HW House

My son was recently released from MT to a HW house. As usual the BOP threw us a curve ball and sent him to the next state over from us instead of MA where we live, but it is only 1/2 hr drive. The HW house is extremely restrictive. They are basically not allowed to leave except to look for work or go to their counseling sessions. They are assigned chores, but for instance when his chore was to take out the trash, he had to wait for a staff member to watch him walk out to the trash can. They are not allowed cell phones or internet access. They are required to look for a job, but the only way to do that is through the "help wanted" ads in the paper, or go through the yellow pages in the phone book and call to see if a place is hiring. They have to use the house payphone to make their calls. They have to take the bus to the interview. The HW house first calls to verify that the place is hiring, and then calls again to see if the inmate went to the interview. If you do get a job, you cannot leave the job site and the HW house calls twice a day to see if you are there. Prior to going to M'town, my son was working at the family business which has been in business for over 50 years, but the BOP said he could not work for family, so he could not go back to that job. Once you do get a job, 25% of your pay goes to the HW house, even if you are released to home confinement. The visiting hours are 2 hrs on Sat and 2 hrs on Sun with only 5 approved visitors allowed on your list. The list cannot be amended for 90 days, and every visitor is contacted by the HW house to verify their address, phone number and relationship. There is virtually nothing to do there except watch TV or read. They are allowed one hour of "recreation" from 7-8PM at which time they can go outside and stand in the driveway or shoot hoops through a basket that has no net. They are "counted" every TWO hours during the day, and have to go to their rooms and stand in the doorway until they are counted. During the night, a staff member comes into their rooms with a flashlight every hour to make sure they are in bed. There is an intercom system for announcements, and the staff can also tune into the rooms to eavesdrop on the inmates. We were so anticipating his release to the HW house, but this part of his sentence seems to be the worst. Well, as usual we are living "one day at a time" and trying to concentrate on the good instead of dwelling on the bad, since we are that much closer to the end of this life trial. As more news becomes available, I will post.

New Link

I have started a new blog. It is where I am going to post FAQs. We seem to answer the same questions over and over as new members arrive. I hope this will help our new members. If anyone can think of questions that need to be answered, let me know. It would be appreicated if you guys would let me know if you have different answers. I am in no way an expert, and have not had every experience there is to have. Click on FAQ's on the left and it will take you to the new page.

Writing Regional

We are willing to write regional when something doesn't go our way, or they violate policy. I was talking with Melanie on the way home tonight and she was telling me that Shaw was in rare form today. She said that poor Hillberry was his gopher all day, my words not hers. I don't how the rest of you feel but Hillberry is a very good guy. I don't think he gets the recognition he deserves. I think he also protects us and the guys as much as possible from Shaw. Kim O. share the address to regional, I know you have it, so those of you that want to can write and say something good for a change, I think he deserves it.

Advice Needed!!

Here's the deal, I submitted my visiting form over a month ago and still have not heard anything. Yesterday I called to the institution to find out what was going on, well lets just say that the the lady I spoke with was no help at all. She said that Mike needs to get with his counselor to see if its been approved or not. We have already tried that, all that his counselor said was that he would get to it when he could. This is a little frustrating, I am in California and he is in Virginia. I am trying to plan a trip to Virginia but its impossible to do without an answer on my visiting form. I called once before and was able to leave a message for his counselor, but of course I never received a call back. I have considered calling the warden but I don't want to ruffle any feathers and make Mikes stay there anymore difficult then it has to be. He should be up for transfer to an FCI within the next couple of months. If approved he will be one step closer to home. Does anyone have any recommendations? Please help if you do. Thanks and god bless.

Stacey

humor

ok, so i listened to the advise i got....didn't take anything in, but got there early enough so we didn't have to wait too long. arrived at 4:45 tonight, got called back around 5:20. thats when the FUN began. they still don't have his visitor's list on the computer (3 weeks) so we waited, and waited. finally around 6:00 they called me over to the guard's desk and told me that it's his own fault that his group counselor or whatever didn't put it in. He said he did what he was supposed to. (I know my hubby and its quite possible he didn't) I had been so excited to go, but the wait there with 2 feisty kids changed my mood, probably not so much as the guard telling me repeatedly that I needed to tell hubby it was his own fault.

We waited in the play room.
My son dropped his bottle of orange pop, so i opened it for him. I thought it was fine, but it ended up overflowing and all the orange pop (soda) went right down on my pants at the crotch and i looked like i wet myself.

The door said that children must be with an adult, but there were a nice handfull of kids and I was the only adult. So I let that bother me too. There was one child who wanted to call all the shots, who was allowed to play what, etc. The other ones were actually being real good. But I let that one little one get to me..LOL .

She asked my son "what did YOUR dad do?" when he told her he had taken some money from a company he worked for, she gasped. The other little girl (who i absolutely loved) said..."well some people do that"....the first one
proceeded to tell him and the other kids that her dad didn't do anything bad, he just hung around some guys who did drugs. then she said...what are drugs anyway? LOL. it was interesting to hear the kid's responses. (she was maybe 6). my son told her drugs are like cigarettes, and another girl agreed. then she told him that isnt true coz her mom smokes cigarettes and my son told them I did too. they all looked at me and asked me if cigarettes were a drug. UGGG. Didn't know I was going to be giving a class about that!!! i just explained that cigs are legal but yes drugs were sort of like that. didn't want to get into too much detail.

He finally came out at 6:30, but we had to leave about 7:20 because he had to go get his meds and the med line ends at 7:30 or something. I was just so agrivated by that point the visit seemed in vain.

now...the funniest part. He has a disability...bad hands due to a special kind of arthritis. No, thats not the funy part. The funy part is that they finally gave him a paying job. He is the official DUCK Chaser!!!! They gave him a paddle/oar and its his job to chase the ducks away from the building entrances in his unit.

so not quite the perfect visit i had in mind. I'm trying to find some humor in it. The way I figure, I can laugh about it or cry. Trying to keep laughing.

by the way, after I got home, I washed the orange soda off of me :)

here's hoping the rest of you get a better visit than I did today.

Sue

Introduction

Just thought I would say hello. Glad to see I'm not alone in this. My hubby, Gary, just went to Morgantown on July 30. His sentence is 18 mos. He tells me that he will get 90 days off of that plus spend the last 70 days in a HWH real close to home.
I'm having trouble adjusting to life as a somewhat single parent. Dependant on his family, now as mine is so far away. Over the past few years our relationship with his family had becomed strained, and now I NEED them to help with the kids so I can keep the house, etc.
He has a 17 yr old son who lives with my in-laws, and we have an 8 yr old and a 3 yr old together.
My mom and my mother-in-law both keep telling me and him that he shouldn't be calling home, because it's wasting money. They don't know how important these calls are to both him and me. I'm having a rough time, since no one here really understands how I feel. I'm looking forward to getting to know the group and wish you all love and patience.

Sue

best email in the world!

I got this this afternoon!

Inmate 50802056 - DELMONTE, MICHAEL J no longer has access to the Trust Fund Limited Inmate Computer System; therefore, he/she may not send or receive messages.El preso 50802056 - DELMONTE, MICHAEL J ya no tiene acceso al sistema de computadora limitada de presos del fondo fiduciario; por lo tanto, el/ella no puede enviar o recibir mensajes.