Prison-assisted drug overdoses: TDCJ is amongst many state and federal prisons affected by the deadly K2 epidemic

Prison-assisted drug overdoses: TDCJ is amongst many state and federal prisons affected by the deadly K2 epidemic

By Jason Renard Walker

In this article, Jason Walker exposes the full deadly cost of the K2 epidemic, and staff complicity in smuggling the drug into prisons. Jason is facing continuing retaliation and harassment for his writing and organizing, please see here for ways that you can put pressure on the prison administration to protect him: https://itsgoingdown.org/urgent-call-to-action-defend-jason-walker-from-staff-harassment/

The number of K2-related deaths in Texas prisons is mounting, year after year. Due to this drug being undetectable by prison drug-testing kits, it has become a favourite drug of choice for prisoners and prison officials who profit handsomely from smuggling it in.

This has caused other common prison drugs, like cocaine, marijuana and meth to be discarded by prisoners who now have the ability to get high without worrying about failing drug tests. Prison staff have also adjusted to this epidemic by abandoning random drug testing, only doing so if the testee is “fingered” by another prisoner, or suspected of having a particular drug in his system. This ultimately increases the rate of positive hit results and allows TDCJ to save money by reducing the amount of drug test kits it uses annually.

From my experience, victims of K2 overdose experience heavy sweating, heart attack and panic attack-like symptoms before dropping dead. So it's highly possible that K2-related deaths are being recorded as heart attacks and heat strokes. A full record for these deaths may not exist.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) listed K2 as synthetic marijuana, which is a misnomer. It's supposed to trigger the same receptors in the brain as THC – the component in marijuana that produces the high. But unlike THC, the chemical makeup of K2 is unique, and can cause hallucinations, seizures, heart attacks, aggressive behavior, and suicidal acts and behavior.

This is the same drug that made national headlines when, in the span of 24 hours, 70 people overdosed in New Haven, Connecticut.1 And it's not only killing prisoners in Texas, Sarah Blaskey of the Miami Herald exposed in her August 21, 2018 story that the Florida Department of Corrections has issues with K2-related deaths.2 Prisons in Alabama and all over the nation are becoming infested with K2 and its issues.

In prison, K2 often contains traces of rat poison and roach spray, and doesn't contain a single chemical makeup, so basically it can contain anything. Despite prisoners witnessing their friends die during smoke sessions, they keep getting high. And more often than not, seek the particular K2 strain that killed them. “I gotta get some of that”, some say after learning of an overdose.

Dr Tegan Boehmer, of the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health, stated that dozens of chemical are used as synthetic cannabinoids, and their unknown characteristics make them dangerous. “They are very dangerous because there are a lot of unknowns.” The CDC studies also suggest this drug is highly addictive.

Blaskey's Miami Herald report gave a peek into the perils of K2 use in prison. “Last year, at Franklin Correctional Institution, Eugene Martin fell forward suddenly out of bed, dead from K2. At Mayo Correctional Institution, Hakim Ramatoola had a seizure and died after smoking K2 described by others who participated as “the worst ever.” Jarquez Jones died at Santa Rosa after smoking an unusual-looking black K2. Jamil Wright overdosed at Martin Correctional. Ruben Harris and Calvin Johnson at Holmes Correctional Institution. Jesse Johnson at Okaloosa Correctional Institution. All in the last half of 2017. And the list goes on.”

From November 1 2017 thru to April 19, 2018, I was housed at the Ramsey Unit in Rosharon, TX; Michael Unit in Tennessee Colony, TX; and Telford Unit in New Boston TX. These transfers were done as retaliation for me exposing bad conditions at each prison. After the circulation and exposure of this piece, I expect to be transferred again.

Between these prisons, I've gathered many reports about prisoners dropping dead from K2 overdoses. Here at the Telford Unit, prisoners and staff contest that “Mike” died from a K2 overdose here on 4 Building, D-pod, Cell 54 nearly two years ago. Rumors say that his “stick” had been laced with nitroglycerin by a guard who'd given it to him. Marks from the welding on the cell to keep it secure pending the investigation can still be seen. Since I've been here, two prisoners have died from overdoses.

In particular, on August 29, 2018, around 2:00 am, I watched a black prisoner convulse, foam and jitter while strapped to a gurney and being moved from 4 Building to the infirmary by medical staff who responded with less than the required urgency to collect an overdose victim. This was hours after I saw medical staff slowly pushing a gurney to grab another overdose victim. The two may not have died, but they certainly overdosed. From what I hear, many prisoners have died throughout the years.

During my stay at Ramsey, Nov 3 2017- Feb 21 2018, three prisoners died from K2 overdoses – one died the same day he was leaving the prison to go home. The number of mild overdoses is astounding. On average, at least one a day has to visit the infirmary here.

Within the nucleus of this epidemic, the symptoms of K2 and the drug itself have been given names that are common to staff and prisoners. Tune, toochie, two, gas, and dropdead are names given to the drug; tune attack, tuned out out, and episode are names given to one whose behavior becomes bizarre, or they “get stuck” and stare into space. Zombie-looking prisoners can be seen slugging around everywhere.

The rolled-up joint itself isn't traditional-looking at all. Due to K2 having such a powerful impact on the mind and body, small toothpick-size “sticks” are rolled and smoked by up to three people. I've seen a person take three puffs then instantly pass out within one minute, stick burning in hand. Guards have a routine of having others place an overdosed prisoner in his cell without calling medical staff, so many overdoses, and their harm to an individual's brain, are going unreported. One guard, Sergeant Garland, is notorious for her indifference to overdosed prisoners. In one instance, she wrote a disciplinary case on a prisoners for not going to work. She recognized he was too high to function, and commented that she knew, but she failed to seek him medical care.

My first encounter with a “tune attack” occurred in June 2018. A prisoner sitting next to me on the dayroom bench had just taken a few puffs; within three minutes, he began clawing at his chest, all the way down to his ankle. It seemed like he thought his heart had left its original spot and come down his leg.

During my stay at the Clements Unit, a rumor spread in 2017 that a prisoners had a tune attack, screamed “I believe I can fly”, then leaped to his death from the cellblock's 3^rd tier. On Jan 19, 2018 at the Ramsey unit, multiple prisoners told me that Alfred Brosig had just smoked a stick before strangling Kenneth W. Johnson to death and then showing guards what he'd done. This was after excited friends of Johnson spent time trying to wake the sleeping guard up.3

Medical staff never take tune attacks seriously, and often joke about how the prisoner behaved when they respond to a call. Despite the dangers of this drug, the Telford Unit administration has provided poor oversight on containing the drug, or preventing it from being smuggled in. There is no real interest in implementing a counter, or increasing the amount of scrutiny guards receive when entering the prison. Burnt wicks, partially smoked sticks, and the smell of smoke lingers on the stairwell, in the dayroom, and out in hallway.

Ranking staff see obvious paraphernalia and simply step over it. Evidence of drug use is everywhere, so I believe these officials are turning a blind eye to maintain a dormant environment, even at the cost of self-inflicted death. This is state-sponsored genocide!

What we as prisoners need to realize is that this is a staged epidemic that's designed to stunt our consciousness, growth, and ability to be productive members of society upon our release. Bringing awareness to this is the right thing to do, it's sabotaging our culture and killing us off. Guards get rich, we die!

Between 2016-2017, nearly 60,000 grams of K2 were confiscated in Florida prisons. This doesn't include the amount that was smoked or sold. TDCJ has the biggest prison system in the US, so there's no tellling how much has been smuggled in here.

In the January 2018 issue of the San Francisco Bayview, Comrade Shaka Shakur hit the nain on the head in his piece, “They say the police said I was a snitch, but what does that make you?”, when he explored the perils of lumpen cats hanging with and gossiping with the guards, but claiming exposure of the guards violating our rights is snitching.4

Being in cahoots with guards to push K2 among the masses is no different than a police informant selling drugs in the hood that he got from the FBI to help them frame a drug ring. If someone happened to threaten that guard's job at the prison, wouldn't you conspire to have that cat shipped off, killed, or given trumped-up felony charges? If exposing guards using K2 to kill us is snitching, what does that make you?

Dare to struggle, dare to win! All power to the people!

Jason Renard Walker #1532092

Telford Unit

3899 Hwy 98

New Boston, TX 75570

MESSAGE FROM 200 HEAT-SENSITIVE INMATES IN LEBLANC UNIT, BEAUMONT, TX

The legal battle related to the class action lawsuit challenging the deadly heat conditions in the TDCJ continues. An appeal (number 18-20216) is being pursued pro se by approximately 200 heat-sensitive inmates who, due to Hurricane Harvey, were evacuated from the Stringfellow Unit to the Pack Unit in August 2017; and then ordered by U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison relocated to the climate controlled LeBlanc Prison Unit. This particular group of heat-sensitive inmates were by agreement between class counsel Jeffrey Edwards and TDCJ officials, excluded as sub-class members once Edwards was guaranteed a $4.5 million dollar payday in attorney fees as part of the settlement agreement. Currently the appeal is in jeopardy of being dismissed. 

This is because the sole jailhouse lawyer -Lakeith Amir-Sharif - responsible for leading his peers through the legal maze has been ordered by the Court of Appeals to either show proof by September 10, 2018 that he has paid two PLRA sanctions imposed against him over 10 years ago; or to pay in full the $100 and $455 sanctions. Otherwise the appeal shall be dismissed. Curiously as reflected from the District Court and Court of Appeals records, on June 28, 2018 and July 10, 2018 both courts had granted Sharif permission to appeal. 10 donations of $55 each paid directly to the Clerk of Court are urgently needed. Please help and ask someone you know to donate. No more inmates should lose their life because of TDCJ's statewide policy and practice of failing to regulate extreme and deadly indoor heat index temperatures. Make checks or money order payable to U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit. In the Memo section, put "sanctions payment for L. Amir-Sharif." Please also sign up for email alerts so you can follow this landmark litigation. Please make a copy of your contribution so the court nor TDCJ can claim that the PLRA sanctions have not been paid in full and therefore the appeal must be dismissed. 

Thank you to everyone for sharing our urgent message. - 200 heat-sensitive inmates in LeBlanc Unit, Beaumont, TX

Envisioning Prison Abolition: Stories, Visions and Reflections

Envisioning Prison Abolition: Stories, Visions and Reflections

 Azzurra Crispino

“The ability to imagine a world that is different than the present is the beginning of any movement for change: to be able to communicate the world one imagines to others and have it feel possible is the power of narrative.”

(“Telling Our Own Story: The Role of Narrative in Racial Healing” Kellog Foundation).

What prison holds you?

For my incarcerated brothers and sisters, the answer is obvious: Cell 217 in the ad seg block at Warren, for example, for my friend Sean Swain. For my brothers and sisters in the free-er world, it may be the prison of unhealed trauma, a job you hate that you know harms people but you don’t quit because you need to pay the rent, laws you obey even though you know they’re wrong, an abusive relationship, doing the wrong thing because it’s what the employee handbook says to do. The prison of poverty, the prison of hate, the prison of racism – they are all interwoven.

I want you to take a deep breath, clear your mind, and imagine a world without prisons. What does it look like? What does it smell like? What does it sound like? How does it taste on your tongue? How does it feel on your skin?

For me, it looks like a world where everyone is fed good nutritious food and food is never wasted. Everyone has a place to call home. All people have access to education, transportation, and health care. People migrate from one place to another freely. It smells like the air right after a gentle, summer rain. No matter how hard you try, the acrid smell of fear is nowhere to be found. It sounds like people sharing stories, crying, laughing, healing and working to better each other so our communities can be safe. It tastes like a dinner where all my friends are at the table. It feels like a loved one’s kiss on my cheek; a long hug; a fuzzy blanket, diving into warm, inviting water.

Your image may be different. Perhaps it’s every prison in the world simultaneously burning (hopefully without anyone in it). Each of us will have our own vision, our own story, our own reflection. One of the asks I have for you in this piece is to commit to holding in your mind a vision of a world without any prisons, every day, until we make it a reality. Maybe you can only hold that image for 30 seconds at first. That’s okay. The more you do it, the easier it will be. Perhaps pick a specific time and set a reminder. Ask yourself a different question each day. What would zoos look like in a world without prisons? What would mental health care look like in a world without prisons? What would conflict resolution look like in a world without prisons?

Why do this? Because before we can build something, we have to hold it in our minds. In your mind, hold this vision of a world sans prisons. Hug it. Kiss it. Tuck it in at night and tell it a bedtime story. Daydream about it in that boring meeting. Hold it in your mind so strongly that it becomes more real than your solitary confinement cell. Fantasize about it in the most minute detail, like you would if it were a different kind of fantasy.

There are, of course, important questions to be answered:

·      How will we resolve conflicts without courts and judges?

·      What will we do with people who are dangerous? Rapists? Murderers? Child molesters?

·      How do we get from here to there?

Let’s take these questions one at a time

How will we resolve conflicts without courts and judges?

Instead of focusing on the big picture, I want you to focus on your part in it. Is there someone with whom you have a conflict right now? A co-worker, an ex, a child? Focus on that conflict. Bring back the vision of a world without prisons you had earlier, and visualize this conflict in that world. How could you approach this conflict without calling HR, the police, or another authority figure? What would be the outcome you would want from that process?

Blow up the police station in your mind. Forget 9-1-1 except to call the fire department or an ambulance (unless you live in a community where there are other options for those services). Stop thinking in terms of calling an authority or even “I’m going to get him!”. What would bring you peace, healing, even joy springing from this conflict? I’m asking you to imagine it. What would that look like? A little while later, I’m going to share with you what that would look like for me.

Bring back the image of the world without prisons in your mind. This time, bring in a conflict where you were the person who harmed someone. None of us is perfect, we’ve all done it. In a world without prisons, how would you like that wrong you committed to be resolved?

The world you’ve just visualized is a world without police, courts, and judges. See? 

What about rapists? Murderers? Child molesters?

Let me come at this question in a different way: do prisons make people less dangerous? In a word, no. If people become calmer, more thoughtful, better at processing their emotions in prison, it is by accident – despite prison – not because of it. I am thinking of a friend – a beautiful, gentle soul, decades in to a stint on a murder he did not commit. His sister has dialed me in to the call so we can talk, and he is yelling at her. He doesn’t even realize how he sounds. Prisoners come out, and they are worse for it. I am thinking of a time I was woken up out of sound sleep for unasked for and unwanted sexual contact by a former prisoner. (This has actually happened with two different people.) Did prison teach them to negotiate consent? Of course not. Who says please before pepper spraying someone? Makes sure everyone is in agreement before stomping someone in the head and knocking teeth out or gashing their scalp, or worse? Prison is about compliance.  No one can spend any time in such a place and not internalize those hated behaviors, no matter how saintly.

I wouldn’t send my rapists to prison. I didn’t then, out of fear. I wouldn’t now, because it would accomplish nothing. It would not make me safer, it would not make my community safer. Prison rapes are a daily reality in this country, and not always at the hands of correctional officers. What would I like? I would like every rapist to heal. I would like to know no other woman will ever have parts of a night missing because someone drugged her. I would like to know no other woman will walk down the street on her 27^th birthday, see a 16 old girl, and think “how could he have done that to me?” I want them so healed they spend the rest of their lives telling their story as cautionary tales, but most importantly, teaching enthusiastic consent practices. That can and will end rape. Prison can’t.

We need healing. I do not want gulags by any other name. I am not interested in “resorts” or “hospitals” that are run like prisons. I want a world without prisons, and I want you to help me build it.

Bring to mind someone you hate. Or someone who really hurt you. What was so hurtful about what they did?

What would be the best way to heal them? What would be the best way to heal you from what they did to you? What would that look like? Smell like? How would it feel? Hold that in your mind.

Here is my example of that today:

Shay, if you are reading this, I forgive you. I forgive you because forgiveness is an act of the will, and my will is strong. I forgive you because it is the only way I could walk out of the prison of my exact memory of your bedroom: the white, starched, button down shirt hung on the firearm; the wooden stock of peeking out; the two White Rain Coconut conditioner bottles next to the shampoo bottle in your shower. I don’t know if someone hurt you when you were 16, too. I didn’t think I was, but I was a child. Even if I could have consented to sex, I told you that without a condom was a never. I told you to stop and you didn’t. The next time, I went along with it because I thought it was the only way I could get you out of my life. My memory is that I was on the ceiling, floating above my body and looking down the entire time. Do you still have the copy of Little Earthquakes I had borrowed and you sent our friend to come get from me and return to you? How could you have done that to me and been a Tori Amos fan?

I want you to heal. I want you to read that paragraph to a psychologist and say, “my work here isn’t done until I can make sense of why I did that to her, and what I need to change so I never do it again.” When you’re healed, I want you to spend as much time as I had to spend healing myself teaching others about enthusiastic consent and what they need to do so that no other person will have to go through what I went through. I don’t hate you. I hate what you did to me. I hate how what you did to me continues to reverberate through my life, twenty years later. I hate that when you got ahold of me online to apologize, you had listed bands I had seen the week before as your favorites – we were both at that Trail of Dead show, and finding that out after the fact made me scared to go see downtown to see a show for years. I don’t want to be scared of you anymore. I want you to heal, and help others. That’s what I want from you, and no prison in the world can give that to me.

What does writing that feel like? A weight lifted from my chest. My throat loosening. It feels strong, and calm. It smells like pus, drained from my body. It tastes like peppermint after vomiting.

In a word, it feels like freedom.

What’s the best place for him, and others like him, to heal? I don’t know, we haven’t built it yet. The closest my mind can come to holding that place right now is a monastery on a mountain. The air is fresh; the food is wholesome. His room is clean, and safe. He has autonomy and say in how his community is administered. He is treated with respect, kindness and compassion. He spends a lot of time meditating, healing and learning. It is far away from me, but there are no wires, no towers, no guns, no cages. He could leave that community to go to a different therapeutic community. Or, if another community believes him to be healed, he could go live there and teach others what he’s learned.

How do we get from here to there?

We can’t just burn down the prisons and let the crops rot in the field. We should definitely do these things. We just can’t stop there. If we do, we will rebuild those prisons we burned down the very next day.

“I have thought a lot about the motto, ‘Fire To The Prisons’ […]. In the direct sense, I embrace the fiery rage and implicit abolitionism that the phrase embodies. I think that immensely powerful sense of dignified rage is critical to remaining grounded and potent. However, I have also come to consider deeper significances. There is the fire of knowledge: we must flood the prisons with knowledge. But there is, most importantly of all, the fire of love. We must flood the prisons with love! The fire of love! A love for humanity! We must never reduce people to mere statistics or ideological categories or the erasure involved in dogma” – Connor Stevens

We must humanize prisoners. For those of us on the outside, that means getting as many people as we can to write prisoners. Do solitary confinement demonstrations, and get passers-by to write postcards to prisoners. For those of us on the inside, that means genuinely relating to our pen pals as people. Tell your stories of life before and during incarceration, your hopes, dreams and aspirations for life after. We all need to believe with every fiber of our being that no human being is disposable. No exceptions. We need to tell stories which reflect this basic truth. We need to love: dangerously, systematically, tactically. Fall in love across the razor wire, and recognize it for what it is: a revolutionary act which denies the differences between us and instead embraces our common humanity. Flood the wires between us with so much love that they crush beneath the weight.

What I am asking is not a mere wishing. I am asking you to gather all your power, and every day, in thought, word, or deed, to do something towards abolishing prisons.

“There's a needle. It moves. Like an old school radio dial. 87.1 is a totalitarian prison state. 107.9 is a prison-less society. Every station in between represent steps required to move forward. What are those steps? Where are we on the dial? This can be figured out. Studying the history of slavery in the US & abroad should provide a roadmap. Or looking at governments where prison is not such a major factor. What are they doing that we are not? Figure out the steps, then you can actually work on taking them. One at a time.” - James Dzelajlija

Take one step today to abolish prisons. Meditate on what a world without prisons would look like. Write a postcard. Write a letter. Visit someone. Unapologetically kiss them, even if it gets you written up. Make a phone call on behalf of a prisoner being retaliated against for resisting. Make a phone call to someone outside the razor wire you haven’t called in a while. Reach out and connect with someone. Tell your story with your whole heart. Dream dangerous dreams of freedom. Like a tiger, pace in your cage, and remember who you are.

Take another step tomorrow. Take another step the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after THAT. Not just today, on August 21^st, 2018, or until September 9^th. Today, tomorrow, and every day thereafter until we have eradicated this social evil from every corner of the planet. If you can’t take a physical step on a certain day, reflect on what you have done the days before and how to make it more effective. Even if it’s for 30 seconds, hold that image of a world without prisons in your mind.  

We must all work together. I have never been incarcerated. But until all my friends, including those mentioned in this piece, can sit at my kitchen table; until I am not afraid of ending up in a cage; I am not free.

“We don’t want bigger cages or longer leashes. We want freedom.” – Jeremy Hammond

“We don’t want California King Beds and milk and honey coming out of the sink. We want freedom.” – Zulu of the Free Alabama Movement

URGENT CALL TO ACTION: CALL IN FOR SEAN SWAIN

11:45am CST UPDATE:  The 614-387-0588 number is a general switch line, and was overheard saying "I need to turn off my phone" after thinking the activist on the other line had hung up. We are doing an excellent job, please keep it up!

Call-in for anarchist prisoner Sean Swain

Sean Swain, a long-term anarchist prisoner in Ohio, has come under fire
by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. The ODRC has
increased Sean’s security level from 3 to 5b, an increase that has sent
him to solitary confinement, led to him being handcuffed during visits,
and further removed him from any possibility for parole. Additionally,
the ODRC is threatening to put Sean on interstate compact, a system that
ships subversive prisoners around the country, places heavy restrictions
on communication, and interns them in the black hole of the interstate
compact system.

We’re calling for any who feel compelled by Sean’s plight to call ODRC
director Gary Mohr and demand that Sean’s appeal to the current
disciplinary hearing be granted and that Sean’s security level be
lowered. (A script for the call can be found below.)

Thank you all. Your solidarity means so much.
some friends of Sean Swain

Call:
Director Gary Mohr
614-387-0588
drc.publicinfo@odrc.state.oh.us
melissa.adkins@odrc.state.oh.us (Administrative Assistant for Mohr)

If this number is shut off, Bureau of Classification:
614-752-1106. (The person who answers will claim she can do nothing. Just keep her on the line as politely and for as long as possible.) 


CALL-IN SCRIPT

I am calling on behalf of Sean Swain, inmate #243-205. I am [your relationship to Sean: friend, concerned citizen, etc] of
Sean's. I am calling to request the ODRC grant Mr. Swain's appeal
regarding his most recent disciplinary record, drop the charges, and
lower his security level from 5b to 2. Mr. Swain is not a physical
security risk, and there is no reason to keep him at such a high
security rating where he will be unable to get the programming he needs
to be eligible for rehabilitation and parole. Thank you for your
consideration.


Please remain polite! Call and share widely!

Feel free to write to Sean:

Sean Swain #243-205
Warren Correctional Institution 
PO Box 120 
Lebanon, OH 45036

URGENT UPDATE: JASON WALKER

Received a call from Jason Walker today. He states that between 6 and 6:30 this morning, an incident occurred between him and SGT GILSTRAP and LT ESTRADA. 

The previous day, he had been told that there was an issue with the Security Threat Group mail room regarding an article that he had been sent by Victor Wallis. However, when Jason spoke to the mail room staff, he was told that the real issue was with the article he just put in the mail to Victor regarding heat strokes occurring at Telford Unit. Specifically, the issue was that the title included the words “Black Panther Party Prison Chapter”.  Jason pointed out these words have been in his outgoing mail without the Security Threat Group being concerned, but he was told that it was now an issue by the mail room staff. Jason removed those words, and put the article back in the mail to Victor Wallis.

This morning, GILSTRAP told Jason that Jason needed to go up front. Initially, Jason refused, but eventually he did. Gilstrap told Jason to “remember he was” and that Telford was a different unit than he was used to. Specifically, he told Jason that Jason needed to stop writing about issues regarding conditions. Gilstrap threatened Jason that if he did not stop speaking out, Gilstrap would issue Jason a write-up claiming that Jason had threatened to kill female correctional officers. Jason denied having done so, to which Gilstrap said it didn’t matter. When Jason asked to report this, Gilstrap told him that everyone is on the same side, and that reporting wouldn’t do him any good. Jason was handcuffed, and taken to LT ESTRADA, who told Jason that he better not see Jason pass by his office any more (which is both on the way to the chow hall and to the law library) or Jason could expect to have something done to him. This was all in the full view of the A-Block cameras, including the one near the laundry area and the two adjacent cameras. 

Jason is concerned for his safety and also that he may be framed as having threatened female correctional officers.

Please write Jason to show he has support:

Jason Renard Walker 

01532092

Telford Unit 

3899 TX-98

New Boston, TX 75570 

Will be updating this with a call-in campaign soon. 

[And yes, I did get this call while I was driving from one prison visit to the next. All in a day's work]

Photography Review: Ohio State Penitentiary with Jermane Scott and Greg Curry

Day 2

Ohio State Penitentiary is an imposing building. If you're not paying attention, Warren Correctional could be an ugly high school. Ohio State Penitentiary starts out unassuming, just turn right onto a road across the street from a farm. When I pulled up, though, the fence has a net of wire that screamed "we mean business". There are several stop points to get in. From the sidewalk, I could hear the guys screaming from administrative segregation.

I had the disturbing privilege of visiting two prisoners wrongfully convicted of murder at this unit. I don't think Ohio realizes just how many people there are in its prisons convicted of taking a life that did not. Both should have been eligible for contact visits and were at a security level low enough not to even be at OSP, but we nevertheless visited through glass in a small booth that (to me) felt like a cell.

The COs were royally confused that I was visiting two people back-to-back, so that raised some challenges. But I wanted to capture the feel of how different these two Black men, both innocent of which they have been convicted, are.

Talking to Jermane about his youth was to look back on his life through the lens of an older man who realizes the structural issues that led him to choose the street life. He is excited to be getting a visit from The Innocence Project next week, and we did quite a bit of strategizing. For those unfamiliar with his case, Jermane went on a shopping spree with a credit card that turned out to belong to a dead man. When he refused to snitch on how he came into possession of the credit card, he found himself facing the death penalty for a murder he did not commit and could not have committed. For example, evidence was withheld that the neighbors knew the victim hid his garage door opener, the location of which was necessary for the murderer to use the car as the get-away vehicle. Jermane didn't know the victim; couldn't have known about the garage door opener; didn't drive the get-away car, because he didn't kill him.

But since when does the US justice system care which Black man killed someone, as long as someone is warming a bed in the prison plantation? As a high security prisoner, Jermane costs the State of Ohio more than $60k to house, not to mention what his supporters spend in overpriced phone calls and gouged commissary items.

What struck me the most though was Jermane's decision, when he was 36, to become a pacifist. I'm often told that the only reason I can be a pacifist is that I'm a middle-class white woman; that my pacifism is really an extension of my privilege; that it is bought through the violence of others. Across the glass, with a warm smile, is the counter-example. This is a man who spent 20 years of his life as a gang member, inside and outside of prison, peacefully retired, and now continues to live non-violently in one of the most violent situations one can be. I was curious if people tried to goad him into fighting, and he just smiled, shook his head, and let me know that wouldn't work.

At the end of our visit, I had to go all the way down the elevator (ELEVATOR? Never seen one of those in a prison), check out, then come back in.

Prisoners getting non-contact visits are also not allowed food or drink during their visits. That's different from Texas: there, you buy from vending, hand it to the CO, and the CO takes it behind the glass. Technically, I could buy vending for myself and rudely eat and drink in front of them, but my mother raised me better than that. Since there was no time between the visits, that meant I couldn't eat or drink until I was all the way done. There was a drinking fountain on the second floor, but it didn't appear to be working.

Going to the bathroom between visits was eventful. I tried to go downstairs, but was told to use the upstairs bathroom. The CO upstairs tried to get me to exit the unit to use the restroom outside of security, not realizing that I was visiting two separate people. So, I ended up using a bathroom I thought I was locked in for a few minutes. I've never had to knock on a door to be let out of a bathroom before (even though it turned out I just hadn't turned the handle hard enough), but that brief 10 seconds of confinement was yet another reminder of what my friends go through every single day for decades.

Now we get to the Photography Review portion. Because Sean couldn't get a picture, and I was told I couldn't buy commissary, I wrongfully assumed this meant I couldn't get pictures during this visit. Greg knew better, and ordered three pictures taken. I hopped on the counter, trying to stand in a way that made it seem like we were together. The photographer was another inmate, and Greg was adamantly instructing him on what to do to avoid the massive glare coming off the glass. To be fair, the glare was bad enough that I kept moving so that my head was immediately in front of Greg's even while we were talking - that was the only way that I could get a good look at him.

Most of us think of Greg as the resistance fighter, wrongfully convicted of murder during the Lucasville Uprisings of April 1993. Let me point out he has a softer, funnier side. His dating advice: go to RV conventions, because it's a good place to meet guys who like to travel and have their life together. It was a gentle reminder that just as much as I worry about my pen pals, they worry about me.

There is plenty to worry about with Greg. His security level is a 4, which means he should have been let out of OSP, out of segregation, and able to transition back to general population. But the Central Office can't seem to find a bed in a lower security unit for him, so he continues to be held in administrative segregation for no good reason. Keep in mind, if he had been moved to his new unit, we would have been able to hug hello and goodbye, share vending machine junk food, and sit next to each other like human beings. Instead, we tried our best to be heard through the glass, sometimes yelling to get our points across.

Suddenly, it was time to go. The worst part of a non-contact visit is watching the person I'm visiting bend down to put their arms into the hole so they can have their hands cuffed behind their back again. Greg pointed to a bar on the ground of his side of the booth, saying that back in the day, he would have been chained to it while being behind the glass during a visit.

I'm sitting at a diner, about to go to bed before heading off to my next visit, this time in Pennsylvania. But I feel like part of me was never let out of that bathroom, never walked out of that fence. I kept seeing it while I was driving across the beautiful Pennsylvania landscape.

How are we going to abolish these factories of evil? In the mean time, I keep carrying in light.

Restaurant Review: Au Jus Roast Beef at Warren Correctional Facility with Sean Swain

For those of you who have never done a prisoner visit in Ohio, you may be surprised to know that this fine dining experience requires a reservation. I arrived at exactly 2pm, as was instructed. My pants were loose, my bra was free of an underwire (which is not easy!) and I was given my ticket so I could wait before going through the metal detector and getting my hand stamped in invisible ink. Two other women were not so lucky: one was given a pair of scissors to cut her underwire out, and the other had to go buy another pair of pants as her capris were deemed too shot for entry.

I arrived to find Sean already seated at the small yellow chairs, his hands bound to each other and to a belt at his waist. Since he’s in administrative segregation (again!), they would not let us get pictures, nor could he have full movement of his arms. Although this was my third time visiting someone wrongfully convicted of murder, it was the first time I had a contact visit.  Due to my “reservation” being for 2:30 and again at 5, I had to exit the visitation room and go through security completely in between the visits. The good news is a visitor is allowed one hug coming in and one hug coming out, which means I got to give Sean four hugs instead of two. The only struggle was to figure out how to hug someone who is bound in such a way. I put my arms around him and hugged him as best I could, while he smiled and tied to hunch his shoulders towards me in an exaggerated shrug.

I was expecting to be able to take pictures, so had put enough money to cover that on the white plastic card, which cannot be refunded but can be re-used, except only at that facility with that particular prisoner. I wasn’t sure when I am coming back through this way (well, that’s not quite true – I have a visit scheduled for Monday at Lebanon CI, which is down the road from Warren), so I figured let’s eat up. Sean and I split two surprisingly good roast beef sandwiches with dipping sauce. I wasn’t necessarily thinking of the challenge of eating with my hands bound when I made the choice, though it turned out to be delicious and we ordered another.

Of course, the conversation was the best part of the meal. This is, after all, the future Last Governor of Ohio. Particularly of interest were his conversion story to Islam, and 9th century autonomous zones under Islamic "rule". 

As I stood at the wall, lined up in single file, the correctional officer kept calling out on his walkie talkie that he needed additional help to be able to get us out and the prisoners back in. "They can just let us walk out with them" I said to the woman next to me. "I wish," she replied. 

Let's make that wish a reality. 

Tomorrow: two dates at one unit!