On July 9th, one of the men on the section I live in experienced a negative drug reaction to the drug he smoked and had to be taken to the infirmary. Subsequently, the doctors determined that what he had experienced was not a drug reaction but an epileptic seizure. If the doctors had not made this determination, there would have been serious consequences for all of us in my section. Departmental policy is that all 14 men of the section would have to be confined to their cells with a loss of all privileges for 15 days. This includes the suspension of any tablet privileges such as email and phone use, to name the most important. It also includes the suspension of subscriptions already paid for. All without disciplinary action nor any Due Process. While confining us to our cells as the administration sorts things out is somewhat understandable, the loss of privileges and funds without any due process is unlawful, particularly since the person who committed the offense is known. Apparently, we have no civil rights whatsoever and mass punishment for an individual’s crime is acceptable. Depriving us of the use of our personal photographs is just mean. Under these circumstances, we are not allowed to receive photos of our friends and loved ones except digitally, so one would think this is not a privilege to be taken at any time, but most especially arbitrarily.
Mass punishment for us in this section is occurring today regarding using electricity for light in our cells. A man in this section, whose identity is known, today blew out the section ‘s circuit breaker when he hooked up a contraption to his cell’s power outlet to create a small fire to light whatever drugs he was smoking. None of us have electricity now, until the prison decides it’s time to throw the circuit breaker switch. Of course they have been aware of the situation from its beginning.
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