It’s been a while since my last post, and a lot has happened here.
First, my good friend Matt—who I’ve written about often—was taken to the SHU (the Special Housing Unit). Nobody knows the official reason, so all we have are rumors. The word is that someone called or wrote in saying his life was in danger. When that happens, staff put you in the SHU “for your own protection,” and usually ship you out to another facility. My gut says Matt might have set this in motion himself as this is a camp and it is rare that anyone’s life would be in real danger. Also, he’d been talking a lot about wanting a transfer. But, you can only request a transfer to another facility if you have been incident free for 18 months. Matt got 2 shots (infractions) in the past 3 weeks, one for going to the wrong building and one for wearing sandals in the chow hall. So he couldn’t formally request a move for 18 months—basically the rest of his sentence. Claiming danger to his life may have been his only way out.
Inmates who’ve been to other facilities say this place is run more like a low or medium security prison. The guards are stricter than most camps. Many guys—especially those not in RDAP (the drug program that shaves time off your sentence)—want out.
It has been raid after raid here for the past couple of weeks (with good reason). Someone snitched to the guards that the P-3 wing inmates hide their phones and vapes (contraband) in the ceiling. So, of course, the guards dug around and found a huge stash of contraband in the RDAP wing: around 60 phones and 100+ vapes hidden in the ceiling. On top of that, later that week a couple of guys were caught hiding a newly arrived “package” (a bag gotten from the outside full of contraband) in the ceiling. So the COs got all the new stuff coming in. Another huge hit. This set off a chain reaction in the RDAP program.
Needless to say, staff were furious—especially because it was RDAP inmates, who are supposed to be setting a higher standard.
In response, Dr. Spriggs (head of RDAP) suspended everyone’s program hours until all contraband was turned in. We normally earn about 4 hours per day toward the 500 total required to complete RDAP. Without those hours, people’s release dates are at risk of being pushed back. No one knows how she’ll decide when “enough” contraband has been recovered.
On top of that, RDAP staff started calling people in for questioning. My name came up—just because I was close with Matt and someone dropped it in the rumor mill. Thankfully, that person later retracted it, and staff believed me when I explained the truth. They also asked why I wanted to move from P-4 (the “retirement wing”) to P-3 (the “crime wing”). I told them honestly: I was tired of fake people and feeling judged. I joked to myself afterward that I should’ve just told them to read my blog.
During the talk, I also opened up about my depression and family struggles. Surprisingly, they seemed receptive, and I might actually get some real counseling out of it. That part felt like progress.
But the fallout came quickly. Some inmates approached me later saying I should step down as facilitator of the nightly RDAP meetings. The P-4 guys didn’t like my “association” with contraband. The P-3 guys worried my long talk with staff made me a snitch. At first, I wanted to fight for the role, but honestly, it’s a tough job—organizing the meetings every night, finding people to fill roles. I’d planned to step down soon anyway, so I agreed.
When I told staff, though, they said I was doing a great job and wanted me to stay. I explained that it’s impossible to lead without community support. They reluctantly let me “retire”—but said they’d pick the next facilitator themselves. When I announced my decision, something unexpected happened: more than half the community came up to me saying they didn’t want me to leave. That felt good but it was too late … or so I thought. Today I learned that the RDAP staff hasn’t had time to choose a replacement and no other inmate has stepped up. So I am the facilitator for at least another week.
Outside of the drama, I’ve been busy in better ways. I started teaching a blockchain class. A few of the guys here wanted to understand the technology behind Bitcoin and what makes it so valuable. So I’ve been breaking it down: problems with fiat money, peer-to-peer networks, algorithms, SHA-256 hashing, proof-of-work, and soon, elliptic curve encryption. The classes have gone really well so far, and I enjoy sharing knowledge.
I’m also keeping up physically—still training for my half-marathon, teaching yoga, and doing calisthenics. I finally completed the full Wednesday push-up routine: 25 down to 1, then back up to 25—650 total—without skipping. That felt like a real milestone.
And on the yoga front, I got a new student—an ex-NFL player. After class, he told me I did an excellent job teaching. Hearing that from someone who’s trained with pro coaches really boosted my confidence.
So yeah, it’s been a wild couple of weeks: raids, rumors, setbacks, but also small victories in teaching and training. That’s prison life.
Stay safe and stay legal out there.
0 Comments