This letter was written 12/20/2023

Today was the highest of highs and lowest of lows kind of day. 

Like Groundhog’s Day, every day starts and ends the same. Breakfast from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m., doors unlock at 9 a.m. and close from 3 to 5 p.m., and again at 10 p.m., you are locked in for the night.

It’s the in between time that chaos can happen.

I had a pre-scheduled appointment with the standby council and the pre-sentence investigator. I was notified, right as lunch was being delivered to the Pod, that I was to leave for a hearing. The CEO’s (Correction Executive Officers) never know what kind of hearing, only that you got to go. So I threw my thermal top on, under my orange shirt, and prepared to leave.

I know the drill. Transport takes you through a maze of halls, elevators and catwalks, until you reach a holding cell and wait to be called to the conference room for a phone call. You always want the thermal top,  because you never know what the temperature will be. When I reached the holding cell, I did think, based on the appointment time, I would need to wait for more than one hour.

Boy was I wrong! 

While waiting, a black man across the hall asked, through the glass and doors, “what are you in for?”.  I said, “J6”,  to which he replied, “you are with the good men”. He asked about some of the long-term detainees here. He had shared some time around them, at a point, on a block. He was being released today. He was happy. When he came to jail, and eventually a six-year sentence in prison in Broward, his boys were six and seven, now they are 12 and 13. “So big”, he said. He was excited to be with “his woman” too..

When I asked him, “What are you in for?”, he said “murder”, I paused… “really?”.  “Yep six years for murder”. I didn’t ask for details…that seemed light. My previous co-defendants received six and eight years, plus three years probation, for essentially being rowdy at the wrong place and at the wrong time. He was going to go home and do five years probation, checking in once a month with a 7p.m. to  7 a.m. curfew. Not bad for murder, I guess.

What was great was he said, “J6ers changed the jail, and for the better, big time”. He said, “When you guys got here it was bad, but you guys used the power of the pen to get things changed”. He said the jail was cleaner and he credited J6er’s for inmates getting tablets. I was unaware of that fact. He said, “J6ers in prison, won’t have a problem with the blacks”. He said,  “Us (blacks)”,knowing federal prisons, are pretty much totally segregated, “will respect you and even welcome you”. He said, “inmates love Donald Trump, he is like one of us now, a victim of the system”. I mentioned how we are treated like animals and that we are human, he wholeheartedly agreed. He was eventually taken from the cell for release. I wished him luck, and off he went. 

My cell was graffitied with “J6 was an inside job” and “government equals mind control” and “COVID isn’t real, you slave in a mask diaper” (with a picture of a face with a mask). My holding cell also had Cheerios smashed on the floor and no toilet paper either, but a soil pair of briefs someone else had sacrificed to the cause, prior to my arrival. Remember how I said they treat us like animals, this is what I mean. I sat and sat and sat and sat, with no sense of time. Occasionally a CEO would hurry by, transporting another inmate here or there. Eventually the CEO’s started asking my name, which is never a good thing.They seemed confused, why was I still there? Finally someone came to take me to the conference room, but then I overheard him saying, “transport to CTF”, this meant I was going back to the pod SANS pre-sentence investigation conference call. I told him, “you guys forgot me, I missed my appointment, didn’t I!?”. I sure did! It was everything I could do to hold back from doing as other inmates do, lashing out verbally. I had made my point, and that was enough. 

When I got back to the Pod, over six hours had elapsed, and all I had done was miss lunch and sat alone in a holding cell. I also found out, because I was transferred from CTF to CDF, my phone privileges were locked for a few hours. Eventually the tablet phone unlocked and I called Marie. While on the phone, three max CEOs walked in. They looked like they had a purpose, and they did! They began an unannounced raid on five of the most veteran guys here. They removed “contraband” from their cells. Homemade pillows, extra blankets and extra mattresses, along with commissary  purchases, extra towels and various other items. This was clearly targeted, and I have no idea the reason, other than because of their veteran status… where tend to get away with things like having an unlocked door or wear orange shorts, rather than orange sweats. This made multiple inmates unhappy, and they did the only thing that you can do, which is yell. 

Watching them take pillows and blankets felt like a gut punch. We have no privacy. We can be strip searched any time for any reason. Our  measly possessions are not even our own. The guard who led the searches is our normal evening floor CEO. He is the kind of guy who thinks enforcing every tiny rule justifies his tyranny.I have made peace with it, knowing when he is on duty we have to be on our best behavior.

Today it was made very clear. My name is no longer Taylor, son, husband, father, man, rather its just #387358, surety to a security. To add to the stress, a prominent J6 lawyer posted online that the FEDs have informants in the J6 Pod, “building cases against 14 defendants. This  ultimately turned out to be false, but who knows, maybe it is true! Here you own and control nothing but the six inches between your ears, and even friends can be foes. Jail is not somewhere you can relax, not even for a minute. There are currently 28 people in the J6 pod. Half might be targets and half informants, who knows. I only know what I am, I am a peasant who hasn’t said nothin’. After all, “snitches will get stitches”, or so they say.

-Taylor

Marie’s thoughts:

The last couple of weeks I have tried to resolve many things that need to be resolved, now that Taylor is gone. I’ve been so surprised to hear, from almost everywhere, how many people have been affected by the jail and prison system. I have met so many people that they themselves have been there or that have had family members that have. I was at a cell phone repair store yesterday, when the store worker asked me why I was trying to sell the cell phone I had. I explained to him about Taylor’s situation. He remarked on the abuses of the government in relation to J6 and how the picture they were trying to create, was not the picture of how he and many people he knows saw it. I have heard this so many times, it’s fascinating! He told me about when he was younger, he spent some time in jail. He said that the attorney assigned to him did nothing to help him, the answers he needed and that helped him the most were from other inmates in the jail. How interesting. He said that the attorney was there just to get him to plea to something.

I have dealt with title companies, the cell phone store, mortgage company, electrical company, insurance company, and I don’t even know who else. It’s been so interesting to hear either their thoughts on the prison system or on J6.

***********************

In a free market system, private companies are usually financially incentivized by the value they create to the public. Jails and prisons are private for-profit businesses that operate to house people that are looked at as a threat to a community. The government is their ultimate customer- they pay for all the customers. Should there be other goals for these facilities, other than just separating them from the public? What is it that our government is demanding for the conditions and treatment of the people they commit to these facilities? Who keeps the government in check? Who hired the government to do this? Is the judicial system, the one that keeps the customers for these jails coming, set up to have repeat customers? As a society, do we care?

Oh, The things that are done in these places are in the shadows…who defends the captive?