Restrictive Society
A Correlation between prison and the real world
E-Mail By Seth M Ferranti Bio/Address
In 1995 when I first entered the Bureau of Prisons, I heard a lot about Club Fed and the country club environment. When I was at the Alexandria County jail, all the Virginia state prisoners looked on me with envy, " You going to the Feds, Joe." They thought it was something special. Still today in 2002, people coming in have the impression that the Feds are special or different, that it is the top line of prisons. Well, I'm here to tell you that it's not. Prison sucks and as our society turns into a police state, the BOP mirrors every move. During my nine years of incarceration in the feds, things have only got worse and more restrictive.
After getting sentenced at the Alexandria federal courthouse, I was designated to FCI Manchester, a medium-to-high security level prison in the hills of Kentucky. It was a brand new prison built in 1992. So, in effect, I was opening it up along with 800 other prisoners. Half of the population had come down from the USP's (federal penitentiaries), a lot from Terre Haute, and some from Atlanta or Lewisburg. FCI Manchester was new and clean, resembling a fortified college campus. Welcome to Club Fed, I thought. But like most rumors you hear in prison, the jokers who spread the country club line were full of shit.
When I think of a country club, I imagine pools, tennis courts, and golf courses. I imagine exquisite food and luxuries. FCI Manchester had none of that, though at the time they had prison staples: weights, no top of the line like Gold's Gym, but adequate, laid out in the recreation yard like you would see in any prison movie. They had band rooms with electric guitars, drums, amps; everything you needed to have a rock, blues, Latin, reggae, jazz, or R & B band. There was an inmate organization that sponsored banquets, prize bingos, and weekly movies. In the unit you could watch the institutional movies, HBO, or Showtime. Plus they showed the pay-per-view boxing and wrestling events. All of this was paid for by the inmate organization and the inmate trust fund. There were many recreational activities and plenty to keep you busy.
You could order recreational equipment, shoes, or sweats from Eastbay catalogs or Glenn's Sporting Goods through recreation. Dudes in prison would be decked out in the latest kicks from the street and would be styling Champion sweat suits with hoods in a variety of colors. Prisoners had Diadora shorts, Nike socks, Addidas shirts and hats or whatever they could or wanted to order.
Education sponsored a college program through the University of Eastern Kentucky, funded by Pell grants; prisoners were getting their college degrees. It wasn’t Club Fed, but at least we were living a little. At one point in FCI Manchester, I had an acoustic guitar, a Sony Walkman, cassette tapes, and a typewriter in my room. I had all name brand sweats, shoes, shirts, and shorts in multiple styles and colors. As my time went on, I would look back on these days longingly because at that time the BOP let us have an identity. There was an effort to keep us occupied, and we had a chance for rehabilitation.
And all the prisoners who had been anywhere else in the system said that FCI Manchester sucked. They talked of FCI "Dream" Mckean where you could get packages from the street, have family days in the yard, July 4th cookouts, and order pizza from Dominos once a month. They talked about FCI Fort Dix where you could get anything you wanted from the street. They talked about the USP's with the all-you-can-eat chow halls boasting ice cream machines and steaks. I heard all this talk, and I wanted to live a little more also. I was trying to transfer to FCI Fort Dix, which was a low, when my security level dropped. I was taking college courses, occupying my time, and trying to rehabilitate myself.
But then around ‘95 things took a turn for the worse. The crack riots erupted in federal prisons nationwide, and the BOP enforced a system wide lockdown and weeded out the instigators, shipping them to "who knows where," diesel therapy, and all that shit. The BOP was unprepared for the riots, and congress was outraged. Instead of looking into the real reasoning for the riots, the crack cocaine- powder cocaine disparity, the feds decided to lock it down and make prison more restrictive.
A succession of changes occurred after that. First was the No Frills Prison Act or the Zimmerman Bill, which said prisoners were living in luxury. This bill, which didn't even pass in congress, was adopted by the BOP verbatim as policy. This was in ‘96, and it was the beginning of the end for human rights in prison and foreshadowed the changes happening in society today.
Pell grants were abolished for federal prisoners, thus there were no post secondary or college educational programs because most dudes couldn’t afford to pay for their educations. Weights and electronic music equipment were prohibited. Whatever existed was grandfathered in, but no new equipment of this type could be purchased. There were severe restrictions put on personal property; no more personal musical instruments, name brand or colored clothing items, or excessive recreational equipment were allowed. I remember the prison staff coming around to every cell that year and telling you what you could and couldn't keep. They literally stripped prisoners of everything they had such as guitars, keyboards, shoes, socks, sweat suits, shorts, and racquetball rackets, anything that was considered excess or contraband, and made them send it home. .
The inmate organizations were abolished. Movie stations like HBO and Showtime were cancelled. Only basic cable was kept. All of a sudden the BOP told us, grown adults, that we couldn't view R rated movies anymore. It was crazy. So much for Club Fed or even for Club Motel Six.
At the end of ’96, I was transferred to FCI Beckley in West Virginia. A brand new, just built federal correctional institution that was totally in compliance with the No Frills Prison Act. There were no weights, no musical instruments, no inmate organizations, no college programs, and no R-rated movies. What was a prisoner to do? You could run the track, do bar work, play sports, and watch TV. They had vocational training courses, but let me tell you, most of them were a joke. As was the GED program. The education department just wanted bodies to make their programs look good and to justify their jobs. In reality, hardly anyone was learning anything or graduating.
This was the first big strip of rights and individual liberties in the federal system. It was sort of like a test run for the locking down of America. Out went the spring-bunk beds and in came the metal ones. Out went the wooden doors and in came the metal. Bars were placed over every window. Metal detectors were at every entryway. The BOP fortified the prisons. They would not get caught unprepared again. There would be no more crack riots like ’ 95. Nationwide the BOP made their prisons lockdown ready, riot proof. And just to show the prisoners who the boss was, they took away every so-called luxury item. They said that in prison you only deserved the bare necessities. It didn't matter that they already took decades of your life away from your family, away from your friends, away from society. Now they wanted to strip your individuality, too. No one would stick out. All would be the same. Grey clothes, white shoes, no colors, to go along with the brown khaki institution issued uniforms: nondescript, monotonous, boring. Did somebody mention Club Fed? More like prison. And I don't mean the Wise Guy's prison either. That shit is out the window. It's all cruel and unusual punishment now. I'm talking Alcatraz.
What is happening in today’s society mirrors what has happened in federal prison; the tightening up of security, the restriction of rights, the constant surveillance and scrutiny. Everything I do in federal prison is monitored. Kind of like the real world. Yes? And I don't mean MTV. Granted you have more freedoms, but how much has been taken away? In here it seems that every day they take away something else. Is that happening to you also?
Around 1999 the BOP started throttling federal prisoners more. It's almost getting hard to breathe now. I guess oxygen will be the next restriction. The Ensign Amendment was passed that year and made publications like Hustler, Club, Playboy, and Private illegal for government employees to handle. So prisoners in the BOP can't receive those types of magazines anymore. Crazy, yes? You have hundreds of thousands of men locked up for decades of their lives, and they can't look at pictures of naked women. I hope you have a vivid and lasting memory of that last night you spent with your girlfriend.
Also the BOP has put the clamps on outside communication by limiting phone calls to 300 minutes per month, which is exactly 20 15-minute calls a month. And don’t say something that the prison administrators don't like on the phone because if you do, they will take your phone privileges away for six months or maybe years even if it is your first mistake or violation. These feds are not playing around. They want total and absolute control. There is no Club Fed - there never was - but at least before you could live a little. Now it is nothing but frustration. The BOP has their prisoners walking a tightrope. It’s eerily similar to what is happening in the real world with the checkpoints, airport security, homeland defense team, and the ongoing war on drugs. You tell me what is the difference? It seems we are all locked up now; me in my fortified prison and you in your police state. I am trapped by fences, barbed razor wire, locked doors, and armed guards, and you are trapped in the free world by your job, car payments, house payments, and credit card bills. Every aspect of both of our lives is monitored. There are security cameras here, everywhere, except in my cell, and now in the police state of America, there are security cameras everywhere except in your house. But who knows, maybe your dad is watching, or your mom, or your husband, or wife, or even your kids. Maybe they are reporting all your activities to the government.
I'm just saying to be careful, or you might end up in here like me on 25 lockdown with one phone call a month and breakfast in bed and all that. Maybe if I were a model inmate who worked in Unicor and watched Jerry Springer, I could go back to the compound, but because I write and have an opinion about life, the BOP is afraid of me. Terrified, really. So be careful with your opinions out there because the constitution is on shaky grounds. Like me, your rights are dwindling, and it’s all in the name of freedom and safety. Be careful because Big Brother is watching you.
