This thread will contain the institutional newsletter from Federal Correctional Institution Beaumont - Medium Security Prison.

The name of this was "The Medium's Message"
The author, at least most of the time, was Warden Jonathon Dobre. (No longer with the Federal Bureau of Prisons)

Some of these were before my time there; however I sent a request to the warden asking him for back copies and of issues that I was unable to collect myself while "in attendance". I received most, but not all that were out there up until I was released. If anyone has or had a loved one at FCI Beaumont "Medium" and have copies of this newsletter outside of the dates I have already attached, please attach them or contact me.

I think these prison newsletters give an interesting perspective... One where the warden and some staff are addressing the prisoners directly.

Enjoy..

July 19, 1999
FCI Beumont - Medium

In this Issue: Emergency Response

Emergency Response
During several recent staff responses to emergency alarms, inmates have been observed blocking the doorways, exits and sidewalks. This is a problem from a number of points of view.

All inmates should be aware that most calls for staff assistance actually involve assistance rendered to inmates. Fights and other medical emergencies account for most staff requests for assistance. When inmates block or interfere with staff's response, they actually are endangering the safety of staff, inmates and the overall institution. Such interference will never be tolerated, and disciplinary action will be taken against any inmate who slows the emergency response of staff.

What to Do
When you observe staff running to an area, you should immediately assume there has been a call for assistance. In these cases, all inmates should stop their movement and clear the sidewalks, doorways and common areas. Outside of the housing units, step away from the doorway and allow all staff to enter through the sallyports unimpeded. On stairwells, move to the side and allow staff to pass you. Do not progress to areas which will slow
staff or cause them to run into you. If you are outside, move against a wall or off the sidewalk to allow staff to pass you without having to slow down. As is the case out in the community, if you are anywhere which causes emergency responders to slow down, you'll get a ticket. And if staff or inmates become injured due to inmates blocking the access areas or sidewalks, inmates will be held accountable through the inmate discipline process.

Remain Quiet
It seems there are always a few who like to callout or laugh loudly when staff are running on a emergency.
This is not permissible, because many staff are not sure what theO nature of the emergency is, or even exactly where the call came from. When you callout, you take their necessary attention away from the real emergency, and interfere with the emergency response system. This will not be tolerated, and you can rest assured someone will be taken to Special Housing if observed calling out or acting loudly during an emergency response.

The Life you Save...
As previously mentioned, most calls for staff assistance are to provide custodial or medical care for inmates. If staff are prevented from responding
to a call for assistance,
inmates stand to lose. Or
in other words, move aside and stay quiet during emergency responses; The life you save may be your own, or someone you care about.

lO%'ers Beware
Forewarned is forearmed. If you are found to be recklessly or needlessly activating any emergency response system, you run the risk of severe disciplinary sanctions. Like the boy who cried wolf, staff must not become conditioned to believing calls are likely to be false alarms. Staff will take corrective action to prevent inmates from having access to the telephones, fire alarms or other emergency signal devices where they are misused. This would likely take the form of increased staff presence, fewer activities in common areas, and a general reduction in inmate movement and autonomy. And while reductions in activities and programs will serve the
omission of custody and control, it is unlikely what the misguided 10% out there wants. So a word to the wise; stay away from the telephones and other emergency summoning devices.

The Medium's Message is a quarterly newsletter for the inmate population,
provided by the staff of FCC, Beaumont (Medium). Please send any comments or suggestions to the Warden's Office.

The Medium's Message Newsletter
September 1, 1999
FCI Beumont - Medium

In this Issue: Telephone Privileges


Telephone Privileges
Take a look at Program Statement 5264.06, Telephone Regulations for Inmates, and you'll see the Bureau of Prisons extends telephone privileges to inmates as part of its overall correctional management system. For many, unlimited access to the telephones in the housing unit is the only way they've ever known. However, those who have been around for a number of years remember the days of one collect telephone call every 90-days. Much has changed since that time; however one thing still remains the same. Staff must place limitations on telephone usage to ensure the security and good order of the institution, and to protect the public.


(Continued / Full version in attachment)

The Medium's Message
September 27, 1999
Topic: Rumor Control

What do you Know; What do you Bear?
We all know that when a large group of people are housed together, there's going to be talk. Recently we encountered a group of men who had mistakenly believed that two of their "brothers" had been killed at another institution.
The fact is, the facility mentioned had never experienced a homicide, and inmates were preparing to take revenge against others for an act which had never occurred. It's a little unsettling to think that people could get hurt over false rumors. Experience tells us that this has happened at other places, and will probably continue to happen. But that doesn't mean it has to happen here. FCI Beaumont(Medium) can be a different kind of facility.

What's the Hot Rumor?
When staff make their A&O presentations, one of the constant themes are -Talk to us if there's a
problem.- This isn't just hollow talk. We mean it.

What You Can Expect
If you start to hear things you are concerned about, we
hope you'll try to contact a staff member to get the real story. If you ask a question, and it doesn't relate to the securi ty

needs of the institution or anotber inmate, you'll get

(Continued / Full Version in Attachment)

The Medium's Message
September 30, 1999
Topic: Reasonable Requests


Meeting Each Other Halfway
During the recent institutional emergency, the need to lockdown the facility was apparent. As previously stated, we will never hesitate to take those steps necessary to ensure the safe and secure operation of institution. However, we were also pleased with the cooperative attitudes and patience displayed by the majority of the inmate population during the lockdown. In response to the positive efforts of the majority to maintain a harmonious environment, it seems some additional procedures may be warranted. These management efforts are in response to some reasonable requests made by various segments of the population.

Monday Night Football
Effective Monday, October 4, 1999, inmates will be permitted to remain in the television rooms during the 10:00 PM count, on Monday nights only. This will allow those watching football or other programs to finish that program, while still allowing staff to conduct their count. During the count, all inmates must stand up to be counted, with the lights on, and are to remain quiet when staff enter the television rooms. If it appears to staff that too many inmates are in the television rooms to

(Continued / Full version in Attachment)

The Medium's Message
October 19, 1999
Topics: Discipline, Telephone Usage, Commissary & Character


True Discipline is Self-Imposed
In this environment, "discipline" is an often used term which generally refers to the Bureau taking some action or imposing a limitation on inmate liberties to ensure the maintenance of security and good order. But this Medium's Message is intended to shed some light on individual discipline; the ability to view one's own wants and needs, balance them with the needs of the community we live and work in, and then to make a morally sound decision to put the greater good first. In short, it's "Doing the Right Thing."

Telephone Usage
Last month, we issued an article about telephone usage, and explained the rules related to telephone calls. This message had a positive impact in that some of the practices regarding misinformation on the telephone lists has declined. However, we continue to see some inmates unreasonably occupying the telephones, or in other words, putting their own wants ahead of the common good. For this reason, it appears it is time to impose a new limitation on the use of the phones. Effective
immediately, all inmates are to limit their completed and connected telephone calls to
no more than 10 per day. This means that if we review your telephone printout and see you've connected on more than 10 call in one day, your telephone privileges will be restricted. A second limitation we are imposing

(Continued / Full Version in attachment)

The Medium's Message
November 3, 1999
Topics: Visiting Room Entertainment, Telephone Usage & Holiday Activities


Visitation Room Entertainment
With the recent activation, our operations and programs visitors increases, so does visitors in the group. We're still undergoing many changes and improvements here at FCC, Beaumont (Medium). As the number of visitors increase, so doesthe need for effective ways to entertain the younger visitors in the group.

We're interested in improving the visiting accommodations for your children.

(Continued / Full Version in attachment)

The Medium's Message
November 19, 1999
Topic: Holiday Activities

Many activities are scheduled to take place during the upcoming holiday season. This issue of The Medium's Message will list some of these activities. We would encourage you to participate in as many as possible to share in the joy of the season.

(Continued / Full Version in attachment)

I believe that completes the 1999 newsletters that I have received.

As you have noticed if you have been reading these, they are not handed out on specific dates. They are sent out whenever the Warden felt the need, thus no logical dating, etc.

I do not know if other federal institutions do this but we had a rather interesting warden. He is no longer working for the BOP.

I am going to go ahead and not put any previews for the remainder of attachments. It looks like the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) software only works so-so and I do not have the time to go back and fix the mistakes. I would just rather make the rest of the adobe pdf attachments of the originals. This kills the ability to search (via PTO) through the content, but I think all of you that may be interested don't really need that.

Here comes year 2000

The Medium's Message
February 16, 2000
Topics: Telephone Use, Status of the Yard, Institutional Environment & Recreational Activities

The Medium's Message
March 22, 2000
Topics: Inspections, Rec Yard Snacks, Opening of the center compound, Institutional Environment.

The Medium's Message
April 19, 2000
Topics: Recreation Changes, Visitation Room Activities, The Playoffs & The Institution environment.

The Medium's Message
May 1, 2000
Topics: Commissary Items & the Photo Programs, The warm weather, Rec Yard and Count procedure.

The Medium's Message
May 26, 2000
Topics: The New ITS-II Phone System, Center Compound, Graduation, Televisions & VT, and Memorial Day Weekend (When Fed-X arrives :eek: )

The Medium's Message
June 29, 2000
Topics: TV Rooms turned into dorm-style living quarters, "Burn Rubber" Club, Jamming Officer locks, loud noise, and Nationalistic Pride.

The Medium's Message
August 22, 2000
Topics: Destruction of CD Players to make Tat guns, Microwave Ovens, 10%'ers in the Dark, Compound Closures, Telephones and other activities.

The Medium's Message
September 15, 2000
Topics: Nationalistic Celebrations, Microwave Ovens, The Medium's Message Content suggestions, and movies in the units.

The Medium's Message
October 27, 2000
Topics: Visiting an Entrance Procedures & Drug "Ion" Sniffer, Federal Prison Health Care Co-pay act signed into law, TV rooms to dorms update, and holiday movies.

I think the last "issues", which contains information on the prison drug sniffer or "Ion Scanner" will be of great interest to many of you.

It is around this time that my own mother was hit with a false positive and denied visitation.

On that note, here is the Warden's response to her. It is pathetically generic. I cannot find the letter that she drafted to him but it was right to the point. She was livid and understandably upset and embarrassed to be turned away for testing positive to heroin, meth, marijuana and one other drug. She has never even seen any drugs in her life. She volunteered to even give blood or a UA sample and submit to a strip-search. They didn't care and sent her packing.

This machine turned away 10's if not 100's of people at the Medium, and he denied there was a problem until it was uncovered.

That's all for year 2000 newsletters.

The Medium's Message
February 10, 2001
Topics: Rounding up the usual suspects, Former TV Rooms, Commissary Slips, Trust Fund Update, Commissary Update, and extended housing hours.

The Medium's Message
March 15, 2001
Topics: Current Mood / Tone, Dress attire, telephones, sanitation, positive thoughts

The Medium's Message
July 13, 2001
Topics: Results of a big gang blow up on the yard, unit KA turned into a lock-down / SHU / transfer unit. lol.. Then he goes on to talk about how the Medium at FCI Beaumont was rated the best prison in the feds! HAHA..

This is all I have.. I know there are more but I don't think they will be responding to my requests, even if I made them.

I am not sure how much longer Warden Dobre was at FCI Beaumont, but I know he was eventually replaced by a female Warden that the guys I stayed in contact with said was MUCH better.

My thoughts on Dobre.

While he was a likable enough guy, he mistakenly thought that he could actually bend the inmate population to his will, which just isn't going to happen. When you get down to the number of Mexican gangs that we had, and the blood feud that often popped up, no amount of threatening SHU time, tear gas or anything else is going to scare them.

The one thing I will never forget was his thumbing his nose at the warnings he received with regards to releasing some rival Cali Mexican gang members out of the hole. He got all bent out of shape when the leaders of all the other Mexican gangs sent word that if he let them out they would kill them.
He got on the PA system an barked that this was his prison and nobody was going to tell him what to do! That "you" are not running anything here!

I was in the unit and close to one of the CO's when the announcement came down and the CO said out loud, "Oh shit! I can't believe this guy!". Yeah, the CO's know much more than some admin jerk-off like him who runs it when it gets out of control.

Now, rather than lock everyone down during an open move on the compound he decides to release these Mexi-Cali gang members from the hole! Of course, he had plenty of CO's from across the street at the USP, LOW & Camp on hand just in case...

You know in prison when it is quite something bad is about to happen. Well, it was deathly silent. I was out in front of "KB" with a few guys when it all went down. The guys coming from the hole barely made it out the door before the "deuces" went off.. But, it was coming from unit "QA" on the opposite side of the compound.. (SETUP!) The CO's, warden and most everyone else raced to QA, and when they got there, the real action kicked off on the open compound. The Mexi-Cali gang members coming from the hole got SWARMED.. Shanks, sox-n-locks, and everything else going down.. The first cops back on the scene were outnumbered 20 to 1 and changed their mind right away.. But the big Hero Warden charges across the field and tackles the first guy he can.. The guy he hit noticed it was the Warden an didn't try and attack back. El'Wardo was standing there with his foot on his back directing the CO's.. And by now, the SORT guys with shotguns and the others with Cameras trying to video everything..

The warden and some of the others were clapping hands after everyone was cuffed up and smiling. They were clearly ENJOYING the action that THEY had created. Rather than move the Mexi-Cali Gang members out West (or anyplace else) they got a bunch of people shanked and torn up. And in the end... Guess what!? They were shipped out anyways.. And new fights broke out..

I believe he now is out West with some type of corrections company after being the director of a federal half-way house in Florida for some time.

I know there could have been much worse Wardens, but IMO, he wasn't any good.