Beside the reeking city dump in Chester, in the southeastern corner of Pennsylvania is SCI-Chester. It's supposedly Pennsylvania's treatment center for prisoners who are addicted to drugs and alcohol. In all respects, it's an abject failure! Then again, all of Pennsylvania's 25 prisons are flops. Chester is also a disgrace. Republican politicians are money-crazy and they like to exploit the under-class. The Chester prison was built so that Republican politicians could get a cut of federal drug treatment funds. It was never intended to actually help anyone. Prison is never about help. SCI-Chester was purely an economic maneuver; your money poured into Republican pockets. The prison, an ugly and poorly constructed series of inter-connected units, was tossed up in the worst neighborhood in the center of Chester amid bevies of hookers, pushers and street gangs. Since it's been built, it's a common occurrence for visitors' and employees' cars to be stolen from the parking lot and for visitors to be solicited for crack or sex. The place was constructed without a recreation yard, only a small slab of splintering concrete wedged between buildings. Daily, low-flying jet planes dump fuel and cabin waste into the area where the men are trying to exercise. Nobody wanted to work in the prison. It was, and is, a filthy, mismanaged cesspool. In order to staff the guard force, standards had to be greatly reduced. Employment test grades and qualifications for employment in SCI-Chester are much lower than at other state prisons (and they're none too high any place). Instead of a grade of 90, an applicant with a score of 30 is assured employment at Chester. Most of the employees were and are drawn from the surrounding ghettos. While the prison is supposed to "treat" addictions, many of the guards are, themselves, drunks and drug addicts. It's routine for guards to "OD" (overdose) while on the job. About 70% of the staff is women, mostly poorly educated and poorly trained blacks drawn from crime-ridden families. For example, a kitchen steward was arrested after working for half a year. She'd murdered her husband. The prison has no established or enforced rules. Each guard creates and enforces the rules she wants. Cells and property is ransacked almost weekly and much of the prisoners' personal property is seized and carried home by the staff. For the prisoners, it's an oppressive and uncertain atmosphere of harassment and abuse. Some prisoners tolerate the conditions because sex with the staff is readily available for a price. Lots of the guards are prostitutes and all prisoners are desperately sexually starved. The prison is filthy and badly-maintained. It lacks such basic necessities as television cable and commissary. The food is as bad as at Smithfield prison. Medical treatment is inadequate. The drug treatment schemes simply don't work. In order to get prisoners to go to Chester, they are either forced into the place (the state gets a federal payment for each man in the program) or, more commonly, they are fed the Big-Lie: you'll be able to get out of prison early... It's a lie! All reasonable persons realize that drugs should be decriminalized and sold like Viagra to those poor souls who need them. If a person wants to kill himself or herself, that's a personal choice like smoking or the deadly auto-driving. Making drugs a taboo gives them a glamour and appeal especially to rebellious male adolescents. Of course, because drugs are illegal, they are very costly and impure and so they breed real crimes of violence. Like all prisoners, the thousands of men who are imprisoned for drug related crimes, long to be free, or even to be given a way to earn their freedom. The Pennsylvania Parole Board is so irrational and fickle that it can't be relied upon to follow its own rules let alone to act reasonably. A prisoner can't "earn" release from the Parole Board. He can only be screwed. The Chester Big-Lie is that if a prisoner endures the horrible treatment and condition of "the program," he'll be released from prison. Don't you believe it! Like everything in "corrections," it's a lie. The great majority of the men at SCI-Chester are not released. Most are shipped out to other prisons or returned to the prisons from which they came. Many are denied parole even after enduring "the program." A few are sent out to halfway houses from which about half are returned. In other words, the Chester drug treatment scheme is a complete failure except for the politicians and the highly paid staff.