The journal of Terry Bailey
16 Feb 2005
Today, I am 44 years old; I've been incarcerated since 1988, and I have a couple of years before my release date. Currently, I am confined at Pontiac Correctional Center, which is a maximum security prison. Pontiac is a maximum security segregation prison, but its population is divided into 24/7 lock-up, death-row, South Mental Health, and protective custody (house inmates in maximum security status). ALthough there's four categories of inmates being housed at Pontiac, I've reached the conclusion that Pontiac is the states' primary defacto mental institution; especially since many mental health institutions we closed "due to budget cuts". Since former Governor George Ryan gave every inmate that was previously on death-row commutation to life so many of them are now confined here due to adjustment problems in the general population in other maximum security prisons. South Mental Health houses many inmates who have mental disorders or have been found guilty, but mentally-ill. Protective custoday houses inmates from across the state, but in need of protection for various reasons, or those who just don't want to be bothered with gangs, lock-downs, and other distractions, or may want to focus on fighting their cases. Protective custody is used as a cheap (indentured) labor, and they prepare our meals and do the general maintenance for the prison. I am also enclosing some poetry that I wrote in 2003, titled: You Will Know Your Sisters. It's one of my favorites, and it is in my first book, Sankofa, which consists of poetry I've written from the early 1990s to 2004. A friend and mentor is helping me with getting published. I want to write more, but I must write a note to Gary and thank him for his outreach.
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