Under Lock & Key

There are four Control Units in Oregon Prisons. Two are at Snake River Prison and they hold about 200 prisoners. The other two are at Oregon State Penitentiary and they hold about 250 prisoners.

I have been in the one at the Penitentiary. They are in separate buildings away from the main part of the prison. There's about the same percentage of different races in them. We're put in these control units for fights, stabbings, staff assaults, staff/inmate relationships and protective custody.

All these units opened in the mid-1990s. They started with just a few cells then expanded with the continuing violence. There's talk of opening a new control unit in about 3 years at Two Rivers Prison in Umatilla, OR.

At the Intensive Management Unit in Oregon State Penitentiary we are locked down 24 hours a day on Tuesday and Thursday and 23 hours every other day of the week. The officers treat us like shit by stealing our mail, putting feces in certain people's food, and they rush in our cells to beat us up with shock shields and rubber bullet guns when we get tired of being harassed.

Back in January the officers suited up on one of my friends because he ran one of the biggest gangs in prison. It lasted about 10 minutes, then they pulled him out on a stretcher and he was pronounced dead at the hospital. That goes to show how fucked up these officers really are.

There's been other situations where the officers gave mentally ill prisoners in IMU razor blades so they could commit suicide and then run around wondering how they go the blade.