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.
The control booth is elevated so they can view the two decks on each wing. There are twenty-six cells on the first floor and twenty-eight on the second. So there is an average of one hundred eight men on each wing. Each cell is numbered in large numerals so the control booth can identify the cell if the door is open.
The staff at Shawnee C. C, have decided to bypass the U. S. Supreme Court civil rights case of Wolff-vs-McDonnell, 94 S.Ct. 2963 (1974). In this case the United States Supreme Court ruled that “Universal Punishment” and arbitrary punishment by correctional staff was illegal.
Universal Punishment: the act of punishing a group of prisoners to stop the rule violation done by one or two. To impose a punishment on a group of prisoners to force that group to police a prisoner who is violating the rules.
Due Process of the Law: the act of producing their regime and rules of the law statutes. To enforce the law as written and required.
What we have at the Shawnee Correctional Center is staff who are too lazy to leave the control booth. They spend their day in the control booth instead of on their assigned wing. If the men refuse to lock up at the end of dayroom and make the wing officer leave his position to actually perform his job, and lock the cell doors after dayroom, yard, or gym lines have concluded, the wrath for making the wing officer actually walk on his wing assignment, is to punish all men on that wing.
Today at the 12:10 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. dayroom several cells were late in locking the doors. So the control booth officer came on the speaker and announced that dayroom for the entire deck would be denied, or cut short, the following day because cells 26, 27, 28, and 38 would not shut their doors when requested by the control booth officer.
Our wing officer assigned to D-wing never left the card game he was involved in with other staff in the control booth. His answer to the problem was to arbitrarily punish all prisoners who were houses on D-Wing. I and my cell mate were in our cell with the door shut. The Wolff-vs-McDonnell U.S. Supreme Court case ruled that this punishment of us was an illegal act. The prisoner must be written a ticket and given 24-hour notice of the rule violation before being taken in front of the Prison Adjustment Committee for a hearing to determine innocence or guilt on the prison rule violation write-up. Then the prisoner must be allowed to call witnesses in his or her defense, and present a defense to the charges at a fair and impartial tribunal.
Now we have two very troublesome sets of events that could fork off this is illegal treatment by staff. The very reason the United States Supreme Court heard this case.
- The prisoner population could seek revenge on the prisoner by physically assaulting him, to cause great bodily harm to get his mind right, to force that prisoner to adhere to the rules. The prisoners would do this to stop the “Universal Punishment” being inflicted upon the prisoner body housed on that wing, or in that building–a very illegal act, as it could be argued that this “beat down” was sought and sanctioned by a staff too lazy to perform its required duties.
- The prisoner body mindset will reach the conclusion that the system is rigged to punish all no matter how they conduct themselves. Therefore, there is no reason to follow the rules. Then staff assaults, mayhem, and anarchy become the common grounds the prison is run on. Due Process of the Law flies out of the window.
You see, the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution gives the prisoner the Right to Due Process of the Law. There are checks and balances in place to strip the Correctional Staff of the ability to be Judge, Jury and Executioner all in one act. The Staff is required to write a Rule Violations Ticket on the prisoner violating the rule as they see it. Then the prisoner is allowed a hearing to determine guilt or innocence before a punishment is imposed. Thus, the Wolff-vs-McDonnell, case and the legal principle behind it.
But the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) Warden at Shawnee Correctional Center allows his staff to impose this “Universal Punishment.” The Warden allows them to remain in the control booth, and not on their required wing assignments. He allows this “Universal Punishment” because his staff are in the booth playing cards, gambling and not on the required job post. Too lazy to write a ticket, or follow the 14th Amendment Regulations and Statutes on Due Process of the Law when dealing with the prisoner who will not follow a direct order given from the control booth.
For if the officer was on his wing assignment, and not gambling on a card game in the control booth, then the troublesome prisoner would be locked up by the wing officer. Then no other prisoner would be punished for something they had no part in. For as a society one cannot rehabilitate a prisoner when he is constantly punished for something he had no part in. All it does is breed contempt and ill-will in that prisoner’s mind and soul. Then he or she is released to the public with a heart full of hate at the treatment they experienced under the public servant known as the Correctional Officer. For it was a Fixed System where their conduct did not matter in the scenario of things.
