I saw a shadow pass by the night

Struck a mirror out, there was nothing in sight

Thought of doubt filled my own mind

A ghost just passed by, I could not deny

Goose bumps popped up on my skin

Afraid of ghost that I had just seen

My heart was pounding, as it never has been

The same shadow passed by my cell yet again

I looked out the bars but the emptiness remained

I am certain the ghost was playing with my brain

In my confusion, I was going insane.

Back and forth, the shadow did not fail

Maybe there was a curse on my cell

Maybe a spirit had some back from hell

A chill in my bones, I was not feeling well

Suddenly a pigeon appeared at my door

He was pecking at something that lies on the floor

Then if Flew away just like before

Damn the pigeon…! I almost crapped on the floor.

By Noodles/Pham J93364

Folsom State Prison

P.O. Box 715071-Bldg: 5 Bed: 30

Repreas, CA 95671

“No one – not even the government itself – has ever been able to specify with any certainty the precise number of federal crimes defined … in the 27,000 or so pages of the U.S. Code.” In the 1980s, lawyers at the Department of Justice estimated that the criminal code contained 3,000 crimes.  Today, the Heritage Foundation estimates the federal laws currently enumerate nearly 5,000 crimes, a number that grows every year.

Holly Harris, Executive Director of the U.S. Justice Action Network, told Foreign Affairs Magazine in “The Prisoner Dilemma”  March /April 2017 www.ForeignAffairs.com

PPI’s “Correctional Control: Incarceration and Supervision by State” is the first report to aggregate data on all types of correctional control nationwide.