Prison report: The lap of luxury?Editors note: Just A Guy is an inmate in the California state prison system. His reports run on Mondays and Thursdays; you can read earlier pieces here and here. It's not easy to communicate from inside a state prison, so if it takes a while for him to respond to comments, be patient.
By Just A Guy
While there are many things and topics to be discussed about prison, I would like to talk about the little things that are de-humanizing or just plain silly and disrespectful. I don't want this to be construed as whining, but want it to be understood that these are things we deal with every day, that the culmination of these things can be overwhelming, frustrating, and the wrong way to treat human beings.
Let's start with laundry. We are allowed to buy our own sweatpants, shorts, shirts, socks, t-shirts, and undergarments, and are supplied with clothes as well. We are also allowed to buy our own laundry soap like Tide, so we can wash our clothes -- but then then but we’re not allowed to hang our laundry so that it obscures a guard’s vision of us.
Now, remember that some of us live in dorms and there is no privacy whatsoever. A lot of us used to hang our towels up to dry after taking a shower, but if that towel is preventing an officer from seeing a one-and-a-half foot area of your bed, the guards will come and take it down or tell you to take it down. The same is often true of our just-washed-by-hand laundry; we are told we can hang it from our locker doors -- which are a foot wide by two and a half feet long. So basically, there is no where to hang our laundry to dry.
The funny thing is that they say it's a security issue because they can't "see" us. The problem with this is that unless you are on a top bunk, the guards can’t see in your bunk anyway; how is it a security issue?
We are not given a place to dry our laundry, but we are sold soap and given buckets with which to do our own laundry.
This isn’t a minor detail: At many institutions the laundry that is sent out to be washed is washed in laundry water that is not purged in an effort to save time and water (money), so clothes are being washed in laundry water that has been used for thirty previous loads. Disgusting.
We are allowed to go to the yard to get exercise every day, but often times the yard is opened late. That’s not that big a deal -- but when the yard opens an hour and a half late, or not at all, but the staff just lets us sit there without informing us that it's going to be late or not opened at all. If you ask them to call the sergeant they will refuse because they don't want to be seen as pests by their superiors or inmate friendly by their co-workers -- or they will just say something smart ass like, "it will open when it opens." All we ask for is a little courtesy.
We are given one roll of toilet paper per week per inmate. Seriously. A roll is supposed to last us one week. Would one roll of very poor quality toilet paper last you a week? Four days? What if you have a high metabolism? Enough said.
The water in showers alternates between too hot to touch and too cold. The water in summer is hot and cold in winter. The shower heads are so caked with sediment and deposits that half the shower heads just dribble out water.
In some prisons the toilet flushes are limited to two flushes per five minutes, but if you exceed the second flush your toilet will not flush for an hour. So, if you exceed your flush limit accidentally because you had to use the restroom and were trying to give your cell mate the courtesy of not having to inhale your scent, the waste will just be left in the toilet for your cell mate and you to enjoy for an hour.
The air conditioning in almost every prison in California either doesn't work or doesn't exist.
Often times, in dorm living, a toilet or sink will get clogged, but it will be days before the plumbing crew comes out to fix it. If it happens on a Friday evening it may be Monday, if you're lucky, before it gets fixed. Often times the toilets are clogged with excrement for at least forty-eight hours. Nice.
When an emergency code happens for something like a fight or violence the officers run (waddle) to the event. In the event of a medical code, where someone is in such a state they need immediate medical attention, they walk. Yes, seriously, they walk.
I know a number of people that are on what is called "chronic care," which means they are supposed to see a doctor every certain amount of time to monitor their medical condition, do blood tests, etc.. They haven't been seen in more than a year.
Officers treat us with disdain and disrespectfully. Not all, of course, but quite a few. They are supposed to be professionals, but professionals generally do not treat those in their charge with disrespectful epithets. When they do and we react, we get in trouble.
Here's my biggest pet peeve: the loudspeakers. We are given information, told when it's time for chow, time for yard, etc. over a loudspeaker system. That’s what it is meant for, annoncements. Well, a lot of officers yell incessantly over the system from 6 am to 10pm. Not only to make announcements, but offer their opinions or give a general dialogue. These speakers are loud and near many of our heads, they are supposed to be used for the communication of information, but are often used as a disruptive tool to make us miserable.
This is, by no means, everything, but a small sampling. This is the coddling the general public thinks we get; this is luxury.
Urine-stained peeling paint in the bathrooms. Inadequate supplies to clean our living quarters with (it's hard to get a green scrub pad). Vents caked with dust. The same mop used in the bathroom is used in your dorm. Laundry water reused. It's so gross it defies explanation. Ever heard of swine flu? TB?
The lap of luxury.
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Comments (5)
Thanks luvmyman!
Please tell us how the visitors are treated, what it's like to visit an inmate.
Posted by Just a guy | April 30, 2009 04:34 PM
Nick:
"you talk a little bit more about the "dorm environment?" I'm not very familiar with what that means in the context of a prison. Along those lines, what is there to do during the day? What activities or programs can you engage in while serving out your sentence?"
It varies from prison to prison, in some buildings, units, pods, or some other name...you are can be in a room with 8-300 people. Basically, it just means double or triple bunks very close together.
Not much to do really, not if you don't have a job or vocation. Play cards, watch TV, workout, read, play handball/basketball/soccer. A lot of people sit around and do nothing, really. You should read the two blogs that follow the first one.
"You said there were fewer rehabilitation programs than the public believes there to be. What programs are available? What do they actually offer in the way of assistance to those who are still in prison? Also, if you feel comfortable, could you speak to the relationship between the inmates and guards?"
I covered this in other blogs save for the relationship between guards/inmates.
The relationship really varies, it is like any relationship. Some guards are nice and just trying to put in their eight hours, others are jerks, others are indifferent, others seem to feel it's their job to punish us. It is not looked upon that well for inmates to spend too much time talking to guards and the reverse is probably true for guards talking with us. I believe they are trained to see is as the enemy and that everything we say is a lie. Mostly, it is just one where everyone seems to hold everyone one else in disdain, it's very frustrating and unhealthy.
Posted by Just a guy | April 30, 2009 04:37 PM
In December, my son was complaining that it was 90 degrees in his cell. The control for the heat is on the roof and once it is turned on, the CO's have no way to regulate it. Sometimes it stays at 90 for several days until they can get someone up on the roof to "fix" it. This is a regular occurance. In the summer, the swamp cooler is just as unpredictable. Many of the men at the prison my son is at are on heat sensitive drugs, but until the temperature is over 90 degrees they don't even give them ice water.
Dogs in kennels are treated more humanely than California prisoners. I know a dog has more room per pound than an inmate has.
Posted by Madhatter | April 30, 2009 05:15 PM
I HAVE WITNESSED THE POOR MEDICAL ATTENTION MYSELF WHILE VISITING MY HUSBAND A COUPLE WEEKENDS AGO, AN 87 YEAR OLD WOMAN FELL INTO A DIABETIC COMA AND IT TOOK AN AMBULANCE 30 MINUTES TO COME...AS THE 5 GUARDS THAT WE'RE STANDING AROUND HER WITH THEIR ARMS CROSSED FINALLY PICKED THE UNCONCIOUS WOMAN UP TO LAY HER ON THE CHILDREN'S DIRTY PLAYMAT THEY ALMOST DROPPED HER...WOW!! ITS REALLY SAD WITH ALL THE GERMS THAT KIDS CARRY AND THEY THEN LAY AN 87 YR OLD WOMAN ON THOSE SAME MATS THAT THE CHILDREN PLAY ON TO BE MEDICALLY TREATED...WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT PICTURE?? MY LOVED ONE IS IN THIS PRISON SYSTEM AND IT JUST WORRIES ME WITH THE MEDICAL TREATMENT THAT THEY DO NOT RECIEVE AS NEEDED, THEY TREATED A VISITOR WITH NO WORRIES, I CAN ONLY IMAGINE HOW THEY TREAT THE INMATES...CRAZY!! I REALLY THINK THE C.O'S @ CSP NEED TO STEP UP THEIR GAME CAUSE IF IT WAS THEIR LOVED ONE'S BEING TREATED LIKE CRAP THEN THEY WOULD LOOK AT IT IN A DIFFERENT PROSPECTIVE, THE INMATES ARE JUST AS MUCH HUMAN AS THE C.O'S ARE...SOMEONE NEEDS TO REALLY GET THE MEDICAL ATTENTION NEEDED IN THE PRISON SYSTEM BEFORE IT GETS WORSE THAN WHAT IT ALREADY IS.....
Posted by luvmyman9508 | April 30, 2009 05:43 PM
I want to make a couple of political points here. Sure, it's easy to say that prisoners did bad things and don't deserve an easy life, but:
1. Being in prison absolutely, utterly sucks -- even if the food is decent, and you have no medical problems, and the guards don't try to mess with you, you have lost all freedom, and it's awful. So the state doesn't need to make people sick and miserable to add to the punishment.
2. Remember: Most inmates get out. And the worst they are treated, and the more resentment they build up toward society, and the less they are prepared for re-entry, the more likely they are to go back to crime. That means California is less safe.
3. This all costs a FORTUNE. We spend more keeping people in prison than we would sending them to college. Finding ways to make recidivism less likely is way, way cheaper than locking people up for a second, third, fifth, tenth time. And it doesn't cost much to treat people like human beings.
Posted by tim redmond | April 30, 2009 10:29 PM