I’m being rehabilitated.
The narrative is, I’m fucked up and need to be trained how to be a decent human being. I have to cultivate some kind of regard for others’ lives and develop citizenship skills. According to the narrative, this prison is where I learn that.
I call bullshit.
Case in point: Professor Anthony Nocella of Fort Lewis College in Colorado contacted me about writing some chapters for upcoming publications. One book is tentatively entitled, ‘Contemporary Anarchist Criminology,’ planned to be released by Peter Lang Publishing, and the other is ‘Why, America?, Why?,’ which has been compiled by Save the Kids for Arissa Media Group. I was happy to send Professor Nocella something for both books, particularly the book geared toward troubled youth.
I have a degree in the social sciences (that my captors do not have) and more than twenty-five years in America’s gulags, so these are topics I can perhaps discuss with a bit of expertise. My contribution to those projects might be beneficial, I hope.
You would think the warden here would be happy about prisoners in his custody working to keep kids out of trouble, getting chapters published in books and making it look as if he doesn’t sit around eating donuts all day while those in his mismanaged care roll in the snow and kick the shit out of each other. You’d think my publication in multiple books would be something the warden would wear as a kind of “badge of pride,” taking credit for shaping me into a fine citizen, holding me up as an example of his successes in rehabilitating offenders.
Not.
When Professor Nocella sent release forms for the publishers to use my materials in their books, the fascist fuckweasels in the mailroom “withheld” the releases, asserting that the forms constituted “contracts,” and the signing of “contracts” constituted “conducting business.” Warden Shady Three-Eighty signed off on that.
Their astute legal analysis aside, those “contracts” do not become “contracts” until they get signed. Unsigned contracts are not “contracts”– they are pieces of paper. And I have not yet signed those releases, so, until I sign them– and who is to say that I will –those releases remain “pieces of paper.” So, what the fuckweasels are now doing to me and to no one else is that they are obstructing my communications and preventing me from receiving what Professor Nocella sent to me under the rationale that they must prevent me from possibly “conducting buusiness.” But their rules do not provide for such conduct. Their rules provide for punishing me if and when I have conducted business, not for reading tea leaves or star-gazing to employ psychic powers to determine whether, in the future, I might conduct business if they follow their own rules and serve the mail.
Fuckin’ whack jobs.
So, while gang-bangers rolled in the snow and whole teams of maintenance personnel struggled to outsmart the electrical circuits here, Shady Three-Eighty and his fuckweasel forces were busy circling the wagons and pulling out all the stops in order to prevent me from having positive influence on troubled youth, by not letting me receive and maybe sign a dumb piece of paper so Professor Nocella could include my writing in some books… going out of their way to break laws and steal mail so that I won’t have a chance at helping at-risk youth.
If you’re not bewildered, read that paragraph again.
I gave them the benefit of the doubt, sent kites around inquiring as to what was happening. What they told me was that I needed “prior approval” from Shady Three-Eighty before I could “conduct business,” i.e., receive federal mail. So, my own reservations about their goofiness aside, I tried to appease them. I sent a kite to Shady Three-Eighty and politely asked if I could receive mail from Professor Nocella that, if I received it, and if I signed it, and if I sent it back, might constitute “conducting business.”
He said no.
So, it turns out, Shady Three-Eighty really does want at-risk youth to remain at-risk, deprived of helpful words from someone with the expertise to help them. Shady would prefer if I put down the pen and stopped all that noun-verb nonsense and, instead, rolled in the snow with the rest of the hooligans while he watches, donuts in hand, sprinkles adorning his tie.
Three things make this even more whack. First, when a Catholic newspaper in the 1990s sought to interview me, a prison staffer presented me with a release form that the staffer made me sign– which means the prison fascists themselves employ these releases. Second, Shady Three Eighty has Bibles and artwork of Jesus all over his office. You know, the guy who, according to the narrative anyway, handed out fishes and loaves to those who were needy… rather than withholding them. Third, the parole board, the last time they fucked me sideways, used the excuse that there are folks in the outside world who object to my release– which means I have to find some way to win a popularity contest in order to ever get out of prison, which means I have to find some way to have a positive influence… you know, like writing stuff that helps at-risk youth.
So, it would seem, beyond the whack-a-doodlery already described, I’ve got the ambassador for Jesus, who has releases he sometimes makes prisoners sign, putting duct-tape on my face so I can never create the circumstances for my eventual release.
What a fuckin’ hater.

You would think Shady Three-Eighty would want me out of his custody as quickly as possible, wouldn’t you? Clearly not. He’s such a fan of my work (that he won’t let anyone read), he’s working hard to keep me here for the rest of my life.
Thanks, Shady. But I think it’s time for me to move on and mow my parents’ grass… whether you like it or not.
So, I had the content of those releases transmitted to me through other means, typed up releases myself, and signed them. I mailed them off and Professor Nocella should have gotten them. If he didn’t, I can always send out mail through others and have those releases remailed to the professor. I made multiple copies just in case the fuckweasel criminals in the mailroom steal my outgoing mail too.
My thinking is, ridiculous tin despots like Shady can go fuck themselves. They go out of their way to selectively and invidiously enforce rules in ways they were never intended to be understood in the first place, never even considering that the rules are perfectly unenforceable the way they try to reinvent them.
How did Shady and his fuckweasel forces think they could stop me from eventually signing releases and eventually getting them out to Professor Nocella so we could make the world a better place? Why would they not, from the very start, simply recognize that if I really wanted to help troubled youth I would simply find some way to get those releases out?
And what real interest do they have in stopping me anyway?
I contacted the warden so that he could provide his own commentary, but he has not yet responded– so it is impossible to know whether or not he has or has not already fucked himself. One of the phone numbers here is (513) 438-4255, and you can ask for the warden’s extension; or email his assistant at greg.craft@odrc.state.oh.us to inquire as to whether or not Shady Three-Eighty has indeed fucked himself yet.

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Sean Swain
DOC #A243-205