We received the following request from an on-line reader. If anyone can be of assistance to her or her son please leave a comment. We would like to take note of three points in her story though. Firstly, when someone is incarcerated it is understood that some freedoms will be forfeited, and we do not dispute that necessity. However, some elements of this submission illustrate how inmates are brushed aside into a never ending bureaucracy. There is a certain amount of frustration that prisoners face when they follow procedures, but the procedures are ignored by staff. The disregard for prisoners inadvertently creates angrier individuals for both the institution to deal with, and society to deal with upon release.
Secondly, if this woman's son were being sent to a rehabilitating institution, rather than one that merely warehouses, perhaps she wouldn't be worried that her son would some how leave the prison in worse condition than he entered!
Thirdly, you can get a glimpse of the fear for retribution that surrounds prisoners, their families, and even some prison workers for speaking out against an institution.
The submission follows:
My son has been an inmate at a Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution for close to two years and was eligible for prerelease earlier this year. However, the prison claimed he had been approved for prerelease mistakenly and insisted that he begin the prerelease process over again. He did so and after three months of waiting, the process was gridlocked, with no answers from administration regarding its progress; obtaining a medical clearance alone was a three week ordeal.
After months of frustration my son was upset, and asked that I call his counselor, and if necessary her supervisor to determine what was wrong. This was a mistake. The supervisor reprimanded my son for "getting his mother involved."
At any rare, I was told that the process was moving slowly because they had not received records from the clerk of courts, and that they had requested them a month and a half earlier. However, I made a call to the prison's liaison in Philadelphia and requested my son's records; they were sent the next business day to my son, the records department, and his consoler! Either I have greater access to my son's official documents than the prison, or the prison had never requested the records in the first place! My son was quickly staffed and no apologies were made.
My son was finally able to file for an appeal. He was told that the process would take about three weeks; in just nine days his request for prerelease was denied. His next hope is to be paroled in about a year.
My son was not a career criminal, and had a clean record until his incarceration. Although his poor decision lead him to prison, it was in self-defense. For the three years between my son's crime and his acceptance of a plea bargain he completed a Bachelor's degree in computer graphics. He has not received one write up since his incarceration.
As a mother I know that the longer my son spends in the system the easier it is for it to destroy him and his family. He can file an appeal, but the appeals always go to the same individuals, so what is the use?
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Wed, 09/09/2009 - 07:32
One of the greatest milestones in a woman's life is becoming a mother. No other single event brings about as many changes and as much responsibility for her, as this one. Having a baby gives a woman a sense of fulfillment and enormous joy. At the same time, it has been seen that first-time mothers get overwhelmed by the changes that take place, in their life as well as their body, after the baby is born. The life of a woman changes completely with the arrival of the baby and the amount of work she has to cope up with leaves her completely exhausted. In order to help all the new moms out there, testking 642-691 we have provided a number of tips in the following lines. These tips will prove extremely useful for all the women in the world, after the birth of their child.
Tips For New Mother
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* Never ever force your baby to follow a specific schedule. Rather, let him/her fix his/her timetable (which he/she will most probably do within the first few weeks). It will be much more comfortable to your baby and make him/her feel secure as well.