Greetings from the prison of Atwood,
This morning in the Carpentry class, I learned how to use and practiced with various saws and drills. While I have used drills a lot in my life repairing things such as fences (that our Yogi Bear nearly knocked down), I have never used a saw before. The saws we practiced with today were circular saws, compact miter saws and jigsaws. The circular saw was heavy, bulky and nerve wracking. Tough I was able to saw some boards for a foundation, it is so far my very least favorite saw. The jigsaw was next, and was a sharp contrast to the circular saw, as it was lightweight and easy to maneuver. Finally, we worked with the compact miter saw (which was anything BUT compact), and was much easer to use than the circular saw to utilize. This is the second class in the Construction courses I am taking at the prison, and the instructor is a dedicated and fantastic teacher. Very patient, and eager to show us how to use the various tools for the course. We will be doing a project in about a month (not sure what that is yet), in which we will be building some sort of structure. I took this FSA class initially for two reasons. One, because we have to have FSA classes to reduce our sentences, and two, because before I came to prison, I was part of a coalition building tiny home communities for homeless veterans and felt these new skills would help me with work upon release.
At the time this course was offered, there were no FSA classes available at this prison. Within the month of April (5 months later) there have been a flurry of FSA classes offered here. In order to get the full benefit of the First Step Act (FSA), you must be enrolled in and take FSA classes while incarcerated. Doing so has numerous benefits…free phone calls (when the system works) and 15 days per month reduction of your sentence. When new people arrive at the prison, I make a point to share with them the importance to take the FSA and ACE classes that are offered so they can get released earlier, as they show that you are wanting to improve, be rehabilitated and taking your incarceration seriously. The ACE classes (which I teach here) lower your recidivism, which translates to what risk you are to the community upon release. The lower the recidivism score, the less of a risk you are to the community at large. When I was incarcerated, I was already a -6, which 0 is the baseline, so my being less than zero in my score shows the community I am not a threat. This is also why I am advocating for those with low/minimum recidivism scores to be placed on house arrest rather than incarcerated in a prison.
Not only am I learning more than I ever thought possible about how the justice system and prisons work in our country, today, feeling the power of the various saws I used, it was empowering to see I could build something. I am a firm believer in learning new skills, and expanding your knowledge, so if I can leave here with knowing the proper names of tools and know how to fix things around the house- even better. You have to see the bright side of things when you are faced with adversity, and today, mine was power tools.
