In my last blog, I described the change in diet at the Illinois prisons, from mostly meat to mostly soy. According to the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC):
Let me set the record straight on both of these assertions. Continue reading “The High Cost of the Soy Diet”
Happy Fourth of July to my readers! I hope you had a great day on this one of independence. I thought I would give you an update on my situation here.
First, the shout out goes to my Governor, J.B. Pritzker. For he did get me the welder fabricator job. I was being black balled for my past and present civil rights cases in the federal court system. Once incarcerated, the prisoner still has his First Amendment right to seek redress on government policies and practices, thanks on the check and balances in place under the Eighth Amendment to prevent cruel and unusual punishment from taking place.
I sent a letter to my Governor asking him to help me out. I did not want to file another civil suit. To be truthful I am tired of having to litigate to get what I have coming by law. Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin drafted a great Constitution to protect the citizen, even citizens sent to prison, for they knew what happened in England and the Continent.
I wanted to finally be able to earn good-time credits to reduce my sentence of thirty-two and one-half years. I just want to go home and enjoy building something to pass on to my daughter and grandson before I move on to the happy hunting grounds.
So the boss man, my Governor, heard my plea for help. He made the welder and metal fabricator job happen. Now I can showcase my skills there and earn good conduct credits for working a job that benefits the institution where I am housed.
It is great to rise each day and go back to building something that will help and benefit the prisoners here—to repair things and get them back in service. So again I say thanks to Governor Pritzker for getting me the fair shake there. I will not let him down.
Second, a citizen is sent to prison as punishment for violating a law or statute. He is not there to be further punished at the hands of sadistic guards and staff. See, again our forefathers were looking out for us when the drafted the Constitution.
We still have two severe situations at East Moline I want to address. The Commissary policy in place is a vindictive act to punish the minimum security prisoner for no reason. An act outlawed by the United States Supreme Court in Wolff-vs-McDonnell, 94 S.Ct. 2963 (1974). This is the case brought by prisoners that set up the due-process-of-law requirements in prisons. A prisoner must be written a ticket for a rule violation. The case gave the prisoner the right to prepare and present a defense, and to call witnesses in defense. I have violated no rules, and received no ticket. But my commissary access is restricted to twice a month for no reason. Similarly housed and situated minimum-security prisoners are allowed to shop once a week with no limit on the amount they may spend at the commissary.
But here there is a limit on items per shop, like one typing ribbon for my word processor, six summer sausages, etc. These limits are set by the bosses in Springfield. They are in place for a once-a-week shop at the commissary. But these limits are applied to us with a twice-a-month shop. So I ask, ” How is that not a punishment?”
You might be asking: “Why should I care how often the prisoner shops?” Good question. The answer is simple. The revenue generated by the 25 percent helps off-set the cost of incarceration imposed on the taxpayer in Illinois. Sixty percent of the profit generated at the prisoner commissary goes back to the Illinois Department of Corrections budget, to pay off wages or whatever is needed, freeing up budget money to go to the schools, highways and bridge repair. So how is that not a winning business venture run by the IDOC? But it needs to run at full capacity.
The other forty percent goes into the Inmate Benefit Fund to pay for the for the leisure time activities like equipment for gym, softball and basketball—another relief to taxpayer dollars generated by the prisoner purchases at the commissary. It also pays for satellite service or cable service, for when you give the men something to watch they stay out of trouble.
So I again ask the Illinois taxpayer a question, “Why would you allow a limit and access restriction to the commissary?” As the taxpayer who pays for the Illinois Department of Corrections you have a say in the way your tax dollars are used, the way your prisons are run!
Then we have the situation of heat in the summer. This facility was built in the 1800s. It opened in March 18, 1897 as a mental facility for the insane. In 1980 it was transferred to the Illinois Department of Corrections to be used as a minimum security prison. The buildings were built to run with air conditioning, in fact, the air conditioning units are still in place. But they are not run in the sections where the prisoners are housed and fed.
Today we eat in a dining room where the men are forced into seating with arms and shoulders touching. The temperature in the dining hall is 115-120 degrees each meal. When I walk out of the chow hall into the ninety degree day it is like walking into a blast of air conditioning. The prison staff turn a blind eye to this constitutional violation. But I believe that this is an Eighth Amendment cruel-and-unusual-punishment claim just waiting to see a federal courtroom.
Then you have the cellhouses where the daily cell temperature and dayroom temperature hover at 100 degrees. Now the law has been decided here. In the Federal Court case of Gates-vs-Cook, 376 F. 3d 323, 339-40 (5th Cir. 2004), the Eight Amendment standard for heat was set. The Court ruling requires provisions of fans, ice water and daily showers when heat index is 90 degrees or higher.
The East Moline staff give you room-temperature water to drink with your meal—no ice in the water and no fans in place to move the heat and humid air out of the chow hall. They do have ceiling fans that blow the hot air, which rises to the ceiling and then back down upon the prisoner eating.
I am left handed. There is a space of eighteen inches between the seats. I have an arm battle every time I eat with the right-handed man seated beside me. We are packed in like sardines.
In the cell house we are given one cup of ice per shift. The court has ruled that ice is to be supplied all day long when the heat rises to 90 degrees and stays there. So we have another Eighth Amendment claim just waiting to see the light of a courtroom.
As I said, the buildings were built to run with air conditioning—but only the staff control booths are air conditioned. The wardens turn a blind eye to the prisoner living quarters.
I challenge the IDOC staff to take correct temperature readings in the chow hall at meal times, and in the cellhouses at noon and 6:00 p.m. They should then post them so the U.S. citizen can see the temperatures we are subjected too. For the U.S. Citizen is the one that sets the standards on cruel and unusual punishment as prohibited by the Eight Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It is a jury of those citizens that will hear the case brought by the Illinois prisoners subjected to these conditions daily.
I have been incarcerated for twenty-six years now so I know the mindset of the prisoners—for I live with them, and they seek me out for help.
When a prisoner sees the staff being given air conditioning in the same building they are living in, but they are subjected to the daily heat, it creates a distrust and hatred for those in power. Then the IDOC. will release this pissed-off and hate-filled man back into society to be your neighbor. No rehabilitation, but a philosophy of treating them like dirt, keeping them in the heat, and feeding them crap. This is great for growing mushrooms, but does not rehabilitate the man sent to the prison. Is the Department of Corrections name an inside joke?
Well, my reader, I would love to hear your input on these topics. Send me a message, your opinion, here, at: www.freelarryrockyharrisx2.com or at Facebook at freelarryrockyharris1959.
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”
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.”
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.
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.
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”
