Preparing Now for Life After

I've been told and read about the last part of our sentence. Many things could occur, and there are things we can do now to help prepare for the best scenario. Many people spend some time at a halfway house closer to their home and others actually get home confinement. This is before the end of their prison term- usually about 10% maximum. It is a way to transition us back into the community.

I have read that we should prepare an envelope with a copy of our birth certificate, drivers licenses, and social security card and leave it with someone we trust who will send it to us when it is requested. My guess is that these are the documents needed to obtain our job. I hope I will be allowed to return to school and work on campus. However, there are no federal halfway houses near where I live. The closest one is over an hour away, so I suppose I may have to do another job during that portion of my sentencing.

I was told that if we want home confinement instead of a hwh, as I do, we need to start the process with the prison immediately. This means knowing of an address where there is a landline where I will go for home confinement. I must be able to show a phone  that indicates there are no features, such as call forwarding, on the phone because it is prohibited.

For me, whether I get a hwh or go right into home confinement, I have three years of supervised release after prison. That may have some of those same rules. I'm very, very fortunate, though. My good friend (like family) Sporty, has decided to move from where I used to live to where I live now to help enable T.S. to have in-state tuition. In turn, we will once again be roommates and I will have a home to come "home" to. She has already agreed to all the requirements of the "phone line" and will be ready to talk with probation when they want to look at my release home. One of the best parts of this arrangement is that if I do have house arrest, I get to also get the companionship of my former dog that I raised with Sporty and T.S. who is certified as a therapy dog. Something tells me that I may need a lot of dog "therapy" after my months at Carswell.

Anyway, we are all doing a lot to prepare ourselves for going into our respective prisons, it is also very important to start preparing for our releases (no matter how long it may seem away).

The actual "therapy dog" referred to in this post.