At this time of year, many people look back over the past 12 months and dissect their trials and tribulations. I find that a little depressing, even for the happy times, because they have gone and you can't get them back. So I prefer to look forwards, do a bit of planning (in the face of the Gods, just to see if they are taking any notice) and work out where I'd like to be in 12 months or so from now.
The recent VAT debacle has made me revise my original plans for developing the knitting patterns I've been working on. This has been a good thing, though I'd rather it hadn't been dropped on me at a moment's notice. But, carpe diem and all that jazz. I may not be as prolific as some designers out there, but I think I can contribute something to the global pattern library, so I will be working on those this year.
I'll still be spinning of course, and I have some more grey Gotland fleece on order. It's all part of the bigger picture really; I want to spin so I have yarn to create designs with, for myself and my family. I do also have a large stash of assorted yarns that I need to work with before buying any more... but any knitter out there will know how likely that is! 2015 is the Chinese year of the Sheep (goat/ram/etc) so I'm hoping to pick up some of the fleecy vibes.
I'll be seeing my husband again this spring, which is usually the main event in my year. I'm contemplating requesting a weekday visit at the moment, as it would fit our plans better. They are at the Warden's discretion of course, but if you don't ask, you're unlikely to get.
Blogging more often is also on my To Do list. I'm not one to blog for the sake of it, you are unlikely to see "this is my breakfast" or "my cat just did this" posts, but I do want to aim for at least once a month this year.
I've been offered a new opportunity at my day job, a secondment for up to 2 years, so things will be changing there and hopefully for the better. I'm not allowing myself to get excited about it until I have more details, but it has come at the right time for me. I've been doing my current job for just over 9 years now and things have changed a lot in that time.
There will be a bit of travel around the UK for my family history investigations. We have a castle in Durham ... well, we did, a few centuries ago, and it's now a mossy ruin, but I'd still like to go up and have a wander if I can. Plus there are still some bits of Berkshire that I need to get to and document properly.
So really 2015 will be more of the same, but hopefully bigger and better, and a little more lucrative!
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label media. Show all posts
Sunday, 4 January 2015
Tuesday, 20 May 2014
Ethics of trying to help
This is a post about a dilema.
There are a lot of inmates, not only in the USA but around the world, who have no one on the outside. When I say they have no one, I mean that their family and friends have moved on with their lives and rarely communicate (if at all) with the inmate. For inmates serving relatively long sentences, this often happens around the 5-7 year mark, and often also coincides with a change in behaviour of the inmate. They either throw themselves into the life of an inmate, which can open up situations of violence and illegal behaviour, or they can come to the conclusion that they want to make it but they will have to do it on their own.
I could never criticise anyone related to an inmate who chose to move on with their lives. Ultimately, the inmate is the one who is supposed to pay for their crime, not the entire family and extended friends network. And for those who chose to stick around, it does often feel like you are serving a sentence with them - not to the same extent of deprivation or punishment, but a sentence nonetheless.
I've been writing to inmates for the best part of 25 years, and over time I have found a number of ways to contact inmates. Before the widespread use of the internet, I used magazines, and some magazines would allow inmates to place small ads free of charge. I have also known of websites that would list inmates for free, thus providing the means for them or their friends and family to reach out without having to find extra money on top of the household bills and phone calls and stationary and postage etc
And then there are websites that charge for a "service" of giving inmates the opportunity to appeal for correspondence. I have often wondered why some offer this for free and others charge a fee.
I have seen the fee justified by some websites as covering "administration costs". But I have to question just how much of the fee really does go on administration, and how much becomes profit. And there is the rub: should free-world individuals profit by exploiting inmates when there is no real need to do so? Even under the premis of helping to reduce recidivism?
Take a well known website, Write A Prisoner. It's been around a while, and offers an advert for $40 per year to any inmate (unless they happen to be located in a state that does not permit inmates to solicit for correspondence via the internet or printed publications). It's not a sleek-looking site, in fact it looks like it was built about 15 years ago and hasn't had much effort put into keeping it in the current century. Currently there are just over 900 inmate adverts on the site. That's 900 x $40 as a baseline. That's $36000 a year just for placing the ads. But look a little closer and you find that there are charges to update information on each advert, charges for adding a photo or changing a photo, charges for adding extra words above the 250-word standard profile, charges for adding artwork etc etc
These adverts are submitted in electronic format. No one at the website has to sit there typing in the details from a pdf or a sheet of coffee-stained paper. There is the option to email the inmate the first time you contact them through the site; the site prints off the email, pops it into an envelope and sends it via traditional mail. Some of these are received and some are not. Still doesn't justify the $40 fee though, and we haven't even looked at the revenue share from the commercial adverts.
Write A Prisoner claims to fund some community projects from its revenue. There is a Scholarship for the children of inmates and children impacted by crime. The Scholarship is $250. There is no information on how many have been awarded since 2010. They also advertise "Welcome Home Kits" for inmates who are being released but not to a family home. Apparently 43 such kits have been distributed, although they could not be sent to inmates in every state as many do not even permit those picking up a released inmate to take some free-world clothes for the inmate to wear when leaving the prison.
There is a Book Donation scheme. Write a Prisoner says they have donated $ 3,437.00 across 39 books-for-inmates schemes in the US. They do not say whether that is solely in cash, or if they count the value of the books as a like-for-like donation sum.
Why am I saying all of this? Do I have an axe to grind? Not really. I'm not against anyone making an honest buck from their own hard graft. I just have a thing about those who say they are doing something, but where there is no hard evidence for it happening. And then we come to the concept of writing to inmates in the first place.
Believe it or not, it is absolutely possible to write to an inmate without falling in love with them, or they with you. It is totally possible to correspond with an inmate less than once a day, by traditional mail, for many years, without them asking you to send them anything at all. But you only have to glance at the forums attached to these websites to wonder if they should be called "Date a Prisoner" instead. There is a conveyor belt of women (and some men, but few and far between) who "want to bring some sunshine into an inmate's life", who treat writing as some kind of game or therapy, get caught up in the "romance" of the situation, and then after approximately 2 years find that either he isn't what they had told themselves he was, or he has been released and had no intention of going home to them. Especially when they have never met the inmate face to face. Then the phrase "Hell hath no fury" really comes into play!
I wonder how many penpal correspondences would become relationships if the websites did not post photographs of the inmates. If people wrote based only on what the advert says - because naturally no one enters into a correspondence with the intention of finding love.... do they?
For a website that wants to be taken seriously, it is basic Marketing 101 that brand is everything. Anyone dropping into these forums would be forgiven for running to the hills with the amount of hybristophiliacs gushing about their latest phone call or visit, or making plans on what they will do the second their penpal steps out of prison. Their understanding of the issues and difficulties faced by newly-released inmates is next to nothing, but still it will be wedding bells and babies and someone to pay the bills and live happily ever after with. People wonder where stereotypes come from: they come from real people, unfortuneately. They don't want the reality of the situation, because, you know, "haters gonna hate" and all that jazz.
So when looking for an inmate to correspond with - which by the way, I still do think is an extremely worthy cause and can be highly rewarding for both parties - I think it is worth asking yourself whether the ethics of the website parading these inmates like a beauty pageant is really what you want to subscribe to or be associated with. If you care about the concept of helping those who are unable to help themselves, perhaps one of the free services would be more appropriate. Like Lost Vault.
There are a lot of inmates, not only in the USA but around the world, who have no one on the outside. When I say they have no one, I mean that their family and friends have moved on with their lives and rarely communicate (if at all) with the inmate. For inmates serving relatively long sentences, this often happens around the 5-7 year mark, and often also coincides with a change in behaviour of the inmate. They either throw themselves into the life of an inmate, which can open up situations of violence and illegal behaviour, or they can come to the conclusion that they want to make it but they will have to do it on their own.
I could never criticise anyone related to an inmate who chose to move on with their lives. Ultimately, the inmate is the one who is supposed to pay for their crime, not the entire family and extended friends network. And for those who chose to stick around, it does often feel like you are serving a sentence with them - not to the same extent of deprivation or punishment, but a sentence nonetheless.
I've been writing to inmates for the best part of 25 years, and over time I have found a number of ways to contact inmates. Before the widespread use of the internet, I used magazines, and some magazines would allow inmates to place small ads free of charge. I have also known of websites that would list inmates for free, thus providing the means for them or their friends and family to reach out without having to find extra money on top of the household bills and phone calls and stationary and postage etc
And then there are websites that charge for a "service" of giving inmates the opportunity to appeal for correspondence. I have often wondered why some offer this for free and others charge a fee.
I have seen the fee justified by some websites as covering "administration costs". But I have to question just how much of the fee really does go on administration, and how much becomes profit. And there is the rub: should free-world individuals profit by exploiting inmates when there is no real need to do so? Even under the premis of helping to reduce recidivism?
Take a well known website, Write A Prisoner. It's been around a while, and offers an advert for $40 per year to any inmate (unless they happen to be located in a state that does not permit inmates to solicit for correspondence via the internet or printed publications). It's not a sleek-looking site, in fact it looks like it was built about 15 years ago and hasn't had much effort put into keeping it in the current century. Currently there are just over 900 inmate adverts on the site. That's 900 x $40 as a baseline. That's $36000 a year just for placing the ads. But look a little closer and you find that there are charges to update information on each advert, charges for adding a photo or changing a photo, charges for adding extra words above the 250-word standard profile, charges for adding artwork etc etc
These adverts are submitted in electronic format. No one at the website has to sit there typing in the details from a pdf or a sheet of coffee-stained paper. There is the option to email the inmate the first time you contact them through the site; the site prints off the email, pops it into an envelope and sends it via traditional mail. Some of these are received and some are not. Still doesn't justify the $40 fee though, and we haven't even looked at the revenue share from the commercial adverts.
Write A Prisoner claims to fund some community projects from its revenue. There is a Scholarship for the children of inmates and children impacted by crime. The Scholarship is $250. There is no information on how many have been awarded since 2010. They also advertise "Welcome Home Kits" for inmates who are being released but not to a family home. Apparently 43 such kits have been distributed, although they could not be sent to inmates in every state as many do not even permit those picking up a released inmate to take some free-world clothes for the inmate to wear when leaving the prison.
There is a Book Donation scheme. Write a Prisoner says they have donated $ 3,437.00 across 39 books-for-inmates schemes in the US. They do not say whether that is solely in cash, or if they count the value of the books as a like-for-like donation sum.
Why am I saying all of this? Do I have an axe to grind? Not really. I'm not against anyone making an honest buck from their own hard graft. I just have a thing about those who say they are doing something, but where there is no hard evidence for it happening. And then we come to the concept of writing to inmates in the first place.
Believe it or not, it is absolutely possible to write to an inmate without falling in love with them, or they with you. It is totally possible to correspond with an inmate less than once a day, by traditional mail, for many years, without them asking you to send them anything at all. But you only have to glance at the forums attached to these websites to wonder if they should be called "Date a Prisoner" instead. There is a conveyor belt of women (and some men, but few and far between) who "want to bring some sunshine into an inmate's life", who treat writing as some kind of game or therapy, get caught up in the "romance" of the situation, and then after approximately 2 years find that either he isn't what they had told themselves he was, or he has been released and had no intention of going home to them. Especially when they have never met the inmate face to face. Then the phrase "Hell hath no fury" really comes into play!
I wonder how many penpal correspondences would become relationships if the websites did not post photographs of the inmates. If people wrote based only on what the advert says - because naturally no one enters into a correspondence with the intention of finding love.... do they?
For a website that wants to be taken seriously, it is basic Marketing 101 that brand is everything. Anyone dropping into these forums would be forgiven for running to the hills with the amount of hybristophiliacs gushing about their latest phone call or visit, or making plans on what they will do the second their penpal steps out of prison. Their understanding of the issues and difficulties faced by newly-released inmates is next to nothing, but still it will be wedding bells and babies and someone to pay the bills and live happily ever after with. People wonder where stereotypes come from: they come from real people, unfortuneately. They don't want the reality of the situation, because, you know, "haters gonna hate" and all that jazz.
So when looking for an inmate to correspond with - which by the way, I still do think is an extremely worthy cause and can be highly rewarding for both parties - I think it is worth asking yourself whether the ethics of the website parading these inmates like a beauty pageant is really what you want to subscribe to or be associated with. If you care about the concept of helping those who are unable to help themselves, perhaps one of the free services would be more appropriate. Like Lost Vault.
Sunday, 16 March 2014
Reality TV? Move along please, nothing to see here
From time to time, on some forums that I belong to that are concerned with inmates and their families, there are request from media production companies and journalists. These requests are usually looking for people who have "fallen for a felon" or "are in love with their inmate penpal". We even had one recently that was offering $500 to cover the "first date".
So-called reality TV is all the rage, though I really don't understand why. Could it be because the people watching have less interesting lives themselves? Or possibly that the people watching can feel smug in the assumption that their lives are in some way better? I think it's probably a bit of both, depending on the subject content.
But why would anyone want to watch a programme about a woman in love with an inmate? Be under no illusions, there really is no way to accurately depict this lifestyle in a sensitive way, and really that's not what the media companies want anyway. I can only think that any such programme would turn out like the "My Big Fat Gypsy" series. On one hand, it shows Irish traveller life in modern Britain, but on the other it holds those people up for ridicule with their fake tans, their gaudy bling and their attitudes to women. How would a programme on inmates and their partners on the outside be any different?
I recon anyone watching my life through a lens would be thinking either "sad cow" or yawning into their popcorn. My husband did a bad thing that got him to prison, but he's not a typical bad boy now he is in there. He is not in fights, is not in Ad Seg (Administrative Segregation in Texas, and often called the SHU or the Hole in other states, effectively a prison within a prison), and is not fighting to proclaim his innocence. He is also not a muscle man or covered in tattoos. I'm not on benefits, don't make my 27 kids go without just so I can visit him, and we don't spend hours on the phone every day using money I should be spending on utility bills. Regular readers of this blog will know that we don't get phone calls at all.
I also don't sit around wallowing in self-pity that my "one true love" is locked away on the other side of the ocean for at least another 10 years. It could not be said that I am "wasting my life" or putting it "on hold". When I'm not at work, I do a lot of crafts, socialise and travel. Sometimes I do these things by myself, and sometimes I do them with friends or family.
In fact, I dare say I am very much like thousands of other women in the UK and the rest of the world, who live by themselves and are getting on with life. I just happen to also be married to a man who is in prison in America.
So-called reality TV is all the rage, though I really don't understand why. Could it be because the people watching have less interesting lives themselves? Or possibly that the people watching can feel smug in the assumption that their lives are in some way better? I think it's probably a bit of both, depending on the subject content.
But why would anyone want to watch a programme about a woman in love with an inmate? Be under no illusions, there really is no way to accurately depict this lifestyle in a sensitive way, and really that's not what the media companies want anyway. I can only think that any such programme would turn out like the "My Big Fat Gypsy" series. On one hand, it shows Irish traveller life in modern Britain, but on the other it holds those people up for ridicule with their fake tans, their gaudy bling and their attitudes to women. How would a programme on inmates and their partners on the outside be any different?
I recon anyone watching my life through a lens would be thinking either "sad cow" or yawning into their popcorn. My husband did a bad thing that got him to prison, but he's not a typical bad boy now he is in there. He is not in fights, is not in Ad Seg (Administrative Segregation in Texas, and often called the SHU or the Hole in other states, effectively a prison within a prison), and is not fighting to proclaim his innocence. He is also not a muscle man or covered in tattoos. I'm not on benefits, don't make my 27 kids go without just so I can visit him, and we don't spend hours on the phone every day using money I should be spending on utility bills. Regular readers of this blog will know that we don't get phone calls at all.
I also don't sit around wallowing in self-pity that my "one true love" is locked away on the other side of the ocean for at least another 10 years. It could not be said that I am "wasting my life" or putting it "on hold". When I'm not at work, I do a lot of crafts, socialise and travel. Sometimes I do these things by myself, and sometimes I do them with friends or family.
In fact, I dare say I am very much like thousands of other women in the UK and the rest of the world, who live by themselves and are getting on with life. I just happen to also be married to a man who is in prison in America.
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