There is some irony here. I complain about how slow time moves when one is confined to prison, yet its been one whole week since my last journal entry on 8-17-24. I contemplate whether that’s because I lack the discipline to set aside 5 minutes at the end of each day to memorialize my thoughts for the day, am just plain lazy, or situationally depressed so much that I just don’t feel like writing. Time does move slowly and my release date seems so far, far away. But none of this excuses me from taking just a few brief moments each day to talk about what’s going on with my prison journey. And just maybe if I got more disciplined with doing this, it might actually help time go by quicker.
Certainly Michael Santos lives up to his words “I don’t ask you to do anything I am not willing to do myself” and his actions prove it. By following in his footsteps and attempting to do the things he asks, such as book reviews, development of a release plan, journal entries, etc.. he might actually be helping me get through my time in a productive and swift manner.
Not to mention the advocacy work he constantly ask us to think about. If there was ever a time to do some of this advocacy work, now seems to be a great time. Director Peters of the BOP is under tremendous scrutiny and pressure from Congress to move the BOP forward. It seems this would be a great time to help her and create some real change in the system. If her ideal is to create “Good Neighbors” we need to help her create venues that actually allow us to be “Good Neighbors”. Expanding home confinement, making the elderly release date at 50% instead of 2/3rd, enhancing and making it easier to take advantage of the Compassionate Release program, creating work release programs, are all good venues to help us become better neighbors. Santos is doing a great job advocating for these changes, and I’m trying to do what I can inside, I am self advocating for some of these options for myself as well as teaching others how they might do so as well.
Currently it is rumored that my prison needs to make way for some extra 75 beds in a very expeditious manner. The only way to do this is to push some of us into camps or home confinement. Some of us our actually advocating for this.
Tomorrow I will share a parable my father once told me as a child. It relates to the work Michael Santos is doing. I say tomorrow instead of today because it forces my commitment to discipline and creating tomorrows journal entry as promised.
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