Although called a Men’s Colony by the authorities, San Luis Obispo inmates know it as the California Penal Colony, which sums up what it is all about—a penal institution and a colonized situation. The state believes in the power of euphemism, that by putting a pleasant name on a concentration camp they can change its objective characteristics. Prisons are referred to as “correctional facilities” or “men’s colonies,” and so forth; to the name givers, prisoners become “clients,” as if the state of California were some vast advertising agency. But we who are prisoners know the truth; we call them penitentiaries and jails and refer to ourselves as convicts and inmates. This does not mean that we accept these labels as bad, only that we refuse to be deceived by the state’s duplicity.