by Boundless in the Midwest | Apr 23, 2021 | From the Inside
Nine years ago today I walked into court with my wife of nineteen years on my arm. We were nervous but sure that we would be walking out together. We. were both wrong.
Nine years ago today my nightmare began and it was a journey that only got worse as it went. I lost the great loved of my life. She was my Goddess, my muse, and my passion, and despite all of the betrayal, I still miss her.
Prison is an adventure in losses. In the first year you lose the respect of your children, the love, loyalty and faithfulness of your spouse. Losing your freedom is only the beginning. It is also the one that hurts the least compared to your other loses.
It isn’t until your second year that you actually find out that your wife took a lover only a few weeks after your conviction. This is around the same time that you find out that she has given birth to a child that could not possibly be yours and you are served with child support papers and divorce papers in the same month.
The very last thing you finally lose is the one thing that is easiest to lose given the circumstances but it’s the one thing you need the most. I’m speaking of hope.
All of your aspirations of greatness, of creating an enduring positive legacy is gone. You are a fragile shell of a man. You need a hero in your life, somebody capable of sharing their greatness.
Nobody is born great. Sure some people may be born with expectations of doing great things during their life because of family history. Sometimes those expectations fall short of the dreams of those who raised or even created the person in question.
Perhaps greatness is not something your born with or even aspire to but is something different. Maybe it’s something that happens most unexpectedly by those who have the singular characteristic of being compassionate.
As I write this, I’ve had the extreme pleasure of being a lucky individual who was adopted 34 months ago through Adopt an inmate by Clare. Our relationship has its ups and downs as every relationship does. There are rare times that myself and Clare both struggle to keep the long distance relationship going. Running out of things to talk about in our emails is a real problem from time to time. I’ve found that by opening myself up, making myself vulnerable even to the point of making serious mistakes is the best way to have a lasting and honest friendship. Most of the time our friendship is just so easy and comfortable. It’s like being hugged by for the very first time every single time I receive a letter or email from her.
Having no expectations but keeping yourself open to the possibilities of a good friend I feel is the secret to being adopted and having that friendship last.
Clare has become a proxy for all of the people I lost. She reminds me that life continues even during the worst of times. She is just a caring person with a little extra time that she wishes to share that time with me.
With the millions stuck at home bored out of your skull ask yourself. Do you have the time, the compassion to be a light in the darkness of somebody’s nightmare. Then consider Adopt an inmate. You can’t binge watch The Office forever you know.
Boundless in the Midwest.
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash
by Jacob (Justin) Gamet | Apr 13, 2021 | From the Inside
Sunday, April 11, 2021
I just wanted to share some great news about one of the bills (SB 5164) that our state’s (Washington) Congress passed and how it affected a man I know called “All Day,” who happens to live directly above me.
People call him All Day because he is doing Life Without Parole (LWOP). He’s a three-striker, meaning if you commit three different strikable crimes/offenses then Washington state law says you’re never leaving this place. All Day is a 46 y/o black man, and he’s been locked up for about 14 years.
Well, I was trying to help All Day convince the Seattle Clemency Project to take up his case for clemency with Governor Jay Inslee but they kept rejecting his case saying he’s not a viable candidate at this time. Clemency is basically a conditional pardoning of someone by the Governor.
One of All Day’s past crimes was a second degree robbery, which the state Congress had previously removed as a strikeable offense but didn’t allow it to apply to guys already in prison who were time-barred. This was grossly unfair.
But recently, in light of racial and social equity movements, Congress decided to take up the issue again. All Day, who’s not keen on law (obviously) and looks at it skeptically, wasn’t even aware that Congress was working on passing SB 5164 to fully remove second degree robbery from the strikeable offense list – and make it apply retroactively.
I caught up with All Day to let him know about SB 5164. Having been let down many times before, he wasn’t too hopeful. But I told him I’ll track the bill for him and monitor its progress through both chambers of Congress. He was appreciative.
To the surprise of several prisoners, Congress recently passed SB 5164 and made it apply retroactively to All Day and others also charged with second degree robbery! I showed All Day the bill and explained it to him, and then I found another guy and worked with him to figure out All Day’s offender score, which determines how much time he’d have to serve based on a set of sentencing grid calculations.
We figured out that All Day will actually be going home when he’s resentenced according to the Bill, i.e., when it’s signed into law by Governor Inslee and goes into effect 90 days thereafter.
The prosecutor will then petition the court to bring All Day into court to adjust his crime and then resentence him to a period of time that is shorter than the amount of time he has already served.
In short (pun intended), All Day will be a free man soon!
I, too, was waiting on a law to pass that could have resulted in my early release, as well as many others. But unfortunately it didn’t get passed out of the House Appropriations Committee.
Nonetheless, I’ve served the bulk of my sentence and will be released next April. I just feel bad that there are so many others who really needed HB 1282 to pass for them.
That’s the nature of our broken criminal justice system. Sometimes it works to the advantage of some, and to the disadvantage of others. But the only time it works is when good people stand up and stick their necks out to ensure justice and equity for others.
For now, I’m just glad that Dwight Russ no longer has to be referred to as All Day, which I’m sure you agree was such an ill-fitting nickname.
by Jacob (Justin) Gamet | Apr 10, 2021 | From the Inside
Saturday, April 10, 2021
Today marks my one-year countdown to freedom!
After 19 years, the world I left will be profoundly different. Sitting on my cell bunk, I imagine what freedom will look like and feel like in 365 days. I imagine its new flavor and texture, how it will taste to my exiled soul.
Occasionally, I piece together varied glimpses of freedom from TV, from conversations with some of you, and from faded memories of life predating April 2003, memories which have bound themselves to peripheral fragments of lucid dreams, pressed into a peppermint-flavored reality that is sweet yet bitterly unreliable.
In 365 days, I’ll examine freedom through a different lens (past colliding with modern), beholding it from an eagle’s vantage point. I’m improved by the ticks of time, ever evolved by prison’s sub-worldly experiences and its melting-pot populace.
Indeed, my carceral experiences have rendered me all the wiser and discerning. For what once tripped me up, I spot from a distance. What I once considered beauty is now hideous. What I once considered pleasurable (or even tolerable) is now detestable. Those I once considered companions, well, they’ve shown themselves as otherwise. But some, on the other hand, have proven themselves true.
* * * Preparing to Make My Million Dollar Dreams a Reality * * *
I just finished reading Invent It, Sell It, Bank It! by Shark Tank’s warm-blooded shark Lori Greiner, who has a whopping 120 invention patents to her credit. She’s a powerhouse inventor/businesswoman. Lori’s empirical wisdom taught me how to further develop my three best inventions and make them into a million dollar reality.
In preparing to write my own patents (and have an attorney later polish them up), I have five other invention books to read:
- The Independent Inventor’s Handbook
- The Inventor’s Complete Handbook: How to Develop, Patent, and Commercialize Your Ideas
- Navigating the Patent System
- Fun With Patents
- Patent Pending in 24 Hours
But b e f o r e reading the books listed above, I have one book in particular to read: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, who based his book on the financial principles of Andrew Carnegie, a canny, lovable, old Scotsman who supposedly developed a “magic formula” that has made fortunes for more than 500 exceedingly wealthy people, whom Hill claims he “carefully analyzed over a long period of time.”
Pairing well with Hill’s book, my Small Business Entrepreneurship classes through Edmonds College resumed last Wednesday. That said, I have two homework assignments to complete before Monday – preliminary preparations for achieving my million dollar dreams.
Most important, though, I look forward to spending quality time with family and friends who have walked with me (closely and from afar) on my 19-year journey to freedom.
See y’all in 365 days!
by Inmate Contributor | Apr 8, 2021 | From the Inside
BY: Jeremy in Louisiana
Have you ever spoke with someone, heard their voice, and immediately knew that they were a part of you? The words they said, the tears they shed, every syllable could have been you when you were eleven, talking to your 30 year old self over the phone. You want to tell the young version of you everything you’ve learned over the years, all at once. You think of all the warnings and wisdom you have to offer. A million things bounce around inside your head. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, be nice to people, don’t be mean to Tommy. It’s overwhelming. But the young voice isn’t a younger you. It’s another life, in another time. A life you helped to create.
When you were eleven years old, it was 2001. It’s 2020 now. The world has changed so much in nineteen years, but when you hear the young part of you, your mind and heart go to your past. You see your mom, waiting in the kitchen for you and your brother to get off of the school bus. You see yourself sitting with granny before school, drinking a big glass of coffee milk, loaded down with sugar. You see all the trouble you got in and want so bad to keep the young one from following in your footsteps. You remember your mom and dad, granny too, saying you better not date a black person, so you go to tell the young one the same thing, but something in you remembers that it isn’t 2001 anymore and only your dad is still alive. You’re not eleven anymore. You shake off the old hatred that’s been taught from generation to generation and promise it will end with you. You won’t pass that on. You want better for the young one.
You recall riding around in trucks in Indiana with rebel flags waving in the wind, drinking beer and not caring who you hurt. It took years to cleanse your heart of that hate. At times it consumed you. You recall the black lady who used to clean your mom and Granny’s house when you were even younger than the young one. How your mom and granny used to call her nigger behind her back and chuckle. You and your brother doing it. The nicest lady in town. She always took you to the store and let you pick out any candy you wanted. You wish Mrs. Celestine were still alive, so you could apologize, beg for her to forgive you for calling her hateful names, tell her how much you love her and how nice she was to help your crippled mother. You hope she’s somewhere in the afterlife smiling down on you. You know she’s watching over you because that’s the kind of person she was.
One day, you and your brother called her nigger as she was walking away and she heard it. The nicest lady. All she did was help. When she looked back, tears ran down her face. The hatred taught to you blinded you from her pain. She didn’t fuss. She didn’t whip you, she just let you see her tears that you can feel now, in 2020, and walked away.
by Inmate Contributor | Mar 24, 2021 | From the Inside
This morning (3-24-21) at Twins Rivers Unit in Washington state, an incarcerated individual approached C.U.S Collins with a complaint about the imposition of a new DOC policy that required incarcerated individuals to cohort. This man asked why is it that we are being subject to punishment if we don’t cohort, but the staff (Corrections Officers and Administration) walk from unit to unit and potentially pass Covid. This man was told that staff is doing what they can.
Then when asked “How come we are not allowed to sit at a table that has 4 seats with 3 other men, or a table with six seats with 5 other men?” When all Washington counties are in phase 3. We have 3 wings per unit and it’s basically bedrooms (cells) with a living room (day room) but with each wing having 75+ men we are only allowed about 23 men in the day room and we have to be six feet away with our masks on. Now when we get caught with our mask down on a phone or talking to another person we are subject to punishment. We are basically in our house’s living room – why do we have to wear a mask at home? Staff go home and remove their masks and relax. Staff can only bring Covid into us so they should be the only ones wearing mask as you would if you had company come over.
Furthermore we should have the governor give guidelines for the prisons if they are not to follow the phase for the county they reside. The whole state is in phase 3, DOC is in sec.1 of phase 1. As communities move forward, DOC moved back. After expressing all this to C.U.S Collins this man was told to make a complaint. His response was “I am making a complaint.” Then he was told to yard in as they were gonna have a “Play Safety Muster.” Which is where they talk about safety in the units. When they should be talking about how punishing us for not following a unwritten rule doesn’t coincide with state policy. State employees will not be fined or punished for not wearing a mask but can impose punishment for a choice.
Our families need to know we’re being taken care of by knowing DOC is following all the phasing that is taking place in the state. And that we’re not being punished for asking why.
by Eric Burnham | Mar 12, 2021 | From the Inside
We live in extremely hard times. The last year was certainly one of the more daunting of my life. The theme of 2020 was “If it can be shaken, it will be shaken.” And the theme of 2021 may be “transition.” Yet, whether or not 2021 turns out to be a year of growth depends greatly upon perspective. Where you stand usually depends on where you sit. Perspective can become difficult to apprehend amongst excessive noise. Allow me to explain.
In March of 2020, the Education Department was shut down because of a really aggressive outbreak of influenza here at E.O.C.I. Finally back to work on June 5, and then the first cases of Covid-19 are detected at the prison, on my unit. My housing unit goes on quarantine for what turns out to be over 60 days. By the time my unit comes off of quarantine, we had all contracted the virus, myself included, and although two men died as a result, the majority of us recovered fairly well. However, the coronavirus outbreak had become so widespread at E.O.C.I. by that time that the Education Department had been shut down until further notice.
In September, my job, visiting, and virtually all recreational activities had been shut down for 6 months. Football season began, and I started playing fantasy football with some guys on my unit. That turned out to be an unwise decision that would shape at least the next year of my life, perhaps even longer.
On December 19, I was handcuffed and escorted to disciplinary segregation, placed in a cell by myself, where I stayed until after the new year began. They informed me at the time that I was under investigation for gambling. I heard nothing about what was going on for two weeks. Finally, on the 15th day, I was given a misconduct report. On January 6th I went to my hearing and attempted to explain, but the hearing officer determined I had violated the rule against gambling by playing fantasy football. My 18 years of clear conduct made no difference.
While I do feel the direct consequences were fair – credit for time served in segregation and release that same day, the indirect consequences were disproportionate, in my opinion. I lost my 18 years of clear conduct; I lost my job as a tutor, which I had been doing for 13 years; I lost my level and incentive housing, and I lost my access to automation for schooling. I am now on a regular, non-incentive dormitory-style unit, and given the Covid-19 restrictions, I’m unable to do really anything but sit on my bunk, although I do have school stuff on which to focus.
Where I am is a warehouse for discarded, forgotten people, and I’m adjusting to my new reality. The ignorance and distorted thinking patterns of those who surround me are staggering, but it is difficult to blame them. Virtually nothing is being done to help them rectify the situation – and you can’t expect people who have never known how to change to suddenly and spontaneously know how to be different than they have always been. These men have no direction, no guidance, no objectives, and no reasons. They are unmotivated. The unit is chaos, and the men are aimless. And while I am certainly responsible for the mistake I made – I chose to play fantasy football, which is against the rules – these aimless men see that my 18 years of clear conduct did not earn me a break or even a benefit of the doubt. They see that although I spent 13 years helping others by tutoring them in the G.E.D program, it made no difference to those in authority. What message does that send to an increasingly younger prison population? Noise.
When I sought leniency after my hearing from the administration here at E.O.C.I., the man in charge of Rehabilitation Services was cold, self-righteous, and unwavering, which surprised me, given his own moral failings. A few years ago, this man, while married to someone else, had an affair with his boss, who was the superintendent at the time. As a result, the superintendent was fired, and his wife devastated. Yet, not only does he continue to work for the Department of Corrections, he holds a merciless paradigm toward the incarcerated. I don’t care that he made a personal mistake – life can be complicated and we all make mistakes. I just wonder how he can make such an egregious mistake and yet fail to exercise any empathy at all toward people like me… a man who merely played fantasy football. Noise.
Yes, I made a mistake. I broke the rules. I acknowledge it, and I take responsibility for it. I just feel the punishment is disproportionate, and the people in charge who set the standards of discipline for those of us who are incarcerated seem to set different standards for themselves, which seems to fly in the face of any framework of rehabilitation. Sure, they extend us the respect of professionalism, to a point, and the appearance of due process, but they do not extend the respect of humanity – because acknowledging our humanity is to accept we will make mistakes. Allow me to provide an example of the difference.
While I was in segregation, certain officers would pass books, magazines, or even various food items from cell to cell when asked. Then, all of a sudden, they would no longer do it. Apparently, the staff had a meeting, and the head of security told the officers that they are not allowed to pass items for inmates. He told them that if they find it happening again, the cameras will be reviewed and those officers seen passing items will no longer be allowed to work in segregation. The respect of humanity, in this particular example, is that the segregation officers were given a warning by those in charge – because human beings get careless and make mistakes.
I had 18 years of clear conduct, had been on incentive housing for 15 years, had worked at the same job tutoring others in the Education Department for 13 years – earned a Bachelor’s degree in 2015, a Master’s degree in 2017, and I’m currently about 20 months from completing my Ph.D. program… yet, I received no warning. I was placed in handcuffs, and everything I had earned over the last 20 years was taken away from me… for playing fantasy football. Noise.
It becomes difficult not to get discouraged. I see how we are treated in here every single day – even when we are following the rules and doing good. I see how the standards are different for those in authority. I see how so-called leaders politicize the concept of rehabilitation and prison reform. I see those who have worked in the prison system for decades and done virtually nothing to change anything, but when the lights are bright and the cameras are rolling, the pretend to be advocates for reform. I also personally experience unrealistic expectations of perfection in order to maintain my institutional incentives even after I’ve earned them. Noise.
Let me be clear: I am not the victim. I am not whining or saying I am entitled to anything. Yes, I feel the punishment is disproportionate, but I can overcome. I can shut out the noise. I can be greater than my greatest excuse. I can work harder, do more, and be better. That is not my issue here. I am strong-minded, emotionally intelligent, considerably educated, and highly motivated. I will succeed and defeat the hurdles in my path. My questions are not about me. My questions are about the men around me, the men who are young, impulsive, under-educated, immature, and without purpose. As they search for meaning in this dark place, can they black out the excessive noise? When they see that two decades of doing the best an incarcerated person can do simply does not matter at all to those in authority, why should they try? What positive examples do they see? They already don’t know how to change. Now… they don’t know why they should. It’s just too much noise
by Melissa Bee | Mar 10, 2021 | From the Inside
We’ve heard a few stories about how prisons use Covid as an excuse to enhance punishment of their charges. We received this letter from the mother of a person incarcerated at Stafford Creek Corrections Center in Washington Department of Corrections. We have reported this to the Office of the Corrections Ombuds, Washington State Representative Roger Goodman, and Washington State Senator Jeannie Darneille.
My son is an inmate at this facility. When they had their first deaths, my son’s pod was completely free of any known Covid patients. There are about 200 inmates in a pod. Gradually there were some positives and they were moved out to a different location .
They gave them a phone schedule for those times allowed out so I was still able to talk to him. As some of the inmates returned to the pod, there started to be some confusion. Soon they were taken back out of the pod and put to work cleaning the areas where those who tested positive were kept. They were still using the same pod as where they returned. Then the numbers started rising, the guards continued as though they, the guards, were not quarantined.
If you have IBS you are in pain the whole wait. If you can’t hold it then you have to go for a shower. My son had been given permission for at least a urinal bottle but was later told he did not qualify. They are now allowed only 25 minutes out of the cell a day and he can only call every other day.
It is completely inhuman to deny them access to water and toilets. These cells were not designed for a completely locked down situation. The facility does not return calls. I have no idea how to help him other than to try to at least maintain contact as much as possible. Thanks for listening.
<Name redacted>’s mom
The Pod he is in is a minimum security pod where bathrooms and showers are located in the day room. In a pod such as his, the doors to the cells are typically not locked, since access to a toilet is not possible otherwise. But Washington State prison officials apparently think that Covid is a good excuse to deny inmates access to showers and toilets, basic necessities that are their responsibility to provide, not when it is convenient for them, but all the time even if it is not convenient for them.
by Jacob (Justin) Gamet | Feb 23, 2021 | From the Inside
February 9, 2021
Today is special. It’s my late brother Nambi’s birthday.
Nambi struggled with drug addiction since he was about 13 y/o, and he unfortunately lost that battle last year on 5/18/20.
Nambi found pleasure in poetry, and I wanted to share with you his intimate poem – “This Life of Mine” – that metaphorizes his raw and uncut life and the demons he battled over the course of his prematurely abridged life.
Note, poet Amy McKenzie wrote a commemorative poem for him called “A Return to Kindness,” and Nambi’s poem (below) was featured as the capstone piece in an evening of poetry readings dedicated to African Americans.
==================
This Life of Mine
==================
All my hostility
Reflects my inability
To find peace and her sister tranquillity
Let alone my mental stability
Ain’t nobody feeling me or healing me
And it[‘]s killing me
For it’s a struggle in this life of mine
I was supposed to be blessed but the stress wasn’t hard to find
Worry came in a hurry
Success began to undress
She couldn’t cope
That b**** success lost all hope and hung herself from a rope
Desire… turned out to be a damn liar
Success confessed
With Ambition and Intuition
They met Conspire
Now it’s time to retire
Because together
That’s the three elements of fire
And what do you think about the possibility
Of using the ability of hostility
To bring back some tranquility
Which is required for peace
I don’t know cause Hostility uses Anger
And my muthaf***ing anger’s a beast
Because of the anger
People’s lives would be in danger
For Loss and Chaos are no longer a stranger
And the reason for all this mess is the concept of Success
And to this day I can’t understand why
That b**** challenged Failure to a game of chess
Inside I’m void
Too tired to be paranoid
Concepts of pain and neglect keep coming out the side of my neck
For inside my mind there’s too many mysteries to dissect
Too many pieces to this puzzle
And the voices I hear require a muzzle
And believe me from the fountain of peace
My soul requires a guzzle
There’s just too much frustration from the lack of communication
Which has led to withdraw[al from] social relation
Therefore masturbation
For it’s a lonely road to a[n] unseen destination
Now you understand all rage and fury behind my situation
Simplicity requires mastering well aspects of complication
And I thank the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven
For handing me my resignation.
–Nambi Gamet
by Jacob (Justin) Gamet | Feb 18, 2021 | From the Inside, Poetry From Prison
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude . . . except as punishment for a crime . . . shall exist.
–13th Amendment (1865), U.S. Constitution
YES, it’s true! The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution still permits slavery for anyone convicted of a crime and imprisoned. Locked up now for over 17.5 years, I wrote “The 1865 Burden” as a poem to provide a behind-the-scenes peek at America’s 1865 slavery legacy — as it’s “being” applied in 2020 to me and other Washington state prisoners, and similarly to prisoners across the country.
The 1865 Burden
KNOW YE, future objects of vengeance
Your enslavement was decided in 1865
As criminals, you are Property of the State
HENCEFORTH, we authorize WA DOC to:
Strip away the dignity of your humanity
Assume control over your personal affairs
Yoke you tautly as fitting beasts of burden
Commoditize you by way of menial labor
Set a minimum grazing gratuity of 42¢/hr
Your day’s labor shall not exceed a meal tip
Lawfully deduct up to 95% of your monies
Of $100 from loved ones, pay you only $5
For 30+ years, deny cost OF living increases
Yet annually increase your costs FOR living
Ergo, increase your medical copay fees
Rec fees, and food and property prices
Feed you comestibles suitable for animals
Labeled, “Not fit for human consumption”
Offset budget cuts by reducing food quality
Supplement meals with pricey food packages
Provide offerings that exploit your loved ones
Design and benefit from the below offerings:
- Phone company contract kickbacks
- Deductions of money from loved ones
- Jpay media contract kickbacks
- Food and property program kickbacks
- Misusing the Offender Betterment Fund
Signed and executed by:
WE THE PEOPLE of 1865
Slavery Pacifists / Slave Owners
Photo by British Library on Unsplash
by Jacob (Justin) Gamet | Feb 8, 2021 | From the Inside
February 8, 2021
Negligence, n. 1. The failure to exercise the standard of care that a reasonably prudent person would have exercised in a similar situation any conduct that falls below the legal standard established to protect others against unreasonable risk of harm. 2. A tort grounded in this failure, usu. expressed in terms of the following elements: duty, breach of duty, causation, and damages.
As most incarcerated persons are aware, DOC, which includes WSRU, has a legal duty to protect them, i.e., ensure their safety. But WSRU has been negligent in fulfilling this duty, and I’ll explain how by comparing WSRU’s mismanagement of its current COVID-19 outbreak to mismanagement of a business, which would most certainly result in job terminations.
The Negligent GM
Let’s say you owned a business and assigned a general manager (GM) to run it, and the business began hemorrhaging money. What would you expect the GM to do? Personally, I’d expect the GM to investigate the crisis and implement a plan with solutions to slow my company’s financial losses.
Now say the GM decided to implement some minor adjustments to isolate the losses to an area of the business. Nonetheless, the company continued losing money at staggering rates, and the whole time the GM, hoping to ride the crisis out, sat on his hands.
The GM was contacted by a reasonably prudent company employee who detailed multiple viable solutions that could have saved the company, but the GM disregarded them. First, he denied receiving the solutions, and then failed to answer the employee’s second letter with solutions. So, the employee filed an official complaint against the GM in an effort to save the owner’s company and assets.
Still, the GM continued to sit on his hands, didn’t investigate the viability of the employee’s commonsense solutions, and eventually the other half of the owner’s company also went under.
Business Comparables
Company: WSRU
Company Owner: Governor Jay Inslee
Company GM: Superintendent Eric Jackson
Company Employee: Offender Jacob Gamet
Negligent Superintendent
Here at WSRU, a COVID-19 outbreak happened (and is currently happening on the other half of the prison, A/B units) that resulted in nearly half of WSRU’s offender population (C/D units) being infected.
Notably, before the outbreak there were about 10 bags of hand disinfectant dispersed around D-unit for offender use. All were removed prior to the outbreak!
Despite WSRU admin implementing modified (limited movement) lockdowns, offenders continued catching COVID-19 at steadily rising rates. It got so bad that offenders were being hauled out in groups of 60-plus at a time! Even though lives were being endangered, WSRU admin never investigated why positive cases continued rising if offenders were supposedly wearing masks. They sat on their hands and did nothing.
Then, I caught COVID-19 and was escorted with a group of offenders to ad-seg (the “hole”). I was befuddled as to how I caught the virus because I was hyper-vigilant in wearing my mask, washing my hands, and social distancing as best I could in WSRU’s congregate, communal environment where social distancing is impossible.
So, I sat back and thought about how I caught the virus, which didn’t take long. I discovered multiple points that I may have caught it. One, the tier showers where three stalls are situated next to each other and the two other offenders who showered in stalls next to me around the time of testing were hauled to the hole with me.
MY SUGGESTION: one person shower per tier during outbreaks.
Two, there are unit wall vents by the phones that blow strong gusts of air out of their sides and carry phone conversations well beyond the CDC’s 6-foot distance rule. There’s no plastic barriers installed between many of the phones situated next to each other.
MY SUGGESTION: prison unit staff regularly enforce the unit mask-wearing policy on offenders who pull their masks off or down while talking on phones.
Three, neither are prison unit staff regularly enforcing the unit’s mask-wearing policy on offenders who don’t wear their masks during TTY and Jpay kiosk video visits, which are situated in communal areas where other offenders congregate. There’s also wall vents in those areas which push offender saliva beyond the established 6-foot distance.
MY SUGGESTION: same as previous.
And four, WSRU has open bar cells, at which offenders stand at and yell from cell to cell, spreading their saliva into neighboring cells of unmasked offenders.
MY SUGGESTION: flame retardant plastic be used to cover cells bars around cell bunks.
I sent multiple letters to WSRU admin informing them of these unit breach points and suggested solutions (above) to them. They replied to my first kite, alleging it did not have the sealed and addressed envelope (w/ letter inside) I attached to it with Scotch tape. I sent a second with rubber bands attaching the envelope to the kite but received no response.
Finally, I sent an official grievance and am waiting for a response. But I’m concerned because A/B units have a nearly identical unit setup as C/D units, and so the offenders over there are now testing positive at similar rates that C/D units did. I’m concerned about their lives, and I wish WSRU admin shared my concern.
Is WSRU Enacting Herd Immunity?
After offenders caught COVID-19, WSRU medical staff told me and other offenders that we now have a 90-day immunity. Was this WSRU’s plan all along, to sit back, do nothing meaningful, and let us catch the virus?
Of course, a 90-immunity would seem more convenient than dealing with one outbreak after another. But such a decision would demonstrate a reckless disregard for offender lives.
While WSRU admin won’t admit to practicing “herd immunity,” their inaction begs to question whether offender lives were LESS important to them than a business losing ALL of its money.
