11-14-21 

Maddy & Org   

Salutations. I hope this finds you well and high in spirits. I received a letter dated 10-1-21, on the 13th Amendment with exception clause that allows slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime. It asks 5 questions, I will answer them best I can.

1. I am a barber here. My assignment is Monday-Friday 07:00hrs-10:30 Am. Then 11:30 AM - 15:00hrs. Realistically I come out to cut hair every other Sunday. On Tuesday and Thursday, clippers are passed into cells. I mostly dont get to do much with Covid here. I make, roughly, 18¢ an hour, I make nearly roughly $26.00/27.00 a month. Then again, with restitution i get 10-12$ a month. 
   
   If I dont take the job, we get placed on “C-status”. We get less phone calls, less money to spend at canteen, less visiting privileges, receive a write up and run threat of going to the hole or get moved to a building others labeled as “non-programers”. Refusing education classes can land you on “C-status.”
   
   
2. Our porters make less. Before I got my raise, I barely made 10.00$. I couldn’t even buy stamps, plus I need blank envelopes to go with the stamps. I have to save 2 months. It is worse when you can’t even get cosmetics. You get one or the other. Then the canteen prices go up and you struggle. Then you have staff telling you to “do something” though its illegal or gets a 115 and go to the hole. They hold packages, phone calls and even threats of placing violent people in your cell if you don’t cooperate. We are supposed to have “peers” yet they are as corrupt as violent prisoners.
   
   
3. The staff, for the most part, are too lazy to come in and sweep or mop. This prison would be a pig sty and the grounds would be full of filth if the prisoners didn’t do the work. I clean trash up off the yard every day. Some don’t mind living in trash, some of us don’t. If the staff isnt going to do any of this other work, prisoners can, but should get paid for it. It should be more if a person wants to do that job. When we get jobs, it’s for little pay or you can get punished for it. When you are on C-status, they also “have other” inmates that normally are on the j-cat/nut jobs. You live around this garbage and the staff target these individual by taking phone calls, taking longer on delivering annual packages and other devices to torture people. It is amazing that there are people out there who care, some of us wish we could do more. If I was released I can be a voice, more involved.
   
   
4. As for being an active member, I’m not sure what I can do. When I receive mail, I am asked these questions, I answer them and return them. Maybe there are things in which I say, maybe helpful. I am not much of a writer, but I can draw. I spend 90% of my time drawing while I am in my cell. It keeps me busy and out of everyone else’s drama. Though I make 10-12$ a month, I can sell off art work and make other necessities to make life in here, bearable. Our stamps, which they only sell by the “book only” just from up from 11.00 to 11.60.
   
   
5. We live next to the ocean, within a forest. Our radio channels come in and out. The better channel here for “news” is KHSU, Hamboldt State University.

I hope some or any of these words maybe helpful. At anytime, you have more questions, I am more than happy to answer what I can. I have been down for 30 years, I got the experience. I got a 15 to life and a 16 to life. The law changes seem to help others. When is enough is enough?

Be good, stay safe.

Fondly, Woody