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Descriptions of Life in Taft Federal Corrections Prison by Visitors and Inmates A trip to Taft I’m seriously thinking of writing a travelogue to California’s federal prisons. I’ve done Victorville a number of times already, Lompoc, and yesterday Taft. Let’s just say that I am not shopping for a vacation home. The federal medium-security facility (that’s the one with the barbed wire) and camp (that’s where white collar criminals go) at Taft are located within the town limits of, well, Taft. Interesting facts about Taft: it used to be called “Moron,” changed its name to honor our fattest President, and holds an event called “Oildorado,” during which tradition dictates that all men should grow beards. Taft is in a desert two hours north of Los Angeles. I got up at 5:00 to get there for an early attorney visit. There’s some stunning natural beauty on the way there, particularly in some stretches of the Grapevine, where vast, smooth wheat-colored hills roll into the distance. But near Taft, not so much. Hazy rocky mountains frame the horizon, and then there’s desert. Not pretty desert. Desolate desert. This-makes-Mad-Max-look-like-The-Blue-Lagoon desert. It also features periodic rigid, featureless, dusty crop fields that look shockingly out of place, like the corn crops at the end of the X-Files movie. There’s also occasional nondescript-yet-somehow- still-menacing Exxon facilities of unknown provenance, which are immaculately maintained but lacking any visible life. Also, this stretch of desert seems to have more than its share of abandoned cars and burned-out hulks thereof. About five miles from the prison — which is about 20 miles from the nearest highway — I spotted an ancient bus-sized bookmobile, fifties-style paeans to the joys of reading still visible but fading on its side. I was very tempted to stop and hike off the road to investigate and see if it still held books, but I was wearing dress slacks. (I always wear dress slacks to prison, because I can never keep track of whether it’s jeans or khakis that will get you either barred or dragged into a mop closet and shivved. Prison is fun!) I was driving my brand new fuck-you-mother-nature-mobile, and so had punched in the nominal address of the prison camp into the nav system. I became suspicious when the calm voice began to inform me that I was half a mile away, but I couldn’t see jack anywhere. A moment later the nav system primly announced that we had arrived. Nothing was there. Was my new toy defective? Or was I so far from civilization that within a few miles was close enough, as far as the nav system was concerned? I drove another few minutes into the desert, turning off the nav system to silence its increasingly agitated attempts to help. Eventually the prison and camp became visible in a long depression in the desert. I drove in and sought out the camp. The difference between an FCI and a camp is stark, all the more so when they are right next to each other — the FCI is low, surrounded by fields of gravel and huge piles of razor wire, with barely a hint of greenery within. The camp, by contrast, could be the headquarters of a utility or minor municipal office of some sort. It has nicely maintained lawns and flowers (plenty of free labor, you see) and the doors are wide open; the prisoners can come in and out with only an occasional challenge from the guards as to their business. It’s not like they can go far; it’s about 8 miles through the desolation to town (where a large part of the population is probably made up of prison employees with off-duty weapons), and a hella long walk through California desert in any other direction. I suspect they don’t chase down these guys; they just wait them out and watch for the buzzards circling. Inside, the lack of serious security and casual atmosphere were shocking. No one put me through a metal detector or wanded me. They let me bring in boxes of files unsearched. I met my client in a private attorney room out of view of anyone. Prisoners came and went without any apparent schedule or supervision. The air of menace to which I was accustomed at other facilities, seen in the eyes and set of the shoulders of the prisoners and the forced brittle laughter of the guards, was missing. I would not want to be staying there, but it beat the hell out of every USP and FCI I ever saw. I’ll dwell on it next time a client gets sentenced. ________________________________________________________________________ This is a true story. The inmates mentioned in this writing are all real people some of whom have been released others of whom remain incarcerated. The camp itself looks like the set of M*A*S*H* except with green grass, trees, and the buldings are permanent instead of tents. Everything is army green and there are 2 barracks, a chow hall, an admin building, a medical building, commissary, chapel, game room and a law library. There is a large slab of asphalt in the middle which 2[ will refer to as "the quad." Within a minute, I'm assigned to a bunk in Alpha dorm…my compatriots are in Beta dorm. I'm tired as fuckall and just want to go to sleep. The dorms are barracks comprised of a main hall and two smaller rooms. The two rooms used to be TV rooms in each dorm but have been converted to living quarters. Each dorm holds about 160 inmates with around 130 in the main hall and in Alpha dorm a room of 16 and a room of 8. I got placed in the room of 8 which is referred to as "the Boom Boom Room." Had this not been a minimum security camp, I may have been concerned as god only knows what sort of connotations that could have. In this case it's just known as a room where there is often a very loud (albeit exceptionally inane) debate going on by people who, for the most part, do not know what the fuck they are talking about. As it goes in prison, the new guy always ends up in a top bunk. My bunkie, and I shit you not, is a guy named (I did not make this up) "Bone Crusher." Are you fucking serious? Am I actually supposed to refer to this guy as Bone Crusher? What happens if I don't? He wasn't there at the time so I just made my bed…whatever. Now allow me to introduce you to the cast that makes up the Boom Boom Room. Al — asian - late 30s - in on a drug charge - Al is intelligent and likes to work with his hands. He works as a mechanic down at the farm and is known around camp as the guy you talk to if you need your radio and/or headphones fixed. The stereotypical nature of the camps resident radio fixer `being Japanese is not lost on me. Of all of my roomies, I think Al and I have the most in common.- Blue - black — 50 - in on a drug charge - Blue is one of the leading protagonists in the Boom Boom Room. He is the definition of narcissistic and actually believes (in his heart of hearts) that if he didn't personally witness something that it probably didn't happen. A And I'm not _just talking about whether or not someone in the yard benched 300 pounds…I'm talking about things like, say, the Battle of Hastings. Jerry - white - late 50s - in on a drug charge — Jerry is a low key average white guy. He's in on a long bid and did a lot of time down in Texas. He's kinda gristled and set in his ways and often gets into it with Blue because Blue thinks whitey is the problem with this world and before I arrived, Jerry was whitey. To get a picture of Jerry imagine an older white guy with mostly white hair who drives a tractor on the farm here. That's Jerry and you just imagined what he looks like. Dre — black — late 30s - in on a drug charge — When I say Dre is black, I mean Dre is black. Wesley Snipes black. He's also really big like over 6′ in the high 200s if I had to guess. Dre is intelligent and pretty well spoken…he doesn't often get into the mix in the Boom Boom Room but when he does he's usually right on point with what he says. He's also funny as hell and is one of my favorite people. We often make each other laugh and will often expend most of our energy trying to keep the arguments in the Boom Boom Room going but not to the point to where they become a fight. Dre is also the laziest person I have ever met and revels in it. He's a clerk at the Law Library about 10 minutes a day. _ Miguel — hispanic — 30s — in on a drug charge — Miguel is just a super nice guy. He's soft spoken and never really gets into any of the fray unless it'sj about religion. He's a family man and a hell of an athlete.

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