The American Prison Writing Archive is

[no title] (1) The American Prison Writing Archive is; I hope, a way of really letting the general public know what really happens behind these walls. What happens behind these walls dos'nt start here it starts in the corrupt court system. The illegal convictions. You have to look at the big picture. A person gets arrested on a charge, a simple mister meaner, that person is not able to afford a private attorney so the court takes advantage and uses the threat of jail time, no matter that the charge can be settled with a fine, the outcome of a private attorney. Jail time is threatened or a probation sentence. Now that person can't afford a private lawyer and can't go to jail because he has a family, a job and is the soul provider. So he takes the probation term. These threats are a form of extortion and a form of psychological abuse. This threat is carried out by the attorney assigned by the court to defend him and he tells him it's probation, jail time or trial. Then he go's on to say if you go to trial you "will", be found guilty and go to jail for many many years. The common scare tactic used by the court carried out through your court appointed attorney. You have no money so your choice is only left to probation. Now the probation is another part of the threat the courts were using The probation office becomes every part of your life. The probation officer starts calling your job. It dos'nt matter if that might cause you to lose your job. Meanwhile one of probation's condition is to maintain full time employment. Probation also stipulated some kind of groups, whatever deems necessary, is wording used. However these groups are always during working hours and usually 3 days a week leaving you to be late or have to leave early or not show up for work at all. With the probation calls and the hours you cannot be at work is putting your employment at risk. Probation dos'nt care that you are the soul provider to your family and losing your job means losing everything your wife and children depend on, not to re-mention employment is one of the probation mandates. (2) This subjects a person to stress levels higher then average. Kind of leaves a man in constant worry causing more psychological abuse. Probation continues to call your job continues to force you to attend the groups until your employer tells you you are no longer needed. Now you are without a job. All that you have is now unstable. The welfare of your children, your wife. Without work you are no longer able to pay the bills wich one of those bills are the very groups stipulated by probation. The probation itself is nothing but more worry. Now your officer is telling you you are in violation status because you can't pay for your groups and your unemployed. So the process begins. Every time you have to go see the probation officer you wonder if you'll be arrested on the spot. You also are in constant thought of finding work because your bills at home are starting to pile. All this is caused by the system its self. If you had a private lawyer none of this would be happening, but because you could not afford a lawyer the system is ripping your life apart. More psychological abuse. Now these events are traumatic in nature causing mental changes. Disorder. Eventually the violation is given and prison plays its part in the destruction of that person's life, his children and wife. Now that person is in the county jail. 240 inmates in one dorm. Bright fluorescent lites from 8 am til 11 pm. The constant hum of talking like a full movie theater before the show. Day in day out. (hummmm) Every conversation is a yelling match. Day in day out. There's never silence. Only at night. In the silence, your stuck in your mind, your children, your wife, the bills you left them in. Bright fluorescent lites wake you again. The yelling conversations start all over (hummmm) then the nights worrisome thoughts again, wife, bills, children. This is every day every nite . Then the night before court, no sleep the stress of what's going to happen. 3 am wake up call. Hurry up, hurry up your led into the bullpen at 3:30 am, 4:30, 5:30, 6:30, 7:30, 8:30, 9:30, your still in the 8'/12' bullpen and 40 inmates in that small space with you. Most standing because there isn't any room on the concrete slab made to be seats. (3) 10, 10:30 am [your you're] piled into the ice cream truck as we inmates call it. 20 inmates per side. Chained together hand and foot squeezed into the truck driven under those conditions to your court appointment hearing. Some courts are hours away for some of us wich leaves us chained in the truck in the freezing cold or sweltering heat for hours in a space that only fits 10 forced 20 for hours and hours. No 8th amendment here. You arrive at your destination, the courthouse. Now your put in another bullpen 1: pm 2 pm 3 pm You see your public defender he tells you there's nothing happening today so the 3:30 am wake up call the 4:30, 5:30, 6:30, 7:30, 8:30, 9:30 wait in the bullpen The 11 am 12 pm 1 pm 2 pm ride in the truck only for the minute conversation with your court appointed attorney about how you have to come back. Then 3:30 pm 4:30, 5:30, 6:30, 7:30 your still in the courthouse's bullpen then the hours ride back to county jail then back in the bullpen there, by the time you get back to your housing unit it's 11pm Oh and in all that time a baloney sandwich was what you were given to eat. What 8th amendment? This same thing is done over and over to the person who can't afford a lawyer or his bail wichbail is already a violation of your 8th amendment. (Excessive bail.) All this psychological abuse taken its toll in your mind slowly causing issues that are starting to take root in a person. The bitterness and anger about the whole process begins to take root. In yourself you don't realize but you are not the same person you were when you worked, paid the bills, played with your children, kissed your wife. Watching men with your same charges leave on bail or from court because thay have a paid attorney, has left you feeling diffrent only you just don't know in what way. Disorder. We call this, "bullpen therapy" Another tactic done by the court to cause psychological abuse, a way of making a man give in and take whatever offer is imposed. Extortion, abuse, cruel and unusual punishment and there is no form of counseling to help you deal with the changes that are happening in your mind only more abuse. (4) After 5 or 6 court trips and 5 or 6 times your public pretender has said to you nothing if you saw him or her at all. So the hours apon hours of bullpen therapy were for nothing but psychological abuse. Finally he tells you your original charge will be thrown out but you must plea to the charge of violation of probation. Now remember, the original charge was a simple mister meaner a fine at best, but because you had no lawer the court extorted you into a probation term. Now your forced to plea to a felony. Life as you knew it has changed forever. Not to mention so far you've been sitting in the county jail for 90 days 120 days or even 6 months. All that you had out in the world has crumbled. Your wife and kids you can only watch their destruction if you even know where thay are. Psychological abuse. Now the offer is made, take probation again or a little jail time with some probation. Now a combination of the damaged mind and the probation term and the status of unemployment caused by the system itself and the instability your left to go into and all the pressures to find a way to come out of the hole your in, your family's in not to mention the probation officer, the groups because there's always groups, "Whatever deems necessary " remember. The disorder your new disorder caused by the traumatic events done to you by the court, probation and county lockup is now a part of your every day thinking only your unaware that your not well anymore. Something's different all this is the recipe for the revolving door. The system has all of you, inside the courts, the county jails, even in your own home, because the abuse, the constant worry, the losses and your a convicted felon now. You see, what happens behind these walls dos'nt start here. You are stuck in the revolving door. The life that once consisted of work your children has been changed. Because of probation you find yourself always being pulled in every direction and in your mind there's constant turmoil, bitterness, anger. Behind the prison walls lives a society of murderers, rapist, burglars, drug addicts, thieves etc. etc. (5) And behind these walls, outside you read there are programs to help; there are federal budgets for the prison's programs. However these programs are ran by D.O.C. personnel implementing only D.O.C. abusiveness. The counselors getting paid to help isn't a source of help. This leaves sick minds all sick and interacting together, with no form of help. This society is now what you hear every day it starts to become normal to you. The outside society has been slowly replaced with what the courts have done probation. Your life with your children your wife was broken and never mended. So the life you once shared with them was never the same. The amount of time in the jail system becomes greater then the time out in the world. The revolving door, created by the system in your life because you couldn't afford a private attorney. The court trips are an extreme form of abuse, physical and emotional in a big way. Having you sit on a cold concrete slab from 3:30 a,m til 11 pm causes serious complications for your back & your hips. Thay also feed you one baloney sandwich in all those hours. This is pure abuse causing real psychological damage. Tell me how would you feel if all that I've written so far you had to go [threw through]? The loss of everything you hold most dear. This kind of stress and traumatic events affects a person severely. Normal functionality is altered. Prison becomes a part of the life he lives. Society isn't the outside world anymore, it's prison. In prison everything you have can be taken from you anytime. The threat is always there. Sometimes when you go to chow you come back and find your cell ransacked. All your personal belongings have been trashed pictures letters. Items purchased in the department commissary broken and you can complain but replacement of the items will not happen and if you complain long enough "you will" find yourself in segregation. The psychological abuse starts to take deep root in your mind. A person starts to transform from normal living outside these walls to believing (6) inside these walls is what normal is. The begining of the revolving door. An issue created by the courts and prisons itself. However this is well known by the system. "Job security" The department's program structure is ran by staff who only abide by department policy. You can't express what's really going on inside your thoughts. If you truly open up, you can find yourself in seg or in a paper gown. There is no help in here. The general public is deceived by the Department of Correction in every way. Outside these walls you can look up D.O.C. and thay'll t show you a clean cell, a good mattress and a pillow. In some sites the picture will even have a T.V. I'm in prison that cell is not here, that pillow is not here. On the outside you can look up the prison menu the portions we're allowed. I can assure you what you read and what we eat is not the same thing and the portion you read we are given is false also. The amount of food grown men are given will not fill a child's stomach. The tactic of the amount of food we're given here is to force you to buy commissary. You have to buy food or you will go hungry and the prices of the items you have to choose from are 3x the price it is outside the walls. This makes your family have to send you money a burden on thier shoulders more psychological abuse on you. It cost $205.00 for a "13" flat TV that breaks in a year or so. Items you buy in here for hundreds of dollars you can get at a dollar store out there. Everything you read about in here does not exist in here. There isn't a pillow unless you buy it and the pillow you buy is one of the items made rite here in this jail. Osborn C. I. that's a whole nother violation by the department. The mattress your forced to sleep on is blanket thin leaving you to sleep on the metal bunk with only a pad like thing (mattress) between you and the metal. This causes back issues and neck issues (7) and hip issues and these newly formed physical ailments affect you when your out in the community trying to work. Connecticut has some kind of contract with UConn medical center. So we have UConn nurses in these facilities. However institutional racism is the extent of there services. Treatment is rare and "you" pay for this, the tax payer. Now the nurses are very unprofessional and racist so thay always write (D R's) Disciplinary Reports. How is it that a UConn employer has authority to subject an inmate to disciplinary action? Thay are UConn nurses not D.O.C. officers. The treatment you receive in here behind these walls) is all psychological abuse, slowly damaging a man deeply and there's no help for it in here. We're exposed to asbestos, mold, black mold, mrsa, herpes, hepatitis to name a few but you don't read about that and the inmates that get out are damaged now only thay go on as if nothing's wrong until the next go around, all this he thinks is normal. The abuse we experience in here we carry out of these facilities and into the community. The crimes we now commit we commit because of the disorders formed by the system and the treatment of it. There is no re-form. Your told there is, but you are deceived So one can ritefully say the general public is put at risk by the system itself. You can say, crimes against humanity terrorism To write about the abuse and the conditions in the jails of Connecticut will surpass 15 pgs the neglect, the lock downs for CO's picnics, the verbal abuse by COs, nurses, counselors, probation officers, is to numerous to mention. The neglect of simple things toilet paper, clean water these things we're neglected to have. I say clean water because the water in most Connecticut jails are contaminated. It's not normal to shower and always break out in a rash. Only a damaged mind won't see (8) that that's not normal. The violence we're subjected to comes from the department itself. Overcrowding is one way, piling us all in a small dorm with limited restrooms. These dorms are double sometimes triple the maximum capacity murderers, rapist, child molester, drug addicts, thieves. All in one big room Some of them are sick. Aids, herpes hepatitis A, B, or C, mrsa, scabies, crabs, you name it and there all around you. Or thay put you in a cell. A cell that was built for one man 6' / 8" If one of you is out of your bunk the other is stuck on [theres their's] because both of you can't fit in the cell but thay put you in it. One of you can be sick with any one of the conditions I've named. Some of these conditions are highly contagious. These circumstances are highly potential for violence. Now let's say you have a problem with another inmate and you tell the administration. Thay won't do anything unless there's an act of violence This is a direct violation of your safety and security. The department puts you in danger of what can happen to you or what you can do to someone else this puts them in danger also. This is done regularly, how else will the officers have work to do? Two dogs in one small cage eventually will fight. Inmates are treated like animals, but you won't know that. All you are deceived. Here's something. CO pay rate: these guys make 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 thousand dollars a year. They don't do anything but count population 3 times a day wich is why thay won't separate inmates in conflict. Fighting inmates give them the excuse for all the abuse, and the general public is unaware of how conflicts start. This job is at best minimum wage with good benefits. These guys [COs] should never have the salaries thier given. How about the Captains, Lieutenants, Dep. Warden, wardens over 100 thousand dollara year for nothing Thay do not warrant this kind of pay (9) The Department of Correction is a bigger hustle then drug dealing. Laws by the dozen are broken every day in here, by the [adminastration administration] itself and no one knows anything about it. Men die in this jail Osborn C.I. and you never hear about it in the news. Osborn in itself is a level 3 on paper. However it's ran like a level 4-5. The lock downs in here are all the time. As I'm writing this essay we have been on lock down 7 days already 10-20-16 thru 10-27-16 and still going. In the past 4 months our rec time has been cut down to 5 hours. In each block here (unit) can hold 300 inmates and there are only 12 showers wich is another way of causing inmate conflict. The rec time is cut in 1 1/2 hour time spaces Sometimes we have less then 5 hours we are expected to have time to shower and use the phone in such little time this causes fights over the showers and the phones but that's the goal to make you believe their public servants. We're animals. Also our food portion has been cut in half We're getting less food now. The memo I've added to this essay is one of the latest. With our $205.00 T.V. we are provided an antenna that comes with the T.V. An air wave antenna. It is the only way for us to watch the highly over priced television. We exstend the antenna outside the windows because the cells are concrete and steel there is no reseption for channels unless we exstand the antenna out the window. We have been threatened with disciplinary action ( safety and security) That's a class (A ticket seg time) if we use the antenna outside the window There wording for doing whatever thay want is; safety and security. The Department of Corrections receive a federal budget for inmate clothes, bedding, towels basic needs soaps etc. new mattress Which let me clarify myself, new mattress means a mattress that is 3" thick not the thick blankets we're given. But these things we are not provided the clothes we get are 5 even 10 years old The beddings are just as old. Some of the bed sheets you'll get will have a lot of stains (10) And remember there are a lot of viruses and bacterial sicknesses in here. As I was saying there's a budget for the basic needs but we the inmate are not provided them The food budget is something elts The Department of Correction takes from the Feds only we never see the food that's on the list the D.O.C. gets. However the COs eat the good stuff paid for, for us. What go's on in here are crimes against you, the Federal government and the men and women lock in here. This is crime committed against humanity, by the D.O.C. As far as the abuse D.O.C. is directly responsible for the mental health rise, the addiction and crime on the streets today. Google P.I.C.S Post Incarceration Syndrome: read that doc hit the nail on the head. The Department of Corrections is a big sham ripping off you the tax payer and the Federal government. And doing whatever thay feel like doing and getting away with it. The policies of the D.O.C. are obviously not working Crime, and mental health and addiction are at an all time high. The solutions proposed by the doctor that came up with PICs, his solution might start doing what the Department of Correction used to do and should do now correction not suppression. You can't even get a job here anymore without waiting 8 or 9 months That's the overcrowding and a tactic of getting you to have to burden your family for money. The Department of Corrections budget is one of the biggest budgets in our state and why is it? COs sleep on the job, you'll find 10-15 COs sitting in the hall around the desk doing nothing yet thier paid 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 thousand a year. You might see the warden once a week but he or she is paid over 100 thousand a year. How can this be? Correctional Officers have no respect at all for the inmate the verbal abuse is every day and no matter what an officer, nurse, (11) counselor's word will always override your word. No matter what. These are just some of what a man is exposed to behind these walls. Now I have written about the court, the county jails, probation and prison and only an inmate can truly tell you what it all really is. The court takes a victim, a man or woman who has no means of defending themselves, thay extort them into believing their in serious trouble thay use the court appointed attorney to make the victim believe just that. Now that victim is fed to probation or groups that if you don't complete it's jail or probation, remember the groups are always during working hours so completing them has a real price. The courts are paid when you go through them, judges, prosecutors public defenders and all the court staff. They feed you to probation or group now the probation officer has his pay check the counselors of the groups have their pay check. Now regardless you fail because that's just how they got it set up. So now your fed to the county jail D.O.C. gets their pay check then round and round you go, everybody gets paid. Meanwhile all your rights have been broken you have lost everything including your mind somewhat, but everybody got paid. Quotas were met. Now I don't want to cry the boohoos here. Let's face it some of the men and women belong behind these walls. But if the courts, the county jails, the prisons were to do what they're not doing, address the issues, provide help, then maybe just maybe murders, robberies, molestation, thefts and many more crimes could be avoided. But why would the system want to help. They need the revolving door how else would they have jobs. I mean can you imagine if people stop coming to jail. Judges, prosecutors, probation officers, court staffs, useless counselors and jails will all be out of business. To help jeopardizes job security (12) In conclusion; My name is Peter Padilla and I am a victim of the court system, wich exposed me to be victimized by the prison system and now I have Post Incarceration Syndrome P.I.C.S by Peter Padilla?