In a process known as Dry Celling prisoners suspected of swallowing contraband or stashing it in their anus are locked into a cell to which all water has been turned off so the toilet will not flush and liquid intake can be controlled by supervising guards. Confinement in the dry cell continues until the prisoner produces a quantity of feces satisfactory to assure the guards that either the contraband is expelled or did not exist to begin with.
Variations in the dry celling process include the use of closed-circuit cameras to constantly servail the prisoner, stripping the cell of the mattress and bedding and the prisoner of all clothing, and, sometimes, the use of chains and cuffs to keep the prisoner tightly restrained.
The subject matter alone may be distasteful to the average reader, but variations in the above scenario typically used by guards in the for-profit, privately owned prison housing Alaska's exiled prisoners warrants attention and some manner of response.
At the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) facility in Florence Arizona, prisoners are dry celled by being stripped naked, given a five-gallon plastic bucket, and locked into a 4 foot by 4 foot bar-fronted and ceramic tiled shower stall. Since the shower stall is located near an outer door, temperatures can sometimes fall to 45-50 degrees.
In one instance, guards who were unconvinced of a prisoners innocence refused to release the prisoner from those conditions for more than 13 hours, refusing to release him until he provided another, then yet another clean bowel movement.
The prisoners father, hearing of the incident, contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI restricted their investigation to speaking only to prison officials and that one prisoner refusing to interview other prisoners with similar experiences and concluded that the incident was a solitary occurrence and that no violations of the prisoners civil rights had taken place.
The FBI are not the only ones turning a deaf ear and blind eye to the plight of Alaska's out-of-state prisoners. The Department of Corrections has no on-sight presence at CCA and complaints about conditions to Corrections officials during pre-planned quarterly visits go unheeded. Most insidious of all, attempts to seek redress in the courts have found the Arizona and Alaska State Courts and the Federal District Courts all refusing to accept jurisdiction over CCA's private prison operation and complaints of abuse so prisoners continue to languish.