Author: Bandit
I was formerly a productive member of society. I was your friend, neighbor, coworker. I did not live a life of crime. I’m in prison because of what happened during 30 seconds of a mental breakdown after a lot of trauma. Someone died. I killed them. It was an accident, but it happened. I was forced into a plea because I was scared, but more than likely if I had gone to trial, my sentence would have been much less. Now I’m serving life with the possibility of parole after 30 years.
Before I ever got to prison, I spent more than two years in complete solitary confinement at county jail because of a specific threat against my safety. I was almost never allowed out of my cell for any reason. I had nothing except my books, which I had a family member order from Amazon. I was in that cell for 24 hours a day, many times for several days with sometimes as little as 10 minutes out a week. I read mostly what’s considered the classics because those were the cheapest. I bought all my own books.
It was lonely. But in some ways, I wish I could go back after experiencing all this. Being alone like that all the time was better than witnessing what I’ve seen in prison.
After those two years, I was eventually sent to Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison in Jackson. Upon arrival, the deputy transporting me escorted me to an area where there were line control rails similar to a theme park. The deputy told a CERT member who I was and handed him all my paperwork from the jail for intake. The CERT member proceeded to check off my name on a list and throw all the paperwork — including my medical file — into a garbage can.
The deputy alerted the CERT member of the threat to my safety and stated I needed to be separated from the others in line. He told him I needed to immediately be placed into protective custody. The CERT member replied with “So?” He immediately followed up telling me to strip to my boxers and get in line with everyone else. The deputy began to argue with him as I stripped and took my place in line.
It was 35 degrees that morning. I only know because we passed a bank sign on the way to GDCP.
I stood in line with over 100 other grown men in underwear, or some completely naked because they had no underwear. After what felt like an eternity, the CERT member came and told me to walk in the direction he pointed. I was directed into a cell just inside the doorway where I was locked in. I immediately noticed fresh blood everywhere. There were a couple of spots where it had pooled because the amount was so great. I stayed in that cell for four hours with nearly freezing temperatures because there was no heat, in nothing but my boxers.
If that’s how it was as soon as I got there, I thought I was going to die.
I was eventually taken out and told to stand on a pair of yellow “feet” I now know are called the “happy feet.” There are several in rows and men would stand on them, be told to remove their underwear, and they would stand there waiting to take a quick shower after being deloused. Myself and another person stripped, were sprayed all over — starting with the face — with a delousing solution, and told to take a shower. There was no hot water and the water somehow felt even colder than I could have ever imagined. There was still no heat. I finished and was issued a bag of clothes that were either too big or too small and dressed.
The next bit was a blur. I received a “GDCP special” haircut which just meant all the hair on my head was buzzed off, my picture taken and an ID issued, and I was led into what was once a gym for the rest of the intake. We were escorted by the same CERT member who refused to help us with any of the intake. I was told to get a mat out of a great stack that smelled foul and I saw roaches all over them. I was told to follow him to wherever I would end up.
He seemed to see me struggling to keep up and walked faster until I could no longer see him. I passed another prisoner who began cursing at me and produced a shank which he used to threaten me. I had done nothing more than pass him trying to figure out where the CERT member was. I did eventually catch up and ended up in segregation where I passed out from stress for the rest of the day.
When I woke up I immediately went to the shower, which looked like a set from a Saw movie, to finish washing off the delousing solution and to try to pretend I wasn’t scared in front of the other prisoners.
What I’ve described above was just six hours of my prison experience, and overall it is much better than what many others have experienced.
I’m still in segregation now, but it’s a unit with others so we are allowed out of our cells to be around each other. Going from solitary to being around people was different. I wasn’t used to interacting with people anymore. I would still rather go back to solitary.
There’s really nothing to do. Sometimes I try to read but it’s loud a lot of the time. Other times I just sit and stare at the wall. I have helped others with various things but I don’t feel like I fit in. There’s really nothing every day.
I was placed into Involuntary Protective Custody for reasons outside of my control. I’m here even though I never requested it. I now have no access to classes, a law library, a regular library, and most services and privileges afforded to normal prisoners. My situation is not uncommon. Regardless of status, this is the case for many at close-security facilities.
It took me nearly two months to get set up to make calls, three months to get anyone financially approved to put money on my books, even longer for visitation paperwork. I have two family members who still visit once or twice a month because it’s a little far for them to come every visit day. Everyone else left. I can call most days but choose not to because I don’t have much to say. Nothing good happens here and knowing I’m never getting out has made it so I really don’t want to know anything outside of here now.
I have been threatened, had weapons pulled on me, had someone five feet away from me stabbed, seen others who have been beaten or stabbed, been fed rancid and moldy food, had roaches and rats everywhere I’ve turned, drank water I’ve been told is toxic, seen people sleeping on bare concrete or in showers because they couldn’t afford to pay “rent” on their cell or things, heard people beaten and raped, been threatened with physical violence by staff, been belittled and retaliated against by staff, had someone in my unit die with us being required to remove the body, and so much more that no one living in the “free world” will believe much less can imagine.
Unfortunately there are many things I can’t stop thinking about. I can’t pick just one, it’s all so horrible. I regularly break down because of it all. Mental health only meets with you for a few minutes on the other side of a gate with bars and all they tell you is to use coping skills to deal with it. I just have to deal with it on my own.
There is almost zero classification and someone who committed felony shoplifting might be in a unit with people who have committed multiple murders. A person sent to prison for having THC might be in a cell with someone who killed two or three people. A “civilian” — someone not affiliated with a gang — might be thrown in a dorm of nothing but gang members. This leads to extortion, physical assaults, sexual assaults, and death in many cases. It used to be said during intake to all new arrivals that everyone had better learn to “fuck or fight” to make it out of prison.
Somehow upon coming to prison I have been cured of all my documented medical conditions and injuries and denied care. What care I do receive is substandard. I have personally known a prisoner who was stabbed in the stomach, the shank removed, a band-aid applied, and sent back to his dorm. Another had his finger bitten off during a fight. Upon arrival at medical, nurses sutured his finger back on and sent him back to his dorm. He nearly died from the infection and ended up having the finger and other bones amputated from his hand. Another was in a coma for eight weeks due to an infection he contracted from unsanitary conditions. Then there are those who have died due to the laziness, incompetence, and maliciousness of the Georgia Department of Corrections.
None of this is unique and is common at most facilities operated by the Georgia Department of Corrections. No one seems to care. Our federal government abandoned us and our state refuses to hold anyone responsible. We live in conditions that would be illegal for animals at a shelter, that are equal to many third world countries, where dying is more common than parole in some cases.
Everyone knows. There have been videos, news stories, and investigations by the Department of Justice and the State of Georgia and nothing has been done. We are dying at an incredible rate and that seems to be Georgia’s plan to reduce the prison populations. You don’t need to parole us if you kill enough of us instead.
The Georgia Department of Corrections has a Standard Operating Procedure manual with a Table of Contents that is at last check 75 pages long. That’s just the table of contents. The manual is filled with SOPs that the Georgia Department of Corrections does not follow. Grievances do nothing and I have personally seen staff members throw them away after receiving them. If you are lucky enough to get one through, it’s nearly always automatically denied. If you appeal said denial, the Commissioner’s Office always replies that they are allowed to do what they want regardless of SOPs or Georgia Board of Corrections board rules, which govern all SOPs with the Georgia Department of Corrections.
Section 1983 Civil Rights lawsuits seem fruitless as most of us are not lawyers and do not have adequate — or any — access to a law library. But even the successful cases take years to win and then years to gain any sort of compliance. Many feel we won’t live long enough to see the end of it between just normal everyday conditions and the retaliation that is guaranteed to come.
If you do not care about us, then at least care where your tax money is going. The Georgia Department of Corrections is the highest funded agency in the state but yet you see nothing for it. Buildings and infrastructure are crumbling, money wasted with emergency medical care for incidents and conditions entirely preventable, investigators that don’t investigate 99% of what is happening, spoiled food and half portions, numerous lawsuit settlements. Money is either going missing or just being given away due to frivolity. Again, if you don’t care about us, at least care about your money which is not being used as it should in most cases.
I know many feel like everyone in prison deserves all of this that is happening. Just know, it can happen to you too. I never wanted or expected to be here. No one deserves this treatment. No one deserves to be beaten to death or gang raped as added punishment for whatever led them here, especially people with low level crimes like theft or drugs.
We are people, not statistics or names in a news story. People. People are dying and being raped and many other brutal and inhumane things, but it seems no one cares because once you go to prison, you’re not a person anymore according to society, so all of this is accepted.
I am serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Said possibility is after serving 30 years and even then, statistically I stand upwards of 95% of never getting parole no matter what I do or how well I behave. What I do know is it will be 100% that I do not make it the full 30 years or any time after that. I simply know I will not live through this and will end up as another statistic as well as a forgotten name because of the Georgia Department of Corrections and its failings. Whether I die by stabbing or disease or the heat or any of the other thousand ways remain to be seen, but it is not an “if” I die here, it’s an undeniable “when.” I don’t have what it takes to make it here, but after seeing how some are, I don’t want to.
I’m not keeping going. I have nothing left in me after all that has gone on. If telling this story helps somehow down the road to help anyone, then it needs to be told. I want it out before I’m gone.
May God have mercy on us all.