A VERY COLD PLACE
A report on SCI Greene Shakedown
by Reginald S. Lewis, ©1998
With no warning, the internal memo came first. A cold, crude, hastily written
document announcing the changes to take effect March 5, 1998: Starting with
a general shakedown of all death row inmates at SCI-Greene in upstate Pennsylvania,
all privileges were being revoked (though they were few), visiting time
cut, personal property seized--an invocation that sent an icy chill through
the dark, hollow corridors of death row. One hour later, the confraternity
of "shakedown boys" swept into the unit, converging portentously
into every pod, into every cell, pillaging, destroying, rummaging through
our personal possessions with the frenzy of vultures gutting the carcass
of some dead animal. They deliberately seized photographs, letters, the
inmates' artwork, art supplies, clothing, books, watches, pens, magazines,
legal, religious and educational materials--violating the constraints of
their own mandate.
They took everything I had-everything. Even my plays, manuscripts, and works-in-process.
I watched helplessly as they raided my cabinet and bookshelf stocked with
books on Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity. Clammy white fingers carelessly
tossed about books by some of my favorite Black authors: Maya Angelou, James
Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison, Dorothy West, Walter Mosley.
I had just purchased Toni Morrison's new novel, Paradise.
It was so cold. Cruel. Inhumane. It was inconceivable to me that in this
information age with computer disks capable of storing vast libraries and
the electronic windows open to new worlds--why they were slamming shut my
small, dusky window to all those worlds my books provided. I balked. But
I was dealing with the clones of Hitler's ghost-gestapo-like guards corraled
from nearby counties with the highest adult illiteracy rate in the entire
state.
My protestations drew a cadre of tobacco chewing henchmen who quickly surrounded
me... I felt the presence of unseen angels, flanking my left and my right.
And after a fusillade of threats and brow-beatings, they left me alone.
The next day, numerous death row prisoners went on a hunger strike in protest
of the punitive measures constantly being enforced upon them. One of the
recent changes was the CO-PAY for medical services policy, requiring inmates
to pay for medications and prescriptions--a measure that increased the likelihood
of death for poor inmates inflicted with some injury or life-threatening
diseases.
In this cold place, death looms. An order went out for body bags.
--Reginald S. Lewis, #AY2902, ©1998