R&D (that's Receiving & Discharge to you), warehouse, mail center.
FYI, Lompoc is pronounced Lom-poke to the townies. Not sure how the inmates pronounce it.
I was curious myself because I had heard rumblings during my incarceration that foreign nationals don't qualify for some of the classifications like this via the BOP. Sure enough:
> In April 2024, Zhao was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to charges of money laundering. Because Zhao is not a U.S. citizen, he is ineligible to serve his sentence in a minimum security prison.
That matches up slightly with the other conditions I have seen at minimum security prisons. We would have people who were serving time that would get moved from the camp to a higher security once the paperwork resolved and they were for certain no longer a US citizen.
> FYI, Lompoc is pronounced Lom-poke to the townies. Not sure how the inmates pronounce it.
All inmates I served with pronounced it "LAWM" "POHK" like it rhymed with "Lawn" and "Stock". I know everyone likes to go there because they basically open the doors at 8AM and you go drive around farmland. Contraband moves very easily because it's just sitting in a field waiting for you and you drive a prison truck lol
He did his time at a low and that's pretty interesting. It's not a "hard" environment, but it has a bit more "prison politics" than a minimum security prison does. It's entirely normal to go and do a short sentence at a minimum and never talk to anyone or participate much.
That is extra true for the "other" crowd in prisons (not white, black or hispanic - usually asian and islander) as there is not much "threat" from their group taking over they are left to do most of whatever they want.
Being at a low security that changes slightly. The politics, rules, etc. are all a bit different. A good example is that in minimum security prisons you don't often "check paperwork" much because nobody can have sex charges the only reason people would be interested is to see if you have known snitch paperwork. At a minimum security prison it doesn't happen much and if someone doesn't like your paperwork or case the most they are usually going to do is blacklist doing business with you or tell others not to give you perks like good meals.
At a low security prison they will check your paperwork. It can have bad things on it. If it does have bad things on it they would get "rolled out" one way or another. Usually a signal is given to the guards (sometimes as clear as "get him out or he gets rolled out") and the inmate is told they may have an opportunity to leave without getting forced. Also it doesn't really matter, wherever they are going the word is out and they aren't going to get better treatment there.
There are some other nuanced details, but in general, he's probably very lucky to be asian in this context. They really are more-or-less invisible within the prison system. I'm sure some people tried to press him slightly to get dumb shit like ramen noodles and stuff, which he probably fucking maxed out every TRUNLICS account available LOL