Historic Retrospective: Zone(s) Defense(s): Many, many years ago, long, long ago, 21202 (the major part of Baltimore) was the only zipcode I had to worry about. Then I discovered 20794 (Jessup) and its myriad P.O. Box assortment starting at 534 and continuing through 700. Obviously, my mailing list was growing. Then to my wondering eyes appeared 21746 (Hagerstown) - Split three ways! It is trying that 21890 (Eastern) - where the "zip nines" confound in a dizzying and unfathomable array between East and West, and 21505 (Cumberland - nonetheless in communication with the rest of the Western hemisphere) has been appending itself lately to more and more return addresses. The U.S. Postal Service has been very cooperative with its forwarding and forwarding order expired policies.

Mission Statement: To promote the well being of prisoners in Maryland and, to a limited extent, those released from prison, being mindful of the causes and prevention of crime and ultimately enabling prisoners and ex-prisoners to attain success in their lives.

Standard Disclaimer: The following newsletter may contain editorial content including but not limited to parody, satire, allegory and all out put on. Keep in mind, however, that reality is honored throughout.

Were it not for all that background at the University of Pennsylvania: I might never have made untoward comments about the University of Maryland Department of Criminology. Imagining further: I might have (God forbid) found myself a loan counselor or collections agent for NationsBank evincing little or no viable free-will or mind-drive whatsoever. As it is, I'm much happier expending 32 stamps on ex-residents of the Maryland Penitentiary lodged (more or less) successfully at WCI, MHC and MHC Annex.

Larry Cockell, secret, confidential and undercover lead bodyguard for the United States Secret Service, featured prominently recently in the Washington Post, New York Times, plus Time, Newsweek and George magazines, not to mention CNN, AP, UPI, ABC, CBS, NBC and the Fox network, went before a closed-door super-clandestine grand jury hearing in Baltimore City only hours ago. A whole lot of sources, sworn to secrecy, reveal that during the ordeal, Larry stated that he had never been in Maryland, didn't know anyone from Maryland, and if there were any screw-ups in the Maryland Division of Correction, he didn't know about them and he had nothing to do with them.

People with TTY got the full-text within seconds people needing Braille, Sanscrit or Urdu translations experienced up to 20-minute delays. Larry went on to say (somewhat ambiguously) that the names "Hagerstown", "Westover", "Jessup", "Cresaptown" and "Cumberland" did not ring the slightest bell with him. Observing the beads of sweat forming on Larry's forehead, the prosecutor undertook intense questioning: Larry further stated he had no knowledge of anyone going by the name of Monica, Linda, Hilary or, for that matter, Tanya, lurking near or utilizing elevator banks anywhere along Reisterstown Road or anywhere in the 21215 zipcode.

Upon cross-examination, Larry also threw in the 21204 zipcode (Towson) and 21201 zipcode (my house and the federal courthouse most applicable to the State of Maryland among other things).

Larry did say, in passing, "around the office", he had heard about a mysterious woman known only as "Nancy" who, in collusion with the Pitney Bowes Corporation and the U.S. Postal Service, has been causing a great deal of consternation not only in 21215, but 21204 and 21401 (Annapolis) besides. Despite intense prosecutorial grilling, Larry was unable to furnish any additional details about the mysterious, legendary "Lady with the Meter" only to say she "packed a punch" - "hither and yon".

Larry's legal bills for the episode climbed a little bit past $84,869.75 (enough to support four guys in medium security for a year plus change) without accounting for photocopies (15 cents apiece) and phone bills (some of them collect from AT&T and some of them collect from Bell Atlantic all of them outrageous).

Larry later announced that, at his advanced age of 47, he has had to postpone retirement in view(s) of event(s), and he is looking for another job (hopefully) in less of the limelight (and legal fees) that has taken him into so many prosecutorial pickles across so many federal, state, and local lines.

Sharpen those toothbrushes DOC Headquarters is on the prowl! You cannot braid those Stroeman's bread wrappers into garrottes You cannot sharpen those toothbrushes (fine, medium or hard bristles) into stilettos. DOC Headquarters is going to get you for sure!

Follies and Foibles: Have you ever noticed that the Internet email you send to corporations headquartered in Tokyo, Japan has to be phrased somewhat differently from email going to Sunnyvale, California; Medford, Oregon; Orem, Utah; or Munich, (West) Germany? English speakers all, sometimes it takes an ethnic "spin" for that email to "hit the spot".

Commission on Criminal Sentencing Policy: 18 stamps a hit!!! Check out the CCSP website: www.gov.state.md.us/sentencing and click where you are most likely to find insight!!!

One for the old timers: You can tell the weather is really bad when: You open the door to let the dogs out, it seems a little blustery, and someone in the next yard is screaming "Auntie Em!" "Auntie EM!!!"

Introducing: The new "Brains Along The Way" (batw) program, specially developed for the Maryland Department of Public Safety: Major Themes: Cogitating by 16, thinking by 21, S-together by 40, inspired even after 50, well resting by mandatory retirement. No matter if it's putting two and two together or grasping the concept of one-to-one correspondence, it is the goal of this newsletter to make all of these a reality.

The list of foreign barbarians floating into the new millennium (NationsBank, Crestar, First Union) omitted Chase, Citibank, BankAmerica and SunTrust for the sole reason that none of these has yet been able to establish more than a beachhead in Maryland while at the same time they are all planning and hoping to execute full-scale invasions. Expect some or all of them infiltrating your neighborhood and your (miserable) life soon. It still behooves you to brush up on your spelling, grammar and punctuation skills before inscribing hold-up notes at any of these establishments.

"Plugged Into": News You Can Use

Culinary Treasures from the Division of Correction: You can bet none of the following selections came out of Julia Child or Martha Stewart:

Aftercare Alert: Philosophic quandaries you run into when you allow a jailbaby into your home: "It is not the man's job to see that the lid is down. It is the woman's job to put the lid down if it needs to be down and has to be down." Thus characterizes the relationships I've been able to achieve with persons having more than enough DOC experience prior to the transition phase between incarceration and freedom. You can see how racially heated things can become. Another fundamental tenet: "Black men don't take pennies but will roll them if push comes to shove and they have an authentic bank-recognizable penny wrapper handy."

If you were forced into a double-celling situation for a long period of time, which of the following is the LAST guy you should be FORCED to live with: 1) George Washington; 2) Thomas Jefferson; 5) Abraham Lincoln; 10) Alexander Hamilton; 20) Andrew Jackson; 100) Benjamin Franklin; 1,000) none of the above - never heard of any of them.

Would your mother have had you if she had the choice between birth control or abortion? Why don't we canvas Central Booking intake to see what answers we come up with?

Hands-On Research in Action: Desperate to explain the extent of incarceration in Maryland, DPSCS paid a guy with a 35mm camera to hang out the back of a helicopter and take snapshots from that vantage point of prisons 2,000 feet up in all five regions. The guy came back with "good stuff" from the three joints in Hagerstown, both east and west sides of ECI and all the six buildings plus new construction in Cumberland, but he had to make a return trip to Baltimore where the various components of the Division of Pre-Trial Detention Services and minimum, maximum, super-maximum and Diagnostic portions of DOC (totally separate entities) tended to appear in the same shot. Jessup was interesting, too, and the guy took a number of passes as well as more than a few rolls of film there, too. Even though the helicopter came down a few feet so as to facilitate "zeroing in" among the DPSCS divisional entities in Baltimore, the guy with the 35mm camera hanging out from the back of the helicopter couldn't quite separate the "look" of Central Booking as distinguishable from MCAC (the "Supermax"), and there remained some confusion between Diagnostic Center, BC3 and BPRU.

Both Ritz Camera and Wal-Mart are featuring "double prints" this week and DPSCS has agreed to pay for most if not all of them. Expect to have "proof" copies at $1.50 apiece in JPG format downloadable from the Internet available under the Freedom of Information Act soon. Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Diners, Optima and American Express are all what DPSCS could ever have hoped for.

EDUCATION BEAT:

Geography, spelling, coordinate geometry, multiplication tables, American history and English composition, the Education Department at MCPRJ has been cruel and unusual lately. A lot of guys have been writing into federal court to complain about the onerous burden and unfairness of it all, and expressing their indignation in an effort to get things straightened out. The MCPRJ principal steadfastly refuses to back down, has thrown in penmanship as a qualifying criterion, and has proceeded to suspend half the inmates, 2/3s the custody staff, most of the case managers, the assistant warden, the commissary manager and the entire mailroom. Advisories went out on the warden, all three shift commanders and Psychology. The School Board from the Department of Education has been called in to forestall further eruptions of dissent and to coordinate all positions of all parties. Compromise positions will be seen hopefully soon. Getting back to normalcy at MCPRJ is expected to be tenuous at best. The principal is not expected to be mollified or to concede on the multiplication tables / penmanship fronts but may be induced to give a little when it comes to American history.

Northern High School Work Release Unit (NHSWRU): The Baltimore City School System, constantly seeking more and creative ways to raise pin money for band uniforms and textbooks for the senior English honors program, has entered into an agreement with the Department of Public Safety to house and cause to feed persons either on the way out of DOC or inextricably caught up in the DSPCS' celebrated Drunken Driver Monitoring Program (DDMP). The School System's financial advisors, attempting to bind up every loose end, realized that a lot of empty space and downtime from 5:00p Fridays to 8:00a Mondays could be reinvested successfully into programs their communities really, really wanted and really, really needed.

For this reason, the gymnasium, certain classrooms and the cafeteria and kitchen of Northern High School were contracted out to DPSCS as a Work Release Unit (weekends only) with profitable results. Once the program was implemented, favorable comments from participants abounded: "Beats hell out of the flats at MHC." "Makes JPRU look like Amtrak the Sunday after Thanksgiving." "Only one TV in the whole place. Nothing like the Huts at MCIH." "That's the last time I go through a red light with a suspended license."

It is apparent to all concerned that NHSWRU can and does meet all those correctional objectives the community and DPSCS strive for while at the same time helping to finance those educational objectives sorely out-of-sync in modern urban school systems primarily occupied with illiteracy, drugs, teenage pregnancy, HIV and crime.

Fed up having to teach freshman Physics and Math, fed up having to live in substandard on-campus graduate housing, and frustrated by not being able to get jobs in the American private sector because of their lack of English language skills, a coalition of Indian, Pakistani, Israeli, Iraqi and North Korean graduate students from some of America's top research universities has officially established the "Correctional Demolitions Corporation of America, Ltd." (colloquially, "CDC").

CDC's "mission" is to eliminate the problems and concerns engendered by America's largest and most famous correctional facilities. For a fee (most worth it), CDC arranges a small but well-coordinated nuclear explosion on the site of any correctional facility for which their $1.5 million fee has been paid in advance.

The (federal) General Accounting Office (GAO) has already approved CDC activities at Marion, Illinois, Pelican Bay, California and Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. What went wrong at Central Booking Baltimore was that City Council was "lacking in authority" and "didn't have the $1.5 million to begin with and probably never will".

A "compromise" deal involving CBF, BCDC, MCAC, BPRU, BCCC and Diagnostic [aka MRDCC] (Eager to Madison, Fallsway to Greenmount Baltimore City) for $2.8 million is in the works and is being scrutinized carefully by the Department of Budget and Management and the Comptroller's Office in Annapolis.

Some of the negotiations revolve around the fact that nary an ounce of concrete from the Jones Falls Expressway and nary a single health insurance transaction applicable to Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, East Baltimore, should be affected.

The grad students' fee is not unreasonable considering the 2.2 kilograms (vis á vis the metric system) of enriched uranium and/or plutonium that has to be accessed on the world market for each "problem prison situation" addressed.

The grad students are thrilled at last to be out of student loan debt and are looking forward to receiving their officially registered green cards soon so they can earn money legally and stay in the United States instead of where they came from indefinitely.

Eschatology and DPSCS: Afterlife(s), death attitudes and Maryland's doomsday budget: Due to the profound ambivalence created because some people have a lack of faith that certain miscreants, upon entering the afterlife, will not be classified as appropriately as warranted or desirable (vis á vis heaven, hell and/or purgatory), because other members of the citizenry believe that there is no such a thing as an afterlife (thus act now and unto earthly demise because that is all there is so what the hell, make the most of it), and/or because yet other citizens proceed on the assumption that the afterlife is open to some but not all (and certain types of miscreants ought definitely be excluded at the front end if not by the back end), the State of Maryland, in its collectively compromising wisdom, has arrived to a point where an elaborate system of incarceration, including but not limited to (earthly) mandatory sentencing (e.g., "three time loser"), and (alphabet) sentences (life, life without parole and death), are dealt out for the most part consistently (by dint of judicial guidelines) sanctified by the courts, predicated by both executive and legislative branches, and accepted if not understood by major segments of the populace.

In the public interest, the Baltimore Sunpaper has instituted its policy to print mug shots of "incoming" incarcerees with the "price per year at DOC" in a (centered) caption, while in the text of their articles, the cost of the sentence turns up, extrapolated to the life expectancy of the individual at issue, adjusted for inflation, appearing somewhere in an inside page.

Sentencing judges everywhere have condemned these policies and they insist they were never told when they took the job they would have to apply math, accounting and/or budget-considerations. As far as they were concerned, "justice" was the only concept driving them, but, looking at the word as a noun, "justice" varied considerably among plaintiff(s), defendant(s) and Bar(s).

Sentenced offenders found that not only the victims, not only the general public, not only the judges, but organizations such as "CPAs Anonymous" and anybody and everybody with access to a calculator or computer spreadsheet ALSO hated them. This has definitely encouraged feelings of remorse and regret well into the person's second year of discovering the joys of living in DOC but, as is expected, still tends to fade by the fifth or the twelfth year of incarceration.

Fatherhood medium style: You've been in maximum or medium security for as long as you remember. You got her mother pregnant before you got picked up the last time - she then came up with a live birth (i.e., baby) after you got sentenced for that (forgettable) incident. Depending on your sentence (15+ pending aggravating and mitigating circumstances) - the baby that is half yours (DNA positive) fifteen years later is having a baby of her own.

Now that you have been cut loose 15 years later - now that you can see and visit with your "daughter" for the first time - you find that, without qualification, your "daughter" is surely stupid, ignorant, selfish, bigoted and she could care a crap whether you live or die. Your "daughter" evinces nothing in terms of character or integrity, and comes up zero in terms of moral turpitude. In fact, you can't even pronounce much less remember the name of her baby, your grandchild. The name sounds something ethnically applicable but you cannot pronounce it and your "daughter" is not even sure or cannot definitely identify the guy who planted the baby in the first place.

Your "daughter" is basically interested only in the consumer goods you can give her, and the original "mother" (aka "grandmother") you had sex with and knocked up way back when wants to shake you down for as much as she (and they) can get.

Is all this worth standing in line at Central Booking on visitors' day? Are these the type of people you want to give packages to? If you have ever donated semen to one cause or another, is this one going to determine the course of the rest of your life? If a person does get kind of profligate with regard to sexual excesses, at what point and in how many generation(s) does liability stop? Certainly Medicare, Medicaid, Public Assistance, Social Security Disability and Section 8 eligibility have to kick in somewhere.

Did he get to first base? Did he steal second? Did he stay safe at third, or did he go "all the way" to a home run? (Maybe he was even aiming at a "grand slam"!)

Attorneys and journalists with the highest hourly billing rates in the country are working hard chasing down the answer(s). The guy they are chasing has his fingers on the buttons of 2/3s the nuclear arsenal on the planet and has his thumbs in a lot of major, major budgetary "pies" including but not limited to Social Security and Medicare. Not to mention, "stuff" has a tendency to "go down" in the Persian Gulf among a lot of other places and has a pattern of repeating itself in a variety of hemispheres if not planetary quadrants.

The legal fees and journalist time sheets engendered by the "base making" of the situation out-gross the gross national products (GNPs) of 1/3 the nations on earth, including: South Africa, Bolivia and Peru (excluding off-books marijuana proceeds), Angola, Congo, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda (combined), the former Soviet Union (accounting for depreciation), Estonia, Siberia and Ukraine (single-book system only), Singapore and Indonesia (disregarding stock market crash[es]), and the United Republic of Yugoslavia (consolidated).

A lot of "thinking caps" have gone awry muddling upon possible outcomes around the ballpark. For this we are going to suspend activities in the United State Senate for as long as it takes? For this, all major news networks and print media are holding open their lead stories? For sure, there is a difference between Allentown and Lewisburg, and community service can be done at any time by anyone. Why not wait until the guy goes back to the peace, serenity and justiciability of Little Rock, Arkansas before we put it to him his U.S. Presidential inter-gender peccadillos?

"Meet the Press", the popular Sunday morning "talking-heads show", has had to start off with an opening screen that says, "Parental Discretion Advised". Shooting through the ceiling, the Nielsen ratings on "Meet the Press" have never been better. As it stands, the 2nd base/3rd base contingent is now slightly outnumbering the 3rds and the home runs. "Grand Slams" are outside the scope of this inquiry.

Caught at last, the person of concern testified that he did NOT commit perverted practices - only SHE was the one who committed perverted practices. He did admit, finally, however, that "practices" were in fact committed even though they were wrong and he regretted them.

The assembled press corps (majority male) have now developed their own tendencies to stay away from uncivil, sexually-litigious women who might trigger grand jury investigations for themselves in the future.

"Meet the Press" advertisers are not limiting themselves to the humanitarian Archer Daniels Midland or McDonnell Douglas corporations. Now signing on are the Pizza Hut and Mountain Dew subsidiaries of PepsiCo, along with the dueling Nike and Reebok footwear companies. FingerHut, Columbia House, Virgin Airways, NeXT Computer, Tyco Toys, Sharp Electronics, the U.S. Postal Service and the Partnership for a Drug Free America are finding themselves now in line to sign ad contracts.

"Meet the Press" has finally found its optimum "ratings niche".

Federal Report Continued: ADA follies: Not too long ago, the Americans with Disabilities Act was extended to the prisons by the U.S. Supreme Court. MCPRJ, as the first handicap accessible Maryland prison, felt the fallout first: The warden declared that a huge sign with the schematic of a wheelchair be posted along the access road being shared by JPRU, BBCF and MCIW in order to tell them apart easily. Next, handrails were installed everywhere, including commissary, finance, the administration unit and the gym. Braille inscriptions were carefully inscribed next to every section, every tier and every cell (when applicable). The razor ribbons so popular everywhere in the Jessup region were limited from seven layers to three at great savings from the capital budget.

What all this means is that all the guys blind (e.g., forgers) or paraplegic (e.g., cat burglars) can still live and work comfortably and successfully within the DOC MCPRJ framework, custody costs only a mere 25% higher than any other Maryland prison, jail, detention center or lockup without accounting for the heart, liver, cornea or kidney transplants that tend to need to occur from time to time.

DOC, sensing that it is finding itself not covering all ADA bases, continues to investigate and explore how they are going to handle the deaf, the diabetic, the incontinent and other ADA-qualifiable individuals not fitting into the MCPRJ "vision".

Starting at "Death Row" (i.e., C-pod at MCAC, the "Supermax"), DOC admitted that they really didn't know what they were doing and the COMARs and teachings from the appeals' courts weren't all that helpful even though they had to be treated with the same effective status as "directives".

Rest assured that the blind, paraplegic, deaf, and incontinent (among others) are getting the utmost in terms of ADA when they never did before. In addition, everyone over at C-pod is still on schedule for their respective demise(s), not a day lost nor too many more pennies squandered.

The federal government, meddling again and again with the liberties and freedoms enjoyed by the American populace, has not only criminalized Internet child pornography but has put a significant kabosh on Internet gambling. No longer will anyone be able to plunk down a gold or platinum credit card number and spin into a hyperspace roulette wheel, throw hyperspace dice, or be dealt from a hyperspace deck. The fed's ban on gambling over the Internet has even come down on the University of Pennsylvania (where any species of ivy has been dead since 1962), and has forced U of P to "pull the plug" on its ongoing 24-7 Mah Jongg tournaments, even while preparations for championship rounds were in the offing. There were a lot of gripes along the lines of "academic freedom", "academic self-determination" and "excellence as determinant" at first, but it was soon realized Mah Jongg had about the same relevance on the Internet as "Super Club Casino dot Com" or "SVGA Blackjack dot Org". U of P is now running "pin the tail on" challenges regarding first- vs. fourth-year financial aid packages, having by the loss of Mah Jongg, lost the allegiance of major segments of its alumna as well as a plethora of boosters, bankrollers and sponsors.

Still basking in the glory of the Taco Bell campaign, and taking a vacation from the earthquake- and stock exchange-prone Far East, Godzilla happened upon the well-known prison complex limited only by I83 north, the Greenmount "Crime Corridor", and neighborhoods south of Monument and north of Eager refusing to accede to threats of eminent domain.

Squatting one way, Godzilla caused certain flooding and electrical interruptions at BCCC. Squatting another way, Godzilla effectively called a halt to outdoor activities at BPRU. Just prior to settling down to a nap in the yard at the Penitentiary (recently rebaptized "Metropolitan Services Center"), Godzilla flicked his tail just enough such that all gas, electric and water service to the Diagnostic Center to the north were cut off.

The management decision at that point was to send all even-numbered Diagnostic people to the foyer at MCAC ("Supermax") for further classification and housing assignments  no 7-day waiting period or suicide watch. All odd-numbered Diagnostic residents were ferried into first-floor holding tanks ("bullpens") of the BCDC Jail Industries Building, hopefully, where under(?)populated dormitories would await them.

Waking up with the Penitentiary A-block and the former Southwing around him, Godzilla proceeded to discover hundreds of people waiting in vain, hours at a time, outside BCDC on Eager Street bearing packages of BVDs, Little Debbies and authorized outerwear (i.e., pants and shirts). Godzilla then proceeded to destroy the BCDC reception post even while representatives of "Lizard Lady Bail Bonds, P.A." and "Sherman, Nuttes & Pinkett Attorneys-at-Law" had yet to exhaust their supply of business cards. Uniformed BCDC personnel were cast onto the JFX Expressway with a great amount of alacrity and zest. Non-uniformed personnel were given vouchers for time off and time and a half for their time and trouble.

The Washington Post correspondent, sent on special assignment, used his pre-paid calling card to call "WP" Headquarters. The conversation proceeded thusly: "What the f--k am I supposed to be doing up here?" "I want to get the next plane out, quick!" "Why does it always have to be British Airways and not U.S. Airways or the Trump Shuttle?" "In exactly 38 minutes, I'm arriving at Washington-National your and not my American-Express card is going to be on the line this time!!!"

Spraying what he could onto the Madison Street entrance of Central Booking, Godzilla decided he had had it with the Baltimore portion of the Department of Public Safety and the Division of Correction. All the wardens, the Commissioner of Pre-Trial and Detention Services, and Facility Managers within the E-M/F-G corridor breathed a sigh of relief but reported later they had seen worse crises in their correctional careers and were expecting to see more. Downtown, judges of the Circuit Court, following events by cell phone and ham radio, expressed much the same sentiment. Summing it up, none of them could cite any particular DCD or statute addressing this particular situation or chain of events although it was said to be foretold in DCD 487g-II-(7)-J(ix)(18f through ad) (July 17, 1993 edition) that giant lizards sometimes do happen to State prisons, detention centers and jails or lockup systems. For the future, the message is: Forewarned is forearmed.

Godzilla finally figured that the 21204 zipcode, inclusive of DPSCS Towson, was the place to be and the place to squat in different positions in the future. Godzilla then headed north following the signs posted along I83 north expecting to run into his quest.

By the time Godzilla got to Towson, it was with great DNA-testing proof accuracy discovered that Godzilla was not a boy, but a GIRL!! This fact tends to influence which way and when he (or she) squats.

Police officers at either end and along the JFX found themselves having a tough time contending with the "fill-in-the-blanks" portions of the required multi-part forms affixed to the metal clipboards supplied with their squad cars. Under the circumstances, a number of them discovered "creative writing" skills never before realized (or admitted) applicable to the narrative sections.

Insurance companies, following Godzilla's every step closely, further revised the exclusion clauses of their policies to cope with any and all contingencies and to circumvent the possibility of any and all payout(s). All in all, this was definitely the most exciting thing to happen to the industry since Three Mile Island!!! In fact, a coalition of the industry's best quickly set up a competition of who could write the best exclusion clause and they established a tournament and award ceremony (date, time and place to be announced) where the "winner" would receive an official Godzilla T-shirt, keychain and coffee mug as well as a certificate, with the winner's own personal name filled in, fit for framing. Insurance company employees everywhere eagerly leapt to the challenge.

Insurance policyholders might find that some degree(s) of liability and some amount(s) of indemnification may or may not apply when and if gigantic ambisexual lizards run rampant over the exclusions portion of their policies and choose not to tread lightly on lunchrooms, parking lots, backyards or offices, upstairs or downstairs.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield in particular, carefully analyzing what was going on, deemed that Godzilla, AND any related cold-blooded (or for that matter) warm-blooded creature, was pre-existing. Over on top of that, Godzilla and related creatures hadn't been disclosed on any sign-up forms so therefore any claim relating to this fact situation could not be entertained. The BCBS computer subsequently ran out of paper churning out zero-payout Explanation of Benefits forms. Using zipcode targeting, BCBS avoided the extant 32 per U.S. Postal Service piece rate and the EOBs got to where they were going for the discounted (pre-sorted) non-profit 25.9 instead.

The Johns Hopkins, GBMC and Sheppard Pratt hospitals, finding themselves on the debit side of a financial lurch, retaliated by shorting out the computers in their emergency rooms and assigning first-year interns to practice their form-filling skills and trying their "best shots" at diagnosis and treatment. People flashing Blue Cross and/or Medical Assistance cards were ushered in first even though most of them had a long history of "stiffing" hospitals and all other healthcare providers in the past. People with platinum HMOs were tended to next, and people without wallets of any kind were referred to the respective billing departments for application for credit prior to diagnosis, lab tests, x-ray, MRI, CAT scan and/or treatment.

The billing departments mobilized each and every clerical worker to turn out dunning letters containing words like "responsibility" and "obligation" preceded with words like "irrevocable" and "incontestable". It was seen as a good idea that anyone desperate and/or in pain signed legally-binding Confessions of Judgment without caring that all other fill-in blanks were blank at the time.

Next stopover: The 21215 zipcode and Reisterstown Road. Notice that Godzilla likes to shop at Caldor's and explore upper floors without inhibition.

The Taco Bell doggie, speaking off the record, has been quoted: "Next time I'll have to pick a better prison system." and, "Hasta la vista Maryland."

Future Shock: Assistant Attorney General Richard Rosenblatt (who has a face only a mother could love and was the prime moving force behind the Prisoner Litigation Act in 1997 and has been featured prominently in this newsletter before) is not really gone and should not be forgotten. Rosenblatt is busily coming up with more inept and dysfunctional legislation guaranteed to less than wow! the 1999, 2000 and succeeding legislatures after that. The Legislative Drafting guys are already sharpening their pencils and activating their grammar checkers in anticipation of Rosenblatt's latest onslaughts. The Legislative Computer Information people are poised and ready with one-keystroke macros which will wipe any Rosenblatt material off the Internet at the simultaneous touch of a couple of buttons upon cue of any appropriate, legally-empowered legislative committee. Judiciary and Judicial Proceedings have learned to know one when they see one, and pass it over to the opposite chamber when it seems a good idea. Both of them know when enough is enough so why not hit the UNF button when the timing is right.

This newsletter is committed to cover any and all significant happenings, especially when they take a nosedive in a positive direction. Look for more and more cogent updates in later issues.

Guys that could never make it in the Maryland Prison System:

Willie Sutton

Burt Lancaster

Teilhard de Chardin

Thomas Merton

William Jefferson Clinton

Headlines You Will Never See:

DOC discovers spell-checking

High Technology in Action: Internet tips for the uninitiated: Can't find your DNS entry? Chances are you either work for the Division of Correction or you live in the Division of Correction.

DOC Labor Relations Update: In a desperate attempt to quell high turnover and aid in the continuing recruiting struggle, DOC's personnel types canvassed existing employees for the type of "perks" most wanted. The following came out as the number one choices: Fee-free ATM machines in guardrooms, Coke, Pepsi and Virgin Cola coexisting in the same soda machines, zero co-pay on Viagra, frozen turkeys not once but twice a year, valet parking and, finally, time and a half for everybody on anybody's religious, ethnic, social or political holiday (Cinco de Mayo, Columbus Day, All Saints, All Souls, Hanukkah, Rosh Hashana, any incidence of a full moon, rice harvests and assorted fertility rites included).

Working side-by-side with DOC Personnel were the same marketing research people who had worked on the Ford Motors "Edsel" campaign as well as the guys who handled "New Coke" and invented the phrase, "the guys who brought you Pearl Harbor", hoping to boost sales of a certain "emerging technology" company in the Pacific Rim.

Meanwhile, a number of DOC employee unions have discerned that low co-pay or cost-free Viagra would be a tremendous employee benefit as well as an attractive inducement for people to sign sign-up cards with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). As you may know, Viagra can be used only in medically-prescribed settings so as to induce "Penile Moments of Erectility" ("PMEs"). Non-union people (such as Richard Rosenblatt) are having to get Viagra only by way of their wife's healthcare insurance. Several people with a history of heart disease and/or taking nitroglycerine have been known to die extremely happy but the manufacturer does not recommend this method as the best or liability-wise advisable way to go.

AFSCME was first to establish a 50% co-pay, MCEA next brought the co-pay down to 30% but then the brand-new WOWee! union (operating out of a post office box in Silver Spring) came up with a 5% co-pay, coupons against future prescriptions and contests with odds far better than the Pick 3 lottery game to win whole 6-month supplies. Unlike AFSCME and MCEA, with WOWee!, even female employees will also be eligible for the coupons and the contest.

NLRB has never seen sign-up cards come in so furiously or so fast, and the balances of powers and who influences whom are mired in shifting sands up and down DOC for the indefinite future. WOWee! is looking to coming out ahead. Insiders at DOC hope so, too.

Inter- and Intra- Departmental bickering: Update on Life and Life without Parole: DPSCS vs. DHMH: "They're not our budget-suckers, they're your budget suckers." It got kind of heated in the Senate last week. Apparently, DPSCS felt certain lifers, life without parolers, Mandatory 25s, and "big timers" (75-287 years, 20+ in) were a total waste on the State budget, but DHMH resisted any kind of coercion or arm-twisting to take them onto their budget. After a great deal of accusations as well as threats and extortiative inducements, DHMH at last agreed to take custody of the most elderly and/or disabled DPSCS residents despite their histories of having the most abhorrent fact situations from 40+ years ago out there. The transferees will be transferred to those DHMH "nursing centers" most closely within phone contact of nearest relatives.

Much to DHMH's surprise, relatives and friends actually accepted collect calls for the first time in years. Life expectancy was extended from 63 to 78 much to the dismay of DHMH. The guys have settled in, anticipating 15 extra years of sustenance, support and longevity. All the women they have ever known, except for the ones dead or dying, are willingly coming to their aid and coping even with the most exasperating visiting room policies.

SOCIETY PAGES

It was my privilege and honor to attend the awards ceremony for the Bar Association for Somerset County held at the dining area of ECI in Westover. I was not only recognized for achievement in the furtherance of prisoners everywhere, but it was noted the price of Little Debbies has stabilized at a low point virtually everywhere in Maryland. The Somerset Bar cited me not only for being a credit to my own race but on behalf of races everywhere. Not a single person in the audience wore his or her Klan robes during the special occasion. In fact, actor Sydney Poitier wired-in in to the effect that "you'll get used to it over time". Other messages received from other Hollywood celebrities cannot be quoted in a family newsletter. Next month I have an open invitation from the Cumberland Bar. I am looking forward to the chicken á la King, Salisbury steak(s) and marinated ham slices in any or all locations.

June Allyson and Florence Henderson, Oomph! girls from way back, are scheduled to make a special appearance at the gymnasium of MCIW soon. Entertainment and not fundraising is slated to be the "thrust" of the event. June will be representing the Procter & Gamble "Adult" Division and Florence is expected to extol the virtues of Polident over Efferdent. The Commissioner of Correction and all shift commanders in the Baltimore and Jessup regions are expected to be there. Everyone from the Secretary's office is hoping to make time in time. Special invitations have been extended to selected State senators and delegates as well as to prominent members of the private and non-profit sectors in a tri-county area. There are great expectations that the appearance of Ms. Allyson and Ms. Henderson will be an affair to remember.

COVER STORY: Screwed up paperwork:

I became familiar with the screwed up paperwork issue long ago at the University of Pennsylvania which had the custom of using federally-subsidized work study students and persons enrolled in otherwise utterly useless Masters programs to run the college office, in particular, performing undergraduate advising and typing up student loan agreements. Not to mention, the career advising unit, located in a much, much different building, was mainly used to meet or exceed affirmative action quotas without so much as conveying even an implication or impinging on any other U of P department or function. Nobody working at the undergraduate level was expected to do the job competently or well. The "jobs" only existed to achieve unrelated ends, and most people "on the job" could smell that, without extending a proverbial ten-foot pole, their job description was meaningless and amounted to nothing and/or little else.

From these experiences, it is possible to derive the answers to the questions: Why are 20% of the nol pros (aka "nolle prosequi") coming out of BCDC because no one in State government can find the file originating, documenting or substantiating the charge? Why are 30% of the population of BCDC with more than 12 months in are in there because their file(s) got misplaced and their data was never entered into one or more computers? Why can't the police, finding out three hours after a guy they processed through Central Booking, wasn't him (at least not this time), go direct to a State's Attorney so as to cut the guy loose without undo delay and certainly before a bail bondsman willing to extend credit has been contacted? Why does the guy have to stew in the netherworld between CBF and BCDC until a preliminary hearing six or eight weeks later (after the person's car has been impounded, his belongings set out on the street by his landlord, he loses his job and, [because he was "in" over 30 days], the Division of Pre-Trial Services has destroyed the contents of his wallet including his State ID, his only daguerreotype of his great-great-grandmother, and every telephone number that might have picked up on the phone were he to call collect) determines there isn't the slightest rationale in the world to hold him?

Let's face it: There are guys in the system with life sentences who got there only because a clerk somewhere scrambled the last two digits of their indictment number. There are guys who have done six extra months in BCDC because the social worker setting them up for a court date had handwriting such that "John Q. Public" got swapped with "John G. Public" and the computer responded on the appointed date by reporting neither of them existed. John Thanos, the (white) guy set up finally for the first Maryland execution since 1963, could never have achieved that objective were it not for a classification counselor's inexact notations in his file that were compounded by keypunch errors up and down over the rest of the line. But look at the positive side: Were it not for paperwork screw-ups at the University of Pennsylvania (where I did too much time than I care to admit), I might have been free of student loans at all times and never provoked to make untoward comments about the University of Maryland Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

NUMBEROLOGY The DOC Numbers Game

One of the good things that came from the American Civil War (1860-1865) was the establishment of a system of prison commitment numbers. Remember that the Civil War happened way before Social Security numbers, zipcodes or census tracts. It was sixty years after "Opening Day" at the Penitentiary, twenty years before the House of Correction went on-line, and fifty years before the mortgages on either structure were paid off.

Alexander Graham Bell had not yet invented the telephone for another 30 years hence there was absolutely no consciousness of 1-800 numbers or dialing "9" to "get out". In addition, nobody thought much of the difference between 212 or 202 area codes (but they were slated to find out just in time for the Great Depression in 1932). Timex, Rolex and Wittnauer existed only in the imaginations of stalwart men. The QWERTY keyboard existed only in dreams.

Odd-even visiting did not come about for another 120 years mostly because nobody in the "system" had "stumbled on" any concept whatsoever of "odd" or "even". That's why zero ("0") in some DOC facilities is considered both odd and even, making one in ten convicted persons very, very lucky. "Odds" are especially favored because months ending with "31" as a rule turn out to be consecutive with months starting with "1". "Odds" therefore get two consecutive visiting days just about every month (but decidedly not in most Aprils, Junes or Novembers). "Evens", on the other hand, end up with two days with no possibility of visit except for those Februaries (3 out of 4) not occurring in a leap year.

This entire experience only proves to show that innovation in the Maryland prison system knows no bounds and even the most elementary of arithmatic concepts can find their way into diverse elements of the criminal justice system.

On the home front: Getting out and staying out: Is garbage night on Mondays and Thursdays, or is garbage night on Tuesdays and Fridays? These lasting proofs of racial divisiveness and tensions continue to plague the West Baltimore scene. Jailbabies of varying allegiances have been found to be adaptable - whatever the decision - when presented with unfettered access to refrigerators and freezers and/or to showers and/or baths offering hot water, freebee shampoo, complexion/deodorant soap and back-scrubbing apparatus(es).

Private Parts: Pfizer, Dupont and Archer Daniels Midland: American companies veering off the proverbial American beaten track but sincerely believing in the "better living through chemistry" doctrine, have combined together to create the "ultimate" Little Debbie. All three are accompanying you at every step of the food ecstasy created by your Little Debbie experience. Every one of these totally consumer-oriented corporations is "friendly" in terms of Internet sites and 24-hour 800 numbers. All of them stand beside you, guaranteeing the vitamins and minerals ingested with every Little Debbie mouthful. Too bad all of their 800 numbers are outside the scope or reach of almost all DOC inmate phones - even collect. It is also too bad "enriched" Little Debbies are beyond the procurement policies of most DOC commissary managers.

RECOMMENDED READINGS:

So a woman in your life wants to give you money, but she doesn't want it to be frittered into Little Debbies: The following magazine subscriptions have been "tried and true" for a very long time. In order:

National Geographic (pricey at over $20)

Popular Science (midrange but chock full of "news you can use")

Reader's Digest (first year, a bargain - next year, cancel and sign on under a different name)

Outsider Observations: There are an awful lot of guys throughout the system who were born colored, became negro, felt awfully black, and became - involuntarily or not - African-American. An awful larger lot of them have since managed to sign up for Medical Assistance, tried Medicare, gone over to Medicaid, became eligible for Section 8 housing, and died with only a Social Security sou to bury them (not necessarily decently). Of course, almost all these people were picked up in adolescence, grew up to the extent possible in medium or maximum security, graduated to major felonies, were violated at least once in one way or another by State or private auspices, and had problems coping with the brave new free world again and again. All of the ones still living can recount numerous experiences in the Department of Juvenile Services, the Division of Correction, the Division of Parole & Probation, the Department of Social Services, the Department of Human Resources, and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. For some of them, there probably never was a cradle and there probably is no grave. Look for them in your neighborhood soon. They may be waiting there for you already.

Things that are not likely to happen anywhere in the Division of Correction soon:

Buddhist rock gardens set up where basketball courts used to be.

Japanese tea parties at noon and with every shift-changing daily.

Cinema (aka films, movies) chosen for artistic content.

Ant farms replacing roach farms in every cell.

Coordinate(d) geometry, algebra or calculus.

Fountains where you can throw pennies (or other solid objects) for good luck.

Phonics.

Spelling bees.

Quilting parties.

What Went Wrong (WWW):

I've had occasion recently to interview Maryland DOC alumni residing in the federal system. To a one, whether Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, Atlanta, Georgia or Memphis, Tennessee, they cited the following reasons for their capture and federal incarceration:

The getaway car needed a tune-up and/or lube job. Some of them also cited a need to put gas in the tank in advance.

The holdup note contained numerous spelling, grammar and/or syntax errors not helped by a total lack of penmanship.

The person charged with the responsibility of requesting (involuntary) transfer of coin or currency did not make eye contact with the bank employee(s) while the event was progressing.

The federal judge erred to the extent that he didn't "buy" the argument that the guns "weren't loaded".

In the planning stages, the guys "in on" the event failed to comprehend the difference between state and federal chartering. The latter condition tends to have WIDE implications with regard to potential visitors willing to show up in far-away federally-ingenuitied prisons despite the accuseds' passionate urging and prominent featuring on the accused's(s') visiting list(s).

All in all, because the interviewees failed to notice any FDIC sticker (they might have been too, too accustomed to MSSIC), their main goal in life from now and hereafter will be to get a transfer either to Madison, Wisconsin or to Allentown, Pennsylvania. Both of these choices are a hell of a lot better than the boonies of Western Maryland. Memphis, Atlanta and Pelican Bay are not generally held to be viable alternatives.

Some of the interviewees will see the street again (when they're over 55 and/or terminally ill), but some may not. The well-developed correctional philosophy of "experts" at BOP (aka "Bureau of Prisons" - the "Feds") holds that, with increasing distance and the number of state lines crossed from home and family, the interstate collect phone rates will limit communication with anyone known to the inmate, and will virtually guarantee BOP visiting areas will not be a source of overtime and will not present supervision problems. In addition, especially for the long-termers, when and if he or she does get out, there will be virtually no one at any end to contact and he or she will most likely return (either to the feds or to a state system [pick one or more]). Correctional jobs will be preserved, careers will be extended and enhanced unto pension-enabled retirement and endlessly perpetual health care coverage will be continued all around.

Distribution (valid only if marked):