October, 2007

Encouraging Others to Use the Free Services of PrisonSuccess.com

I’m very grateful to my sponsors and my wife for having built PrisonSuccess.com. This is a social networking Web site that we designed with hopes of helping other prisoners prepare for law-abiding lives upon release. It costs inmates nothing to participate on the site, yet allows them to document the progress they make through their […]

A Message of Gratitude to my Wife

More than three months have passed since administrators transferred me from the camp at Lompoc to the camp at Taft. As I’ve written in various other articles, this move has been a good one for me. The living conditions are better than anywhere I’ve been since my confinement began, back in 1987. The one difficulty […]

Comments on Ted Koppel’s Prison Special

The television room at Taft’s minimum-security camp was packed last night. Many of the inmates gathered to watch Ted Koppel’s two-hour show on the Discovery Channel that detailed California’s troubled prison system. Not long ago, Governor Schwarzenegger renamed California’s Department of Corrections. Now it uses the catchy phrase “Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections,” or some […]

Weekly Writing Activities

Now that I have finished the fall classes I was taking at Taft Community College, I am left with more time to work on my independent projects. That does not mean I will have free time, as the projects on which I’m working have no end. Specifically, I am revising the content on MichaelSantos.net, and […]

Thriving Through Adversity: 3rd Quarter 2007

During this past quarter I’ve moved into my third decade of continuous confinement. I am glad to have more than 20 years of continuous confinement behind me, and I’m hopeful that I can conclude my sentence from my current place of confinement, in Taft, California. I have been in the Taft prison camp for more […]

Hoping for More Access to Telephones and Visiting Time

As a long-term prisoner, maintaining close family and community ties is extremely important to me. The more love and support I receive, the more able I am to grow and prepare myself to emerge successfully from this quarter century that I expect to serve in federal prison. Over the past 20 years, I have served […]

Mondays at Taft Camp

Mondays bring a busy schedule for me here at Taft Camp. I participate in two groups; one consumes my mornings, and another takes up my afternoons. Each Monday morning, at 8:30, I join between 25 and 35 other men for our chapter meetings of the Taft Camp Toastmasters Club. I have participated in Toastmasters for […]

Avoiding the Prisoner Profile

Every man in federal prison is assigned to a particular job. At Taft Camp, where I was transferred in June of 2007, I was assigned to work in the food service department. As far as prison jobs are concerned, I consider my job at Taft one of the best work assignments that I’ve had during […]