Skip to main content

Two Years for Corruption. Seven Years for Addiction.

 


There’s something I can’t shake today.

And honestly… it makes me sick.

I just read about a correctional officer at the same prison my husband is sitting in right now—Lewis Prison Complex—who was caught smuggling heroin, fentanyl, and cell phones into the facility.

Not using.

Not struggling.

Not trying to survive addiction.

Smuggling.

Trafficking.

Profiting.

Investigators didn’t just catch him once either. This wasn’t some “bad decision” moment. This was a full investigation—months long—with surveillance, evidence, and tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of drugs tied to it.

Let me say that again…

A man with a badge, authority, and access was bringing poison into a prison—into a place already filled with men fighting addiction, trauma, and survival every single day.

Now here’s the part that I cannot wrap my head around…

My husband is serving seven years for doing drugs.

Seven years.

For addiction.

For a battle that started when he was a child—before he even had a real chance at life.

But the man who helped fuel addiction inside the prison?
The one supplying heroin and fentanyl?

He will likely serve far less time.

So I have a real question…

What exactly are we punishing?

Because from where I’m standing, it doesn’t look like justice.

It looks like a system that punishes the broken harder than the ones exploiting them.

And before anyone tries to simplify this into “well, they both broke the law”…

No.

These are not the same.

One is a man struggling with addiction—a disease that has taken down stronger people than most of us will ever admit.

The other is a man in a position of power who chose to profit off that addiction.
Who chose to bring drugs into a controlled facility.
Who chose to feed a system that thrives on chaos, violence, and dependency.

That’s not the same level of harm.

Not even close.

Here’s the part people don’t want to talk about:

Drugs don’t just magically appear inside prisons.

They come from somewhere.

And too often… they come from the very people wearing the uniform.

I know that’s uncomfortable.

Trust me—I’ve lived both sides of this.

I’ve worn the uniform.

I’ve walked those yards.

And now I sit on the other side of those walls as a wife—watching the man I love serve time in a system that doesn’t apply consequences equally.

This isn’t just about my husband.

This is about every family out here trying to hold it together while watching someone they love be punished in a system that feels… selective.

This is about a system that says it wants rehabilitation—
but continues to fuel the very problems it claims to fight.

This is about accountability—
and how it seems to depend on who you are, not just what you did.

Because if we’re being honest…

It’s easier to punish the addict than it is to confront corruption.

It’s easier to lock someone away than it is to fix a broken system.

But I’m not going to stay quiet about it.

I can’t.

Not when I see the man I love fighting every single day to become better…
while the people contributing to the problem walk away with less.

This isn’t justice.

This is imbalance.

This is a system that protects its own while coming down hardest on the ones already struggling.

And until that changes…

We don’t have a justice system.

We have a system that picks and chooses who pays the highest price.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Exposing the Deadly Reality at La Palma Correctional Facility: How Many More Have to Die?

For years, La Palma Correctional Facility in Eloy, Arizona, has been a hotspot for controversy, yet little has been done to address the rampant corruption, officer misconduct, and systemic failures that have turned it into a living hell for those incarcerated within its walls. Most recently, another inmate has died—one of many whose deaths could have been prevented if those in charge had taken real action instead of covering up their negligence. On January 2, 2025, I fought to have my husband moved out of La Palma due to the sheer volume of drugs flooding the yard, which were being brought in by correctional officers. I reported specific names to the Special Security Unit (SSU), thinking that doing the right thing would bring change. Instead, my concerns fell on deaf ears. Now, here we are, with more inmates losing their lives—many of these deaths are suspected overdoses, yet little to no investigation ever seems to result in actual change. A History of Negligence and Deaths This lates...

Until You’ve Walked Through Those Gates, Sit Down and Be Quiet

-By DeAnna You see memes like this floating around all the time — the ones that crack jokes about how “good” inmates supposedly have it. You know the ones: they talk about sex three times a day, reading books, working out, and then “complaining” about prison life. People laugh, hit share, and feel smug because they think they know something about what it’s like inside. I used to be one of them. I used to think prison was “right.” I believed it was what people deserved if they broke the law. I repeated the clichés: “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.” “Three hots and a cot.” “They’ve got it easy in there.” And then… I worked there. Let me tell you something: until you’ve walked through those locking gates — hearing that buzzer, watching that steel door slam behind you, feeling the air shift from free to suffocating — you don’t know a damn thing about prison. Until you’ve seen the reality — the mace, the gas grenades, the cell extractions that leave blood on the floor, the...