Transcript
NO TITLE I first came to prison Jan. 1990 and I was 17. I'm now 46 and this is my 4th time in. Altogether I have been incarcerated 24 years of my life, so I have seen the prison system good side and bad side. I have also seen a few county jails. I've worked in all kinds of jobs while in prison, so I got to see how things work in different areas. let me start at the Bay County Detention Center for juveniles. I had run away with my girlfriend and a friend because my girlfriend was pregnant. Her rich family didn't want her to have it, because I come from a poor family. After we were caught, we were taken to the Bay County Detention Center for juveniles. When I walked into an area that was restricted in handcuffs, bellychain and shackles, I was met by her very angry stepfather and an employee. Her stepfather was allowed to grab me by the throat and slam me to the floor. The employee did nothing. He screamed about staying away from her or he would kill me. While at the detention center, I was keep away from her, but I could see into her dorm. When we first arrived, she was checked by a nurse and told she was pregnant. One day I was looking at her, when 2 girls threw her to the floor and held her down to beat her in her stomach, until she lost the baby. Days later, 14 black inmates beat me, I was the only white inmate in my dorm. So I was taken to the Bay County Jail and left in a cell. While in the cell, I started banging my head into the wall. But not real hard. A guard told me to stop, but I didn't. I was going through some mental issues. So the guard handcuffed my hands behind my back and shackled me. He ended up hogtying me and grab me by my hair. He started slamming my head into the floor, until a nurse walk by and screamed for him to stop, because I was a juvenile. Once I was sent to the Bay County Annex, I ended up cutting my wrist and was placed in a strip cell. A strip cell is when you are striped naked and put in a cell with nothing. What was bad about the cell I was in, is it had a window with a hole the size of a bottle top and 30 degree wind was blowing in it. One day it snowed, that was Dec. of 1989. Once i made it into the Florida prison system, I found the officers to be strict and violent at times. Now I see there were times they needed to get violent, because of some of the inmates they dealt with. Back then officers demanded respect and obedience. Over the years that has changed due to a number of changes made in the system. First I'll start with inmates' lost privileges. Inmates use to could spend as much as 8 hours outside for recreation. Now they are lucky to get an hour a day. Inmates use to be giving all kinds of sports equipment to use at the rec yard. Now they are lucky to get a basketball and even that has to get donated. Inmates use to be able to have their families buy them packages from stores, where they found the best prices. Now they are force to buy from a company, that charge the highest prices, sometimes for a defective product. Like shoes that cost about $30 in the free world, they charge us $70 and they start tearing up in a few months. We use to be allowed to buy gloves and tobogans to keep warm in the winter. Now they claim they are a security threat and their officers are the only ones allowed to wear them. Inmates use to be issued sweatshirts during winter. Now only inmates with money who can afford to buy them, gets them. Inmates use to be issued boots, but now they are issued crocs, that let their feet freeze in the winter. Inmates' clothes use to get washed good and whites came back with the smell of bleach still in them. Now they come back smelling like wet dog at times. They use to have low canteen prices, now they charge as high as they can. Even though they are making more money off of inmates and their families, they are doing less for them. Inmates have to pay for medical and dental visit. Other states pay inmates to work, but not Florida. If it was not for inmates who volunteer to do jobs, a lot would go undone. They use to offer non-smoking dorms, now every inmate who does not smoke, is forced to breathe cigarette and drug smoke. Because smoke fills the dorms and officers' hands are tied. The confinement units are full, so when they look out in a dorm and see 10 inmates smoking, they are keep from being able to lock them up. Even when they are puking or going into some kind of convulsion. It has become an epidemic in Florida prisons. I have seen inmates strip naked and screaming about seeing dead people. It is getting out of control and the smoke is affecting me. Now officers that are running the prisons nowadays, act and carry themselves differently than they use to. I understand now why officers resorted to violence, because some inmates don't understand nothing else and it is showing now. Officers are hoping by punishing a group of inmates, for one or two other inmates' problems, that we will turn on the inmate or inmates with violence. Instead of using their discipline system, which is to write a Discipline Report and take gain time or their privileges, such as canteen, phone, visit, packages or kiosk. Instead they punish a whole dorm. If confinement can't hold the troublemakers, then F.D.O.C. needs to open more confinements or Close Management Units. But letting inmates police themselves and get away with disrespecting officers, is only going to lead to a total collapse of any order in Florida's prisons. There needs to be non-smoking dorms and honor dorms for inmates who don't smoke and those who follow the rules. I haven't had a D.R. since coming to prison this time in 2007 and I have bronchitis. I have to breathe cigarette and drug smoke and have breathing problems. I have started seeing stuff due to having to breathe secondhand drug smoke, for prolonged amounts of time. So the Clean Air Act isn't being enforced in F.D.O.C. I hope and pray people read this and try to change things here. Even the protective management units are violent. The only safe place it seems, is a one man cell where I can get away from the smoke and violence.
