Odd day = early yard. While I was out at yard some unhappy looking female CO came out and called my name. When I went up she turned out to be the “pass clerk” who handles approving visitors. she had both “Special Visit” forms I had submitted for my parents to request a special visit before they were officially approved. One was for Friday the 15th and one was for Friday the 29th. She informed me you could only have 1 “Special Visit” per month, so I had to choose 1 or the other. I thought that sounded strange since the point of a Special Visit is to get a visit from family before the month or so it takes to get them approved but I took her at her word and apologized for not knowing that rule. A little bit later she came back to tell Jeff the same thing since he was supposed to have a Special Visit on this Friday too but he’d already had one this month. Jeff promptly came back to the cell and looked up the visiting rules as they were given to us and it says a visitor isn’t allowed more than one Special Visit in a month, not that an inmate is only allowed one. 1 Special Visit per month per VISITOR, not per inmate. Plus the 1/mo limit is in the rule for a Special Visit request for a change of visiting time, not the unapproved visitor Special Visit. We discussed writing a kite to explain this to her but it wouldn’t get resolved in time for Jeff’s visit and I didn’t feel this was a fight worth waging at D&E. Then the kicker is that we both got copies of our request back tonight marked approved. WTF?!? We’ll see what happens when Jeff’s 2nd visitor this month tries to come.

 

As Jeff and I were discussing the option of writing the pass clerk I was called to go to my mental health screening by a large, rotund, older man. As we walked though the facility to his office he started to tell me that there was someone who wanted to sit in on my eval. At first I thought it was Dr. Newring because he had apparently emailed my parents saying he’d be present at my sex offender assessment hearing to make my case but the psych eventually said it was someone from the Attorney General’s office which of course made my alarms go off. He apparently was the Ombudsman for the AG’s office doing some kind of tour but I still declined to have him present for a psych eval and the staff psych respected my wishes without any pressure or complaint.

 

The shrink and I actually hit it off quite well and ended up taking for a while about how Corrections is trying to change it’s culture but there’s no financial backing to make any changes. After reviewing the facts of my case he even used the word “entrapment” which is totally not what I expected from a Corrections staff shrink. I think he gave me a fairly clean bill of mental health and even suggested that I try doing tai chi and write the warden if there’s an issue. At the end I asked about classification and over-rides due to length of sentence. He walked me through the form and by points I would be the lowest level of custody, Community, but if your TRD (tentative release date, 1/2 of your max sentence) is over 3 yrs then you are over-ridden to “Minimum,” if it’s over 5 you go to “Medium” and if it’s over 8 you go to “Maximum.” My TRD is 2030 or 14 yrs away so I’ll have to go to a maximum security housing unit. FUCK! And I’ll have to be there for 6 years before I can drop to even medium. On the up-side this means I’ll be in a cell and can have a TV. LOL.

 

On a happier note tonight at gym not only did I do the 37 but the long form too and I only made 1 choreography error. *smile* Even better, the rest of the inmates seem to be getting used to it and didn’t make much comment, nor did the CO.

 

I had a phone call with mom, dad, McK, Justin and even KK. It was nice to hear her voice if even just for less than a minute. Dad and I talked about his chats with Crieger, Jeff’s lawyer, and appeals options. That was a depressing talk. Crieger would want $10K to even review that case for a “collateral appeal” and if we won that THEN there’d be a trial and the prospects of winning would be extremely slim and then Arterburn would sentence me to even more time. Fuck again! And of course there’s the added kicker that if I had been charged 4 months later the legislature’s sentencing reform due to overcrowding might have changed the 3-50 range to a 1-20 range so Arterburn couldn’t have even hit me for the 25 top he gave me.

 

Socially, things are going well. I get along with my cellies, especially Jeff. He’s retaught me cribbage and I trounced him the first 2 games. *chuckle* I’m getting to know more of the guys in the unit and getting along with all of them but this is a special unit in D&E for sex-offenders. What I’m afraid of is what it will be like in the regular prison with regular inmates. Oh, I just learned of an inmate at NSP who was killed last year in he showers for being a sex-offender so NSP doesn’t sound that friendly either. *sigh*