November 07, 2014
Madison "Correctional" Facility continues to break rules and policies of their own choosing in an attempt to maintain order within the prison. Ever since the recent influx of inmates on cell isolation due to the prison wide drug screening, there have been a large number of inmates going down to the law library for purposes other than studying law books. Often inmates on cell isolation try to take advantage of any and every opportunity to get out of their cell, the law library being one of them. Some of these inmates meet in the library to hang out, talk, make drug deals and even perform sex acts. These are all common occurrences in every prison; it's just not something that the staff here at Madison is used to happening so often in the library because now there is more than triple the amount of inmates on cell isolation than ever before. Several inmates have been caught performing sex acts over the last couple of weeks, so Madison officials decided to restrict inmates on cell isolation from going to the library all together. This couldn't be more wrong, no prison has the right to deny any inmate access to legal materials at any time. Of course many other inmates immediately started uproar, filing complaints, arguing with staff and so forth. The staff here knew that they were breaking yet another policy, so they decided to post a statement on the dayroom wall, stating that if we wanted to go down to the law library we would have to contact our unit Sargent for permission. So I asked the sergeant as soon as I saw him, he responded by telling me that I had to have a pending case in order to go down to the law library. I told him that I needed access to the DRC rules and policies, also asking him why I had to have an open case, stating the unfairness in such a rule and how I was pretty sure they were not allowed to do such a thing. He responded by telling me I would have to send a kite to the unit manager for permission. I already know this tactic; I've heard this song before. They're sending me on a wild goose chase, hoping that I'll just give up on trying to go to the law library. Every interaction I continue to have with staff and officials in prison creates an even more distinct distaste for the system and the people that run it. I become more and more convinced that they want nothing to do with helping us to recover and rehabilitate, insuring that we don't re-commit new crimes and return to prison. Instead it seems that all they want is to see us increasing recidivism rates, causing more prisons to be built and more tax payer’s dollars to be spent on strengthening their own job security.
Steven Dybvad
