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Being in prison takes away many facets of the life you grew accustom to on the outside. One of them is the ability to make your own choices. People do not realize how important that really is until it is taken away from you. I would give anything for the capability to make a simple choice like choosing where to live. Similar to every city in the world we have our good neighborhoods and our bad. Although, they are not called neighborhoods, we call them correctional facilities and since this is prison I would say we simply have bad and worse. When I returned to Clinton Correctional Facility I immediately remembered why it is considered one of the worst. Two different blood sets are having their own civil war, killing each other like it means nothing. Gang violence might be brutal on the streets but trust me it becomes ruthless in prison. I always try to keep my distance from the violence that goes on here but whether I am involved or not there is a good chance it will affect me. The guards lock-down everyone in the prison when a situation gets out of their control. At Clinton that happens all the time due to the high percentage of inmates being dumped here after getting out of the box. The box is solitary confinement, a place where a lot of the prisoners that cause trouble are placed. This has become a facility where a lot of guys run into their enemies. I am glad at this point I have only run into friends. For instance, on the bus ride back to Clinton, I saw my buddy Ray-Ray. He was shot in the leg last winter during a fight. During the ride he explained to me what happened and showed me his scar from the bullet. Apparently, he was being jumped by three people, in all this commotion a guard shot him in the leg. The most twisted part about this story is that when the guards came to break up the fight, not only did they either not know or care he was shot but they also tagged him as the aggressor. That was bad news for Ray because you never want to get on the Correction Officer's bad side. Sounds like a hell of a day, doesn’t it? Well that’s just another day on the inside. I keep reminding myself, the things that don’t break us make us stronger…….if they don’t kill us first.
-Written by John Charles Giuca