This is a redacted and slightly edited version of a letter which I recently wrote to my wife about a violent incident which occurred at the Pennsylvania "correctional institution" where I'm imprisoned. The prison's just been locked down. I want to write so you'll know what's going on. By now you realize that I won't be phoning this evening. The prison existence is worrisome on you and trying for me. Our regular block sergeant is a pretty good manager who runs the block reasonably well, but this afternoon/evening we had an substitute sergeant working on our cellblock, [name withheld for legal reasons]. He's been here before and he's repeatedly proven himself to be a jerk who frequently causes many needless problems. He's the guy I've mentioned as being so lazy that he loafs instead of working. He won't even get the janitorial detail to clean the cellblock because he can idle away an extra hour. About 6:30, after the evening meal had been fed and just after they'd called some men to go to their evening treatment programs, but while the rest of us were locked in our cells waiting to go to the yard, the electrical power suddenly went off. That caused the men's TV sets to go off and to risk damage to them. It was the second time during the day that the power had been shut down. About 4:20 PM while I was typing a story, the power went off for a few seconds. I lost my typewriter memory. A few men started to bitch and complain. They thought that the substitute sergeant had done it intentionally. He often does stuff like that; very provocative and adolescent; a fourteen year-old bully in a grown man's body. On this occasion, it was, no doubt, just a glitch in the power system, not something he'd done to provoke the men. Some of the prisoners were screaming their protests. The irregular sergeant furiously reacted to the shouts. He challenged the men to do something more than just talk. They should fight him. With more testosterone than brains, the sergeant rushed onto our wing of the cellblock. There are two wings on each block divided by a glassed-in control room or "bubble" in the middle. Behaving wildly, the irate sergeant stormed around daring prisoners to say things to his face or to fight him. In retaliation for the men's complaints, the livid sergeant bellowed that he wouldn't let anyone go to the yard or anything else. This man has a reputation for retaliation and vindictiveness for any trivial affront. A man on the first floor of the block was calling, trying to get a guard in the bubble to let him go to his drug treatment program. It had just been announced. The sergeant repeatedly baited the prisoner. He ordered the guard in the bubble to electronically open the man's cell door so that he could challenge the prisoner face-to-face. This is what happens when prison staff think with their gonads. Somehow or other there was also another prisoner out of his cell, an obnoxious bully named [withheld]. I've frequently heard him threaten people, both staff and prisoners. His sentence maxes out in October, so he was very "short." He may have been making a phone call on the cellblock, I don't know. The irregular sergeant continued to bait the men until a fight erupted. The two prisoners (both blacks, by the way) pummeled the sergeant (who's white) with their fists until he fled. At the door onto this wing of the cellblock a second guard, a young fellow named [withheld] who's never caused anyone an unnecessary problem, apparently tried to come to sergeant's assistance. (I didn't actually see what happened). One or more of the prisoners apparently attacked him, too. The younger guard seems to have been beaten pretty badly; enough so that he was bleeding. Within a few minutes, the wing was crowded with guards and the culprits were taken away in handcuffs. It was the worst fight I've ever seen between guards and prisoners. During the whole episode, several of the younger prisoners taunted and egged on the fight, making the staff even more fearful than they already were. It's what children do in the schoolyard and many of the prisoners have no more maturity or good sense than the guards. We'll likely pay for this for a long time. I hope the lock-down and shakedowns don't last too long. In all honesty, the sergeant caused the fight or could easily have prevented it. The letter continues the following day at 6 AM. We're still locked down. Just now a troop of guards, perhaps forty of them, entered this wing of the cellblock. They're here to tear up our cells and trash our little bit of personal property. It's standard pay-back for the melee with the two guards. It's the punish-'m-all mentality of corrections. I think they'll likely let us out later on today or tomorrow. There's no real reason to keep us locked down, but who can fathom a prison administrator's mental processes? There have been numerous fights in the prison during the past week or ten days. The men have nothing constructive to do and they're harassed and degraded by some of the staff. They explode, but usually they assault one another. Mostly, there are a lot of young boys here and the guards seem to have been mis-trained to believe that the way to manage them is through confrontation and force. It's a bad approach. The letter continues at 8:48 that morning. The battalion of guards has finished tearing up this side of the cellblock and taking their revenge on us. My cell was utterly trashed. They dumped it! All the searchers actually took were the paper bags we use to line our wastebasket, the spoons we use to make coffee and the little paper coaster I kept under my coffee cup. A be-freckled sergeant who was working with the searchers told me that he didn't care what the guards did. It was simply revenge, you see. We were fed breakfast out of a paper bag, a donut, hard boiled eggs and tepid milk. The prison is running an announcement on the institutional TV channel that we'll get hot meals for lunch and dinner, but we'll remain on lock-down ("a state of emergency" as the notice calls it) until the whole prison is searched. That may take days! Guards have started escorting prisoners from the wing to the education building. Apparently, the security honchos are grilling them about what happened. Officials won't like the story they are bound to hear. The Letter continues at 1:26 PM. About noon I was escorted to the education building where I was interviewed by (commissioned officers, names withheld]. Every prisoner on this wing was similarly interviewed. It took only a few minutes. I told them what little I knew. They didn't like it. We've been served a "meal" in our cells; bread, a cup of soda and a scoop of rice with "beef stew" on it. It wasn't eatable and not nearly enough for a man's lunch. Not much worse than is served as regular fare in the aptly named messhall. The shakedown is continuing in another part of the prison. The last I heard, they were through A, B, C and in D block; four of our ten blocks. It will be a while yet. The Letter continues at 6:23 AM the following morning. The shakedown of the cellblocks seems to have ended about 7 o'clock last evening. We were allowed to shower for a few moments during the afternoon. About 5 o'clock we were given an evening meal in our cells. It was warmish turkey luncheon meat, some brownish stuff and some mushy corn. I don't know what the other thing on the paper dish was. It looked a little like caulking. This morning the kitchen workers went off to work about as scheduled and we've been counted as usual. I hope you'll come to visit me today. I'm sorry I couldn't phone. I know that worry.