Dear Joe Biden

Six and one-half years as a guest of Uncle Sam at the Iron Hotel, actually Camp Fed, was the reality show of Jacqueline Hendricks' life, but not televised. She tried to get off the "island," to plead her plight to many. She decided to illustrate her condition through pen with an adopted pen pal - Senator Joseph Biden (now Vice President). From arrest to self-commitment, May1989 to January 1990, she read about the criminal justice system. Like a fox that gets a leg caught in a trap, she kept trying to come up with ways to extricate herself. During this learning period, she came to know Senator Biden as the cause of her problem - the person who made the trap. She decided she would make him an eye witness to what she experienced. She wrote a letter to him almost every day for five years. Although the letters were written twenty years ago the subject matter could be taken from today's headlines - Mid-East crises, Health Care Reform, objections to Clarence Thomas, government's wasteful spending, mandatory minimum sentencing, violence against women. Each letter is a snapshot of that particular day in prison. When they are put together, it becomes a narrative, the story of her incarceration, an emotional journey. Some moments elicit a chuckle and a shaking of the head, can that be true? Some explore the pain not only of separation from families, but also the incomprehensible pain caused by a poor medical staff. They include weather reports, updates of the ineptness of the Bureau of Prisons' Policies, employees and conditions of incarceration. Many inmate characters emerge with colorful or painful stories. One story describes a woman who had been released from prison by a federal judge in Hawaii three months before she found herself at Federal Prison Camp, Phoenix, Arizona. When the administrative staff at Camp Phoenix discovered their mistake, they still kept her for a few more days. During the years of her incarceration, Senator Biden proved himself adept at not answering her letters. His responses are included in this book. He does not come out as a hero in these letters; actually the reader could feel rather negative about him after reading her cries for help.
About the Author: Jacqueline Hendricks grew up in Indiana. She received a BS and MS from Indiana University, but learned about life in Kokomo, Indiana, a small town. She now lives in Boulder, Colorado, but insists Indiana will always be "home." She taught English, Journalism and Social Studies. When she returned to Los Angeles after incarceration (1996), she worked for an attorney as an administrative assistant and did some paralegal work. After two years, she left the attorney and continued employment as an administrative assistant for various newspaper advertising agencies. As newspapers around the country ceased to exist, the companies slowly died. She found a job (2002), working as an administrative assistant/office manager for an interior design firm, a firm that concentrated on hospitality design. The company designed for Hilton, Marriott, Wyndham and unique boutique hotels. She stayed with them until her move to Boulder, Colorado (July 2010).