First of all, I have been psychologically "slugging it out" with a disappointment stemming from my problem at Belmont with the rule 30 conviction of having attempted to establish a relationship ship with a female employee. At. the Lima Correctional Institution in Lima, Ohio a young black female employee was raped and killed on the job. There was information indicating that the young lady was involved in union activities and had been in fear for her life from certain state employees; she had been threatened and had reported these threats to her superiors. Corrections have been trying to implicate convicts as the perpetrators of her rape and murder. My understanding at this point in time is that there have been no arrests made.

At any rate, "reactive politics" by Corrections officials have resulted in several new security measures being implemented at the various state corrections institutions around the state. Here at Orient in particular, I was among several al other inmates who were called to the Deputy Warden Operations Office to be screened for having had rule 30 convictions with female staff. Especially those inmates with violent, criminal backgrounds I surmise were to be screened for problem potential concerning female employees. The Deputy Warden -- Operations here decided that I did not need to be transferred to a higher security facility, but agreed with the Major that I should not have a work assignment which would place me in close proximity with female employees.

Ironically I had been volunteering my time to train for a Wheelchair Repair Shop work assignment at the Frazier Health center (Hospital). With this new turn of events, I was not permitted to hold this work assignment because of all the female employees at this setting (nurses, secretaries, etc.). Two of the high-ranking Officials at this hospital setting attempted to pursue the validity of such reasoning that I was a "danger to" women and that I should have been transferred to a "Close Custody" institution for this reason. This opinion was one provided by the Deputy Warden — Operations at Belmont Correctional Inst.. It seems he had taken it upon himself to call the authorities here and give them such a negative assessment of me because of my Rule 30 violation there. When the supportive officials here questioned such reasoning because there was nothing in my past record to show any sex crimes or violence against, women in all my past convictions. The Deputy at Belmont went on to say in their phone conversation that I have been "stalking" several women at Belmont, and needed to be transferred to a Close Institution.

Had his allegations been true I would have received as many misconduct reports indicating such behavior at that facility. But such statements on his part as a high-ranking official does not require him to substantiate such allegations but more that I should try to deny the same. I am just naturally "guilty, until proven innocent" in this setting. And the more I try to establish my innocence, the more guilty I may seem to appear. I mean: how do I "prove" that I am not "dangerous" to women, men, animals trees, myself, etc.? If talking to females means that I am stalking them, then I am in trouble, because I will always talk with them if they speak to me...

At any rate, I decided to appeal the conviction of the Rule 30 violation I wrote a letter to the Principal Research Associate of the Ohio General Assembly’s Correctional institution Inspection Committee, Ms. P, and informed her that my "due process" for appeal had been ignored by the Belmont Admin. This was in the last week of August and I am waiting for a response. I was told in a "Response to Kite Memo" that I would be interviewed "soon" for my inmate appeal to the Rule 30 conviction but it never happened. I was transferred here instead.

I would have let it all go except for the fact that it has mushroomed into another "label" for me, and I’m just not in the mood for it. I’ve had some officials here tell me that an appeal usually turns out to be like "Pissing in the wind" but this time, I just don’t give a shit. As I have said, to this point in time I have never filed an Informal Complaint, Grievance or Lawsuit in all the time I've been incarcerated. But it seems like it’s about time to exercise such rights for redress from such arbitrary and capricious treatment by Institution Officials.

The new American "Nigger" is the convicted felon. It is no longer a matter of the color of a person’s skin. So I guess the criteria is behavior now. I suppose this might be an advance toward a more rational logic; especially if you aren’t a convicted felon. I wonder how "Revisionist Historians" half a century away from today will treat the "Convicted Felon" of this day and age. I remember in the early 1950’s watching "Cowboy and Indian" movies on television and at theaters/Drive-Ins, and the Indians were depicted as pure savages with terrifying, evil painted faces showing murderous glares, with howls and screams to accentuate their murder and mayhem/torture of innocent settler men, women and children on the new frontier. Sometimes a wagontrain would he surrounded by hordes of such savages and the valiant, outnumbered defenders--realizing that the Calvary would not reach them in time, and that the ammunition was running out--would yell out to each of their dwindling number, "Save enough bullets for the women and children." This was meant to kill them rather than have them fall into the savage’s hands alive to be raped and tortured to death. A quick and merciful death was naturally preferred. One by one, our heroes would be shown with an arrow stabbing into vital organs in their chest and back by those hateful Indians. Then, as all was nearly lost, there would be a cloud of dust rising in the nearby hills and the sound of a trumpet sounding a Calvary charge would be heard. The cameras would focus the handsome, grim-faced soldiers racing forward to smash the savages with bullets and drawn Sabers. The viewers would shout their approval, hearts would lift high to the thrilling moment of justice and salvation when the rotten savages were slaughtered one by one, as they tried to slink away on their ugly painted horses. While surviving men and their trembling families hugged each other in tearful joy, and praises for God and the soldiers rang from their quivering lips. A sensation of "...All’s well..." would make the viewers feel as though God is on the side of "good people" after all.

In school classrooms, history books echoed sentiments congruent with the movie concepts and portrayals of Indian character and behavior. About a decade or so later, "revisionist historians" encouraged Hollywood to create another Indian image to ennoble and glorify certain Indian personalities. Geronimo was still feared and hated, but was portrayed as an extremely able adversary on the battlefield. He was "humanized" for the audience, but. not to the degree of Cochise, portrayed by the handsome Hollywood "White" Indian, Jeff Chandler. He had a beautiful "Squaw" with an adorable "Papoose" strapped to her back. This, too, was a white woman and white baby dressed to appear Indian. The white lady Indian had the right size bumbs and soft sexy curves in the right places. No squat, fat squaw with stony-faced stares, nor was there the Indian face on the infant. Just beautiful white-painted-brown human beings acting like Indians; humanizing them in the eyes and minds of the viewers. It worked on me, and I even fantasized having my own huggable squaw and a few papooses with her: yummy!

Then, as though this change wasn’t enough to balance biased impressions from earlier-times, Hollywood responded to more "Revisionist" pressures and depicted the "White Man" as hateful, greedy, murderous animals who victimized wonderful "human" Indians endlessly, from rotten Presidents right down to nasty settlers. There were even movies with bully white children beating-up tiny sweet Indian kids at settler schools on the prairie. Every Indian woman was beautiful and certain targets for rapes by drunken white men. Noble Indian warriors into town to buy supplies for their teepees or whatever would be invariably accosted by drunken white bullies and pushed into trouble with the law. Usually, our gentle Indian would be forced into killing one of the drunken bullies which would usual be some powerful rancher’s son. This would always be a clear case of self-defense for any white man, but our hero is Indian and has no access to fair-play and justice available to all white men. This experience confused me a bit, but I allowed myself to accept latest information as being most accurate. It seemed reasonable to assume that later information would have been subject to correcting possible misinformation from earlier assessments.

I began cheering for the Indians while watching the shows. I began suspecting and resenting white men at all levels of business and government. Then the "revisionists" allowed some of the Indians (usually young bucks crazed by white man’s "fire water") to be bad guys. Good Indians would go out and apprehend and even kill these bad Indians to save white people and save the reputations of the good Indians. The trend also went for the reverse where good white men would go out and apprehend and even kill bad white men who were doing evil things to the Indians. Then, as other oppressed, abused minorities were focused for reconsideration (Jews, Blacks, and women as well as Hispanics) the American Indian became the "Native American" and became an issue in the International political arena. After the "juices" were drained from the issues, the Native American has shriveled into a bothersome bore in American public concerns, for the most part in general. Much the same may be said for the other oppressed minorities mentioned above.

A new minority has evolved on the American public political scene. This minority incorporates all colors, races, creeds, and sexes in forming the ever-growing prison populations across the United States of America. Not only those incarcerated in the many prisons in our land at the present time, but the large and increasing number of released convicted felons; those who are paroled, those who have served their sentences, and those who have been released through other programs in Corrections. This group of American citizens are stigmatized by their own past records for criminal behaviors. The degree of harm or interference in these individual’s pursuit of happiness in their communities, on the job, and in advancing to higher level in the public esteem is varied in relation to the crimes which were committed in their past. The mass medias with their own gatekeepers form severe images of crime and criminals across our nation . Here, too, a pendulum of opinion has swung full arc from glorifying the criminals of the "Roaring ‘2Os" with mobsters and gangsters; appearing almost glamorous with their daring violence and dashing lifestyle. The height would be most apparent in the "Godfather" series of books and films, etc. Now with the political appeal generated through the media, crime and criminals are being "warred upon" by the good guys and by the citizens in general.

Now the "criminal" is viewed as having no socially redeemable value whatsoever. As in days of yore, when the only "Good Indian was a dead Indian," we now lean toward the thinking that the only good criminal is a dead criminal. This was encouraged by films of crime dramas when a repentant criminal would step in front of a deadly hail of gunfire from other criminals to save a good and decent cop or other good citizen from certain death. Then the thinking went to the examples of what happens when a criminal is given a break by the system by Constitutional Rights and general compassion. These examples would show the criminal committing more crimes with gleeful malice; killing, raping, etc.

A larger number of the public are "liberal" enough to tolerate convicted felons as possibly 6th rate citizens when they return to their communities. Ironically, many of those released prisoners behave like 6th rate citizens when they are released to their communities. There is no excuse for this behavior, but there is an explanation. Volumes of books have been written and many more will be written about why people do what they do in respect to their social settings, environment and their learned behaviors. Naturally, all such writings will primarily be "theories" attempting to simplify the complexities of criminal behaviors, and even the definition of crime in general. Before I die, I would like to explore several facets of the enigma of crime and criminals in the United States of America from my subjective experience of incarceration through the time span of 1958 to date. In all that time, I have been a ward of the state either as an inmate in prison or as a parolee. My crimes have ranged from armed robbery to murder.

I believe that in the future, decades from now, researchers and revisionist historians will discover the inescapable conclusion from various sources that there were many different convicted felon personality types. Many would accept that theory at this point, in time, but the actual practice would indicate that the convict personality is actually stereotyped. The mass media portrays the convict as a deceitful, self-serving parody of a real human being. The dramas allow the viewers to "see" the real in the behaviors of the criminal. We see him or her commit the actual crime and then watch them try to "beat the rap" in the courtroom in front of a jury of bewildered citizens who are trying to view the defendant as innocent until proven guilty. But we the viewer, the public, KNOW THE DEFENDANT IS GUILTY! We see and hear the sleazeball get away with the crime because of seeming rational arguments by the defense attorneys at trial. When we hear logical arguments made by defense attorneys in real life, we remember the TV bad guy "beating the rap" with such good (but phony) arguments O.J. Simpson is "automatically" guilty because of such reasoning. Now he must live the rest of his life with many of the public thinking that he has gotten away with double murder.

The various personality types of convicted person in prisons are as numerous as those in the larger communities The more adept inmate is usually capable of developing as many "personalities" as necessary to cope and survive their prison experience.

In altering the convicted felon’s personality, the process is multifaceted. Corrections system have systematically endeavored to depersonalize and dehumanize the convicted felon incarcerated in their prisons across the country. Much of this practice is masked in the thinking of treating all convicted felons "equal." The cruelty imposed is usually masked in the thinking that prisons should not be "attractive" alternate lifestyles for those convicted of crimes and imprisoned. The argument is that many of the convicted felons could not duplicate the higher quality of life offered in prisons in contrast to that provided in the poverty stricken/crime-ridden larger community they came from before committing the crime(s). Many of these convicted felons could not provide themselves and their dependents with three meals a day and provide a roof over their heads, etc. So many of these personality types seem to be "rescued" rather than simply "arrested" when they come into the prison setting.

In the prison, institutions and administrations vary 50 much in character that the system remains open at certain points to a relative freedom of thought and action by the prisoner. There is a current push within the overall Criminal Justice System to standardize these institutions and state systems to make more uniform processes to be utilized in managing and in controlling prison populations and to shape the behaviors of the incarcerated. The federal system in the form of A.C.A. (American Corrections Association) are holding monies out for those who comply with "Accreditation Standards" in individual state systems and institutions. The agenda seems to lean in the direction of creating an "empire" of Corrections Systems across the nation, ultimately controlled by the Federal Govt. Medias create fear in the public that crime is rampant and legislatures are busy defining more and more human behaviors as criminal. More prisons are being built to hold more and more prisoners; more and more Corrections personnel are being’ hired and trained to operate these prisons, creating a large workforce and special interest voting-blocks.