mccarticles
When I first arrived at Bent County Correctional Facility, I worked primarily on a book idea I had been developing for some years. I wanted to have a good draft inside of a year or two. I gave myself a daily quota, and stuck at it for 80 handwritten pages.
Over time, I learned that I was not the only inmate author in the facility. There was another mysterious fellow, apparently writing a book based on a real-life schizophrenic's conversations with an imaginary squirrel. This mysterious author was Michael McCarthy, whom I ended up meeting in the "advanced" computer classroom of Bent County Correctional Facility.
My first impressions of Michael were that he was extremely cheery and optimistic, which had the effect of making the prison seem more like a campus. The similarity of our scope was apparent to me when I learned that Mr. McCarthy wrote articles which were sometimes published in the Pueblo Chieftain. In turn, I shared ideas about my blog, which he immediately liked. We might have become better friends had we lived in the same unit.
At the time, students in the computer classes were allowed to write and print a one-page letter per week. This was an incentive perk to get inmates to try and stay in the class; necessary, perhaps, because many inmates have extremely underdeveloped computer skills and are easily discouraged or frustrated. Michael took the opportunity to write letters in the form of perspective articles, which he mailed to the Pueblo Chieftain. I thought the idea was brilliant.
The articles are unique, sometimes quirky, and just as often funny. But there is also a darker side to the stories which isn't totally apparent from the writing. I'd like to share it with you as part of my introduction to this tiny slice of inmate culture.
The Rest of the Story
About halfway through, Michael writes a portion titled, "Face Your Fear – and Live." It was written in response to the death of another inmate, James Crain. Crain's story is the reflection, so to speak, of the "retiring veteran" cliche' in cop movies. He was about a year from being released after over 20 years of incarceration when he died. Michael's article depicts a somewhat mysterious death by illness. In a curious, butterfly-effect sort of way, my own web site owes its existence to the same series of events that caused his death.
James Crain was a teacher's assistant for the introductory computer class at Bent County Correctional Facility. He had access to the computer lab during off-hours in order to clean the lab, grade student assignments, and to further his own education and familiarization with computers (probably a necessity for someone behind bars as long as he was). Over time, Crain began to use his skills to help inmates with their legal work by typing their hand-written letters for them. To me, and, surely, others who've never been to prison before, this behavior sounds fairly logical and straight-laced, but it was heavily penalized in the case of James Crain, and has permanently affected security policy here at BCCF.
One weekend afternoon, Crain's boss caught him printing some legal documents. Apparently this was a breach of trust of some kind. It's unclear to me why that should be the case, except for the nature of the printed material itself. While I can't speak for prisons nationwide, here at Bent County, legal work is almost villified, and treated like a controlled substance. The policies regarding legal-mail are, frankly, stupid. I find it odd that a justice system would be so overt in exerting what influence they can to retain inmates.
Crain was sent to segregation, and his classroom closed for nearly a month. Crain left healthy; he came back sick. Then, he died. Ignorance and negligence presumably played roles in his death. Read the article for yourself. After he died, class resumed, this time with a vacancy for someone possessing computer skills. You can figure out the rest for yourself.
presenting:
These articles caused something of a stink here at Bent County Correctional Facility. I happened to have a copy of them on my student computer before they were deleted on Michael McCarthy's. I'm missing a few, but they have been saved for the most part. While somewhat dated, I think you'll enjoy reading them. In the spirit of civil disobedience, may I present to you: Michael J. McCarthy's articles.
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