New Thing 311, New Thing Every Day: Send a Letter to Someone I Know in Jail

This is a little bit of a technicality because I have known two people in federal prison (politicians) and mailed both of them, but I also kind of feel like jail is different. As you may have seen, I tried to visit this friend on Tuesday, but he already had someone with him (Boone County allows just one visitor each week).

When I posted last week about the visit attempt, my friend Marie Hunter suggested that I write a letter, so that is what I have done. As you might guess, I am not going to share most of it, but I did let him know that really do not know anything about his charges and that I am making myself available to the extent that he needs a friend. Someone is going to read this and think this is the wrong thing to do, that I am supporting bad behavior, but I think it is just being human. People do bad things, and mostly I do not think this makes them 100% bad people. In this case, I feel like I am doing the compassionate thing, without supporting bad behavior.

We will see where it goes.