By Joshua Ryan
On the train that night, I noticed a billboard beside the track, just before my stop. I’d never looked at it before. It showed a guy’s butt and the lower part of his back. The guy was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, and his wrists were cuffed together behind his butt. There was a tough-looking hand gripping one of his arms. The billboard said: “COMMIT A CRIME, DO PRISON TIME. LOTS OF TIME.” I think it had been there for a while, but like I say, I’d never noticed it. I liked the guy in the jeans, though.
As soon as I got home, I went on the net. I knew there would be a Department of Corrections website. Every state agency has a website. I wanted to find out more about the Durant Unit. And I did.
The DOC home page had a “Mission Statement,” which I didn’t read, and a picture of “Anthony B. Michaelis, Director,” which looked pretty dorky, and a long rap about Mr. Michaelis’s “Recent Activities.” I didn’t read much of that, either. The activities consisted mainly of opening new correctional units “due to the enormous success of the Turn Em In Program, and the Universal Penal Reform Act of 2014.” There were links to “The Program” and “The Act and Its Aftermath,” but those pages looked really boring, and I went back to the rap on the home page. Near the end, it mentioned the Director’s success in “facilitating the rehabilitation of superannuated units,” which apparently meant reopening old prisons. The last one mentioned was “the Southern Regional Longterm Correctional Facility (SRLCF), formerly Durant State Penitentiary.” There was a link, and I clicked on it.
