Posted on 03/24/2005 3:06:53 AM PST by billorites
A continental breakfast is offered daily. Monday's lunch featured beef tacos -- with a vegetarian, soy-based ''heart-healthy" alternative -- along with seasoned pinto beans and a choice of steamed or Spanish rice. Family visits at the minimum-security prison can last for hours.
More summer camp than hard-core penitentiary, the federal camp at the former Fort Devens in Ayer where former Connecticut governor John G. Rowland is expected to begin a yearlong sentence next week is about as cushy as the big house gets.
Inmates can lounge in front of the television until 2 a.m. on weekends and holidays. No one is expected to wear traffic-cone-orange jumpsuits or even the drab khaki they wear in the neighboring higher-security facility.
Devens campers wear dark-green sets of two-pocket shirts and pants that look ''kind of like Dockers, but don't have the pleats," said prison public information officer John Colautti.
Think of it as a free-range prison. Between work duties and meals, inmates can move around as they please. The facility doesn't even have fences around it. Camp prisoners can use their downtime to loiter in the sun.
''They just have an area on the grounds they have to stay within, which is posted," Colautti said.
Unlike the neighboring Federal Medical Center Devens -- home to 1,155 inmates, many of whom need medical treatment or long-term mental health services -- the camp houses no violent criminals. Most of Rowland's new camp-mates will be white-collar offenders, like him.
Rowland pleaded guilty to corruption charges for abusing the power of his office to secure perks such as vacations and renovations to his lakeside cottage. A judge sentenced him to a year plus a day in prison and recommended sending him to Devens; the Bureau of Prisons typically adopts such recommendations.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
No news here - I was an inmate handler at Nellis Federal Prison Camp - not quite as cushy as this place sounds - but they lived better than my guys in the barracks.
They need to see if they can hire that guy from Arizona to improve the conditions.
(Sorry I just can't think of his name)
Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.
Rowland should be in prison for the rest of his life - be it a year, a month, a week, tomorrow afternoon, whatever.
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