Dominque Stevenson and Benjamin Woods of the Friend Of A Friend prison program and Students Against Mass Incarceration (SAMI) joined the show today to discuss further their forced removal from Maryland state prisons, the suspension of the FoF program and larger issues related to mass incarceration, prison reform and abolition. Below we also posted video from today’s attempt to confront Gary Maynard the Maryland Secretary of Public Safety & Correctional Services who was in Columbia, Maryland this afternoon attending a conference ostensibly about “Restorative Justice.” The goal of the current members of the program, some of whom are formerly incarcerated beneficiaries of the Friend Of a Friend program, was the reinstatement of that program to Maryland state prisons. It is as yet unclear if/when that reinstatement will take place despite the contradictory statements from Maryland state officials. Their official statement, as was read this morning on air, can be read below as well. The statement of Marshall “Eddie” Conway in defense of FoF can be read here.
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MD Dept of Public Safety & Correctional Services Statement:
The Friend of a Friend program, while temporarily suspended at the Roxbury Correctional Institution, is still ongoing at other institutions within the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. It is not true that the program has been cancelled.
Two individuals associated with Friend of a Friend program including Dominique Stevenson, one of your guests, violated entrance security procedures a few weeks ago when arriving at Roxbury for the program’s meeting. Ms. Stevenson had materials on her person which by institutional procedure needed to be cleared by the prison’s administration. She did not previously ask for permission to bring this material inside the institution so it was confiscated.
Another individual there for the same program meeting attempted to bring in two DVDs without prior authorization from RCI’s administration, another security violation. DVDs themselves are not necessarily a security violation. There are procedures in place to clear video material shown to inmates through volunteer programs, but again in this particular case, they were not followed.
Because of these two incidents, the program was suspended until it can be reviewed. The Friend of a Friend program has been in the DPSCS system for quite a long while now. All parties involved in the program have a full understanding of the security requirements inside our prisons. The Department has reached out to Ms. Stevenson to discuss the matter in an attempt to resolve the situation. To date, we have not heard back from her.
Another incident with the Friend of a Friend program happened earlier this year at a prison in Jessup. In this case a visitor to the program attempted to introduce contraband narcotics into the institution. The program was suspended while the incident was investigated. Once the investigation was complete, and the prison administration thought it was appropriate, the Friends of a Friend program was reinstated. It is currently meeting there on a regular basis.
Rick Binetti
Director of Communications
MD Dept of Public Safety & Correctional Services
300 E Joppa Rd, suite 1000
Towson, MD 21286
O – 410.339.5007
C – 443.629.0055
The DPSCS statement is full of holes. They will always have their version of the truth, but they failed to mention that Bashi Rose, a volunteer who was not present at Roxbury Correctional Institution was banned from meeting with the men he works with at Maryland Correctional Training Center. Nor do they mention that we left one of the DVD’s with the ass. warden Morgan to review. They also don’t mention that we have taken DVD’s into prisons before. The worst part of this statement is mention of the incident at JC as if we had some involvement.The DPSCS is trying to discredit us – we had nothing to do with what happened at JCI and protested the suspension. I’d like to know the outcome of that so-called investigation.
My mom got one of those on the internet berofe and they kept withdrawing money from her account way beyond the amount she borrowed. Some of these are major scammers. She closed the checking account when we moved to Nashville but they caught up to her and sent her collection notices and she finally started paying off the amount they claimed she owes and finally she paid it in full but the interest was so high! That’s why she owed so much I guess. It’s not really a good idea to get involved with these things because they’re really not doing you a favor. They aren’t in business for you. They’ll make a huge profit off of you. As for fixing the situation you’re already in, you should contact each one and make payment arrangemetns. If they won’t work with you then you should probably close the account and start sending them payments to get them paid off.
i had that problem. i just prtety much called and worked a payment plan out. they are usually good with that most of the time. it just depends on the day i guess. but yeah just call and work out a payment plan with them.