Sources of stress in prisons

Sources of Stress in Prisons There are an uncountable number of sources of stress in prison. The worst source of stress to prisoners is the unlawful policies and practices inflicted on them. These policies and practices are senseless and are designed solely to make life miserable for prisoners. The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that prison regulations that infringe on the federal rights of prisoners must serve some legitimate purpose. Most prisoners want to serve their sentence in peace. They want to enforce their legal rights through the state and federal judicial systems. They also want to educate and rehabilitate themselves by using their time in prison in a constructive and productive manner. Most IDOC staff have a vested interest in repeat business by offenders. It provides them with job security and work opportunities for their family and friends. Self rehabilitation by prisoners is contrary to the vested interest of the staff. Therefore, prison administrators encourage practices and policies that are dehabilitative and that prohibit prisoners from using their time in a useful and productive manner. Examples of Senseless and Despotic Practices. Often, prison staff will search a prisoner's cell in his absence. They do this to ensure that there are no witnesses to their unlawful deprivation of legal papers and property. No official record is kept of the property and papers removed from the prisoner's cell. Some of this property is sold through inmate workers back to prisoners at excessive prices if the inmate commissary has stopped selling the items. Often prison staff, during shake downs, will mix up the legal papers of cellmates. It takes weeks and months to reorganize those papers. If a prisoner demands a shake down slip, staff members will accuse him of "disobeying a direct order" or of "insolence" and will send him to segregation. These false charges are brought for no justifiable reason. Such practices are official misconduct according to the law. Searching cells for weapons or drugs is lawful. Searching cells in retaliation or to punish or to make a prisoner's life miserable, is unlawful. Using a hand-held metal detector to find weapons is fast, efficient, economical, humane and sensible. Using trained dogs to find drugs is also fast, efficient, economical, humane and sensible. Often a prisoner is required to share a cell with someone with whom they are incompatible. This problem is compounded in a cell the size of a standard bathroom. Their repeated requests for separation are usually denied or ignored. This often continues until a fight takes place. As a result, sometimes a prisoner gets raped, seriously injured or even killed. More fights take place between incompatible cellmates than in the yard. A fight in a church service, where there is no security, is inconceivable. Forcing incompatible prisoners to live together is senseless and serves no legitimate purpose. Prisoners are often shaken down on their way to the dining room. This is not done to look for drugs or weapons, but for toilet tissue, salt, pepper and other seasonings. All of these items are either supplied by the state or available in the inmate commissary. It leaves prisoners feeling like they have been mugged. In October of 2015 an African-American inmate worker was killed by a lieutenant because he had some toilet tissue in his pocket. Prisoners rarely get ten minutes to eat. They get six to seven ounces of water with their meal. The food that is left over, due to lack of time to eat, is thrown away even if it is in sealed packets. Some of the food repeatedly served is so unhealthy or tasteless that more than 70% of those served refuse to eat it. In this country no one would serve such food to his dog. On the other hand, the staff kitchen and dining room runs 24-hours a day, seven days a week. The quality of the food served to staff is far superior and nutritionally adequate. A good number of the staff are overweight. These are just a few of the senseless and despotic practices in the prisons. Effect of Senseless and Despotic Prison Practices Just and moderate punishment of children, for their wrongdoing, by parents is productive. So also, just and moderate punishment of prisoners for their own wrongdoing is rehabilitative. Contrary, unjust and excessive punishments are dehabilitative. Parents love their children and want them to be successful; but, prison staff hate prisoners and want them to come back to prison after their release. This provides them with job security and work opportunities for their friends and family. The rehabilitation of prisoners is contrary to their vested interest in the repeat business of offenders. Unjust and excessive punishment by a parent is rare, and punished by the courts. Unjust and excessive punishment by staff is routine. When prisoners file a lawsuit against prison employees, the state defends them at the cost of innocent taxpayers. These cases are rarely successful in the courts because of bias against offenders. Oppressive treatment of prisoners generates anger and hatred against prison staff and the government. This accumulation of anger and hatred finds its expression in different people in different ways. Some prisoners become depressed and taxpayers pay the cost of their treatment. Some prisoners commit suicide. When the family files a wrongful death lawsuit the state defends against it and taxpayers pay the cost to do so. Some prisoners become violent and injure or kill someone. Again, the taxpayers pay the cost of treating the injury and defending a wrongful death lawsuit. In rare cases a riot will take place. If that happens "orange crush" is called in to punish and "crush" all prisoners. "Orange crush" is a team of vigilantes employed by IDOC. The number of members on this team is in the hundreds or even the thousands. And again, taxpayers pay the cost of treating the injured in the riot and defending civil lawsuits against the IDOC administration. Staff brutality against prisoners is a common practice in prisons. One prisoner was beaten so badly that his left lung and part of his right lung collapsed. One officer stomped so hard on his back that a boot print was bruised in his back. The three officers who attacked him called in the following day claiming work related injuries. Of course, the taxpayers paid the cost of the hospitalization of the prisoner and the officers' injury claims. In March of 2008 I was attacked while I was asleep. I woke up in a hospital on oxygen. I was in the intensive care unit for four days. I was told by the doctor that I was lucky I did not lose my eye. My crime was that I had filed a civil lawsuit and I was unwilling to settle. Innocent taxpayers paid the cost of my hospitalization. It took five years for me to regain my health. Besides the four days in intensive care, I did not receive any medical treatment even though I spent five weeks in the Menard infirmary. There are an uncountable number of stories of staff brutality on prisoners. As a result of unjust and abusive treatment by prison staff, prisoners hate anyone in authority. These dehabilitated prisoners are then released into society. They commit new crimes that are often more violent than their previous ones. This provides repeat business to the entire criminal justice system. Innocent people are the victims of these crimes, and taxpayers pay the cost of prosecuting the repeat offenders. The West Virginia Supreme Court in a unanimous opinion stated: "A penal system characterized by retribution or revenge, rather than rehabilitation, can only result in embittered former criminals returning to society to wreak predatory acts upon the community." Cooper v. Gwinn, 171 W. Va 245 (1981), FNI. Effect of a Penal System Governed by Retaliation and Revenge The looting of businesses by ex-convicts during protests of the "Black Lives Matter" movement is most likely the result of a penal system that is retaliatory and vengeful. The killing of innocent policemen by ex-convicts is most likely the result of a penal system that is retaliatory and vengeful. The killing of innocent people by ex-convicts in inner cities is most likely the result of a penal system that is retaliatory and vengeful. The growing anti-American population and Jihadist movement in America is most likely the result of a penal system that is retaliatory and vengeful. Two to three million prisoners are in American prisons. About four times that number are ex-convicts. They all have many friends and family members. Most of the haters of America are among this population. This is why terrorists find it so easy to find volunteers for Jihad. Then the public becomes the innocent victims of mass killings by Jihadists. Illinois Department of Corruption and Dehabilitation. The Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) is in essence the "Illinois Department Of Corruption and Dehabilitation." It is successfully dehabilitating both its prisoners and prison employees. The IDOC has an employee assistance program (EAP). EAP provides treatment for alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence, gambling, family relationship, psychological and emotional problems, etc. to its employees. In essence these are rehabilitational programs for employees who have been successfully dehabilitated during the course of their employment; the employees did not have these problems at the time they were hired. Such dehabilitated employees are a source of drugs and weapons reaching the prisoners. In 1963 the prison population in America was 217,000, in 2016 it is about 2-3 million. That is an increase of 2.083 million or 959.91 %. The population of America is about 5% of the population of the world. The prison population of America is about 20% of the prison population of the world. The total cost of incarceration in America is probably equal to or more than the total cost of prisons in the rest of the world. The cumulative rate of recidivism in America is perhaps the highest in the world. It is no wonder the education and public welfare programs are starving for funds in most of the states in America. Criminology "Criminology" is the study of crimes and criminals. Most people who commit a crime either have a lack of morals or a lack of fear of punishment. That is the primary reason for the commission of a crime. As roaches grow in the darkness so also corruption and crime grow in the darkness of secrecy. That is why a corrupt police officer does not want you to video tape an unlawful use of force or the killing of an innocent person. On the contrary, a police officer using an appropriate amount of force during a lawful arrest of a criminal would appreciate the video taping of his actions. The tape would exonerate him from false accusations of wrongdoing. Corrupt prison staff is against the installation of video cameras at various locations in a prison because they do not want proof of their criminal activities. On the contrary, allegedly dangerous criminals would love video cameras and personal recording devices because that would help them to be exonerated from false accusations by other criminals including prison staff. Corrupt judges do not allow the parties to make a recording of court proceedings. Court transcripts can be manipulated by a corrupt judge. A video or audio record in the possession of a party cannot be manipulated by him. Justice or Injustice in American Courts Judicial immunity protects judges from being sued for damages for their bad decisions against a person in court. This includes decisions that can be shown to be biased, arbitrary, oppressive, malicious or corrupt. They are immune regardless of the injury suffered by their victims. The probability of justice is 50% if a dispute is decided by tossing a coin. The probability of justice, especially for the poor and powerless, is 0% in a court presided over by a judge who has been corrupted or has some malicious bias. Judges can be criminally prosecuted for their corrupt judicial actions. However, prosecutors also have absolute immunity for their prosecutorial misconduct. Prosecutorial immunity is provided by the judicial system. Judges can be impeached and tried (prosecuted) by legislators. However, legislators also have absolute immunity, provided by the judicial system, for their legislative misconducts. Judicial immunity, prosecutorial immunity, and legislative immunity are all unconstitutional. They violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution. All these immunities are the creation of the United States Supreme Court. This was done so prosecutors would not prosecute them and legislators would not impeach them for their judicial misconduct. This is the reason why innocents are convicted by prosecutors and judges, and legislators have become so corrupt. Are Judges Competent Judges are rarely prosecuted for their misconduct. Congress and state legislators rarely impeach them for their judicial misconduct. Judges are only held accountable in the rare instance when their corrupt actions become public and they do not resign. In these rare cases you cannot find a single judge who has ever represented himself in a court or before congress or a state legislature. However, you can find an uncountable number of prisoners who prosecute their civil lawsuits pro se; you can also find an uncountable number of prisoners who pursue their post conviction proceedings pro se. Conviction Rate of Judges The conviction rate is about 98% when judges are prosecuted. This is the same conviction rate that occurs for other people. However, the judicial inquiry board dismisses 98% of the complaints against judges without any inquiry into the allegations. Thus they are rarely held accountable. Root Cause of All the Problems Root cause of crime and corruption is (a) a lack of morals and (b) a lack of accountability. One cannot provide care to the leaves, flowers and fruit of a tree regardless of how much money and labor is spent. But if proper nourishment is provided to the roots of a tree, and proper protection is provided from bugs, the leaves, flowers, and fruit will grow effortlessly. Nobody can supply pure drinking water through a sewer line. Likewise, these problems cannot be solved by corrupt judges, politicians, prosecutors or prison staff, who have no morals and who are not held accountable for their unlawful acts. Job security is the promoter of irresponsible and corrupt behavior. Judges, prosecutors, legislators, and prison staff are all net tax-consumers. They have a vested interest in consuming as much tax revenue as they can. I am open to any questions or comments you may have. If you disagree with any part of my analysis please kindly let me know. Otherwise as a concerned citizen please let your lawmakers know and vote accordingly. Shree Agrawal Pontiac Corr Ctr. Pontiac, IL 61764