Image courtesy of Wallin and Klarich

In his final “Letter to Loretto,” CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou, who served two years in a federal prison in Loretto, Pennsylvania, wrote about all the things he would not miss in prison. He’d pled guilty to violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) in 2012 when he confirmed the name of an officer involved in the CIA’s Rendition, Detention and Interrogation (RDI) program to a reporter.

Kiriakou wrote that among other things, he certainly wouldn’t miss “staff lies;” COs who are “bullies and punks” and those who harassed his visitors; waiting for 4 days to send or receive an email from his family or attorneys because he was considered “dangerous;” fighting to get mail; and in a later letter, after he’d been released, he said that there had been “a trollish prison employee” who tried to to set him up just as he was leaving.

But one of his worst experiences was when he was actually released: dealing with the number of inane rules for those exiting from prison, so they supposedly won’t re-offend. From the day of his release on February 3 until the end of his house arrest on May 1, he couldn’t leave his house except to go to Hope Village, a halfway house, where he was supposed to be learning life skills—besides having a family, this man had a BA and an MA from George Washington University; he couldn’t leave except to seek or do work, or to visit the doctor. He wrote, “What I [also] couldn’t do was go to PTA meetings, my children’s school events, their sporting events, or enter a private home.” The rules almost cost him a job until he finally got permission to drive because commuting from his home to Hope Village took up 6 hours of his day!

Andrea James, founder and director of Families for Justice as Healing, had been a well established practicing attorney, also with a good job and a family, before her own crazy experiences kicked in behind bars. And leaving Danbury Prison where she served 24 months, was similar to Kiriakou. While behind bars, she had written her now-published book, Upper Bunkies Unite: And Other Thoughts On the Politics of Mass Incarceration. When she left the jail, she began 3 months of home confinement. She wrote in an email:

“I was denied any halfway house time although it could have brought me back to Boston and closer to my children almost 6 months sooner than later. On the day I was released from Danbury, after being handcuffed and walked through the prison to the area where you start and end your prison stay, known as R&D, I was stripped searched one last time. My one box I was leaving with that only contained my book manuscript was searched, and I was finally allowed to walk out of the front door. My family met me in the parking lot and we drove from Danbury to the McGraph Halfway House at 699 Mass Ave. in Boston. I was told that although I was denied halfway house time and was kept in Danbury for most of my sentence, I was given a few hours to get from Danbury, CT to McGraph House to check-in and arrange my schedule, including a payment schedule for the halfway house, for the next three months, as I had to report to them weekly.

After arriving however, as my family waited for me to check in and then return to the car and finally to home, I was told that I would not be allowed to leave the halfway house that day and could be held there for up to three days because the staff needed to do a home visit before I would be allowed to return home, even after being approved for home confinement by the prison and federal probation, who had already conducted a series of home visits and back ground checks on everyone in my home. My children were devastated when I had to yell to them from the doorway of the halfway house (I was not allowed to step out of the halfway house to go back to the car), that I could not yet return home with them.”

James wrote, “The rest of the story is very much like the one told in the article about home confinement, reporting weekly to a halfway house, receiving phones calls from the halfway house all hours of the day and night, everyday, even at 3am, to make sure I was in my home, peeing in a cup in front of strangers (even though I had no prior drug related issues), and constant visits to my home by federal probation, including home searches including even my children’s bedrooms.

The women who had to live in the halfway house had a much more difficult time as they were caught in a ridiculous cycle of not being allowed to leave the halfway house unless they were going to a job interview or job. Not an easy thing to arrange if you’re not allowed to leave. Most of these women had been incarcerated in far-a-way federal prisons for the past 5-10 years. None of it made any sense and was incredibly frustrating to the women. Many wanted to be returned to the prison they came from to wait for their home-confinement date as they felt they had more freedom in the prison. This of course was not allowed because most women are not approved for home-confinement. It’s really a mess and grossly ineffective and costly, mostly to the women who have to pay the halfway house for living there at the one most important time they need their money, if they manage to find employment, to find housing.”

And so it goes, our re-entry system at its finest.