Hello from the “Twilight Zone.” I use this to describe prison because, if you’ve ever watched the show, you know that their explorations of the STRANGE and the ODD are basically reality inside these places. Although I say this in a form of lighthearted expressionism, the truth is — in reality — there’s no humor at all in here; just the opposite…it is, in essence, MAN’S INHUMANITY TO MAN, WHERE HYPOCRISY IS THE PHILOSOPHY EMPLOYED IN EVERY ASPECT OF EXISTENCE, AND HATRED DRIVES THE SYSTEM TO TREAT PEOPLE AS ANYTHING OTHER THAN HUMAN!

I am 58-1/2 years old. I have spent nearly 46-years of my life in institutions of one nature or another: mental hospitals; mental wards; juvenile detention centers; various boy’s reformatories; jails and prisons (the last one now for 38 years straight). The saying “revolving doors'” in relationship to “recidivism,” isn’t simply a result of failing to rehabilitate wayward people. My experience teaches that the entire system has an “Action/Reaction” mentality that staff are TAUGHT in the courses they are trained in as part of the (so-called) “Minimum Compulsory Training Standards,” that literally teach them “All inmates are master manipulaters, liars, thieves, and never to be trusted!” This motto is indelibly imprinted on the recesses of their minds and once it is, there’s no turning back. They are no longer humans, but now they’re automatons (i.e., robots), and see us ONLY with a jaundiced eye.

Sadly, the majority of the people who come to work in prison aren’t, from the outset of their employment, “out-to-get-the-inmate,” but are usually normal people who need employment, and before they can escape the rancid stench that is the judicial system, it lays hold of them in it’s unrelenting clutches of their “Sinister System!” Now, they are TRAPPED in here and decaying alongside those of us whom LIFE “kicked-us-in-the-teeth!” And we will all die together.

Again, welcome to the Twilight Zone.

Mark Blain #1154225
Nottoway Corr. Ctr.
P. O. Box 488
Burkeville, Via. 23922