Free Kevin Walsh
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No wonder the prison system is a dismal failure and
so many inmates come back.
When you finish your prison term you get $50 and
a bus ticket. Now how long do you think a homeless
ex-inmate without a job can live on $50. Two or three days max?
Maybe 10 to 30 days if they are real thrifty?
It almost seems like a plan to set them up to go back to prison.
Now Kevin says they also get the money they earned in prison. That't doesn't amount to a hill of beans! First they max they can earn in Arizona prisons is 50 cents an hour. Thats the MAXIMUN wages. They are paid between 5¢ and hour and 50¢ and hour. And after that the state shakes them down for a large percent of it. So say your an inmate who make the maximun rate of 50¢ and hour and your real thrifty and save all your money. So you make a big huge $20 a week. Now after the state shakes you down you only get $10 a week. And if your real thrifty and don't spend any of your earning you can save a big $500 a year. That's if your at the top of the prison corporate ladder. If your at the bottom of prison corporate ladder your only being paid 5¢ an hour. And for a 40 hour work week you earn a grand total of $2. And after the State of Arizona shakes you down for it's deductions you get to keep a whopping $1 for a week's worth of labor. And if you are real thrifty and don't spend any of it after a year in prison you will have a grand total of $54 in savings. Hmmmmm..... no wonder prison inmates are almost doomed to commit another crime and come back to prison.
Kevin Walsh 24 November 2005 Dear Ganesh, Thank you for your letter and news updates and for looking up that info on the delusional disorder. I am given to understand that upon release from prison, I will be given $50 and a bus ticket at the minimum. I will also receive a money order for wages and other money on my books. I don’t know if they would release someone with no home to go to but usually in such cases they try to arrange for a halfway house or a homeless shelter to take in that former inmate for a time. I know that Desert Vista hospital , where I stayed from June to October 2004, would not release someone to the streets. If a patient had no home, he or she would usually be sent to a group home. I have access to a word processor at work, but if I used it for my own letters, I might get in trouble for using DOC equipment for personal use, so for the time being my letters will be handwritten. I am very surprised that the letters I have sent to you have arrived with a Phoenix postmark. I can’t imagine why that would be so. I’m sorry to hear that a letter you sent to me has been returned. I have not been sent to an out-of-state prison and am not am not aware of any plans to send me away. I did receive a very large package from you a few weeks ago, but I have not had time to go through it at length. I am glad they are no longer opening the mail I send to you. Thank you for transcribing Laro’s letter in your letter to me. I don’t know if any Aryan Brotherhood people here building a campfire and worshiping Oden. I do know one inmate on this run who has a Thor’s hammer medallion round his neck. There is one interesting ritual I have observed here. The Native American inmates have a small enclosure for their use equipped with a sweat lodge and some firewood. Every Sunday morning they are in there banging drums, chanting and using the sweat lodge. It is interesting that Laro is allowed to view and check out videos. There is no provision for that here. I don’t know if they allow that on the lower security yards. There are no vocational education classes here, though there are programs on employability parenting and substance abuse. GED classes are not mandatory but 8th grade literacy is. Although work on the first edition of the inmate newsletter is complete it has not been photocopied or distributed. Mr. Holler said he will sit on it for an indefinite length of time. He made that decision after the deputy warden changed the name of the newsletter from the “Rincon Straight Thought” to the “Rincon Recorder”. I read a small filler article in the newspaper indicating that British historian David Irving was recently arrested in Austria for holocaust denial. I would appreciate if you could find articles giving more details. Thanks. Yours, Kevin
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