My True Prison Love Story

My true story has been published in an ebook. It was written by Renee Patterson, who did a wonderful job of telling my story exactly how I wanted it told. It you're interested in reading my true life prion love story, you can download the ebook "Another Sappy Love Story - Full Circle Prison Love" for the full story for Amazon Kindle or Barnes and Noble Nook. The shorter version, "Another Sappy Love Story - The Beginning" is free on Amazon for the rest of this weekend. Download it now and tell me what you think.

CA Prisoners Started Being Transferred to CA County Jails

CA Prison Transfers Started Monday

Last Monday, October 3^rd, CDCR began transferring California state prisoners to California county jails across the state. Prisoners who were transferred, were sent to county jail facilities local to their home towns. Upon release, they will be released to the custody of local county probation officers. This is a far cry from being released to CA state parole officers.

CA Prison Realignment

These transfers are part of a plan put into place by California State Governor Jerry Brown, in an effort to reduce the CA prison population by 11,000 inmates by January. This plan is just the beginning of a complete plan to “realign the criminal justice system”, as ordered by the US Supreme Court last spring. This phase of the realignment only refers to the following California state prisoners:

• Considered low-level prisoners
• Convicted of non-violent offenses
• Convicted of non-sex-related offenses
• No history of spousal abuse convictions
• No convictions of any type of crimes against children

CA Prison Rumors

My fiance tells me that there are plans being made to turn some prisons into California pre-release prisons. The purpose of pre-release prisons is to help prisoners that are soon to be released transition back into society. According to him, prisoners from Southern California will be transferred to Lancaster and Chino. I completely forget where those from Northern California will be going.

Realignment - Phase 2

I guess this would be considered the 2^nd phase of the plan. Prisoners sent to pre-release prisons will spend a certain amount of time there, as a low-level offenders. These are the prisons they will be released from when their time comes.

Coming Soon

I cannot wait until one of these phases finally trickles over into our lives. My Boo fits the criteria for the low-level early release programs. At some point, I expect to get a call from him saying that he has been transferred to Lancaster, which is where I'm moving next month, or Chino, less than 40 miles from Los Angeles.

In the meantime, every single morning, I check the CDCR Inmate Locator to make sure he is still in Avenal State Prison. The day I see anything different, will be one of the happiest days of my life. It will mean that he is official IN the CA Prison Early Release Program, and he will be coming home soon.

More Information

Want more details on this phase of the CA Prison Realignment Reform. Read California Prisoners Started Moving to County Jails.

Check out my favorite blogs:

http://prisonersdaughter.blogspot.com

http://reneepattersonwrites.blogspot.com

http://kieshajoseph.blogspot.com

It May be Sooner Than We Thought

My boo just may be getting closer to home even sooner than we both thought. CDCR is set to begin releasing state prison inmates to the custody of our county jail systems on October , 2011. That's on 12 more days from now!

This new process is supposed to help with the CA prison overcrowding problem that the federal government ruled must be cleaned up in the next two years. This "shifting of the guards" action only affects low-level prisoners doing time for low-level offenses that are in no way sex-related or child-related.

As a prison fiance, this could have a great impact on my future, especially since my prison husband-to-be is classified as a low-level prisoner:

1. The love of my life could be released to an LA county jail facility as early as 12 days from now.
2. For me, him being in the county jail means a much shorter traveling distance to visit him on the weekends.
3. For him, being in the county jail system means he may be released from prison much sooner than we thought due to the LA county jail system's overcrowded conditions.
4. If by some slim chance, he were to make a very simple, low-level mistake later, he would be sentenced to a short time in a CA county jail on a probation violation, instead of being sent back to a CA prison for a parole violation.

I would like to say that I pray that he gets out as early as the 1st. But, I don't. I actually pray that God keeps him safe and sane until whatever date He feels should be the true release date. But, I do have hope, though. This new CA prison news gives me hope that no matter when my boo is released, there's a large possibility that he won't have to be released as a CA state parolee. That's every ex-offenders nightmare.

Want to know more about these upcoming changes? Read "CDCR Changes for Low-Level Prisoners" at the Prison Rideshare Network Blog now.

Betrayal is Not an Option

It's been a long couple of months. I'm not sure what happened to cause so much confusion between My Boo and I, but I sure am glad we're past it.

One day, out the clear blue sky, he just started acting funny towards me. The letters stopped altogether. And, when we were on the phone, he seemed so distant, and annoyed. For about a week, I just chalked it up to "prison blues" and kept doing me. Eventually, he started asking me the same question everyday, "Do you have something you want to tell me"? I knew in my heart what that meant. But, I am a certified denial queen. So, I just kept telling him no and acting like nothing was wrong.

The next thing I knew, we were in the middle of the second argument of our relationship. It got much worse than it should have mostly because I was so insulted that this man was accusing me of betraying him, but giving me no details whatsoever. After he hung up in my face, that's when the texting war between us began (Yes, texts).After texting back and forth for hours, he finally gave me enough information to at least have an idea as to why we were arguing. I could not believe this man, the love of my life, was accusing me of being unfaithful to him, based on some "call-home, he-say-she-say" from someone who does nothing for him.

After taking time to calm down, I prayed on the situation. God told me, "Don't let go." So, that's what I decided. I was not going to abandon him like everyone else had over the years. I called, text, left voicemails... I did whatever it took to remind this truly good man that I, not his little birdy, am the one who has his back 100%. I had to reassure him that I, his soulmate, would never betray him... ever!

I never felt any anger towards him during all of this. All I felt was compassion. I realized then that this was a very strong man who had truly been wounded by his current situation. Not only is he in prison for a crime committed by a family member, but he's been doing his time alone, with no one to truly count on. He had put up walls over the years that I, personally, as his best friend, have never had to tear down. But, now, as his woman, the expectations are higher, which scared him at some point. So, his human nature told him that it would be easier to just walk away now than to take a chance of me betraying him later. In his words, "That would be devastating"!

It takes a real man to admit when he's scared. Once I was able to get that out of him, I was able to reassure him that this is the life for me. I chose this life, the life of The Prisoner's Fiance, because he is the man I want to spend the rest of my life with. I would never betray him. He is my world. As I tell him all the time, his last name will be on my tombstone. I cannot wait to be his wife. Betrayal is NOT an option!!!

Follow my tweets at: www.twitter.com/prisondaughter

Release Date Changes

On February 20, 2011, I received the tweet below from @madisonghope 

@PrisonDaughter will you share some more? What is a typical visit like with your fiance? When is his "out" date?

Well, @madisonghope, I would like to start by saying that prison visits are very rarely typical. One of the main goals of the CDCR is to make visiting as frustrating and time consuming as possible. This is to discourage us from visiting. As for myself, that will never happen. They can transfer him to an underground prison in Zimbabwe and I would still be there every Sunday, faithfully.

As far as his release date, well, that's a subject he and I just do not discuss much anymore. Officially, the latest release is January, 2014. But, due to the prison overcrowding conditions in California, many changes have taken place in 2011. The California Prison Reform policies have opened up new categories that will allow many inmates to be released earlier than originally expected.

The following are some of the categories that he has fallen under that have and may cut his time short:

• He has never been written up, which caused them to recalculate his "good time." (Yes, "good-time" is back!)
• He's a Level 1 prisoner, who actually works off the grounds. As time goes on, more L1 prisoners may be released early, as these prisoners are not considered to be "threats to society."
• He has already completed 70% of his maximum sentence. If overcrowding persists, the percentage of time serve may have to be lowered.

So far, in 2011 alone, my baby has received two notices informing him of new expected release dates, totaling about 15 months off of his time. He is also due to see his counselor for his annual review in the upcoming weeks. According to guards whose opinions he trusts, his counselor will probably give him even more time off and/or "good-time credits" due to his Level 1 status and good behavior.

So, with all that said, I will just say that he will be home sooner that we both anticipated. We have both agreed not to actual start calculating until he speaks to his counselor later this month. Our idea is that if the counselor deducts even more time, not that would be very exciting to calculate!