The overall culture of Morgantown “College” is quite fascinating. I mostly focus on the positive aspects of being in a prison camp, which overall is exactly a positive experience. However, Morgantown is still a federal prison. Order and civility are a must and certainly critical to maintain for the success of this type of prison. Inmates are from all over the United States with an array of nonviolent crimes that are typically categorized as white collar and drug-related crimes. If someone has a violent crime on their record, like assault, or any aspect of their case involving a minor, they would not be placed in a prison camp, like Morgantown. Thus, the environment is safe and healthy.
I would estimate that about 95% of the criminal activity committed involved other people, which makes the crime a conspiracy and usually carries a heftier sentence. Many of the inmates have probably corroborated with the government during their plea deal to ensure a better sentence, especially since many drug charges carry mandatory minimums starting at 5 years. Prosecutors are at liberty to change charges and make significant recommendations to judges for sentencing purposes, like when someone cooperates to share intel, testifies, and/or contributes to the success of ending a criminal activity. At Morgantown, some of the men have testified against others without any sort of bad blood, which makes this environment quite safe. We do not have gangs, violence, protests, unrest, or any sort of disturbance that would typically occur in another prison. On a rare occasion, two guys might be at odds with each other or have a disagreement, but those are almost always settled without any result of a violent act. In fact, I have not witnessed or heard about any sort of violent altercation over the last 5 months, which I hope that I never do.
Aside from the safety aspects and requirement imposed by the Board of Prisons, the warden, correction officers, and staff have other concerns that could potentially disrupt the daily operations: contraband. Contraband is any item that is not issued or approved by the prison to be in the possession of an inmate, like a penny (or any money), name brand clothing, tobacco products, alcohol, and most notably cellphones. When I first arrived at Morgantown, I saw quite a few cellphones within my first week, which was actually surprising. Now, I do not see or hear about anything relating to cell phones.
So how the heck do these items/contraband make it into a prison? From my limited understanding, just inmate gossip, contraband is prepped when someone on the “outside” or a regular civilian takes an order of what inmates request with a premium monetary mark-up for the risks involved. The list probably consists of cigarettes, vapes, chewing tobacco, alcohol, cellphones, basically a wish list of items. I am unsure how someone coordinates this wish list and communicates it from the inside to the outside, maybe through the standard mail or a weekly visit. The outside person prepares a “bag” of the items, then drops them off the bag somewhere on the outskirts of the campus. I am not sure if the items are dropped off in a bag, box, or just as is…but gossip usually describes it as a bag. Then, an inmate known as a “runner” picks up the bag and hides it somewhere on the campus until it can be distributed. This process is affectionally known as “running the hill” since Morgantown sits in a pseudo-valley with hills with roads surrounding the campus. Again, based on gossip, I am not sure if someone actually runs up one of the hills, to the visitor parking lot, or some other part of the campus.
Inmates have people on the outside make payments to the points of contact through cash applications, like Venmo, CashApp, etc. I would surmise that contraband makes it way onto the campus with the frequency of at least one bag per week. Again, I am not sure how anyone knows all this information or coordinates the series of events, but the process is quite interesting. The warden, officers, and staff have the responsibility for eliminating such activities, which disrupts the daily routine of the operations of the prison. Certain measures are tweaked to prevent contraband from arriving here. The housing units have sensors on all exit doors, surveillance of the boundary areas surrounding the campus has increased, and the best intel of them all…guys sharing the information with the staff – typically once the guy is in trouble, then offers up information for exchange of some preferential treatment or a lesser punishment. To some degree, criminal behaviors should be expected in a prison setting, but the environment does not condone such behaviors since it could jeopardize the civility and order of prison.
I share all this background information to just highlight how intensely focused the need to rid the campus of contraband is. On Thursday in our electric shop, our supervisor found a device called a “stinger”, which essentially is a lamp cord ripped off and two pieces of metal attached to the end of the cord. The cord is submerged in a bucket of water and plugged into an outlet to make the water hot. This water is used to as a way to heat or “cook” food (an iron is also used to cook food too). Of course, you can probably identify the issue of having an electric device that could cause a lot of serious and dangerous issues (electrocution, fires, etc.). Well, our supervisor was convinced that one of us in the electric shop had made the device…it turns out the device was made and hidden by a former guy who worked in the electric shop. When the individual left, we cleaned out the area that he would tinker and disposed of many items. Unfortunately, we must have missed the one that was unfortunately found by our supervisor. Our supervisor was not happy with us, but as much as we shared that we did not make the device, he seemed to be skeptical. He shared personal stories about how guys would lie and disappoint him in the past. I am happy to report that our shop does not reflect this type of behavior. I now work with a good crew that does not use our tools to create contraband or devices like a stinger. However, the culture of contraband within a prison is real and affects the interactions that we have with staff members. It is an unfortunate reality, but I continue to promote positivity and honesty in such situations. Otherwise, prison would be an utter waste of time – but thankfully it is not! Finally, our supervisor realized that we were being truthful. He was within reason to punish all of us by terminating our jobs and issuing a citation (called a write-up). After the misunderstanding was cleared up, the supervisor commented that we are the best crew that he has had during his tenure in the job 🙂
Since I had been in the electric shop for more than 90 days, I was able to officially the join the apprenticeship, which clocks the hours that I work. These hours are recorded to go towards licensing once I am free. It takes 4,000 hours to complete (which is about 1,000 hours per year) and a few benchmark tests must be completed. I do not anticipate that I will fully finish, but at least I will have clocked many good hours toward licensing!
I was blessed to have my parents visit on Saturday. It was my mom’s 4th visit and my dad’s 3rd. They are real pros now. They know what to expect with the sign-in process and really seem to enjoy themselves. I am truly grateful that they take time to make the nearly 7 hour round trip, in addition to the few hours that they spend with me. It ends up being a very long day for them.
Other than the standard schedule, I continue to practice with the bands, play an hour or two of pickleball in the evening, and read quite a bit before bedtime. The weather has continued to be inconsistent with sunshine/rain and cold/warm. I am grateful to be in a housing unit that adjusts the thermostat to the weather, especially since the other housing units do not have air conditioning.
I hope you all have a wonderful week filled with little miracles and springtime joy!