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PrisonLawBlog.com’s FCI Petersburg Pigeon Project

As many Prison Education News readers are aware, PrisonLawBlog.com is our sister website which focuses on prisoners’ rights and prison law.  It is another property of Middle Street Publishing.  Recently the Prison Law Blog launched a new project called the FCI Petersburg Pigeon Project.  This project consists of taking care of the wild pigeon population

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Texas Prison Burials

By Prison Legal News

If a Texas state prisoner dies or is executed, relatives or friends can pick up the body. If they don’t, he or she is buried in the largest prison graveyard in the United States – the Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery in Huntsville, Texas. Such burials occur around 100 times each year.

Named after an assistant warden at the Huntsville Unit who helped clean and restore the 22-acre graveyard in the 1960s, the cemetery is still associated with the prison unit known as “The Walls” for its 19th century brick walls. The warden or assistant warden from the facility attends each funeral.

A prisoner’s body may be unclaimed for a number of reasons. There may be no surviving friends or relatives, but a more likely explanation is that the friends or relatives are too poor to afford the burial expenses.

“I think everyone assumes if you are in a prison cemetery you’re somehow the worst of the worst,” said Indiana State University assistant professor of criminology Franklin T. Wilson, who is writing a book about the Byrd cemetery. “But it’s more of a reflection of your socioeconomic status. This is more of a case of if you’re buried there, you’re poor.”

Although Texas prison officials have only been able to verify 2,100 prisoner burials at the graveyard, Wilson, who recently photographed every headstone in the cemetery, estimated the number was over 3,000.

 

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A Little Respect Would Go A Long Way Towards Cordiality

By Christopher Zoukis  Image courtesy www.glogster.com

Today, at 11:00 AM, I approached my unit team area — F-North in FCI Petersburg — seeking to submit a form which authorizes the Federal Bureau of Prisons to send money to a friend of mine from my commissary account (BP-199).  Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM is the designated “Open House” time period for my unit team.  This is when inmates housed in the F-North housing unit are allowed to make inquiries with our counselor, case manager, and unit manager.  Today, like many Tuesdays and Thursdays, my unit team decided that it just wasn’t a good day to have open house, so they simply didn’t bother to have it.  Naturally, no advanced notice was made and no rescheduling will occur.  Same old, same old.

While disappointed about not being able to submit the money request form, I’m used to such inconsistency at FCI Petersburg (more specifically in the F-North housing unit), so I just brushed it off and decided to carry the form around with me until my counselor decided to make an appearance.  My opportunity came at 4:36 p.m., right after my cell door was unlocked following the 4:00 p.m. count.  It’s the interaction which subsequently transpired which motivated me to write this personal exposition of my experience.

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Preventing Recidivism Through Inmate Employment

By Todd Peterson

Give prisoners jobs! Real, honest-to-goodness jobs. Jobs other than the menial tasks we associate with prison life: serving food in the mess hall, doing laundry, scrubbing pigeon waste off the sidewalk. Jobs in career fields that can lead to viable employment after release.

At a time when the economy is in a downturn and many are struggling to make ends meet, concern regarding the employment of prisoners may seem somewhat dubious, if not downright crazy. However, if we are to lower recidivism rates – and truly rehabilitate prisoners – inmate employment is exactly what is needed.  Image courtesy workinglinks.com

Go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done. For 208,118 [1] men and women in the United States, as of 2009, the Federal Bureau of Prisons is the adult – albeit more severe – equivalent of this child’s punishment.

Even a short prison sentence offers plenty of time for reflection. Although our past misdeeds should never be fully forgotten, after the first few days or perhaps weeks, of a sentence, even the most recalcitrant prisoner must move on and find a way to “do their time.” This is simply the healthy thing to do.

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Own Your Future: New Colorado Program to Reintegrate Ex-Offenders

By Chase Squires College In Colorado has developed an online program to guide felons back into work, and life. College In Colorado – a Colorado Department of Higher Education initiative that helps students and families explore careers and plan, apply, and pay for college – launches a free online program on July 2 – aimed

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Blewett Crack Relief On Hold: Sixth Circuit Grants En Banc Review

On May 31, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted a request by the United States for en banc review in United States v. Blewett, No. 12-5226/5582, 2013 WL 2121945 (May 17, 2013). In Blewett, a three-judge panel ruled that the recent amendments to provisions governing sentencing in crack cocaine

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The Real Cost of Higher Incarceration Rates

Until the economic downturn that started in 2008, few people outside of policy and media circles paid attention to the true costs of criminal justice. Overall, the country seemed to place more emphasis on lowering crime rates and fighting the “War on Drugs” rather than paying attention to the inflating costs of incarceration. To some

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Correctional Budget Cuts and Potential Solutions

By Christopher Zoukis

With fiscal uncertainty rampant and budget cuts looming state law makers are finally seeing the light when it comes to correction’s budgets. This light comes in the numbers of 7% and $50 billion. According to the National Association of State Budget Officers, states spend 7% of their discretionary budgets, $50 billion a year, on corrections. This is second only to health care and education.  Michigan’s Budget / Image courtesy huffingtonpost.com

States have taken these numbers to heart with extensive mid-year correctional budget cuts in 2011-2012. A total of 31 states made cuts to the tune of $805.9 million. Colorado led the pack with $112.5 million in cuts while South Dakota lagged behind with only $0.7 million in cuts. Surprisingly enough, California, with all of their fiscal issues, didn’t make any cuts.

The move to reduce correction’s budgets is focused on reducing both the number of prisoners incarcerated and the number of prisons. Texas, for example, is proposing a drastic shift in their correction’s ideology. They were planning on building more prisons to compensate for probation revocations. But now they are considering lightening sentences for probation violations. Texas is basing this new correction’s philosophy upon what others have called “shock probation.” The idea is to overwhelm the probationer with the concept of how bad life can be if they were to go to prison. This is the same concept used by the scared straight programs. If Texas was to follow through with this proposal, costs would be around $241 million for the program, not the $540 million it would cost to build three new prisons, according to State House member Jerry Madden. Texas was one of the 31 states to make mid-year cuts. They cut $20 million from their correction’s budget.

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Prison Disciplinary Charges: Using Witness Statements to Prepare a Defense

Prison disciplinary proceedings are a way of life for those incarcerated in America’s prisons.  This is because the various departments of corrections have a smorgasbord of applicable infractions that, unfortunately, are often applied inconsistently.  Thus, the majority of inmates will eventually find themselves the subject of a prison discipline proceeding.  When this occurs, they need to know what to do and how to defend themselves.  Locating witnesses and obtaining effective written witness statements are vital components of an effective defensive strategy.

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Life in Prison: Dealing With Disrespectful People

Today has been a very long day.  It started with someone in my prison’s housing unit — the F-North housing unit at FCI Petersburg — yelling about pedophiles hogging the TRULINCS computers (the people to which this comment was made were most certainly not hogging anything), continued with scoffs at a transgender prisoner in the

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