December 9, 2007

8 :30 PM

Everyday is an adventure that must be survived and each day finds new victims. About two hours ago there was another senseless act of violence within the walls of the W.C. Holman Correctional facility, a man had his throat cut and stabbed several times, the outlook is bad. He was flown by helicopter to the emergency room in Mobile and an Officer just said these words, “Y’all know how to pray and need to pray hand”, when asked how he was.

This act of violence happened in the Honor Dorm. The Honor Dorm is under a faith based program that accepts or denies inmates after applications are submitted. It’s viewed as a community and there are lots of rules and benefits. Residents must attend classes and group sessions that put positive achievements in their prison jacket/file, stuff that can help them get out of prison and hopefully improve their thinking so they don’t return.

The warden created this at Holman, other prison had it long ago, and will be pissed and embraced that it happened there. He’s always holding the dorm and residents up as role models to the rest of us. The best things about the dorm are the certificates you can earn, the cleanliness, no double bunks, five TV’s, computers, their own library (books, music and movies) and CD players. The drawbacks are isolation from the rest of the prison, reduced personal time and they want you to snitch on others. They don’t only expect us to police each other’s behaviour but to write the inmates up and bring violations to their attention. Most inmates refuse to do that because it will ruin their standing with others and harm the violator by taking points from him or kicking him out.