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She has coined her operation "Bridging the Gap." It began more simply as a website and Facebook group soliciting pen pals for prisoners who submit a picture, a bio, and a fee. Such sites have existed since the 1990s, and there are now nearly 50, in addition to dozens of Facebook and Yahoo groups that together boast more than 100,000 free-worlders looking for incarcerated people to write.Renea has become part of a network of small businesses that help prisoners keep in touch with these pen pals, in addition to friends and family on the outside. She exchanges favors with Pigeonly and Infolincs—two start-ups founded by former prisoners that allow people on the outside to upload pictures and text with their phones, and then print and send those images to loved ones inside. Other businesses, like Inmatefone and Phone Donkey, sell forwarding numbers so prisoners can avoid long-distance charges.She recently made roughly $1,500 in two weeks, a solid bump up from her last job at a Walmart deli.
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Sipping from a big cup of iced tea, Renea handed Phil a stack of pictures to scan and post of men and women looking for pen pals. The posts, which cost $20 for three months, typically feature a few photos—often shirtless—and bios that read like dating classifieds ("I'm a very fun and exciting person to be around! Some of my passions include writing poetry/novels, exercising, cooking and training dogs.").Prisoners send messages to family members over and over and don't get responses.
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According to Renea and creators of other, similar sites, free-worlders have several motivations for writing to prisoners. Adam Lovell, founder of WriteAnInmate.com (widely acknowledged to be the largest, with more than 10,000 profiles), said the earliest sites were hosted by churches, promoting correspondence with a prisoner as a form of ministry. "Members of each religion seek out pen pals from the same faith," Lovell said. Other sites, like Black and Pink, which calls for abolishing prisons, frame communication with prisoners as a kind of political work.Then there's what psychologists call "hybristophilia," a sexual attraction to the men and women behind horrific crimes. Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and Scott Peterson all received marriage proposals. The site, "Ask a Convict," has a "serial killers" tab, and founder Jon Nolan said that while some people do harbor unsettling romantic proclivities, others are just curious to ask questions like, "What is it like to kill someone?" Nolan was initially curious, too, but eventually, "it got pretty dark and depressing," and he would get letters featuring "a run-on sentence about wanting colored pencils and enjoying strangling women."
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Last August, a prisoner named James Leach, who goes by Jimmy, asked Renea to place a pen-pal ad for him. Their clipped, professional messages quickly drifted towards the personal. Jimmy, 38, told her he had been in and out of foster care, juvenile facilities, and adult prisons since he was seven years old. He is currently serving a 17-year sentence for possessing a gun "in furtherance of methamphetamine trafficking." He and Renea realized they have the same birthday, nine years apart. Wayne gave her advice on how to stay professional, since many of the men, starved for contact, assumed she was interested in them. "She had a tendency to call people 'sweetie' and endearing terms like that," Wayne said in an email, but "guys in prison misconstrue terms like those." She admits she can't stand to hurt their feelings.Within days, they were talking to one another like any old couple. When Jimmy complained he was not receiving the right medications for his back pain, Renea fired off an angry letter to the prison. They got tattoos with each other's names. Renea's younger son, Damian, has struggled with mental-health issues and had some run-ins with the law. "He started mentoring Damian, saying how it was just like his life when he grew up," Renea said. Before long, Damian was calling Jimmy, "Dad.""When I first wrapped my arms around her to hug her, I felt a tingle enfold my whole body." —Jimmy Leach
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