Rachel had a birthday and here is what she wrote:

Hello!

It is not crazy to wish someone a happy birthday in prison. Honestly, it was a fantastic birthday. My terrorist groupies (Shelly, Riley, and Cynthia) made me a card with Trump’s mugshot in it and a crotchet bag to hold my tablet. My non terrorist friends made me a shirt that says “Make Hazelton Great Again”.

I believe this is the only birthday I am going to spend in here and I am thankful for the eye opening experience.

I have had several visits from family here since I am only three hours from home. Of course this is in spite of this facility making it as difficult as possible to see my family. They only have visitation on one day- a Friday. There are no vending machines and they refuse to bring in food for the cafeteria. This mean me, as an inmate, am denied a meal every time I have visitation. My very pregnant daughter, my toddler grandchildren, my younger children who are 7 and 13… none of them get any food either. They get a water fountain. Believe it or not, this is improvement. When I came here there were no tables in the room. We had plastic chairs spaced apart like covid with a closed children’s room. If children acted up they were made to leave. In orientation when I first got here the officer said “Do not have your family come visit you here.” Of course we had a disagreement about that and she considered me argumentative. Apparently if you read policy and refuse to give up you’re a problem. She expected me to sit down and shut up. Oh wells. The Captain didn’t appreciate my grievance forms about it either. He said “If food is so important how about I take away visitation. I have the power to do that.” He should probably just fix the visitation instead of making this harder than it has to be. The children’s room is still closed but there are tables and board games in there. Now if we can just get some food and some use of the children’s room it will be awesome. So many women said they will start seeing family in here if they fix these problems.

I am in a Spanish 1 class, soon I will be in a basic drawing class, and I take Horticulture. I am thinking about doing a paralegal course while I am in here. I think it could be useful when I am out. There is a lot of work that will need to be done on the outs.

I believe we are going to be pardoned. How can Trump not win? I don’t know if they can cheat in the upcoming election as much as they need to to get the American people to believe Biden won. Impossible. Even the democrats don’t want Biden.

Cynthia is amazing. She doesn’t deserve to be here. Her eyes are definitely opened.

Thank you for checking up on me. 🙂

and she added in another email:

Also, I forgot to tell you that we have to wear highlighter yellow outfits for visitation. The outfits are what people in the SHU are suppose to wear. According to policy we are suppose to wear our uniform. We are also subjected to visual searches going in and coming out of visitations. (aka strip searches) It is quite humiliating. According to policy there can be random visual searches going in (you never know if they will do it or not) and mandatory ones coming out of visitation. Here however you get them going in and out of visitation.

I also want to share some numbers with you. If anyone considers an inmate abused they can call 1-855-WVA-FEDS.
The number on the website will be for the men’s facility here. The female facility (SFF) is 304-379-5500.