REAL TALK - THE VIEW OF A CONNECTICUT PRISONER Vol. 1 No.3
By Richard Stevenson

Greetings, free world!

Over the past couple of weeks two COs from this facility sadly lost their lives. The first passed away in her sleep and the second it appears committed suicide. I would like to express my sincere condolences to their families. Speaking with other prisoners about this touchy issue, I can truly say that those of us in this unit all feel the same.

The reason I say that this issue is touchy is because of the adversarial relationship between prisoners and our oppressors. None of us would wish death on a CO, but we can honestly say that they don't feel the same about us. As a result, most prisoners don't feel any sort of grief at this news. We generally don't feel anything one way or the other. We don't want anyone to experience death, but we don't mourn for them. Keep in mind that there are staff members that we would mourn for, but they are very few.

Understand why this is so. It goes all the way to how we are treated. Those who are kind to us will generally get that kindness returned. They stand out from the rest. The unkind and those we don't know will get indifference. It's their families that we feel bad for. It's not that we don't have feelings at all. There are the exceptions among us, but they are the few who have sheer hatred for all simply because of the constant adversity we can get from most of the employees here.

Can one now understand why the recidivism rate in this state is 70%? This won't change unless this adversarial system is done away with. They are trained to hate us and their policies reflect that. Custody staff have a life expectancy of 6 month past retirement. What should one expect if you spend 20 years trying to make my life miserable? Those who live well past this exception are generally those who treat us well.

I propose that staff be given a stake in lowering the recidivism rate. What do you think?

Rich