Update From Larry

Colon Cancer

Hello my Readers. I have survived the colon cancer. The yearly catscan showed my digestive track is clean now. Unfortunately, the catscan showed couple small spots on my liver. I was schedule for a liver biopsy on July 20th, 2022. But when I was placed in the catscan, and the procedure started, the spots had shrunk down to so small the biopsy was stopped.

Now I await the next procedure. The specialist are taking their time, discussing what should be done. The liver is a special beast; in surgery to the liver, blood clotting and bleeding problems often arise, for the liver does not like to be cut. The liver may bleed profusely and many times will continue to bleed after surgery–not a good thing to bleed inside your body cavity. So, the specialists at the cancer treatment office are mulling over their next move. Surgery is the last thing they are looking at now.

The spots reduced in size to half of what they were. In a couple months they will take another look at them. So, I will take another trip to the Canton Cancer Treatment center, talk with Dr. Fiskin and have another catscan. Let’s hope the spots will be totally gone by then.

Early Prison Release

As for my early release under Illinois Senate Bill 2129, my daughter and her friends continue to petition Adams County State’s Attorney, Gary Farha. But it is an election year in Illinois and no political party wants the soft-on-crime label used against them. 

I have written to State’s Attorney Farha many times. Funny thing there. He will not respond to any of my letters. I guess the revelations in my book Never-Ending Nightmare hit a nerve with him. I can only suspect that he is a member of the Good Old Boys Club, which demands he not acknowledge me. So my family and friends keep requesting him to draft the Petition For Resentencing and bring me back to Quincy so the court can reduce my sentence time.

Treatment of Prisoners Inside IDOC

Meanwhile, our treatment here continues to deteriorate. In the following four cases the prisoner body won better treatment once inside the Department of Corrections. These civil rights wins changed the way things were done. The prisoner won and the IDOC staff had to change their policy and practice, their treatment of the prisoner.

• In Rasho-v-Walker, the IDOC staff was no longer allowed to use disciplinary tickets and segregation placement to deal with the mentally ill. The IDOC and the Wexford Medical Con- tractor were ordered to fill all the mental health worker positions. The Tamms supermax prison was closed.
• In Lippert-v-Baldwin, the IDOC and Wexford Con-tractors were required to fill all medical care positions, in order to supply the proper medical care.
• In Murphy-v-Raoul, sex offenders won their right to be released from prison after serving their sentence. One man had been held eleven years past his release date because they had no residence to release him too
• In Harris-vs-Calloway & Campbell, 2:17-cv-02075-MMM, (currently set for a damages trial in the U.S. Central District, Peoria Courthouse), the Illinois Prisoner won the First Amendment right to run a blog, website or a podcasting order to immediately report their treatment to family and friends via social media outlets. No longer is the treatment of the prisoner hidden in a long grievance process and then years in a court of law seeking redress on government policy. No longer is the staff allowed to punish the prisoner in order to silence this First Amendment activity. This lawsuit has allowed the prisoner to move into the twenty-first century. (For updates and details, become a follower at freerockynation.org.)  Now the families of prisoners in America have a voice.

But these wins did not sit well with the powers that be, so they are striking back and our programs are being attacked. Before the Covid lockdown, March 2020, we got yard or gym every day and a lot more time out of the cell daily. Now we get yard or gym time once every other day. For the week of July 23, we got yard or gym only Monday, Wednesday and Friday

The trays in the chow hall have been reduced to hardly anything. No condiments anymore. No desserts, just juice and apples mainly.

The television service is not repaired anymore. Some of the few channels we are paying for have been taken off. Reception is terrible.

Commissary

Then we have the commissary situation. Before 2005, the commissary was a privilege from which 50 percent of the profit was placed in the Inmate Benefit Fund, to be spent on prisoner movies and leisure time activities. In 2005, the commissary was changed from a privilege to a money-making operation run by the IDOC. The prisoner was not given anything by the administration anymore except one roll of toilet paper per man, per week. Every month the prisoner got a ten-dollar stipend to buy toiletries like shampoo and writing supplies. Another two dollars has been added to the stipend so the men can buy telephone minutes to call home. Twelve dollars per month is all the prisoner gets to buy everything he needs. But we all know twelve dollars a month buys very little stuff.

Every other cosmetic item plus food, clothing and shoes must be bought from the prisoner commissary. The commissary was changed from a 10 percent markup to a 25 percent markup. Then through legislation the profits were split, with 60 percent of the profit going back into the IDOC budget to pay for the wages of the commissary staff, and kitchen food supervisor staff. Only 40 percent now goes back into the inmate benefit fund. 

Corrections 730 ILCS 5/3-4-3 Section (c) was put into law: “(C) Forty percent of the profits on sales from commissary stores shall be expended by the Department for the special benefit of committed persons which shall include but not be limited to the advancement of inmate payrolls, for the special benefit of employees, and for the advancement or reimbursement of employee travel, provided that amounts expended for employees shall not exceed the amount of profits derived from sales made to employees by such commissaries, as determined by the Department. The remainder of the profits from sales from commissary stores must be used first to pay for wages and benefits of employees covered under a collective bargaining agreement who are employed at commissary facilities of the Department and then to pay the cost of dietary staff.”

There are only four programs in place to keep the prisoner appeased. 

1. The daily gym/yard lines. We use to get them every day, now we have an hour every other day.
2. The telephones to call family. Use to be one thirty-minute call per week(?); now it is only twenty minutes. The administration refuses to install more phones on the housing unit wings, so we have only six phones for fifty-two guys.
3. Out-of-cell time is now cut to one hour in the morning and one and one-half hours at night.
4. The commissary used to be run weekly with no spending limit. Now we have commissary only once a month with one-hundred-dollar weekly limit. Even though we only shop once a month here, the limit of one hundred fifty dollars per week is enforced. In addition, the prices have been raised 100 percent. So a box of Little Debbie cakes that was $2.50, six months ago, is now $5 for the same box. Also, the “weekly” limits per items have been severely reduced. For example, two tubs of cheese has been cut to one and thirty-two  wet packs of meat cut to eighteen. 

According to the Warden, the Commissary Standardization Committee was put into place to streamline the weekly shop. This commissary sales reduction has been in place for a year now, but we still only shop once a month. The commissary sales cuts directly conflict with the Corrections Statute at 730 ILCS 5/3-4-3 (c as the revenues to the prison system are drastically reduced and the 60 percent in profits no longer cover the wages of staff. . Your  tax dollars are required to make up the lost revenue in sales.

So if these acts are not retaliatory to punish us for the lawsuits won in Federal Court, then please explain it to me. My world. My update. Larry “Rocky” Harris, August 1, 2022.