Tag: Larry Rocky Harris

Level System Still in Place

The cancer treatment is going well. On the 28th of September I was given a complete cat scan of my body. The good news finally came. I caught a break. The cancer has not spread to any other part of me.

Soon I will go out to get the two spots on my liver removed. Then I will finally be cancer free. A long three years of real hell-on-earth there. I beat the colon cancer. My body is finally healing up and starting to work right again. So at sixty-three years of age I am a lean and mean, ready to go another round with the Grim Reaper, not ready just yet to go quietly into that dark night.

So now I can focus again on my prison reform efforts. The website freerockynation.org is a prison platform for all U.S. Citizens, and our foreign neighbors.

Continue reading “Level System Still in Place”

Dangerous Situation at East Moline Correctional Center

We have a very dangerous situation here at East Moline Correctional Center. As I have reported on my Facebook Page, an African American gang has been stealing from the inmates here. As the prison authorities will not allow us to lock our cells (as is required), we are easy targets. A few weeks ago, they stole about two-thousand-dollars worth of possessions from me, including food. Of course, I filed a grievance; however, the grievance was not passed along to Internal Affairs as it should have been. Moreover, the perpetrators have not been adequately punished—just a slap on the hands—and have continued their stealing activities. In fact, many of the inmates here are fearful of their lives, as it seems that the gang activity will continue unchecked.

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A Day in the Life of a Jailhouse Lawyer

My celly Justin, “Captain Crunchy,” as we called him, was released from the Illinois Department of Corrections on December 8 at 1 a.m. He caught an Amtrak train to Chicago. From there he jumped on the bus for his final leg of his journey. As I draft this blog, I hope my old celly has arrived to see his little girl. For she is the reason I helped him get home on time. Continue reading “A Day in the Life of a Jailhouse Lawyer”

The Right To Be Free From Illegal Punishment

In the prison system you have the cellhouse, a building where four wings intersect at a hub in the center. This hub is a circular control booth with windows facing toward the four wings. The front of each wing, whether it is A, B, C, or D, is full glass from the floor to the ceiling, so that the staff has a complete view of each wing. Continue reading “The Right To Be Free From Illegal Punishment”

The Law Does Not Apply to Prison Staff

People are sent to prison for breaking the law. But prisons have laws also, and the prison staff is obligated to follow those laws. For example, the law has clearly established that prisoners are to get a minimum of five hours of out-of-cell exercise per week, in order to keep their bodies healthy. Exercise is one of the rights given under the Eighth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution. This is to prevent cruel and unusual punishment where the conditions of confinement cause the body to deteriorate. Continue reading “The Law Does Not Apply to Prison Staff”

The Change in Diet

In a maximum security prison, you are a caged man. You spend most days in your cell on “lockdown status.” This happens when someone causes an incident that challenges the security of the prison. Or so the staff will say.

Then all you get is “three hots and a cot.” You get a ten-minute shower once a week. Your meals are brought to you in a cell. No other movement is allowed. My only reprieve from this boredom was to read the law. Jimmy Soto’s words were always there: Continue reading “The Change in Diet”

The Man Takes Control

I was set up pretty good at Stateville. The most notorious prison in the Illinois Department of corrections nourished all the vices. I had found my niche making moonshine. I was learning the law. Jimmy Soto, whom I met on day one, had set my head straight. “Nobody cares about you being locked up but you. If you want to change things, learn the law. Then you must beat the man at his own game.”

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How I Survived in the Early Days

The guys found me an old mattress. It was the most gnarly, disgusting, smelly thing I ever viewed in life. Stains on top of stains. Years of sweat had created a smell most repulsive. But it was the mattress or the bare floor. There was a reason Little Joker had the top bunk. So I took my two wool blankets, used one as a sheet, then crawled under the second and fell out.

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1994 The Nightmare Begins

In 1994, I was sentenced to forty-five years with another twenty years, running consecutively, or as the boys in the long house would say, “Running Wild.” I have served twenty-two and one-half years on the forty-five. I am now serving ten years on the twenty-year sentence. This obscenely long sentence was handed down because I refused to plea bargain for crimes I didn’t commit.

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Larry’s Story

I am an old Kentucky ridge runner. I was born in a pick-up truck on the side of the highway. My father, Robert Lee Harris, was a moonshiner. My family line goes back to the Cherokee and English who built this great country. I grew up in a dysfunctional family and was sent to foster homes and Chaddock Boys School. It is the trip to Chaddock that landed me in Quincy, Illinois. It is the Quincy courts that sent me to the big house.

The first time I went to prison, I was guilty as hell. Continue reading “Larry’s Story”