Hope this letter finds you in good spirits. I am doing just fine under the circumstances. Thought I’d get back to work on "getting stuff on paper."

As our continually over-populated prisons become more numerous across our land, the "prison personality" becomes much stronger as the population of inmates and ex-inmates grow larger. This expands the existing subculture which embraces prison life values. I believe there is an inter-active force which molds and alters the person coming to prison and on the prison setting itself. Naturally, the attitudes and behaviors of prison employees, administrators, and high officials have a definite input into the "altering process" on prisoner personality and the prison setting. I believe this is especially true of the repeat offender who returns to prison with a new "superior" attitude with an air of being cool knowledgeable veteran. The "returning" inmate does not feel the impact of fear and uncertainty that the first-timer feels. Most times, the returning inmate will have friends who are still locked in the prison and it becomes something like "old home week" for reunion.

Keep in mind that such depictions are not applicable to all prisoners, first-timers and repeat offenders. Stereotyping keeps clouding the real picture of who and what prisons are about at any given time. To provide an overall, generalized focus of the types of personalities found to be predominate in the prison populations in our country, I will attempt to provide examples I have observed from my subjective experiences in prison. These examples are tuned to my present day understandings rather than earlier biases I held in my own criminal days and ways. Here again, my observations are not "Gospel," but rather the results of genuine, honest opinion and personal understanding.

First, I think it might be beneficial to give you the benefit of some Contemporary, credentialed, professional opinions about Ohio’s prisons and prisoners as related to the Press in an article for the Warren, Ohio newspaper, the Tribune Chronicle, Sunday, September 15, 1996, entitled, "Prison Will Reshape Inmates."

The following articles (1. "Prison will reshape inmates; Young Men’s lives to be radically altered" and 2. "punishment is by design and to the max") that I will cite in part, was written by Alyssa Lenhoff and Edgar Simpson in the Warren, Ohio Tribune Chronicle, 9/15/96. Professional observations I am most interested in sharing from these articles are from high ranking officials in the Ohio Corrections system, namely: David Blodgett, the man who oversees all prison construction in Ohio; Lamar Johnson, director of psychology, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections; and Carl Anderson, warden of the Mansfield Correctional Institution in Mansfield, Ohio.

The article, Punishment is by design and to the max is about the Youngstown, Ohio Supermax prison under construction and being toured by "…the builders and designers of the most expensive prison in Ohio, and the only one of its kind in the state. It is a state-of-the-art fortress built with $50 million in public money...." Blodgett pointed out "...the single 5-by-36-inch slit in each cell that allowed the recommended amount of natural light to reach each prisoner. When he reached the center of the gigantic structure, he pointed to a triangular shaft that runs through the building and downward to the cells on the lower floors. ‘We’ll leave this open, so light will reach them,’ he said, gesturing with a broad sweep. ‘But they’ll have a view of this wall here.’ ‘...Maybe they’ll get to see a bird or two...if they’re lucky.’

The comment brought chuckles from the group.

The prison is the epitome of function over form. It is built like two three-pointed stars stuck together. Inmates will be housed in the ends while the kitchen, visiting areas and control areas, will be in the center. The supermax building is designed for nothing but keeping track of 504 worst of the worst (inmates). No one, corrections officials say, will be sent here straight from county jails.

The men, and possibly women, will be tagged supermaximum by administrators in other prisons and will have records of assaulting other inmates and guards and being uncontrollable.

Their lives will be confined to one segment of the building, each arm its own mini-prison cut off from the rest of the institution. The cells are the minimum allowable under the American Corrections Association guidelines—80 square feet—the beds are slabs of concrete, 2-by-7-feet, jutting out from cement walls. A stainless steel combination sink and toilet, with no lid, sticks out at an angle at the front of the cell. The plan is for inmates to spend 23 hours a day alone in their cells. They will be allowed out of their cells to take a shower in a single stall and for ‘outdoor recreation,’ which will likely be a high solid-walled area with only the high ceiling enclosed by security fence, affording "open-air" outdoor recreation to these monsters posing as human beings.

The pride and joy of the creators of such a facility will likely be second only to the implementers of this facility system. Special training will be in order to assign the most amenable Corrections employees to such a facility by the Corrections Training Academy. Hard-core "screws" (guards) will fit right in with such a scheme as posed by a supermax prison setting. Prisoners forced into a stillness will be simple to monitor and control. The guards must be able to accept such dehumanizing practices as "doing the right thing." They must be able to maintain a level of psychopathy in their dealings with such inmates by following guidelines which allow psychopathy to be practiced in a "socially acceptable" manner or more importantly, in a "legal" manner.

The irony of such a setting is that it will be welcomed by many of Ohio’s long-term prisoners. Being at the bottom of the ladder has its advantages to the prisoner who is tired of having carrots dangled in front of him to be snatched away by arbitrary and capricious moves by politically-correct behaving authorities. It would be almost like a "living suicide" where there are no illusions as to where the inmate stands in the scheme of things in the eyes of the public and the Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections. This may seem drastic, but when you consider the length of time the Ohio Parole Board is giving to some of its inmates, it isn't difficult to understand. The board has given twenty year "continuances" (flops) at hearings recently.