By: George Feigley
cofounder
All around the the world people realize how very bad Jeffrey
Beard and his Pennsylvania Department of Imprisonment really
is. We like to think that we've done our part to make them famous,
or infamous is more like it. Even folks in China and
Myanmar and the Ivory Coast know about the trash in Pennsylvania.
Look up "pennsylvania" on Google
and you'll find our articles about the vile prison system. We
consider it a public service.
Just when we figured we'd seen about all the callous, cruel and vindictive things Beard's Department of Imprisonment could dream up in their drunken stupors, they dig down a little deeper into the swill bucket. Recently the Pennsylvania Department of Imprisonment circulated an amendment to one of its many, many regulations. Actually the prison system has over 2800 rules. A few dozen of them are formalized in so-called Administrative Directives. These are very lengthy, complex codes of rules. Prisoners are required to buy copies and then to obey every scintilla of the Administrative Directives. The staff is not expected to obey any rUles, not even the Code of Ethics or Pennsylvania criminal laws. One of the directives deals with prisoners' pay. All prisoners are required to work. They learn useful skills like floor mopping, table wiping and sopping up blood. For these services the prisoners are given micro-pay, about 19¢ per hour. In a few cases a little more. Prisoners who kiss enough ass are allowed to work in prison sweatshops. There they might earn 40¢ an hour sewing old fashioned clothing or (until they lop off a few fingers on the dangerously outdated machinery) stamping out license plates. The last rackets are part of an absurd prison scheme called Correctional Industries. It has nothing to do with "correction." It does, however, allow a few prisoners (the best behaved ones, the ones who've been down the longest, the most needy) to earn a little extra money. That way they can buy a some treats in the prison commissary. Most long-time prisoners no longer have families to support them. So, in his munificent humanity, Commissar Beard changed the rules. Prices were skyrocketing, prisoners couldn't afford shampoo or TV cable or the very high cost of phoning home. Beard had just received several thousand dollars in a nice raise. He figured that it was only fair to cut the prisoners pay! Prisoners who do the daily housework of keeping the prison blocks clean and sanitary suffered a drastic cut in pay. Beard expects them to beg their families for money to buy necessities. He doesn't really want the prisons kept clean. But the most drastically cut were made on Pennsylvania's thousands of life prisoners. These people will never see the community again. They will grow old and die in gloomy prison. Pennsylvania is not a place noted for compassion. As a group, lifers are the best behaved and most reliable prisoners. If they behave for 5 or 10 years a few of them were allowed to take jobs in Correctional Industries. They could risk their lives making boxes or mattresses or coats. That was the old system. Beard changed the pay rules. He fined them for their good behavior. Now only a very limited number of lifers can receive a "decent" wage (if 40¢ is "decent"). We've long explained to you people in Europe and South America and New Jersey how bad Pennsylvania is. Avoid it. Take a tourist dollar to some place nice like Russia or China or Venezuela.
"Remember that time is money," You are welcome to use or re-publish
any of our material.
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