Poor conditions for Staff and prisoners
1)Waupun prison responds to staff shortages with three month lockdown and no end in site/
2)Green Bay prison responds to protests over conditions with same strategy
3) All prisoners from maximums and many minimums are suffering from lack of programs and support and are released to the pubic traumatized and in much worse condition than when they went in.
recent: Waupun , on lock down for three months, recently started allowing one showers week and one rec session weekly. Here is friend of one prisoner asking for our help. WE are doing what we can to expose this obscenity.
here is one email:
"I'm a friend of DarRen Morris.
He is at Waupun. Waupun has been on lockdown for almost 4 months. It's pretty much like he's in solitary confinement. The prisoners are going absolutely crazy. No one will listen to family and friends who desperately want to see their loved ones.
Do you have any suggestions? Help!
Thank you,"
Alert we received beginning of July: Lockdowns spread to GBCI:
MASS PROTEST AT GBCI
Derrick Jones 432373,GBCI
"I am hereby writing to report that there is currently a mass inmate protest taking place at the Green Bay Correctional Institution in response to arbitrary and punitive policies/practices. At least thirty inmates have engaged in actions ranging from self harm, setting fires, disruptive conduct requiring the use of tasers and pepper spray, overdoses on medications necessitating trips to the hospital, just to name a few. All of this has been happening since last week. Brown county sheriff deputies were also here in the prison at one point. The issues being protested include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Unsanitary living conditions- Inmates are being forced to exist in foul conditions not compatible with communal living. Inmates do not receive adequate cleaning supplies and there is accumulated filth. An inspection by the health department is needed.
•Bat and mouse infestation- These animals are all throughout the prison. They enter inmates cells, leave their urine and droppings everywhere and pose a substantial risk to inmate health and safety due to the potential of being bitten and spread of disease. There is no meaningful efforts being made to rectify the problem. The infestation is most likely due to the unsanitary conditions mentioned previously.
•Denial of schooling, rehabilitative programs and recreational activities- For the better part of the past two years, inmates have been denied the opportunity to pursue an education, participate in rehabilitative programs and recreational activities or exercise. Inmates are regularly kept in our cells for twenty-four hours a day except to come out for one shower a week. Inmates are also being denied access to adequate mental health services. The cumulative effect of the lack of out of cell services and activities are exacerbating existing inmate mental health issues.
•Restricted phone use- Prison warden Chris Stevens recently implemented a new and restrictive practice which limits inmate phone usage and disrupts our access to family, professional contacts, religious leaders and others due to unnecessary changes to the phone schedule which serves absolutely no legitimate penological interest that can't be met and satisfied thru more reasonable alternatives (It should be noted that this bullet point is what initially triggered the mass inmate protests).
•Nutritionally inadequate meals- Inmates are being served meals that are believed to lack adequate nutritional value while staff keep the better quality food for themselves.
These are just some of the issues being protested as I have come to understand them. Although I am not myself involved in any of the protest actions, I have a front row seat to them as a witness to what is, and has been, transpiring. I beseech the recipients of this email communication to investigate and spread the word about what is going on here. Your time and attention is greatly appreciated. "
Brad Grossman 394775 gbci 62623
" Well, we are on lockdown again and have been on it for about a week and a half already. I don't know what got us put on it to start with but we did have a couple people light fires in their rooms and one room has the wall Locker torn off the wall. Hopefully won't be on this for too much longer. I’m supposed to go back to school next week but I don't think that we will be done by then. I'm hoping to get my schooling done so that I can get into my wood tech class. I am close to being able to start. I only have four packets left to redo my TABE test. a part of me wonders if I want to keep going because I can't stand the unit that I'm on. It was supposed to be for people who are in school but most people over here don't go to school. They just yell out their cells day and night. Also if I do choose to stay and do my class I have to turn down my medium and stay here
I have never been to any prison that has so many lockdowns. I've been to almost five prisons and have done over 15 years. I know that I am getting too old to be doing this. I kind of would like to get out of this prison because they really don't do anything to help people here and they stall when you need to get things done. The medical and dental here is a joke. They like to push things off or make up excuses why they can't do things. I do have some medical problems that I am dealing with. This is not a good place to have to do that. I was hoping that maybe you'd be able to order me a fan. I think that these people like to mess with us just to see how far they can go. They still have the heat turned on even though it has been in the '80s. Most of the windows on the unit don't even open and there is no air flow in the cells .I have almost gotten to where I have to sleep during the day because it is so hot in the cells that I think with my asthma it makes it hard to breathe. This is the only place I've been that we only get two showers a week sometimes only one. Just like today, just to mess with us we get ice every day and it is usually in the afternoon after dinner so theOUR Ty came around today right after breakfast so now we don't get any when we need it in the afternoon. They wonder why people snap on guards and get mad but it is just a constant game with these people. I am just trying to get my time done but it does get hard not saying things to these people. I don't really make enough to be able to do too much besides getting my basic things and even that is close. I am sending an order form for a fan if you're able to help out with that it would be greatly appreciated.
Communication is difficult as with the lockdowns they rarely are allowed phone calls and most do not have a tablet for corrllinks. The corker is that Because of a third party mailing system, TEXT BEHIND our mail INTO the prison first goes to Maryland and takes almost a month to get into the prison while prisoners' a tablet for mail comes to us directly- two or three days.
AND OUR TAKE ON THE SITUAIION
Our take on the situation: Shortage of staff has been the much touted reason for the lockdowns and lack of programming but is actually just one symptom of a wider systemic breakdown. Long ago ,with the 1994 prison expansion bill, WI lost its mission to rehabilitate prisoners and keep the public safe and went for the billions of dollars in taxpayer money designated for prison expansion. Prisoners were demonized and rehabilitation was dropped in favor of endless punishment and warehousing. The public is kept duped with incessant hate and fear mongering by politicians and all who gain financially from the reallocation of taxpayer money. for school and community to prisons. Now our children are saddled with student debt and homelessness skyrockets Our cry: Schools and communities NOT prisons" and ”look at who you are incarcerating!. See them as real people and give them as second chance/ take back your future"
HOW ABSURD IS THIS?:All Maximum segregation units housing seriously mentally ill prisoners who will be released by law at court ordered date ,untreated ,after years in solitary torture, often to homelessness. This while the OLD LAW prisoners, often who have college degrees garnered when we believed in second chances and ALL are ELIGIBLE for release, are kept until death or prison cannot legally hold them.
( old law prisoners_ those convicted of crimes committed before 2000
TIS truth in sentencing- all convicted of crimes committed after 2000- have mendatory release dates and little judge flexibility
Our demands
1) Build mental health treatment center modeled after one court mandated at taycheaah with complete change of rules. ( link to power point doc presented by DOC after opening) ALSO LOOK at CO's system , which we hear has an effective treatment program.
2) Reduce prison population by half. Hold only those prisoners who need to be kept separate from th e public for or the public's safety and rehabilitate , the release them. Make clear the amount of time needed to be served for punishment.
A) Secretary and Governor reverse policy of holding OLD law prisoners as long as legally possible to pressing for release for all those who are eligible and ready to be good citizens- allow families and friends to testify at hearings and release all possible- all are over 30 and many in 70s and 80s. VERY few crimes are committed by people over thirty and the number decrease
B) Abolish TIS and enact new system modeled after IL system-How a working parole systme works
C) Abolish reincarceration for non felonies/ bring back “Good time”” for time spent well on probation- many other rule changes etc/
D) plug the prison pipeline. -give grant for an independent non profit dedicated to finding safe and secure housing and healthy situations for prisoners nearing release or held long beyond their eligible date-
3) And so on…………
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