The California Department of Corrections (CDC) is in the midst a severe budget deficit. The deficit is due in part to CDC employees orchestrating conflicts or racial riots amongst inmates then locking the prisons down for years at a time, so they can receive overtime pay and also hazardous pay, if they are employed on a protective custody yard-supposedly designed for sensitive needs inmates whose life would be in jeopardy had they remained on an active yard.
However, due to employees' greed, they have even orchestrated racial conflicts on a sensitive needs yard, where inmates who have been supposedly deprived of their gangs to be let out of undetermined SHU's (Segregated Housing Units) and housed on a non-active yard along with high profile inmates who had safety concerns while they were housed on the main line and where on a PC-yard for protection-wind up getting stabbed or jumped by inmates of another race inmates who have "ratted out" on their Hispanic or white supremacy gangs and have formed another gang on a PC yard and are trying to politic on the down low through the urging of staff, so the staff can have a reason to lock the yard down for prolonged periods of time and receive hazardous pay.
Earning this extra incentive got so good for the employees that they'd begun to lock the sensitive needs yard down for an incident as minor as a one-on-one fistfight, or if an inmate would say there was going to be an incident. Moreover, if something occurred on the active yards, which has a totally different program from the sensitive needs yard, the PC-yard would go on lockdown as well. Often times, I've seen the active yards get released off lockdown while the sensitive needs yards remained slammed-for an incident that occurred on the mainline at Lancaster State Prison. One of the few penitentiaries that have a high African American employment, but is one of the most corrupt pens in California.
For instance, while housed on a sensitive needs yard (facility C and now B) where there are no more than 30 or 40 African American inmates compared to over eleven hundred and fifty other ethnicity inmates, mostly of Hispanic, white, and a handful of Asian and Native Americans, I was jumped by three inmates of another race. While in the process of defending myself alone, since none of the other African American inmates who were present assisted me in the three-on-one attack, I was hit in the face by a white correctional officer with a baton and sprayed with pepper spray by another officer. I then had to be wheeled off in a wheelchair because the blow from the baton almost broke my jaw, swelled the whole right side of my face, knocked several back teeth loose, and rendered me dazed.
To cover up for his corrupt act, the guard submitted a false witness report along with his white partner, who responded out of the furthest building away from the incident, but corroborated his "story" with additional pieces added; stating the inmate whom I slammed on the ground and was on top of (his two partners had lain prone upon seeing the officers converge six-deep on the scene) had punched me repeatedly in the face until it seemed I was unconscious. So he had to utilize his baton applying three power thrusts and forward spins to the inmate's left thigh until he finally decided to quit punching me and lay prone on the ground. Note: out of the six officers who responded to the scene, only the two white officers submitted that garbage in their reports or mention the usage of a baton, period.
Adding insult to injury, and further assaulting my character, I was given a rules violation report (115) for battery-the same charge the three inmates who'd jumped me were issued-by a black "house negro." However this fabricated rules violation report was dismissed. I just wanted to touch on the blatant corruption, overt racism, and Uncle Tom-ism that is running rampant in a penitentiary that is at least 60-70% African American employed.
So to make up for the budget deficit, this penitentiary is trying to cut cost of transportation by making inmates sit in AD/SEG up to four months or more waiting for their bus to arrive so they can transfer-quadrupling the allotted time of 30 days for an inmate's transfer, as mandated by (CCR) California Code of Regulations title 15, code 3379, paragraph 5. Thus violating the eighth amendment of cruel and unusual punishment, because sitting in the hole unjustly, hoping and praying for that your bus arrives week after week is very stressful, especially when it doesn't come. Yet if an inmate has a medical issue, the staff transfers him fast because they don't want his medical expenses to be billed to the penitentiary. There is no legality to justify this four month sitting in AD/SEG, suffering unjustly a rule that is currently in effect, on paper.
Next they've cut down on food expenses by practically starving the inmates to death. Some days we receive lunches with our desserts missing, a teaspoon of peanut butter in our ten ounce cups substitutes meals on days when we are supposed to have good entrees such as chicken, french toast and cinnamon rolls. After that the canteen items' prices were inflated, and restitution costs have been jacked up to 33%, and shortly (within the next month or two) jacked up to 50% deducted out of all incoming money from the street or income earned if inmates are "fortunate" enough to kiss enough butt to receive a pay-number job. The list goes on. . .
Due to CDC employees destroying the prison's budget, the inmates have suffered, including the ones who have been blessed to receive visits from their family or loved ones-their days have been cut short to only the weekends, all Friday visits having been eliminated due to the employees' destruction of the prison budget. This is the politics of prison in its fullest form being administered by CDC employees, causing inmates to suffer mental and emotional pain, loneliness-if they're in my shoes-alone with no one to write or turn to for comfort, and sometimes enduring irreversible psychological trauma or death through depression as a result of overt oppression from behind these penitentiary walls.
- a California prisoner, may 2004