Pablo Piña D-28079
D-2 122 SHU
P.O. Box 7500
Crescent City, CA 95531

12/31/13
New Year's Eve

Re: (DRB) Hearings Updates

I've been hearing that some SHU inmates have been let out of SHU. I know some of them who have been in SHU as long as I have. I was surprised to hear they let some of them out. Supposedly, they were not told to sign a contract, which is what everyone was not willing to do.

The problems that I've been reading about for many inmates in general population are the prison officials are expecting inmates to do whatever they tell them to do and put up with a lot of bullshit. I know how many prison officials are; they have prison rules then they have their way of enforcing them by disrespecting inmates or their property. They always use the threat of disciplinary action to make sure the inmate does what he's told. I know for a fact that they will be telling inmates that once they get out of SHU the type of self-help that they must take, who they must double cell with, all while knowing which inmates are not compatible. They are setting up to pick up new charges for assault.

The cells are even smaller on the mainline. Having two inmates in them is not good, especially for someone like me. I have a lot of legal materials. I'm always busy doing something. It wouldn't be fair to my cellmate if he wants to stand, walk around, exercise or whatever. I want to get out of SHU but not to where I'll end up picking up another case. The parole board already told me not to get anymore infractions at all.

From what I've been hearing in some prisons, prison officials are making problems for inmates like trying to provoke them to react. I usually react and get the worse of it.

Well, it's New Year's Eve. It's around 4:30 PM right now. I went out to the yard to exercise and came in around 1:30 PM. I don't plan to stay up until midnight. I haven't done that in many years. I like to wake up and feel fresh and ready for the day. Besides, it ain't like I'm going to a party. It's going to be the same as it was last night and the night before. But hopefully, the new year will bring us changes that will make a difference.

They just came around with mail, but I didn't get anything. So now I'm just waiting for them to bring the dinner trays. The day is pretty much out. I already went outside and did my exercises, so I'm good for the rest of the day. I have been doing some artwork. I usually wait for the weekend to do it, but the holidays is like the weekend.

One thing that's not so good for the new year is that the postage is going up again. Man, they're killing us with the postage.

The New Year's Eve dinner was garbage. No bread to eat with it. For some reason, on all holidays meals, they don't give us bread. I'm beginning to think we are supposed to bring our own. The refried beans did not look very refried. Nothing like beans either. Looked more like an experiment of some kind.

It's 6:30 PM now, and I guess I'll draw for a couple of hours. I'm pretty sure we're going to be locked down tomorrow. We're usually locked down every holiday. That's our celebration, being locked in our cells all damn day and night.

The other day the control booth officers let us shower, even though he was not supposed to. He's one of the better staff.

It's 8:00 PM, and I'm going to call it a day. Watch some of the celebrations on TV.

I hope you all have a happy new year.