By: George Feigley
Pennsylvania has a lot of prisoners. As of today the count is 35,489 adults and more than 5,000 children. I'm just one person in that storm of oppressed humanity. Over the years I've brought a number of legal actions in a struggle to improve my lot and the conditions of prisoners, generally. Recently I filed suit in an effort to get the extremist right-wing government of the state to implement the Americans With Disabilities Act and to provide decent, humane housing for prisoners.
Pennsylvania's many prisoners are stored in several ways. Some few of them are housed in communal dormitories or converted house-trailers. About 20% are stored in cells by themselves. That's "single-celled" in prison parlance. The great majority of prisoners are confined with two men occupying a space the size of your bathroom. While that's generally called "double-celling," it's really "half-celling" because each of the men gets only half of the cramped space and meager facilities of a cell which, a hundred years ago, was designed for only one person.
Anyone who lives with another person realizes how difficult and stressful it can be to share even a whole house with another person. That can be true even of married persons and those in love. Obviously, for prisoners the situation is very much more stressful. Not only is the space only a few square feet, but one's "cell-partner" is usually a person you don't even like!
The kind and humane Department of Corrections has a program which puts a few favored prisoners into the less stressful single occupancy cells. When I write "kind and humane," I really mean something VERY different, but I can't tell you the truth because I'll be punished. So, when I write "kind and humane," you figure out what I really mean.
In theory every prisoner is entitled to a single-cell if one is available. In reality, the program for putting prisoners into single-cells is, of course, arbitrary and obscure. In theory, a man will get a single-cell if he's been "good" and hasn't challenged the authorities for enough years. Such a payoff for ass-kissing will ever benefit me. I'm a jailhouse-lawyer and an activist. I haven't yet surrendered to the abuses of the system.
But, in theory, there are other ways to earn access into the kind and humane Department's single-celling program: be a good enough snitch, be a homosexual, be one of the little boys who have been doomed to prison, be infected with AIDS or some other deadly infectious disease, or be a filthy hog with whom no other prisoner will live. Well, I'm none of those things so the single celling program would appear to be closed to me.
While there are lots of things that I am not, there are a few things which I am. I'm being killed by the long hopeless years of extreme stress. A group of factors have come together to entitle me to some relief from the dangerous and debilitating stress by the simple expediency of being single-celled. Not having walked a mile in my shoes, you are not sympathetic to my little irritations. Being free and working for a living, you have stress of your own and don't want to hear some old fat prisoner whine about the trivial. Certainly, I agree that the ordinary working person (like my good wife) has plenty of stress and other intrusive problems, and this is not one of those "pity-me" kinds of things. But, maybe, now and then, you can get a few moments alone or in a car or sitting on the toilet or someplace where you can relax, unwind and revitalize yourself. I hope you do.
So, what are my little stressors? I'm 58 years old and, what with snoring and gas and long-fixed personal habits, age itself becomes something of a disability. Then, I've been worn down to a nub by more than 20 years of imprisonment. Because I've written critical things for this and other websites, I've been put into dead-end punishment by the kind and humane prison officials. Even though I've been eligible for parole for over 5 years, I will not be paroled and I will be indefinitely housed with the youngest, most violent, most aggressive and most bigoted prisoners.
In addition to these political and social considerations, I'm not in ideal health. I suffer from a serious genetic bleeding disorder which threatens my life if I'm wounded by one of the violent, aggressive prisoners who I am now too old to fight effectively. In addition I suffer from asthma, arthritis and genius. Being smart provokes unreasonable animosity from the many prisoners and guards with more ordinary intellects.
Harassment is a crime in Pennsylvania and one of my serious problems is being harassed. Besides being a little brighter than most of my peers, I'm also Jewish. There are a lot of neo-Nazis in the Pennsylvania prison system. Traditionally, they focused on white-supremacy and bulled blacks. They can't do that any more. Blacks and other "minorities" are now the great majority in the prisons. Two-thirds of the prison population is "minority." In consequence, the neo-Nazis bully others who appear to be weak and exploitable. Jews are, of course, ideal.
Because the prison staffs are, by and large, bigoted, white extremists, they tend to be sympathetic with the neo-Nazis. They do little or nothing to curb them unless they are foolish enough to directly confront the black majority. The neo-Nazis are not bright, but also, they are bullies, not heroes, and certainly not brave. They pick on the weak.
I'm not only Jewish and old, I'm also fat and weak, and most juicy of all, I was convicted of a sex offense. I'm subjected to continual extreme harassment of a variety of kinds. Although such conduct is criminal, I'm the "writer" and not popular enough with the guards for them to enforce the rules which would reduce the harassment. That's not entirely correct. A guard named Welch appears to have made a good faith effort (albeit not very effective) to have the harassment reduced.
So, the point is that the kind and humane Department of Corrections operates a program which provides single cells for prisoners. I wanted a single cell because it would allow me to get alone for a little while each day to relax and unwind my beleaguered mind. I tried to find out how to go about getting into the program. Nobody would tell me how. A single-cell was considered a benefit and great luxury. I write critical things about guards and prisons. I don't "deserve" a benefit or a luxury. I deserve punishment. Hopefully, I'll die and rid the authorities of a vocal thorn in the side.
I tried everything. I even managed to get to see the psychiatrist who visits the prison. He agreed that I should be single-celled, but he wasn't a state employee or a bureaucrat. He was only a highly skilled professional. The authorities were safe to ignore him.
At length, I even wrote to kind and humane Governor Ridge and also kind and humane Secretary Martin Horn. I told them, hey, I'm disabled, but I'm still entitled to access to a "program' operated by the state. What's more, I have a serious need and the authorities are being deliberately indifferent. Ridge and Horn ignored me.
So, I've asked the court to enforce the Americans With Disabilities Act and those tiresome annoyances, the state and federal constitutions.
I would be very interested to receive legal, personal and other comments from the users of this site. You an reach me through e-mail at gfvstr@prisoners.com or even through the comments page on this site.
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