PSST! NEED CIGS? FORK OVER STAMPS

He pulled a pack from his shirt pocket as we sat down at a table.

"Mind if I smoke?" he asked.

I said I didn't mind as long as it didn't blow in my direction and if it did
we could change seats. I jokingly asked whether he only started back to
smoking after getting out a few months ago, since tobacco isn't allowed in
prison.

He said he never quit. Said it's easy to get tobacco in prison. Others had
told me the same thing. He said a guard can bring in a couple of packs of
Bugler tobacco tucked in boot tops and sell it inside for 10 times what it
cost at a store.

But if you buy some tobacco, I asked him, how do you keep from getting
caught with it?

"That's no problem," he said. "If you work in one of the shops there are a
million places to hide it and they never find it."

An inmate who buys a pack might turn around and sell individual cigarettes
for as much as five stamps each, he said. That's five times 33 cents --
$1.65. There is still a lot of smoking in prisons, he said. Outlawing
tobacco inside didn't stop the habit, but it did drive up the cost.

A former warden told me recently that many guards who once might have
smuggled in marijuana to supplement their pay now prefer dealing tobacco. He
said if a guard is caught peddling nicotine it could cost him his job, but
if he is caught with marijuana it could mean doing some time.

Even so, the tobacco smoker across the table said it is still easy to buy
marijuana in prison, or crack, or almost anything else you want to satisfy
your desires or cravings. If you have enough cash or stamps. He said postage
stamps are popular as currency in prison because they are small and it's
easy to carry and hide a bunch of them.

5-time loser knows the drill

This fellow said he is 60 years old. It would have been difficult to guess
an age from his appearance. His build is lean and could be younger but his
face and eyes have a worn and older look.

He said he got out about seven months ago after doing almost seven years for
burglary. Said it was his fifth trip and altogether he's logged more than a
quarter-century behind bars, starting when he was a teen-ager.

He said that in the old days, before federal control changed the system in
1981, he was a building tender. Inmates who were building tenders got more
freedoms and privileges. They were charged with keeping the other prisoners
under control, making it possible to run prisons with fewer guards.

He preferred the old system to the modern prison operation. When the state
was forced to stop using building tenders, there weren't enough guards to
maintain the level of control. That is when gangs began to grow in number
and strength. Prisoners formed or joined gangs for power or protection.

Building tenders back then were better than the gangs now, said the
experienced convict. And he said building tenders also were better than some
of the guards working under the current system.

"They think their job is to punish you," he said. "Their job is to secure
you."

Flaws in the system

This fellow commented upon the greatly reduced parole rate of the current
board of Gov. George W. Bush appointees, and he confirmed something reported
by another inmate: Some troublemakers are being paroled while prisoners who
follow the rules, work hard and study to improve themselves are being set
back.

It is a matter of productivity and money, he explained. Prisoner workers
turn out a lot of items for sale to other state agencies. Also, prisons get
funds for providing various classes and programs, which makes the
cooperative and industrious convict more profitable to a unit than a
troublemaker. And, same as others I've heard from, this fellow said courses
or programs often lack quality control and obviously are offered to obtain
funding and not to provide any actual rehabilitation benefits for prisoners.

He asked me not to print his name because, "if TDCJ knew I was talking to
you, I'd be back in."

I've heard similar comments from many who want to join in the debate and
discussion about our criminal-justice system. Prisoners and their families,
parolees, probationers, guards and others have experiences to share,
information to help us better understand the way it operates. But they fear
if authorities find out their names there would be retribution for speaking
out.

That is scary. A wall of silence could make prisoners of us all.