LEVEL ONE LOCK DOWN

Whew--what a day yesterday was. Overslept, so I was discombobulated.

Went to a prison so I could do a routine evaluation. Upon arrival I had no problem with the front gate. It was a prison located in the central portion of the state as opposed to a southern prison where there's usually problems with the front gate. Got back to Master Records and reviewed the master chart. The Records Director mentioned that they were on Level One Lock Down so no inmate was being moved off his housing unit. Normally, they would bring the inmate to Medical Records where I would interview him at that prison. Each prison has a place set aside for people like lawyers, SVP evaluators and the like to interview inmates. But, I was going to have to go to the housing unit and interview this one where he lives.

It was housing unit #22, B wing, Cell 8. I told her that I have no idea how to get to housing unit #22. I know where Medical Records is and can get there alone, but there are many housing units and they all look just alike. It's like an incredibly large and very confusing maze.

She gave me the phone # and name of a "counselor". She told me to phone him when I finished reviewing the inmate's Medical Records and he'd come get me and escort me to housing unit #22.

I did as I was told. He was an incredibly nice young man, very gracious. We walked to housing unit #22, winding around through identical red brick buildings. By the time we got there, I told him that I'd never be able to find my way back to the gatehouse. It was an absolute maze.

This is not a place any person with a modicum of good sense would want to be lost when everything is calm and running in an orderly fashion.

I asked the counselor why they were on Level One Lock Down. Level One is the most serious Lock Down. Something really bad had to be happening. Seems there had been a lot of "chatter" among the inmates and the correctional officers had intercepted some notes they had been passing illegally. The "chatter" and the notes suggested strongly that the Ayran Brotherhood and the Gangster Disciples were planning to stage a major uprising. So, everyone was locked in their individual cell and the only way they could be removed from their cell was in handcuffs and ankle shackles by a Lt.

Meanwhile, all the correctional officers and all the Lt's. were shaking down several housing units. A shakedown means "search". A search of a prison is not simply looking around to see if anything is out of order. A search of a prison means that there is nothing (and I mean nothing) that is not dismantantled, torn apart, shredded. I mean there is nothing left when those correctional officers finish. Every cavity (including all the human ones) are searched and urine is collected from everyone in search of drug use. Invariably the correctional officers find many shanks and shives. Rarely is their an inmate in a prison without at least two (usually more) shanks at the ready.

I've been a member of search teams when I worked at the old place. It's a bad day with a lot of back breaking work and a lot of angry searchees. And, it can go on for days until all the prison property is searched. It just depends on how much property there is. This is a big prison. But, while Lock Down is on no inmate moves.

So, the "counselor" and I get back to housing unit #22 and enter. There is one correctional officer on duty in the "bubble". He's been left alone there to monitor the activity of the nearly 200 men in housing unit #22 while everyone else has been sent to shake down other housing units. The "bubble" is a transparent enclosure that looks out on two opposite day rooms. The day rooms are furnished with round steel tables securely bolted to the floors. The tables are surrounded by four very small steel stools which are also bolted to the floors. The walls and floors are concrete. There are no pictures or decorations. There is nothing that can be yanked off a wall or picked up an thrown. There is a water fountain in each dayroom and a bathroom with a large window to the dayroom such that when you use the bathroom you can be observed by the correctional officer in the bubble. There are "spokes" that shoot off from the dayrooms. On each side of those "spokes" are individual cells of about 9 X 5 feet. Each cell contains a solid metal shelf constructed as part of the wall, a steel wash basin built into the wall and a steel toliet built into the floor and wall. Each man's bunk has a pad about 2 inches thick to provide comfort when he sleeps and to sheild him from the cold of the steel shelf upon which he sleeps. Nothing has bolts or screws that would permit the items to be removed from the wall and or floor. There are no decorations or pictures on the walls. There are no bars. The steel cell doors have some sort of thick unbreakable security glass or security plexiglass in them with security wire enbedded, This is so the inmate can be observed at all times and cannot break the window to hurt himself or others. It was barren and remarkably clean with no noxious odors. Overall, it's a barren, sterile environment. This is a medium security prison.

At any rate, the inmate wouldn't talk to me. He has a legal right not to talk to me. I have a legal responsibility to offer him the opportunity to speak with me. He has an IQ (from his records) of just slightly above mentally retarded and he presented as incredibly paranoid. He's unable to read at all so I had to read him the informed consent. I read it paragraph by paragraph and them have them explain the just read paragraph in their own words. I had to read each paragraph 2 or 3 times because he couldn't understand what the words meant. Just the process of trying to help him understand the informed consent took well over an hour. Then, he refused to interview because he never really understood that I was not from the Dept. of Corrections and nobody was trying to trick him. So, now I'm stuck with writing a report on a man who wouldn't interview with the pre-release evaluator and wouldn't interview with me. That makes it really hard.