149. Earning Freedom (15.3), by Michael Santos Prison Professors

Earning Freedom: Conquering a 45-Year Prison Term, by Michael Santos
Running, getting ready for release. Transferring to Atwater and getting ready for release.
 
It’s Christmas, 2010, my 24th Christmas morning as a federal prisoner.  I’ve now served eight thousand, five hundred, and thirty-nine days, but today is a very special day and I’m excited to call my wife.  For the first time that I can remember, I’ll be giving her a magnificent surprise.
I’ve been awake since 2:17, writing her a letter while I wait for the phones to turn on.  Now it’s nearly six and I expect to hear a dial tone soon. She received the envelope that I sent her, but we agreed that she would not open it until I called her this morning.  While waiting for the phone to turn on, I’ve been writing a letter to her, describing the joy that I feel at crossing into 2011.  We will begin making final plans for my release from prison, my return to society, and I am ready.
“Merry Christmas honey,” she answers my call at precisely 6:01 am.”
“Merry Christmas.  Are you ready to leave?”  Carole’s driving up to Taft for a visit this morning and I want to make sure that leaves on time so that she arrives as soon as the visiting room opens at 8:00 am.
“I’m ready.  Can I open the envelope now?”
“Do you promise you haven’t opened it yet honey?”
“I told you I wouldn’t.”
“Okay precious.  Merry Christmas.  You can open it now.” I wait, listening to her slice open the envelope.  “Be careful, my love, you won’t want to slice what’s inside.”
“What is it?” I hear her giggle.  “Oh my God!  It’s a check for $45,000.”
“That’s for us honey, to help start our life when I come home to you.  I want you to set that aside so that we don’t have any financial stress when I walk out of here to you.”
“But we’ve already saved enough money.  How did you do that?”
“I work hard for you, my love.  You’re my inspiration and nothing fulfills me more than to think that I’m providing for you, making your life better.  It’s the only way that I can feel like a man rather than a prisoner.”
Whenever I earn financial resources from prison, whether it’s through a writing fee or a stock trade, I derive an enormous sense of gratification.  This environment is designed to crush the human spirit.  Prisoners are supposed to go home broken, without financial resources, without a support network, destitute.  Yet despite the quarter century that I’m serving, I’m going to walk out of here strong, stable.  My wife has earned her credentials as a registered nurse.  She has secured a job at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara and expects to earn $80,000 per year.  Besides that income, men who know the value of work have paid me well, sufficiently to have supported my wife through what others would construe as incomprehensible struggle.  After all of those expense, we’ve managed to build an after-tax savings account that now exceeds $100,000. Having achieved these goals from within prison boundaries magnifies the delight I feel.
*******
It’s April 12 of 2011 and I have to make a decision.  My release date is scheduled for August 12, 2013.  I have 284 months behind me and a maximum of only 28 more months of prison ahead of me.
But I know that I won’t serve a full 28 months.  Some complications surround my release date because I have that sliver of parole eligibility.  It’s strange.  My case is so old that I’m one of the few prisoners remaining in the federal system that qualifies for an initial parole hearing.  By my calculations, members of the U.S. Parole Commission have the discretion to release me as soon as February of 2013, in only 22 more months.
That doesn’t tell the whole story.  Besides the parole date, I qualify for up to 12 months of halfway house time.  If I were to receive the February 2013 parole date, I could transfer to a halfway house as soon as Fe