Quick Update

Sorry it's been so long since I've written. Things are going well in Greenville, but things have also been pretty busy lately. Here's a quick update of what I've been up to and I'm hoping sometime tomorrow or Thursday I'll be able to elaborate more.

Thursday(6/25): Worked 12 hour day to make up for lost time. I stayed late and attended a Final Step Presentation where kids currently on probation come in and tour the prison and here the stories of current roommates. I wish I could have found out what was going through their heads.
Friday(6/26): Attended internship enrichment activity at Tryon Palace. Met other interns and toured Tryon Palace which is beautiful. Traveled home to Apex and got to see my family and Adam!
Saturday (6/27): My family found a rabbit nest in our backyard and that was very exciting for us. Spent the whole day with my family which was wonderful. Karen (my little sis) wanted to make dinner for our family, so we did that, except I cheated a little bit and bought the main course (chicken) from KFC. We also made some peach cobbler which was so delicious and so easy. Just a large can of peaches, a tablespoon of cinnamon, a box of yellow cake, and a stick of butter. That's all! Adam came over for dinner too and it was great.
Sunday (6/28): Church at Calvary Chapel. So wonderful. I miss it a lot.
Monday (6/29): Stuffing envelopes for 3 hours then working on inmate case plans and assessments. Each inmate is assigned a plan and assessment when they enter the prison system which includes what programs they should be assigned to and stuff like that.
Today, Tuesday (6/30): All day in the medical files room. The medical unit is very understaffed and they had a lot of extra filing to do. Although I didn't get as much human interaction as usual, the time passed by really quickly which was nice. I also have spent a lot of time with my roommate Katie today. We went to Olive Garden and have just been talking a lot. It's been nice.

I feel weird writing such a list-like entry but I at least wanted to give an update and not just have a week of my internship missing. I'm not sure if that makes sense. Oh well. Until next time!

Work on Friday and a wonderful mini-vacation

So today I arrived in Greenville after a 6 hour car drive from Hilton Head Island. I came back a day late because I lost my car key and after finding out that keys for Ford ZX2's are some of the hardest to make, I had to wait for my mom to send the spare key from Apex to South Carolina. It arrived this morning about 11:30 so I didn't get home until 6 and I sure am exhausted. And even though I missed a meeting today with a clinical social worker over at Maury Correctional, I know my boss will try his best to get it re-scheduled and I am very glad that I was able to spend time with my family. I love the closeness of my extended family. It's not just my step-mom's family that is close, relationally and geographically, but so are my mom's family and my step-dad's family. I just don't get to experience it as much because my family in Apex is the one family that is away from everyone else. And I understand why that is and I wouldn't trade growing up in Apex for anything, but I also very much enjoy the times that I get to be with my extended family.

Hilton Head is a wonderful time of the year and I enjoy every time I get to go. My step-mom's parents have had condos there since about 27 years ago and every year for one week the Shirley clan which has now become the Shirley-Mahaffie-O'Wings-Banta-Mulvihill clan gathers together. Most of the time is spent at the pool, the beach or eating together. We also play board games and watch movies and I love it all so much. And this year since all 19 of us were there we decided to take pictures on the beach together. Four generations dressed in white shirts and khakis on the beach.....so great.

But now I am back and having to transition back to work tomorrow. Waking up at 6:30 tomorrow won't be the greatest, but that's life. Before I finish this post I wanted to just say a little bit about work this past Friday. In the morning I did some filing, just putting documents into inmates' transitional folders. Then I was able to work in the mailroom. Earlier in the week, when staff heard I was working there they told me to prepare myself for what I might see. But I actually didn't see anything bad. The C/O (correctional officer) in the mailroom has worked there for the last 3 years or so and she pretty much has everything down to a science. First you have to organize the mail alphabetically, then label the letters with the Unit number, open them with her automatic letter opener (which is pretty cool), then take the contents of the envelope out, check the envelope and its contents for contraband, put the contents back in the envelope and then tape it back up. Many of the inmates received Father's Day cards. Some of them received letters (written in English and Spanish), others received pictures of families, and others received homemade pictures. There is a story behind every card and every letter. I was so curious to see what some people had written (sometimes I wanted to see if I could even read the Spanish) but I had to remind myself that outside of looking for contraband I shouldn't be reading people's mail. I know inmates lose many privileges in prison (such as the privilege of privacy), but I still wanted to give them as much as I could, while looking for contraband.
I enjoyed working in the mailroom because it was something different and because the C/O was very nice. I know she's probably tough around inmates but she said she liked having someone in the mailroom with her so she talked a lot and I enjoyed the conversation.

Well, this post is quite long. I'll end it here. Until next time!

Handing out Diplomas, Certificates and Degrees

Today my boss and I were finally able to give the inmates their official diplomas, certificates, and degrees. About 30 men graduated in May in the horticulture, food service, and culinary technology programs that are organized by Lenoir Community College. Since then, my boss and I have had to enter merit days for all of the achievements into the computer, as well as the name of the specific diplomas, and make lots of copies in order to have records for the inmates' transitional folders (which basically hold all the important documents they accumulate while in the prison system) and to have records for the educational programs department at Eastern. Many of the inmates had been asking my boss about their diplomas several times over the past couple of weeks and today they finally received them. I think it is really great that many of them have worked hard to achieve their certificates. Yeah, the cynics in the Department of Corrections will say that the inmates only took the courses so they could earn merit days (that will deduct days from their maximum sentence) and that may be the case for a few of them, but others of them are different. One inmate was smiling so brightly when he finally got to hold his official diploma from the college he thanked my boss and said he was as happy as a spring chicken. Another inmate said he was so glad he finally had the diplomas so he could send them home and show his sons that they should work hard and get an education. I liked those moments.

Tonight I'm attending ECU's chapter of Every Nation Campus Ministries with a friend of mine from Chapel Hill. It will be cool to fellowship with other Christians and to see what campus ministry is like at ECU.

Tomorrow after work I am leaving for Parris Island, S.C. to see my Dad and his family. I'm looking forward to seeing them, since I haven't seen them since Christmas and also because Father's Day is this Sunday.

I still haven't decided if I'm going to take my laptop with me to S.C., I'm not even sure if I'm have Internet access anyways. So if I don't blog any this weekend, I'll definitely make up for it next week. I hope all is well and I hope everyone takes the time this weekend to tell their dads how much they appreciate and love them.

Neuse Correctional

Today my supervisor and I visited Neuse Correctional Institution in Goldsboro, NC. I arrived later than expected because I had to drive in rain the entire 40 or so miles from Greenville. My supervisor set up this visit because he wanted me to see what a diagnostic center is like and also have to opportunity to talk with some of the mental health staff. Neuse Correctional is a minimum custody facility which means the inmates get more priveleges than they would at Eastern which is a medium custody facility. These priveleges can include, if the inmate goes without infractions, work release to work at places outside the prisons and home visits. Before visiting this facility I didn't even know such things existed or were possibilities for inmates.

The prisoners also have more freedom to walk around outside between buildings. The prison is set up like a small college campus enclosed by two layers of barbed wire fencing. There are dormitory buildings, a programs building, and a cafeteria and probably other buildings that I wasn't able to see because I mostly stayed in the programs area and took a brief look at one of the dormitories.

Neuse is the largest misdemeanor processing facility in the state. After inmates leave jail they are sent to Neuse and processed and then a few may remain at Neuse but most of them will be transported to other faicilities. Processing includes creating or updating an inmate's files in the system which include their background, medical history, dental history, mental health history, substance abuse history, if any gang affiliation history, crime history, and education level. All of the people involved with processing have fifteen days to compile all of this on the inmate. It's pretty neat the whole system they have set up to do this effectively.

Neuse also has a mental health unit at their facility which includes two psychologists, a psychiatrist, a social worker and a licensed clinical social worker. I was able to sit down and speak with the chief psychologist for about 30 minutes. He estimated that about 95% of the inmates that come in have some history of substance use and abuse and for many of them what may have been diagnosed as a mental disorder such as bipolar disorder is really the result of substance abuse. This is not to blame the doctors the inmates once saw but to say that because of the way the mental health system is set up many of these doctors were only able to see the inmates a few times that were far apart, not allowing them to gather the full picture that a staff psychologist who works in the prison would see. I also spoke with the clinical social worker who basically has all the responsibilities of a staff psychologist except she does not have the responsibility to do testing and after receiving her licensing she does not need to be supervised, unlike psychologists with their masters who must still have supervision. She gave me some helpful advice in that she recommended I get a masters in a social work, specifically mental health, that way I could still do social services stuff but I could also do more clinical/therapy work if I liked. She said the main reason she went into social work was because of her desire to help people. So it looks like so far I'm on the right track because that's definitley what I want to do.

In other news, I'm still a little sick with a cold, but I'm feeling a lot better than last week and I've actually gotten my voice back. I hope all is well with all of you. Until next time!

Custody Reviews

I thought you might want to know about one of the tasks I did during my first couple of weeks at Eastern. At Eastern inmates' custody classifications' are reviewed every six months. Because the inmate arrive at Eastern at different times, each case manager has about seven or eight (or sometimes up to sixteen!) inmates to review every month. A checklist is completed to determine if the inmate should remain at medium custody (eastern), be demoted to closed custody, or promoted to minimum custody. I was given access to the OPUS (Offender Population Unified System) database in order to find all the facts required of the checklist and then I compiled it all from the computer. Some of the things that must be written into the final report of the inmate's review include the length of the inmate's sentence, if he has any infractions, any escapes or any stg (security threat group, a.k.a. gang) affiliations. There are two very important things to know when making the ultimate decision and those are the Case Factor Score and the PRD (Projected Release Date.) The CFS is based on many factors and must be between 0 and 11 for an inmate to be considered for minimum custody. The PRD is important because an inmate must be within 60 months of his PRD or parole eligibility date in order to be considered for minimum custody.

I know none of this is of much use to anyone reading this but I'm just learning so much stuff and I wanted to share it with people.

Before anyone thinks that the Department of Corrections is allowing an intern to decide the custody status of inmates, I must mention that many of the inmates on my boss's case load have a federal detainer on them. A federal detainer means that some time during his sentence the inmate will attend a hearing to determine if he will be deported or remain in the U.S. after he finishes his sentence. No matter how low the inmate's score is he will be retained at a medium custody facility because he needs to be tracked in order to be deported and because of the higher priveleges an inmate receives in minimum custody he is considered a high flight risk. I reviewed about seven inmates' cases over the past two weeks and all of them are staying here at Eastern because of federal detainers.

The Economy

I'm sure with the title of this post, many people aren't going to want to read this. I personally, have been hearing so much about the economy lately that I would rather just forget about it. But forgetting about it won't change it. Although living on a college campus can often be like living in a bubble I felt like I was still hearing about the effects of the economy while still in school such as hearing about less money for classes in the future or having to work shifts at my job by myself. When I got home from college I heard my parents (both state employees) talk about the paycheck cuts and the mandatory furlough days.
Since I've began my internship I've learned a lot more about how the state budget issues are having effects on individuals and the Department of Corrections. I attended a volunteer reception for the Department of Corrections a couple of weeks ago and nearly every person that spoke used the phrase "difficult economic times" while they were speaking. They also emphasized the importance of volunteers in these difficult economic times. The Secretary of the Department, Mr. Keller, and the Department's Chief Operating Officer, Ms. Lancaster also attended the reception. Both said that things do not look good but they will be trying their best to voice the concerns of the Department to the Governor and State Legislature.
Lately, I've seen and heard how these "not good things" have manifested themselves throughout the Department of Corrections. Currently, it is proposed (I believe it's just been proposed, I'm not sure if a final decision has been made) that eight prisons will be shut down. This means that the prisoners will be transported to new prisons, but because the state is not currently hiring people, the staff at the 8 closed prisons will be out of jobs. So the state will be dealing with lots of new prisoners with a lot less staff. This poses a very big security problem and could keep the Division of Prisons from reaching its primary goal, which is to protect the public. I heard two staff members in the prison discussing how, unfortunately, people may not realize the severity of the staff shortage problem until something very bad happens such as an inmates doing something to officers. I pray that doesn't happen in order for more staff to be hired. However, I was told today that the new DOC policy is to only hire a new staff member if the prison is 27 staff members short. That seems like a lot of staff to lose. And from what I can see, at my short time at the prison, there are not many unnecessary staff members at prison so if a prison was 27 staff members short the prison would be in a very very dire situation, almost un-functional. (I would think.)
I pray for our state leaders as they decide on this budget and I pray that God would be with all the people throughout the state, specifically, the state employees, who feel that they may be taking most of the punishment for fixing these "difficult economic times."

A New Leash on Life

Today I attended the New Leash on Life graduation. "A New Leash on Life" is a program that allows inmates at Eastern and other minimum and maximum facilities to train dogs that are housed at animal shelters. The inmates receive training from actual dog trainers and then the inmates spend 10 weeks training the dogs to respond to commands before the dogs are adopted. Being a trainer is an actual job assignment that the inmates receive and they spend lots and lots of time training the dogs. There were three dogs that "graduated today" and five inmate trainers that had trained them(3 main ones, and 2 assistants.) There was a "performance" to demonstrate the obedience of the dogs and it was quite incredible how well the dogs obeyed. My boss says the program is great because it gives the inmates the opportunity to love something in a prison where there isn't much love. It was really cool to also hear what the inmates had to say about how the program had changed their lives. One inmate spoke today on how his interactions with the dogs he had trained had helped him learn how to better interact with people. He said he learned that he can't approach every person the same way because, like animals, each person is different and may need to be communicated to differently. My boss told me that he has seen how the inmate and other inmates have changed since starting the program. I think the program is great. Also, the program is funded by donations, not the state, so I don' t think the program is in danger of ending any time soon.

On another note, I spoke to someone today and I wanted to make a correction to my last post. If my understanding is correct, if a person is sentenced to life in prison under structured sentencing (a type of sentencing that came into use after January 1, 1994) then that person will stay in prison. The case that I had talked about earlier where the inmate was released from prison had received a life sentence under fair sentencing (the sentencing used prior to January 1, 1994). I would type more about the difference between the two types of sentencing but I'm not sure I have enough knowledge to do so. Even with this new information, I still think people with enough influence and connections could get out of their sentences. Additionally, with pressure on the Department of Corrections to house incoming inmates things could also change that could allow people out of a life sentence. That's just a hypothesis, though, I'm not sure if it would ever happen. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that life sentencing should still be looked at to ensure it as a possible, effective alternative to the death sentence.

thoughts on the death penalty

Taken from a journal entry during lunch break 06-04-09:
I've usually always been of the mindset that when it comes to the death penalty I would rather have someone sentenced to life in prison than sentenced to death. 1) I don't think we, as imperfect humans, should act as God and decide to kill someone and 2) unlike God, we as humans can make mistakes, which has been seen in the number of people that have been exonerated because of DNA evidence and 3) I don't like the idea of someone being put in the position to "legally" murder someone.
But I'm learning that an inmate being sentenced to life doesn't guarantee he/she will be in prison for life. Some inmates with life sentences (called "lifers" at the prison) may have a mandatory 10-25 years of prison with the possibility of parole.
So then I thought maybe the solution would be to sentence a prisoner to life without the possibility of parole. I asked my boss if he knew of anyone who had been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole who had still gotten out of prison. To my surprise, he said yes. It was the story of a man who had killed someone for setting him up during a drug deal. The man was in prison for a long time (I think about 20 years) and his daughters continued to persist in allowing him to have parole. Eventually they caught the ear of one of the influential state legislators and eventually their father was let out of prison, on parole. So, if someone has the money and the connections to influence he/she can still get out of prison even with a life sentence.
All of this doesn't make me think that re-instating the death penalty (in N.C.) is the right solution, though. But it does make me realize that life in prison isn't necessarily a guarantee of life in prison and that in order to provide life in prison as an effective alternative to capital punishment changes must be made in the law and policy. Or at least that's what I think right now.

Blessed

Today I am tired. Very, very tired. Yet in the midst of my tiredness God has been reminding me of how blessed I am. I am very thankful for all the great things that God has allowed to happen recently. For example, things have been going really well with my roommates. I've only been living here for a little over a week, but I get along with all of them really well. We're different, but there's a bit of care-free-ness (which is not a word, I know) in all of us which makes sharing an apartment very easy. Yesterday we all had to move our furniture out of our rooms because the apartment complex was receiving new furniture. We helped each other out and even though it was a simple thing it was a really great moment. I'm so glad that we could help each other out. I guess it's one of those simple things that makes life great.

My boss at work is really great, too. Not only is he helpful at work, thoroughly explaining things to me and introducing me to people, but he is interested in making sure everything is going okay outside of work. We talk a lot about different topics. The other day we talked about government and Hurrican Katrina and today we talked about our faith. He is a Christian, too, which is really awesome. I've been very blessed to have great bosses throughout all my past jobs and he is definitely one of them.

Religion at Eastern

As I said earlier there are 13 different religions that are recognized at Eastern. Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism are 4 of the most common ones. There are also people identify as Wiccan, Rastafarian, and followers of Azatru. Someone told me Azatru is a religion originating from the Nordic region. It's interesting to me that there are so many religions practiced there. I believe the facility is required to provide space for each religion whether that means providing a scheduled prayer time for certain followers or establishing a sacred ground, such as the Native American sacred ground area in one of the prison courtyards. The prison is also required to let each group recognize the holidays of its particular faith.

There is one chaplain for the entire prisoner and I was talking to him the other day. He is a Christian and a pastor at a local church. I asked him how he feels about being a Christian but also being in a position where he is required to recognize all these other religions. He told me, "if recognizing these other religions is what I have to do in order to have a position here with an open door where there is the opportunity to talk to an inmate about Jesus, than it's worth it." I thought those were very wise words. And I think it shows how he balances his position as a religious counselor in the prison with his personal beliefs. He's not one before the other, but both.

In other news, the C.O. that reprimanded me for my clothing last Thursday apologized to me today. I told her I accepted her apology. I didn't know what else to say because before I said anything I was thinking about if I should say something, if I should ignore her, or if I should consider her sincerity before accepting her words. However, Jesus made me realize the important thing was to accept the apology and that's what I did (thank goodness) before any of my sinful nature got in the way.