I mentioned RDAP (residential drug abuse program) bands in a recent post, and my sister asked me to explain what that meant. They are color-coordinated bands that represent what stage you are at in the program.
Orange RDAP – Wait
Green RDAP – Participant
Tan RDAP – Follow-up
Grey RDAP – Complete
Blue RDAP – Accomplished
So the Durand unit is the unit I currently live in, is reserved only for inmates in different phases of the RDAP program. Also, the wings in the building are generally reserved for inmates in their represented phases as well.
The 2nd range is generally PM RDAP participants; the 3rd range is generally AM RDAP participants, the 1st range is a mixture of AM and PM RDAP participants along with some completes and the drug program participants.
The rest of the completes, which includes me, are on the 4th and 5th ranges, which are on the other side of the building split by the offices.
The 5th ranges, where I live, is called the honeymoon suite. Which now that I say it out loud, it sounds like it might carry some sexual connotations, but I assure it does not. They call it that because it’s on the top floor, there are no elevators, so it’s a hike up plenty of flights of stairs, and people are usually huffing and puffing by the time they get there, and for those reasons, you don’t get much traffic, and the range is quiet.
On top of that, the bathroom is the cleanest in the whole unit, and maybe even on the whole compound. That is because of the standard that my good friend Kyle Lindquist set before he went home, and the pride taken in cleaning it has made it another 2-3 generations and continues to go strong.
RDAP consists of three sections: the 500-hour residential program, follow up, and T-DAP. The 500 hours must be completed at the institution to go home. The follow-up portion is for members who have completed the 500 hours, but their out date still has not come, such as myself.
I did the program slightly early and had roughly 14 months left on my sentence upon completion. The follow-up portion is 12 months long, and therefore I will complete the program before I leave Yankton FPC, but it’s not required.
In some cases, people time out the program to where they leave the day after completion or a week or two. I didn’t want to cut it that close in case you get in trouble, or an unforeseeable misfortune happens. T-DAP, the third and final leg of the race, is complete in the first four months after release, usually while you are in the halfway house or on home confinement.
All the bands are colored coordinated; the wait band (orange) is for RDAP members who have not started the program and are not getting credited towards their 500 residential program hours. The participant band (Green) is for members who have begun the program and are working towards those 500 hours needed to complete the program. The follow-up band (Tan) is someone who has completed the program and is working on the second section, which is called follow-up. We meet one day a month for one hour and have a process group, where we discuss completed bookwork and updates on the month. The complete band (grey) is for someone who has completed both the 500 hours and the follow-up portions and still has not gone home. Finally, the accomplished band (blue) is for members who have gone a step above in one form or another. They talk the talk and walk the walk, they don’t say one thing and do another. They invest in others’ treatment, and they go above and beyond to be of service to both staff and inmates alike.
I used to get teased all the time, and people would say that I was going to get the blue band, simply because I was a smooth talker, but my words didn’t always translate into action. About six months into the program, I received two incident reports for gambling paraphernalia and running a gambling pool for profit. I received additional treatment, four months, and I also had extra work added to my treatment plan, such as run a seminar on my behavior. I was once again finding ways to justify my actions, as I told myself as long as no one gets hurt, and since neither shot implies a loss of good time, then no harm, no foul. My mom didn’t see it the same way when I called home to tell her on the phone; she pointed out that it isn’t much different than the drugs I was selling, just a different kind, and just because most don’t view gambling as harmful as cocaine or methamphetamines, doesn’t mean it doesn’t damage peoples lives.
She was, of course, right, and I intend to share more on the topic in the future: Confessions of a Prison Bookie.
However, for now, I am staying out of the way, staying involved in Narcotics Anonymous, working at food service, working out regularly, and keeping out of trouble as I work on completing the follow-up portion, which I will finish just before my release in September.
Thanks for listening!
