T-Bone- Radiating power and strength, this deeply-spiritual massively-built African-American towers over most inmates. He is a prison gladiatorwith more stab wounds than Julius Caesar.A good man to have on your side.
Peace my Brother,
This letter is being written by someone else. I’m dictating it to him. Everything is fine besides the fact that I miss my beautiful wife and you my good friend. I didn’t receive your latest postcard because it had an airmail sticker on it, so please send me some good tidings from across the pond, my brother. How is your niece? I’m praying for her right now.
I’ve often dreamt of speaking in front of students there because it’s more than just a serious responsibility, it’s an honor, and a privilege that not many people have. I can’t wait to be standing with you, brother, and doing what I believe I’ve been called to do.
Please say Hi to all of the students in the T-Bone Appreciation Society. Give them my respect and heartfelt thanks for their prayers and hopes for me. Please share with them that I will be there, and I will speak nothing but the truth about my life and how drugs and a life on the street have caused nothing but pain and destruction, and to say the least, heartache.
The next time, I will help people who are on drugs instead of allowing temptation to control me or problems that we use to make excuses to go to do wrong. It’s the same way all around the world, so what we need to do is help people by telling them the truth about drugs and drug addiction. Man, do I have some things to say, and I will with you and as many people I can in my life.
I love you brother, so please stay strong and positive. Give my respects to your lovely family.
Each one. Teach one.
Steel embrace.
Strength and Honor
Hi Shaun, my name is Janet. I watched your episode of Locked-Up Abroadand I felt compelled to write you. I have had personal experience with Maricopa's prison system as my ex-husband, David, has been working there for 10 years. He worked there while we were married, and I was integrated into the social aspect of the lives of Detention Officers. I have horrific tails of human rights violations that have haunted me for years. There are thousands upon thousands who have suffered under Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s reign.
I lived in Phoenix for several years. David and I had a little apartment near Durango where he worked the morning shift. I was integrated into a world of severe meatheads and idiot guards. It was always amazing to me the kinds of people that were passed through the academy process. But the guards referred to each other as family, and so these people became my relatives.
My husband was a particularly violent man. He was only 22, but already a monster. I feared him with all my being, but oddly still loved him and wanted only to please him and earn his approval. I guess that's the typical behavior of a battered wife. But the further he worked for Joe Arpaio, the further he continued to change.
After having worked there for maybe 6 months or so, he came home one day with blood on his boots. Like most guards, he was very particular and protective over that "glassy mirror shine" created when a person spent the time and energy into perfecting their appearance, which they believed maximized their authority over the inmates. I was in shock! When he told me what happened, he focused on the fact that there was now blood on his boots, instead of focusing on the fact of how it got there in the first place.
There was an inmate at this facility that the guards all called "Plums." It was unusual for any kind of playful nickname to be used on any inmate, and so I mistakenly took it to mean that they were friendly with him. My husband would come home all the time laughing about something Plums had said or done. I took it to mean that he though Plums was a funny fun guy... I didn’t realize till later that he was just mocking him.
Apparently that day while David was doing his rounds, Plums thought it would be funny to pull a prank on him. Plums had failed to realize that there are no real friends between inmate and officer, and he was about to cross the line. Plums hid in his cell under his bunk. As my ex-husband entered the cell to take a quick look around, Plums sprang out and grabbed his leg. My husband had told me what happened next was just a natural reaction, but I don’t believe kicking an inmate in the face several times is any kind of natural reaction. David was a strong man. He was small, but strong. He kicked Plums several times in the face while he lay on the ground. When I asked David how he could ever do that to a friend, he laughed and told me "He's not a friend! He's an inmate!!... AND he got blood on my boots!" The rest of the night he focused on erasing the blood off his boot, while Plums lay in the hospital with a broken nose.
It was the start of my realization on how horrible the jails were, and how evil Joe Arpaio really is.
As I watched your story last night I cried. I have repressed that life for a long time now and your story brought those years back. I haven't thought about my life with all the guards in a long long time! If you want to post this story it would be a real release for me. These incidents have haunting me for too long!
Video of a guard
stepping on the neck of an unsentenced inmate who is cuffed, restrained and
even has a hood over his head in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's jail:
You
came to speak at my school a while ago now and I have been meaning to thank you
ever since.
People
come into schools and speak about drugs, sex and danger on a regular basis, yet
the most these presentations amount to are jokes dotted throughout the week
about how people do all of the above anyway before the talk is completely
forgotten. Your account of your time in prison was the first that I'd seen to
really and truly touch every person in that room. You didn't tell us to never
look at drugs, to report anyone who had the slightest knowledge of narcotics or
to stick to every guideline we've ever been given. As a teenager I can well and
truly say that this wouldn't have and continues not to have any effect
whatsoever on the well-being or common sense of my classmates.
The
way you delivered your speech inspired me. The facts were clear but the humour
was prominent, keeping us all on the edge of our seats. You taught me that
after a high there often comes a low, and however hard and rock-bottom that low
may feel, determination and perseverance can always amend things in the end. I
learnt about the hardships in jail, and what happens if you come head-to-head
with the law; but on top of that there are so many more things that will always
stay with me from your talk: The importance of family, the dissolution of
dreams that may well result in something better, and yes, how to get my
priorities straight. I'm sure you receive countless emails daily remarking on
what an awe-inspiring man you are and what a change you make - but I felt that
it would only be fair to give back even the tiniest bit of what you have given
to me in a talk over a year ago.
Thank
you so much,
Keep
inspiring,
Grace
Beverley, Francis Holland School, London
My
response:
Grace,
That's one of the nicest emails I've ever received. I'm sat here eating cheese
on toast with a BIG SMILE ON MY FACE. Thanks so much for taking the time
to express yourself so eloquently!
Video of a schizophrenic prisoner being murdered by guards in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's jail. His crime was allegedly yelling at a woman in a car park. What a sad waste of life.
A big thank you to over 100 people who showed up last night in my hometown Widnes to watch Banged-Up Abroad 'Raving Arizona' and for the hometown Party Time launch. I really appreciated all of the questions after the episode, and the fantastic atmosphere. My mum and dad really enjoyed it too. The southern event is May 26th in Guildford. Click here for further info.
This is an excerpt
from letter I wrote to my prisoner friend Jack on 27 April 2013:
The
Locked-Up Abroad episode premiered three days ago in the US to almost 10
million viewers at 2am UK time. I awoke to 500 emails/messages from American’s
outraged at Arpaio, the jail conditions and human rights violations. People
showed strong support for my family and activism. Since then, the
emails/messages have risen to over 1000, and Jon’s Jail Journal’s hits have
surged by 20,000. All of my social media pages have been flooded. On Thursday,
I couldn’t blink without an email coming in. Many people expressed their own
pain and suffering, detailing horrific things that happened at the hands of the
US justice system.
I
realise now that everything I’ve been doing around Jon’s Jail Journal for the
past 10 years was leading up to this moment. It’s as if the trauma on US
society caused by injustice, corruption and state-sanctioned violence opened up
to me. I’m responding to every message, trying to give back some of my own
positive energy. Adrenalin kept me going through the nights. At some points, I
was typing so fast and focussed, I went hours before I noticed my shoulders had
frozen. I had to stop to stretch for a few minutes to shake the numbness off.
Thanks to social media, I was able to alert thousands of people toa petition to recall Arpaio.Even some Arpaio supporters emailed that the episode had
changed their minds about him. I’ve only received four death threats from
Arpaio loyalists, which isn’t bad out of over 1000 messages, almost universal
support.
I had no idea which parts of the episode the director, Harry Hewland,
had selected. I’m thankful to him for including the activism. His decision to
flash Jon’s Jail Journal on the screen contributed to the deluge of correspondence.
When Hard Timewas published in America at the same time Osama bin Laden was
killed, I lost my news coverage, the book didn’t sell, and I felt the
realisation of the dream of exposing Arpaio slipping away. None of that matters
now.
The
activism doesn’t stop here. Arpaio is still in power, and there’s work to be
done. The episode has planted a seed in the US conscience that evil things are
going on in his jail system. The episode posted a statistic on the screen: 62
inmates died in Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s jails from 2003-2007. Arpaio is motivated
by power and money. Look where he gets his political contributions: the prison
industries. His jail is a conveyor belt feeding the prison system human beings
reduced to commodities – the prison gets $50,000 per year of taxpayers’ money
per prisoner. Most of them are non-violent drug offenders. Many are mentally
ill. Vulnerable people who get no education or rehabilitation because the
prison wants them to come right back to keep the money rolling in. As shown in
the emails, this corrupt system is traumatising American society to its core.
With 1 in 100 adults in prison, every family in America has or knows someone in
prison, unless of course they’re politically connected or wealthy enough to
bribe the system.
Exposing Arpaio continues. Over the next six months, the
episode is being televised to over 50 million viewers in 36 countries, ranging
from India to all of Europe. I’ve finally realised the dream I set 10 years ago
when I first picked up that golf pencil in the maximum-security Madison Street
jail, hoping to show the world what really goes on in there.
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