“Waiting For The World To Give Us A Reason To Live”: Solitary Confinement in Utah

From: SolitaryWatch, Oct. 24th, 2012
By Sal Rodriguez

Utah State Prison’s Uinta 1 facility serves as the prison’s super-maximum security unit, where inmates are held in solitary confinement. Inmates in Uinta 1 may be there for disciplinary infractions, notoriety reasons, protective custody, or because they are security/escape risks. The unit is divided into eight sections with twelve inmates in each section, for a total of 96 maximum inmates. Currently, there are 90 inmates in Uinta 1. The Utah Department of Corrections, in response to a government records request by Solitary Watch, claims it has no records regarding its use of segregation.

Several inmates have recently written Solitary Watch about the conditions in Uinta 1.

L., who has been in Uinta 1 for five months and previously served 28 months there, reports that he is only able to leave his cell three days a week, for a shower and 1 hour alone in a concrete yard. He reports that, in being transported to a 15 minute shower, “we have to wear a spit mask over our faces and handcuffed from behind with a dog leash hooked to us.”

“The rest of the time except on the shower days we are locked down in our cells with the door window closed so you can’t see out,” he writes.

A., who has been in Uinta 1 for a year, adds that, “just the other day, the [Correctional Officers] came and shook our cells down and took away all of our hygiene. They took away shampoo, lotion, conditioner, everything…they also don’t give us anything to clean our cells with.”

A. is in Uinta 1 for his own protection, following what he says was a decision to leave gang life after much “self-study.” Despite this, he says, he is treated as if he committed a  serious offense.

Inmate Brandon Green, who has frequently written on the conditions of Uinta 1, describes the environment in Uinta 1 as reinforcing a vicious cycle in which inmates placed in solitary usually end up back not long after they are released. Green, who has been in Uinta 1 for five years, previously served 18 months in Uinta 1 before a brief period on parole before returning to Utah State Prison. He has been held in Uinta 1 following an escape attempt and refusal to take psychiatric drugs, which he says will only harm his health.

“So alone. So much internal turbulence with nothing like T.V., radio, magazines or conversation to hide [this pain] beneath,” he writes, “a man leaves this place to go to general population or to a less secure facility where you have electronics and a cellie. You can just count down the months before he will return…We learn we can do without anything. And we become content with nothing. The more they take away from us year after year, the more family disappears, the more one doesn’t want to go home, doesn’t want a wife and a job and bills and an Amerikkan future…It is like waiting for the world to give us a reason to live. But the world just keeps giving us reasons to not give a shit.”

This situation leads many inmates to report severe mental health problems that are aggravated by the long-term isolation. The prison routinely responds to such crises by placing suicidal inmates in a strip cell, where they are to be alone in a cell with  and checked every fifteen minutes. Included in many of these cells are cameras.
L. writes that “if someone is gonna kill themselves they take them and out to a strip cell and you sleep on the hard floor and treated like a dog.”
A. reports that “if I lose control because of something I have no control over, they’ll punish me and put me on strip cell for three days…when a mentally ill inmate feels suicidal, they send us to the infirmary to be on suicide watch…then we get from suicide watch back to Uinta 1 and the staff put us back in the strip cell when we get back to Uinta 1.”

In Uinta 1, suicide is not an uncommon occurrence. In 2009, two prisoners in Uinta 1 committed suicide. One was Danny Gallegos, who was found hanged in his cell in June. Another was a friend of Green, Spencer “Spider” Hooper, a “Pink Floyd fan and singer on medications for schizophrenia and depression.” Months after a previous suicide attempt, Hooper was found dead in February 2009, hanging in his cell.

A. and L. also independently confirm that sandbags at the cell doors of inmates gather bugs, which enter their cells. “They got sandbags around all the cells but never pick them up and clean under them so there’s all kinds of bugs and dirt that comes right under our doors,” A. writes.

Green also writes about the declining array of services provided to Uinta 1 inmates. “Years ago indigent captives received five envelopes a week. Now its one. We had five outside contacts a week. Now one. We used to be fed enough to stay full. Now we are starved. We used to have shampoo and lotion. Now we don’t. We grumble for an hour each time something is taken from us. Then move right along to inventing the creative willpower to survive with no penpals and mail, a full stomach or clean hair. Moving right along. We expect tragedy.”

Solitary Watch will continue to report on Uinta 1 as more information becomes available.

Brandon Green welcomes letters. His mailing address is:
Brandon Green #147075, Uinta One 305, Utah State Prison, PO Box 250, Draper, Utah 84020. His blog, updated by an outside supporter, can be seen here.

Bouncing Around (RIP Roger)

 

 

Bouncing Around (RIP Roger)

Another one of my old friends just killed himself last week and I want to share my views on why this keeps happening here in small town Amerikkka.

Roger Thomas, Steve Ruesch, Kenny Ruesch, Jackie Erwig, Paul Bradshaw, Troy Bradshaw, and “Mick.” My friends who grew up with me up North Creek. Poor whites. The lower class in a state that lacks, literally, any Blacks to sate the white settler lynch mob “criminal” hysteria. (our state is so racist we won´t even allow non-whites to move here). These men lynched themselves in some of the most violent horrible fashions in my home town in front of their families. And I want to explain why, scientifically, this happens.

One hung himself as his girlfriend went to the store to grab some bread. She found him upon return.

One shot himself in the heart with his girlfriend´s pistol. In her bedroom on her bed as his girl went out for a cigarette. She found him.

Another unloaded a .22 caliber pistol into his head in front of his mother. And the other two hanged themselves.

One in the back country with a power extension cord from a pine tree. The other on work release at the Beaver County correctional facility. He used the radio wire from the radio he was installing in sheriff Yardley´s police truck.

I don´t explain in detail to sicken you. I provide detail so it can seem more real to you. And so that you can see what this capitalist/imperialist patriarchal society is doing to its poor. And the lengths these men go to avoid becoming a bogeyman prisoner or pig.

If you still believe these U$ gulags are filled to the brim with law breakers or degenerates you´re blind. These cells hold the poor and unemployed. And my hometown´s graveyard holds those who refuse to be chained or badged; those who have remained politically unconscient, but who knew subconsciously something´s majorly fucked up with imperialist Amerikkkan society. These are the men who turn fascist minutemen, Aryan brother, pig, prisoner or commit a violent suicide. It´s simple, it´s sick, but it´s reality.

And I find in writing my Gran it´s easier to explain. So like “Owls eyes” I´ll copy a piece of the letter in response to the news Roger killed himself. It´s less bitter. Less cynical this way. More Amerikkkan. More tailored to the average reader. The ones the anti-imperialist, anti-patriarchal, anti-militarist struggle needs to wake up. My Dear Reader:

“I know the pain that Steve and Kenny felt. And Roger felt. I believe this pain is centered in patriarchy and the greed-driven capitalist “dog-eat-dog” “devil-take-the-hindmast” need for success. We men are taught to feel shame if we are ´unsuccessful.´ This even ties into the fact that so many women are single mothers. We believe a man´s superior and should be the breadwinner. And the woman is the caretaker and should be sheltered. And when the man can´t provide, it kills him. It ruins him and the relationship, because he feels guilty and unmanly. They separate. She takes the kids because it´s her “job.”

            Then she feels bad, because she´s alone and she thinks it´s her fault. He feels bad because he thinks it´s his fault. She continues on because she must raise her kids. She has that. He bounces around searching for forgiveness in a cruel world. At least cruel to the unsuccessful man who can´t provide. Loser!

This is why Amerikkka has 7.4 million men and women in prison or on parole. This is why so many kill themselves.

In order for the military to expand, in order for these prisons to expand, people like Roger or Mick need to be bouncing around in society. A percentage will pick up the military gun, put on the fascist badge or succumb to the poor man´s chains. (you can just leave the old military draft in the closet if you just take jobs away).

And the reason why some choose neither, and kill themselves, is because the military doesn´t accept ´felons.´ (just like the nazi party didn´t accept Jews. Jews – felons. Same difference). And because most human beings with self-respect and a social conscience see a minuteman, Aryan brother, police officer and prison guard for what their profession is. A fascist parasite.  Á la´ Amerikkkan neo-nazi. And most men can´t surrender themselves to such a low profession. Or one of these bogey bourgeois, middle-class hated modern day koncentration kamps. They´d rather die than be a social outcast or pig. They´d rather die than become the thing that the media propagandizes into hating and feeling superior over.

It goes without saying that the men who ran the old Germany´s concentration kamps were tried for their crimes and executed once the world woke up. And history repeats.

To be poor is a crime nowadays. Classism. To be an unsuccessful man is a crime too. Patriarchy. To join the bloodthirsty military is patriotic and applauded. Chauvinism. But to be in prison for a gram of dope for ten years straight is justice. Fascism!

Hitler did the very same stuff Amerikkka does now. Prisons and the military are the number one growth industries for decades running. Still growing. It´s just instead of Jews we use poor whites or “coloreds.” The ones unable to defend themselves with attorneys.

Amerikkka creates Rogers, Micks, Steves, Kennys, Troys, Pauls, Jackies by design. The prisons need jobless Rogers and Jackies. The prison guard unions need jobless Micks and Pauls. And the military and police force needs jobless Steves, Kennys and Troys. No need for another war or crime. Just take their jobs.

The only problem is, Amerikkka isn´t Germany – one of the weakest nations in the world per 1914-1940. The problem is, no greater nation is strong enough to come in and stop the U$ $$ neo-nazi system.

So just like Germany in its heyday it continues. With the support of the middle class. The same middle class who sat by as millions of Jews were marched off to gas chambers. We look at the past German middle class with awe and disbelief. “How could they not do something.”

Right? It´s because they profited off of not doing anything. Just like Amerikkka profits off of Rogers, Micks, Steves, Kennys, Troys, Pauls Jackies. (in fact, the bourgeois were the $$ and koncentration kamp guards! And all fascism is, is basically unemployed people finding employ in killing off a certain people among them. A la Arizona´s SB1070 law and the crack cocaine/powder cocaine sentencing disparities).

Just like Germany profited off Jews and Jehovah Witnesses.

The poor are expendable says Fuhrer Obama.

The Jews are inferior, says President Hitler.

But try and tell that to our “free” nation. They´ll not give you parole – or drive you to suicide.

In strength (I know you feel me) and struggle,

B.

Feb 13th 2011

Swindle Hearse

Pull the fucking pistol out of your mouth

And pick up a book

Turn off that damn bourgeois television

And take a look.

Shit´s getting hectic, Brother, sure

But a bullet in the brain, Amigo, isn´t the cure.

It´s too late for you, man, but what about your son?

What about his generation who´s been taught to run

To stomp and tantrum and tattle tale

Suck the plastic flea market and dodge bourgeois hell

Imperialist sons medicated for depression

A hybrid oppressor slash enemy nation

I´ll sell you this for a gallon of that

Then starve the world and die of heart attack fat

It isn´t the way it´s meant.

All these senseless suicides ain´t some static event

The reason exists .- the why´s right here

Your casket costs thousands – payment plan three years

Sucking the fucking juice out of life - capitalism

Then profiting off of your death – straight sadism

Rent the church to grieve you in

Buy the hole to bury you in

Pay the – poor -  priest to say some words

Then scribble on some grey marble how much it hurts

Picking the pocket of the family that weeps

Dying´s expensive while living is cheap.

Business in death and death in business

What´s the price, father, the price to miss us?

Silent Accusation II (Spencer Hooper RIP)

Give us rest, give us time
To sort out why our country doesn't realize
Torture laws and racism exist
And there's more to life than
Those Seinfield reruns you missed
As long as you have a Mazda Miata
With a full tank and a pack of smokes
You couldn't care less about 500,000 dead Iraqi children
Less names to intrude on your child's
Santa Claus naughty or nice list!?! folks?
A dead man hangs from an air vent
As a bunch of cowards laugh at him
But this man's dying breath
Pleaded for me to seek justice for him
And the justice will multiply a thousand fold
Because my strength is endless
I've chosen to pick up a revolutionary cause
And the world's vendettas
Against my supposed country
I'll carry the progressive red flag
And your overweight greedy amerikkkans
Will finally understand the meaning of sad
It's a true emotion that bubbles from within
Totally opposite than your sugar come down
And more human than your bullshit "sin"
Ring around the rosey and pop goes the weasel
Is that spittle on your lip Mr Vegetate?
Dialectics is jet fuel to your racist diesel
Give us rest, give us time
To sort out this mess we've made of our lives
Give us a chance to pay for our crimes
You have our bodies, some of our minds
What more do you want?
More pain and some fines!
Take his rigid body and cut it down
Call him worthless, call him clown
I called him friend, his mother's son
Look at his face, look what you've done.  (Published here)