AZ DOC Deaths in Custody: Loving Christian Frost

The Ghosts of Jan Brewer: Justice for Victims in Custody.

 AZ Attorney General's Office, PHX: Crime Victims' Rights Week (April 2013)

Once in awhile, after a prisoner dies, I hear from a loved one. This weekend I received the following email from an old friend of Christian Frost's - a correspondent of 17 years. She had just heard the news of his death, and gave me permission to share her thoughts.
 
As some of you may recall, Christian was murdered at ASPC-Tucson in February.  I believe it was on Cimarron, one of the more violently-run yards I hear from.

To Christian's family, and anyone else who's lost a loved one in the AZ DOC:  you're going to have to sue for the truth. Don't take their word for it, especially if they say "there was nothing we could do." The homicide and suicide rate in the state prisons doubled under Chuck Ryan - that means one of every two might have been prevented under a different administration. Gangs are in control of 3 and 4-level prisons - they decide if you're allowed to walk the yard; some guys have to pay "rent" just to stay alive. Guards have been paid to look the other way during beat downs, some of which get carried away. Security measures are poor and officers have complained about being silenced when they identify security lapses. Riots have broken out across the system. Heroin is flowing through the state prisons like never before; minimally adequate medical care is nearly impossible to come by; some officers are inadequately trained...there are so many problems in these prisons today that you just can't take it for granted that "nothing could be done" to prevent this knd of tragedy.

The Attorney General's office can't be trusted, either, by the way. They don't protect citizens from the state - they defend the DOC in civil rights cases. If you've lost someone unexpectedly in prison, please get your own lawyer and find out what really happened. No matter how deep your grief or how messed up your life, you only have six months to file the notice of claim against the state. Don't let them slide...there are more lives yet at stake.


Condolences to Christian's loved ones, and all those who have survived a death in custody. If anyone out there has any answers as to what happened ot this fellow, or needs help coping with such a tragedy, I can be reached at arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com or 480-580-6807. My name is Peggy Plews.

Thanks to Rosie for sharing this email...

  The Ghosts of Jan Brewer: Justice for Victims in Custody.

 AZ Attorney General's Office, PHX: Crime Victims' Rights Week (April 2013)

----------------------

Sat, Jun 29, 2013 at 2:11 PM

Hello Peggy,

My name is Rosie and for 17 years I have known Mr. Frost. 

We never met personally, but we always managed to keep each other updated with our lives through correspondence.

I received a letter from Christian's mother yesterday informing me of his untimely demise back in February.

It was so bittersweet to receive. I know that Christian did not have very long left until he would be released. I, myself, was planning to somehow make my way to Arizona to perhaps welcome him home to his freedom.

Peggy, I am pained, but perhaps not so much as his family is. I'm not sure if you have met with them and/or spoken with them. from the letter I received, they were desperate to get any sort of insight from me, but i have no answers for them.

I have read a little from your blog, hence where I got your email from. I read about the violence that continues within the prison and that got me a little worried. Is that what happened to Christian? Did he somehow upset other members of a group of gang that led to his death?

It was really hard to take in. I was shocked, and almost didn't believe it was true. I took to the internet to maybe find something about his situation.... and i found it all to be a very real nightmare.
 
The news reports all said the same few paragraphs; the population of readers leaving judgmental and un-feeling comments. It hurt to read, but the lenses of humanity do not far extended outside their own circle of knowledge. Let them have their cake and hope they never come across a friend or family to fall under their own mistakes, like Christian.

I finish this by saying thank you for coming to his defense. I saw that you posted some very nice comments of a few of the news sites that reported his story... because his story is definitely unique.

Christian was 21 when he made an erroneous error in judgement one nite that led to a series of events that landed him prison. It was not willful intent to ever hurt anyone, and that is the one characteristic that people fail to see: being human and having flaws. He made a huge mistake that tore him deeply apart.

He was one the best human beings I had ever known. He was branded a law-breaking inmate by the Arizona DOC, a scumbag by society, but a warm, kind soul who cared for others very intensely by myself. I need for everyone to know that- especially his family.

Thank you for your time in reading this. I did this mostly so I can remind myself of the greatness I felt in having Christian in my life. I am trying my hardest to not dwell on the way he died, but the heart he had in the way he lived.

Rosie I.

Why AZ doesn't need another Supermax Prison...

Hey Folks:

*** much to my surprise, there apparently IS supposed to be further discussion on funding for the new Supermax: The AZ LEG Joint Committee on Capital Review  is meeting next Wednesday (June 12) at 9:00 a.m. in the Senate Bldg, Appropriations Room 109. The committee documents most pertinent to this discussion are here. We need to get as many people out to that as possible and/or contact those members ahead of time. Keep an eye out for it to be rescheduled at the last minute, though.****

In light of that, I have just a few thoughts: the last part of this post below addresses how so many prisoners inappropriately end up in Supermax.  My buddy C  gave me his full blessings on this campaign (see flyer). Since I launched this campaign a couple of months ago, the DOC has reclassed him down again and moved him to a close custody general population (GP) yard at ASPC-YUMA - punishing him further by forcing him back into GP, where he has told them he is in danger (especially now that I've made him a high-profile prisoner). 

I think we should demand that an audit be done by the legislature of who exactly the current Supermax prisoners are and why they happen to be there - how many are inappropriately there because they are Seriously Mentally Ill (SMI) - does the ACLU already have a count on that? how many are like C (I can probably name/ identify about 15 actual prisoners like him), and  how many really are the "worst of the worst"? And what exactly is being done about the violence on the GP yards? Substance abuse (SA) treatment programs would help, as would educational and vocational opportunities - Ryan wiped everything out when he took over. I bet recovering drug addicts can't even designate that they want to be in clean and sober dorms - that would be another idea, though...

Those of you with family in prison: you might want to emphasize to your own legislators (find them here) that the DOC has failed to provide adequate mental health care and offers hardly ANY substance abuse treatment, yet they're putting people in supermax who have disciplinaries due to mental health and addiction problems, not violence. (the violent ones are being left to run the yards while the pacifists get punished.)

Check out the DOC's own records: below is their "Corrections at a Glance April 2013" monthly report (here's the section with all thier reports). In the left hand column (the red ink is mine) you can see how DOC identifies 75% of incoming prisoners as having a major substance abuse problem, but in 2012 only 2,633 prisoners received any kind of substance abuse treatment - that's only about 4% of the nearly 60,000 prisoners who went through our state prisons last year. 

Now this is especially alarming given that the DOC is planning to take all the money from the Transitional Program fund (which prisoners pay into from their earnings). The Transitional Program fund pays for the services that are supposed to help prepare prisoners for release - some may qualify for up to 90 days early release.  Evidently the DOC thinks putting money it takes from the wages of prisoners into new prisons is a better use of the funds than providing substance abuse treatment or helping people adjust to the community again. That's about 3 1/5 million dollars, as far as I can tell. Boy, are the prisoners ever going to be mad about that one. They pay $.08 out of every dollar they earn into that fund.

Another fund that could be used for treatment services for drug-dependent prisoners is the Inmate Store Account - where they have nearly 9 million dollars they haven't spent on prisoner programs, like they once promised they would. In 2011 the legislature approved annual transfers of $500,000 from that account to the DOC Building Renewal Fund, and it looks like the DOC wants the rest for general operations.

(see page 87 of this document for those figures)

Perhaps the DOC has better plans to rehabilitate prisoners down the road? Hardly. Here's Chuck Ryan's vision for our collective future: despite packing our prison system full of drunks and addicts, and a plethora of best practice guidelines about treating them, only a handful of AZ prisoners will ever get treatment for their addictions or alcoholism in his custody. While fighting for tens of millions to increase their capacity by thousands of beds in recent years, the AZ DOC's strategic plan for 2014-2018 indicates that they only plan to increase the number of prisoners who receive substance abuse treatment services from 3,000 in 2013 to 3,250 in 2014. But in the Governor's Master List of State Government programs 2012-2015 the DOC says that without an increase in what they call "human resources" both the substance abuse and the sex offender treatment programs will be maxed out, at capacity, at the 2013 levels.

It's troubling that Chuck Ryan's prisoners have been killing eachother and themselves at twice the rate they did under previous administrations...That doesn't sound anything near what we should be getting from our state's Department of Corrections - especially for a billion dollars a year. No wonder there's so much heroin and extortion and violence in our state prisons. And what happens to these prisoners when you kick them lose with nothing but $50 and a prison ID card at the end of their sentences? Are they all really coming out better prepared to deal with life clean and sober than when they went in?

Here's some "truth in sentencing" for the judges out there: some of those homeless or seriously mentally ill folks who you locked up "for their own good" will come out addicted to worse drugs with more skills to commit new crimes - and probably infected with Hep C, too. Some won't even survive it - they may end up like Shannon Palmer, Marcia Powell, Carlo Krakoff or Tony Lester instead.

Now that's just plain shameful.

SMI prisoners and addicts should be placed in more appropriate facilities with the proper treatment resources before a new Supermax is built. Furthermore, if more resources went into community treatment options and re-entry support for prisoners, not plans for re-incarceration of the most vulnerable and troubled, there would be less demand for more prison space down the road. 

This is the Joint Legislative Committee on Capital Review - tell them we don't need another Supermax, and they need to look into who we are imprisoning in the Supermax we already have. Here are the committee members  to contact before next Wednesday's discussion about approving the new Supermax:

Senator Don Shooter Chairman 2013	Representative John Kavanagh Chairman 2014
Senator Gail Griffin	Representative Lela Alston
Senator Leah Landrum Taylor	Representative Chad Campbell
Senator John McComish	Representative Tom Forese
Senator Al Melvin	Representative David Gowan, Sr.
Senator Lynne Pancrazi	Representative Rick Gray
Senator Anna Tovar	Representative Andrew C. Sherwood

 

This is one way that Supermax gets so full:

You would think from all the rhetoric about trying to curb gang violence that prisoners would be encouraged and rewarded when they resist gang domination - especially the younger, more easily-influenced guys. Often these men say they refuse to perpetrate gang violence because they're trying to turn away from criminal activity, or because they don't believe in hurting people they have no personal issue with - I'd want to help those guys if I was running the prisons, frankly. Once they make themselves a target by asserting their autonomy, though, instead of being provided some measure of protection by the DOC they're being pushed back out into GP yards with the mark of "snitch" on them for having sought out PC even once.

To assert their dominance, the yard leaders or gang leaders these PC prisoners push back against give the nod to putting a "green light" on them for things like eating or speaking with members of the wrong race or with someone who is openly gay or transgender - meaning they're fair game for anyone to attack. The violence isn't just reserved for child molesters or career "snitches".

Since virtually all of the General Population (GP) prison yards are now run by the gangs, not the guards, prisoners who are thus targeted are forced to seek protective custody (PC) from the state - which immediately means they go into the hole (detention), not the perpetrators of threats or violence against them - those guys are often left to keep running the yards, despite all sorts of witnesses that they are dealing drugs and extorting prisoners.

There they sit for one or two months while the DOC justifies denying their PC applications (if they don't have an attorney on board, anyway) and placing them on a different prison yard, asserting to the prisoner that the threat that drove them to seek safety in a hole is simply "self-reported" (i.e. their death warrants aren't signed by gang leaders on letterhead, so therefore they must be fabricating said threat), doesn't pose a substantiated danger from a security threat group (STG), isn't statewide/ systemwide, and doesn't warrant much concern simply because the terrified, traumatized prisoner may not have been "smashed" (beaten into a coma) yet.

When prisoners who are denied PC status get pushed out into a new GP yard, they're usually quickly confronted by other prisoners and told to leave or they will be hurt for having PC'ed up on the yard they just got off of.  They aren't any safer on a prison yard across the state than the one they originally get into trouble with the gangs on  because of both guard corruption and the prevalence of cell phones inside - the gang members and gang wannabes waiting to assault them often know about PC prisoner moves and their issues before the prisoners even land on the next yard.

In fact, by pushing them onto one GP yard after another - from which they will predictably PC up off of to avoid being assaulted - the DOC is exposing these guys to an even larger number of state prisoners who will identify them each time they land on a new yard on out as prisoners with PC issues (code for snitches and sex offenders). The DOC is thus setting that prisoner up to get hurt again, and again, and again for a long time to come that way.

If a prisoner refuses to go onto a GP yard because they are afraid of being assaulted - which they have the "right" to do - they can be given a major disciplinary ticket for an "aggravated refusal of an order to house" (RTH). That means they go back into the hole another month or so AND lose good time and visitation and other privileges, and eventually get enough RTH tickets that their custody scores are jacked up to maximum security - whereby the DOC can place them in the Supermax prison and simply bury them there, where no one can hear them any more.

I dare the legislature to audit the Supermax - ALL the Maximum custody cells across the system - to see who's really there. I have a real problem with this pattern of punishing the prisoners who resist violence. For refusing to comply with gang orders to extort, hurt or kill others - including guards and community members - prisoners shouldn't be forced into Supermax cages for 23 hours a day, only to be allowed out to exercise or use the shower if chained up with two guard escorts.

In fact, many of those in ASPC-Eyman/SMU-I now are actually low-risk, non-violent, and mentally ill - they landed there thanks to RTH tickets. They include prisoners like C, here - HIS STORY IS QUITE COMMON...

The intent of funding and exercising that level of control over prisoners movements is to manage highly dangerous prisoners - not to punish them for passivity, or simply move them out of the way because the administration and guards have lost control of the GP yards. That's an absurdly abusive and expensive response to punish and silence a guy who just doesn't want to go along with the gang rules or perpetrate racist violence. The DOC doesn't have to be too conscientious about who they put there, though, because no one pays attention out here, and they already have 500 more Supermax beds approved to build and bring on line, no more questions asked ***

HELLO??? Is anybody at the AZ LEG really watching how the DOC is spending our money? They have a billion dollar budget and it's still growing, even though the prison population has been shrinking. This is one reason why we have a ton of guys in Supermax now who really don't meet the DOC's standard criteria for maximum security. The legislature is being taken for a ride, deluded about who that new prison is going to house, and deliberately indifferent to all the class action lawsuit allegations about the mentally ill being warehoused there already.

The AZ Inspector General's office and a legislative committee - as well as the US DOJ, in my book - needs to audit the DOC's PC program and the use of the existing Supermax prison and maximum security designations before they build that addition out at ASPC-Lewis..."

--------------------------------

FYI, families and recent prisoners:  I'm compiling a report for the US Department of Justice right now about the violence in AZ DOC prisons and the problems with the protective custody process (805), whereby it's impossible for male prisoners to refuse to "join" the gangs (which often involves assaulting another prisoner)  - much less just refuse to follow their stupid racist, sexist, patriarchal rules - without being victimized themselves, yet many guys still refuse. 

Do not go to Tom Horne's office  (AZ Attorney General) for info about civil rights in the prisons, or for help if you love a prisoner and want DOC investigated - they are the bad guys, too. The AZ Attorney General's office has no regard for civil rights; they defend the DOC against wrongful death, deliberate indifference and brutality suits, and are thus compromised. 

Report civil rights violations in the prisons to the ACLU of Arizona, the US Department of Justice (Civil Rights Division) and to me at arizonaprisonwatch@gmail.com.  All reports of prison violence that folks are aware could be useful as I put this thing together, so please pass them on.

AZ DOC's Protective Custody fight: tend to both body and soul.

I've been hearing from a lot of guys lately who are about to go to prison with what are called "issues" - reasons to request protective custody (also known as the 805 process, named after the DOC policy that covers it). I hate to say it, but AZ has the reputation of being the worst place in the country to do time in state prison. The DOC is facing a class action suit for gross medical neglect, inappropriate use of solitary confinement, and neglect and abuse of mentally ill prisoners. Race riots are erupting. The prison suicide and homicide rates doubled when Jan Brewer too over four years ago, and have remained among the highest in the nation. Assaults are out of control. And the officers are apparently as violent and criminally-inclined as the people they guard.

The prison yards across the state are being run by prisoners and gangs, not DOC staff, it's quite clear to me now. When you land you have to show the "leader" (or someone who will report to him) your police report - those are your "papers". By these you will be judged as a snitch (if you spilled the beans to the cops on arrest), as a perpetrtor of crime (ANY kind) against a woman or a child, or any number of other things they can use to justify telling you your papers are "no good" and that you either need to "clear your name" by doing dirty work for them, risk getting smashed into a coma and airvac'ed, or PC up and leave the yard. Not showing your papers is an indication that you have something to hide. 

Prisoners are given no choice on this. If your police papers are good, get a copy so you can get cleared quickly by the guys on the yard. If not, I wouldn't bring them in with you - they get stolen by porters and used as evidence against you among your peers, who will be much harder on you than the courts were. Have your family hold on to a copy of anything that can be shown to the DOC as evidence that you are at risk, though - anything suggesting you cooperated with police or prosecutors, court papers of your testimony, media articles about your crime or victim (even if your crime was pickpocketing, if your victim was a woman or child, you could be at risk), etc. If you need to apply for PC, they will need to send that material directly to Central Office to support your argument while making sure it doesn't get into the hands of the prisoner population.

Once on the yard, if your paperwork is bad: 

If you're given the chance to "clear your name" don't think you will ever be able to do so or be guaranteed protection by hurting another prisoner, especially some guy who never did a thing to you himself. The gangs will turn on you once you no longer meet their needs, and you'll be the next one they put the green light on - and no other prisoner will respect you enough by then to have your back, so you'll have to tuck your tail between your legs and go scurrying to the guards for safety, anyway. 

Paying extortion money (often damnded of gay prisoners to assure their safety) won't protect you for long, either - sooner or later all you're going to do is lead those people home to threaten those who love you. Don't do it. And for god's sake, don't get into any debt - not drugs, not gambling, not a little advance on your store - nothing. All that does is put a green light on you - the okay to hurt or kill you - that can be activated as soon as you default.

My advice is to do some real reflecting now so you know what you will and won't compromise in order to assure your own safety. Realize that the most precious freedoms are often taken from us without a scratch - it's the freedom to choose who we are and how we live in whatever world we are confined to. What are you willing to take a beating for, or even risk dying for? Is there anything - like the sanctity of human life, or the deepest part of your soul - that's worth putting yourself on the line for? If not, then you have some more serious issues than those which got you into trouble with other prisoners. 

If someone tells you the only way you can survive is to compromise that which you've determined you won't, tell them to fuck off - then brace yourself, and get to safety. Don't stand around and wait to be smashed - PC up if you need to, and get a hold of me right away. I'm Peggy Plews at Arizona Prison Watch / PO box 20494 / Phoenix, AZ 85036.

This comes up this morning because of a call I had with a prisoner's mom last night - her kid's a new arrival, facing over 6 years for burglary. He's a little guy with asthma and some learning disabilities, maybe a mental illness as well - he's scared to death. I wrote up this letter below for him, based on what a lot of other guys have told me about surviving prison with one's integrity intact. It seems appropriate to share here, for those of you about to hit the AZ DOC. 

If you're heading in for a term yourself, spend a little time perusing this blog first, call me if you have any questions, and make sure your family knows I'm an accessible resource for them and you - no charge. This is my own little way of fighting back against both gang and state violence. I seek to "abolish" the prisons of today by breaking through those walls and touching every person I can. I bring with me a mirror by which people who have been told their lives are worth less than nothing  can look into their own souls to find what is worth loving and believing in again, and fighting for. And I try to give prisoners the basic tools they need to resist the violence, despair, and oppression of incarceration. It's relatively easy for me - for anyone out there - to do. The real hard work - and the greatest risk - is on the prisoner.

Feel free to print up the letter below and send it in to anyone who may be hitting the DOC in similar straits. Here, also, is the letter I wrote to all prisoners dealing with protective custody applications: 

805 Valentine

and this is a guide to actually making an effective 805 argument, written by another priosner:

Navigating AZ's 805: A prisoner's guide

 

--------to a male prisoner in the AZ DOC assessment/intake process------

Hey David -

I got your postcard and spoke with your mom tonight. Sorry to hear you’re in such a jam. The DOC has likely already told you they won’t be placing you in protective custody - the PC yards are all full and the detention cells across the state are spilling over with guys in your shoes, or worse, right now, so they’re going to hand you some BS to justify sending you into GP. Appeal the decision so they have to give you a denial in writing, but don’t get your hopes up - my bet is that you’re heading for a 3 yard, and as soon as you hit they’ll want your papers, which I understand are the problem.

Once you land on a regular yard, PC up right away if it isn’t feeling safe there, and get ahold of me. - I need you to outline the argument you’re making to the DOC for why the threat you face is statewide, etc.  If you refuse to house, they may ticket you. Fight the ticket on the grounds that going on the yard would endanger you - that’s very important. Make them explicitly justify putting you in harms way and punishing you for resisting, get copies of everything you can,  and send me all your documentation. That’s ammunition for your fight down the road.

Your application will take longer - more denials and appeals - if you don’t show that you’ve actually been threatened or assaulted on the yard they send you to, but I can’t guarantee that you can survive the first attack, so I don’t encourage guys to wait for it before they PC up. By law, you don’t have to be assaulted in order to prove your need for protective segregation. But in practice, you’ll need to be able to build a stronger case for it than you have now to overcome all the barriers to getting into PC these days.

Basically, the violence in the state prisons is so out of control that more people are fleeing it than perpetrating it. No one is getting approved for PC who doesn’t have a lawyer or some heavy artillery on their side. Your mom and I are going to work on the artillery since she can’t swing  a lawyer, but that doesn’t get you off the hook. You need to become a damn good advocate and exercise your power yourself, in a very short time. You’re the one the DOC needs to be afraid of, not us, as only you can file a federal suit if your civil rights are violated. The DOC needs to know that you’re smart enough and assertive enough to do so. You’re going to need to scare them even while you’re sitting quietly in your shorts in the hole.

It should come as no surprise that the DOC isn’t primarily concerned about the danger you guys are in - they’re concerned with the danger the institution may be in from any of you or your families if you are hurt or killed. That’s how they appear to be prioritizing PC applications, so don’t think that your life has been devalued any more than any other prisoner’s, or that there’s anything you’ve said or done particularly wrong that means you deserve a worse time of it than any other prisoner.

You’re just landing in the AZ DOC at this time in history, when things are especially rough. I think you can get through this and still come out a better man - not because of anything the DOC does to help you, but because your mom believes you have it within you to transcend and grow beyond this experience. But you’re going to have to fight for your life in there, and it’s the state, not the other prisoners, that is most likely to kill you if you aren’t on your toes. Between your asthma, your vulnerability to assault, and your lack of political power, you are high risk and you can’t count on the AZ DOC to care for or protect you - they are there to punish you, to make you suffer. You need to build the best relationships you can with other prisoners, instead - and arm yourself with civil rights law as if your life depended on it like water - it does.

If you screwed up on the streets or hurt someone bad, take responsibility for it and show others that you’re a man of integrity now. The gangs give guys a chance to “clear your name” by doing bad things to others - don’t hurt someone else even if it seems like the only way to survive yourself. Develop a simple moral code you can easily explain and always fall back on when faced with dilemmas, one that gives you spiritual strength when people treat you as if you deserve to die.

If you learn all about prisoner rights and how to navigate the system in there, the other guys will begin to respect and value you for who you are now; who you once were becomes less important, then. Build a reputation of being someone who can be trusted to show good judgement and to know how to fight back against state oppression - become that kind of warrior. You don’t need to become some big jailhouse lawyer - keep it on the downlow, actually, if you do figure out the ropes, so the DOC doesn’t slap you down and try to cut you off from other guys who need the help. Become useful in there, but remain humble and discreet.

If you can do those things, they will protect you more in the long run than the DOC ever will, because all the DOC can do is put a wall between you and those who would hurt you - it doesn’t change anyone thinking they have the right or need to hurt you, though, which will catch up to you someday, when the walls are gone. You need to fix that now. Think of the detention cells and hardships you’re about to face as giving you a period of spiritual and mental training, like a Jedi knight being held as a prisoner of war in a dungeon full of lions. It’s okay to fantasize silly things like that if they build your inner strength, The danger you face there is real and bigger than normal life,  and you’ll need to psych yourself up somehow, with superhuman powers, to get through it, because there will be times when you’ll just want to lie down and quietly die. Don’t. Write to me or your mom instead.

I’m enclosing a guide to fighting for your 805 that another prisoner helped us come up with, based on his experience. I’m also enclosing a letter about the 805 process - it’s from February, but it’s all still good. I’m also sending you a questionnaire to give me a better idea of how else I can help; send that back when you land someplace. Keep your eyes and ears open for folks who might hurt you, but keep your head up, too - don’t let your shame tell anyone else it’s okay to hurt you. Make real amends where you can and take responsibility for what you feel bad about instead, or that’s the crap that will get you killed.

Hang in there and keep me posted on how things are going - I told your mom I’m yours as long as you guys need me, for whatever it’s worth, until you land someplace you feel relatively safe. My arms aren’t long enough to wrap around you guys in there, though - I can’t protect you. I can only really support, encourage, pray for you and be witness to your struggle.

Let me know when you land on the next yard.

Take care -

Peg

ASPC-Tucson/Whetstone Race Riot Update: Ryan has lost control.

Visiting the AZ Department of Corrections' Central Office...

(June 2012)

Since that little "fight" broke out at the AZ Department of Corrections' Tucson prison on the Whetstone unit last Sunday, I've heard a bit about what's been going on there from several sources, all of whom are afraid to be identified, understandably. Here's the best I can piece together about the riot - which was indeed a race riot, from what I'm told.

Whetstone is a level 2, minimum security yard, rife with drugs. It's apparently full of a lot of prisoners with mental health issues who aren't getting appropriately treated, and are consequently self-medicating - being provided with their drugs by the dealers and gangs instead of the mental health or medical staff. No "recovering" addict there has much of a chance of staying clean, either, as the supply of drugs like heroin is so plentiful and there's hardly anything going on in the way of jobs, programming, mental health or substance abuse treatment programs. 1200 men just roam the yards, then, over which a pervasive sense of boredom and restlessness hangs, driving the sane to use drugs as well. Too many AZ prisoners are being released with addictions these days that they didn't have when they were sentenced to the DOC's "care".

The medical services on Whetstone, which one person I spoke to describes as a "medical yard", are reportedly worse than negligent, and even dampens morale further. So is the deliberate indifference shown by guards to the vulnerability of prisoners they keep forcing into harms way onto general population yards despite them begging for protection from all the violence and extortion - many of those particular prisoners are the ones who appear to be mentally disabled in some way, which makes it harder for them to safely navigate the politics of prison life.

I suspect the DOC gets those kinds of "troublemakers" (the SMI prisoners who refuse to go into GP dorms or yards out of fear) off of Whetstone by disciplining them repeatedly for "refusing to house" and re-classing them all the way up to maximum security and sent to SMUI (where they must be chained and caged 24/7 because they are the worst of the worst, of course. Besides, if we didn't already have our current Supermax prison full of them, how would we justify building that new one at ASPC-Lewis that Governor Brewer wants?)

Whetstone society  is definitely organized by race, there appears to be no getting around that much - that's pretty much the rule across the AZ DOC's men's prisons. If you're a white guy and you step out of line - which means violating their rules and codes, not the DOC's - the white guys will check you  (or smash or kill you, depending more on how vicious the guy is that takes your punishment upon himself than on how serious your offense may have been). The same goes for the Black guys, Native American prisoners, and the Latinos - everyone checks their own.

I get a lot of mail from guys across the DOC system seeking help getting protective segregation due to threats or assaults from members of their own race, region, or ethnic or tribal group, but the only time I hear much about cross-racial violence is when there's a big fight or a riot like the one here at Whetstone, the one in September at ASPC-Tucson/Santa Rita, and the beat down of several black prisoners by about 100 white guys while MTC guards looked on in May 2010 at ASP-Kingman...

Hmm. See how these "fights" and "disturbances" keep getting bigger and more violent, the longer Director Ryan has been in office? What is he doing about the racial violence, I wonder, other than try to build more prisons to spread the same problems to?

One witness said the Whetstone riot actually started soon after 8am as a small fight between a few of the Black guys and Latinos "over the disrespect" one group showed the other the night before  - it just wasn't contained right away, and was allowed to rage on and spread until late morning. It's my understanding that the officers on Whetstone were actually "warned that the yard was going to pop off if they didn't get those black guys out of there" before there was any fighting. But they didn't take heed, and thus that AM the two groups came into conflict - after which the white guys all jumped in. It's a miracle no one ended up dead.


I'm told that the Black prisoners took the brunt of the beatings, as well as the looting that went on of the dorms during and after the unchecked melee - they got all their stuff trashed and stolen, while they themselves got zip-tied and locked down in the visitation areas all day and night. Some folks I've heard from are really concerned that the DW or warden there seems determined to re-integrate almost all the same prisoners on that yard to show that she's regained control that way - but this riot involved estimates of up to 700 guys (400 was reported by the DOC) actively fighting with not only fists, but also with tools and other improvised weapons for a prolonged period.

That tells me that no one at the DOC had control of that yard from the get go - the prisoners have been running it all along (the leaders handling the gambling, drugs and extortion rackets, not the ones who would help their comrades sue for their health care rights or anything. If those guys were running the place, prison might actually end up rehabilitating some people....)

That's all for now - let me know if anyone out there has more info, though, or different insights. I hope this at least gives the feds and media something more to go on - there's real trouble brewing in AZ prions these days, and if there isn't some meaningful response to the institutional dehumanization, the profound boredom and despair, and the need for mental health and substance abuse treatment, the violence  - racial and otherwise - will only get worse.

AZ DOC Director Ryan doesn't need more prisons and more protective segregation yards - he needs to  insert non-violence training into the prisons - along with rehabilitative programming - and respond meaningfully to all the grievances prisoners have. Arizona also needs to expedite bringing our low-risk prisoners back home to our communities and offering them a life after felonization that they can actually build on - not one which drives them into dead end jobs and high risk housing (if they're lucky to get that much once they get out of prison).

In the meantime, Arizona's Superior Court Judges need to listen up - PLEASE stop sending vulnerable and mentally ill people to prison thinking you're doing them the favor of putting them where they'll get medical and mental health care, substance abuse treatment, job training, or anything else but raped or beaten or left outside in a cage to die in this state. Be a little more creative and compassionate instead, and stop draining our communities of the resources we need to educate our kids, tend to our our ill and disabled, and prevent crime and victimization in the first place.