Art From Within

SITTING DUCKS 

By Bobby Delgado 

Sitting Ducks, wading through water underneath the dorms leaking roofs, waiting to get hit with the Coronavirus, is exactly what prisoners housed in old, debilitating jails, state, and federal prisons are. There is no escaping the virus. The Marshall Project has counted as of October 27, 2020, 161,349 Covid-19 positive tests and 1,017 deaths among prisoners around the country. According to a report by the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, more Texas jail and prison inmates and staff have been infected and killed by Covid-19, than in any other state Criminal Justice System. 

TDCJ response to the alarming report was to remove the daily death count and infections from its website - deliberately setting on a course to keep the prisoner's families in the dark. The website is TDCJ's propaganda tool. In 2017, when Hurricane Harvey struck, and prisoners were evacuated, the website showed prisoners being housed in nice warehouses with double-bunks equipped with all necessities, that is, until a journalist exposed that the video had been taken years before Hurricane Harvey hit. 

Texas is a mess. The issue of overcrowding didn't just start with Covid, but Covid has made overcrowding more starker. Prison overcrowding set the stage for contagion. Before the pandemic, Texas health care system was understaffed and underfunded. If the state's health care system is understaffed and underfunded imagine how TDCJ prison health care system must be. There was no testing. No ventilators. No anti-malarial and anti-bacterial drugs to combat the virus. The only thing the medical staff had in abundance were aspirins, but the demand was so great that they even ran out of them! The nurse’s medical advice was, "Buy them out of commissary." But even that was a problem for most prisoners when Texas doesn't pay prisoners for their labor. To compound the problem, families during quarantine periods couldn't make ecom purchases for their loved ones.

Texas ranks number one in locking up, and in executing its own citizens more than California, New York, and any other state in the nation. So how did Texas get to this point? History shows us. It all started in 1849, when Texas built its first prison, the Walls Unit. 171 years later that old, broken-down prison is still open! In 1854; Texas had 69 convicts. The rate of incarceration crept up at a snail's pace: In 1949; there were 5,098 prisoners, in 1961; 11,463, and in 1987; The Texas inmate population was 38,821, while the U.S. prison population was 584,435. 

Under Democratic Governor, Ann Richards, and her Republican successors, Governors George Bush and Rick Perry, 93 of Texas 112 prisons were built between 1990 and 2008, at a time when crime was decreasing. The prison building craze had nothing to do with increasing crime, but with profits. The state and federal Criminal Justice System had become industrial complexes. At the federal level in 1994, Congress passed former President Bill Clinton's crime bill and in 1995, Congress passed the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) that Clinton signed that made it nearly impossible for prisoners to sue prison officials over the violations of their Constitutional Rights. The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) was signed by Clinton into law on April 24, 1996, limiting the time to file a habeas corpus to one-year. 

Prison growth requires victims: The taxpayers that are going to pay for it, and the prisoners that are going to maintain it. It was a national conspiracy at the federal and state level to incarcerate more of its nation's citizens. But to accomplish that end, legislators would have to get creative in creating new laws, and abolishing old ones, to fill-up the new prisons they were having built. In California, under the new three-strikes law, a third conviction, for even a non-violent crime, was life.

In Mississippi, under the new enhanced, or habitual sentencing laws, prisoners were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for simple possession of marijuana and shoplifting charges. And in Texas, under the new 1994, "aggravated law" excessive prison sentences were handed out for simply scaring someone during the commission of a crime. 

Prisons were initially built for violent, dangerous people, but under Texas enhancement laws, stealing a 65¢ snicker bar from a convenience store earned a man a 16 year prison sentence, stealing a roll of toilet paper from a courthouse restroom earned a woman an 8 year prison sentence, and stealing a $12 fajita meat pack from the supermarket earned a man a life sentence! The U.S. Supreme Court's opinion on the case ruled that the sentence was not "cruel and unusual" punishment.

To top it all off, lawmakers abolished the “good time" law. The earned good time that appears on a prisoner's timesheet today is meaningless when good time no longer shortens a prisoner's sentence, not even by a day. Laws were also changed that made it easier to send back to prison parolees on minor technical parole violations. All these changes and more, contributed to the overcrowding problem.

Prisons today are not for hardened criminals, but mainly for soft criminals that belong in a hospice facility, a drug rehab, or a psyche ward. But since it pays to fill up empty prison beds, the blind, the legless, the wrongfully convicted, the physically and mentally disabled, are all welcomed at the prison's back gate! 

Every department in the Criminal Justice System that has something to gain from mass incarceration plays a role in this national conspiracy. For instance, the governor's appointed parole board members are playing the ratio numbers game. Even the most deserving prisoners eligible for parole won't be paroled if there are beds available. The concept was, you just built the prisons, and we will pass the laws to keep them filled. By 2008, the Texas inmate population had skyrocketed to 160,080 prisoners, while the U.S. Prison population ballooned to 2,319,258. 

king the laws, mainly politicians that profess Christianity as their religion. were in defiance to the laws God established for mankind to live by. "If the thief be found, let him pay double, Exodus 22:7. God's punishment was not imprisonment, but restitution to the victim. In other words, the thief that stole a 65¢ snicker bar would have gone free once he settled his debt of $1.30 with the convenience store owner, or worked out his debt doing a chore for the store owner. God said nothing about imprisoning a thief.

Texas "aggravated law" is also in defiance to God's laws. You rob someone by deceiving him that your toy gun is real, or by extending a finger underneath your shirt pretending you have a pistol and the simple robbery charge is upgraded to an aggravated offense - not all prisoners serving excessive, aggravated sentences are dangerous. Nowhere in God's laws does it permit a crime to be punished more severely because the victim was scared out of his money! Should Halloween be prohibited because people are scared into handing over their candy to children? Our nation's laws disregard God's law's. 

And when we disregard God's laws there are consequences. When state budget crunches hit, as they did during the 2007-09, Great Recession, prisons across the country closed. (In 2010, Texas prison officials, to make-up for a budget shortage of $2.8 million, cut the allotment for meals by replacing milk with powdered milk, and feeding only two meals on weekends at certain units). A 2016, RAND study found 31 states had closed prisons between 2007, and 2012, because of budget restraints. But the RAND study also found that some states after closing prisons, crammed more prisoners into the remaining ones - warehousing prisoners into already overcrowded prisons! 

Texas prisons sit on thousands of acres of land but their prisoners are packed into tiny plots of land no larger than a couple of acres. Prisons, like those around Houston built in flood zones are evacuated every time that a hurricane threatens Texas counties in its path - costing taxpayers millions. 

But today evacuating prisoners in cramped buses, in the midst of a pandemic, as it happened several times in 2020, when a record-breaking number of hurricanes struck the Texas coast, posed yet another kind of threat - the spread of the Coronavirus even deeper into the prison system. 

Overcrowded prisons threaten everybody's health. Before the Covid-19 crisis hit, inmate janitors were provided with only two cleaning agents in, insufficient amounts. Overcrowding had also badly overloaded the water system, hot water that is necessary for cleaning, was unavailable at peak shower-times and in the housing areas. Though health experts during the pandemic emphasized washing, prison officials did the opposite. Prisoners on quarantine are only allowed to shower once every 3rd day, and often had to go without a clean change of outer clothing for a week. The pre-pandemic outbreaks of staph infections, noroviruses, scabies, rashes, and cysts, are directly connected to uncleanness and overcrowding.

Health experts even before the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic had warned that building cramped quarters and unhygienic living conditions could make prisons hot zones for contagion. But in overcrowding lawsuits, federal judges weren't listening to the health experts, but listening to the paid whores that prison officials would call to the witness stand to rubber stamp their shortcomings! The American Correctional Association (ACA) to accommodate already built and cramped American prisons, decreased its own 50 square footage recommendation per inmate in cells holding multiple prisoners to 25 square feet in 2012. The ACA reversal of its 1984, recommended 50 square footage, saved prison officials from having to close prisons already built with 25 square footage cells.

To house the elderly, the sick, and the handicap prison population, dormitory prisons were built. To save money, the dormitory prisons have no chapels, and the contact visitation rooms are small. Visitors that have traveled hundreds of miles, often have to wait outside until room becomes available. The nearly one-thousand men dormitory prisons offer the cheapest way to warehouse prisoners. Each unit has sixteen, 53-men dorms. Each dorm's bathroom has 9-sinks, 4-urinals, and 4-commodes built virtually shoulder-to-shoulder. 

Dayroom space was converted to bed space. No partition separates the two dayrooms from the living area. The dayrooms combined have a total of seven, 4-men benches and two, 4-men tables. Do your math. The combined maximum dayroom capacity was built for 36 prisoners, which means that 21-men in the 53-men dorms don't fit in. And TDCJ policy forbids inmates from sitting on the floor or standing in the dayrooms.

 Each cubicle is separated by four waist-high thin metal walls. On two sides of the walls prisoners live six-inches apart, and prisoners going to and fro on the walkway are separated only by inches. The overcrowding problem is exacerbated by improperly housing disabled, wheelchair bound prisoners, in dorms not built to accommodate their special needs. The dorms resemble slave ships with their human cargo living scarcely inches between them, making social distancing impossible, and mask wearing useless and ineffective.

The early breakouts of viruses like the norovirus served as an early warning to prison heads that they were not equipped to handle a pandemic. They saw it coming and when it got here most of the prison heads largely ignored it. Texas has a population of 29 million and a relatively low Covid-19 infection rate! However it was due to having the lowest testing rate in the nation! As of April 30, 2020, Texas had tested only 1% of its population. Prison employees were not required to wear masks or social distance. There were no employee temperature checks done at the entrance gate, and no testing for the virus. On March 14, 2020, visitation was stopped. But profits took precedence over inmate safety. Work in the factories continued. Prisoners were threatened with disciplinary cases if they refused to work. 

The biggest threat to those taking precautions not to catch the virus were the inmates and staff members who downplayed the seriousness of the virus. Prisoners who fashioned masks from their own personal clothing had them taken away by ranking officers. Texas prison guards weren't mandated to wear masks until April 6. On April 13, prisoners with underlying medical issues were given one layer, prison made, cloth masks to wear. A week later, everybody was given a prison made mask to wear. The guards weren't social distancing, and several of them were lowering their masks down to their chins to talk. 

At the Powledge Unit, a dormitory prison, no safety measures were taken beyond closing the barber shop, bleaching the walls and floors, and suspending the practice of guards pat searching prisoners. The staff made a show of social distancing the prisoners when they stepped out of their cramped living quarters into the main hallway, but it made no sense when they lived together in cramped dorms! No inmate was tested until June 9. Guards without any medical training conducted the test. Amazingly all of the test results came back negative on June 13.

By early August more than 15,000 Texas prisoners and 3,200 staff employees throughout the system had tested positive for Covid-19. 181 prisoners, and 18 staff employees were listed as Coronavirus deaths. There was nothing to celebrate for many of those recovering, when 52% had lost an organ, or a body part, or suffering with bouts of extreme fatigue, memory loss, low sperm count, mental duress or suicidal thoughts. While incarceration alone is depressing, the cancellation of visits, library, and other activities added to the stress. 

The lockdowns only increased stress. During quarantine periods TVs were left on but nobody was allowed into the dayrooms - watching the TVs from a distance was like watching a silent movie with no sound. TV channels like TNT, USA, and TBS show nothing but reruns - at the very least new TV channels could have been introduced to keep the prisoner's minds occupied. Phone use was limited to one fifteen-minute call daily. Cold bagged Johnnies with frozen sandwiches replaced hot meals. Even recreation was canceled. It was boredom extreme.

 During the pandemic lockdowns there was an increase in domestic violence cases among people living beyond the prison fence and an increase in suicide, though they had the luxury to move around the house, talk on the phone, watch TV, and more, that those on lockdown inside the prison didn't have. In Texas, Deputy Inspector General Buttitta's office investigates all prison deaths said, "He'd seen a slight uptick in suicides amid the pandemic”. One inmate in an East Texas prison jumped off the walkway outside his 3rd tier floor cell to his death after learning he had tested positive for Covid-19. 

At the Clements Unit in Amarillo, Comelius Harper, who had a history of severe mental problems, and of trying to kill himself, was hearing voices and refusing to take his psyche meds. Harper's cellmate had nothing to fear from the invisible enemy. It was Harper, serving life without the possibility of parole for killing three people, he was concerned about. Harper killed the 26 year old Silvino Nunez, his cellmate. The awful smell went unnoticed, presumably because the guards wore mask that masked the awful smell. It wasn't until Harper asked a guard to check on his cellmate, that they found he had been dead for 3 days. He had been choked and badly beaten.

 The world has gotten a small taste of what prisoners who have been single-celled, have tasted for decades in isolation! Now imagine how solitary confinement, that's more restrictive, must have been: A completely dark, bare cell, a full meal only on every third day, and absolutely no luxuries. It's baffling to someone like myself that spent nearly a decade in Ad. Seg. and years in solitary confinement to see these tough talking politicians, that created Ad. Seg. and solitary confinement for "others," complain about their constitutional rights being violated! They protest “their” lockdown that is for their own safety! My God, what wimps! They expect others to spend years in lockdown, but they themselves can't even do fifteen days in lockdown without throwing a temper tantrum and filing a lawsuit! 

Prisons are largely made of concrete and steel which absorb the summer heat. Because of this, temperatures inside prisons well after sundown can exceed outdoor temperatures. Due to Covid, respite areas where prisoners could go to escape the heat, were closed. Each dorm has four large fans blowing hot air around. The main hallway has another ten large fans. In late August at the Powledge Unit when temperatures reached 100 degrees, prison officials made two, big stupid mistakes. The first mistake was when pat-down searches resumed to train a dozen new recruits, and the second mistake was made when the dorm across from ours was turned into a quarantine dorm. Guards wearing blue plastic protective gowns would exit the quarantine dorm, and to cool off, stand right in front of a hallway fan! With the large fans blowing hot air everywhere and with feverish, coughing Covid-19 patients across from us, we knew we were sitting ducks! 

On September 4, when the unit inmate population was tested a second time, the results were different. Hundreds of the Covid-19 test results came back positive. A quarantine unit lockdown followed. The young and the elderly, and the healthy and unhealthy, and those serving small, non-violent sentences were not sentenced to death, but some would die because of the prison officials’ stupid mistakes, and slow response, to the spread of Covid-19 in the Criminal Justice System. 

However, the lion's share of the blame for the Covid-related deaths in jails and prisons go back several decades, when governors and lawmakers appropriated money for the construction of overcrowded squalor communal prisons! They then added to the problem by not appropriating any money to adequately staff the prisons they had built! For a century the prisons have been understaffed! Prior to 1983, the prisons had been illegally staffed with inmate-guards, and prior to the pandemic there was a shortage of 4,500 guards. During the pandemic there were more than 5,000 Vacancies out of 26,000 positions. The agency is short of an additional 1,000 correctional officers due to quarantine. Practically, all of the guards are working 16 to 20 hours a day. There are no surveillance security cameras. And because of extreme guard shortages, incompetent guards that would have never been considered for a ranking position, now qualify. Security and safety have been compromised.

Governor Greg Abbott that's responsible for the "safety and well-being” of the prisoners knows - like Silvino Nunez family found out, that he cannot guarantee the prisoner's safety when there is, and always has been, a guard shortage. And neither can the governor guarantee that the safety measures in place will protect the healthy prisoner from catching Covid-19, nor can he guarantee that prisoners infected with the virus will receive the proper medical care! The only sensible option was to release prisoners. But the brain-dead governor did the opposite. Even as the numbers of infections continued to steadily climb systemwide, the Governor, and the parole board he appointed, ignored the thousands of calls and protest to release over 15,000 healthy prisoners, who had been approved for release before the pandemic struck! Releasing them for their own safety, would have also eased overcrowding, lowering the risk of prisoner's contracting the virus.

Governor Abbott's reckless insanity to instead lock all the doors to the burning house, leaving behind grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters to fend for themselves, was the governor's ultimate dereliction of duty to preserve life. Just as Jews were wood for Auschwitz ovens, so were prisoners the wood that would fuel the fires in the communal hot zones. All that the prisoners were waiting for was that one untested Covid-19 carrier to walk through the prison front gates that would ignite the wood and set the place ablaze! 

Texas Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick gives us insight into the elitist mentality. Patrick on Fox News outraged some people when he said, “Senior citizens should be willing to risk a painful death of intubation and fluid-filled lungs in order to get America back to work!" The livelihood of businesses, like his, were of more value than the lives of senior citizens. 

At the highest risk for contracting Covid-19 are the senior citizens. And those who are in the highest category for successfully completing their paroles without re-offending again, are the senior citizens. Parole data shows that 98% of the senior citizens released who served at least ten years in prison went on to live as law-abiding citizens. But for career politicians like Governor Abbott that don't want to appear soft on crime, he chose to keep the door to the burning house locked to even the senior citizens! The end result for some, was death. 

The white privilege class of wealthy, famous, and powerful prisoners in federal VIP, five-star luxury prisons (that are not overcrowded) were being paroled before TV cameras for their safety - the expendables: the poor and powerless in overcrowded prisons were largely ignored. According to the University of California, Los Angeles law, Behind Bars Data Project, more than 16,000 inmates released, or diverted, from local jails and state and federal prisons amounted to less than 1% of the 2.2 million people behind bars in the United States. 

The U.S. Supreme Court is no innocent bystander in the Covid-19 related deaths, but a willing accomplice, who for decades systematically dismissed prisoner's lawsuits challenging prison overcrowding, understaffing, and unhygienic living conditions. Most recently, Texas prison officials, after being ordered by federal District Judge Keith P. Ellison, to provide testing, masks, soap, and sanitizer to prisoners at the Pack One Unit, where over 20 inmates had died, appealed. The prisoners weren't asking to be released, but only asking for the tools necessary to protect themselves. In November, the Republican majority of 5th Circuit Court Justices declined to order state officials to beef up safety measures. That the daily increase of infections and Covid related deaths would continue to rise, were as foreseeable as they were preventable. 

In December, Texas surpassed the million mark for Covid-19 infections and surpassed 25,226 confirmed Covid-19 deaths - the 2nd highest death count overall in the U.S., trailing only New York, according to researchers from John Hopkins University.

 On December 10, when temperatures dipped down to 30°, forty-one Covid-19 sick prisoners of all ages at the Powerledge Unit, were moved to the cold gym and placed under quarantine. The unit is dangerously overcrowded, so the men are sleeping on mattresses placed on the floor. The men suffering from symptoms, like diarrhea, share one commode and three urinals. Mistakes previously made keep repeating themselves, and with the head warden on quarantine, most of the unit went on lockdown again on December 31. As one guard put it, “There's only one guard for every 200 prisoners, because everybody is dropping off like flies!" Isn't this evidence of "cruel and unusual" punishment? Proof that if the high court and newly elected politicians don't change the direction in which the wind is blowing, that the next pandemic will prove to be even more deadly? 

Because of the recession and severe budget restraints prisons have closed nationally. TDCJ has now for the first time dropped below 100 prisons. TDCJ can still safely close another forty prisons and reduce the inmate population by another 55,000. As of this writing 220 Texas prisoners and 36 TDCJ employees have died and another 22,000 have been infected with Covid-19. Thousands that have recovered will never be the same. Due to pre-existing guard and nurse shortages, overcrowding, and unsanitary living conditions in Texas prisons, will the number of infections and Covid related deaths, daily continue to rise in the Criminal Justice System if the wind keeps blowing in the same direction.