4-15-2016

Censorship In Prison: I'd Rather Be....

I write this with steam still emerging from my ears. In fact they are red with frustration. I have endured some fairly awful things in prison but sending something out and having it censored is new. It's completely degrading and morally wrong. I can see where it has it's purpose in a lock up setting. Sending any kind of information about the institutions operations or staff information is definitely something to be monitored. Got it, I agree! So I am very careful to respect that rule and every other rule I am aware of. 
So when I get a notification that an email message has been censored... I am floored. I start scrambling through my messages trying to find the one that needed to be censored for safety and security reasons. Which, if it were true, I would be in ad seg already. They gave no indication of what they censored, how they censored it or when...simply a simple We censored you for security concerns. (the wording was longer but for fear of retaliation for outing there blatant issues I will summarize as respectfully and dignified as possible). 
The bottom line is I feel offended that they did this. The argument could be made that I chose this when I committed a crime and came to prison and you best believe that this is forever engraved on my conscious. But the prisons job is to house offenders securely and safely rehabilitate them in an environment that is calm and family friendly. That's because we are a corrective state. The difference being we have a Superintendent and NOT a warden. We are to be rehabilitated and not further punished or psychologically damaged for successful reentry into the community. I fail to see how a few bigots reviewing outgoing emails and censoring things they don't like personally is doing any of that. Its obviously a personal issue that I am paying the consequence for. Maybe they don't like that I am promoting LGBTQ equality in their little hodunk, redneck village. Oh no, you might come face to face with a homosexual? GASP! The world is crashing down, let's start giving this little activist a taste of our redneck justice, we'll censor some random b.s.

Censor that...

Love Ya
The Very, Extremely and Unapologetically GAY, HOMOSEXUAL, QUEER (and proud of it bitches!!!). Jeff Utnage