Status of confinement

The correctional officer called me back at 4:30 p.m. today. She was very nice and answered all my questions.

Apparently, Ted asked to be put in solitary confinement on October 19th. She did not give any details, but said it wasn't uncommon for this to happen, and an investigation is opened whenever someone complains about fearing for their safety. Ted's investigation will take place on Wednesday, October 28th.

I haven't received a letter from Ted since he was sent to Brevard C.I. on October 16th. He wrote nine blog entries and sent them to me before leaving Lake Butler.

Brevard C.I. houses inmates ages 19-24. I've found online that numerous fights happen there all the time. I will be posting a few incidents that occurred there a number of years ago. One boy was stabbed and killing, another had his jaw broken. The officer I spoke with on the phone said that those instances are rare. Nothing like that has happened in years and with over 1,000 inmates, there are of course fights that break out.

People in solitary confinement cannot make phone calls home. (I haven't talked with Ted in over a month.) They can, however, write and receive letters and can get items from the commissary once every two weeks. Luckily I deposited money into his commissary account when he was in Lake Butler - and supposedly that was immediately transferred over to Brevard. I also deposited more money into his account yesterday, but that probably did not get to him in time. He can get extra food, long underwear and other items. I will post a blog entry of a list of some of the commissarry items that he sent to me.

He can also get visits from the chaplain and request a free Bible, although I'm not sure he knows that yet. I wrote it to him in a letter. He can also get books from the prison library.

For now, as far as I know, he is safe. If he had been injured, he would have been taken to medical, so apparently he just feared that something was going to happen or was threatened.

Photo: a cell in Alcatraz