everything pretty well: the prick guards; the dumb, arbitrary rules; the inefficient prison bureaucracy, etc.
I thought this passage was pretty damning: -WD
<http://noironyinprison.blogspot.com/2008/05/day-3-getting-to-see-jim.html>
I am called down later to retrieve my belongings which Brenda as dropped off. A new guard, Carpenter, is on duty. Carpenter is very pissed off.
"I am not mad at you, but I need to explain something," he says. "I have worked here for 10 years and I've never stolen from someone or done anything like that. I had to have a background check just to work here." Brenda made the mistake of saying to Carpenter as she handed him my clothes "so you will give this right to him?". Carpenter felt she was accusing him of being a likely thief. Carpenter was legitimately offended, but has to realize it is a natural concern (and it happens on Oz, so there you go). In reality, Brenda had put some pictures of us and our dog, and a letter to me, in with the clothes and was worried they would be discovered. Of course they were. Carpenter and Robbins give them to me to read and look at but say I can't keep them; those things must come through the prison mail system.
Later, when I speak to Brenda about it, she is naturally upset. I agree with her, of course, but the problem for me is that I have NO RIGHTS. When you are in prison, everything is a privilege that can be revoked by anyone for any reason, and there is no appeal to a superior or right to try and argue. If Brenda looks at a guard funny and he decides to take it out on me by confining me to my cell for two weeks and forbids me to call my employer, and I lose my job, that is my problem. If I try and argue with him and he submits a report indicating I am a troublemaker on the Work Release block and recommends I am sent to General Population, potentially to room with a murderer or rapist, it will happen.
My advice to anyone with a loved-one in the US prison system: treat everyone who works for the prison as if the prison-worker is a psychotic armed kidnapper who has your loved-one locked in a closet, and you are trying to ensure your loved-one stays safe. Because that is exactly what it feels like.
A Captain and his thimbleful of power is far more dangerous than any King.