By Marc Emery, Cannabis Culture
[Editor’s note: This letter was sent from Marc Emery to CC Editor Jeremiah Vandermeer on Dec 3, 2010.]
Dear Jeremiah: D. Ray James is a bizarrely run prison – excuse me – “correctional facility”. Of the many wrong things here:
Security
The facility is designated low-security for INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) ‘deportable alien’ inmates. It is, in fact, run and controlled like a medium-high security prison. But in regular BOP medium-security prisons, you get a two-bunk cell to share; here in this “low”-security prison, we have 60 men in one big dorm with no privacy.
At BOP low-security prisons for Americans, there’s a large fence to keep inmates in. Here, there are two rows of huge fence with razorwire on top and all over. It’s very menacing and makes this place seem like a medium-high security facility.
Administration
As an INS facility, it is supposed be staffed with immigration experts who can do treaty transfer applications. Unfortunately, none of the staff here has ever done a treaty transfer application, nor have they correctly started the procedure for any of the Canadians or anyone else here.
When they said they wouldn’t start my paperwork until the Canadian Consulate forwarded paperwork to them approving my return to Canada, I realized they had no idea how the procedure works.
Aghast, I had [lawyer] Kirk [Tousaw] contact [transfer specialist lawyer] Sylvia Royce in Washington D.C. (Royce worked for the Bureau of Prisons in Washington as transfer specialist before her private practice). She must have got something going because when I went to see my case manager, Mr. Rodgers – lo and behold – he said, “I just got your package from Washington D.C. 30 min. ago”. There it was, about 15 pages with my name across the top. He said it’s his first one, so he’d contact some INS people to help me. As far as I understand, it has to be completed and back in Washington D.C. by January 16.
Well, well, well. That money bomb fundraiser for Royce was more than a good idea – it was essential.
Up till that moment these people were operating under entirely false assumptions of how transfers are done. I will keep you informed on how things go.
Visitation
Jodie is due to visit me tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday for five hours each week – which is wonderful and I can’t wait – but there’s nothing in our ‘inmate handbook’ about getting visitors approved. I found out from other English-speaking inmates (about 40 to 50 of the center’s 750 inmates) that I have to get a form for each visitor to fill out and return. I have, in fact, sent Jodie a blank one so you can visit me at some point.
The Commissary Inmate Funds Account
The commissary inmate funds account is a total scam.
This place is run by
The GEO Group Inc, formerly known as the Wackenhunt Corrections Corporation. In a normal Bureau of Prisons (B.O.P.) run detention center or Federal Corrections Institution (F.C.I.) or US Penitentiary Maximum Security (U.S.P.), money can be put on an inmate’s account by money orders sent to the Des Moines, Iowa B.O.P. or through Western Union Quick Collect (online or phone-in).
It’s convenient, but there is a charge from Western Union. An inmate can have up to $10,000 in an account. The reason for the $10,000-limit is that an inmate often has to pay child support, order books and magazines, pay bills, pay lawyers, etc., and from an inmate account (also called a “commissary” account) one can issue a certified check. Of course, the commissary account is where you pay for your 300 monthly phone minutes, order up to $350 worth of goods monthly from the inmates store, and pay for Corrlinks electronic mail service ($3 per hour).
That’s how it’s supposed to work for all American inmates in any normal US prison. ‘Deportable Alien’ Prisons, like this one, do not run under these rules at all, and we don’t get Corrlinks either.
Here, one can only put money in an inmate’s account through a private company known as the Keefe Commissary Network, an affiliate of the Keefe Supply Company, which bills itself as “the nation’s leading supplier of food products, personal care products, and electronics to prison and jail commissaries”. The company does business in many GEO-run private and state prisons and
is rumored to be owned by the Bush family.
Using this service, Canadian or other non-US Visa or MasterCards are not allowed, and neither are Western Union wire transfers or money orders.
Only US credit cards are allowed, even though every inmate here is a non-US citizen.
When a non-American inmate’s family can finally find someone with a US-based Visa or MasterCard, they call 1-866-345-1844 from 8 AM to 5 PM Central time or go to
http://www.accesscorrections.com and put money in an account at D. Ray James Correctional Facility (being careful not to put it in ‘DRJ Prison’, which is the state prison next door).
AMOUNT TO INMATE FEE BY WEB FEE BY PHONE
$0 – $19.99 $2.95 $3.95
$20.00 – $99.99 $5.95 $6.95
$100.00 – $199.99 $7.95 $8.95
$200.00 – $300.00 $9.95 $10.95
Keefe Supply Company also makes many of the products sold to inmates through our commissary accounts, so they are making money on the income of mostly poor inmates in every which way.
What’s really strange is that you can’t send a money order to inmates commissary account, even though the inmate handbook says you can. They are, in fact, sent back. You can’t send money via Western Union.
If Keefe doesn’t get a cut, there’s no way to put money in an inmate’s account.
Collect Calls
Instead of just dialing 0 to make a collect call to one of our 30 approved numbers (like you do at a B.O.P. prison), a prisoner here must have someone put money on a ‘prepaid collect phone account’ before he can make a call.
A collect call through the phone provider Public Communication Services is staggeringly expensive, and it is not really collect, as it has to be paid in advance – and there are extra service charges to boot.
Electronic Mail
B.O.P. prisons allow inmates to use an electronic mail system called
Corrlinks (or Trulinks) to communicate with a pre-approved list of friends and loved ones. This system is not available in INS facilities.
There is a sign in here that says they don’t discriminate in their treatment of ‘Deportable Aliens’, but that is obviously not true. Though we get the same amount of telephone time in an INS facility as a B.O.P. prison, there is no Corrlinks here in GEO World, nor will there ever be. This makes communication with family much harder, and our 300 minutes per month goes much faster.
Lockers
Instead of having our own lockers, we are expected to put all of our property in these clumsy and awkward ‘barracuda boxes’, plastic bins we keep under our bunks. They are horrible and so annoying and it’s impossible to organize your stuff in them.
In a 60-man dormitory, there is no privacy in any aspect. Showers have no curtains or doors, and the toilets are the same. I bunk beside 15 other guys, so when I go through my box it is noisy, cumbersome, public, and completely dysfunctional.
They took the lockers that were previously here out just before GEO opened this place on October 1.
Language Barriers
All the English speakers here are segregated from other English speakers. In my 60-man dorm, 55 to 57 speak Spanish.
There are two Canadians (me and Peter), one Nigerian, one Armenian, and about seven others who speak English as second language fairly well.
Of our entire 750-inmate population, there are six Canadians, one British guy, one South African, three Nigerians, three Bahamians, three Jamaicans, and maybe 25 others who speak English as their first language; yet we are kept in separate dorms.
The six Canadians in this 750-man inmate population should be in one pod of 60 English-speaking inmates so we have each other to converse with, but also so we can watch television shows in English on the limited number of televisions. In my current unit, one TV is permanently Spanish programming and the other is permanently sports.
Library
I have a new job in the Inmate Library. The Library – though it is now tidy, organized, and staffed with friendly people – is the most pathetic library anyone has ever seen.
The magazines, a total of 38, are all one to 18 months old – our single issue of Rolling Stone is from August 2009; the Michael Jackson death issue.
There are a total of four magazines in Spanish in a place with over 700 Spanish speakers! There are about 250 Spanish paperbacks, but only about 100 are popular.
The English language books are universally 10 to 40 years old, severely beat up, although now well organized and labeled.
D. Ray James Correctional Facility
Mr. Folk, Library
P.O. Box 2000
Folkston, GA
31537-9000
USA
Tradewinds has one-year subscriptions at bargain prices, and it would be great if my supporters could send interesting magazines (there are over 400 to choose from). The Library will think they ordered it and he the inmates would really appreciate it.
We desperately need Spanish-language magazines on sports, celebrities, TV shows, and on current events in Mexico, Cuba, and Central America (these are often published in Miami or Mexico City).
Any English-language magazine subscription from the original publisher, Tradewinds, American Magazine Service (1-877-4-INMATE), Amazon.com, or any other source would be greatly appreciated.
Paperback books can be mailed to me from any supporter’s personal collections, or new from a bookstore, Amazon.com, or anywhere else. Books must be sent one per envelope in new or like-new condition.
Hard covers books must be sent from Amazon.com
English- and Spanish-language newspapers must come from directly from the publishers.
We are in urgent need of hardcover reference books including Spanish to English dictionaries, Encyclopedia Mexicana, Libros de Historia De México (books in Spanish on Mexican history), how to write letters, formal business, etc.
We are in need of books and magazines on topics including business, investing, sports, fitness, art, tattoo, travel, science, current events, horses, animals, nature, cars and trucks, computers, boating, swimming, skateboarding, celebrity, movie stars, and just about anything else you can imagine (but no skin mags).
Popular authors we need include Dean R. Koontz, Stephen King, James Patterson and any current fiction or non-fiction bestsellers.
It would also be great to have works by Spanish-speaking authors like Victor Villasenor, Paulo Coelho, Carlos C. Sanchez, Isabel Allende, Gabriel G Márquez, J.J. Benitez, Vargas Llosa, Julia Navarro, and Carlos Ahumada.
I’d like to have Ayn Rand’s books here too, in English and Spanish, and Peter Schiff’s Books on investing and finance. Ron Paul’s books, Mark Twain, H.L. Menken, Trump, Buffet, etc.
The good news is, I’m responsible for choosing the magazines and books for the Library, so hopefully we’ll have a great selection. My first order from Tradewinds publications was one-year subscriptions of National Geographic, Muscle and Fitness, Home Business, Chevy High Performance, EQUUS, Hispanic Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Tv y Novelas and Wired. I hope to order 10 magazine subscriptions a week until the Library has 50 coming in by February or March.
They have to pass through the bureaucracy here and it’s likely magazines won’t begin to arrive until late January and February, so please tell supporters to send their current new or like-new magazines to me now or get the prison Library a one-year subscription for Christmas. One magazine will be seen by hundreds of inmates in just one month – it’s a tremendous gift that costs only about $1-2 an issue, but is worth so much more here.
At my Library job I get 29 cents an hour and work from 8 AM to 10:30 AM and 1 PM to 3:30 PM, Monday to Friday. That is $1.45 a day – $7.25 a week. I like the job though, so doesn’t matter that the pay is so low. I type up legal letters for inmates and help them do requests and fill out job forms. Most of them have limited English skills, so there’s a lot to do.
Ok, Jeremiah, that’s my report.
Thanks for everything!
Marc
UPDATE: Marc has sent a longer list of books and magazines that would be good for the library.
Please send them today to Marc the address above (one per envelope).
Magazines
* Sports Illustrated
* National Geographic / NG Traveler
* National Geographic – Spanish
* Muscle and Fitness
* Men’s Health
* Runner’s World
* Home Business
* American Photo
* Artists Magazine
* Basketball Times
* Car Collector Caribbean Travel & Life
* Chevy High Performance
* Super Chevy
* Discover
* Disney and Me
* Drag Racer
* Equus
* Farm and Ranch Living
* Fast Company
* Flex
* Hispanic
* US Weekly
* Don Balon (Spanish) – very popular
* Horse Illustrated
* Reptiles
* Hot Rod
* Inc Magazine
* Interview
* Islands Magazine
* Wired
* Low Rider
* Slam
* MAD magazine
* Maxim
* Muscle Mustangs / other muscle car mags
* Business Week
* Auto Week
* People (Spanish)
* TV Novellas (Spanish)
Books
* Books by Warren Buffe
* Books by Donald Trump
* Books on Business or by Businessmen
* Books about Horses
* Paperbacks by R.A. Salvato
* Paperbacks by David Copeland – Christian
* Louis L’Amour
* Spanish Language Novels or non-fiction
* Exercise, Running, Physical health
* Cars and Engines
* Science Fiction
* War Books
* Illustrated; cartoons, art books, comic books
* Soccer! (Spanish)
More Magazines!:
* Barrons
* Card Player
* Card Maker
* Economist
* Esquire
* Fight
* Hispanic Business
* Hispanic
* In These Times
* Skin and Ink
* Urban Ink
* Tattoo Flash
* Nascar Illustrated
* Savage
* Ultimate MMA
* Franchise Handbook
* Surfing/ Skateboarding
* El Grafico ( Argentina)
Here is a letter from our lawyers explaining what you should write when contacting the US Justice Department asking for Marc to be transferred. Thank you for your continued support! 
Jodie catches pollster Angus Reid skewing results about Marc. She also tells about Marc’s new situation in a Georgia prison. You can write to Marc at:
By: Darcy Wintonyk, CTVBC.ca