Prison Place

Welcome to my cell…

I have some time during some great games tonight. Tennessee is playing Oklahoma in women’s basketball, and it is a GREAT game, and at the same time, Oregon, the number 2 team in the country, is losing bad to Arizona, after the Duck’s Heisman candidate went out on an injury. Some great games going on.

With both at halftime, I have time so blog a quick one… I said that earlier today but it ended up being a long one, I will have to work on that.

But this blog is for some of the newer people that just came across my blogs in the last few days. Every now and again I have to reintroduce myself to the newer readers so they might know what I am about.

Well, this is my prison blog, and this is my home of thoughts. I can come here and blog out my feelings, but I try to keep the theme about prison. As an ex felon, I know what it is like to go through the judicial system, go into the prison system, and what it is like after the release. It’s these things I try to share with those who have loved ones in prison.

I am not trying to say that I am THE expert on prison…I never said that in any form or fashion, but what I can say with some confidence is that what I share is based on what I went through, and guys I knew while I was in prison.

I will also say this, and this might offend some people…I know more about prison than some that have a loved one in prison. I kinda get tired of arguing with some mom or wife or girlfriend who thinks they know more about prison since their loved one is in prison. That’s important to know, but the fact remains that if the person arguing has not been in prison then they themselves are NOT an expert on the subject.

The reason why I blog is for a few reasons. One, the freedom to say whatever I wanna say without some moderator getting an attitude. I am not so foolish to think I can just talk out the side of my neck without some penalty, but when I post, I try to keep the subject strictly on prison experiences; not trying to challenge someone else’s authority…

Although I can counter myself by talking about correctional officers on prison support sites…I have challenged that, but not on any prison support site…not that I can remember.

You see, I have been writing about prison issues almost since my release in 2001. I think I got started in 2002 when I found a church online with a prison ministry. It then went from there to a bunch of other prison support sites. I started writing as “masonik4” for quite awhile, then kinda got tired of kissing butt on some of the prison support sites, and left.

I came back later as Nolaw97, and have been writing under that name since. But again, one of the main reasons for my prison blogs is that it allows me to say what I want in my way. The second reason is because it allows me to promote my writings, which include my “Grades of Honor” books, and even prison cards and encouragement certificates.

I figured if I can get readers to check out my blog, maybe I can also get them to see that I can write. If I can win your respect and get you to see that I am not the son of satan, then maybe you will see that not all felons are evil demons.

We all make mistakes…and remember this as well, not all felons were really guilty of their crimes.

It’s like me trying to lift the Washington Monument, in some comparison to trying to help you understand that some inmates need your compassion. It’s near impossible because we have been conditioned that if you go to jail or prison, you are worthless. But we as a society expect these “worthless” souls to turn into angels when they served their time and paid their debt to society. You can’t have it both ways.

Now as I said before, I will emphasize here; I have the greatest sympathy for victims of crime. In no way at all am I making this blog to glorify prison or the inmates, and act as if the victims “had it coming to them”. That is a terrible thing to say when victims are lost or injured or manipulated.

But this blog is about how one might be able to help that man or woman or juvenile in jail or prison. I never thought much about those guys until I myself fell into that crack in society. Now I understand what many guys go through, and I want to try to share some of it with you.

Yet I am not without flaws…as an ex felon I am already behind the curve. But I also have feelings too, and this prison blog allows me to “bear fangs” as well. I do this because I used to have a prison blog awhile back, named after my books, and I tried to keep it “squeaky clean”. I also made many posts on sites like Prison Talk Online, Prisonbid, Prisonsupport, Prison Forum, and numerous Yahoo prison groups.

The problem was I felt that I was the “dancing bear” for those groups. As long as I spilled my guts, I was loved, but the moment I dared to talk about “Grades of Honor” some felt I was trying to scam them. Or when I tried to offer the free Rose Encouragement Award Certificates, one jackass of a lady made a post that I wanted the addresses for “something”.

I started to see that even among prison support groups, they weren’t that much different from society. I can sit there and contribute 500 posts, and get 250 people reading each one, but deep down, I was STILL a felon, and not to be trusted.

I was frustrated when trying to sell my first copies of Grades of Honor, and had given up on all the writing. I stopped for a couple of months, but something kept driving me to come back and write. So I did, but I created a new blog, the one you are reading now, and I decided that this time, I will stop kissing people’s butt.

This prison blog is here to let me share with you my honest opinions…and keep in mind they are opinions, but based on what I have lived through. I am not here to kiss Prison Talk Online’s butt, even though I still share posts there. I am not here to kiss Prisonville’s butt, because that’s not what I am about. I contribute from time to time with a few others, but none of those sites really support my “outside” interests. I will never understand how a prison support site can openly promote a prison book written by a person who never made a post on their site, but won’t give an in house writer a chance to sell his books. Kinda stupid and ignorant to me.

So this is my little cell, if you are reading this from blogspot, you got a heck of a lot of catching up to do, about 340 entries worth, or about 1300 pages, give or take a hundred. If you are on myspace, you have about half as many. I have not gotten down the thing about adding folks on myspace, but I am working on it.

Anyway, I gotta go, lots of sports to watch, and with Thanksgiving coming, we are trying to figure out how many to expect. Feel free to email me, make a comment or check out some of my post on other sites. I do have copies of my books and cards available, maybe you will be interested in them after you read a few of my blogs.