A Grueling Journey--The Prison Transfer

I was recently transferred to a different facility to participate in the Calvin College Initiative, which is a college degree program for prison inmates in Michigan. I'm excited about the opportunity and I'm looking forward to the challenge.

Because this program is conducted at a facility in Ionia (MTU) and not at the prison where I had been for the last nearly four years, I had to be transferred. What an experience a prison transfer is!

My day started at midnight when I was woken by my unit officer and told to pack because I was leaving. I had to pack quietly because everyone else in my cube was sleeping, but I managed to do this and then bring my property to the officer. After unpacking to inventory my property with the officer, I repacked and laid back down in my prison blues, my transfer outfit. I couldn't go back to sleep because of the adrenaline and anticipation, but finally around 3:30 AM I fell back asleep, only to be woken again at 4AM and told it was time to leave. I left without saying goodbye to most of the men I had grown to know over the last nearly four years; they were all asleep or in different units.

I and about a dozen other guys went to the control center where we waited for further instructions. At 5AM or so we were given a bag with four pieces of bread, one thin slice of bologna, peanut butter and jelly, an apple, and a cookie and told we needed to eat now if we wanted to eat before lunch. Finally around 6:15AM we began to be strip searched, handcuffed to belly chains, and shackled.

Just after 7AM we were loaded onto a thirteen passenger van, crammed in so tightly several guys were half on, half off the benches. We drove to a central location where the trailer we pulled with all of our property was unloaded and we were transferred to a bus that was crammed full of nearly fifty prisoners in hard plastic seats that were hardly big enough to fit a child, let alone full grown (and some over grown) men. I had the "privilege" of being put in a high security cage with another prisoner simply because there were no other seats. This cage was barely thirty-four inches wide and the other prisoner and I could not even sit shoulder to shoulder because the box was too tight. Somehow I managed to keep my claustrophobia at bay for the more than an hour and a half we were in this cage.

We drove to another central location where we were again transferred to a different bus and sat waiting for more than an hour before we left. We were given another bagged lunch with two cheese sandwiches, an apple, and a boxed juice.

We, and dozens of other prisoners who joined us, were driven on winding country roads to be dropped off at five different prisons. Again, the seats were very cramped and the belly chains and shackles restricted movement making finding a comfortable position impossible. The trip was long, hot, and highly uncomfortable, but finally about 4PM we arrived at our destination, only just over an hour's drive away from where we started that morning. Twelve hours of waiting, transferring rides, waiting some more, and making frequent stops finally brought us to our destination where we were released from our belly chains and shackles and again strip searched before being given our housing assignments and sent to medical for our intake processing. Some of us received our property, which had transferred separately, later than night and after doing some unpacking I laid my head on my bed and closed my eyes to sleep, nearly 24 hours after my journey began with a midnight wake up.

My new address is: 

R.A. Handlon Correctional Facility
1728 W. Bluewater Hwy
Ionia, MI 48846