Eliminate Prison Camps to Cut Domestic Spending

President Obama ought to call for the elimination of prison camps to cut unnecessary domestic spending. This type of expenditure should not continue, as prison camps do not contribute to making society safer. Indeed, prison administrators have classified all prisoners in prison camps as minimum-security offenders and require those men to serve time on their […]

Can Tina’s Fiance Serve his Ten-Year Sentence in a Camp?

I recently received a question from Tina. Her fiance was just sentenced to serve a ten-year prison term. Tina wanted to know whether it was possible for her fiance to serve that sentence in a prison camp. The short answer is yes, it’s possible. In my article Security Level Classifications, I described the criteria that […]

Does the Corrections System Care About Inmates?

I can relate to the feelings of tax payers who want vengeance from those who have broken society’s laws. Prisoners have been convicted of crimes, and many of you want them to pay. Yet prisoners eventually pay that debt and return to society. Although punishment should represent one component of society’s response to crime, an enlightened […]

How To Stop the Flow of Drugs Into Prison

Administrators in high-security prisons use a variety of security measures designed to stop the flow of contraband into prisons. Despite their efforts, drugs remain a problem in prison. Drugs enter institutions through visiting rooms, through the mail, and through corrupt staff members. The smuggling of drugs into prisons is particularly problematic in secure prisons. Ironically, […]

Prison Reforms We Can Believe In

Ultimately, society relies upon these prisons as tools to encourage law-abiding behavior. Yet flaws within the design of the prison system render it less effective than its potential. Statistics show that more than six of every ten people in America’s prison system return to confinement after their initial release. Reforms can lower those recidivism rates […]

Relationships Between Prisoners and Guards

The relationships between prisoners and guards differ in accordance with security levels. In minimum-security camps, there is a much less hostile atmosphere. I have been confined in minimum security camps since 2003. Currently I am confined at Taft Prison Camp, and I find the officers here to be friendly and unobtrusive. They do not go […]

What Prisoners Miss Most

Prisoners miss what they cannot have. Those who serve time in supermax prisons, like the ADX in Florence, Colorado, live in sterile cells. They are deprived of nearly all human contact. Their mattress is thrown on a concrete slab. They can hardly move beyond the small space allotted to them. They cannot use the telephone […]

Minimum security prison camp vs high security prison

As a result of serving more than 16 years in higher security prisons, I really know how to appreciate my placement in a minimum-security camp. Other prisoners, especially those who are serving time for white collar crimes, fail to appreciate the comparable levels of freedom we enjoy in the camp. That is understandable, because those […]

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 […]