Catastrophic Conclusion

Today we are going to talk about finances, cellphones and contraband in the prison.

Why do we have money schemes or fraud going on in Georgia's prisons? Why do we have contraband in Georgia's prisons? Or any prison? Breaking the law is wrong no matter who it is. Coming to prison is the ultimate punishment for those crimes. Breaking the law while you're in prison is another sentence added onto the time the inmate has already gotten.

I am speaking in concern to the Georgia Department of Correction (prison system). One of the reasons there is a lot of cellphones and contraband is that inmates feel they have to survive. Georgia's inmates do not get paid for working. Then some of their families are poor. They come from poverty. So the inmates get cellphones so they can have contact with their family members. These phone calls are ridiculously high. People want to talk to their kids, etc. There have been people who have sued these phone companies, but it has not resolved the inmate family's high cost phone bill.

When I first came to prison, my dad sent me a phone card and told me to call him every evening. I had to mail it back to him saying, "Dad, we can't have that in the state of Georgia." Why can't state prisoners have phone cards in Georgia's prison system? They have them at some of the county jails. The inmates purchase them in their commissionary store. Maybe somebody can contact the Georgia Department of Corrections to help the inmates in Georgia's state prisons to get phone cards. We can still do our phone list. The phone card can be fixed where we still use our state ID number. Put them in the store. Inmates will purchase them like crazy. Whoever doesn't like to call their families are fools. That would solve a lot of high phone bills and get rid of cellphones from prisons.

Why not pay the inmates? But then Georgia puts their inmates back on the streets with a $35 check. Some get a one thousand dollar restitution and child support. There's a girl in my hallway who owes a $1,000,000 restitution. She has a long stretch sentence. But say her time is up tomorrow. This individual only leaves with $35, has not been paid the whole time she set all those years, and has a strike against her. She is a convicted felon. She may get a job or she might not. If she doesn't it's not because she didn't try. Nobody wants to hire her. Her parole would be violated on the spot. She would come back to prison.

Does the state care about the individual's child or family? No. All they see is money. Do you think they care if you tried to get a job? No. They want their money.

Georgia's system has a lot of traps to trick people into their penal system. Hall of Georgia's population is locked. If the inmates were paid, they could put some money towards their restitution and child support fees instead of sitting in prison and looking at the bill. Then when they get out sometime, they have to resort to old behaviors to pay their bills if they want to stay out of prison.

It's about solving problems not creating them. It's about keeping people out of the system, not setting traps to bring them back into the system. Why would you put a prison in a boat if you know a storm is coming? It's so obvious that you want that individual to drown 'cause you didn't provide a safe landing for them. People have responsibility regardless if they're in prison.

Someone needs to look at the way the Georgia system is run, period. Why are so many people in prison? Half the cases do not have substantial evidence.

The trouble area for Georgia's system is called entrapment. Too many citizens are locked up. Yes, crime happens daily. But not the majority of your population in Georgia. Come on now. Georgia's system has too many unnecessary demands. Why are so many financial schemes happening in Georgia's prisons in the last year or so? Georgia has come up with a plan to restrict your financial list to only five people. The people on your visitation list can send you clothing or food packages in prison.

Georgia prisoners are not being well taken care of. They're not fed well. Weekends and holidays, you only get two meals. This thing where you are taking care of you because you belong to the state is a lie from the pits of hell. The schemes are happening in prison because inmates refuse to be hungry. Some of the guards bring contraband because they feel sorry for the inmates.

I always say this: when the judge slaps that little round object down and said your sentence to 20, 30, 10, 7, life, the ultimate punishment is done because you're locked behind a fence. You can't go where you want to, etc. Anything after that becomes inhuman and is done out of ill-will. Ill-will comes with "I am in control. I can do what I want with you."

We need people in society to fight for us, to get us phone cards, get paid for our details, and it should not matter who sends up packages and money. The way it should be, the inmates who are at fault with committing fraud, cellphones, or contraband suffer, not the whole penal system. We have nothing to do with the next inmate's choices. Nobody should be accountable for anyone else's actions.