University of Virginia Library

Letters To The Editor

Two Sides Of Jail: Hell Or Home?

Learned Corrections

Reading is a hobby to me,
but I am not an unlearned
man who would see a few
things, and believe what two or
three people will tell me, and
write about a story about it.
But to my acknowledgment,
what I'm about to say is in
reply to a couple of statements
in The Cavalier Daily, dated
February 14 of this year, by
Mr. Steve Rosenfield, one of
the Offender Aid and
Restoration members.

But to be honest with Mr.
Rosenfield and his staff, I will
correct a couple of his false
sentences as a learned man. For
I know anyone would rather
read any learned man's work
than read an unlearned man's
work.

Twenty-seven years old,
and I have been in and out of
this jail at this very moment. I
am in confinement in this
Albemarle County jail for
assault and battery, and I have
a sixty-day sentence. I am a
trusty, but that doesn't have
anything to do with the truth.
I have been in and out of this
jail since 1964 if not before,
and under all circumstances, if
there ever was a meal that
cereal was served, and dry at
that, and that I had to pour
water on to make milk, then
that statement in that paper
was wrong, even if someone
told you or gave you that
information who is in
confinement right this
moment.

This is one thing that as
being one individual really
shook me, that lunch is
normally a bologna sandwich
or two, but I have never seen
two of the same kind of
sandwiches painted on, so he
said.

Well, anyway, to my
knowledge, I realize this isn't
my home, nor do I have a
home, but I only speak of what
I know, because this house
actually has   been more my
home since 1964. But to beat it
all, the man said that
apparently county jail inmates
have been fed up with the poor
meals, because last week they
began a hunger strike.

But I didn't see one, I'm
the trusty that gives them their
food, and I am one of those
inmates here, and he was
speaking of everyone, including
me, when he especially used
jail inmates. But to clarify that
man's false statement, there
were these three men, in this
one cell that were to have been
on a strike. Sure they didn't
eat one evening, that morning,
and I will tell you what four
so-called striking men did at
lunch. One of the
supposed-to-be strikers took
six sandwiches which
somebody else could have
eaten and flushed them down
the toilet. And you can't tell
me that's what Mr. Rosenfield
calls a strike, but that evening
they ate.

Perhaps some will hold a
little hate against me for
writing this, but I will not find
that at all uncomfortable
because I am that learned man
who just told the truth.