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April 30, 2003 7:30pm Hi everyone- So Jesse called me at 6:20pm tonight and guess what happened? He works from 7:30am-3:30pm (including a break for lunch), and after work he was called into the office of his Unit Director. She told him to stop the faxes and phone calls on his behalf immediately - because the prison has already located his medical records and has sent the order in for his medication in to the Central Office! Jesse made it clear that if he doesn't receive his prescription shot by the 3rd scheduled date, May 18th, that we will advocate again. The Unit Director apparently made it very clear that he would indeed receive his prescription ASAP! So, thank you for your rapid and effective responses to this action alert! This has been amazingly successful. I will be in touch as I learn more, but for now, know that we all were part of this transformation. Below are a letter and poem that I received in the mail from Jesse today.
Take care and stay strong- April 28, 2003 Life here gets more sad and interesting every day, the more people I get to know and the more stories I hear. So many of the women ere are here on drug charges. A lot of them didn't have any kind of access to a drug treatment program until they were put in prison. Even then you have to have a 'documented drug problem' to be eligible. This means that women who are here for theft or check fraud, who committed these 'crimes' to fund their drug addiction aren't eligible because they're not here for drug charges. So unless they asked, at the time of their arrest, to be tested for drugs and have their problem documented before trial, and then got the judge to order that they participate, they're out of luck. Follow that to the obvious places - if you have a well-paid lawyer who can do all this without opening you up to extra charges you end up in the program and get up to a year off your sentence - otherwise you do your full time w/ no comprehensive program. Camp Danbury, as we like to call it, currently has no one to teach its Spanish GED program. Actually, they won't allow anyone to teach it. The job, whic is yet another aspect of the camp done by inmates pays only $5.25/month. So right off the bat anyone with kids to support, or who needs to make money to live here can't possibly take this job. Keep in mind, we're issued a very tiny bottle of crappy shampoo, gross toothpaste, and lye soap, and 4 complete uniforms. We have to buy our own toiletries beyond that, buy stamps and paper, buy phone time, if we want to wear something other than the uniform on weekends we have to buy sweats, t-shirts, they even make you buy stuff like ibuprofen, cough syrup, etc. So no one is taking a $5.25/month job unless they have money coming in from the outside, no fine or restitution, etc. On top of that you of course have to be bilingual which knocks out another whole slew of people. There is one person who has support from the outside, is bilingual, and even has teaching experience. Katherine Brown, my SOAW codefendant would be thrilled to take the job. But our counselor Mr. Metielski hates protesters so she's assigned to pots & pans in the kitchen. One of the women in my room has HIV. She has done 7 months of a 60 month sentence. For a prisoner with HIV, given the 'health care' available, 4 1/2 years to go is almost like a life sentence. And I'm not exaggerating about the healthcare situation. You have to wait weeks to get x-rayed - one woman was hobbling around with a cane for 3 weeks before an x-ray revealed a broken hip. She was ordered to be in a wheelchair by the doctors but the C.O.'s would only let her use a cane. She ended up suing them and still suffers from chronic pain. I've noticed though that even if she'd had a wheelchair it wouldn't have helped much since there's not a singe aspect of this place that's wheelchair accessible. Most of the rooms are up or downstairs and those on the main level are too crowded (Danbury FPC's capacity is 78 but there's around 200 of us). The cafeteria is downstairs, even the DOCTOR'S OFFICE is up a flight of stairs! The one bathroom located on ground level is being used for storage of empty lockers, so again, you can only get in if you can squeeze and climb. Another woman in my room is 4 months pregnant. She's been incarcerated for 5 months. So some rapist guard somewhere is going to be a father. In the meantime this woman is still on a top bunk and still working. There are no ladders on the bunks - if you're up there you climb in and out of bed. Life keeps going while these women are incarcerated. Women get served divorce papers, their friends die, their family members get sick or or locked up. They have babies and lose them and go right back to prison. Still the most common sound I hear is the sound of laughter. Cynical laughter, joyous laughter, what-can-you-do? laughter. Me, I laugh every day, too. The women know Metielski gives me a hard time and they go out of their way to share crude and vulgar remarks with me regarding his sex life, drinkig problems, and the size of his genitalia. It usually makes me blush, but I have to laugh, too, because I know I'm seeing survival in action and the worst thing you can do to a C.O. is have no respect. Well I'm almost out of room on this side and I want to put an Assata Shakur poem on the other side so I must wrap up my daily rambling rant. Rest assured that you'll be hearing more from me soon. Let me know if you'd like something more upbeat - I haven't yet told you what spring looks and feels and smells like, how I've learned how to draw fire up from the ground and through my whole body, how my job leaves me smelling like sweat and cut grass and gasoline. Jesse
No One Can Stop the Rain Watch, the grass is growing Watch, but don't make it obvious. |