Chapter 3 - Held in the County Jail!

Chapter 3 -Held in the County Jail

 

Imagine your son or daughter being held with no bail for an accident.

 Imagine you not being allowed to see your son or daughter in person for almost two years.

Imagine you not being allowed to touch your son or daughter for almost two years.

Imagine having every conversation you have with your son or daughter recorded and often intentionally misinterpreted and given to the prosecutors.

Imagine having every letter to your son or daughter photocopied and given to the prosecution.

 

The list above is only a small part of the degradation that a person and his/her family has to endure in most of the county jails in the United States.  Even though a person is supposedly “innocent until proven guilty”, in almost all cases, that person and his/her family is treated as guilty from the beginning of a case.  I was so naïve about the imbedded systems of “justice” that every day brought the delivery something that was like a blow to my stomach!  The purpose of this chapter is not to exonerate my son Tim, but to bring attention to the massive need for jail and prison reform in the U.S.

Imagine having your beliefs completely trashed…….

County jails were originally designed to hold the accused or convicted for short periods of time (less than one year) while waiting for various court hearings, not for long periods of incarceration.  However, today’s county jails often have custody of persons for many months and sometimes years.   These facilities have almost no programs for those held to counsel them, keep them occupied, and retaining some semblance of humanity while they are incarcerated in these places.  Even church services are limited to the “first, say ten or fifteen, people who sign up!

The particular county jail where Tim was held is a good example of the poor treatment and degradation of the human spirit.  It looks very modern respectable from the outside.  I have to say that until I became intimately familiar with these places and processes, I really believed that everyone who was in jail belonged there and deserved all harsh treatment.    How wrong I was!  A large percentage of people would be better served in other ways.  I can remember reading about the Sheriff in the county in Arizona that encompasses Phoenix, and how I kind of cheered his harsh and inhumane treatment of those in his custody. 

Imagine “incarceration for profit”…..

When Tim was held in the ________ County jail, we were not allowed to visit him, talk to him, touch him in person for the almost two years of his term there.  The ______County jail has a contract with a company that provides video systems that allow an inmate to video chat with his/her family and friends.  Part of the contract with this company prohibits ALL in-person visits, thus driving family and friends to the video system.  The off-video visits cost $10-15 for a half hour.  ___________ county receives a portion of this and thus makes money off the family and friends who desperately want to see and talk to their loved ones.  The contract usually includes a large up front payment to the county…sometimes in the millions of dollars!!

Those incarcerated in _______ County can make phone calls out to pre-approved phone numbers, again at a per minute charge which is paid by the friends and family with whom the inmate talks.  The county also receives a portion of these charges.  Jail is a very profitable venture for this County and for counties across the U.S.!  The only way to avoid paying the fees to video visit is to go to the jail with a pre-approved appointment and visit via a terminal there which is in a room with many other terminals, all open and noisy and not private.  All phone calls are recorded and all video visits are recorded.  These recordings are turned over to the DA’s office for their interpretation or misinterpretation…….

Imagine purposeful misinterpretation……..

One example of this misinterpretation is as follows:  I went to the jail for a video visit.  It was my first conversation with Tim after his arrest.  He was tearful and said “Mom, I feel so guilty that you had to come all the way here from Wisconsin to Colorado to help me.”  The DA’s interpretation was that Tim was admitting guilt for the accident!  From then on, we tried very hard to say nothing that they could twist to use against him!  It’s hard to console, comfort, advise a loved one when you can’t talk about anything involved!

Sometimes the paid-for and scheduled video visit done from a place other than the jail were fractured, garbled, or not working at all.  The process of getting a refund was tortuous, if it could be done at all.  Another example of the for-profit- incarceration mentality prevalent today.

Imagine sleeping on a dirty floor next to the toilet….

The inmate is assigned a cell with at least one other person.  In Tim’s case, it was with two other people.  The cell was designed for one person and had one fixed cement slab bunk and another temporary bunk.  Tim was forced to sleep on the floor with either his head or his feet against the toilet.  After a few weeks, a space opened and he was placed in a cell with only one other person and in which there were two bunks.  The mattresses are rather like a plastic mat used in daycares for children to nap on.  They are dirty and thin, as are the pillows, if the inmate gets one at all.

Imagine being given dirty clothing and bedding….

The clothing given to inmates when they are taken in to custody is usually dirty, stained, and smelly, as if it had not been laundered at all.  Tim started washing his own clothing after he received underwear with “skid marks” in it.  He also hand washed his bedding, hanging it in his cell to dry.  It’s a pretty hard task to wash sheets and clothes in the tiny sinks in the cells using hand soap or shampoo as laundry detergent!!  He got it done though.  Sometimes the guards would enter the cell and rip it all down, throw it on the floor, walk on it and yell about hanging the stuff in the cell.  Vindictive and punitive!

Imagine having no real shoes….

The “shoes” that are given to the incarcerated are sort of like shower slippers.  They have no support and are very flimsy.  If an inmate wants actual shoes, they have to buy them through the for-profit commissary process at a very steep price.  The money for purchases comes from the inmates “trust” account which is funded by his friends and family.  Many inmates have no one to fund an account and must go without many necessities.

Imagine being charged two to three times normal retail for necessities….

The commissary is another profit center for the county and for third party businesses.  Inmates order from an order sheet, if they have funds in their trust account.  They can order things that they need (soap, shampoo, deodorant, etc.). (Note: the jail provides bare minimum soap, one envelope and stamp per week for those inmates who are indigent).  Inmates with trust account funded by family or friends may buy things that make life better, but at double and triple the retail prices at stores on the outside.  For example, Ramen noodle packages were $1.50 from the commissary system, but could be purchased by you or I for 25 to 30 cents on the outside!  Everything is marked up multiple times the outside retail price.  Again, this county and many others across the country are making money off of the people that it forces into custody and ultimately from their families.  Egregious!!

Imagine that you can’t have any books of your own…….

Inmates are not allowed to receive any items from friends and family except snail mail….no books, no food items, no clothing items, no envelopes, no stamps, no paper and on and on.  All of those things are for sale at a profit for the county and the vendor.  There are used books on a rotating cart that inmates may take to read, however the inventory doesn’t change very often and many books are damaged.  They must buy stamps and paper and envelopes from the commissary.  They are allowed to have a Bible of their own.

Imagine having your mail just disappearing……..

We found mail to be the most troublesome.  Often, letters that Tim wrote were never put into the postal service mail.  Numerous times, letters written to Tim somehow mysteriously never reached him.  When we lodged a complaint, it would get better for a week or two and then the mail would start vanishing again.  Once, Tim took a letter to the duty guard for mailing. The guard looked at it with a sneer and said “OOOOH, a letter to Suzanne, huh?  Wonder if she will get it?”  Almost always, Suzanne did not receive the mail from Tim, and her letters and pictures sent to him disappeared as well.  Sometimes other photographs sent to Tim were snatched, for what use we don’t know.  It is so distressing that the one right that an inmate has, his mail, can be so easily interrupted by the staff for their own amusement.   In my research of facilities, the writings of those incarcerated and writings of their families, this is a common hideous problem across the U.S.

 Imagine having your “home” invaded and trashed……...

 Every few weeks, the guards would work their way through all the cells, searching for contraband, drugs and whatever.  I don’t have a problem with these searches, if they are done in a methodical and respectful way.  They are not.  Many of the guards take great pleasure in throwing all of the property of the inmate on the floor, into the walkway or into the trash and then stomping all over it often ruining it.  On one occasion, Tim’s Tylenol tablets (which he purchased from the commissary) were thrown on the floor.  What kind of people get their pleasure by desecrating what little these inmates have?

Imagine green bologna……

 The food in the ______ County jail is minimal and of very poor quality.  The bologna was often green and smelly and the bread moldy.  Sometimes there were bugs in the food.  The inmates who have someone who funds a trust account can supplement this terrible food with purchases from the commissary.  Those who don’t have anyone on the outside have to eat what they are given and are still constantly hungry.  The food service is contracted out to a third party...again, a profit venture for the county and the vendor!  Do it cheap and make more profit!   Once, an inmate who worked in the kitchen said that they had received a tube of meat that was stamped “not for human consumption.”  Tim often gave some of his food to someone else when it was not something he wanted to put into his body and there were always takers.  On commissary order day, the food portions are particularly minimal which, I suppose, causes inmates to order more high profit food from the commissary.  Those who can’t, spend the day very hungry!  A big profit center for the county and for the vendor.

Imagine having to cut your own hair……

The _______ County jail manual says that inmates can request a haircut and that it will be provided.  That is not the case.  Only once, in the almost two years that Tim was held there, did he get a haircut from a barber.  The rest of the time, he either had to cut his own hair or get another inmate to do it.  Fortunately, sometimes there was another person who was pretty good at it.

 Imagine showering with sewage on the floor……

 The common shower room and toilet facilities were filthy.  Frequently, the sewers backed up and flooded the floor.  Tim got so sick of the filth that he got permission to clean the place and was given cleaning supplies to do it.  It killed some time and made the room better for a short time each day.

 Imagine not seeing the sun for almost two years…..

Inmates are allowed to be outside, sometimes every day.  “Outside” means going out onto a small concrete area on whatever floor on which the inmate’s cell is located.  There is space there for a basketball hoop and a wall that can be used for handball.  Most of the time that Tim was there, his “outside” area had no sun at any time of the year.  Sometimes there were no basketballs or handballs to use.  They were intentionally withheld punitively by the corrections officers.

Imagine being ill and having very substandard healthcare available……

Healthcare is almost non-existent and of poor quality.   Tim suffers from very painful sinus infections.  To treat this, he had to buy Tylenol and saline spray from the commissary which takes a week to receive.  If a medical request is put in, the inmate has to pay a fee for a nurse or other staff to stop by sometime when they are available.   Generally, they do nothing for the inmate. On one occasion, an inmate was scalded by an overturned coffee urn.  It took 4 hours for any medical person to come to attend to his widespread and severe burns.  This is routine in most county jails in the country in which we live.  Heaven help an inmate who had a serious health need.  He/she may or may not get any assistance. 

 Imagine - it's a nightmare wake-up “call”……

The whole county jail experience was a nightmare wake-up call for me and the rest of Tim’s family and friends.  Most of us had no idea how our country treats people who are incarcerated.  Most of us still had the idea that one would be treated decently if minimally.  Jail and prison reform are desperately needed in the United States.  We have the largest percentage of population imprisoned of any developed country in the World!!  Only when one has a loved one or friend in the “justice” system does one realize how primitive and backward and cruel we are toward the incarcerated.  We most often do not rehabilitate…..we punitively punish for the sake of punishment and then wonder why recidivism and suicide are so prevalent.