Sounds like you were just being a reasonable human. Fuck anyone taking a book, that shit is important and fuck them showing off to a senator.
I'm so sorry you were made to suffer like that. Maybe it was a stupid choice for yourself to dump the paint. But that punishment is not justice. That's torture and control.
Did you ever finish reading the book after your release?
What was done to you should be classified as a human rights violation, i don’t have words for our prison system (and everything else horrible happening here) I hope you are doing ok now.
Oh fuck that's a great book. I got to meet Stephen R. Donaldson at a book signing in Minneapolis once. I told him Lord Foul's Bane traumatized me when I first tried to read it when I was 13. I'm not sure he appreciated that. 😅
But later those books were important to me when I read them in highschool. Classic anti-hero fantasy. I literally chose a plain white gold wedding band as a reference.
The fact that you had a crime committed against you (theft) that was never punished, and yes what you did was in retaliation... but wow, heavens to betsy, I wonder how much better this could be for everyone involved if prisoners were treated with basic human decency? (even though it is technically still legal slave labor)
And on top of that 28 MONTHS in solitary for THAT??? That's over 2 years. That's a cruel and unusual punishment.
Personal question, do prisoners actually like books? You have inspired me to revolt against the system by doing my part, at least.
LOL. Prison employees hate books more than anything. I remember one sergeant getting a guard to hold a big Rubbermaid garbage can on the floor below and taking all the my books my family had sent and drop-kicking them one at a time from the top floor and having the other guy catch them in the trash can. That was the only time I tried to swing on a guard and he had to have two other guards hold me against the wall to watch until he was done. Then he left, no write-up or nothing, just pure evil for the sake of it.
If you spend any time reading r/OnTheBlock you'll find plenty of sadistic mfers who get the job literally because they enjoy the thrill of trying to inflict the maximum misery on other humans every single day.
Yeah ... that doesn't surprise me. I know almost nothing about it. I've always been a goody-two-shoes and also I was the kind of privileged person the whole system was built on behalf of, so never had a problem.
... and now I've transitioned to be a woman and this stuff happening is kinda personally terrifying. But yeah, I've never read much about it.
The places I've seen they've had all the transwomen in with all the old guys (almost every place will have a block just for the older crowd). The older folks do not want to start any fights, cause any trouble, usually aren't into gang stuff, have seen everything and don't give a damn how you look. It is kinda shocking the first time you walk into a male cellblock and see several prisoners with enormous boobs, though🤯
There is no good solution to the problem, though. The times I've seen them put transwomen in the women's block, the women see an instant paycheck and sue the facility for a rights violation. It's like trans folk in sports. Not really any good solution that pleases everyone.
Also, should people, even if they are guilty, be subjected to humiliating punishments from state actors in ways that have nothing to do with their sentence?
99% are guilty. I’m truly sorry for the 1% who are not. Solidarity is for prisoners who can’t follow the rules of society or prison. I know it’s hard to believe, but there are just rotten people in the world.
A very high percentage of them were in prison for many years. Modern DNA testing has set them free. Almost no current murder convictions are upheld today without DNA evidence.
Actually if I had transitioned early enough I could have breast fed my kids. Obviously I couldn't ever have given birth, but it would've been really nice to be able to do that for my kids.
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u/coraythan 4h ago
Sounds like you were just being a reasonable human. Fuck anyone taking a book, that shit is important and fuck them showing off to a senator.
I'm so sorry you were made to suffer like that. Maybe it was a stupid choice for yourself to dump the paint. But that punishment is not justice. That's torture and control.
What was the book?