Today was a decent day. I spoke with my case manager and she said that I am still pending resignation, I at least know now that it is in the process of being done. I had a noon call-out and had no idea why, but once I got there I found out that they were conducting an in-person survey surrounding the Foundation program, it was anonymous and it was optional. I chose to participate because I know how important it is to get feedback from participants, to see if what the program was actually designed to do, was accomplishing that mission.
Being in the survey reminded me about the work I used to do being a mystery shopper. A lot of people are surprised to find out that you can actually make some money as a mystery shopper. I would go to convenience stores, shoe stores, eyeglass stores, restaurants galore. It was like I was getting paid to go out to eat and survey the employees. To be quite honest, I think that before a judge is allowed to pass out prison sentences like they were football jersey numbers, they should be required to spend at least thirty days in a prison without the benefit of any benefits of being a judge. While I will totally agree that people who commit crimes should be punished, but I think that the judge and prosecutors should know what it feels like. They should see what little bit of rehabilitation that goes on in the criminal justice system. Maybe somebody should contact “Undercover Boss” and see if they want to do the “Prison Edition”…
A good friend of mine became a grandma again for the second time today. It’s a reminder that life is still going on out there just waiting for us.
While I was on pretrial, in the beginning of my college experience, I had a professor whose classes I was in pertaining to my substance abuse counseling certification. Once I informed him about my pending prison sentence, he let me know that I would not even be able to sit for the Licensing Board until 5 years after my sentence ended. So he suggested that along with the substance abuse counseling certification classes that I add the Social Work track to my degree plan. We discussed basic counseling and the subject of any biases that I have came up concerning the cliental that I would have a problem working with. I admitted that due to things that happened to me when I was a child, I would have a difficult time working with someone who had a child sex charge. My professor informed us that refusing to work with a client could result in loosing our licensing. I had no clue how I would ever be able to work with someone with those charges…….
My God has a sense of humor apparently, because lo and behold I was sent here to FCI Aliceville where individuals with those type of charges are everywhere. I was given the chance to meet ladies who are more than just their charges, they are ladies who have made some really poor choices in their lives. Some of then its easy to tell how they were manipulated by men in their lives. Starting with a father sometimes, other times it started with a husband. What surprised me most though, was how many women are incarcerated for child sex charges. I was always hyper-vigilant about any man being around my daughters, never thought about the women.
Prison has been both a blessing and a curse. It has given me a different type of insight into how women can be manipulated so easily. I have been blessed to meet some wonderful women who had just made some poor decisions in life.
