"He wants to move to a place where there are at least some programs."

I can't blame him for that. A man needs an opportunity to accomplish something constructive. I can't help but think that he would have made an excellent teacher's aide. It is a paid position.

As our COs discovered, when a man occupies his mind constructively, he is less likely to think of ways to get into trouble.

In New York, we teachers are paid. We are paid rather well. There are also vocational programs. There was a carpentry class, print class, auto repair, machinist, tailor, etc. Since I was retired, I don't know how they handled programs during the pandemic. At one time, the news reported hundreds of inmates infected with covid. There were no fatalities, and all recovered.

We had a substantial number of inmates whose native language was Spanish. When I was teaching a class in general population, I had one student who was illiterate. His native language was Spanish. He could speak reasonably fluent English. I could neither speak nor understand Spanish, but I could read it phonetically. This particular inmate would get letters from home written in Spanish. Since he was illiterate, he needed someone to read his letters to him. He didn't want anyone to know what they said, so he would ask me to read them to him when no one else was around, I could read them phonetically, but I could not understand what I was reading. He was able to keep them confidential.

Other inmates would sometimes hear me read Spanish. Some of them would refuse to believe that I could neither speak nor understand the language.