There was a problem last week in one of the mods in my housing unit (a Module consists of 20 cells, housing 40 prisoners; a House consists of 8 Modules, housing a total of 320 prisoners). As prison protests go, it hardly amounted to a wee skirmish, a bit of door banging and angry shouting. But, the prisoncrats running this Corrections Corporation rent-a-prison decided to make an example of them and locked the mod down for three days.
Apparently, an Alaska prisoner had the audacity to ask for a roll of toilet paper after his issue, of two rolls per week, ran out. The usual process in that situation requires that you take your last empty roll out to the guards' station and trade it for a full roll. This time, however, the Sergeant on duty, when asked for a roll, simply said "No." Undaunted, the prisoner insisted that he needed a roll of toilet paper and was supposed to be supplied with toilet paper. This reportedly resulted in the Sergeant's terse reply, "I don't have any- Deal with it."
"Well, from there the situation deteriorated. The 'insubordinate' prisoner ends up going to the hole, other prisoners begin banging on the doors and windows and, of course, there was the expected shouting of denigrating, but oh-so-satisfying, epithets. Then, everybody's locked in their cells for the next several days. As part of the routine response, some cells get torn up by rent-a-guards to demonstrate everyone's proper station in life. No recreation. No phones. No Showers. Oh, and no toilet paper, either.
So, who is wrong here? The business manager and corporate sycophant, buying the cheapest, poorest quality, and the smallest rolls of toilet paper available? The prisoncrat, who invented the two roll per week limit? The prisoner, who couldn't make two rolls last a week? Or, the supervising line screw, who couldn't resist the urge to goad him into some response?
I cannot make claim to objectivity. On one hand, nearly thirty years of struggling to develop my spiritual nature inclines me to ask all parties to reason out a solution to the problem. On the other hand, as a prisoner for all those years, and having actually been DOCKED a roll of toilet paper one week, because I had asked for a roll when my two roll issue ran out, I also want - very badly - to speak the Word: "Revolution!"
The lives of Alaska's prisoners, no, of all prisoners in America, have become harder and more desperately dehumanizing in the past three decades of my experience. Sentences have doubled, tripled, and even quadrupled. Prisons have become dangerously overcrowded. And, the words 'rehabilitation' and 'reformation' have been lost in a dialogue of incapacitation, punishment, and retribution. Less attention is given to how prisoners will earn a living wage, while living sober, productive lives when they get out, than assuring that the time spent in prison is as retaliative, miserable, and crippling as possible/ through 'no-frills' legislation and mean-spirited program budget cutting. And, crippled they are: statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice reveals that 67.5% of all prisoners released, return to prison within three years - and Alaska's recidivism rate is significantly higher.
Who was wrong? In the end, blame cannot be an issue, solving the problem must be. As bad as things may be, they have been much worse at various times and places; I believe toilet paper was an issue at Attica, and it took the kind of violence that occurred in that hell-hole to bring what was actually happening in their prisons to the attention of the American public. As glib as it sounds, sometimes you just have to fight...for your right...to wipe.
Anthony L. Brown 7/1/5 CCA/FCC