Ricardo Visniker's Reintroduction into Society
By Justin "Amadeaus" Collins

Part I: Isolations Toll
“I feel like a haunted skeleton coming back to life. I'm used to going to a city where I have my job, a family and girlfriend. I came back to a ghost town.” These are the reminiscences of Ricardo Visniker, A 36-year-old man who spent the last seventeen years in isolation for armed robbery.

I met Ricardo a year after being released from his second prison term. He was a patient at the same rehab I spent time in. He told me his story and about the effects of spending so much time in a cell. And his personal story is a story of an entire generation. So many are being locked away for large amounts of time with no way to compensate upon release for the mental changes that take place in order to cope with institutional life. The prisoner has to be on constant alert for safety's sake, it becomes hard to take peoples word for things. And over all it's hard to develop relationships when you carry so much pain and mental baggage. Prisons are taking our youth and giving us back lost souls stuck in limbo.

Ricardo went in at 19-years-old for robbing a gas station. He is an intelligent but socially unadapted cat, lost and navigating the free world. His family doesn't want him. But he is still a big kid. He gets crushes on ladies and is too bashful to speak his mind. He is currently still talking to a former girl friend still in custody at Patton State Hospital. She left him for the hospital maintenance man and Ricardo is heart broken. He doesn't have any tattoos. His favorite song is Sorry Momma by Eminem, because it relates to the love hate tug of war with his mom. She kicks him out for drinking and he feels he hurt her feelings.

This is his story from his own words, both inside and out of prison.

“When you come home you call out to your friends and no one hears you. Now I go to the beach with out my high school sweet heart, my only companion is a crack pipe. I went back to my old house where I was born, on Laurel St. in Santa Cruz. Only the ghost of the life I threw away looks back at me. My first house is a legend, the only Victorian to survive the quake. Now somebody else lives there.”

“After 17 years in level 4 isolation and Patton State Hospital I'm homeless in rehab away from all I know. It's hard for me to say good morning because where I come from as soon as your eyes open its already bad. I go to the crack park and there's no dealers. It's like the twilight zone. I was so caught up in dope I missed a whole life. I'm still young but I lived through so much I feel like an old man.“

“I missed every thing you take for granted, music, love, movies and memories. My memories are murders, living under a gun tower, stabbings, and people being beaten to death. All your worst nightmares locked in a room you can't escape. Doors that slam and guard who will watch a man die and not call for help till after lunch. How can I adapt back to society, I am scared to death of dying an old ass man in Prison.'

“Forth of July is traumatic for me, when I hear fireworks I look at mother-f----- like they crazy, Like why aren't they jumping down. That was hard for me ,no one related to what I was going thru. Some things are just too much, I'm a loner, you met me alone. I'm going out alone. Every time I meet a woman it just reminds to go back to being alone”

  “What does a bird left in a cage too long do? Its stands up side down and pulls out its own feathers. Eventually it goes crazy and dies. If not it will never survive being released into the real world. It will starve as the hawks circle. Institutionalized, overwhelmed and alone. I am that bird.”

Part II: Level 4 Prisons

The following are some of Ricardo's institutional experiences…

“When I first started I caught points hella quick. Because I never clicked up I had to prove I was ruthless to all the other affiliated cats. Every gang asked me to join with them. The 415's, The Bay Car, The Bloods and Crips and even The North Siders. Every body but the Nazi's and South Side Mexicans. But by far I Never had so many fights but with my own people. In the joints the brothers are hella wild and talk big shit. Sometimes you gotta just attack the first cat to diss you. Out of 47 fights and 8 riots over 17 years I only lost 5, including being jumped.”

“I buy alcohol trying to make friends, but the way I act when I'm drunk pushes people away. In Corcoran I would get jumped for disrespecting the whole tier after drinking

White Lightning. One time I got beat in my sleep by a dude with mental issues, I think he gave me some. So I cant sleep around open doors without flash backs.”

“I don't think Pelican Bay is the hardest pen. It's a Super max but them cats are in isolated spearin fools thru the screens or splashing fools with cooking baby oil. At Centinilla State Prison AKA The Butcher Factory, I done seen 70 Damu Bloods against 120 East Coast Crips. Norteno's chasing the Mexican Mafia across the yard stabbing yard rep's to death, even a gay motherfucker throwing chairs. There were no individual fights allowed.”

“We're always on a State of Emergency. Its so bad the fire department comes in to clean up all the blood.   It's all about war gangs. This Prison is so dangerous they keep gurneys in the hallway 20 deep. No joke. Unlike any other Pen, this prison is prepared for massive bloodshed and strife. War is true gang affiliation, non stop on sight murder.”

“People get stabbed just for a change of scenery and going to court on an institutional stabbing is fun to some cats. I seen cops get tricked out. This is the only Prison where an inmate could snap his finger and the C.O. will run the tier to get him a cigarette or else institutional guerilla warfare kicks in. Here is an example, One Pig wouldn't get a cigarette so the inmate waited till he was alone on the tier on the other C.O.s break and lit his mattress on fire. This obligated the C.O. to open the cell, that's when he was overwhelmed and almost thrown over the tier during the beating. “

“The inmate put his life on the line to retaliate, he could have died from the smoke alone to run the guard. Both the dude and his celly took flight. All the C.O. could do to not get shanked and thrown off the tier was hand cuff himself to the rail and get stomped out.”

Part III and IV to come…