A candid look into the prison penpal culture

It was December of 1995 when my cell-mate Tim Moore received a letter form his fiancee Diana Ledford, an inmate serving time in the Arkansas Department of Corrections (ADC). "Diana wants to know if you want to write one of these girls," he said, handing me a piece paper with a list of names on it. "She says every one of them is as fine as hell."

"Why would I want to write some bitch behind bars?" I asked. "I've got enough women problems as it is." Actually, my soon-to-be ex-wife Kathleen and/or her boyfriend Ryan were there reason I was sitting in county jail facing a parole violation. An ugly custody dispute over my three daughters had them desperate and determined to send me back to prison; mysteriously, someone planted drugs in my vehicle and called the cops. Additionally, I had a girlfriend named Debbie who was visiting me twice a week, and a girl named Vicki that I talked to on the phone every night. However, neither was a letter writer and I did have a lot of free time on my hands. That's why I decided to write.

Randomly, I chose the name Barbara Baty.

To make a long story short, Barbara and I began a pen pal relationship that can only be described as amazing. Over a 5 month period there wasn't' a day  gone by that we both didn't spend hours writing to each other. On average our letters were 6 handwritten pages long, and I'm talking about both sides of the paper. What we were doing was very honest, very real, and long before I even met her in the flesh I knew  was crazy about the girl; meeting her for the first time only confirmed how head over heels in love with her I really was.

We married shortly after we both got out of prison.

Prior to Barbara, I had never been involved in a pen pal relationship. Barbara, on the other hand, was one of many female prisoners in the ADC involved in pen pal schemes. For example, one of the most common things that these girls would do is start a correspondence with a guy (whom they referred to a "tricks" or "ganks"), quickly profess their love to him, then soon thereafter claim that there was a new change in the law that would allow them an immediate release from prison if only they had enough money for an "attorney" -  but not just any attorney, a specific attorney. The pen pal, unaware that he was a victim of a scheme , would normally send the money directly to the girls prison account anticipating that she would soon be  home in his bed, just like she promised. In fact, when Barbara and I both went back to prison after we married she immediately got back into the "pen pal game", as she called it, and began sending me money; she sometimes made more than a thousand dollars a month.

In 1998, after being sentenced to life imprisonment for a non-violent drug conspiracy, I was shipped to USP Leavenworth where I continued to be involved in the illicit drug trade. Although my illegal activity primarily centred around orchestrating drug deals on the street, I also began having methamphetamine smuggled into the prison. To do this, I would recruit African-American prisoners from the Kansas City area and hook them up with girls that I found on various pen pal platforms. One of the things that I use to say was that I could "hook a bitch in 5 letters or less," and that statement was fairly accurate.

I am well aware that what I'm about to say will offend some people. However, my intent in writing about all of this pen pal stuff is to be honest, and if that includes being brutally honest at times, so be it. As I was saying, my goal in Leavenworth  was to have drugs brought into the prison - period. And  it's no secret that many black guys like large white women and vice-versa, and the fact is that these two groups were the easiest couples to match.  So, using a pre-written letter already drafted by yours truly, I would have 5 or 6 of my black friends take photos, then give them a letter each and have them mail it off to the big white girls. Also, as the responses started coming in, I would read each letter carefully and home in on the girls who seemed poor, were the least attractive, and suffered from low self-esteem. The fact is, these were the girls who were most likely to bring drugs into the institution.

Rather than go into the particulars about how the drugs were shipped then brought into the institution, I think it's only neccessary to mention how the girls were manipulated into bringing drugs into the prison in the first place. It was as simple as asking her to bring a piece of candy to him the next time she came to visit -  a breath mint, a butterscotch, any small piece of hard candy that they didn't sell in the visitation room. The idea was to get her to put a little piece of contraband in her mouth ( any food item not sold in the visitation room is considered contraband), then  have her slip it into her guys mouth during their first kiss. Not only were most of the girls happy to do so, but they got turned on by it as well. Then once the deed was done, it was all about "See how easy that was baby? We can do the same thing we just did only make a lot of money doing it. All you have to do is put a little balloon in your mouth instead of a piece of candy."  The balloon, of course, was 2 filled with 2 grams of methamphetamine.

And it was just as easy as that.

In 2001, my friend James White placed an ad on prisonpenpals.com and soon began receiving dozens of letters, most of which were from homosexuals. One day while we were in the hole, a 65-year-old retired businessman for New York, wrote: "I'm looking for someone to love. Someone who I can walk hand-in-hand with into the finest restaurant in town and be the envy of of the place...I'm looking for someone just like you." Another guy, a 54-year-old college professor described himself as a "happily divorced bi-sexual man" who likes to "fool around." He offered to send white books. "Need some porn?" the professor asked. "I'll be more than happy to send you some." 

After reading both letters, I turned to White. "You've gotta write to these guys," I said. "They're both begging to send you money." I should point out here that it's widely known in prison that homosexual males commonly send their pen pals money. This has created quite the scheme where straight men pretended to be gay, doing things like writing smut letters or engaging in phone sex hoping to score some cash.  But James White, a typical homophobic, wouldn't do it.

So I wrote the letters myself.

Pretending to be White, I wrote a letter to each man portraying myself as a scared, timid, young man trapped in a violent prison. You see, although James White was a 27-year-old seasoned convict with a shaved head, goatee, and tattoo's covering his body, the picture he posted on prisonpenpals.com was of him as a freshman in college, he looked like a cute little boy. And don't you know, both of these predators took the bait.

The retired businessman, Joe Barboza, came back with a proposal. " If you agree to be my wife," he wrote, "I will send you $300 a month and whatever else you need. I will also include you in my will and make sure that you are well taken care of long after I'm gone." But Joe's proposal came with a condition: "You must allow me to call your mother and tell her that we are in love, and that once you are released from prison you will be coming home to live with me." As for the Horny Professor, who's name was Dr. Larry Sully, he wrote back and offered White money and books. He also asked," Hey, has anybody ever tried to rape you in there? Care to share the details?"

As creepy as Barboza and Scully may have been, the most bizarre pen pal story involving a homosexual that I know of happened during the summer of 2005 while I was serving time in USP Lewisburg. After placing an ad on friendsbeyondthewalls.com, my friend Dusty began receiving tons of "fag mail," one of which came from a guy who lived in New York. He simply wrote, "Need Money? Call me."  And included his telephone number. Well, it just so happened that we were all strung out on heroin at the time, so to say that Dusty needed money was an understatement.

He literally ran to the telephone and made a collect call.

I don't remember the guys name but I do remember that he informed Dusty he was very wealthy and that he worked in real estate. He then told Dusty that if wanted him to send money, he would have to engage in a little roleplaying over the telephone. Specifically, he wanted Dusty to pretend that he was an armed and dangerous fugitive who was on a wild crime spree. And during that crime spree, the gay New Yorker wanted Dusty to act like he had just broken into his house with the intent to rob him. "Tell me to get on my knees," he begged Dusty to say over the phone. "And tell me what you would do if I refused?" Dusty, who at first wouldn't go along with it, soon realized that the guy wasn't joking when he sent him $200 to just say "Get on your knees bitch."  Soon thereafter, Dusty was on the phone screaming at the guy - telling him to bite down on the barrel of the gun, ordering for him to shut the fuck up, and telling him to hand over all of the money. The best part about it was at the end call when the homosexual wanted Dusty to ask for the money, or should I say, ORDER him to "take out his wallet."

"How much money do you think I have in my wallet today?" The guy would tease Dusty over the telephone. Dusty would then have to guess the right amount. "Uh... $500?" Dusty once said.

"No, no, no, I don't have THAT much in my wallet today", said the weirdo. "Guess again." The bottom line is, whatever amount was in the fantasy wallet is the amount that the guy would send Dusty immediately, via Western Union.

What a freak.

In 2008 I came up with the idea for Convict Incorporated or convictinc.com, a prison-based website that is due to officially launch sometime this year. Although prison pen pal sites are nothing new, with convict inc I wanted to do something a little different. Rather than just offer prisoners a place to seek pen pals, I wanted to offer them a platform where they could write, blog, post stories, poems, artwork or whatever they wanted as often as they would like. Not only would his give prisoners a great opportunity to showcase their talent, but this would also give people on the outside a chance to peer into the hearts and minds of prisoners before they made a decision to correspond with them. I mean, lets be honest here, there are some real bad people in prison and there are some real good people in prison. Some prisoners are just looking for money or to manipulate people for other reason, while others are seriously looking for friendships, relationships, or just someone on the outside to show them a little attention. Although it's impossible to truly know what's going on inside of a person head until you get to know them, I do believe that reading a prisoners' stories, articles, and poems, or seeing a piece of artwork created by them will have it's advantages; it should be a great benefit for those of you who want to correspond with a prisoners.

Before I go any further about pen pal-ing from a prisoners perspective, I want to talk about civilians who choose to correspond with inmates. First of all, I have no first-hand knowledge or experience about being on the outside and corresponding with a girl on the inside. As I said, when Barbara and I started writing to each other we were both behind bars. However, I can't say that I understand why guys in the free-world would choose to do this. I mean, when it comes to women our brains are biologically wired to think more along the lines of physical. My point being, I just can't imagine sitting in front of a computer screen trolling for females in prison when pornography and escorts are just a click away. It makes no sense to me - AND EVERY SINGLE OTHER GUY THAT I HAVE TALKED TO ABOUT THIS - to be on the streets and put so much time and effort into corresponding with a girl in prison when - in the matter of minutes - you can just toss-off to naked girls on the computer screen or order a couple girls in any size, shape, and flavor in the same amount of time that it takes to have chinese food delivered to your door.  So I really don't get it.

Anyway, let me move on and talk about the women out there who are corresponding with male prisoners.

Over the past 4 years the number of women choosing to correspond with inmates has increased ten-fold. Prior to 2006, many guys in prison that were looking for friendships with females were reluctant to waste their money on prison pen pal websites because homosexuals were mainly the ones responding to their ads. But due to an increasing number of prison websites, and social networking sites such as MYSpace, FaceBook, and Twitter, females have begun to surface in droves.

One of the most common things that females say when they initially write a prisoner is that they saw his profile on the Internet, found him interesting, and they are writing to see if the can somehow "help" him. Just the other day a friend of mine showed me a letter from a girl who wanted to "help" and asked me for advice. "What should I say to her?" he said. "What does she mean by 'help'." I told him to tell her to strap a bomb on her back and ran head first into the fence and yell "Allah Akbar" as she blows herself into a million little pieces up; the nice hole that she leaves in the fence will not only "help" him, but all the rest of us as well.

While I know for a fact that there are women out there with good intentions who really do just want to "help" inmates, I think in most cases there's usually more to it. I mean, we're all adults here - let's not kid ourselves. Women tend to be attracted to "Bad Boys", and I personally believe that most women who seek correspondence with prisoners are looking for Bad Boys that they can mold into a kinder, gentler, softer version of himself, yet not so much so as to lose his Bad Boy appeal. Others just want someone bad and dangerous and they can careless whether he's changed or not. Besides searching for that perfect Bad Boy, other reasons women commonly write to prisoners are because they are interested in the prison culture, have been mentally, emotionally, and/or physically abused (or sometimes all three), suffer from low self-esteem, are seeking attention, are students, psychologist, or studying to become psychologist, or they are in committed relationships that satisfy their physical needs but not their emotional ones; corresponding with men behind bars tend to fill that void. But whatever the case, time and time again, so many women contact us under false pretences.

What most guys in prison long for is a girl who is up front and honest from the beginning. Like, why don't you say, "Hey, I ran across your profile and I think you're hot. When you get out  let's fuck."  Or, "I weigh 400 pounds, I haven't had a date since I weighed 200 pounds, and as I sit here in front of the computer,stuffing my face with an extra-large pizza and a gallon of ice cream, I came across your profile and I was wondering if you would like to write to me." Or how about, " I'm 30-years old, beautiful, and I'm a real good person - when my medications are working properly."  Or, "Hey, I'm down for committing crimes, sending naked photos, or having you use and abuse me anyway you want. What's up?" Or, "Most of the men out here have been feminised . I'm looking for a real man."  Or, "My husband performs well in the bedroom but he knows nothing about a women's emotional needs. I'm looking for someone who wants to get to know me for me, not for my body."

Okay, I realise that those examples were a bit harsh and extreme, but my point is that more honesty is needed. If you write to a guy because you think he's good looking then say so. If you're a college student or someone who wants to know what goes on inside of prison then say so. If you are looking for a friendship and nothing more, be clear about that from the beginning. If you are open to a serious relationship, or you start to have feelings for the guy as your correspondence grows, then don't hold back. But no matter what the reason is, it's always best to let him know what drew you to him, what you want, and what you expect in return. Not only  will this help the guy figure out who you are and decide if he should waste his time on you, but it will help you separate the good guys in here from the ones with bad intentions. 

Which brings me to this.

A friend of mine recently sent me an article that was written by a former correctional officer who worked in the California Department of Corrections. In it, the ex- prison guard talks about an inmate who ran an elaborate pen pal scheme. In a nutshell, the convict would purchase a mailing list of women from a magazine that catered to inmates, send everyone on the list the same introduction letter, then once the women started to respond he would feed them with lies about how he has changed, how he desires a better life when he gets out and so forth. His goal was to get women to send him money, and with any luck, hook a wealthy lady that would take care of him or that he could marry.

When I read this I was impressed  by the former guards accurate description - he was right on point with a scheme that I am familiar with. Also, I was reminded of a guy I knew a few years back named Claudius, a good looking African-American guy serving time for a drug offence who was a master of the pen pal game. After posting profiles on numerous pen pal sites, Claudius received between 5-10  letters from new females every single day. His entire existence included a morning work-out session, then he spent the rest of the day writing females - and he was very good at it. He ordered psychology books, women's magazines, and read whatever else he could that would help him get inside the female mind. He even kept orderly files of each letter he received and a copy of each letter that he sent out. And all of his time and energy paid off; not only did he receive the maximum monthly visits allowed, but the he received hundreds of dollars a month from women who just couldn't get enough of his charm, attention, and wit.  Then one day, out of the blue, a female psychologist came along and swept him off his feet.  Claudius took all of his profiles off the Internet, stop writing to everyone except for his new girl, and eventually transferred to a prison closer to his soon-to-be wife - yes, they got engaged.

Anyway, getting back to the article written by the former correctional officer. As I said, everything was very accurate - that is, until the end. Quoting form the article, the man wrote, "In my 25 years with the Department of Corrections in California, I have only seen one of these types of relationships (pen pal) survive. In that one, they married, had children, the parolee worked a regular job, got off parole and they stayed happily married. In my experience 99.9% of the time it is a scam, if you want to take those odds, remember you were warned."

When I read that I thought, "What a fucking idiot". The truth is the man obviously hates inmates and he's lying. During the year that I served in the California Department of Corrections I knew of at least 5 of these relationships that resulted in marriage. Now, what happened to those marriages I don't. But with the national divorce rate being around 50%, I would say they had as good of chance as any of surviving or failing. My point is, although there are a lot of guys in prison involved in prison pen pal schemes, there are also a lot of good guys in here who are not scamming their pen pals - and further more, who are in love with them.

From a personal account, for the first 13 years of my incarceration I chose to avoid seeking or responding to pen pals. As a prisoner serving a life sentence, and one who was cheated on by my  wife during my first incarceration, I saw absolutely no reason to put myself through that kind of heartache and pain. However, because stories and articles that I write are posted on various websites, I do get notes, messages, and letters from a lot of people commenting on my stuff and I try my best to respond to everyone.

In August of last year a girl from Spain contacted my sister Tina via Facebook enquiring about writing me. Coincidentally, that same week, direct email access was installed in the federal prison system making it very easy to send anyone a message. After some persuading from my sister, I decided to put the girl on my email contact list and I sent her a message.

And that's how I met Little Barcelona.

In her first email, dated August 20, 2010, Little Barcelona, who's real name is Marta, explained that she was a studying psychology who was looking to start a friendship with an inmate and wanted to know if I needed any "help". At first, I rolled my eyes and thought, "Oh brother, here we go...another crazy "Stalker Bitch." Stalker Bitch, that is, one of the many girls who are infatuated with prisoners, especially Lifers and guys on Death Row. I've had my fair share reach out to me. But Marta was different, she immediately made it clear to me that she was in a committed relationship with a guy that she loves very much, and to tell you the truth, that's the reason I agreed to start a correspondence with her. To me she seemed "safe".

During this same time period, and largely due to Marta, one of the sites that my material is posted on has received a lot of attention and tons of people who read my stuff  do contact me. As a result, I send messages back and forth with about a dozen people regularly, and I am involved in what could be classified as a "pen pal relationship" with six people.

Last week, another girl in Europe that I am in daily email contact with asked me a question that not only made me pause, but actually threw me for a loop. As we were emailing each other back and forth, she asked me if I would ever consider getting involved in a serious relationship, or even getting married again.  Let me be clear about this...I am the guy who clowns other prisoners that are in committed relationships. I am the guy who tells every married man that first comes to prison to save himself the headaches and heart aches and get divorced immediately, and I've even helped facilitate a few.  I am also the guy who tortures married guys and says stuff like, "Do you really believe that she's not out there fucking someone?" Or, "when you kissed her during visit did she taste like cum?" ( I know , that's SO wrong, but it's true - I do) I just never understood how a guy serving decades or even a natural life sentence could be in committed relationships. Anyway, as I was getting ready to respond to my friends answer in my typical sarcastic fashion, I found myself starring  blanking at the computer screen, stuck and unable to respond.  You see, the relationship that I have with Marta, although strictly a platonic one, has been one of the best - if not the best - relationship that I have ever been in. There's nothing I can't tell the girl, and trust me, I tell her everything. Before she came into my life I pushed away any girl that tried to close, I was very guarded, and now, that's just not the case. So with that thought in mind, it made me stop and think - about pen pals, about friendships...about people in prison being in committed relationships.

And it also gave me the idea to write this article.

Although I am aware of television shows like Prison Wives, and websites that allow people who are in relationships with prisoners to go online and chat about their unique issues and  problems, I have never seen the television show or read any comments from one of these websites. Again, in federal prison we don't have computer access but we do have direct email access,and it's very easy for anyone on our email list to cut and paste and send us stuff, including messages from social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Well, I asked my friend in Europe to start sending me some of the comments and conversations that are taking place on these sites, which she did. And after reading some of the questions and concerns that women are talking about regarding prison pen pals and relationships with prisoners, I felt that I could offer some in site, and that's exactly what I'm about to do. 

There is no denying that people involved in pen pal relationships can and do build extraordinary relationships. When you think about it, prisoners have a lot of time to spend thinking about the person they are corresponding with, not to mention that  writing is therapeutic and helps people figure themselves out.  With that thought in mind, it's not unrealistic to say that there is an actual ADVANTAGE of being involved in a pen pal relationship with a prisoner; you really get to know each other if you are both being honest. Of course, there lies one of the biggest problems: How do you know that the person in prison is being honest. Well, the truth of the matter is you don't . There are guys in here with bad intentions who con female pen pals into doing a lot of things - having them send money being the most common.

Likewise, there are females on the street who use men in prison - for attention, for their emotional needs and for money. Yes, men in prison sometimes send women money for helping them do things, illegal and otherwise. But aren't their people with bad intentions everywhere? I mean, how does anyone who just gets involved in a new relationship with a complete stranger know who the person really is? You don't. Time and instinct tells all. Well it's the same with a prisoner; you have to take a chance and see how it turns out. Trust me, not everyone in here is looking to scam someone. Most guys just want someone on the outside to communicate with.

 As I said earlier, if you are writing a prisoner for the first time just be as honest as you can and that's the best place to start.

On one of the popular prison websites, a female asked: " How do I know he loves me and isn't cheating (in prison)."  Again, you don't. The truth is some guys do engage in homosexual activity, and  when I was serving time in the Arkansas Department of Corrections I personally saw men walk out into the visitation room and kiss their wives, right after I saw them with their male lovers. In one case, I walked into the bathroom and saw a guy giving another head; less than an hour later the guy performing fellatio was in the visit room kissing his wife and kids. In another case, a prisoner serving a life sentence for crack cocaine who was featured in a issue of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), was said to be a faithful husband devoted to his wife and kids who just got caught up in a bad situation  - he wasn't the leader of the drug conspiracy, he claimed, only a small fish.

 In reality, the guy was a major drug dealer in prison and he not only had a girlfriend coming to see him,( who also happened to be the one bringing him the drugs) but he lived in a cell with his other lover - need I say that  it wasn't a female?. Actually, I have known quite a few guys with wives and girlfriends who are having sex with men in prison. But homosexual activity is not as wide-spread as people believe. I don't think any guy just  wakes up one day and says" Gee, I think I try sucking a prick today." Or, "I think I'll try sticking my penis in another mans ass." I think they've actually thought about it before, or it's in their nature to do such a thing. Prison, I believe, has little to do with it.  Also, blatant homosexual activity is more common in state prison systems than it is in the federal system.  

As far as cheating with females, as in female staff members, yes it happens. On one prison website, a former female correctional officer wrote:" I was a staff member at the prison and I don't even remember meeting him the first time, although he remembers me. Apparently I told him he was annoying. We just started talking and I came to look forward to it everyday. He was always ready and waiting for work in the kitchen at 3am before everyone else so I'd let him and anyone else who was ready out into the area around the pods until the kitchen staff came to collect them. We'd stand there and talk until it was time for him to go to work...Eventually we fell in love and I ended up resigning."  On a personal note, when I was in state prison I was placed in a situation were myself and a female officer were alone a lot. We started off talking about my wife kids - we finished off in the school bathroom, after I got off.  So yes, put males and females in confined areas together and stuff like this happens, although it's not common.

As for knowing if he "loves you," while there are guys in here who are professional at running game on women and making them believe that they are in "love", I would say pay close attention to his actions. Such as, does he seem like he's always asking for money? Does he remember birthday's, holiday's and important dates, which can be an indicator since we do have a lot of time to remember that stuff. Is he constantly getting in trouble and being put on restrictions, such as phone restriction, email restriction (for guys in the feds) and visitation restriction? I say that because guys who are generally "in love" tend to walk a fine line so that don't get into any trouble. I mean, think about it. If your relationship is based on communication, such as these pen pal relationships are, then it would only make sense that someone in love would not jeopardise losing contact with you - violating institutional rules leads to the aforementioned restrictions, everyone in here knows this. (Note: You can't count fights! Fights often cant be helped).

And finally, one of the most frequent questions asked on the prison website is "Do you honestly think he's changed?"

There is no doubt that ever prisoner spends a lot of time reflecting on or about our past. It's very normal to lie awake at night wishing that we would have been better sons to our parents, husbands to our wives, fathers to our children or a better all around friend. Often, the regrets of our past and the dreams of our future flow from pen to paper or key pads to text and end up being sent to complete strangers, people that we call our "pen pals." As I said before, there is an advantage of being in a pen pal relationship, whether it's just a friendship or leads to something more. And now that I think about it, I guess it would be quite an experience to be on the other end of this, in the "free-world" watching a prisoner bare his soul, one word at a time. But words are just that - words. And the fact of the matter is the national recidivism rate is about 80%.  So for those of you who are wondering how you would  know if your pen pal or lover has "changed", I would say that you have to look at his actions. For example, is he in and out of the hole all of the time? Is he enrolled in programs - educational, rehabilitative, vocational or occupational? If so, does he complete the classes and course that he started?  Or does he always seem to have an excuse about why he had to quit?  Also, pay close attention to his future goals? Does he have a realistic game plan or is he just doing his time with no real plan for when he gets out? And do his letters not seem sincere or just down right fake?

Although not totally accurate, all of these things are good indicators to see if a person has truly changed.

Once upon a time I participated in all of the penitentiary games. I used and dealt drugs, made and drank alcohol, gambled and ran sports betting operations, and engaged in schemes, such as the pen pal schemes that I mentioned earlier. In regards to pen pals schemes, I  put down my pen and paper years ago after a girl who I helped con into bringing drugs into the institution got caught trying to do just that. As a result, she lost her children. Also, when I stopped using alcohol and drugs 43-months ago, my out look on life changed. Hell... I changed. 

And that's why I am able to sit here today and offer all of you a better look into the culture of prison pen pal-ing.