Major case update

It was what we expected. Dropped a line class, 30 day recreation and commisarry restriction (excluding hygiene and stationary supplies), 30 day job relocation to medical orderly (which in effect means 30 days of doing nothing because they rarely require any extra help in medical).

Could have been a LOT worse.

The thing is, hubby was thinking about changing jobs anyway. He's been working the food service line for 6 years now and the hussling and squabbling of the other inmates really gets him down. So he now has 30 days to decide whether he wants to go back to it, or to request a job doing something else (but not hoe squad and not laundry). In the long run, this could be a good thing, and probably not what the Captain had in mind as a punishment.

Major case

I pick and choose what I blog about TDCJ, mainly because I don't want this to be *just another inmate wife blog* but also because sometimes there are things that don't need to be in the public domain at the same time that they are happening.

I've been thinking about the rehabilitation side of TDCJ recently, or lack of any meaningful rehabilitation or re-entry planning or programmes. In the latest letter I have from my husband, it would appear that he may have picked up a major case for doing something that most of us in the free world take for granted and certainly wouldn't think twice about doing.

When someone in the office where I work has a headache, it is very common for them to ask in general if anyone has any headache pills. This usually results in 5 or 6 people waving the little plastic and foil strips as an offering, along with disclaimers such as "you should probably only take one as you're small" or "don't worry, they're not prescription ones". I would put money on this scene being repeated across the globe as people generally want to help others who are feeling a bit ill or in discomfort.

In TDCJ, inmates are not permitted to share anything, even if it would help out someone else. This is a security measure which I do understand, but it also goes against the fundamental basics of communal living - the greater good of the whole depends on people getting along and being nice to each other.

My husband gets acid reflux regularly, and has Zantac from the pharmacist at his unit. Many other inmates also have Zantac on prescription there. It is available over the counter outside TDCJ and is not a controlled substance in any way. While he was working in the dining hall a couple of weeks ago, another guy mentioned that he had just got his prescription. He gave my husband a pill because he was experiencing heartburn at the time. A guard saw them.

Now, I am NOT criticising the guard at all. He did not know what changed hands and he was absolutely correct in pulling both my husband and the other inmate out and searching them thoroughly etc. But I also find it difficult to criticise my husband or the other inmate in this instance, for doing what so many other people do every day - including I suspect a good number of corrections officers.

At his time of writing, my husband was fairly certain he was going to catch a major case because of this, though it had been a couple of days since the incident and no notification had yet been received by him. I would hope that the Major or Warden, on reviewing the evidence and circumstances, would decide on a minor case for both inmates. Why go for a more serious charge when the pills were not narcotics - where does that leave the punishment scale if the next time the pills are narcotic? It also does not appear to have been a planned transaction; rather it was a short discussion between 2 guys who both know the other takes the same medication.

Where does this leave rehabilitation? By punishing inmates for behaving in a social and community-minded way, what exactly is TDCJ promoting? Often one of the reasons that the Board of Pardons and Parole gives when denying an inmate parole is that they have become institutionalised. And yet this is precisely the behaviour that TDCJ itself encourages, and inmates who do not become institutionalised get punished for displaying that.

There is no clear plan or directive for rehabilitation in TDCJ. It is the only state criminal department of corrections that does not have "corrections" in its name (Texas Department for Criminal Justice). I have always thought that speaks far more about the attitudes of Texan legislators than it does about the inmates it holds.

Smile!

Sometimes I make things for people and I really don't want to let them go once they are finished. This is one of those times, but I have to let this little chap go to his intended home because he is for a friend who is celebrating her 40th "30th" birthday in a couple of weeks. She wanted to go to Borneo and spend some time with the orangutans, but medical issues over the past year have meant that she can't go now. So I'm bringing the orangutan to her instead:

 

He's about 12 inches (body), made from acrylic Robin DK yarn and Patons Whisper yarn, my own pattern (that I probably could repeat but I didn't write it down as I went because I want him to be a one-off). He's currently sitting near to the computer and I can't help but smile every time I look at him, so hopefully he will have the same effect on my friend too.

Complicated family ties

Ours is not a normal family (define "normal" anyway), and we're not even a normal blended family as people like to refer to these days. We're really just a group of people, slowly expanding and tied together (losely for the most part, but some tightly and strongly) by blood and desire. We've got adoptions, second (and third) marriages, kids, step kids, grand kids, new partners, old partners and plenty of skeletons and ghosts as well.

Sometimes it's hard to deal with. No, most of the time it is hard. But sometimes there are bright sparkly bits as well that make you feel like you are doing this for some purpose other than your own needs.

My ex-step-daughter-in-law-to-be (get your head round that one!) will very soon be having a baby girl. I am blessed that she keeps in touch with me - it would be so easy and convenient for her to not to, given the tenuous nature of our connection. So today I have finished a cot blanket for her and the baby in the purple and white colour combination she requested:

Winter Solstice

Today is the shortest day, but it has felt very long indeed. In fact, half past 2 this afternoon seemed to last about 3 hours. Such is the way when you work in a department where every other team does a fraction of the work that yours does.

I had a present to open tonight. As you may know, I don't celebrate Christmas but I do observe the solstices. Today a friend at work came bouncing up to me waving a wrapped gift in my face and said "I know you don't do Christmas, and this isn't something that means you have to get me anything in return, but you know when you see something and you just know who would really love that thing? Well I saw this and knew it was for you!"

This particular friend has had a rough year with her health having being diagnosed as epileptic, and her father currently has cancer. She is though, one of the most sociable people I know and we go out for lunch every 6 weeks or so for a good gossip. She is celebrating a birthday next month that she has decided will be her 30th (*cough*) and I am desperately looking for some rust-coloured mohair yarn to make her an orangutang with but that's another blog post!

Butterflies are very symbolic, and they are something I strongly associate with both my mum and my friend Ciel. I have just opened the gift to find a writing set inside a cover that has butterflies all over it.

I believe that the Gods talk to us in ways they think we will understand. I believe many people go through life ignoring the Gods simply because they don't listen. Both my mum and Ciel promised that if there was any way for them to communicate after they died, they would find it and I would know.

Today, I know. Message received loud and clear.

If you tolerate this, your children will be next....

So here we are, in another season of excess and commercialism, where the rest of the western world seems to spend a mad month spending money they don't have buying presents for people they don't really like, eating enough food to keep a small African country out of famine for a decade and drinking as much strange alcohol as they can (the likes of which they wouldn't touch during the rest of the year - take Advocaat/egg nogg for example, why on earth would you?!).

I don't celebrate Christmas, I focus on the Winter Solstice instead. When I tell people that I don't do Christmas, the usual response is to think that I sit at home being miserable on Dec 25th doing nothing at all. Not so. We do our celebrating on the shortest night (or over the weekend closest to it) and you may be surprised to hear that it is remarkably similar to other people's Christmas celebrations. Just less commercial and hypocritical.

This year, today in fact, our Prime Minister David Cameron has been bemoaning the lack of morals in British society, and has gone further than recent PMs in declaring that the country needs to get back to Christian values. I'm still hoping that we can do a political exchange with America and that Cameron and Mr Obama can spend a year (or more) running each other's countries - they would be so much more at home!

Britain is a Christian state, make no mistake about that. Our Queen (thanks to Henry VIII) is head of the Church of England, and there is no pretence of separation between church and state here at all. But as a country that has accepted immigrants of all shapes, colours and faiths over the years (sometimes a little more unwillingly than others), we are not a nation of Christian people. We are a truely multi-faith country, which includes those of no faith, and those whose faiths are not written down or widely practiced. Does that make them less moral? I would argue absolutely not.

Christians don't have the monopoly on morals. Indeed, there are many people in the world who claim Christianity and yet hand out some of the most abhorrant punishments to wrong-doers. They claim to be against abortion, but in the same breath cheer when someone is put to death by the state. They claim to do good works for charity, but display more greed than the moneylenders outside the temple. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.

David Cameron's words would not be quite as worrying if he had not previously in the week stated that there would be measures taken to "help" the most anti-social and disruptive families in Britain. Nothing wrong with a bit of focused encouragement, but what happens when the families labelled as in need of "help" decide they don't want to aspire to middle-class Christian yummy-mummy cupcake baking with children who can't cross the road by themselves? What happens if these families "in need" become more and more from non-Christian homes? We already have parents moving house and pretending to go to church so that their kids can get into what the parent's perceive to be a "better" school. Better for whom though?

One of the best things about being British is that we are all different people living on a tiny little island, and for the most part we all get along. We don't have to all be the same, we're not milk that needs homogenising to stop the thicker bits floating to the top after a while (that happens with our politics regardless of what we do). Yes, anyone who wants to and has the academic capability should have a chance of a University education, but University-level education doesn't suit everyone. Yes we need lawyers, bankers, politicians and teachers, but we also need plumbers, zoo keepers, hairdressers and bar staff too.

What David Cameron seems to have missed is this: no one in Britian is better than anyone else, we are all good at being ourselves, and some people just get paid more for being themselves than others do. Instead of telling the majority of the country that we have no morals because we're not Christian, David Cameron would be better off recognising that he is the only one of him that we'll ever need, and somewhere in the Bible it mentions being there for the sick, needy, imprisoned etc and not bullying them by taking away their homes, jobs, children, money and self-respect.

Meet Phoebe, just a simple rag doll kinda girl

Though I love making the more detailed dolls, I had a hankering to make something - for want of a better word - vintage style. Just a simple rag doll but knitted, something I could use up some more of the hand-spun yellow fibre on that I acquired in Ciel's yarn box.

So, I now present Phoebe, who is for sale in my Etsy shop if you think she would like to come and live with you.