A few days ago, JPay sent out a mass e-mail to all the inmates here at M.C.I. I do not know if this e-mail was sent to all O.D.R.C. inmates in the state of Ohio. The e-mail was a threat. It stated something to the effect that inmates are not allowed to send messages of any kind that end up on social media platforms like Tiktok, Facebook, or YouTube. That doing so violates O.D.R.C. policies pertaining to outgoing mail. They went on to say something like we could get kicked off JPay and face disciplinary sanctions from our perspective institutions.
This is an arbitrary threat at best. An unenforceable one at that. You see, inmates are not responsible for what third parties do. We cannot control the actions of people who are free. Moreover, we cannot be punished for the things other people in the free world decide to do. There is precedent case law about this very issue.
O.D.R.C. and JPay may attempt to tell the inmate that they are to stop writing to someone who posts such things on social media, and that is the inmates responsibility. O.D.R.C. and JPay are not judges and cannot order inmates to stop writing someone under any circumstances. It takes a court order for that.
What this is about, is that the Department of Retribution and Coercion does not want inmates to inform the masses of what really goes on in prison. They were severely embarrassed by their handling of Covid here at Marion. They do not want society to see what they feed us, how they treat us, and the crap they put us through. They have a real fear of transparency for good cause. So, what if an inmate does a dance that ends up on Tiktok or some other platform? What do they really have to fear about it? Why the threat?
A few years ago, O.D.R.C. issues every inmate a GTL tablet for us to make calls on. Prior to this, inmates would have to get in line, and call on a wall phone. Corrections Officers, known as COs, that use to say some derogatory things to us, suddenly had to watch how they spoke to inmates. The reason. They do not know if any inmate in the area is on one of these tablets and speaking to their family. I cannot begin to tell you how many times a CO would start saying something completely out of line to an inmate and suddenly stop themselves, look around, and say,” wait, is there someone on the phone right now?”
This so called “ban on social media posts” is an attempt to prevent similar things from getting out. They want to control who we speak to, when, how often, and the content of what we are saying. An inmates punishment is coming to prison. That does not give the staff at any institution the right to treat us in a cruel and inhumane manner. But they do, and they do not want you to know about it. The bigger issues they have is that it does not matter what they do. They cannot stop this type of information from getting to the public. Nor should they attempt to make restrictions for that purpose.
I have never been intimidated by a bully of any kind. That includes one that tries to use their position of authority, job title, or political status as a weapon. I will say this, should they try to silence me, I would like to call on all of you to stand up for me. Can I count on all of you?
I do not think my posts are what they had in mind, but some overzealous CO make take that little announcement and run with it just because it gives them the appearance of authority to stop someone like me.
The funny thing about the very rules O.D.R.C. invents, the staff are incapable of understanding them. They do not have any discernable form of comprehension when it comes to how the rules apply to them. They are unable to perceive where and when to apply the rules.
The staff here will walk past an inmate smoking a drug called tune but will harass inmates who are trying to get to their school classes. They clearly worry about the wrong things.
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