bstyledevi

The only abuse of power I saw was something that actually benefitted a prisoner a lot. A guard snuck a prisoner up to one of the employment shops in the middle of the night that was outside the wire. He let the guy see his wife and newborn son for a few minutes, then brought him back down to the main facility. The prisoner was so happy after that, and he seemed like that short visit was a driving force into keeping him straight so he could get out and go back to his family.

On the opposite side, I wish I could go into detail about prison guards abusing their powers and abusing inmates, but I never saw it happen myself. A lot of rumors flew around from people who had transferred from this facility or that facility, but no one really confirmed any of them, so I don't want to spread information that isn't factual.

Getting sentenced to 4 years for drugs and sitting next to a guy in my bay that raped two kids and got 18 months was more than kind of unsettling. A good part of the military prison population was people who had crimes against children or got caught with kiddie porn. I only met one of them who had a longer sentence than I did. Then again, another soldier who beat a guy almost to death in a drunken rage and gave this guy permanent brain damage only got 15 months. The sergeant who murdered a Iraqi local national while he was in Iraq and got caught somehow only got like 9 months.

I'm not going to go into the drug argument here, because it would take forever, but I will say this: I saw more people locked up for drugs than any other offense.

First and foremost would be the guards. Military prison guards are members of a local MP unit that are assigned to the prison, so it's pretty regular that the prisoners were stationed with the guards or somehow affiliated with them. Most of the military guards saw their jobs as just an obligation and tried to make things as easy as possible for themselves and for the prisoners. They actually wanted to help the prisoners better themselves. Guards in the federal system came in two kinds: the apathetic kind that really don't give a shit about anything at all as long as they can just sit in the guard shack and drink coffee, and the more militant, in your face, trying to assert their authority because they were picked on in high school kind.

The quality of the facilities is a big difference too. Military prisons are very clean and well-kept, while federal prisons are old, run-down, dirty, and unsanitary to the max. Prisoners are responsible for cleaning in both, but in the fed, they either don't care about trying to keep things clean for everyone else, or they look at how much it would actually take to clean their living areas and just give up.

One big difference I noticed after a while is the lack of any real kind of programs to help rehabilitate prisoners in the federal system. The military had rehab plans and tons of different classes offered to help better yourself. The fed had one program that I wasn't eligible for because I didn't have enough time left on my sentence when I made it there. It was called RDAP, and was the only way you could get time off your sentence in the federal system. Completing the 12 or 15 month program (really can't remember) gave you nine months off your sentence.

I was in the military stationed overseas. I was working a deal with someone else where I would bring drugs back from another country into the country where I was stationed for them to sell. I got caught with about 130 hits of LSD and 3 hits of ecstasy (the X was my personal stash). The person who I was supplying for got caught and gave up my name. I came back from that trip and the MPs were waiting for me.

I only remember one escape attempt. The guy walked out through the visitation room during a visitation session when the guard had his back turned. He made it up the street about a mile and a half before the guards caught him and brought him back. We were put on lockdown for the rest of the day and they cancelled visitation for two weeks. The guy who escaped only had a 45 day sentence.