Going To Jail As Solidarity

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Going to Jail as Solidarity by Steve Clemens. June 27, 2014

I spent 20 hours on the boundary between discomfort and pain. I thought of Martin Luther King writing about redemptive suffering and offered my time in the noisy, cold, boring void of the Polk County Jail on behalf of my despondent and discouraged friends in Afghanistan.

I had watched a nearly 4 minute video Hakim had made of my friends Abdulhai, Faiz, and Zekerullah in Kabul before I left for the second day of our drone protest trial. I wept as I heard the despair they experienced in the wake of the recent election run-off and the continued violence and terror in their occupied nation. Listening to and watching them helped me make the decision to take the road less traveled –well, less traveled by most, except the Catholic Workers. Who else would choose 48 hours in jail over paying a $100 fine?

I had a premonition of what was to come well before the jury returned with its verdict when the Judge ruled he would not allow a Jury Instruction to include the words “without justification” in the charge of Criminal Trespass, despite the wording of the law as passed by the legislature, before the lunch break on the second day of trial. I took off my wedding band and placed it on the key ring with my car’s remote and my house key. As soon as I was found guilty, I gave Frank Cordaro, my friend from the Des Moines Catholic Worker, my iPad, cell phone, keys, wallet, comb, notebook and pens I had used during the trial so I wouldn’t have to book them into “property” at the jail – after quickly texting my wife that I was headed to jail.

I must admit this wasn’t the first time I’ve chosen jail over paying a fine or doing community service without talking to Christine first. I had at least told her it was a possibility - if the sentence was fewer than 72 hours -because I wanted to be able to continue donating blood platelets every two weeks. Jail time for more than 72 hours would mean I couldn’t donate blood again for a year. 

At the last moment before being hustled out of the courtroom I remembered I still was wearing my hearing aids so I handed them to fellow defendant Elliott Adams (who had agreed to pay the fine) to give them to Frank. It is a good thing I kept my Driver’s License since the paperwork generated from the court on my sentencing listed my name as “Douglas Clemens Stephen.” Might be good to have my proper ID to get out of jail on Thursday late afternoon!

We were escorted out of the courtroom by Polk County Sheriff deputies, taken to the lower level of the courthouse, were padded down, surrendered our belts, everything from our pockets (including my “Get out of jail Free” card from the Monopoly Game), handcuffed us, attached a waist chain to the cuffs and added leg shackles on our ankles. We shuffled off to a waiting police transport van with two opposite benches in the rear compartment. The three women had been separated from us in the courtroom so Eddie Bloomer and I ducked and shuffled up and into the van to join two other male inmates who were returning to the jail after court appearances. Noticing my dressier clothes (I had already removed my necktie and given it to Frank), they asked me if I was in for a DWI (Driving while intoxicated). 

When I told the men I was headed for jail for protesting Drones, the first reaction was “You must be one of the Illuminati!” When I laughed as said I wasn’t sure what that was, the guy said, “Of course you would deny it if you were one of them!” As the conversation continued with what military drones were and that the protest was organized by the Catholic Worker, his face lit up and he told us his brother used to go over to that place. He, too, had eaten meals there. And when Eddie told them he had been living and working at the Des Moines Catholic Worker for more than 20 years, I knew we had just made two allies on the inside.

However, when we arrived at the jail, they had us separated from the other two. They had already received either the two-toned green or the orange-and-white outfits with “Polk County Jail” prominently stenciled on both the pants and shirt. They shuffled into one area while Eddie and I, still in our street clothes –minus our belts – were placed into what felt like a refrigerated holding area after our leg irons were removed. We remained handcuffed to our waist chains for this first stop into the bowels of the belly of the beast. It was a room about 12’ x 20’ with concrete benches attached to the two outside walls which were deep enough to lay down. In the corner was the requisite stainless steel sink/toilet combo. Cement floors, cement block walls on three sides with a large glass window on the fourth, brightly lit – this was where we remained over the next 2 ½ hours as others came and joined us. They removed one handcuff so we could eat our supper of 2 hot dogs with rolls, cooked peas, coffee cake, and milk. We each told a guard if we had any medical issues (and that we weren’t suicidal) and then just waited and waited. Eddie and I made a good team together – he told me what to expect as he’d been locked up here for civil resistance many times – and I helped him pull up his way-oversized jeans that he wore from the Catholic Worker donation box. Without a belt and with such baggy pants, the guard had placed the waist chain through a back belt loop and they constantly made his pants sag in such a way that he’d be welcomed at a hip-hop convention. This for a Veteran in his late 60s!

Next, we were herded into a large area where our cuffs and chains were finally removed, we surrender our street clothes and got orange jumpsuits, brown boxers and a T-shirt, socks, and a 3” toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, and a comb. We had already received bright orange plastic shower shoes at the jail section of the courthouse so at least we were fashionably coordinated!

Eddie and I briefly saw co-defendant Michele Naar Obed across the room in her two-toned green outfit; no sight of the other two women she left the courtroom with. After our photos were taken, Eddie and I were separated for the duration. He told me to try to get a roll of toilet paper to use as a pillow and I was grateful for his advice.

I was placed in a 9x11 cell with a stainless toilet/sink, a 3’ high partial block wall along its side for minimal privacy, and an 8” raised  cement “bench” that was 2’x5’ where another inmate was trying to sleep in a fetal position with his blanket. (Each of us was told to grab one blanket as we entered this cell.) Throughout the next 17 ½ hours up to 7 other men came and went with most of the time leaving 4 of us in this cell with no mattresses, a bright florescent light overhead, and our blanket. I claimed the white painted “bench” after the first guy got bonded out and tried to make do with the roll of toilet paper he had been using.

It was cold, noisy, and the bright light was constantly on. One inmate was singing loudly next door; another screaming curses and obscenities at the guard because he claimed he hadn’t gotten his phone call. All night long the heavy metal doors opened and slammed shut, people coming and going, and you could hear the guards chatting away loudly outside the cell door. I was miserable. I was cold, I ached. It was impossible for me to sleep but some of the others were soon snoring loudly.

But I kept thinking of the privations and challenges of my friends in Afghanistan to put my plight into perspective. I had selfishly hogged the toilet paper “pillow” for the night hours. About midnight I was told to see the nurse about my medical history and then back again to my cell. I was disappointed that it was only midnight after seeing a clock en route – I assumed at least several more hours had elapsed. I couldn’t read the clock from the cell as the time crawled on slowly.

While struggling to remain warm, trying to nap on the hard concrete with my aching muscles and bones, I thought of my toilet paper pillow as not much better than the rock the Biblical Jacob used during his vision of the ladder rising to heaven. I didn’t have a dream as vivid or insightful but what went through my mind, over-and-over-again, was the song “By Breath” by the perceptive and passionate Sara Thomsen. “By breath, by blood, by body, by spirit – we are all one …” It connected me to the Afghan Peace Volunteers and my co-defendants – now in other cells. Ruth Cole had so insightfully answered the Prosecutor when asked if she felt in “imminent danger” while standing outside the gate at the Iowa National Guard base. She boldly stated she couldn’t separate her “body” from the bodies of all others around the world who were being threatened by drones.

Breakfast came about 5:30 AM as the cell door opened and we were handed a molded plastic tray with Froot Loops, milk, OJ, two pieces of bread and two tubes of peanut butter. Finally, after lunch, 20 hours after being taken into custody, I was cuffed and chained again and told I was to be taken to “BarneyLand”, my next stop in the belly of the beast we call the Prison-Industrial-Complex.

Remembering Ladon Sheats, Peacemaker

Ladon Sheats, Presente! By Steve Clemens. August 2012

It is now 10 years that have gone by since my friend and mentor Ladon Sheats passed over to the other side after a brief but significant battle with an aggressive cancer at age 68. Shepherded through hospice care by my friends Ched, Catholic Workers, and many others, his body was buried in a simple hand-dug grave similar to his own mentor, Clarence Jordan. Ched told me how an eagle flew overhead during their service, a sign of welcome for this gentle peacemaker to the great cloud of witnesses.

My first encounter with Ladon Sheats was during my week of orientation in Akron, PA in September 1974 for my up-coming year of Voluntary Service with Mennonite Central Committee. After spending my summer in rural Mississippi with MCC and MDS (Mennonite Disaster Service), my friend and neighbor Walton Hackman asked me if I was willing and interested in spending a year volunteering at the MCC Peace Section's Washington, DC office on Capitol Hill. Just weeks earlier President Nixon had resigned in disgrace as the Watergate scandal exposed the rot at the center of our national government.

Ladon was on a speaking trip from his home at Koinonia Farm outside Americus, GA and he spoke with passion (and compassion) and conviction. He showed a multi-media presentation using two slide projectors, music by cassette tape, and his spoken narrative which contrasted the values of "The Kingdom of God" and that of America in the final years of the war against the people of Vietnam. Quoting liberally from Clarence's "Cotton Patch" translation of the New Testament, Ladon showed and told us that the American values of "rugged individualism" (exemplified by a photo of John Wayne and Simon & Garfunkel's song, “I Am A Rock"), materialism, and militarism were thoroughly contradicted by the values put forth my Jesus about the Kingdom of God. Interdependence, cooperation and sharing, and compassion with nonviolence were the marks of a radical follower or disciple of the Man From Nazareth – what a contrast with America’s values!

As the slide projector screen flashed pictures of Madison Avenue ads, lynchings of black men and boys, napalm and bombs being dropped from the skies over Indo-China, I could hear Ladon weeping as he told us we had to Choose which values we would live by. The song by Cat Stevens, "Father and Son" played in the background with the refrain "It's not time to make a change, just relax, take it easy; you're still young, it's not your fault, there's so much you have to go through" : the voice of the father trying to salvage for his son the remnants of the crumbling American Dream. But the son tells him, "I have to go away."

Ladon's passion was so great because of what he had given up when he left the corporate ladder-climbing as an up-and-coming executive of IBM (today we'd say he was punching his ticket to enter the 1%) to move to southwest Georgia to be part of a small, struggling inter-racial community committed to economic sharing, nonviolence, racial reconciliation, service to others, and "simple living" as an expression of Christian discipleship.

It was the first time I had heard about Koinonia Partners and the experiment in Christian intentional community that Ladon told us Clarence Jordan had described as a "demonstration plot" of what living out the values of God's Kingdom could look like. It created such a strong impression in this life of a young man about to turn 24 the next month that I moved there as soon as my 1-year commitment in Washington was complete.

I didn't encounter Ladon again until the following March when we shared a jail cell together for the 5-6 hours it took to book us for our arrest on the lawn of the White House in what was to be the last mass arrest of the Vietnam War. There were 61 of us including Liz Macalister, Dan Berrigan, Jim Peck, and Dick Gregory - but it was Ladon Sheats who helped bolster my courage that day in my first attempt to risk arrest for the sake of the Gospel and it's values.

What I discovered (and later re-discovered 6 years later when we spent a week together in a 6-person cell in a county jail in Amarillo, TX after praying inside the fence of the plant that was the final assembly point for all US nuclear weapons) was that Ladon's intensity as a nonviolent resister melted into a joking, hilarious cell mate who loved to relax and laugh.

Many of my friends told me they found Ladon too intense, too serious, always challenging himself and others to "take the next steps" in nonviolent resistance to the American way of death - but had they shared a cell with him, they could have discovered a whole different dimension to him. I think it was because he knew he was in the place where he knew he should be. He had learned from Clarence Jordan that if you hadn't been called a "communist" or had your life threatened, you probably weren't following the Jesus he experienced in the pages of the Bible.

After spending many 1-year sentences for nonviolent resistance in Federal Prison, Ladon would go to the monastery in Snowmass, CO to have time to pray, reflect, and gain strength for the next witness for peace. He often traveled around the country visiting friends and working odd jobs like house painting to earn some of the little money he needed. All his possessions were in his backpack.

One of my favorite memories was when he came through Minneapolis after our family had moved here and my sons were still quite young. I had a wordless children's story book called "The Great Escape" which showed a very determined prisoner escaping from his jail cell or prison over and over again. Ladon would have Zach sitting on his knee while Micah looked on from the side as Ladon turned the pages and together the three of them would make up the stories of this intrepid resister.

Ladon was a man of compassion. Gentle. Humble. With a clear vision of a call to be a Peacemaker. 10 years have passed. I miss him deeply, yet he is ever-present. Ladon Sheats, Presente!

My Day-To-Day Report on My Time in Jail

Report From Inmate # 00712398 by Steve Clemens. June 26-July 2, 2012

(Note: this is written stream-of-consciousness style each day from my cell)

Day 1, Tuesday (June 26, 2012) Cell number 165 on the first level of A Unit at the Hennepin County “Workhouse” (technically the Adult Corrections Facility but I’m not sure how much “correcting” they plan for me) is smaller than what I remember from my sojourn here 10 years ago. This cell is only 6’ wide and just less than 8’ long with a stainless steel toilet (sans a seat) and a porcelain sink mounted to the wall that diminishes some of the precious floor space. The wall-mounted “table” and “seat” are really just 12” wide shelves that also jut into the space not taken up by the metal bunk.

Each cell has a 3’ fluorescent light mounted against the wall and ceiling opposite the bars and sliding door and there are two settings: bright for reading and a dimmer setting on all through the night which is also the default setting when the bright function isn’t activated. Two sheets, 2 blankets, and a pillow case were issued by the dressing officer along with a “hygiene bag” of small bottles of shampoo, deodorant, a plastic razor, comb, cheap flimsy toothbrush and toothpaste. Someone has a sense of humor: the brand of shampoo and deodorant is “Maximum Security”. My cell overlooks an 8’ wide walkway with a view of 2 blocked up window openings. (When I’m able to get out of the cell the next day, I discover that the windows on the second and third tier above me are obscured glass so you can at least see if it is daylight or not if you are on those levels.)

The dressing officer would not let me keep my Bible since it is hard-cover “and could be thrown from the 3^rd tier and injure someone” – even though my cell assignment clearly shows my cell to be on the first tier/floor. I was able to convince him to allow me to keep two pencils and some sheets of paper – provided I rip them out of the tablet. My stick pens, toothbrush, and my sneaker-type shoes are not allowed despite the sign which says “ask if your shoes can be worn inside” on the wall of the holding area outside the dressing room. (I later discover many inmates have their own shoes – not significantly different than mine. The officer didn’t even look at mine before saying “no”.

The dressing room officer was in a hurry since he told us a “big group” was arriving soon so I assume that is why David and I didn’t have to take a shower and undergo a strip search like everyone else does. David had to undress in front of the officer; he didn’t even look at me while trying to rush through the process. After telling me I couldn’t keep my own shoes, I am issued sneakers with absolutely no arch or support whatsoever. I now have a one-piece jump suit with metal snaps and AFC stenciled on the back and stretched out underwear briefs and socks. 

Although I have a letter from my primary care physician documenting my need for ibuprofen for back pain, the tablets I brought were placed in my property bag with my street clothes and Bible and I was told that the doctor’s papers would be sent to the medical office – but they had not arrived down the 60’ hallway during the hour I sat outside that office awaiting my “physical”. It consists of height, weight, blood pressure, pulse and oxygen level, and a TB skin test since I will be there for 7 days or longer. Questions to be sure I’m not suicidal are asked – better asking me now rather than after a few mostly sleepless nights!

Since my Bible has been deemed verboten, I write down all the names of my Iraqi and Afghan friends that I could remember for my prayer list for the week. (I had written them in my Bible so I wouldn’t inadvertently leave someone out.)

It was wonderful to have a group of 30 friends in a circle together to bless David and me before we walked to the front of the jail to report in by 11 AM. We had first gathered at a remaining ATK site in Plymouth for a half hour before driving to the Workhouse. We had our community circle for singing and sharing at both locations. Roger brought his fiddle and Sr. Jane played “the only song she knows” on the harmonica as we sing along. Susu lit some sage and each person had an opportunity to say something before David and I stepped into the center of the circle for our traditional singing of “Rainbow Person” followed by a song Tom and Pepperwolf learned in Columbia where peace and justice advocates sing, “Courage brothers, you do not walk alone; We will walk with you and sing your Spirit home.” If only all prisoners were so blessed with a group of friends and supporters before walking into jail or prison!

I’m so grateful that Christine and Zaq were able to be part of this send-off. (I feel greedy in that I already had a blessing/send-off from my faith community, The Community of St. Martin, at the end of worship on Sunday evening.) Another long-time peace activist I lived with in Georgia more than 35 years ago called me from a speaking trip in California last night hoping to catch me before jail and wish me well.

We were given a bag lunch of an apple and two white bread sandwiches with meat and cheese while awaiting the dressing officer. Supper is delivered to my cell: canned green beans, 3 small biscuits, 2 scoops of mashed potatoes with tiny pieces of chicken in a gravy, a half of a canned pear and two cups of Kool Aide-type fruit “juice”.

The jail has a for-profit medical service named Corizon. One of their staff – likely a nurse but I hadn’t seen her before – goes by about 10 PM to ask if we are “alright” and to deliver meds to those on this tier. I should ask for earplugs (although I know the request would be useless) because the talking between cells is incessant. It makes it a real challenge to think, read, meditate or pray. The talking is loud because all cells face the outside brick wall and the sounds just reverberate from them.

I’ve felt chilled ever since David and I checked in at 11 – so cold I had put on my long-sleeved shirt before I had to surrender it to the dressing officer. The air conditioning must be set for the comfort of the guards and staff who obviously have clothing better suited than us. I thought when I was issued 2 “blankets” that at least one could help bulk up the pathetic excuse for a “pillow” or could be used to brace the small of my back while sleeping but I think I’d need at least one to rap around me even while sitting in my cell to keep from getting really cold. The “blankets” are more the consistency of flannel sheets than a real blanket that I had been issued in other jails and prisons.

Here is another new wrinkle: at the booking desk after my photo and electronic scan of my fingertips, I’m told there is a $30 “booking charge that comes out first of any inmate funds on the books.” I had brought in $40 so I might be able to buy some candy bars at commissary to give to other guys as a thank you for a kindness or other courtesies. (I learn the next day that all “canteen” requests must be made on Sundays for a Tuesday or Wednesday delivery so I couldn’t buy anything anyway.) Seems our society finds ways to “nickel and dime” inmates wherever possible. I’m told that any medications are charged to the inmate as well as anytime one requests to see the doctor. Next time I’ll have to consider getting locked up in a nation which has universal health care coverage!

Since I have nothing to read I called out to some inmates (aka “residents”) who walked by my cell with some books on top of a vacuum-like device, asking them if I could get me a book or two. One of them handed me a James Patterson novel from the Women’s Murder Club series so I spent most of the evening alternating between reading and napping. (I have no idea what time it is since I can’t see a clock but I discover if I look out my bars on an angle, I can see an opaque window down the cellblock to see if it is dark yet.

I continued reading in the middle of the night when my sore back wouldn’t let me sleep until a guard came by at what I guessed to be 2:30 AM with an armful of books and said, “These were dropped off for you last week [by the librarian] and I’m glad to get these off my desk.” What a treasure trove: A Testament of Hope and A Call To Conscience by Martin Luther King, Jr., Pillar of Fire and At Canaan’s Edge by Taylor Branch, and Master of the Senate by Robert Caro. All together, a stack of books nearly a foot high!

Day 2, Wednesday. Breakfast in my cell consists of 3 slices of white bread toast, about 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, golden graham cereal and 8 ounces of 2% milk. I pass two of the pieces of bread to cell 164 after asking him if he wanted it. [I later learned his name and he told me he’d gladly take any extra food since he wanted to put on some weight.]

The CO (Corrections Officer or guard) tells me I must be here on this tier for a minimum of 36 hours and “clear medical” before being moved “upstairs” into general population. We are told we will also be able to get a towel and take a shower by 1:30 PM. Orientation upstairs is conducted for 6 of us who came in yesterday and on our tier. (David and the other guy we were booked with aren’t in our group). Different staff go over some rules and regulations, give us a reading comprehension test; we meet a Chaplain, Chemical Dependency person, etc. Most of the programs they offer won’t apply to me because it takes over a week to get put on the list to participate. I would have tried to attend one of the Bible study groups just to see what it is like but apparently you can’t do that if you are here only 7 days. (How will I ever be “corrected” if I’m not here long enough to be part of their “programs”?) The automatic “good time” for 10 days limits my stay to 7 days unless I’m “written up” by a staff member for rule infractions like more than 5 books or magazines, more than the allotted clothes, sheets, towels, excessive cursing (never enforced while I’m around!), food in your room from the dinning area, …

Lunch in my cell (room service!) consists of cup of vegetable soup (with only 2-3 small pieces of actual vegetables, 2 packs of saltines, some cucumber slices in a dressing, a 5” pizza, and ½ pt. of milk. We are let out of our cells for 45 minutes to get a shower at the end of the tier (right in front of the guard station), a change of clothes, walk in the hallway, and/or make collect phone calls from the 3 phones on the wall. I am able to get a T-shirt and that really helps keep me warmer.

Supper is 2 hot dogs in rolls, baked beans, ½ of canned peach, and 2 cups of Kool Aide.  I finish A Call to Conscience, a collection of MLK’s speeches and continue with my other books about and by King. The story behind “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” is fascinating. It was almost totally ignored in the mainstream media until a month or two later when the school children starting filling up the jails in that Alabama city. When Sheriff Bull Connor released attack dogs and water cannon on grade school and high school children, finally some press started to pay some attention. I sleep only intermittently my second night.

Day 3, Thursday. Breakfast is a reprise of golden graham cereal with ½ pt. of milk, a bagel (not NY style!) with jelly (not fruit preserves) and a canned plum. I’m hoping there is a little more nutrition once we hit general population today. Last night was another rough night. When I begin to drift off to sleep, the inmate from a cell or two down from me (it’s hard to tell) starts singing – first a Bee Gees song, followed by several others by Paul Simon, and other artists I don’t know. Not too bad in quality but I really hadn’t decided to attend a concert that evening. Another inmate several cells in the other direction screams “Shut the fuck up!” several times during each number. After the concert petered out, someone started yelling for a hammer. (Was he off his meds?) It took about an hour or more for the yelling back and forth to subside.

The nurse handing out meds said she’d be back before she got to my cell but then didn’t return. The nurse this AM told me he knew I had an order for ibuprofen but only gave me 400 mg and said I could keep it for tonight. I doubt that ½ my normal dose will help very much. The 1 ½” plastic mattress and the pathetic pillow (1” x 8” x14”?) don’t cushion the steel bunk very much so I double the mattress by my head and use one of the blankets to wedge against the small of my back to ease the pain. As it is, I get no more than 15 minutes before I need to turn to another position. Every couple of hours I sit up or get up and pace the cell (3 steps, turn, 3 steps) to loosen my back and leg muscles. At least about 7 AM I’m able to have my first, partial bowel movement on the cold stainless-steel toilet – first in 47 hours. I feel like I’ve accomplished something. (Jail expectations aren’t very high.)

I wish I had tried to bring in my Muslim prayer beads that I bought in Baghdad in December 2002. I used them after the war started 3 months later when I went to pray for an hour every weekday in Senator Coleman’s office as I fasted for the first 35 days of the war. Somehow the tangible beads gives me a better connection with the Iraqis  (and Afghans) I pray for. I doubt the guards would allow me to bring them in but I should have at least tried.

I’m waiting for our cellblock officer to tell us we will be moving to general population this morning. If I get to the second or third tier I might be able to see if it is daylight outside or maybe see the clock which is visible from about 4 of the 16 cells on the two upper tiers.

Reading Pillar of Fire, I’m reminded how easy I’ve had it with all my arrests. Other than handcuffs too tight, pepper spray in the air, or trying to get in and out of the narrow space (for me) of a cop car or paddy wagon while handcuffed from behind, I at least have not yet been clubbed, bitten by K-9 dogs, or had my life threatened by angry mobs. Well, I was concerned when “trained” security guards pointed their automatic weapons at me and screamed to stop in Texas 31 years ago. It gives me all the more respect for the courage of Bob Moses, Diane Nash, James Bevel and the thousands who joined them in the deep South, Chicago, LA, and other battlegrounds for civil rights.

I wouldn’t call being in here “suffering” per se. The feeling is more discomfort and definitely being out of “control” of one’s own schedule, meals, dress, and even movement. It is the sense of uncertainty, the unknown, being at the mercy of others – be it orders from the guards or the inability to remove oneself from the idiosyncrasies of other inmates. Clearly some here have mental health issues and regulating medications becomes more complex here with new charges to see a doctor or nurse practitioner as well as charges for medication. Certainly mental health concerns are exacerbated in here. The Native American a couple of cells west of me was grunting and screaming about 6 AM giving orders to someone else (maybe there was a medical person with him or he was just hallucinating) yelling for a sledgehammer. I think the calls last for a hammer (non-sledge?) last night were from a cell in the other direction. But who knows? Maybe my own ability to discern directions (or reality?) is hampered in here.

The concert from the next cell continues. Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone; followed by Slip Slidin’ Away, Ventura Highway. The singer is cell 164, an African-American I finally met when we got out for a shower; the guy who asked for my extra toast yesterday. Lunch is ¼ baked chicken, white rice with gravy, cooked broccoli, 3 slices of white bread and ½ pt. of milk. I was hoping this meal would be in the dining hall but I haven’t been moved yet.

The wait continues. We are able to sweep and mop our cell during our 1-hour shower/rec time. We are able to get a change of clothes as well. Supper is chicken salad with 5 slices of white bread (as usual I pass virtually all my bread to my musical friend), a tiny salad with a piece of lettuce and 3 cuke slices, cherry Kool Aide and ½ of a canned peach. We also got a new batch of inmates for this “holding” area which one of the officers describes as a “48 hour hold”. Since it is now 6 PM, it is going on 55 hours for me. The CO did confirm that my “out date” is July 2. The new guys always seem to be excessively loud – and the loudest group is now next-door in cells 166,7, and 8, I think. I wish medical handed out earplugs but I did score two more ibuprofen which I save for tonight.  

People whose personalities are annoying on the outside are downright obnoxious and aggravating in here. I’ve heard enough talk of “bitches” and my Baby Mama” to last me a lifetime and they’ve only been in this cellblock for an hour or so. The noise level is painful – several decibels louder than the first two nights in this slammer. I’m hoping for a visit so I can get a respite. It is difficult to read because of the continuous rapping and yelling.

Day 4, Friday. A relatively decent sleep last night – must have been the ibuprofen I got yesterday. After the shouted trivia game ended (about 11 PM?), things quieted down considerably and except for the guards walking up and down the hallway on a regular basis and going in and out of the door to this unit, it was calm enough to try to sleep. It is quite disorienting to never know what time it is but looking out the bars on a severe angle I can see it is finally daylight outside. It could be 5:30 or 7AM. I haven’t had breakfast delivered yet and I think that happens about 7:30 or 8. Hope (again) to get moved today but I’ll just have to wait and see. Part of the jail experience is to remind you who is in control – and it’s not me.

A guard threatened the 3-4 new guys who were rapping at such an awful loud rate that they needed to shut up or they would be shipped to segregation because the guys on tiers 2 and 3 were workers and needed their sleep. So I had about ½ hour of relative calm before that trivia questions started – and, of course, the only way to be heard was to shout out one’s answer or question. Since none of us can see each other and we’re spread over a cellblock about 100’ long, shouting seems to be the preferred form of communication when not face-to-face.

A paper was put on the bars of my cell overnight which informs me that I won’t be classified (for approved work inside or out) because my sentence is too short. You need to be classified Level I to work outside the jail or Levels II or III to get a job inside here or on the immediate grounds. Most guys who work outside are kept in Unit A because it is supposed to be quieter. I’m hoping if I’m moved that I’ll stay in this unit but, again, I’ll have to wait and see.

Typical prison bureaucracy: nurse told me today I had no “order” for ibuprofen and refused to give me any despite that fact that 3 others had already done so. Breakfast is 3 slices of white toast, 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, ¾ cup of rice krispies, ½ pt. of milk, and 3 halves of canned apricots. Hopefully those who work get more sustenance than we get.

Moving day! Finally! I moved across the big central hallway to cell 464 on the B Unit. I’m still on the first tier and still on the south side of the building. My mattress looks relatively new (a full 2”?) and my seat-less toilet is a Kohler porcelain model. My cell is the same size with a mirrored image of my first one with the steel bunk on the west side and the shelf-like seat and table on the east. There are opaque windows outside my cell so I’ll be able to tell daylight from night without getting out of my bunk. The noise level is definitely louder during the day since most of the workers are in the other unit. There is an older African-American in the next cell who is already counseling one of the younger inmates next to him. It is 11 AM and I’m more than half way through my stay here.

The announcements over the loudspeaker are loud and too garbled for me to understand. Someone said something about “personal time” but if it is already 11, I doubt if we’ll get out before lunch. I’m hoping to find a pencil sharpener. Well, something new (for me). I thought getting into general population would mean getting (better) meals in the dining hall but carts just rolled by with what looks to be our lunch. They are pushed by the same inmates who gave us meals in our holding cells. Now, 5 minutes later, they go by in the other direction and out into the main hallway. I don’t have any idea of what to expect. [Later I learn there are a few guys with disabilities on our unit who must get meals delivered to them.]

Don’t judge your mattress by its cover. It looks newer and better but actually has less cushioning than my previous one in 165. And the guy next door snores when he sleeps. It reminds me of the night I spent in the Columbus, GA jail after my School of the Americas bust in 2005. Sam Foster had the loudest snore I’d ever heard. We didn’t get to our big cell area until after 11 PM and by midnight he had everyone awake and complaining about the noise he made in his sleep. Only tonight will tell if #463 can compete with Sam. So far, it seems the noisiest guys are at the west end of the cellblock and I’m the 5^th cell from the east end. Time will tell. (Although I won’t know what “time” it is with no clock in sight.)

12:15 PM (according to the clock in the dining room) – a hot lunch! Eaten out of the cell. On a tray rather than with a paper plate and with a red spork rather than the flimsy white one. We have chow mien with noodles, white rice, cottage cheese, canned pears, 3 slices of white bread, and milk. Looking at other trays when I sit down at the tables in the dining area, I notice I didn’t get any of the cooked veggies – carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower. I missed the guy who was slopping it on the trays so I’ll pay better attention next time. You just hold your tray under a glass which serves as a type of sneeze-guard and a kitchen inmate worker slops it on your tray. Once you leave the serving line, you can’t go back for something you missed and there is at least one guard supervising the servers to make sure they don’t sneak extra to their buddies. I sat by myself, waiting to get the lay of the land – see if there is some kind of territorial or pecking order established. Looking around the room, I’d estimate that B unit appears to be roughly 70% black, 15% Native American, Asian, or Latino, and 15% white. The noise level really starts to build as most inmates finish eating. We have 30-40 minutes to get our food and eat it so you don’t want to delay getting out of your cell and walking down the main hallway to the dining area.

I’m spoiled already. It is 3 PM and I’ve been out of my cell twice already: lunch and now, “personal time” where I can shower, use the payphones, or hang out in the mess hall where some of the guys play a very animated game of cards. Others just sit and talk. I ask a guard if the library is open but I am told it is not “at this time”.

Supper was beef and macaroni casserole, coleslaw, grape Kool Aide, canned yellow beans, and 3 pieces of white bread. I was surprised to see St. Clair, a guy David and I met in the dressing room when we were processed on Tuesday, who thought he was to get out on work release but the paperwork was wrong and he got locked up in the same holding area as me. He tells me he did get out later on Tuesday to correct the mistake and by Wednesday he was able to work outside at his existing job. Unlike me, he told me he has slept well here – luckily he remains in Unit A where it is definitely quieter. I was in Unit A for my whole week 10 years ago but it is hard to remember how I felt then.

We get out for “recreation” tonight but someone told me that inmates can’t go outside to the rec yard on Friday nights so we are released to the dining area where the round stools fastened to the tables like in grade schools are not very comfortable. I’m told the library will open “soon” but 15 minutes later I’m told it won’t be open tonight. I watch a re-run movie on TV that has closed-captioning and do some walking between commercials. By 9:50 PM we are ordered back to our cells for the 10 PM “count” and remain there for the rest of the night.

Day 5, Saturday. Last night was a so-so night. I had 2 ibuprofen left that I took at 10 and they helped for the first half of the night. I got up as soon as daylight appears and it is still nice and quiet. I’m pleasantly surprised to see two envelopes with their stamps torn off placed on my cell bars. I can tell by the writing without even looking at the return addresses that they are from Christine and my friends June and Carolyn. What a wonderful gift! Christine’s writing is on a card that our Iraqi & American Reconciliation Project sells to support the work of Sami Rasouli and the Muslim Peacemaker Team in Iraq. It is so appropriate since I’ve taken time each day to pray for my friends in Iraq and Afghanistan. She tells me she arrived to visit me on Wednesday only to be told that I couldn’t have visits “for the first 7 days”. It just figures – during the time when a visit is probably the most important, one’s first days of adjustment, - these bureaucratic bastards need to flex their muscles all the more to make sure we are “punished for our crimes.”

June has typed her letter on her old typewriter. She and Carolyn are the thriftiest people I know – she’s typed it on some recycled paper that is dated January 2004 on the backside. She describes (among other things) that they went to a gathering sponsored by The Center For Victims of Torture (CVT) on June 26^th to stand in solidarity with their clients on the International Day to recognize those who have been tortured. Thank God for their healing work; now can we have political leaders push for holding those who ordered and allowed it to be held accountable?

It is really striking to notice the differences between the guards with even such short exposure so far. Some are helpful and considerate (even if firm) while others display open contempt or hostility. I’m not here long enough to get to know any of them but it is clear that there is little consistency on which rules will be enforced and which ones can be openly ignored. A number of inmates are wearing their own sneakers yet my dressing officer said it was out of the question. You can buy stick pens in the canteen/commissary yet my officer told me “no pens are allowed”. My hard-cover Bible was forbidden yet in the chapel area was a large print Bible you could take to your cell – it was hard-covered and 4 of the 5 books I got from the librarian are hard-cover and all but one are bigger than my Bible.

I just saw my 4^th female guard in here – at least I wasn’t sitting on the toilet like I was when the first woman guard came by for “count” yesterday. A clock or watch would be helpful for those important decisions of when to go to the bathroom with at least a little privacy. As it is, I just turn my cell light to the dim setting when on the can. From my many other jail experiences, it is the inconsistencies between staff members that is the most difficult. For example: when one nurse says, “I’ll give you a couple of ibuprofen even though it isn’t on your chart” but the next one is cold and legalistic, you project ill-will on the second even though she is just following protocol.

Reading Pillar of Fire has been a great choice in here because I am so inspired by the civil rights pioneers who blazed a path for many of us. Even though I am only reading about the period of 1963-65 in this book, it gives me all the more admiration for the gift that my friend Marv Davidov was for us in the Twin Cities. “Blessed solidarity” was the phrase he’d say to me about his experience in the notorious Parchman Penitentiary Farm in Mississippi where he landed because of the 1961 Freedom Rides. If only this book had been written before my own experiences in Mississippi during the summer of 1974, I would have certainly had a better clue about some of the people I met/encountered (from both sides of the freedom struggle). I was fortunate to be a late and very small part of that important history. When I traveled to Philadelphia, MS to help rebuild a 3-time fire-bombed Mennonite church building, I was surprised to learn that members surmised that this time it was over their advocacy and partnerships with local Indians rather than blacks that made them a target. 

This will be my last breakfast here. On Sunday there is only a brunch and supper. Today we had a warm bagel with strawberry jam, a package of cereal (we had a pick of 3 different kinds!) with a ½ pt. of milk, an orange, and coffee. Coffee is only available at breakfast here and it is interesting to see how much sugar some of the guys dump into theirs. The dramatic rise of the noise level after the guys are finished eating continues to amaze me. One of many things I’m curious about: each cell has an electrical outlet but there are no items for sale from the canteen that has a power cord. It is possible that the outlet might be needed for maintenance if they have to plug in a power drain opener to unclog a sink or toilet. I guess I’d have to stay longer to find out; I’m content not to know under those circumstances.

We got to file out of our cells to exchange our sheets and pillowcase although I discover one of my “clean” sheets is pretty threadbare making me wonder how it will hold up for two more nights of tossing and turning. When I see the knots in the ends of one of the sheets, I remember the old prison trick of creating a “fitted” sheet to be used on the bottom. I use a technique I first learned in 1981 in the Potter County Jail in Amarillo, TX: fold the top edge of your pitiful mattress back on itself to double as a pillow; your feet don’t need the cushioning as much as your upper body. I alternate reading and napping until lunch. For lunch we are served a hamburger patty with cooked onions, mashed potatoes with gravy, cooked carrots, milk, and 3 slices of bread. This is the first time I can choose between white and wheat bread although it is NOT whole wheat.  

Saturday afternoon is visiting time again and I can only sit and hope someone is allowed to visit me even though I now have only 41 hours until release time.

Hallelujah! It is a great afternoon. At lunch they posted the cell numbers for the 10 or so who had visits that began at 12:30 and number 464 was not on that list. After returning to my cell, an officer came by and told me to report to medical- no explanation given. When I got there, the nurse told me I needed to get a physical. After checking my blood pressure, height, weight, and pulse/ox, the doctor told me to come into his exam room. I told him I had just had my annual physical last month and I would be released by 6 AM Monday morning. He still checked my eyes, listened to my heart and lungs, and asked me some health history questions. I told the doc about my back pain at night and that I had submitted a letter from Kevin Kelly, my primary care physician about my need for ibuprofen. He scoffed at the mention of the letter and told me “You can buy it from the canteen.” I explained that I couldn’t since canteen orders had to be placed on Sunday for pick-up on Tuesday and I was leaving on Monday. Graciously he ordered the nurse to give me 12 tablets to last me until release – great!

As I returned to the cellblock, the CO told me it was rec time for B block and I could just turn around and go outside. I asked but told I couldn’t go back to my cell first to get my book. My toes have been rubbing in my flimsy sneakers so I didn’t want to walk too much so I just sit at one of the 10 picnic tables which overlook the 12 payphones, 3 horseshoe pits, a volleyball court, and a basketball court where immediately two half-court games start up. This area, roughly 80’ x 140’ is enclosed on two sides by the prison building and a 12’ high chain-link fence topped with concertina/razor wire on the other two sides. The sun is out with a vengeance and I risk sunburn since there is no shade at this hour and no hats – but the heat and light of the sun feels terrific. I’m only out 15 minutes or so before the loudspeaker announces a visit for 464 and several other cells.

After waiting about 5-10 minutes for a visiting space to open, I’m assigned phone #15 and Christine comes and sits opposite me, divided by panes of plexiglas. We are supposed to have 30 minutes but due to the number of visitors we only got about 20 before the CO announces our time is up after a 2-minute warning. I’m so glad she is able to visit and had the gumption to call yesterday to verify that her previous message was true that I couldn’t have visitors for 7 days and was told I could now have visits. Zaq would have come with her but scored free Twins tickets just before leaving so Christine dropped him off at the ballpark en route to the Workhouse. She told me briefly that David Harris had sent out an email account of his two days’ experience so we’ll have to get together to compare notes when I get out. The visit is brief and I have less (none) physical contact than I had with a 6-month sentence back in 1981 – but at least I wasn’t strip-searched after this visit. In 2006 in the Federal prison in Duluth, I only got an aggressive “pat-down” after a visit. Here, because there is no contact, one just walks back to the cellblock, or in my case, back to the rec yard. I only have another 15 minutes or so outside before the time is up but I feel blessed. Now, after being locked up again for maybe ½ hour, the bars open again and we’re told we can take a shower. It is likely there was a “count” between the two activities – it would be nice to have a printed schedule but I guess you learn it after a few weeks. We were supposed to be issue a “blue book” at orientation but are told they are out of them “for now”.

The old-timer in the next cell tells me we’ll be locked in for the night after our supper. Hopefully my supper of 2 small beef burritos, Spanish rice with some type of “gravy”, coleslaw, jello with pieces of canned fruit, and a cup of some fruit juice (or juice-like drink) will last me until “brunch” tomorrow. He tells me we’ll eat about noon and (hopefully) get out for rec and a shower in the afternoon. (Rec time is always alternated with Unit A so we’re never out at the same time.) I’ll have to make the most of my last full day. This evening I finish Pillar of Fire and commence On Canaan’s Edge about America in the King Years, 1965-1968. Even though I know how the story ends on that late afternoon in April in Memphis, the stories are riveting and inspiring, although many are depressing as well. It reminds me how little my political awareness was in my early teenage years.

It’s Saturday night and the natives are restless. For the past hour or so there is loud shouting, arguing back and forth emanating from the west end of the cellblock. I have no idea what the argument is about – just that the yelling is so vociferous that either the CO has earplugs, a turned-off hearing aid, or is in a different part of the building. So now guys on my end of the block are screaming, “Shut the fuck up!!!!” and liberally using the n-word to describe the guys who appear to be leading the verbal barrage. Since we don’t eat until late tomorrow, I wonder how long the noisy ones will be up tonight. I’m trying to read about the Selma to Montgomery march but it is hard to focus with all the commotion.

Day 6, Sunday. Another fitful night. My back, neck, shoulders, and leg hurt lying in the steel bunk so I might as well get up since it is light outside. I have no idea of the time but a guard just walks by and tells me it is 10 before 7 when I ask him. They won’t talk to you if it is during “count”. I had gotten up in the middle of the night to take some more ibuprofen and then write a short essay for my blog while it is quiet and I could think. Actually the middle of the night is the best time in jail because it is quiet. I wonder if Dr. King had to wait until the wee hours to scribble in the margins of the smuggled-in newspaper on which he composed his “Letter From Birmingham City Jail”? I know he polished up the essay a little after he was released but I wish I could write so lucidly even when I’m not locked up.

In the quiet of the middle of the nights here I often sing to myself some of the Bread For the Journey songs my friends Brett, Ray, Linda, Tom and Mary have taught me over the years. In Sunday night’s worship a week ago, Mary led us with one of Brett’s songs which goes “Listen, listen, be open oh my heart” and repeats several times. It becomes a mantra to help focus on why I am here and helps me to remember to bring my Afghan and Iraqi friends to the front of my thoughts and prayers. But I also pray in gratitude for the many friends and mentors who have blessed me on this somewhat unusual journey.

I’m moved by the stories of courage and tenacity shown by the many unnamed hundreds and thousands who marched in Selma, AL in March 1965. I was only 14 at the time and have no recollection whatsoever of the titanic struggle going on for the hearts and minds of America over the plight of “negroes” and voting rights. However I do remember one of the other battles that Dr. King was opposing: the escalating involvement militarily in Vietnam and I’m ashamed that I found myself on the wrong side of history back then when I remember debating Dave Bicking in junior high school on why we should be fighting in Vietnam. I had gotten all my “facts” from US News and World Report and other conservative sources in my parents’ home that led me to believe we had to protect Christian missionaries from being overrun and killed by godless communists.

Reading Taylor Branch’s trilogy gives me a much clearer understanding of the agony President Johnson went through in wrestling with Vietnam, civil rights, and poverty issues and his tragic choices. I’m so glad I’ve had these books delivered to me, as the library has not been open whenever I’ve been let out for recreation or personal time yet.

The bars just rolled open for “church services only”. The announcement over the loudspeaker was so garbled that I had to ask the guy next door what they said. I didn’t have enough time to seriously consider it before the bars closed again. So I guess I’ll just meditate with St. Martin again. (The Community of St. Martin was named after several Martins, Dr. King being one of the 5.) Besides, I’m at the part of At Canaan’s Edge where King is marching arm-in-arm with Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel over the Pettus Bridge in Selma and I’m with them in Spirit.

At orientation on Wednesday I was told they were out of “the blue booklet” which I think contains a list of schedules and programs run in this prison. We were told that chapel, meaning Christian, specifically Protestant, worship was the only “program” you didn’t need to be on a call-out sheet to attend. And it takes a week after you put in a request to get on the list for other “programs”. Tough luck at least for the first week if you are Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, or practice Native spirituality – all of which are scheduled on other days.

It is now 10:15 and I’m back from brunch with my pencils sharpened. A slice of ham, 4 baked chicken wings, a cereal-bowl-sized salad with dressing and imitation bacon bits, a semi-ripe banana, ½ grapefruit, milk, and 3 slices of bread. There is a lot of bartering going on – primarily to get chicken wings. A guy wants 2 wings for a salad but my new friend from the holding cell days holds out for only 1 wing and is successful in getting a second salad. He trades another wing for 2 bananas. Since the bananas are somewhat green, he is going to hide them in his cell until they are riper. He offers me his grapefruit since he doesn’t like them as much as bananas and can’t transport a juicy grapefruit cut in half as easily as a banana or bread. So I give him my banana even though he hasn’t demanded it in trade. I always give him my extra bread since he told me he wants to try to bulk up since he has a fast metabolism. Turns out he was the guy with the good singing voice from my first two nights in the holding area!

I recommend that you read the Branch trilogy alongside a copy of Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of MLK. Branch lays out the context and tenor of the speech with a few highlights but you’ll also want to read the entire speeches as well. At least I do.

I passed on my unused razor, shampoo, deodorant, paper cups, and unlined paper to the guy in the next cell since I’ll be leaving early tomorrow. He’s been around for a while so he can pass these items on to others who may need them more than he does. I’m only holding on to my pencils, toothbrush, and toothpaste and I’ll try to leave the latter on my way out tomorrow. Because the time is so short, I’m skipping over Parts II and III of At Canaan’s Edge to make sure I have enough time to read Part IV which features the “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside Church and the Memphis campaign in support of the sanitation workers. This book has given me a lot of insight not only into King but also LBJ, J. Edgar Hoover, Stokley Carmichael, James Bevel and many others.

At 5:45 we go to supper. 2 sloppy joes, a bowl of chicken noodle soup, 2 saltine crackers, carrot and celery sticks, a square if ice cream, and milk. At 6:30 we are allowed to go outside for what turns out to be 1 hour of recreation. At 7:30 we are locked back up but hopefully we’ll get out again for showers since the guys who played basketball are pretty sweaty. At 8:50 we are let out for showers and a clothes exchange and then we can go into the mess hall. After my shower I discover the library is open for the first time in 6 days and even though we are told we must leave after 30 minutes, I enjoy every minute of it. The most comfortable chairs that I’ve seen in the jail are there as well as tables to write at; lots of books and magazines are there although the magazines are dated for the most part. I tell my friend that he should request 2 books from the librarian next Tuesday: Michele Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and Marv Davidov and Carol Masters’ You Can’t Do That. Hopefully he can get both before he is released in mid-July.

At 10 PM I note that I have only 8 hours remaining in what my friend Tom refers to as “a real shithole”. I can’t say I’ll miss the noise in here! I suspect they will remain boisterous for the next hour or two so maybe I’ll have my book finished by the time they are quiet enough for me to try to sleep.

Day 7, Monday. At 4:30 AM a CO comes by my cell and tells me to get up and put my sheets and blankets in a pillowcase and dump them in the blue bin down the hall by the guard station. I return my last book to the book drop outside the library and then go to the dressing room to reclaim my street clothes, Bible, pens and other items I wasn’t allowed to bring inside. There are 15 other guys waiting to be called one-by-one to hand in our photo IDs from the prison in exchange for my drivers license, watch, and the $10 that remains from my commissary money after the $30 booking fee was seized. I’m out the door before 5:30 and get the “Huber bus”, a yellow school bus which will take me downtown to the Government Center which arrives at 5:45. After a stop by the Women’s prison next door, I arrive downtown and catch the light rail to Franklin Ave. and the #9 bus to a block from my house.

As Dr. King said so well, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God almighty we are free at last!” If anyone asks, I don’t think paying $30 for that “bed-n-breakfast” is a great bargain. But maybe if more of us are willing to go to the “iron bars motel”, change might come quicker than just voting for candidates who promise “hope and change”.  

[Thanks to Tom Bottolene for the photos]

Letters From Prison 2006 #15- Agony and Ecstasy: Shakedown! And Then Release

Agony and Ecstasy: Shakedown! And Then Release
By Steve Clemens - Federal Prison Camp, Duluth, MN. July 7, 2006

The schedule for day 89 of my 90 day Federal Prison sentence was to go on the “merry-go-round” – the obligatory release program that has you submitting a form to the various department staff to be signed indicating you reported to them before your release the next morning. Included in the release process is turning in your prison “greens” at the laundry and requesting “street clothes” (if you haven’t requested someone on the outside to mail you your own clothes ahead of time).

Budget cuts have changed the BOP. In 1981 when I was released from FPC Texarkana, TX, I was able to pick my set of clothes for “the street” – including suits! - and decent shoes for my release. Twenty-five years later, I’m given a pair of new, very cheap-grade denim jeans at least 6-8” too long, a denim-like shirt with snaps instead of buttons with several noticeable flaws in the front, and a pair of canvas sneakers with no arch support whatsoever. All apparently made by prison labor in China, I suppose.

After procuring all the requisite signatures, I submitted the form to my Case Manager and was then “free” for the rest of the day. So I took advantage of the inmate barber shop and had “Big E” give me a haircut for the price of six first-class stamps, the currency of the inmates in the BOP. After returning to my dorm, I noticed a Corrections Officer (guard or “CO”) standing in the doorway to my room so I just continued walking down the hall as though I was originally headed for the restroom. As I passed by my room, I did what any inmate would do – I looked inside to see what was happening. The Lieutenant (Wilson) had one of my cellie’s (slang for cellmate) mattresses, stripped of its sheets and covers, on the floor. He was prying off the brass caps from the top metal posts of that bunk bed, obviously searching for contraband. After a reasonable time in the bathroom, I returned past the room again and headed out to find the cellie whose mattress was part of the search. When I couldn’t find him at his normal afternoon hangout, I decided to wait out the shakedown of my room in the Activities Center.

I had heard stories around the camp of rooms being tossed by the COs looking for contraband. Less than a month ago, a room in the 209 dorm was completely searched and the scuttlebutt on the compound was that six cell phones, two containers of vodka, and some other contraband was discovered in their lockers and room and the whole room was sent to the SHU (the “hole”) because no one had “confessed” to whom the illegal property belonged. Some inmates complained that it wasn’t fair to lock up one of the cellies who was in his 70’s and regularly attend the chapel “Bible Studies” but others said, “If he wasn’t part of it, why did he let them keep their shit in his locker?” Divide and conquer has always been the strategy of the empire/Domination System.

I had just mentioned to my cellies three days prior that I was about to finish my three months without having been “breathalyzed”, drug-tested, or had my room shaken-down. The COs are given a quota everyday for ten inmates to be given a breathalyzer and on most days several inmates are called over the loudspeaker system to “report to the Captain’s (or Lieutenant’s) Office for a “random” urine analysis drug test.

When I returned to my dorm, several of the dorm mates greeted me “What did they find in there?” “They hauled off a bag of shit from your room, man.” “Nice decorating job you have in your room!” Well, it looked like a tornado had swept through the room. One locker was pulled away from the wall and left in the middle of the room. (The other three lockers are built-in and couldn’t be moved but had obviously been opened.) All the coats and jackets were in a pile on the middle of the floor. All four beds were now stripped of their sheets, blankets, pillows and the bedding was strewn about. One mattress had been ripped open or cut apart along the long edge to “inspect” for contraband. The brass safety caps on the top of the bed were gone. (The other bunk never had those caps which caused a lot of discomfort for me in trying to get in and out of my upper bunk the first month in captivity here.)

One cellie returned soon after me and we commiserated together before starting to clean up the mess and fret over “what’s next?” We remade our beds, replaced the cover shield to the wall radiator, put books and magazines back on the shelf and checked our own lockers. Although all my personal stuff had been taken to R&D earlier in the day to be “inspected” before release, I still had my stash of (illegal) extra pillows (2), and blankets (4) which I use to help alleviate my back pain at night. Although those contraband items had obviously been moved and search, they and my two extra (again, illegal) sheets were left in the room. As the other two cellies arrived prior to the 4PM standing count, we discovered what was taken in the shakedown: a hair/beard trimmer (battery operated) sold at the commissary but without the proper ID name and # etched on it, a home-made “shower caddy”, a “porn” magazine (anything showing a nipple and/or genitalia), some “artwork” which could be designs for potential tattoos, and, the real reason for the search: the cigarettes. Stashed in the pipes of the bunk bed that had the brass caps were both “rollies” (hand rolled cigarettes) and commercial-grade cigarettes. However, what turned this into a major incident was the amount – about 10 more than the threshold amount of 20 which translates this offense into a “100 level shot” with the “advertised” consequence of automatic shipment to a higher security prison, loss of accumulated good time, and loss for one year(!) of commissary, visits, and telephone calls.

But, this being the BOP, anything can happen. Several weeks ago, one of my co-workers on the dish team was caught with 151 cigarettes (!) by “Robocop” (the CO with one of the worst reputations at FPC Duluth). He was “sentenced” to only 50 hours of “extra duty” because he was scheduled to leave for a halfway house within two weeks. His halfway house could have been revoked and he could have been shipped to another prison to finish his 6 months and two weeks but someone must have decided it was too much paperwork involved so Justin left with a smirk on his face – having completed only 3 of the mandated 50 extra hours of work.

However, when contraband of this nature is found not in an inmates locker (like Justin) but rather in the “common area” of the room, the usual tendency is to call all four (or 6) from the offending room to the Lieutenant’s Office to see if someone will “fess up” to the “crime”. If no one cops to the offense, all four (or 6) are sent to the hole (SHU) while an “investigation” is conducted. That way “social pressure” on the “guilty” party can be applied from those in the room who are “not guilty” of this offense. Actually, there is already at least one suspect because the shakedown was almost certainly instigated by a “snitch”. Someone else was caught smoking or in possession of a cigarette and was promised leniency in exchange for snitching on the guy where he “bought” it. Not snitching comes at a great price: I personally met several guys who lost 6 months of commissary, visits, and phones for possessing only 1-3 cigarettes. It’s not a big deal for some who’ve “been down” for 10 years or more and whose family and friends no longer visit or accept phone calls. But for those who still entertain the hope that spouses, girlfriends, or others might hang on with you … And so the shakedown is initiated once the Judas-deed is completed.

It is no “accident” that our room was the target of the search. They knew where to look and what to look for. All the other items taken were peripheral to their main mission. (Ironically, I’ve seen the Lieutenant smoking on the compound at least 3-4 times in the past month or so!) So, does one of us “own up to it” or do we all face the wrath of the BOP? When one cellie steps forward and says (just in front of the other 3 of us with no “cops” around) it was his (there was little doubt since 3 of us don’t smoke cigarettes), I was struck by a different possibility: why couldn’t I “confess” since I was leaving the next day (with no “paper” or halfway commitment) and the worst they could do to me was to throw me into the hole for my last night. I floated this idea like a “governmental trial balloon” to explore the possibilities and the pros and cons (pun intended).

Is it ethical for me to take the rap? Since the possible punishment another faced was (to me) clearly unjust in that it also continues to punish one’s family, could I offer myself as the “sacrificial lamb” to avoid another miscarriage of “justice” in the midst of a system of rampant injustice? Could I lie convincingly? What if they asked me where they were hidden and how many, and what type? Would the real “culprit” get in even greater trouble of they didn’t believe my “confession”?

Two of my cellies (privately) counseled me not to do it. The guy who “does the crime” needs to “do the time” – face the consequences of his actions. He took the risk, now he has to “be a man” about it and face the music. He puts all of us at risk when he has contraband in the room. The third cellie was obviously energized by the prospect of someone else taking the rap – especially because it would be relatively painless for me to do it. If I had a 100-level shot on my BOP record, would there be ramifications if/when I might return as a federal inmate? He gave me the details of what, where, and how many and then said, “Hey buddy, it’s up to you”. I could walk up to the Lieutenant’s Office (I didn’t even know which office it is, just that it is in the building where “Control” is located) and volunteer the “confession” or wait until we were all called to report to his office sometime after the afternoon count cleared. I wanted to wait until after supper so I could consult with my friend and co-defendant, John LaForge on the advisability and ethics of the situation. We walked and talked. I considered confiding in one of the 3-4 Catholic friends I’d made in the Wednesday night group with Sister Timothy but none of them shared the same perspective that John & I shared in “choosing” to go to prison.

No loudspeaker announcement commanded my presence before the 10 PM count and the 15 minute warning prior to it requiring us to return to our (separate) dorms left John and me determined to meet again at breakfast prior to my reporting to Control at 6:30PM to begin my release. One of my cellies had to celebrate my “graduation from FPC Duluth” with some fried rice (his specialty) cooked up in the microwave after the count. It was a welcomed treat seeing that the “beef stew” at supper could have been better described as beef spew. So, we turned off the lights at 11:15 and I laid down, anticipating my last “wake up” in the BOP.

John, Muff, and I chatted very briefly at breakfast and John walked out with me to give me a final embrace (what a gift!) since he couldn’t approach me after I got out of Control since it might allow for contraband to be handed to or from me as I left. Having John to share this time with was a real blessing for me. He has a lot of previous experience “inside” and a wonderful, gentle spirit with a great sense of humor and justice. I hurried back to the dorm to grab my stuff and head to Control. As I entered the room, Jason and Pablo informed me that “I just missed them” – telling me another CO had just completed another shakedown while I was gone - only this time they didn’t rip everything apart. Finding nothing, he had just left. So the situation remains unresolved.

At Control, I waited for the officer to take me to R&D to get my street clothes, hand in my linens, my last uniform and boots, and to be fingerprinted again (but only the right thumb this time). As I was changing, the officer said, “You aren’t planning on coming back here are you?” I smiled and said, “It depends on what next needs protesting and whether it is on federal property or not.” Again, I had a few moments to “witness” about our desire to Close the SOA and educate another citizen about the realities of our misguided – no, really it is a deliberate, determined policy to dominate other peoples here and abroad – national policies.

I insisted that the BOP pay my way home and on the drive to the Greyhound station in Duluth, I asked the inmate “town trip” driver if many other guys left FPC Duluth with “no paper” (reporting to a Probation Officer for X years) and “no halfway house” and he said it was very rare. I couldn’t have “done the crime and done the time” without a supportive wife and sons, a loving community, and a whole “cloud of witnesses” who have both gone before me and presently envelope and travel with me. THANK YOU for sharing this journey with me.

“Free at last” – but with freedom comes responsibility. Please join with me to make the reality of the Reign of God more tangible and visible.

Shalom,

Steve

Letters From Prison 2006 #14- Friday Night Pizza

Friday Night Pizza
Steve Clemens, FPC Duluth. June 21, 2006

Since the prison served fried fish fillet (or grilled 'cheese' sandwiches) every Friday, it is often a night when the inmates "eat out." Obviously the source for this culinary excursion is either the commissary or the black market. Muff, one of my cellies, used to be a cook at several of his previous seven prisons and he wanted to show his solidarity with me by "cooking" a pizza.

I ordered a 'pizza kit' from the commissary, which consists of a pizza shell and a packet of pizza sauce. I also purchased a spicy beef log (summer sausage) and three packets of string cheese. So I thought we were all set.
It would cost us about $7 from the commissary for a pizza about 8-10 inches in diameter.

That same Thursday evening, another inmate stopped by the room and asked if we needed any pizza shells. He works in the bakery section of the kitchen and had 4 pizza shells he had made for sale--for 1 stamp (39 cents) each—a real bargain. He said they were made from flax seed and whet germ and also included some jalapeno pepper in it to give it a little extra zing. I looked at Muff and he agreed it would be a good deal so I made my first prison purchase from the 'alternative economy' inside. The beef log was large enough to accommodate an extra pizza or two but we obviously needed more cheese, sauce, and, if desired, other toppings.

Friday afternoon, another inmate stops by with an onion and a green pepper! I don't know if Muff "purchased" them or whether it was a friend of his doing him a favor. We went to the chow hall for supper (fried fish nuggets, overcooked carrots, and macaroni and cheese--with a hardened piece of something like pound cake topped with frozen strawberries and sauce, meant to approximate strawberry shortcake), ate a little to tide us over, and then went to the Harrison Ford movie, "Firewall," showing at 5:30 pm at the theater. (Supper is served at 4:45.)

I stood back and watched Muff do his thing. With a plastic knife from food service and with no plate or cutting board, Muff cut up the beef log, cheese, onion, and pepper on the inside of the lid to his tupperware bowl he had purchased at one of his previous prisons. (Here, everyone "cooks" in either a tupperware bowl or a pottery bowl made in the Hobbycraft area.)

These ingredients were cooked for two minutes in the dorm microwave, stopping to stir them halfway through. The pizza shell was prebaked in the food service kitchen so the next step was to spread the pizza sauce on the
shells. Since we had only enough for one, Muff tracked down someone who had salsa from the commissary and that got mixed with the pizza sauce. Muff's piece de resistance was adding mackerel as a topping. I was not convinced of the efficacy of such a move so he only put it on his own pizza. It sounded too much like anchovies to me!

Since we needed more cheese, Muff found a guy down the hall who had 3-4 more pieces of string cheese and in exchange we made a third pizza to give to him since we had enough toppings. Since the mackerel was already mixed in, he got his "with" but he didn't mind at all. Each pizza was “baked” for 2 minutes in the microwave and with a cold can of soda pop each, we had our Friday night feast.

When I get home, I'll have to call up Domino's and see if they deliver a "prison Special"!

Letters From Prison 2006 #13- Stuck on Stupid

Stuck on Stupid
Steve Clemens, FPC Duluth. June 9, 2006

"Trucker," the burly, tattooed white man in his 40s is inside for dealing dope--"all kinds." My first week in the joint and I'm sitting across from him in the chow hall. "Hey newbie, how much time did ya get?" When I respond that I'm here for "only three months,' he scoffs and replies that isn't even enough time to do the paperwork. When I further volunteer that I was busted "for protesting torture at a U.S. military base," he is skeptical. "Nah, they don't bust you for just protesting." To which I reply, "They do if you enter the base and get charged with trespass."

"That's not a felony, they don't send you to prison for a f*****g misdemeanor!"

"Well, the last time I was in a federal joint, I did six months for another misdemeanor for protesting," was my reply.

"You mean you did this before, got time, and now you are in here again for the same thing? You must be stuck on stupid!"

Is Trucker correct in his assessment? As someone said, "doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is the definition of insanity”. Maybe instead of pleading not guilty at our trials we should opt for the insanity defense. Does doing time for civil disobedience make any sense?

If one's goal is not merely to Close the SOA but to also address the national arrogance and insecurities behind it, going to prison allows one to further examine the psyche of our nation. It is here that the marginalized, dissident, and dysfunctional are warehoused. (More accurately it is in the county jails, state penitentiaries, and higher security level federal prisons more so than the minimum security "camps" that one finds more of the marginalized. There, and with the homeless population in our urban streets, under the bridges, and those subject to arrest for "urban camping.")

Whether one is reading the Bible or the daily newspaper, reading it on the "inside" of the Prison Industrial Complex gives one a different perspective than when one is outside the prison walls, bars, or "out of bounds" signs.

Not many guys want to listen when they are caged--but they do want to talk and be heard. They need to process their “case” verbally—to vent the anger, sometimes at oneself and/or one’s associates, and always at “the system.” Cultural competition doesn’t end at the prison entrance. In some ways, competition is more intense in prison than on the streets because of the constant close proximity. Part of the competition can express itself in “I’m badder than you” one-upmanship. Another factor is the “scarcity” mentality that we are all in competition with each other to get one of the few [whatever] is left. Whatever the reason, one does not want to appear vulnerable “inside.” Any sign of “weakness” is often exploited by fellow cons. An atmosphere of defensiveness and self-justification is not conducive for personal healing. No one mistakes prison for a therapy session.

But who is willing to throw the “stuck on stupid” slander on Mohandas Gandhi—one so revered for his principled nonviolence which sent him to prison numerous times that he was given the title Mahatma (great soul) or Bapu (father) by the Indian people? In a collection of excerpts from his writings entitled All Men Are Brothers, Gandhi explains ahimsa or nonviolence. “Nonviolence, on the other hand, has no cause for fear. The votary of nonviolence has to cultivate the capacity for sacrifice of the highest type in order to be free from fear” (p. 110). Going repeatedly to prison rather than compromise his principled commitment to nonviolence helped Gandhi overcome his fears—maybe he wasn’t so stupid.

“Our nonviolence would be a hollow thing and nothing worth, if it depended for its success on the goodwill of the authorities..... [Civil] resistance is a method of securing rights by personal suffering; it is the reverse of resistance by arms. When I refuse to do a thing that is repugnant to my conscience, I use soul-force... If I do not obey the law and accept the penalty for its breach, I use soul force. It involves sacrifice of self (p. 115).

“Suffering is infinitely more powerful than the law of the jungle for converting the opponent and opening his ears, which are otherwise shut, to the voice of reason. Nobody has probably drawn up more petitions or espoused more forlorn causes than I and I have come to this fundamental conclusion that if you want something really important to be done you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also. The appeal of reason is more to the head but the penetration of the heart comes from suffering. It opens up the inner understanding in man. Suffering is the badge of the human race, not the sword” (p. 118).

Maybe those of us working to close the SOA and change the foreign policy of our nation are “stuck on stupid.” Or maybe, just maybe, like Gandhi, we have begun to realize that in choosing prison, we hope to go beyond what is rational and “speak to the heart.” Time will tell.

Letters From Prison 2006 #12- A System of Snitches

A System of Snitches
Steve Clemens, FPC Duluth. June 7, 2006

One of the worst epithets that is hurled in prison is "snitch." A snitch is one who agrees to testify against another, serve as an informant, provide information to "the police," or to "cooperate" with the Justice [sic] System. Without snitches, the whole criminal justice system would collapse. At present only less than 5% (some say 2 or 3%) of criminal cases go to trial, the balance are "resolved" with plea bargains in exchange for the "promise" of a lesser sentence upon conviction.

Throughout the pre-, present, and post-incarceration periods, the Domination System (to use Walter Wink's designation) depends on turning one against the other. I'm quite sure this was the case prior to the War on Drugs but this civil war has greatly exacerbated the need for informants. The initial case begins with the police stumbling on to the discovery of the presence (or sale) of illicit drugs. (An aside--it is interesting which drugs are criminalized and which ones are prescribed rather than proscribed. Caffeine is ok but amphetamine is not. Tobacco is--or used to be--ok but not cannabis. Alcohol but not Ecstasy. One could go on and on.) The other common initiation of the case comes about via "undercover," "entrapment," or other clandestine law enforcement activity. Actively attempting to purchase illegal drugs on the street somehow is included under the rubric of "law enforcement" if initiated by a cop.

After the initial bust, the one arrested is frequently "encouraged to cooperate" with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), which often comes sweeping in to make what should be local or state charges magically become a federal offense. Maybe it is because drugs often "cross state lines" or are illegal under federal statute when states can't be trusted to be serious enough for enforcement. (States might not have enough evidence to convict you--'conspiracy' puts the burden on you to prove that it is not true.) Recently, the feds have tried to supercede state laws regarding the medical use of marijuana. Like the Pentagon or military contractors hawking pet weapons systems, the DEA is a bureaucracy designed to justify its own existence--resulting in the "need" to continue to "lose" the war on drugs in order to keep the tax dollars flowing into the enforcement side of the equation.

When one is arrested for possession or attempting to sell illegal drugs, pressure is put on the captive to "disclose" or "rat out" who you got it from and/or who you normally sell it to. In the usual course of things, one would not be inclined to divulge that information, so the DEA and/or the district attorney or prosecutor gives one an incentive--if you cooperate and give us the names of others, we'll put in a good word for you when it comes time for you to be sentenced for your crime.

In the late 60s and early 70s, as illegal drugs were proliferating in [white] American culture and celebrated by rock groups and other counter-cultural heroes, the enforcement and penalties varied greatly from state to state. Being caught with only a joint of marijuana in Texas could land you behind bars for 5-15 years while in California and Oregon it was at most a misdemeanor punishable by a fine, when one was even prosecuted. That began to change when President Nixon announced a “War on Drugs” and ironically named Elvis as an honorary enforcement agent. Since that time, elected officials have tried to out-do their political opponents by showing that they were tougher on crime than the others. As a result, laws were passed to mandate tougher and longer sentences, including the notorious "mandatory minimum" laws that prevented judges from being "too lenient." Often, the new laws did not mandate a ceiling or maximum amount that could be imposed so elected District Attorneys would frequently threaten a whole range (like 10-30 years) in order to secure "cooperation" from a defendant who faced such a draconian sentence.

The more one "cooperated" (the larger the number of other "dealers," "suppliers," "customers" one turned in or the more valuable the target one disclosed--the "Kingpin" or the money launderer), the better one's bargaining power in requesting or obtaining a reduced sentence. This has led to the absurd reality found today in most Federal Woman's Prisons where the husband or boyfriend is using and dealing drugs and "turns in" his wife, or girlfriend as an accomplice to get a lesser sentence. The woman, who at best is a minor accessory or, at worst, is not even involved in the trafficking has nothing to bargain with and ironically ends up with a longer prison sentence than the original perpetrator.

Since the system is designed to benefit the turning on others to help oneself, it is open to widespread abuse. Since the word on the street is such that "so and so" deals drugs, why not add him to those names I turn in so I can get a lesser sentence? The more I turn in, or the greater amounts of illegal substances I claim they possess or sold, the more valuable my testimony will be in exchange for fewer years in prison. So, when you are arrested for possession or sale of drugs you are informed that "you are looking at 20-40 years of prison time. Are you sure you can do all that much time? Don't you want to cooperate with us and reduce the time (in prison) you are facing?" And here the cycle of snitching begins.

The names that are produced by this method become the new targets of the DEA officials, who now can spread their nets farther. However, most of these new targets aren't caught with drugs in their possession or while in the act of selling them. So a new charge has to be invented to cover these cases: conspiracy to possess (or sell or transport or distribute) illegal drugs. And they base the "amount" of these fictitious drugs on the "testimony" of the informant. Remember, the greater the amount, the more valuable the testimony and (hopefully) the greater the reward.

Never mind the Federal Criminal Code [Title 18 US Code 201(6)(3) -- whoever directly or indirectly, corruptly gives, offers, or promises anything of value to any person... With the intent to influence the testimony under oath...as a witness...before any court or officer authorized... To hear evidence or take testimony...shall be fined... Or imprisoned for not more than fifteen years, or both...] which identifies such conduct as bribery. If one is promised a reduced prison sentence in exchange for testifying against others, one has been offered a bribe according to the federal statutes. It is my estimation that more than one-half of all the convicts presently incarcerated in this federal prison camp either have received reduced sentences in exchange for agreeing to testify against others or have been charged with a crime on the basis of someone else’s threatened testimony against them. I say “threatened testimony” because, again, most cases do not go to trial but are settled by a plea bargain. The reason for this is the well-known likelihood of being assigned a longer sentence if one “wastes the court’s time” by insisting on having your “guilt” proved “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Prosecutors and judges prefer to not have to take the time to try cases that can be “settled out of court.”

If being a snitch is frowned upon on the outside, it is positively life-threatening on the inside of the prison walls—especially in the higher security level prisons. Even to be seen talking to a guard or staff member at a medium or high security prison could put one’s life or health in jeopardy, because the assumption is that one only talks to “the police” when you are ratting out someone else. It is safest to do one’s time with as little interaction with “the screws” or the “turnkeys” as possible. However, the prime motivation to become a snitch on the inside is fear. Higher security prisoners are always on the lookout for weakness—especially embodied in “fresh meat” or “new fish” who are thrown into these warehouses. It is well known throughout the culture that “hard core” prisons feature a lot of rape, assault, and intimidation within the inmate population.

Oftentimes a person will think that snitching to a Corrections Officer (CO) will help land you in “protective custody” (aka solitary confinement or at least out of “general population”) thus protecting one from such dangers. But there are very few places within the prison system where one can hide out free of the threats of others. Somehow, some way, “they” will get to you.

In minimum security prisons there is sometimes the naïve and mistaken impression that at least some of the COs are “fair” or might have your best interest at heart. Especially for those new to the prison system, “first-timers,” those who are in for “white collar crimes,” or young “kids” still not disabused of the proclivity to “respect those in authority” this can be a problem. The guards are not your friends, not your confidant, not there to help you be “rehabilitated.” The longer one is incarcerated, the more aware of the “selective enforcement” role the COs play within the system. Guards try to elicit information about contraband (who has what stashed where?) and to determine who-did-what-when? If there was a fight, who was involved? Who is supplying the contraband cigarettes or alcohol to others? Who is smuggling the green peppers, fried chicken, or fruit out of the kitchen?

There is even the practice of “dry snitching” when an inmate complains to a guard about something another (unnamed) inmate has done that makes your job or life inside harder. “I can’t do my job [cooking the meals] because “they” keep stealing all the onions from here.” Or, “there is so much smoke in the bathrooms before (or after) the meals that I can’t go in to wash my hands (brush my teeth...).” ”Guys keep reserving seats for others in the theater so I can’t watch the movies I want to see.” All of which will just lead to the COs taking more repressive measures or overreacting to the perceived situation.

Are there “benefits” for snitching inside? Will the guards treat you more justly? I don’t plan to find out. No one wants to be labeled a snitch, even at a minimum security level camp. And, after one is (finally) released from prison, most inmates are assigned to a halfway house for up to six months and usually several years “on paper” (reporting to a probation officer under the threat of being sent back to prison—being “revoked”). In this post-incarceration period, there are many “hoops” one has to jump through in order to not be “violated.” The halfway house personnel and the probation officer have all types of rules to follow. Often, the local police will also know who is on parole or probation and pressure or threats are brought to bear to “help” them solve “crime.” The system is set up for you to fail.

The Prison Industrial Complex is designed to be self-perpetuating—if prisons actually did try to rehabilitate convicts they would be “working themselves out of a job.” Instead, it is one of the largest growth industries in the U.S. Today. And much of the growth can be attributed to the snitch system.