Missouri Prison Reform received the following message from a resident of a Missouri prison. Some edits were made for clarity. Names were redacted by Missouri Prison Reform.
“When did we as Americans forget that a person in prison is in fact an American citizen! As some are vets and others just ordinary people, when did the people of this once great country say because u committed a crime u are no longer a U.S. citizen but a ward of the state, nothing but a slave to the state under the guise of an inmate statice! when did the constitution say we the people but not u convicts! In my belief they keep the wrong people in prison! I’ve been good just as they want us to be yet when I went to see the parole board they said I was flying under the radar and playing the game ! what ? what game ? please tell me ! the people on the parole board need to be replaced as often as possible because that won’t give any one on the board a chance to form a block against certain people and people with certain crimes ! when I was in a different camp the p and p people sent the head person of a program called the Transitional Housing Unit ( t.h.u.) to me and 3 others I was a D.L.A. I helped the elderly and disabled with what they couldn’t do. and **** told me that the parole people sent her to me and said they wanted to give me a date if I went thru the t.h.u. program and I went thru the program and completed 5 classes in that ! then the dumb ass D.O.C. transferred me to Jefferson city correctional center, due to staff shortages at that place, so let me get this straight, D.O.C. transferred me from one place with staffing issue to another place with even worse staffing issues and a reentry program that I can’t get into because I have too much time! Oh back to the other issue when I got here at Jeff town I wrote the p and p people and asked them what was told about me at the other camp he said he had no idea what I was talking about and when I went up for parole this past February after 24 hard years, day for day, these dumb bastards gave me a 5 year set back again! WHY? I haven’t had a write up in years, been a good little boy, working, putting myself thru paralegal school at the same time. so when did our Constitution allow for such cruel punishment? when is enough, enough ? when u sit and watch a man’s throat being cut, people being stabbed, heads being kicked like someone playing football or trying to stomp their head into the ground! a friend taking a header off the top walk head first into the concrete! stabbings after stabbings and some not even caught! friends committing suicide! what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment? The only way the American public is goin to understand how to change this system they created is to come and talk to people who aren’t there just to gripe but really want to see a change! why do u the public think that holding people away from their loved ones for years and years is goin to change anything? it doesn’t a person’s prison record speaks for itself, if that person continues to be a dumb ass then by all means stay in prison because they don’t get it and won’t get it until it is to let and life has passed them by! remember this when u point a finger u have 3 pointing right back at u! and it’s up to God to judge not u nor I!!! GOD Bless!”
