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George W. Bush keeps saying he wants to do for the rest of the United States what he's done for Texas. If he's telling the truth, it's time to push the panic button!
George W. Bush's Texas is a mess. The state ranks last or near last in education and in pollution. And, as I am very acutely aware, the prison system is badly mismanaged -malevolently mismanaged might be a better term.
I'm a non-violent offender imprisoned in the Coffield Unit at Tennessee Colony, Texas. There are "administrative segregation" units here as well as a smaller section called "separate segregation." "Separate segregation" houses 12 people. I am one of them.
Early in December, the administration at Huntsville sent us a little gift—a small robotic camera. Looking like R2D2 hanging upside down from the ceiling, it records our daily lives as they happen. Did I mention that it's positioned in front of the showers and records us in the nude? Some might say this is a civil rights violation, but not in George W. Bush's Texas.
Bush tells the American people that he wants smaller government. It seems to me, his smaller government comes in small packages, like robotic cameras that violate people's privacy. George Orwell would be proud.
Our little camera has all but eliminated the sharing and camaraderie we prisoners had. With higher officials watching the monitor or the tapes, the guards are forced to strictly follow the rules. Sharing of books and magazines has been stopped. We can't even help each other with our legal work anymore. The unlucky souls here who lack the knowledge or the skills to help themselves are now deprived of help from those around them.
The guards here have a large rubber mallot. They use it to make sure the wire mesh welded to our doors is intact. Not just now and then. At all hours—day and night, they bang on our doors. It drives some of us to the point of insanity.
All of this is done under the watchful eye of little R2D2, hanging upside down in our block. This constant banging, this deprivation of intellectual stimulation from books, magazines and even legal help is cruel and unusual punishment. It's hard to retain our sanity when we are denied even the simplest of social pleasures. The constant watch of the camera only heightens our sense of utter deprivation. We're not allowed the humanity of sharing with each other and we're even denied the comfort of simple privacy.
Society needs to pause and think for a minute. Do Americans really want the people they imprison to be released in a psychotic state of mind? Or do the American people want prisoners to better themselves, to educate themselves with the books they share, to sharpen their minds with legal work? The right answer seems pretty obvious to me.
If the Texas prison system is an example of what our new President-select calls smaller government, then someone needs to dial 911 now! If a man has no qualms about stepping all over the most basic rights of prisoners, he'll very likely make it a whole lot easier to step all over the rights of society as a whole. Think about it. It's only common sense.
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