By Uhuru B. Rowe
September 25, 2017
E-mail: uhururowe76@yahoo.com
Anyone who has ever served time in a jail, prison, or a detention facility, or has been an inpatient at a hospital, knows the importance of receiving visits from loved-ones. Visits from the people we care about functions as a temporary reprieve from the drudgery of institutional life. They remind us that we are loved, valued, and cared for in a harsh and punitive environment which seeks to strip away every ounce of our humanity and self-esteem. Most importantly, they remind us that, despite being isolated away behind concrete walls, we are still part of a family unit; part of our community. So, when I was called for a visit on Sunday, September 24, 2017, here at Sussex 2 State Prison, I was overjoyed! But this feeling of being overjoyed was short-lived, and was quickly replaced with anger and frustration. Here’s why:
At approximately 11:15 AM that Sunday morning, while the prison was locked down for the count procedure (this is the time when two officers make rounds to count us in our cells to determine if all inmates are present and none have escaped) the Correctional Officer in the control booth called into my cell via the intercom and told me to prepare for a visit. Count, as we call it, was performed minutes later.
The count procedure ended at approximately 12:05 p.m. and we exited our cells to collect our trays. Normally we would eat our trays in the cafeteria, but on this day, we were fed lunch in our housing units. I decided to forgo my lunch tray in anticipation of the goodies that my family normally purchase for me from the vending machines in the visiting room–goodies like sodas and candy bars. Our loved-ones used to have the option of purchasing us sandwiches and potato chips, but they were removed from the vending machines back in April ostensibly to prevent drugs from being smuggled into the prisons. I will not attempt to explain the nexis between potato chips and drugs but none of the rules they implement in prisons has to make sense. Prison authorities just demand our blind obedience to these rules and raise no fuss about them.
At approximately 12:30 PM., the computer which controls the doors to our cells and the front pod door to our dorm, was shutdown for approximately one hour and five minutes. This has been an ongoing occurrence here at Sussex 2 State Prison, a prison that was billed as a “state of the art” facility when it first opened in 1998. Computers control every facet of the prison, including the water in our cells. Consequently, when the computers in the control booths are offline, the water in our cells shuts off also, leaving us unable to drink water or flush the feces in our toilets.
At approximately 1:40 PM (over two hours after I was told to prepare for my visit), the building Lieutenant came and manually unlocked the door to our dorm with a key so that we could exist to the visitation room. The visiting room is located on the other side of the prison facility in a completely separate building. Once there, we are made to strip naked, squat, and then cough in the company of guards and other prisoners. We are made to wear used tight boxer briefs (this is done to emasculate us) which bears the stains of urine and feces. This is done, allegedly, to keep us from smuggling contraband into the visiting room.
Our family members are forced to submit to a similar “search” routine, though they are not made to strip necked. They have to pass through two medal detectors before they can enter the visiting room. If, for any reason, they cannot clear both medal detectors, they are refused entry. This happens, more often than not, to female visitors who wear bras that have wire or medal clamps or wigs which are attached to the head with Bobby pins. Though, on one hand, these searches are in place to prevent the flow of contraband into and out of prisons, they also serve to dehumanize us and make visits with our loved-ones such an unpleasant and traumatic experience, that our loved-ones are discouraged from visiting again.
At approximately 1:50 PM, I entered the visiting room (after the strip search), and glanced over the many faces but did not see my family, which was odd. I always see their smiling faces greeting me when I enter the visiting room. I approached the front desk where the guards are stationed to check us in. To my dismay, I was told that I did not have visitors. When I inquired further about the matter, I was given no explanation and was told in a stern voice to return to my housing unit. I was horrified!! And I quickly became angry because I just knew that my family was treated in a rude and disrespectful manner, as most of our visiting loved-ones are. I exited the visiting room and was subjected to another dehumanizing strip search.
Once I returned to my housing unit, I immediately called my mother and sister to find out what had transpired. I can hear the pain and frustration in my mother’s voice. My mother is 68-years-old and is disabled. She tells me that she cleared the first medal detector but could not clear the second medal detector. The second metal detector is actually a cellphone detector. She was made to walk around the cellphone detector three times in a 360 degree motion and each time the detector “alerted.” Many of you may know from experience that these metal/cellphone detectors are proned to give off false alerts, especially if they are defective, or programmed wrong, as is often the case.
My sister was able to clear both detectors but, to her surprise, she was told that her visiting pass had expired. Normally, prisoners are given a notation at the bottom of our monthly financial statement informing us of when the visitation pass of our loved-ones is about to expire within the next 90 to 180 days. Prisoners can then notify their loved-ones in a sufficient amount of time for them to renew their pass (which they must renew every three years via an online application) so there won’t be any interruption to our visits. This notation concerning the status of my sister’s visitation status never appeared at the bottom of my monthly financial statement, which is just another example of the kind of unprofessionalism and incompetence which permeates every tier of the the Virginia Dept. of Corrections.
My mother, somehow, cleared the detectors and made her way in to visit me the following week. As I set there in the visiting room for nearly an hour waiting for her to enter, I couldn’t help but notice how drastically different the visiting room here at Sussex 2 is from the one at Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillyn, Virginia. The one at Buckingham had books and toys where the children could entertain themselves and deflect their attention away from the harsh and oppressive environment. There are no books or toys in the visiting room here. At Buckingham, we could hug and hold hands with our loved-ones during visitation. Here at Sussex 2, any type of physical contact is aggressively discouraged. I have seen visits get terminated simply because a husband was holding hands with his wife. At Buckingham, the guards didn’t patrol the visiting room like Gestapo troops looking as if they are getting ready to pounce on our family members. At Buckingham, the guards didn’t speak rudely and condescendingly to our loved-ones or treat them in a harsh and disrespectful and disdainful manner like the guards do to our visiting loved-ones here. At Buckingham, the staff went out of their way in creating a healing family environment where we could reconcile and nurture our relationships with our loved-ones, especially with our children. No such environment exist in the visiting room here at Sussex 2.
My reflections on the matter was only interrupted when I saw my mother enter the visiting room. She looked tired and frustrated and exhausted, as if she had just been made to run through a gauntlet; but happy to see me, nonetheless. But to many of our visiting loved-ones, it FEELS like a gauntlet. This is the atmosphere that these prison administrators are trying to create, and for this exact purpose–to make the visiting experience so inhospitable, so stressful, that eventually our loved-ones will stop coming.
As this demonstrates, the punishment system extends far beyond these prison walls. It extend out into the various communities to those family members who’ve traveled hundreds of miles to visit someone in prison only to be treated with rudeness and disrespect or refused entry for bogus and petty reasons. It extends those mothers who are charged exorbitant transfer fees by JPay just to send their incarcerated sons or daughters some money so they can purchase hygiene products and other necessities from the prison commissary. It extends to children who sends their incarcerated mothers or fathers a heartfelt letter only to have it returned because of the recently implemented draconian mail regulations which went into effect on April 17, 2017, in all VA prisons. You can see this regulation at https://vadoc.virginia.gov/
This low-intensity war against our mail and visits is designed to undermine and/or destroy the delicate bonds that exist between incarcerated people and those loved-ones who choose to support us. But why would the Department of Corrections go out of their way to destroy the bonds between prisoners and their loved-ones? Prison authorities are well aware that incarcerated people who have no outside family support or ties to the their communities are more unstable, and more vulnerable to abuse and neglect by the Corrections Department than those incarcerated people who have such a support system or ties to their communities. Once they’ve successfully isolated us from society in general, and our loved-ones in particular, to whom can we voice our concerns regarding the contaminated water, toxic black mold, processed foods, medical neglect, and the physical and psychological abuse which are daily destroying our minds and bodies behind these concrete walls? Who will be there to receive our letters or answer our phone calls to hear our pleas and cries for help?
It is one thing to punish people as a form of retribution for the acts they have allegedly committed against society. But when prison authorities start punishing and exploiting our loved-ones–many of who comes from marginalized communities and whose only crime is loving and supporting someone in prison–it shows just how far the goals of these prisons have moved away from rehabilitation and restoration and towards retribution, punishment, and exploitation. It also shows how morally bankrupt prison officials are when they have not an ounce compassion and respect for our loved-ones; the same loved-ones who will play a pivotal role in providing ex-prisoners with the necessary foundation to successfully transition back into society.
It is said that oppression breeds resistance. If this is true, then these draconian (anti-rehabilitation) policies targeting a letter sent to an incarcerated father from his daughter or a visit between a mother and her incarcerated son, must be vigorously and aggressively resisted. Because, if there ever was a reason for incarcerated people and our free world allies to stand up, unite, and resist this Prison Industrial Slave Complex, it is the mistreatment of our loved-ones at the hands of fascist and sadistic prison officials.
Power to the People!
