Reply I.D. -Blog4HR
Topic: Overuse of Segregation cells in WI's D.O.C.
Type: Journalism, Essay

Does Wisconsin's Prison System Overuse Segregated Confinement?
created 5 January 2014
by Nate. A. Lindell
[drawing of an owl]
In late 2000, I was put in seg. at the Waupun Correctional Institution (W.C.I.), base on a guard named Watson falsely accusing me of yelling a threat to another prisoner while we were in the prison's chapel. Likely due to the chaplain verifying my innocence, that discipline was later tossed out. However, a similar false allegation soon put me back in seg, & there was no chaplain around that time to step up & say I was innocent. When I was let out of seg., staff put me in a cell with a known enemy, then wrongly disciplined me for the resultant conflict & sent me to the state's freshly opened supermax, basically to be buried alive. Although I beat the blatantly illegal discipline in a court action, along with a subsequent meritless disciplinary action for supposedly trying to batter a guard who threw meal tray at me, then accused me of trying to throw it at him) I won sanctions against the A.A.G. who frivolously defended the discipline, an avalanche of other write ups ensured I'd be buried alive in Boscobel, WI, the dinky town where WI's "former" supermax is located.
Long story short I was kept in Wisconsin's supermax for a month short fo 13 yrs. See my prior post, posted around Feb 2013, "How I escaped from WI's Supermax," to see how I got out.
After nearly one more year in W.C.I.'s seg. unit, I'm finally outta seg.
This makes no sense! Surely I was a monster to have been kept in seg. for so long in WI!
Sorry (to those of titillated at the thought of me being a monster) but I'm just a very persistent human being.
In the home of the greed and the land of the slave, freedom and bravery are the hallmarks of "monsters." Voila, Edward Snowden. I was crazy enough to believe the propaganda that the U.S. of A. has a just system, where the laws apply to everyone, where decency is protected & promoted, where rehabilitation is actually a goal of prisoncrats. [image of a man with glasses]
The truth is, as Mr. Snowden's situation revealed, that power corrupts. Because I filed complaints, filed lawsuits vs. accepting my lost as subhuman, a source of income for mostly poor White trash guards (who'd either be on welfare, SSI or cooking meth, if not for their simple jobs), they retaliated by burying me in bullshit, putting me situations where inflicting violence was my only reasonable option, then held my exercise of that option against me.
As I told my counsellor here, J. Bastian, upon my arrival, "I'm a nerd." But I can be an evil, vicious nerd. WI's prison system got what they paid for, unfortunately 9for my sense of justice...), they got less than they paid for. There's always tomorrow tho :)
As Dr. Diane Lython (the court appointed psychologist who interviewed me for the 3 felony cases I recently faced, discussed in prior posts...) pointed out in her report, acting as Mr. Obvious, Wisconsin's prison system thrust the label of "psychopath" on me, ignored their own prior diagnoses of P.T.S.D., didn't treat my P.T.S.D., then got the psychopath they wanted.
Even the janitors in the Boscobel prison must, by now, realize that housing humans in boxes of concrete with but aT.V. & the unmuffled din of their fellow torture victims brings out the worst in prisoners. Yet, in the WI prison system, segregation for the tiniest infraction, such as having a seizure (shortly before I left W.C.I., Anthony Peters was given 360 days in seg. for just that), or staff cussing the prisoner out. I just received a fresh 360 for supposedly lying about Cpt. Olson in a P.R.E.A. complaint, when I never even mentioned Cpt. Olson in that complaint!
The only thing that can be achieved by the torture of segregated, highly-restricted confinement is the social degradation of its victims, madness, violence, chaos. Then, of course, these results are cited by the assholes in authority for either intensifying or prolonging the torture, or both.
In "Solitary Confinement is known torture, yet officials pretend not to know and play the debating game to curb protest and continue the practice in U.S. Prisons," the cover article in #40, the summer 2013 issue of Prison Focus (see www.prisons.org) Kevin "Rashid" Johnson does a good job explaining the obvious, which he knows is obvious, as od I. The authorities 7 sources he cites leave no room for the possibility that solitary confinement is ever humane. Johnson's article is intelligent, worth reading.
Consider these concrete changes I'm suddenly experiencing W.C.I.'s seg. unit (akin to Boscobel's) & the B.O.P. - Allenwood
1) No radio for the last year (MP3 players not allowed in WDOC) - now I can have a walkman, batteries & an MP3 player
2) No T.V. for the last year (13" flatscreens allowed in g.p) - 6 large T.V.s in the dayroom
3) Cold in winter, no thermal underclothes, no sweatshirts allowed... - I'm issued thermal clothing, allowed sweatshirts, issued boots, can have two pairs of shoes, issued 6 or. sacks, etc.
4) Handcuffed everywhere I go, behind my back. Sometimes shackled around feet. For years. - No cuffs, no shackles
5) No exposure to outside. No sun. No fresh air. For years. - I walk outdoors to go to chow 3xs a day, to go to the gym, to go pretty much anywhere
6) skimpy portions of crappy food. No chicken on the bone, nor pork, little beef. For years. Crappy fruit. - Pretty much all I can eat. Pork chops, barbequed chicken, good fruit, had an Odinist feast for Yule.
7) no weight machines & little walking to do. - Free weights & my legs hurt from all the walking I must do.
8) No paints, colored pencils, markers, pastels, etc. to do art with. - I can have all of this, if/when I have the $ to buy them.
I'm not saying that this prison is nice*, but, compared to WI, the conditions are not so blatantly purposed to strip me of the higher facets of my humanity. I have to actually do some stupid shit to be ut in seg, here, like hurt somebody or create a real disturbance. When, about a month ago, some D.W.B.s allegedly killed a 70-year old prisoner for accusing one of their brothers of ass-humpin' him, that was a real disturbance, resulting in a two-day lockdown. When the S.A.C.s (soldiers of Aryan Culture) got into it with the A.B.T.s (Aryan Brotherhood of Texas), also about a month ago, involving weapons & multiple prisoners, that was a real disturbance, resulting in a two-week lockdown.
There's a lot - compared to WI maximum security prisons (this is a maximum security facility) - of constructive activities for prisoners to engage in here, which helps minimize real disturbances. Alas, some real conflicts - e.g. gang wars - still pop up. The obvious remedy for that is for staff to not house known opposing groups around each other & for prisoners to watch what they say & do in regards to each other.
I hope I can avoid real disturbances, at least long enough to get some paintings one, which I'll post copies of here. But that'll depend a lot on the people around me.
The answer to the title question? YES!
Regards Nate
*Medical care here, compared to in the WDOC, is to die for, as in you'll probably die if you have a serious problem that can't wait to be treated until sick call is scheduled (in the morning, 3-4 times a week) or you can't walk to the healthcare unit. From what guys tell me, this is actually one of the better prisons for healthcare. Medical staff even have an ironic notice posted, asking for input on the quality of care, but, every time someone offers such, they say "tell us next week."