Classification Officers
and License Plate Headstones
by Joseph Pavesi
I am not from Florida. All my family resides in Puerto Rico and New York. I don't get visits except once every couple of years or so, if I am lucky. I am writing to you in hopes that what I say can be made public to people on the outside - so they know whatUnion CI in Raiford is really like...
I first came to Union CI in April 2001 after serving one year DR and CC free. After serving one year here without coming in contact with Mr. Bache, nor even knowing who he was, he informed me that he was my classification officer and that he wasn't going to put me in for a transfer.
The requirement for a transfer according to Tallahassee Department of Corrections' administrators is that an inmate must be 6 months DR free. I already had one year in during this progress report - 1 year DR free.
Mr. Bache stated to me that my new boss, Betty Lemuix, at PRIDE tag plant was having a hard time keeping good help. If I worked hard and helped her through this hard time for six months, he would put me in for a transfer to Tomoka CI. This is where I want to go so I may enroll into a vocational class learning auto body and repair, also a PRIDE job.
PRIDE is a prison rehabilitation program which provides inmates with skills by providing a free world job environment teaching people how to work and learn to earn a pay check. It is a corporation founded by Jack Eckard to provide cheap labor to the state of Florida to save them money.
In Mr. Basche's own words, he basically said, "If you give Betty 6 months of your time there and help her out, I will transfer you." I wanted this transfer so I worked hard for Mrs. Lemuix in the administration office in the PRIDE tag plant as a data entry clerk. I did all the narrations and orders from DMV, opening work orders totaling 6.5 million dollars a year in auto tag transactions, plus the cancellations and billing, working extremely hard.
Well, Mrs. Lemuix retired after I was working for her one year. Mr. Bache now says he doesn't remember telling me anything. He has turned down my transfer again.
I am now 2 years DR and CC free. It's not that I don't like my job. I do. I work with a great team; my new employer, Mr. Ken Fort, has been real helpful training me how to use Excel. He even gave me a handbook. But I want to learn the auto body and repair trade at Tomoka.
Union CI offers no programs outside of the chaplaincy to help inmates. It does not correct convict behavior. It is a hostile environment with the exception of the chapel and PRIDE, it has nothing to offer as to vocational or educational programs like GED or even Drug & Alcohol therapy like Tier 4, where other prisons do.
It does, however, have a hobby craft building, but no one is allowed to use it. I've been hearing it will be open soon, but that was when I came here 2 years ago and it's still closed.
Classification is supposed to help us, including transfers, interstate compacts etc. The only guidelines from Florida DOC for transfers is 6 months DR free. So, while I've been here all this time, they lie to me on top of everything. Who do I turn to?
I do have other complaints, but I will keep them to myself and keep my pen in check. I do that by reminding myself that I have a great view of the inmate graveyard, where they got license plates for head markers... And I hope to die free at home from old age...
I hereby give permission to edit publish, write or cut anything from this letter.
Respectfully submitted by
Joseph Anthony Pavesi
182886
Union CI
7819 NW 228th Street
Raiford, Florida 32036-4000
April 2003
NOTE:
I checked on the grave markers at Union CI and the story is true: kl
"Yes, license plates ARE marking the graves of inmates at UCI, 100% for SURE. Yes, they are made at the tag plant. The graves are marked with the inmates' DC number. Why are we surprised? That's still better than at FSP where graves are all over the property unmarked."
The place where the graves are marked is in an area right outside the fence. Prisoners are not allowed to go there (It would be an escape risk for any of them if they "attended a funeral with the chaplain there.")
The license plate grave markers Joseph Pavesi spoke about are about 100-200 feet from his dorm, on the other side of the fence, in a cow pasture. The license plates ONLY HAVE THE PERSON'S DOC# on them, not their names!!!!!! So they are license plates, with DOC# so-and-so, and they are laid down flat (horizontal) on the ground.. and a few times a year the cows come in to eat the grass and do whatever cows do in a pasture, and yes, they can walk on the graves and the license plates!!! When an inmate passes away and has no family, or if the family cannot afford a funeral or cremation or whatever, the guy's height is noted and sent to a dept. at UCI and they make a plain pine box to those specifications (heaven forbid the box be 10 or 12 inches longer than the person's body!), and they are buried in the cow pasture directly next to UCI. Sometimes the family members come, most times they do not, and just the chaplain does the funeral out there...
