I have received one serious beating while in jail. The second front my rants tend to take are related to the general prison routine and procedure and its effect on the human soul.

As far as Rally's comments about judging prison staff members as individuals. I think I have done that. Perhaps some of my posts that were meant to have some humor to them came out sounding not funny at all. While I have personally witnessed examples of prison staff abusing inmates, I have also meant many others that not only 'do their job' but worked hard at treating individual inmates as human beings.

My seven years in the federal system allowed me to come in contact with many different staff members. And while there were several staff members that would indirectly give me a hard time, only one particular staff member went out of his way to bring possible physical harm to me by inciting my fellow inmates to act aggressively against me.

I have received one serious beating from another inmate while in a county jail. It went on for several minutes without any officer noticing anything was wrong, He "just happened" to be away from his post at the time. Six years later I still have minor problems with my right eye as a result of the beating.

Ironically, the day after this occurred, my parents were at the jail to visit me. I showed up with my one eye totally bloodshot and some ugly bruising to the right side of my face. No criminal or civil action was taken by me, or on my behalf, against the inmate or the jail I was in. Taking punitive action against another inmate or staff member can have long term results that lead to future abusive treatment.

The problem overall as I see it is that the vast majority of the American public is ignorant on the workings of the justice system and takes a hide their head in the sand approach when it comes to the workings of the prison system. That always changes the first time a loved ones gets tossed into the system and then his or her family gets a first hand crash course of the way the system 'works' or should I say does not work.

I welcome your questions and challenges to my comments.  ¶ 5:41 AM