NEWS - Federal Prisons

New Cheap Pre-Paid Phone Service To Cell, Home or Office.

tearsonmypillow — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:20:43 GMT

I found this site that works great and is very cheap. Name of company is Portal32 - Inmate Collect Calling Alternative. I got 1000 Minutes for $15.99 a month and a local number to the facility. Hope this can help someone save.

moving of prisoners from one site to another

taddybergy — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:39:50 GMT

I have heard that they are moving the male prisoners from Waseca, MN to Englewood CO, so that they can move female prisoners to MN.

Anyone hearing anything about that? My son is in Waseca and only has until March to complete his sentence and the rumor is that they are starting to move the men already. I would hate to see him o to CO as I wouldn't be able to make the trip.

No Prison Can Hold Me, As Long As I Have My Imagination

arhunt — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 00:55:44 GMT

Why, hello there! Come and have a seat next to me on the sand and gaze out over the ocean at the beautiful sunset. Listen to the caw of the seagulls! Hear the lapping of the waves against the dock! Take your shoes off, if you like. What's that you say? I'm sitting on my bunk at the Pelican Bay Correctional Facility? I'm sorry, but inmate #454336 doesn't care to limit himself to sitting inside these four walls. You see, while I'm doing 60 years to life for stabbing three elderly women to death, I can go anywhere my imagination takes me!

A maximum-security correctional facility drains all of the color and beauty from some inmates' lives, leaving them nothing but cold cement and gray steel. That's not the case for me! In the blink of my mind's eye, I can transport myself to a place where the grass is green and the air smells like fresh daisies. I may be behind bars, but no prison can hold me, as long as I have my creativity. It's easy! I can show you how!

When I'm lying in my bunk after lights-out, trying to escape the hum of hundreds of bodies in close proximity, I just shut my eyes and concentrate. I challenge myself to explore the farthest corners of my mind. I can eat my mom's delicious roast beef, or hang out with my friends in front of the White Hen Pantry, or befriend a little spotted stray dog by the stream behind my childhood home. Other prisoners toss and turn restlessly in their bunks, but my nights are long, magical journeys interrupted only by the occasional P.A. announcement or cell check.

Prison is designed to break a man's spirit and fill him with remorse for the horrible crimes he committed. But whoever designed the modern correctional facility failed to take a prisoner's capacity to daydream into account. When I'm in the mess line, waiting to get my daily slop, I like to pretend that I'm waiting to get into a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie. When I have to edge past a group of screws giving some poor sap a beat-down, I pretend that I'm running in an open field, my stray-dog friend nipping at my heels. Sure, prison is rough. But with a little creativity, I don't have a hard time doing hard time.

Here on the inside, I don't have a crew. My imagination is my best friend. A lot of guys pass the time lifting weights, playing dominoes, or sharing the mash Shanta makes in his cell. I don't need any of that. I just hop a train to fantasyland. I'm glad most of the prisoners steer clear of me. It leaves me with more time to brainstorm exciting new adventures. I can take a trip to any corner of the globe. I can go to the jungles of Africa, or I can build myself an igloo in the North Pole. I can even travel back in time to that sunny summer day at the stream, when I drowned the stray dog for barking too much.

I'm not very sociable. Anyway, nobody in prison respects a guy who raped and murdered three helpless old women. If my imagination didn't allow me to endlessly revisit those crimes, I think I would go crazy in here. But luckily, in my brain, I burn that bloody flannel shirt so the police can't trace my crimes back to me. It's thoughts like these that get me through the rough spots.

It saddens me the way the other prisoners use their imaginations. They only seem to want to fantasize about having sex. But I use my imagination for all sorts of things. For me, the only rule is that there are no rules! Where will I go today? Who will I meet? Where will I end up? Well, more often than not, I imagine that I've stumbled on a building filled with elderly women, ones who don't lock their doors. The phone lines are down, due to some sort of massive, city-wide disturbance, and I find, resting in the street, a hunting knife. It's just lying there on the sidewalk, and there's some rope hanging on the door handle, the door handle to the building, the building which is filled with elderly women. The women's screams are useless, because the police are nowhere to be found.

Sometimes, 60 years seems like an awfully long time, but I'm not worried. Thanks to my imagination, I can blot out all the horrors of life on the inside. In fact, if you're done talking to me, I'll be free in a matter of seconds

Federal Prison Retires McVeigh's Number

arhunt — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:06:15 GMT

education

brandy brandimore — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:06:12 GMT

where can i get information on college education for my son while he is in prison?

New TV Show: DUI SuperCop

arhunt — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 02:57:21 GMT

New Reality TV Show: DUI SuperCops

Fresno Police Star in Pilot TV Show

Showcasing DUI Enforcement

Associated Press, Dec. 20 – Fresno’s finest are starring in a new pilot television show that showcases the police department’s tough tactics against those who dare to get behind the wheel after drinking.

The Court TV reality show “Driving: Under the Influence” premiered Dec. 7. The show follows officers as they stage drunken-driving checkpoints and stake out bars watching for drinkers stumbling to their cars.
Fresno police are hoping the half-hour show results in a series, but officials with the cable network said they couldn’t comment on when they would make that decision.
The Fresno Police Department’s muscular tactics have won it awards from both Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Corrections Officers to Knock on Cell Doors before Entering

arhunt — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 04:31:22 GMT

Prison officers to knock on cells before entering

By Sally Peck and agencies

Last Updated: 2:55am GMT 27/11/2007

Prison officers have been told to knock politely on cell doors before entering and call inmates by their first names in a bid to improve prisoners' quality of life.

Manners maketh a good pupil

Your view: What manners should pupils be taught?

10,000 set free early from crowded prisons

The "decency agenda", already in place at HM Prison Birmingham, in Winson Green, was prompted by an official Government study of the jail that concluded that its 1400 inmates were not living in a "good environment".

The marks of old-fashioned courtesy were imposed on the prison five years ago in an effort to "improve the well-being of everyone in prison, staff and prisoners alike," a Prison Service spokeswoman said. The scheme is a bid to treat prisoners with respect, she said.

"First names of prisoners are now given on all cell cards. Members of the Senior Management Team address prisoners by their first names, preferred names or by using the term 'Mr'.

"We are raising awareness of this requirement across the prison, including liaison through the Prison Officers Association.

"All new prison officers are now trained in the Decency Agenda, which includes this requirement," she said.

But the "decency agenda" has not met with universal approval.

Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative shadow minister for Birmingham, said: "It sounds as if the Department of Justice will have the prison officers dressed in a butler's uniform serving breakfast to inmates on a silver tray before long."

Others have raised concerns that the delay caused by knocking on cell doors will allow prisoners at the Category B prison, among them murderers, rapists and robbers, to hide drugs, mobile phones, or other forbidden objects.

FBI asks judge to reconsider ruling on Nichols interview

FreeJP — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 01:01:49 GMT

FBI asks judge to reconsider ruling on Nichols interview

By Nolan Clay
Staff Writer

The FBI asked a federal judge on Wednesday to reconsider his decision to let an attorney videotape an interview with Terry Nichols and another inmate about the Oklahoma City bombing.

The federal Bureau of Prisons "has determined that a video recording poses a threat to the security of the institutions where these individuals are confined,” the FBI's attorneys argued.

"In this case, the BOP has determined that allowing recording equipment onto the institutions' grounds and into the institutions where these individuals are confined ... is detrimental to the order and security of the prisons and may violate the privacy of others,” the attorneys told the judge in a legal filing.

The FBI also raised legal objections to the videotaping.

U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball in September gave Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue permission to do the interviews.

The attorney wants to question and videotape Nichols and convicted murderer David Paul Hammer, who was on death row with bomber Tim McVeigh.

The attorney is seeking information to support his theory his younger brother was killed at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center in August 1995 during an interrogation.

He contends authorities mistook his brother for a bombing suspect, bank robber Richard Guthrie.

He is suing the FBI for records to support his theory. Federal and local officials concluded the brother, Kenneth Trentadue, committed suicide in his cell.

Nichols, a convicted murderer, is serving life sentences at the maximum-security federal penitentiary in Colorado for the bombing.

Hammer claims McVeigh revealed to him in prison the identities of other accomplices. Hammer is at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.

McVeigh told biographers only Nichols helped him.

FBI-Mob Murder Case Collapses

FreeJP — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:09:04 GMT

FBI-Mob Murder Case Collapses NEW YORK, Nov. 1, 2007 (CBS/AP) Prosecutors dropped murder charges Thursday against an ex-FBI agent accused of feeding confidential information to a homicidal mob informant in what was billed as one of the worst law enforcement corruption cases in U.S. history. Lindley DeVecchio, who had denied the charges for years, heard the news in a Brooklyn courtroom one day after a key government witness, mob moll Linda Schiro, had her testimony undermined by a taped interview she gave to reporters a decade ago. As DeVecchio stood in the courthouse well after the judge granted prosecutors' request to drop the charges, there was applause - much of it from former FBI agents who worked side by side with him. "We all knew he was innocent," said former colleague Jim Kossler. "This never should have happened. Never." Schiro testified earlier this week that DeVecchio had fed her gangster boyfriend, Gregory Scarpa, secret FBI intelligence that was then used to kill four suspected rats or rivals in the Colombo crime family. But this week, journalist Tom Robbins revealed in the Village Voice that Schiro had provided him with a different account during a 1997 interview. "I guess the worst thing is that I wish we had the information at an earlier time where we could have evaluated it and then made a judgment," Brooklyn District Attorney Charlies Hynes told the New York Post. "There's no way we would have brought a prosecution if we had that kind of information. " "The inconsistencies are so devastating that it's just game, set, match," said one source to the Post. "Even without the tapes, it was a tough case." It was a stunning collapse of the case against DeVecchio in the midst of his trial. Prosecutors had claimed DeVecchio was plied with cash, jewelry and prostitutes by Scarpa in return for the confidential FBI intelligence that was then used in the killings during the late 1980s and early '90s. The 1997 interview with Schiro became the focus of a legal fight Wednesday when defense attorneys announced they had subpoenaed tapes of the question-and- answer session, hoping the tapes would undermine her crucial testimony against DeVecchio. The interviews were conducted by Robbins and fellow reporter Jerry Capeci. Robbins revealed their existence in a Village Voice piece published this week. "One thing is clear: What Linda Schiro is saying on the witness stand now is not how she told the story 10 years ago concerning three of the four murder counts now at issue," Robbins wrote in a story headlined "Tall Tales of a Mafia Mistress." Prosecutors and defense attorneys listened to the tapes behind closed doors in an effort to determine how damaging they would prove to the prosecution' s case. Schiro had been expected to undergo a second round of cross-examination, but court was canceled for the day. Defense attorney Douglas Grover predicted the tapes would fully discredit Schiro and vindicate DeVecchio, who has consistently declared his innocence. "We're just thankful that it's all come out," he said. In her testimony, Schiro, 62, said she would regularly sit in on weekly meetings between DeVecchio and Scarpa, who died in prison in 1994. She also said she overheard the agent warn her boyfriend about potential rats and rivals in a power struggle within the Colombo family, including the four slaying victims. But the Village Voice reported that in the 1997 interview, Schiro linked DeVecchio to only one of the slayings in the indictment. For instance, when asked about one victim, she insisted the agent had nothing to do with it. "Lin did not tell," she said. Because a person cannot be tried twice for the same crime, DeVecchio is free and clear of the charges. Schiro could face possible perjury charges, said Vecchione. State Supreme Court Justice Gustin Reichbach said he had no choice but to approve prosecutors' request to drop the charges, but expressed disgust with the long relationship between the FBI and its informant. "That a thug like Scarpa would be employed by the federal government to beat witnesses and threaten them at gunpoint to obtain information ... is a shocking demonstration of the government's unacceptable willingness to employ criminality to fight crime," the judge said.