When you are a convicted, but released, felon, there might be some coordination you have to do between between various government agencies to keep yourself from going back to prison. I don’t mean simply between federal agencies, if you are a federal felon like me. I mean between federal, state, and local. It’s all a nightmare. The presupposition is that if everybody can possibly surveil you, then they will have an easier chance of catching you when you commit your next crime. It they don’t catch you committing a crime, then they set up hurdles to trip you up so that when you possibly run afoul of one of the hurdles, THAT is a crime, and then they can catch you on that. It’s all in the name of public safety, of course, and all spoken to the public by officials and politicians with a tone of hyperventilated hysteria. Don’t believe, however, that it’s really keeping you safe. It’s right up there with taking off your shoes in an airport as a piece of political theater for the public good.
So being an achiever , I have been trying to comply with all the various bureaucratic barricades placed on my path to real life. Another 6 months in the feds would help me with my future. That said, the bureaucracy has been anything but willing to let me comply. I understand that in this point in 2021, people are still somewhat upended from the COVID lockdowns, but would also think that law enforcement, of all groups, might have their act together a bit more on that account. I’m not sure why I think that. Maybe it’s just a holdover from my pre-conviction days. After all, I’ve now spent enough time with various forms of law enforcement to know that competence is a myth. However, I still always find myself holding onto hope, only to have that hope stomped to smithereens when I try to put it to use.
So, I’m trying to comply. Back in February, the federal halfway house people told me that I was out of compliance, and listed as such by the state entity. The feds are “only the messenger.” They are trying to “help” be do right by the state. However, nobody can tell me how to solve particular issues. I couldn’t go into the state offices because the state offices were closed as a COVD precaution. Part of what I had to do was pay the state some money for the honor of them surveilling and humiliating me, and generally making my life way more difficult that a person “returning to society” should have it. It’s a matter of forking over funds, so that they can make sure my scarlet letter is nice and shiny. Also, I had to give the state fingerprints. But, of course one can;t do that without going to a physical location. What’s even more frustrating is that having been to prison, I have had my fingerprints taken — and presumably places in shared databases — by multiple agencies — federal, state, and local — at least 8 times. Hell, I had to give a set of prints BEFORE I left prison. I mean literally in the 30 minute prior to walking out the gates. And the thing about that time was (well, it’s the thing about any of the times) they don’t actually check them against a database that they have to see if, I suppose, I might be one person trying to sneak out under the name of another. No. They just had a guard who knew me come and say that I was who I was. So, what’s the point of the prints? By the time they get around to comparing them, or even finding someone with the alleged expertise to do the comparison, I’d be long gone. That is, if I were a fake me. Anyway, I couldn’t make the dough or give the fingerprints when I was supposed to, but not because I didn’t want to but because I literally was not allowed to. So the state lists me as out of compliance, and the feds start getting their hair on fire. Obviously I ask the feds, “What am I supposed to do, given these circumstances?” After lots of hesitation and a couple round of just pure misinformation, it comes back to me that I should send the check to a state PO box in the capital and just wait til COVID is over on the fingerprints. Not a great solution, but something to try. So I send a check to the capital with a letter asking for a receipt. You know I never got a receipt, but at least I can prove that they cashed the check. I waited on the fingerprints.
A few months pass, and my probation offers calls up and says, “You are out of compliance. You haven’t paid the state its money and you haven’t given the fingerprints.” Ah, but I have given the money. I have the cancelled check to prove it. True, I haven’t given the prints, but state offices haven;t been open to the public. His reply, “Well, thank you for your patience during all this COVID stuff.” Well, no, it’s not a matter of patience. I would rather have all this stuff off my back because I know it’s also a yearly ordeal I will have to go through. So, I’m not being patient, I’m just being prevented. By the same token, nobody “patiently” waits out his prison term. Everyone wants to go right now. It’s just that you are not allowed. So I go round and round with the federal probation officer, and he suggests that I go to the state police post responsible for this jurisdiction. He thinks they will be more professional and competent than the local authorities since the state police actually just contract some of their surveillance work out to the locals. So I call the local state police and say I’m coming over to get all the stuff straightened out. Is there anything I need to know or bring in order to make this all happen? No, they say, just come on over. So I do.
The state police post is a bit of a drive from my home. I don’t mind the driving, but it does demand some planning. No big deal. The state police post is also located in the adopted hometown of General George Armstrong Custer. Now, I’m not exactly sure what it says about a town when it hangs on to the Custer legacy with as much tenacity as this town. It probably says that life really hasn’t been so great there in the past 135 years. I mean even if you are indifferent to the historical plight of Native Americans, Custer still goes down in history with, at the very best, a mixed reputation for a so-called martyr. I have to drive on Custer Road to get the state police post. The nearest intersection to the location of the police post is the corner of Jones and Custer Streets. They have a huge equestrian statue Custer in town which, for the life of me, I cannot understand why has not been taken down if we truly live in a “woke” era. But maybe we just like to dwell on the ignorant side of irony, that side which doesn’t allow us to understand irony at all. At any rate, if I am headed to Cuter-ville to get business taken care of, what could possibly go wrong?
Well, you already know how this goes. The desk sergeant is perfectly pleasant and does what she can for me, but tells me two really important things that nobody from any other government entity told me: a) they don’t actually take fingerprints at the state police station. For that I will have to call and schedule an appointment with somebody and those prints will be taken at the state prison in the town where I live! Seriously? Nobody who works in these systems and has gotten so expercised of this knew this and passed it on? It’s an unspeakable level of incompetence and living within one’s own bubble to have that happen. It is a also a total set-up for a felon to run afoul of this kind of bureaucratic run-around so that the system can suck him up again and keep perpetuating itself; b) The state police couldn’t accept my payment check because they still aren’t accepting payments at this time. But maybe if I contact the local agencies, they might accept the payment. When I told the sergeant that I had mailed a check to the capital, she asked if they had sent it back. “No,” I said, “they cashed it” waving the cancelled check. Now that even caused some raised eyebrows on her part, and not raised toward me. But she did what she could, and I retraces the Custer Trail back home. Now I have to try to start off over on another 67% of everything that the law requires me to do, all while being out of compliance in the eyes of the law.
I guess if we live in a world where Custer can be considered heroic, this is not just bound to happen, but the very way things have to go.