I mentioned on June 17th the dorm I moved into had inmates with security classifications all over the map and you had to be on your toes. The other thing that sucked about it is there was only 2 working computers (should be 4) and the line for use of one of the four phones was very long. I say line to use the phones but the funny thing was that was a controversary in and of itself that morning. While myself and one other person were in line for the phone, two Hispanic inmates walked up behind us and asked us which phones we were in line for. We both said there is one line. They said there is supposed to be two lines, one line for two phones and then another line for the other two phones. We responded look we just got here, we don’t know but when we got in line behind the people who are now on the phone there was only one line. They didn’t like that and started expressing that to one another in Spanish. I just ignore it, but i am thinking to myself if there is one line for four phones or two separate lines for each pair of phones it results in the same thing, it makes no difference. Why not just have one line and when a phone opens the next man up in the single line goes. If anything that would be more fair because what if you get in one of the two lines where the people on the phone are using less phone minutes then you could end up going before someone else who has been waiting longer than you in total time in the other line. Whew…prison…smh.

Anyways, I digress. After the phone debate and calling my mom, I went to take a nap. Three inmates got paged over the intercom and I was one of them to come to the officer station. Both the other guys I recognized as two inmates that came on the bus with me who are both going to prison camps. Anytime I hear my name on the intercom in prison it gives me anxiety and I assume the worst. I proceed anxiously to the officer’s station who informs me I have to change dorms, they will be coming to get me soon, and to have my stuff ready. I asked the officer “which dorm am I going to”, and the officer tells me he doesn’t know. I didn’t think to ask why, which is really what I wanted to know. The officer does ask me if I am affiliated (with a gang) and I reply no. Then I saw one of the other two inmates who asked me if I was moving also. I said “yes, do you know why?” He said, “yes, the officer told me they are moving us because we are going to prison camps and it is a liability for us to stay in the current dorm with all the higher security inmates.” My initial reaction was frustration, 1) I had just got settled and spent my first night there, and now was going to have to get settled again, and 2) why couldn’t they have figured this out during the process we went through after we came off the bus. Then I started to think to myself maybe the phone and computer situation will be better in the new dorm and if the new dorm is just for people going to prison camps there will probably be a lot less tension. I go to pack my things (really just linens and limited clothing they had issued me) and wait for them to call us. A few hours later they come and get us and move us to the new dorm.

We walk over to the new dorm and when we were moving the officer who comes to get us to walk us over asks us again if we are affiliated. We all say no. Then when we get to the new dorm the officer who opens the door to the new dorm asks us the same question. We again all say no. When we get into the new dorm I notice there are also only two computers, but there appears to be a lot less inmates, maybe in the neighborhood of 20-30 and it is very quiet even though the dorm is exactly the same size and has the same number of cells as our previous one. After getting our mattresses and our cell assignments, we begin talking to the other inmates in the dorm and quickly realize this is a special dorm for inmates going to prison camps and for gang drop outs. Gang drop outs are former gang members who have quit or disassociated themselves with their former gang affiliation. I learned once I came to prison that this is very dangerous for these individuals and they are not allowed to be at prisons with active gang members because the active gang members will smash them, so the former gang member is forced out of general population and into the Special Housing Unit “SHU” for their protection and then transferred. The BOP has designated prisons across the country that are specifically for gang drop outs and are called “drop out yards”. This is where these inmates ultimately have to end up to do their time but often it is a painful process, either they experience violence prior to arriving at the drop out yard or they are threatened with violence and are forced to “check in” to the SHU and wait their months for a transfer to the special drop out prison.

All in all once I got settled I was happy to have moved because with the limited number of people in the dorm (20-30 vs. 80-100) the phone and computers were way more accessible. Additionally, it is much quieter and there is a lot less tension in the dorm. You could tell the inmates in the new unit are much more laid back and don’t want any problems because they are either on their way to a minimum security camp with “out custody” or they are a gang drop out and are just happy they get to be in general population in a designated housing unit instead of in the SHU. I would say about 80% of the inmates in the new dorm are campers and 20% are gang drop outs.

Needless to say it has been quite an eventful first couple days in Oklahoma City. I keep thinking to myself, I was in Mississippi a few hours from my destination in Alabama but you send me on a 10 hour bus ride to Oklahoma City only to wait to go back to Alabama. You have to love how our government spends our tax dollars.