About a month ago, I was transferred from Monroe Corrections Complex, a maximum security prison, to Stafford Creek Corrections Center, a minimum-security prison in Washington state. I talked to my fellow inmates recently in the big yard, which is where we lift weights and do everything else. We discussed the things we need and want most in prison.

The first thing Sae-tee brought up was how he missed Charmin toilet paper. That’s his way of complaining about the food. Blaze said out and out we need better food, and more of it: “I ain’t talking about scallops and shrimps… wait, yes I am… and they need to start piling the food on and stop feeding us like we’re six years old.”

I agree that we don’t get enough food. You be hungry even before you leave the cafeteria.

I don’t smoke, but I know there are people that still sneak cigarettes in, because there’s been no smoking allowed since 2003. Sae-tee says, “They need to bring those cigarettes back.” And then he was back to talking about Charmin: “After using that toilet paper my nerves be bad.”

We also have O.G.s in here, which is what we call “Original Gangsters.” They’re like the forefathers of my generation. They were gangsters in the 60’s and 70’s and 80’s and a lot of them are in for life, and they’re still alive. They have knowledge and experience that we don’t have. I myself am 26 years old.

One O.G. says he wants a loofah. “Yo, D.O.C. , put that on commissary,” he says. “There are people here ‘til death do us part, and I’m one of them. Why not let me feel a little comfortable?” D.O.C. stands for Department of Corrections, and anything extra we want we have to buy from the commissary, if they have it—and if we got the money.

Another O.G. named Leroy spoke up about the money issue, which is triple-taxed. It works like this: Our families work eight hours a day for to earn the money, and the federal and state government deducts taxes from it. That’s the first time it’s taxed.

Then, says Leroy, “With them thinking about taking care of us, our families send money here for us to use, but DOC takes out up to 95%. They take a minimum of 35%. They call it cost of incarceration, and legal obligations.” So that’s the second time it gets taxed.

The money gets taxed a third time, when we use it at the commissary. I don’t know if this goes on in other states. “I’m afraid to ask my family to send me money because of D.O.C.,” Leroy says. “And 42¢ an hour, or $55 a month that you earn with a prison job, ain’t enough money to make it by on.”

Smurf is a little youngster. He said, “While we’re sending shout-outs, what’s up ladies? We need mail in here, too. Send non-nude freaky shots (we can’t have the nude ones since a few years ago), letters, and whatever else you might find convenient. Hell, even send restraining orders! Just as long as we don’t feel like we forgotten outside these walls, then our heads tend to remain level.”

He raises a very important point. Violence tends to break out when people feel like they’ve been forgotten. That’s when you feel like shit. You figure “I don’t got nobody to go home to, so why bother trying to go home?” No point bothering about time off for good behavior.

That’s why phone calls are so important. “The phone system fucked up too,” says Gizmo. “I feel like my family being punished because I got locked up.” But he’s got an idea:

“D.O.C. should provide us with free paid phone cards or something. That way the responsibility is on us, not on our families. I can’t even call home because the calls are too expensive for my people and I be damned if I put them in a position of having to choose between house or car because of my phone calls. We call home, and the call shoots up $10 or more. After a while, the bills become too expensive and they stop accepting the calls. That ultimately lead to violent behavior in the person that’s locked up because we feel the outside world just gave up on us. And what else better to do than fight? They don’t give us nothing else to do in here.”

So we have to address the false idea that prisons reform and rehabilitate its occupants. We don’t have any programs that will benefit us outside these walls except for a GED program. But that doesn’t help you get a job at McDonald’s nowadays when you have a felony attached to your name.

Blaze agrees. “That’s true,” he says. “All prisons do is breed anti-social behavior and nurture the violent behavior a person may already have. By disrespectful C.O.’s talking crazy to the inmates, not respecting us as men, and without something positive to do, we gang-bang and end up getting out of prison worse than what we came in.” C.O.’s are correctional officers, what you call prison guards.

We need vocational programs, something that will give us the skills to be productive citizens. We need education, other than just a GED. And we need support groups that do not only cater to drug addicts. We don’t even have access to a computer.

Blaze is a legal shark. You can find him in the law library, trying to get the same information that everyone with a high-priced lawyer gets. He says, “We need to see some justice inside the prison system with Congress. The anti-terrorism effective death penalty act (AEDPA) is a bill that was passed in 1996 that time-limited the process required to submit a proper appeal to the courts. For a lot of us in here that can’t afford an attorney and are forced to go pro se, it can take us longer than a year just to figure out the law books. When we finally retain all the necessary information to file a correct appeal, then the court say we won’t look at your case because you’re past the statute of limitations. That means that our appeal has been thrown out of court and will never be looked at. That hurt a lot of these guys’ spirit in here, knowing they have been wrongfully convicted. Some people literally go crazy in here. So I feel that Congress should consider that.”

And while we are talking political, D.O.C. needs to end this bullshit about letting only world-renowned programs into prisons that supposedly have been proven to be effective on positive change. The last time I checked, the rate of recidivism was still climbing and the streets were getting worse.

With our own money and our own sponsors, we inmates are trying to establish a program that builds a positive structure for both inside the prisons and out. A program that brings together every street gang organization, and breeds positive production in the community. How do we know that this can work? Because the O.G.’s and the shot-callers in many prisons across America are talking right now.

D.O.C. won’t allow this program because to them it’s about money, not about right and wrong. If the rate of incarceration declines, the money they make declines, which is ultimately a problem for them.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, you can’t have it any more real than this, live from inside the prisons! So the next time you come face to face with an ex-offender, don’t judge him or her so quickly. Just as you hope that person is a productive member of society, we are people who strive to be that productive member. We were just taught the wrong way and we are trying now to reprogram ourselves the positive way.

Daddy Cool is currently serving a life sentence for assault and promoting prostitution.