This brief information presentation will explain programming during federal incarceration in three acts. First the beginning, second how to to do your time and thirdly the use of what is presented to facilitate a positive finale.

ACT I So You Have Been Arrested

Unfortunately you did not make bail. You are now in the complete charge of the BOP. What are you to do now? Recent Supreme Court decisions help a pre trial and post convicted inmate. There are BOP policies that are beneficial to both types of inmates. Also there is a lot that can be done by utilizing the education and positive programs provided by the institution where you are housed.

You should have a complete mental understanding that BOP staff did not put you here and they are not your enemy. In fact, the best revenge in a prisoner’s situation is success. To start to be successful in your new settings, you need to learn all there is to be offered by all the programs available in a pre-trial facility. Talk to any and all staff that are involved or can direct you to the available programs for change. Doing time with a chip on one’s shoulder can only lead to a negative “time” during your incarceration.

We know your mind is preoccupied with your case, your family, and possibly your health. But again, there is case law that states judges are open and receptive when shown that an inmate has immediately stepped up during his incarceration by taking all types of educational programs for change. This type of positive attitude and adjustment will set a motivating pattern if one has to continue his days within the BOP.

Act II After Sentencing: How to do Your Time

Unfortunately you are now a sentenced inmate within the BOP. No matter what level of prison you are sent to, all facilities have multiple programs available. The Education Department, Prison Chapel, Vocational Training and select units offer a variety of life style change programs. Since you may have received a lengthy or a short sentence you might think that taking programs for change is a complete waste of time. You would miss out on one of the most important things you can get from your time of incarceration. One might think that it is better to become worse during his or her incarceration then to make foolish attempts to educate ones self in many ways. Let me state that the authors of this profound material say that that type of thinking is a complete falsehood.

For instance, lets say an inmate has a life sentence and is feeling no hope. Yet there is complete hope if one can completely change his character through education. For not only taking BOP programs, there is also affordable distance learning which one can participate through many types of institutions. By working hard and not wasting your years in the SHU or through negative actions, an inmate who puts his nose to the grindstone and gets a high level of education, or a degree of some kind, you will not be the same person anymore. You will possibly and most likely receive some type of assistance from leaders in the outside community who can make a difference in an inmate’s life. In plain terms, do not let the time do you, you do the time in the best possible light.

ACT III A Positive Finale

Time has passed, you have been in the BOP for a while, for quite some of your birthdays. You have educated yourself at a high level of expectations. You have avoided receiving incident reports. Through the years, you have sat in front of teachers, instructors, outside visitors relaying information in a learning capacity and even mentors. You have accomplished such goals through your hard work. You are now an inmate that staff seeks out to work within all types of positive programs. Quite frankly, you are not the same person who entered the BOP so long ago. You are a person that the BOP can not but help document wonderful “progress reports”. An entitled progress report in such good standing can be utilized in many ways, even applying it to the court for a reduction in sentence. Again may we say that the authors of these three acts know from first hand experience that using the BOP and all of its positive programs can only bring you closer to some serious goals.

It is our hope that this first hand information relayed upon you can point you in the right direction throughout your incarceration. Everyone in the system from the warden on down wishes for you to excel in your prison setting.

Written by: George Martorano and Robert Paratore

And welcome to the age of prison

I feel they took all the pretty seashells from the sea
I feel the flowers gone, vanish before the sun and me
I feel an unholy drape, dark, pulled so tight beneath blue skies

And welcome to the age of prison

No more can I hear the babies cry
No more can I taste lips so shy
No more will I dance to fall
No, no more can I woo again…..friend

And welcome to the age of prison

No, no more will she wake in my arms
No, no more they chained that charm

And welcome to the age of prison

I soon will feel the sum of things
I feel what agony brings
I feel lesson’s lesson, scared on my back
I feel my love never to look back

And welcome to the age of prison

Birds play a part in prison-life; at least in mine. Being surrounded by walls and razorwired fences, the fowl have to come to us.

I remember in one “pen” on the Atlantic coast having a large population of pigeons. There were a few hawks also, they would perch up on the 100 foot light poles. Every once in a while a hawk would swoop down and grab a pigeon, leaving only a few feathers behind to rain down on us.

I remember at another “pen” in Texas looking out my barred cell window, at a dip in the ground where sandpipers would gather after a rain. They moved around fast and seemed to do so with a purpose.

At a Chester County jail while in the “hole”, I remember praying for the sparrows outside my window. The razor wire would cut off their tiny little feet and they would laydown and die on the cold cement. Proof of this was laying there everyday.

The ducks, I remember the ducks at a Maryland prison. They would lay on the blacktop sunning themselves. The road led from the prison, there was little traffic.

I write this from a small space as usual: but it’s my space.

While watching staff trim limbs from the trees that house our fowl here at Coleman: I noticed that 2 nest, one with 3 young doves and one with 2 eggs laid upon on the ground. I picked them up, the mothers and fathers swooped at me. I assured them they would be ok.

Within seconds a warning came over the loudspeakers, announcing for everyone to clear the compound. We were herded to a space 10ftX30ft, a mini lockdown of sorts. Upon entering the space I searched mine out, 2 dove nest in tow. I found my spot-took off my shirt, removed the laces from my shoes-made a cloths line-hung my shirt and tee shirt over it, and had “my space”
I noticed a lot of new arrivals trying not to look over at me: they probrably thought I was the “unit nut”, sitting there, on the floor, behind my cloths line, with my bird nest, pen and paper, lol… little do they know, being so new.

I tore a little peice of my tee shirt and wet it, getting the young doves to take a drink was challenging, but accomplished. Once off this lockdown, I will try and find my friend Brian. Brian takes care of the birds as he has the time to devote to them. I will be able to visit them and watch them mature.

Watching pleasant things is good, please remember that: try it, find that “space”, and try it.

When one’s thoughts become so pure and plain, it is either time to be released or die. For after so long of walls and their little warmth, I can smell the honeysuckle…still from my daydream.

I stand alone along the prison hall. I close my eyes. I see myself enter a small house. For I just left the quiet country road I walked upon. The road shown only trees, sand edged up to the hot blacktop. No other homes were there. Just the one I stepped into. It is a lived in home, small, yet no-one about. I’ve passed the small sparing living room, glanced up the worn stairs… Now in the kitchen, there’s a hand pump for waterat the sink. Yet, the sunset draws me near the back screen door. I’m close to the rust of it. I see through it. The yard is small, high bushes enclose it. Then, and it is whats keeping me there… the smell, the smell of honeysuckle. Such a sweet smell. It is all I want, just to stand here, daydream and breathe.