Author Archives: mjwayblog

I would remember him for his honesty. I would remember him for his strength, but most of all, I would remember him for his one saying that I can not forget to this day. In the face of calamity, uncertainty, and fear which could occur daily in this prison setting he would say, “we willContinue reading “Vanished”

They made a bad decision. One could argue they kept making bad decisions and that’s why they are imprisoned behind three barb wire fences. Today would be a culmination of a continued convoluted logic. These level four prisoners decided they were not going back inside their housing unit. Instead, they would disrupt how the prisonContinue reading “Snowbirds”

The Acting Deputy Warden would leave his legacy on this prison. He was a man of action. He had brought order to a prison in the city where ten inmates had escaped with help from the immediate community. The changes in security he made there insured the prison would not be in the news again.Continue reading “Acting Deputy Warden”

Mr. Dandy was in trouble. He had the highest GED completion rate in the MDOC prison school system which he used to berate the other school principals who could not even come close to his GED completion numbers. Even though he was the only prison school that had both day and night shifts of teachersContinue reading “Kerfuffle”

I passed the examination and was now the official GED Proctor at our prison school. Our new principal made sure that I had all of the support I needed to make it successful. We went over how the exams were to be administered, how often they were to be given, and the security needed toContinue reading “Karma”

I was surprised to find out about our new principals’ credentials. She didn’t share that with me when she asked to see how I ran my Horticulture program a few years earlier. However, she took that information and developed a very successful program at another prison. I was concerned now that she wished to speakContinue reading “Our New Principal”

Our new ADW was not liking that Jesse was absent from our staff meetings. He began to intimidate some of the teachers, but I found him to be quite interesting. The prisoners hated him and I didn’t think that was all that bad. He had been one of them at one time and was assaultedContinue reading “Au Revoir Jesse”

               1 Thessalonians 5: 16-18  Once the GED testing service identified the jail and school district servicing them as the culprits for the security breach, all GED testing was stopped for South East Michigan, and exams were turned back into the GED testing service. This put our prison school into a state of flux. It wasContinue reading “Jesse 4”

              2 Corinthians 5: 14-21   Jesse’s plans to retire were unknown to anyone except Jesse. We would get to work with him for another three years and it would be memorable. It started with a staff meeting where the academic teachers had decided it would be way too difficult for the school to completeContinue reading “Jesse 3”

              Psalm 25:16-22   Jesse had other plans. Speaking with him, he felt that all of his friends who had retired died shortly there after, and he wasn’t going to do that anytime soon. When I first met him he smoked and drank without a care in the world, and he reminded me of the proverbialContinue reading “Jesse 2”