[Arabic]

JAMES RIVA W38533
One Administration Rd.
Bridgewater, MA 02324

Between the Bars
http://betweenthebars.org/blogs/339/

COME AND READ MY ARTICLES WHICH I WROTE FROM A PRISONER'S POINT OF VIEW.
COME AND SEE THE DRAWINGS I HAVE DONE.
READ MY SHORT STORIES.

ALSO:
There's another website that has stuff I wrote and details about my life.

To any prospective publisher:
I have other written works and I need lots of money to buy my way out of this tremendous debt I owe to people I have wronged. Come read my stuff and work out a deal with me. At present it is impossible for me to make restitution because I only earn $7.50 a week at my institutional job. Prisoners in Massachusetts never earn any meaningful amounts of money. I have to spend what I earn on toothpaste, soap, parts of appliances, postage—POSTAGE!

I have a HUGE problem with the officers stealing most of my mail and their so-called funny games with my mail. I am lucky to get one letter per week, although it is usually less than that.

My other webpage:
www.jamesriva.info

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CORRECTIONS AND THEIR CASH CROP
Before I reveal my postulate, bear in mind that I tend to be paranoid. My opinions are based on my 31 years of incarceration. I do not nor can I access the resources to prove or disprove my opinions. My aim is to generate interest in hopes that some agency with appropriate resources will prove or disprove my beliefs.

CONTROVERSY: That something that short of a conspiracy exists to perpetuate and grow the corrections industry.

I state the obvious. The prison population grows exponentially. So does the world's population. It is evident that most corrections employees in Massachusetts seem to be related by blood or marriage to other corrections employees. They also earn fantastic wages and benefits. Where every other job seems to be getting lost in the recession, corrections are still hiring more officers. Recidivism seems to be at an all-time high, especially for violent criminals.

This might seem to be a benign coincidence to one who never ventured inside a Massachusetts prison for any length of time. I invite you to share my paranoia.

When I first came to prison in 1980, prisoners grew nearly all the food consumed. Usually there was a surplus of milk, eggs, vegetables, corn sold. Any prisoner desiring to learn a meaningful vocation was given that opportunity. There were garages with dozens of car bays where prisoners would learn auto mechanics, fixing state employees' cars under an experienced mechanic's supervision. Most prisoners had a welding certification program. There were many carpentry shops teaching furniture making. There was a free college program in all the prisons. Recidivism was low, as was the headcount.

Furlough were granted, even to lifers, in hopes to make good candidates for parole. Prisoners worked outside the wall, even lifers, as trustees. This was allowed even in non-prison settings like being attendants in mental hospitals.

When the governor was running for president, a major scandal precipitated a major sea of policy change. A walk-away escape and a failure to return from furlough, a rape, and an attempted murder shelved the furlough program and other vitals.

Now, in the present day, vocational training and college classes are almost non-existent. AND it seems that whenever a prisoner has parole prospects looming, he is targeted for disciplinary tickers, a parole bid nullifier. We no longer grow our own food. Instead, there are lucrative contracts to food suppliers that result in poorer quality food, or chow as it is called.

Wouldn't it make sense to corrections employees that, in order to maintain and increase job security and industry growth, to maintain and increase the headcount as opposed to reducing it? If it were reduced, corrections employees would be laid off.

There are some parallels in the efforts to abolish the slave trade and, finally, slavery itself. The abolitionist movement spanned centuries before being successful with a series of partial victories and partial set-backs. The lawmakers in Europe and the United States, of whom they were interested parties, would advance what would be ridiculous by today's standards. They postulate as to why slavery should remain or abolition should be delayed: "They would only be enslaved or killed in their native Africa" or "They would have a better life as a Christian slave than a pagan forager", and so on.

My point is that both slaves and prisoners are absolutely powerless. Both of them have the easily aroused might of the government against them. Both of them have merely nominal redress in the courts. The pretexts that lawmakers come up with to maintain a large headcount of prisoners are just as false.

Recidivism is high. A prisoner leaving prison today has almost no marketable job skills and, of course, corrections is doing very well.

The pretexts to continue slavery or delay the abolition, like the lawmakers' claims to match a high headcount of prisoners, has only an economic agenda: a cash crop.

James Riva W38533
OCCC

www.jamesriva.info

and

http://betweenthebars.org/blogs/339