I am writing to you about a grave and ongoing problem in Southport Correctional Facility. Corrections officers, their supervisors and administrators are engaged in a systematic program of oppression of prisoners by sexual humiliation and terrorism doing patfrisk.

Purpose: to humiliate and degrade a prisoner while he is being patfrisked (handcuffed, hands on the wall, legs spread apart, facing the wall) with the intention and objective of provoking a prisoner into coming out of this position, which affords corrections officers in Southport Correctional Facility with the opportunity, under the guise of physically restraining said prisoner(s), to assault and brutalize a prisoner.

Purpose: to desensitize prisoners to sexual molestation and abuse, such as having their testicles, buttocks and penis touched, caressed and grabbed by another man.

Purpose: to instill a level of anxiety and fear in a prisoner at the prospect of being sexually molested, abused and/or assaulted by corrections officers during this humiliating patfrisk; that prisoners fear to leave their cells for showers or attend their court-mandated one hour of recreation.

Purpose: to diminish the morale of prisoners by creating a systematic atmosphere of fear, helplessness, anger and depression within prisoners being subjected to such sexual humiliation and terrorism.

Southport Correctional Facility is a maximum security special housing unit facility, located in the state of New York, in Chemung County. Prisoners in this facility (excluding the inmate cadre workers) are confined to their cells twenty-three hours a day, minus the court-mandated one hour of recreation. There are three levels of prisoners in Southport: Level I, II and III. Level I prisoners must wear a belt chain and handcuffs during their one hour of recreation. Level II prisoners are like Level I prisoners, with the exception that when Level II prisoners enter the yard cage, the handcuffs and belt chain come off. Level III prisoners wear only handcuffs and these are removed once the prisoner is secured in the recreation cage. All prisoners on Level I, II and III attend their one hour of recreation in single, one-man cages.

When a prisoner on any level (I, II, III) wishes to attend their one hour of recreation, they inform the officer who does the recreation list as he passes their cell. When recreation is running, those prisoners who signed up are then handcuffed and/or belt chained according to which floor (level) they are on. Once the cell is opened, he then proceeds down toward the company entrance, wherein the prisoner must face a blank wall with hands up on the wall (if only handcuffed) and allow two officers to conduct a patfrisk. One waves a metal detector wand over the front and back of the prisoner's body and their shoes. The other officer then proceeds to conduct the actual patfrisk.

There are three blocks: A, B and C. There are three floors on each block and four companies on each floor, totaling 252 prisoners in each block and 756 prisoners in this facility under twenty-three hour lock down in their cell. Of the twenty-one prisoners in each company, a minimum of ten prisoners per company is being sexually molested--their testicles, buttocks and/or penis is being caressed and/or grabbed by the patfrisk officer--each and every day of the week. Out of this ten prisoners per company, at least two prisoners every three months are being physically assaulted by correction officers for allegedly raising off the wall. I say "allegedly" because in most instances, the prisoners didn't raise off the wall but the particular patfrisk officer and their surrounding officers had it on their agenda to assault and brutalize that prisoner by claiming the prisoner came off the wall.

All of this is taking place right before various and numerous video cameras. These video tapes will show the patfrisk officer yanking a prisoners pants up so high and so violently that you can see the prisoner jump from the amount of force being used, as his pant seams cuff his testicles and the crack of his buttocks. These video cameras will show the patfrisk officers patting a prisoner or rubbing a prisoner's buttocks at the conclusion of the patfrisk. These video tapes will show the patfrisk officer pulling the waistband of the prisoner's pants away from his body and momentarily just standing behind the prisoner--looking at his buttocks. These video tapes will show the patfrisk officer reaching around the front zipper area of a prisoner's pants and grabbing the prisoner's penis. These video tapes will show patfrisk officers conducting illegal patfrisks that are contrary to New York State's Department of Correctional Services Directive #4910 Section III, B, governing patfrisk procedure, as well as violating penal law and the 8th and 14th Constitutional amendments.

A flood of grievances have been submitted and filed on this issue against these sexually deviant correction officers--for years. However, Superintendent Michael McGinnis and Director Thomas G. Eagen of the Inmate Grievance Program never see or find any violations or wrong-doings by any correction officers. Therefore, our attempts to redress is being subverted from the Superintendent of this facility down to the grievance supervisor of this facility, Jeff Hale, and his boss, Thomas G. Eagen.

Prisoners are afraid to leave their cells. As a result, prisoners are confined to their cells for twenty-four hours a day--deprivation is deprivation, be it by order or by terrorism. Our mail is being withheld, throw away or confiscated under trumped up charges of correspondence violation. Nurses refuse to provide medication refills, all in the supportive retaliation on behalf of the correction officers. Showers are purposely shortened or items that are not allowed in your cell but are supposed to be in your shower pail turn up missing. Being set up for contraband in your cell or being falsely accused of threatening an employee is commonplace. All of this and more is the result of prisoners grieving and objecting to being sexually humiliated and terrorized by correction officers in this facility.

If you were to obtain copies of the filed grievances in the past five years against correction officers J. Castleberry, D. White and W. Ellis, among many other officers, you will easily see a pattern and history of sexual abuse and molestation against prisoners: physical violence and assaults against prisoners. You will also see that the superintendent of this facility, Michael McGinnis, never finds any of these officers guilty of committing any wrong-doing. Thus, he supports and encourages the continuation of such sexually deviant behavior by correction officers against prisoners and ongoing acts of violence against prisoners guised as subduing prisoners. The grievance director in Albany, New York, Thomas G. Eagen, and the head of the C.O.R.C. never finds fault or wrong-doing by any New York State Department of Corrections officers or employees for such inhumane and criminally violative acts.

It is my hope that this letter will assist you in shedding light on what is really happening inside these prisons in the United States--contrary to President Bush's claim that such savage brutality by the upholders of the law (prison guards) is not tolerated in this country.

-- A New York Prisoner, June 2004