# How this gets written

Hi, I'm Josh. I was previously known as 71690-509. I write the content for this site. Me. There are no staff. I don't have a ghostwriter.

I use a large language model to help me edit. This page says what it does and where it stops. [The other disclaimer](https://federalprisondude.com/disclaimer) covers who I am, what the purpose of this site is, and every reason to weigh what I tell you. This one covers how the words get on the page.

**The short version:** I write this shit, I know every fact in it, and a language model helps me tighten it. It never touches my own testimony or the Bureau's words, and I read all of it before you do. And then there's always [the rest of what you should know about me](https://federalprisondude.com/disclaimer).

## Every fact here came from me

This is the part I care about most. Every number, every policy claim, every "this is how it actually works" on this site came out of my own time or verifiable third-party accounts that I heard during my own period of incarceration. A program statement (an official BOP policy document) interpretation is my interpretation, and I try to offer it as plainly as I can. Same thing with public policy.

Where I don't know, the page says I don't know. That admission is the only thing this site has going for it I guess, and it isn't worth much if a machine trained on stolen IP is quietly filling the gaps behind it.

## What the model actually does

The language model conducts mostly line edits. I write a page, hand it over, and ask what's flabby or rhetorical or worthy of a cut. It's good at that. I'm bad at it, because by the second read I honestly can't see my own sentences anymore.

Some pages went the other direction. I wrote a rough version that said the right things badly and got back a clean version. Then I rewrote that into something that more matches the voice I try to project. A few started as an outline I handed over and got drafted from it, then came apart and got rebuilt the same way.

I've handed off structure too. What I think is best with my neurodiverse brain is probably not what may be best for this audience. On a bad day it shows up as a page that starts in four places at once. "What order should these seven things go in" is a question a machine answers well, and it keeps a guide from turning into seven half-guides.

## What it never touches

Two things never go through it at all:

Off the table

- **Anything in my own voice about my own time.** Personal anecdotes are never touched no matter how fucked up I write shit.
- **The Bureau's own words.** Quotable sources quote the source exactly. That's the point of a source.

If you ever catch a first-person passage here that reads too clean for the thing it's describing, tell me. That's a bug.

## I read every word before it goes up

My partner would attest that I have spent way too long reading my own writing. That's the point of it. The situation for most reading this is a real situation and it doesn't deserve to be merely skimmed or spot-checked. If a page is wrong, I'm the one who's wrong. "The model wrote that part" isn't an excuse available to me because I clicked publish.

## When I get something wrong

Tell me and I'll fix the page. Send me an email at [hello@federalprisondude.com](mailto:hello@federalprisondude.com), and you don't need a citation or a polite framing to send it. "This is wrong, my brother is at Allenwood right now and it doesn't work like that" is a completely reasonable thing to say.

I'd rather hear it from you than leave it up.

## I don't have time to design, frankly

This one doesn't matter as much but it's worth saying considering the nature of this page. I have a day job. I don't feel there's value in me spending time working on the design of a resource that's text-heavy.

A language model assisted in the front-end design. The back-end is mine. If you're curious about the technical bits, find me.

## Why I'm telling you at all

The word transparency and integrity are weird adjectives to associate with someone who has been convicted of a crime, and it's weirder when that crime is technically fraud. I won't litigate my own morals here, but those two are ones I try to uphold.

Weigh it however you want. Some people will read this and trust the site less. I'd rather you do it here than find out somewhere else.