A Difficult Week at the Barred Retreat.....

This has been an interestingly difficult week at the barred retreat.   Things were going fairly well.  I was working on several orders for Christmas cards.  I am an artist so I use that talent to pass my time as well as help the others send cards to family and friends.  This was progressing along very well until one, mind you, ONE unhappy person starts telling the multitudes untruths about me.  Words are free inside these walls so where these men lack in most all other areas, they make up for it in words.  Twisted tales, lavish lies, sadistic stories, and so on.  Basically they are bored.  There are not programs here to keep them occupied. Many have no family support or extra money.  They are at the mercy of the corporations that run this hut.  Its much like the Insurance Companies and the medical profession  now owned by the corporations also.  We are just the little ants running around carrying the big loads trying not to get stepped on by the big guys. So are the guards as well as the office personnel, sadly they haven't figured that out yet.  And so it goes....  The corporations are paid by the government whenever a prisoner is let off the bus at these doors.  Then the canteen takes over, the medical staff says no to treatments, the building is understaffed and everyone that works here is pretty much angry.  They all have their little cubbies so to speak, they get their corporation pay check and we on the inside suffer.  I am not saying whoa poor me.  I am saying we should have rehab and classes and be treated like more than a sub human treats a dog. 
We were on lockdown again because of one nutjob inmate. 1,600 men have to stay in their cells, no showers, bag lunches, no light, over one guy.  You see that saves them $ again.  
Then I find out my "friend" the doctor (has cancer if you recall past post)and isn't receiving any treatment for his illness.  They wont spend the $ on someone whose going to die in about 5 months anyway.   He probably did something very bad in the world, I don't know.  You see inside these walls, my world, I can only judge by how I am treated and he has been a decent person to me as well as he is able to carry on intelligent conversation which is hard to find in here.
Then the guards put us all outside in the freezing weather while they "Shook Down" each cell.  That means they rip all your property off the shelves, throw it all on the floor like I am nothing more then a piece of dog feces.  We live each day treated like sub-sub-humans.  Guess it could be worse.  We could be in China working in a horrible mine shaft!  So.....even though they broke my false teeth cup I am fine and survived another day of hell in Tucson.
So until next time, Be Happy, Be Well, Be Safe.....    Clutch 

Genetically Modified Soy Products for Prisoners

Genetically modified soy products are the dietary backbone of the U.S. prison system ('cuz they're super cheap to feed the prisoners!)

Now one prisoner is fighting back: He's suing the and claiming that forcing him to eat soy products is "cruel and unusual punishment."

Think about this the next time to eat a veggie burder or protein bar made with soy protein (as 90% of them are) -- you're eating food that even prisoners consider to be punishment!

The canteen does not allow us any fruit because some of the prisoners use it to make alcohol.  We have no fruit......

Read more about this fascinating story:
http://www.naturalnews.com/034139_soy_products_prison_system.html

Have We Not Evolved at all?

These excerpts are taken from a Prison Newsletter regarding and SMU II in Tucson Arizona:

The deputy warden fished around his desk until he produced a small white container filled with a collection of at least 15 handmade darts. The weapons, designed to sail, are constructed with needles, paper clips and staples mounted on Q-Tips, pencil erasers and cigarette butts--strips of cloth and shredded paper are tied to the ends.
In a class-action suit filed in a protective segregation case against DOC officials, two prisoners testified in federal court that they'd been hit with blow darts, which were fired by inmates through rolled up sheets of paper. While line officers wear stab-proof vests and goggles in the units, some prisoners complain they have no protection.

Prisoners inside SMU II are divorced from natural light except for the three hours a week spent alone in a narrow, concrete recreation pen; the light defracts in from the outside through a metal covering. Those who refuse "rec" have no indicator of the seasons. "It's difficult to hear thunder in there," says former inmate Paris Carriger, who only knew it was raining when water ran down the wall near his cell.
A 7-watt bulb burns like a votive candle around the clock, illuminating a cell stripped down to institutional furniture bolted to the floor. Those inmates who cover their light to sleep in darkness are written up and refused their next meal. Officers on 30-minute bed checks peer through holes in the extruded metal into hundreds of the same boxed vignettes: a mattress on a metal frame, a small sink, a recessed light, a stool, a metal desk, a stainless steel mirror and an open toilet at the front of the cell. Discipline may be administered through turning off water or electricity. Conditions sound as if they're designed for Hannibal Lecter.

But Donna Hamm, director of the prisoner-advocacy group Middle Ground, said that one of her clients was sent to SMU II for a rules violation after bringing a medallion that he received in a drug-treatment program to visitation with his wife, whom he hadn't seen in three years. "They saw him showing the medal...He was written up and thrown in the hole."

 One former SMU II inmate submits that in placing a prisoner in what many consider a psychologically inhumane lockup, "you teach him a deadly form of hate. Now that's fine if you're going to kill him...You wouldn't pen a dog up for five years and expect it to be friendly."

Photo by Jenn Ackerman from "Trapped"