They Got Kat Too!

[Lloyd Danforth]

Shorty would buy a NH Atlas from Lloyd.  $15.00, $5.00 of which goes to the Liberty Scholarship Fund.

[Recumbent ReCycler]

Shorty would buy a NH Atlas from Lloyd.  $15.00, $5.00 of which goes to the Liberty Scholarship Fund.

IIRC, that same atlas would cost you $20 at the store, so Lloyd has the best deal around.

[Kat Kanning]

DoL speaks true.

The Prison article is up now.
http://www.newhampshirefreepress.com/NHFreePress/?q=node/242

New Hampshire Prison Conditions

By Kat Kanning

Being stuck in jail for two weeks, I thought I might as well report on prison conditions in NH from the inside.  Merrimack County Jail officials ignored my request for an interview, so I mostly have information from prisoners.

Approximately 80% of the people imprisoned in Merrimack County jail are there because of drug (I'm including alcohol in this) problems.  Official reasons for arrest are varied – from driving under the influence, to theft, to violence, but all stemming from the drug problem.  The jail offers AA meetings and drug counseling, but recidivism rates remain extremely high.  I spoke with one young woman (18) who referred to herself as a "junkie".  Her story and demeanor made it clear that she would do most anything to get her drugs.  I asked her what her life would be like if drugs were legal and she could go to the local pharmacy and pick up her drugs.  The idea appeared surprising to her, but on reflection, she said she wouldn't be having to sneak around doing illegal acts to get her fix. 

In countries where drugs have been decriminalized, and drug addiction treated as a health problem rather than a crime, the crime rate has dropped significantly. According to the group, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (www.leap.cc), "There is a strong argument that prohibition has caused or created many of the problems associated with the use or misuse of drugs. One option for the future would be to regulate drugs differently, through either over-the-counter sales, licensed sales or doctor's prescription."

I talked to various women imprisoned at Merrimack County Jail about violence against prisoners in the jail.  From what they said, and from what I saw, physical violence done by guards (such as when the guards threw me to the cement) was not common.  Rape by guards in MCDOC was not common, according to the women, but in Manchester's Valley Street Jail it happened quite a bit.  I was surprised on being released to have an email from a group wishing to expose the prisoner abuse in Valley Street Jail (HCDOC).  The group's website is http://www.valleystreetjail.com/.  Here are some of the abuses discussed on the site:

DENIED ACCESS TO MEDICAL & DENTAL TREATMENT: Request to see the nurse, doctors and dentist are almost always denied. No accessible Grievance System in place. Medical treatment in HCDOC is a privilege not a right. On one occasion a female inmate slipped and fell in the shower, broke her wrist and was given ice and was told to calm down, to this day she still has not been treated. This is a normal occurrence at HCDOC. If you complain about injuries, pain etc... most of the time you are punished in one way or another like being locked down, loss of privileges (not that you have many to begin with) or put into administrative segregation. 

DENIED ACCESS TO ALL MEDICATIONS: All inmates who were previously taking life sustaining medications are almost always denied access to their much needed medications especially psychiatric drugs for bi-polar, depression, and schizophrenic disorders and most other physical diagnosis's such as thyroid diseases, AIDS, and many more. If you are lucky enough to see medical (it is a privilege) you may get Tylenol at best.

DENIAL OF GRIEVANCE FORMS AND/OR APPEALS: This facility thinks the written Grievance & Appeal System is a Privilege not a right. Therefore Grievance forms are VERY hard to obtain and many times are never submitted, lost or ripped up in front of the inmate. Again a violation of Federal Law and the inmates Due Process Rights as this is the only avenue the inmates have to the court system. With the Inmate reform Act of 1995 – this makes civil rights violations very hard to litigate and prove leaving the inmate helpless and at the total mercy of the guards.

TORTURE: See Doris Sanabria V. Hillsborough County Department of Corrections – Doris is former HCDOC Correctional Officer that reported the abuse and torture of a female inmate. This case is still pending. How long will this be allowed to go on. (see attached court filings). This is not an isolated case as there have been many others (see attached beaten death).  Just this week (Week of Sept 15th 2008) they tied a female inmate (reports say: Jennifer Wright) up to the restraint chair naked (otherwise known as the Devil's Chair) – this woman thinks she is on fire so she removes her clothing on a regular basis. After her arms and legs were restrained the guards proceeded to mace her in front of the other inmates until she agreed to stop screaming.  If this isn't torture not sure what is, and it is so normal now that they don't even try to hide it as they did this in front of the other female inmates. This violates Federal & State Laws as well as International Treaties. How can they think they are so untouchable that they can do this in front of so many witnesses. The reason is simple - no one cares and they have gotten away with it for so many years! Even the people we elect and pay to care about such atrocities look the other way.

CUSTODIAL SEXUAL MISCONDUCT: Male guards do extended body searches on female prisoners which border on groping. Pat search procedures Pat searches surely do not include fondling of the breast or other private parts of the body. The guards are constantly performing excessive and unnecessary strip searches on inmates just because they can. This to me, is Custodial Sexual Misconduct in any book you look in. An investigation of current and past female inmates would happily attest to this in a court of law as with all the infractions listed here or just look at documented US District Court cases.

PUBLIC & INMATE SAFETY: HCDOC & Laundry Sanitation: Laundry duty is performed by inmates; they are not given detergent to wash clothes. They only get Baking Soda which is not sufficient to address the concerns (spread of diseases) above since all under garments are shared with each inmate. Yes, this week's panties maybe the ones Sally wore last week, Sally who has Hepatitis and you MUST wear them or you are punished and can do nothing about it, if you try or you refuse you are reprimanded and locked up in solitary for days at a time. Again, EQUAL PROTECTION & CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT come to mind here.

PUBLIC & INMATE SAFETY: Sleeping areas and mattresses again are never washed and are shared among all incoming and current inmates. This would account for the high amount of Staff infections and parasites at the HCDOC facility, which of course are left untreated.

TEMPERATURE: The jail temperature is a constant 58 degrees and I'm not sure if you ever known anyone with muscular or fibroid diseases or even arthritis, this temperature can be very, very painful with someone with severe fibroid diseases especially when you're sleeping on a steel slab with little more than a sleeping bag as padding. 58 Degrees is far below the American Disabilities Act regulations. I was talking to one former inmate that was there during the winter months and he stated he had almost a 1/2 inch of ice on his cell wall. The purpose of this is 2 fold and is designed to make the inmate suffer needlessly and to attempt to keep bacteria and viruses to a minimum. 

CONSTANT VERBAL ABUSE: The female inmates at this facility are constantly being verbally abused by the guards. Being called "f....ing bitches" and other vulgarities on a regular basis. This slowly and constantly strips the female inmates of any dignity they may have left. These are human beings not animals and many of these inmates are young kids 18 and 19 years old who have made mistakes - not career criminals.

GUARDS ACCEPTING BRIBES: It is a common occurrence for guards to accept, even request items from the inmates commissionaire in exchange for additional privileges, this leaves the question of what else has been used as bribes and what is the monetary value they are willing to do. A bribe is a bribe no matter if it's a 5 cent fireball, sexual favors or a thousand dollars. It's still against the law.


The major complaint the women of MCDOC had was about the health care.  Incoming prisoners are subjected to sudden withdrawal from psychotropic drugs, which is extremely dangerous.  While I was at MCDOC, one prisoner committed suicide.  I do not know if it was due to sudden withdrawal or other reasons, but stopping these medications abruptly can give people suicidal impulses.  One woman I spoke with could not get her prescription given to her until her blood pressure rose to dangerous levels.  I witnesses anther woman being given inappropriate psychotropic drugs, causing her to act crazy until she decided to discontinue them. 

One evening a young woman had some medical problem which caused her to lose consciousness.  She hit the cement hard and lay there knocked cold.  Minutes later, Corporal Saucier made her get up and walk out of the room.  When a fellow prisoner suggested the woman needed a stretcher or wheelchair, she was punished for speaking out.

Not being able to imagine how anyone could stand locking people up like animals as a livelihood, I asked why people become prison guards.  The guards I chatted with at Merrimack County viewed their jobs as helping people rather than punishing them.  One guard spent a lot of time encouraging people to go to all the AA and other meetings of that type to help with their addictions.  Another pointed out how they help some prisoners by teaching new skills – some prisoners arrive having never made a bed or with no experience keeping a room clean -- but he also recognized that the young prisoners are exposed to influences while imprisoned that lead them to doing more crime.  Many guards are returning from war and want to continue that line of work.  For some, it's used as a stepping stone to a "real" police job.  Some it's just for the money.  A few want to help people by locking them in cages.

[John]

Shorty would buy a NH Atlas from Lloyd.  $15.00, $5.00 of which goes to the Liberty Scholarship Fund.

IIRC, that same atlas would cost you $20 at the store, so Lloyd has the best deal around.

Not only that but, as Fritz Weatherbee, who (.bla .bla NH.), sold his book after class said, "Sometimes you want to buy a gift for someone and the lower limit on a good gift is $20". "If it sold for less, you would be cheating the person for whom you wanted buy a gift." Weatherbee said that was how he came up with the price of his book.

Buy one from Lloyd. And, don't forget to also buy them as gifts.
Support the LSF. Liberty Scholarship Fund money goes to "THE CHILDREN."

Oh and the extra $5? You could give it to The LSF.
    Or to Lloyd
                   or to me. 

[David]

Great insight on the articles Kat.  Interesting...

[lastlady]

Great article Kat.

Makes me sad to think of all the people suffering. Once you become a prisoner you are considered trash and can be constantly victimized. How can these CO's think they are helping people as they watch them suffer?

Reno told me after his arrest in Texas he was beaten up pretty bad. When he was transfered up North and in some jail, he went to see a doctor who basically yelled at him, gave him shit, and did nothing to ease his pain or tend to his body. He said he learned real quick that is was a waste of time to seek medical treatment. I've already printed your article and it will go out to him today.

I remember when I was a youth and did a few stints jail, my biggest fear was being raped by the authorities, I knew I could fight off any other attacker, but the police, prison guards had you in their clutches, you basically had no way out of that situation.

[Kat Kanning]

I hope that all of our protesting and phone calls when Lauren was in Valley Street Jail kept her from being vicitmized too much by the guards.  I suspect she wouldn't have said anything if something really bad happened in there. 

[AntonLee]

I'm sick to my stomach. . . thanks for that, but it's just so disgusting to me I feel the want to do something, but don't know what it could be that I could do.  Right now, I couldn't do anything without making myself look like a crazy anarchist asshole. . . so I won't.

[Sam A. Robrin]

I'm sick to my stomach. . . thanks for that, but it's just so disgusting to me I feel the want to do something, but don't know what it could be that I could do.  Right now, I couldn't do anything without making myself look like a crazy anarchist asshole. . . so I won't.

If influential citizens (city council members and the like) could start getting arrested in extensive numbers on a regular basis, and see for themselves just what's going on, it could help.  As the laws are written such that no citizen is innocent, it seems that could be arranged. 
Just sayin'.

[Russell Kanning]

city council members are the system ... they use it to abuse us ... you will have to step up to the plate if you want to reform things ... you will wait forever for words to change politician's minds.

[David]

The next time one of 'our' ladies is in jail, we should do a protest outside the jail all wearing 'wifebeater' A shirts on the outside of our regular clothes.  Since they enjoy apparantly unlimited power to rough up other peoples daughters and wives, they should be called what they are.  At any point some of the ethical gaurds can stop the abuse, if they do not want to be called wife beaters, they need to do it.  Interfere in the abuse.

[jzacker]

I'd love to hear about your personal day-to-day experiences in jail.  And any disobediance you did while in custody.  Tell us about the food, beds, clothes.  Anything you witnesses, good bad or otherwise.