Sather: Mr. Kelis, thank you for your time.
Kelis: Hey, thank you! I hope I can be interesting enough for the paper.
Sather: I’m sure you will. To start tell me why you were on Arkus?
Kelis: I wasn’t originally meant to be on Arkus, the way the interplanetary prisoner transfer system worked was a complete mess. At first I was in the court system for finding Singer dust on my person. It was enough to get me charges for dealing on Bovark. At that same point Arkus needed to fill in something like two hundred beds to keep federal funding. So I was offered a year off of sentence in return for being sentenced and fulfilling the court’s ruling there. The judges’ words from what I remember. I accepted in a heartbeat. Arkus was famous for its craziness. It was the last prison to use the Renin philosophy.
Sather: Renin philosophy ?
Kelis: Renin believed that a prison should be ran entirely the prisoners. His idea basically stated only the prisoner really knew how to keep a healthy control over their lives. The state would only be there to take the ore or crops and in return they’d give the prison supplies and food.
Sather: Weren’t they worried all the prisoners would try to escape?
Kelis: This is where Renin gets interesting, he stated that the prison should be nothing more than an empty shell. That one location serves as the in and out point. Everything else needs to be built by the prisoners.
Sather: What about fires? Or disease breaking out.
Kelis: That happened in a lot of the prisons. Leadership wasn’t strong enough to keep typhoid from ripping through the population. In that same idea though some prisons did keep out disease. They would ensure proper vaccination and seclusion for the sick. Now depending on the prison that meant a cushy sick bed in a hospital or being shot and tossed in a hole.
Sather: What type of prison was Arkus like?
Kelis: It was a swirl of both. If you caused trouble they would be quick to use punishment. I remember when one of my friends was caught stealing. They made him carry something like two hundred pound backpack up a hill for a day straight. If he slowed down and didn’t make it in time they would take his hand. He made it, barely. Of course freedom also gives good things. Like the jobs programs that would hire you right after sentencing. Our union of sorts made sure you were set up pretty well. I got my diploma and had a nice gig as a garbage man set up. They even got a deal with a local landlord in the area.
Sather: Why would they do all that?
Kelis: It was good business. They ran a tight mining op and always needed warm bodies. The IPT let you choose your preferred location of transfer so it just made sense to make it enticing to go with them.
Sather: It sounds like a business more than a prison.
Kelis: Oh it was still very much a prison. There might of been no guards but the culture of that place did way more rule enforcement then they ever could. It was strongly unacceptable to not let your fellow man down. If you were caught with drugs you were reminded and retromended for letting your guard slip. What if you were high and killed someone with the crane? And gosh, fights were semi common. So common to counteract them the leadership had fight night once a week. Man those were fun, guys would bet their second pair of pants or their typewriters on a certain fighter. The announcer always took his time in making fun of the fighters.
Sather: It sounds like the prison was almost like a frat house.
Kelis: Sounds about right. A frat house with heinous punishment and quotas. I don’t miss it there, the free world still beats being there no question needed. But I still can’t help but look at Arkus despite its flaws, how powerful true freedom could be.
Sather: You still communicate with the people you met there?
Kelis: No it was an unofficial rule. The free world was different, the only way to survive was to strip everything you learned from Arkus. Like, if someone were to call you out for something you did; say sabotaging their mining run. Then you’d have to fight them in the ring. In the real world most of the time you never get such a satisfied ending to social conflict. At least in Arkus you’d lose and people would bully you for flubbing or you’d win and people would buy your beer that night. In this world you gotta let stuff like that be, God forbid you bring it up. Then you have to make sure that you only tell certain people that don’t gossip. And when your beef eventually leaks you got to talk with that person for however long about. Get nowhere, repeat.
Sather: Do you want to tell the reader anything before we wrap this up?
Kelis: Yeah, I want to tell them to never go to prison. Even the nice ones can mess you up in ways you’d never think.