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Gwendolyn M. Stubbs, a young woman at the Dauphin County
jail near Harrisburg in Central Pennsylvania, was removed from
the hospital and forced into a cell with another woman. There,
without any assistance except from her cell-partner, she gave
birth to her baby!
What kind of a system requires a woman charged with a minor offense to deliver unattended in a prison cell? The Dauphin County system. Dauphin County is the site of Pennsylvania's capital city, Harrisburg. It's also one of the most extremist Republican backwaters of oppression in the nation. The legal system is not simply vindictive, it's draconian. It imprisons more people than any other city of similar size. It hands out death sentences like medieval witchhunters and it subjects its prison inmates to horrendous conditions. There's not just one thing wrong with the Dauphin County jail, there's a whole catalog of abuses.
We've received many complaints about a "chair" being used in the prison as a torture and intimidation device. Numerous prisoners and their families report how the prison staff uses the device to restrain, humiliate and torment naked prisoners for extended periods of time. After asking about "the chair" at a prison board meeting, the jail warden showed it to me. It reminded me of an electric chair, but it was high-impact plastic with many straps. The victim is strapped into it and the seat of the chair tilts back putting him off balance and vulnerable. The warden's position was that the staff uses the chair only for prisoners who are "suicidal" or "out of control" (whatever that may mean). His official excuse was that it controls prisoners who were "a threat to themselves or others." Apparently the staff is not qualified to cope with ordinary problems except by using primitive measures. I was unable to talk with prisoners who had been tortured in this way. All I was given was the official cover-story. It would be unfair for me to report what the officials claim without giving the victims' points of view too. I'd be as manipulated as the parrots (they aren't reporters) from the local newspaper, the Patriot-News. If Dauphin County can't deal with troubled prisoners, the prisoners should be released or hospitalized, not tortured.
The prisoners at the Dauphin County jail are provided with only a bare subsistence diet. The county believes in abusing it hundreds of prisoners. Starvation is one approach. It contracts with a firm to feed the prisoners for about 80 cents a day! You know yourself what 80 cents will buy; not a decent or humane meal, not even a bag of potato chips! The, official line is that the prisoners get plenty of food. The judge on the prison board has said that jail shouldn't be pleasant. He apparently believes in punishing and harming people. Dear Judge Cherry: the punishment of jail is the loss of liberty. One is imprisoned as punishment, not for punishment. One would think that a judge would be familiar with Supreme Court pronouncements. If Dauphin County can't afford to feed its prisoners, it shouldn't have them.
We've received many complaints that the Dauphin County jail is filthy, the plumbing is frequently out of order and the place is infested with roaches, insects, mice and rats. We know that the jail is very poorly maintained and that toilets are clogged, overflowing and filthy. We know that the place is dirty, however, my requests for a tour of the jail have so far gone unanswered. I can't honestly report how widespread or bad the problems of bugs and dirt are. I do know that diseases, including AIDS, are common in the facility.
The Dauphin County jail is grossly overcrowded. The county imprisons such a high percentage of its citizens, mostly minorities, that it can't cope with the number of enslaved persons. The prison board hasn't the insight of how to cope. Limited and repressive persons think in limited and repressive ways. After a recent prison board meeting I was allowed to walk down a prison corridor. I was unable to talk to any of the hundreds of prisoners. I was almost alarmed by how quite the hall was. Unlike my visits to state institutions where men callout to greet me and there are normal sounds of men roaming the hallways and doing various tasks, Dauphin County jail was crowded and sullen like Orwells 1984. Taking a few steps down the long hallway, I became aware of the cause for my eerie sense. Along the windows of what had once been intended as dayrooms, there were row upon row of metal beds stacked one upon another. Orange jumpsuited men by the hundred occupied the cots. It was the middle of the day, about 2:30, but the prisoners were just lying idlely on the cots. It truly gave me the uneasy sense that I'd walked into a "CSI" morgue and was viewing drawers of dead bodies. Nobody called out, no one seemed to even notice that we were there. This is real warehouseing! Human beings treated like so much inventory. Why can't Dauphin County find other ways to cope with its citizens?
Because of overcrowding, bad design and bad management, the prisoners at the Dauphin County jail have almost no recreation. The dayrooms are used as dormitories and so are not used for recreation. The small gymnasium provides a basketball court for a few younger prisoners. The older men are mainly confined to their cells. Even the persons running the prison must realize that without exercise, the men can't burn off their energy and agitation. That's a blueprint for problems now and upon release.
Once upon a time there was a butterfly breeding project at the jail. The prisoners could breed and raise butterflies. The insects were then sold for release at weddings, in gardens and so forth. I thought it was a great idea to help the prisoners with a nurturing project and perhaps cultivate a more tender side of the men. The project no longer exists. The rumor is that the elderly residents living at the nearby county home came by at night and released the butterflies. There are some of us who have a difficult time seeing anything (man or beast) locked behind bars. My own view is that the prison staff killed the butterfly project because it was too much trouble for them. Prison employees are notoriously lazy.
On a slightly more positive note, Dauphin County jail operates a program where some of the prisoners are allowed to work outside the jail. The county uses the prisoners as slave labor. They work outside and are paid. In turn, they pay the county. A Republican administration obsessed with money loves that! To be fair, the program allows a few men to earn a little money for themselves and their families. It also gives them a little time outside the oppressive prison. We encourage such a program. We've become aware that the prisoners are often employed on pet projects for pet employers. Insiders and favored persons are given prisoners to refurbish their properties and do other labor. In effect, they are a county supported slave labor force for persons and companies that the administration favors. I promote the simple premise that all persons should be treated decently; inclusion, not exclusion, cultivation, not oppression. By those standards, the Dauphin County jail is a mess! You are welcome to use or republish
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