Pitiless merchants
"I have always thought it would be easier to redeem a man steeped in vice and crime than a greedy, narrow-minded, pitiless merchant." — Albert Camus
The Georgia Diagnostics and Classification Centre confines more than 1700 prisoners. There are more prisoners held at the GDCC than there are citizens in some Georgia towns. There are towns with less than half the population of the GDCC that have a fully functional post office in them.
In all fairness, I must note that there is a post office of sorts at the GDCC. I say "of sorts" because it is not a real post office. For example, it closes down for as many as five days in a row. Post offices in the rest of the state (and the country) will close for only two or three days at most.
That prolonged closure may seem like a matter of little importance to some, but when you consider that the US postal service is the only means by which the court — and the prisoner appealing to it — can communicate, it can sometimes become a matter of life and death.
Let us suppose that the court sends a prisoner an order to respond to (or appeal) a particular motion within 20 days. If it takes 21 days for the prisoner's response to get back to the court, the prisoner, through no fault of his own, will have forfeited the right to appeal that issue — an issue that might well have saved his life.
The matter I really want to expand on is the "of sorts" nature of the prison store operators'/merchants' connections with the prison's post office.
If you correspond with a prisoner here and despair that you do not get a reply from him for what seems like ages, you need to know that, more often than not, for the prisoner it is strictly a matter of money. Prisoners of the GDCC are not paid any money for the work that we do, and writing supplies are priced so outrageously high that often we cannot afford to purchase them.
At this writing, we are forced to pay 8.2 cents for a standard envelope, and required to purchase 14 at a time. One page from a legal pad costs 2 cents, and we have to purchase 50 at a time. Then there is the cost of postage, which is now 60 cents for overseas mail. So the total cost for a one-page letter to places like Australia is no less than 70.2 cents. That is a lot of money to an indigent prisoner.
On the other hand, if the GDCC had anything that even remotely resembled a real post office, a prisoner could save 20.2 cents on each one-page letter destined for overseas. Anyone can purchase an aerogramme at any US post office for 50 cents. The aerogramme provides paper, envelope and sufficient postage all in a single item.
More than a few prisoners have asked the prison administrators (in writing) and the prison store operators/merchants (face-to-face) to provide us with aerograms. But in their usual arrogance, they have refused. In fact, they do not even want to provide 60 cent stamps.
Several months ago, right after the overseas mail postal rate rose from 50 to 60 cents, I filled out a standard prison form. Among other things on the "store order list", I ordered 20 X 60 cent stamps. In response, the store operator/merchant wrote, "Do not order 60 cent stamps for we will not be carrying them!". It seems to me that if the US postal service sells them for overseas mail, so too should the GDCC.
The prison store operators/merchants are an arrogant lot. So the prison store determines, in large part, the nature of our interactions with the prison's post office. Therefore, the prison store sort of runs the prison's post office. It would seem that Camus was right in his assessment of "greedy, narrow-minded, pitiless merchant[s]".
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G2-51, GD&CC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA. Brandon's childhood autobiography is available in booklet form for $16, including postage. Every cent raised will go towards defending his life. Please make cheques payable to the Brandon Astor Jones Defence Account and post to 10 Palara Place, Dee Why NSW 2099. Donations to the Brandon Astor Jones Defence Account may be made at any Commonwealth Bank, account No. 2127 1003 7638.]