As stated in my last blog, in March I was transferred from Shawnee, which is run like a maximum security prison, to East Moline Correctional Center, which is considered a minimum security prison.
For someone like me, who has been in a max joint for so many years, this new environment is like a paradise. For example, we are not locked in cells but sleep in a dormitory, and can be out all day. There is a great yard and gym schedule. Our beds have springs and thick, clean, soft mattresses. After years of sleeping on a solid steel plate with an inch-thick dirty pad, this is indeed paradise. For the first time in years, I sleep straight through the night.
The guards at East Moline are laid back, respectful and smooth. If you keep your mouth shut and play the game, everything goes easy. The kitchen is clean and the food is pretty good. The guys serving food are all wearing hair and beard nets and clean clothing—quite a change from Menard where the kitchen was filthy. I also have access to phone and laundry all day long.
However…however, not everything is as it should be in paradise
The main problem is the commissary, which is run every two or three weeks each month, with a one-hundred-dollar limit on food purchases. So in this minimum security joint, the commissary policy is worse that it was at Shawnee, where the limit was one hundred fifty dollars per week and you could shop every week.
The rumor is that a big-time rapper was housed here. He bought a lot of food, and the staff did not like this. So to punish him, they imposed a one-hundred-dollar limit on everyone!
This is bogus in so many ways. For starters, you cannot punish everyone for the misbehavior of one convict. See Wolff-vs-McDonnell, 94 S.Ct. 2963 (1974). This ruling sets up due-process-of-law safeguards for prisoners. It protects the prisoner from arbitrary and vindictive punishment by the prison staff. The prisoner must be written a ticket, given an Adjustment Committee hearing, the right to present a defense and call witnesses before the prisoner can be punished or stripped of privileges.
No other prisoner violated the commissary rules, no one did anything wrong. So to impose universal punishment is bad business, it sets a bad vibe between prisoner and staff.
You may think that prisoners should be able to put up with this inconvenience, but shutting down the commissary is bad for the taxpayer as well. A large portion of the commissary income goes back to the state and is put into the prison budget. When the commissary does not run or has been restricted, the state gets less money; but, the state is still paying the civilian commissary workers thirty-eight dollars per hour, even when they are not working.
Here it is the end of April and I have been allowed to shop only once since my March 27 transfer. The commissary has been closed since April 24 and will be until May 6. That means no income for the state and lots of expenses for staff—because they come to work but just don’t do anything. And even when the commissary is open, they often close it for two hours in the middle of the day.
If you are an Illinois taxpayer, please write to the governor about this
Governor J B Pritzker
Office of the Governor
James R. Thompson Center
100 W. Randolph, 16-100
Chicago, IL 60601
Phone: 312-814-2121
