Razor Wire

I had plans today to spend time working out.  Then, to my dismay they closed the reck-yard early.  Word is they were performing a mock escape to check their response system.  They take an inmate and have him head off through the woods.  As some point they release the blood hounds on him and track him down.

Dogs are kept on every compound that are trained to track humans.  From time-to-time they put together these mock escapes to see what their reaction time is.  Just like fire-drills and such.  Just another aspect of prison life. 

So reck was closed early to allow the staff to be involved in this training exercise.  This made me chuckle.  Why go over the fence when Florida Department of Corrections is letting them right out the front gate? 

Just a few weeks ago Florida made major news headlines when they mistakenly released two prisoners who forged documents stating they were free to go.  (Click the link to read the story from CNN.)  Among the bogus signatures used was Judge Belvin Perry's signature, the head circuit court judge from Orange County Florida.  The same judge who found Casey Anthony not guilty of the murder of her young child.  Ironically the same judge who sentenced me to my current prison sentence. 

The general public probably doesn't have much idea the intricate fence system that surrounds this establishment.  If you could sell all the steel for scrap metal that hangs on posts around here you would be set for life.  Most people have seen the barbs that are on typical barbed wire.  Most farms have it and if you have ever been tangled in it then you know it's good for a small prick and tearing your clothes up.  Prisons use razor wire.  Little razors stuck every six inches along the main coil. 

There are rolls and rolls of this wire stretched to overlap the next that surround the entire prison.  If you ever managed to get over the fence, you would bleed out within twenty or thirty feet of the fence. 

No dogs needed to track that.  You just follow the blood trail.

There was a time when I fist came to prison that the fence was all I saw.  I never saw it as a possible escape.  Instead you see no hope.  There is no hope of going over that thing.  Once you've done some time, that fence becomes nothing more than the horizon.  It's like walking past the mailbox at the end of your drive.  It's there, but it's nothing other than a fixture in this landscape.

My grandad use to tell me good fences make good neighbors.  He didn't have any fences.  Then again he also owned the 20-acres that surrounded his home.  I haven't decided my final thoughts on fences yet.  It's still an open topic for me.  I'll probably do like grandpa and buy the 20 acres that surround me.

In some way or another we all have fences in our lives.  Some keep people in, some keep people out.  Of course, not all fences are made of metal either.