My name is Jeffrey Patrick Frye and I am serving time for liberating federally insured money. Now I live in federal prison and do my best to make a tough thing look easy and write about my life and about this subculture and world. I also keep my chest out and keep my swag up because if I've learned anything on this journey it's that nobody likes a whiny bank robber. Especially me.
"If you like what you read, check out my book and the others offered by Murder Slim Press. God knows they could use the money for more alcohol and I could use the money for instant coffee, honey buns, and restitution (in that order). Before you click on to the blog though, let me tell you a little bit about the feds.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has roughly 115 prisons throughout the United States (and Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands) that house people convicted of federal offenses. They have pre-trial holding facilities in major metropolitan areas and they also contract with county jails in various states to hold federal inmates. Then they have what are called Federal Medical Centers (FMC) for people who are sick and require 24 hour care. But when it comes to housing the approximately 200,000 sentenced inmates in their system they have three custody levels. They are:
United States Penitentiary (USP) High custody
Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Medium custody
Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Low custody (a.k.a. Club Fed)
The public likes to focus on the amenities of Club Fed - no fences and putt-putt golf - but at the opposite end of the custody spectrum are the USPs (there are 14 of them including ADX Supermax in Florence, Colorado). These house what the feds consider to be the most violent and/or dangerous people in the United States of America. Turn on the cable channel Spike TV sometime and watch the show GANGLAND. Every gang (set) in America is present and actively repped in USPs. Pick one from the Crips and Bloods to the Black Gangster Disciples, from the Latin Kings to MS-13, and the Skinheads to the Aryan Brotherhood. They're all in here. And they are constantly killing each other.
Right now, I'm in USP Hazelnut, sorry, Hazelton, filled with goons, goofballs and hazel-nutjobs. I used to live in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania behind a 30 foot wall topped with eight gun towers at the infamous USP Lewisburg, and before then I lived in USP Coleman 1 down in Florida and I spent five of the last 12 months there on lockdown in my cell because of the killings. Lockdowns and killings are a way of life in a USP. It's not uncommon to walk to breakfast over the blood on the sidewalk where someone has been rushed to the hospital via the Lifeflight helicopter because their neck has been cut for changing the TV channel. I've seen a lot people killed back here behind the television. I can't think of a TV program I enjoy watching that much (maybe Jersey Shore). Here's another oddity, yet a way of life in a pen: People don't wear their shower shoes to the shower because if you're attacked you can't fight in them too well. They wear their boots and carry their shower shoes in their hand. Sets also post sentries outside of the shower to stand guard while one of their brothers is in there taking a shower.
It's also very racial in USPs. Blacks and whites don't cell together nor sit down to eat together in the chow hall. Most pens have a large TV room that's comprised of several TVs and the TVs are controlled by racial designation. There's a specific TV for whites and while people of other races can sit and watch the White boy TV they can't change the channel...that is unless they want to start a war. And everybody rides with somebody back here. If you're not part of a set then you usually ride (eat, walk the yard, and hang out) with the guys from your geographical area or your common ethnicity. I chill with the Italians. As a demographic we tend to eat well and be non-whiny. I like my boys because they don't pretend to be anything other than they are: Gangsters (there's nothing I hate worse than a Born-Again Crack Dealer). Although some of them tend to communicate in snorts and grunts and look like Luca Brasi.
I'll tell you what living in this environment makes you: aggressive. You have to check any strange look or perceived slight because it could be the symptom of a disease...that disease being disrespect. You have to be ready to fight or strap-up with a knife at a moment's notice and just get busy with no questions asked. Or you could end up as the one on the Lifeflight helicopter. I ain't never been on one nor do I plan on going on one; that's not why my mom gave birth to me. I'm laid back, but I'm also built Ford Tough and have a whole other gear I can shift into if need be. I've never been hurt back here over the years and that includes a fight I had with a Jamaican who had a knife duct-taped in his hand (w/ shit wiped on the end of the blade). I ended up pinning him to the ground and head-butting him while I told him that he really sucked at killing people and that he better not quit his day job. But that incident was the exception to the rule. Most days are laid back and I'm cooking, writing, and although there's violence, it doesn't involve me. It's not that I'm some kind of Billy Badass as much as it is how I carry myself and treat others. The monkey knows the tree to climb and they don't climb this one. I'm in a USP because of the number of banks I visited and because of a prior self-emancipation issue. Everybody needs a vacation.
So that's a little bit about my present world. Now that you've heard a little bit about it, click onto my blog and get another perspective on this freak show and some of The Usual Suspects. From The Don and This Fucking Guy to Workie Workie. If you want to contact me shoot Steve an email at Murder Slim. If you're a female...send photos.
If you're really keen, you can read this interview I did with fellow MSP writer u.v. ray, which has more about my life.
Just remember, as you read, please don't make any sudden movements and keep your hands where I can see them and this will all be over before you know it.
Jeffrey Patrick Frye
United States Penitentiary, Hazelton
"If you like what you read, check out my book and the others offered by Murder Slim Press. God knows they could use the money for more alcohol and I could use the money for instant coffee, honey buns, and restitution (in that order). Before you click on to the blog though, let me tell you a little bit about the feds.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has roughly 115 prisons throughout the United States (and Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands) that house people convicted of federal offenses. They have pre-trial holding facilities in major metropolitan areas and they also contract with county jails in various states to hold federal inmates. Then they have what are called Federal Medical Centers (FMC) for people who are sick and require 24 hour care. But when it comes to housing the approximately 200,000 sentenced inmates in their system they have three custody levels. They are:
United States Penitentiary (USP) High custody
Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Medium custody
Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Low custody (a.k.a. Club Fed)
The public likes to focus on the amenities of Club Fed - no fences and putt-putt golf - but at the opposite end of the custody spectrum are the USPs (there are 14 of them including ADX Supermax in Florence, Colorado). These house what the feds consider to be the most violent and/or dangerous people in the United States of America. Turn on the cable channel Spike TV sometime and watch the show GANGLAND. Every gang (set) in America is present and actively repped in USPs. Pick one from the Crips and Bloods to the Black Gangster Disciples, from the Latin Kings to MS-13, and the Skinheads to the Aryan Brotherhood. They're all in here. And they are constantly killing each other.
Right now, I'm in USP Hazelnut, sorry, Hazelton, filled with goons, goofballs and hazel-nutjobs. I used to live in the mountains of Central Pennsylvania behind a 30 foot wall topped with eight gun towers at the infamous USP Lewisburg, and before then I lived in USP Coleman 1 down in Florida and I spent five of the last 12 months there on lockdown in my cell because of the killings. Lockdowns and killings are a way of life in a USP. It's not uncommon to walk to breakfast over the blood on the sidewalk where someone has been rushed to the hospital via the Lifeflight helicopter because their neck has been cut for changing the TV channel. I've seen a lot people killed back here behind the television. I can't think of a TV program I enjoy watching that much (maybe Jersey Shore). Here's another oddity, yet a way of life in a pen: People don't wear their shower shoes to the shower because if you're attacked you can't fight in them too well. They wear their boots and carry their shower shoes in their hand. Sets also post sentries outside of the shower to stand guard while one of their brothers is in there taking a shower.
It's also very racial in USPs. Blacks and whites don't cell together nor sit down to eat together in the chow hall. Most pens have a large TV room that's comprised of several TVs and the TVs are controlled by racial designation. There's a specific TV for whites and while people of other races can sit and watch the White boy TV they can't change the channel...that is unless they want to start a war. And everybody rides with somebody back here. If you're not part of a set then you usually ride (eat, walk the yard, and hang out) with the guys from your geographical area or your common ethnicity. I chill with the Italians. As a demographic we tend to eat well and be non-whiny. I like my boys because they don't pretend to be anything other than they are: Gangsters (there's nothing I hate worse than a Born-Again Crack Dealer). Although some of them tend to communicate in snorts and grunts and look like Luca Brasi.
I'll tell you what living in this environment makes you: aggressive. You have to check any strange look or perceived slight because it could be the symptom of a disease...that disease being disrespect. You have to be ready to fight or strap-up with a knife at a moment's notice and just get busy with no questions asked. Or you could end up as the one on the Lifeflight helicopter. I ain't never been on one nor do I plan on going on one; that's not why my mom gave birth to me. I'm laid back, but I'm also built Ford Tough and have a whole other gear I can shift into if need be. I've never been hurt back here over the years and that includes a fight I had with a Jamaican who had a knife duct-taped in his hand (w/ shit wiped on the end of the blade). I ended up pinning him to the ground and head-butting him while I told him that he really sucked at killing people and that he better not quit his day job. But that incident was the exception to the rule. Most days are laid back and I'm cooking, writing, and although there's violence, it doesn't involve me. It's not that I'm some kind of Billy Badass as much as it is how I carry myself and treat others. The monkey knows the tree to climb and they don't climb this one. I'm in a USP because of the number of banks I visited and because of a prior self-emancipation issue. Everybody needs a vacation.
So that's a little bit about my present world. Now that you've heard a little bit about it, click onto my blog and get another perspective on this freak show and some of The Usual Suspects. From The Don and This Fucking Guy to Workie Workie. If you want to contact me shoot Steve an email at Murder Slim. If you're a female...send photos.
If you're really keen, you can read this interview I did with fellow MSP writer u.v. ray, which has more about my life.
Just remember, as you read, please don't make any sudden movements and keep your hands where I can see them and this will all be over before you know it.
Jeffrey Patrick Frye
United States Penitentiary, Hazelton