Sort:  
  • Trending
    • [-]
     7 years ago 

    I tried to edit my previous reply but the app kept freezing so I'll add it here. Regarding the other inhumane conditions, our facility was set up with a pod structure, meaning Pod A would have an area that contained approximately 16-20 cells with a 4 person capacity. The cell I was in had no less than 6 inmates at any given time with 2 or more residents sleeping on the concrete floor. I don't know how many pods the facility contained (I wasn't privy to a tour of my new domicile) but I suspect each of them consisted of the same conditions. I have a very clear memory of an inmate being injected into the pod I was in only to be relocated because there were no cells with enough space available for him to throw a mat on the floor to sleep.

    And this next violation of human/civil rights struck a chord so deep in me that it still resonates nearly a decade later.

    One Sunday, we were locked in our cells while a local minister stood in the dining area and proceded to give an unsolicited sermon. I complained, loudly, that I wasn't interested in being force fed a religious message to which the response was, in summary, "you can sit quietly while I (the minister) preach my message, or you can spend the next hour in isolation". Isolation, mind you, was a holding cell about 7 ft. long, & 4 ft. wide with a concrete slab extending from the wall that ran the length of the cell. As you can imagine it was a cold room and I would not have been allowed to take the mat or pillow I had been issued for my duration in the facility.

    Being more rebellious than intelligent, I suffered through the backwoods sermon and immediately began requesting alternative religious literature. The specific book I requested was the Satanic Bible (which as a side note isn't what most people would think it is). My requests were never addressed, thus I never received a copy of my "preferred" religious text.