Do you know someone in prison?

My mother is a nurse at a federal medical prison. Also, my cousin was in prison for a while. I just didn’t talk to him.

I did. He’s out now. My family was friends with his family. He was charged with Statutory Rape for having consensual sex with a female 10 days before her 17th birthday and he was over 21. It was not forced. It was not coerced in any way. The “victim” did not want to end the relationship and begged the court for no prosecution, but in NY if you are under 17 you are incapable if giving consent. It is considered Rape 3rd, a Class E felony. Period. End of story.

My family is trying to make him whole again. He is on a sex offender list for life. He has to wear a monitor; must go to counseling; must report whereabouts, keep a daily diary.
We try to include him in activities so he does not completely shut himself off from the world.
What a waste…. what a tragic waste…

I do, I don’t have any contact with him as I helped put him there, and there is a permanent no contact order in effect.

@worriedguy – If you don’t mind me asking, what led to him being charged? I assume the girl in question didn’t report him. Was it her family?

Yes I do as it happens. Norman Stanley Fletcher, an old friend currently doing porridge at her majesty’s pleasure. He’ll be out next month & swears he’ll be going straight from here on in. Everyone deserves a second chance.My door will be open all hours whenever he needs a chat.

@Hobbes No, her family liked him.. It was someone he worked with who did not like him. He reported it to his superiors and the news media simultaneously. Very well played.
His attorney said it was very easy to prosecute cases like this. All the DA needs are the birth certificates. Both parties told the truth: Yes. They had sex. That sealed the guy’s fate. He instantly became a “rapist”.
The newspapers got a story, the DA got another notch in his belt, and the public thinks another rapist is off the streets. Everyone is happy except the “victim” and our friend.
My tax dollars paid for his jail time and the DA’s salary. Ironic isn’t it?

The only person I currently know in prison, and I don’t know him all that well, is the father of some good friends 3 year old grandson and prison is exactly where he belongs. He’s just plain bad and a class A son-of-bitch. He beat up his last girl friend so badly that she miscarried and with his prior history it was enough to put him away for 25 years to life. Although it is sad that the grandson will grow up without a father, everyone is just relieved that the guy is going to be out of there lives for good, long time.

The vast majority of my childhood friends are either in jail or dead. some of them I dont talk to anymore because of things they did, but most of them I am ok with, I know how the police operate out here, and ill always side with the convict unless the cops can show hard evidence to support their case. out here, speculation and third hand testimony is considered evidence. plus, there are some crimes that im just ok with anyway (such as drug use etc…)

This one dude I used to know went to prison for beating up his gf. I’ve met the dude a couple times (we had a class together) but am otherwise not very well acquainted with him.

I know someone who was in jail- me.

The charge- being in the presence of weed.
The results? Acquitted because I was enlisted in the Navy and bound for duty.

@Brian1946 Were you smoking weed or just in the presence of weed?

@weeveeship

I was just in the presence.
If I had been caught smoking, I think the charge would have been possession.

Yeah, the son of a friend of my family is serving a life sentence for murder. He pistol-whipped the guy who was sleeping with his girlfriend, and the gun went off.

I never really liked him. Just another self-absorbed pastor’s kid.

@Brian1946 You were only in the presence and you got put in jail? Man!

@weeveeship

Yeah, that was in Cali in 1968, when possessing any amount was a felony.
I think what happened is that I was arrested for suspicion of possession.
I was actually charged with being in the presence of when they searched me and found no weed.

Owah governator just signed a bill reducing the charge for possession of 1 oz (I think) or less from a misdemeanor to an infraction, so now the penalty is a $100 fine.

An ex boyfriend of mine did a few years in North Carolina for selling acid at a Rainbow Gathering. This was long after we’d broken up; I had nothing to do with it. I’dactually lost track of him (he was homeless when we dated) and I found him by sending a letter to his mom’s address, and she forwarded it on to him, and I got the reply with that “Sent from Prison” rubber stamp on it.

We ended up writing letters for those years because I was one of his few old friends who would. I sent him books and such, and he actually mailed me cash from his low-pay prison job because trusting me with it was safer than trying to save it in prison, y’know? When he got out, he came up for a visit and I handed him a pile of cash (all his) to start his life with again.

After that, we lost track again for a number of years, but I found him on Facebook. He’s married and a father now of a sweet-looking little boy, and trying to be the best father he can be. I’d like to think I played some part in facilitating that – at least the “stable, started again, not recalcitrant” part. He’s a decent guy, he just likes the trips and the hippie culture a bit much.

A very close person to me just got out of juvy for something horrific. I adore this kid but I’ll never be able to look at him the same way. I hope he learned a lot and will never again do what put him away.

Yes, my brother was in jail for several years for assault. He was diagnosed as having schizophrenia, which he had suffered from from early childhood. My relationship with him did not change at all. I have always been very protective of him, and I worked with the authorities to help him get the treatment he needed.

I knew two people in prison: one was my ex-boyfriend and one was the person that drove that car into a tree killing my brother. My ex-boyfriend left me suddenly and later I found out he went to prison, I never stopped loving him. As for the guy who drove that night, I never wanted him to go to jail but it wasn’t up to me.

I know lots of people in prison (inmates)....
I work at a State (California) prison…

I do. Several in fact, which is kind of odd since I’m such a goody two shoes.

A boy I grew up with (family friends) committed a horrific crime. I was completely stunned. As we had already lost touch long before then, nothing changed but my opinion of him.

A guy my ex-husband grew up with, a good friend of his whom we’d had over to our house, ended up being a serial killer. Needless to say, that freaked me the fuck out. We’d lost touch with him prior to that, so again, no relationship change.

And the one that makes me saddest of all, my half-brother. He’d been in a lot of trouble as a teenager, after our father died, but seemed to have turned his life around. Married, decent job, kids, a house in the burbs. When he lost his job and was unable to find another, he reverted to old ways pretty quickly. He is now in federal prison for selling drugs and guns to an undercover agent. His wife was arrested, too, for procuring the guns for him (he was already a convicted felon). We aren’t terribly close, but it just breaks my heart. I still love him, obviously, but I just want to shake the shit out of him. I haven’t quite come to terms with this one, yet, and am not sure how it will play out in our future relationship. :(

@augustlan

“A guy my ex-husband grew up with, a good friend of his whom we’d had over to our house, ended up being a serial killer.”

WOW! :-0

Was there anything about his behavior that now seems ominous in retrospect?

My wife and I were in Silver Spring in August, 2004.

A childhood friend is in jail for dealing drugs.
He lived with us for a short time, while both of us were in Kindergarten, following the death of his mother. He had a retarded older brother, and really had a tough early life.
I am not making excuses for him, but I do cut him a lot of slack here. He doens’t need to be in jail.

One of my co-workers from a previous job (already a convicted felon assault ) went back to the pen on two occasions, the first voluntarily (he didn’t like parole, oddly enough), and the second, I am told, for child molestation.

It was kinda surprising to learn that this particular guy, a jovial, heavyset fellow, had something like that behind him. It was even more surprising to hear of his second incarceration; he didn’t really strike me as the pedophile sort. Which is why I wonder if this isn’t a case similar to @worriedguy‘s friend; before I left that job, he had told me about an Internet girlfriend that he’d met playing Battlefront II, and I wonder who knew how much about whose ages.

Beyond that, I have an uncle who works in a prison. I don’t know what he does there; he started out in IT but they’ve moved him around. Whatever his job, the inmates like him well enough to lock him out of harm’s way the last time that they rioted, which I suppose is a good thing.

A former neighbor of mine across the street from the house I grew up in, some years younger than myself, will soon be facing trial for first-degree murder. So possibly yes in the near future.

Yeah, I had a family member go to prison. He’s been out for a few years now. We stopped speaking long before that, though, and we don’t have a relationship today, which, IMO, is for the best.

I know a convictd felon, though I did not know him before he was in prison. Some of the stories he tells are beyond belief, though I believe him, if that makes any sense.
It solidifies my belief that the penal system as it stand needs to be completely scrapped and started over from syllable one.

@Brian1946 He was a pretty bad guy, as a teenager. Sold drugs, thug-like behavior… not really that unusual in that circle of friends, though. Certainly nothing that ever indicated he’d turn out to be a multiple murderer.

Yes. I have a dear friend who needed money to pay her bills and sold a few of her pain pills. We all know it was wrong but 5 years for a few pills is a bit much. Also have a nephew and his girlfriend who stole a man’s wallet and credit cards while on drugs and had a good shopping spree until caught. They deserve 10 years in prison.

My ex boyfriend, who was two and one half decades older than me, went to prison last year for money laundering. When I was 25 (and if you do the math, he was 2x my age) I was a slim and very fit girl but he always tried to tell me how I needed to work out more. It stuck with me and I didn’t realize how much it hurt me the things he said although he was otherwise very good to me until he was in prison.

Now 10 years later I think he realizes how good I treated him. I didn’t care about his money or his cars, I really LOVED him when we were together. He’s been writing me letters and bragging about how he has started an exercise boot camp at the (federal) prison and how he’d love to teach me about nutrition. Ugh.

I can’t bring myself to respond to his letters though. I keep thinking about the comments about my body and how it temporarily destroyed my self image.

I guess this is me playing my part in his karma.

My Dad): He Deserves To Be In There Though…
Hes A Horrible Person! D:<
I Still Love Him Though…. And Miss Him/:
I Havent Seen/Heard From Him Since):
Well I Cant Because The Law Said So l;

A friend since kindergarten days is back in jail. Between times serving, I contacted him when we were both back in our home town and took him out to lunch. He is now a man-shell of the vibrant, intelligent boy we used to know. I accepted his collect calls for a bit, but when they became drunken ramblings of the same conversation over and over again, I finally gave up…for now.

A cousin. She’s out now, after almost 10 years. Drugs. First offense.