July 17, 2013
SUBJECT: Reiteration of Issues Regarding G-Unit’s Administration and /or the Lack Thereof
(A) I am dangerously dehydrated Commissioner Owens. Let me tell you why, Sir. I/we dare not drink the water from the cell-sinks in G-Unit because the water is very often unfit to drink; it may even be dark brown in colour.
For more than three decades, melted ice has been the best way to hydrate here at the GD+CP. Unfortunately, the administrators here have chosen to decrease how often I/we get ice: from three times a day to two times a day. In fact, the ice cooler they use to bring into the G-3 Cell Block is rarely filled to the brim with ice anymore and half full is the most common amount they give us.
I/we have spoken with all of G-Unit administrators about our need for more ice and the need to go back to three times a day instead of twice, to no avail. I feel that Lieutenant Ethridge has made a conscious decision to keep me dehydrated, since this present practice has been going on for about three and a half months. In the past, when the ice machines broke down the administrators went outside of the prison and purchased ice for G-Unit. They used the accumulating monies that came from the money G-Unit prisoners spent each week at the store (the so-called “recreation fund”). My/our need for ice now begs the question what has happened to that fund? Especially when G-Unit prisoners are paying premium prices for everything we purchase from the prison’s store.
Lieutenant Ethridge has made it clear to me that he does not “care”—that is his word in quotation marks, not mine—about solving problems in G-Unit, thereby making himself a large portion of G-Unit’s problems. He will not talk to me—he has refused to talk to me twice.
(B) The prison store, and my timely access to it when I have a purchase problem, does not keep its books in an orderly fashion. I cannot even send my store receipts to the store for price review without the receipts getting lost. For example, in a recent situation I needed the dates and times of the transactions in question to present the specific nature of the problem I cited. I got out my three receipts and initialed all three of them in the lower left hand corner. I then put a green plastic paper clip on them and gave them to Officer Berryman, who in turn gave them to his supervisor Sergeant Biggs. The sergeant took them to the store. I asked him who he gave them to, and he said he gave them to a man whose name is “Bill”. Several days later three receipts are given to me but only one of them is one of the three I had given to Officer Berryman; according to Sergeant Biggs the other two receipts got “lost” and he did not know that I wanted my receipts back. Officer Berryman and others know that I asked for my three receipts for four days running, for a total of eleven days, regarding a problem that would not exist if I had timely access to the store personnel. Now, I have only one receipt that relates to the issue I want to cite. The other two have none of the information I need, so, in essence, I have doctored receipts. Now I cannot prove anything.
Commissioner Owens, do you know of anyone who shops at a store who does not want their proof of purchase receipts? I think some people here have conspired to deprive me of the receipts that would have substantiated my complaint and replaced them with receipts that will substantiate nothing. Let me be clear: Almost all of the staff climbs aboard the “cover-up train” in a systemic effort to conceal the incompetence and unprofessionalism that runs rampant here.
(C) Be advised that several weeks ago I had more than sufficient cause to complain to G-Unit’s sergeants and the Unit Manager Mr Scott about my inability to mail out a piece of privileged mail in accordance with DOC SOP No. IIB04-0001, to wit: “End of week: On the last work day of each week, privileged mail will be picked up at both 7:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m., and will be dispatched from the facility/center that same day to the United States Post Office in time for forwarding.”
The last four words are as clear as they are instructive, yet, only a handful of your officers follow those clear instructions unless they are hounded and reminded by me, repeatedly. For example, when I ask various staff members to please bring the United States Mail Box into the cell block at a time that reflects the DOC SOP instruction, so that I can deposit my time sensitive, life-and-death privileged mail in it so that it will get to the United States Post Office in the City of Jackson, “in time for forwarding … that same day”, it is not taken seriously very often.
Because the problem I cited kept happening, I filed an Informal Grievance Form; and, when Counselor Hughes-Whiters called me out regarding the Grievance’s content she said, “Jones you can continue with this grievance or you can let me try to solve the problem”. I chose to let her solve it.
About eight days or so later she called me out to inform me that she felt that her efforts had been successful. I agreed, because two Fridays showed that the midday count was actually conducted just before midday and the U.S. Mail Box was brought in and I mailed my legal mail both of those Fridays, during those midday counts. Problem solved? Well, not quite—despite Counselor Hughes-Whiters’ best efforts and intentions. The Counselor informed me that if “the mail box does not make it up to Control One [with the mail in it] by twelve, it is not going anywhere”.
The following week, as the clock neared 2:00 p.m., I spoke with Unit Manager Scott while I was picking up my medication at the G-Corridor Gate. It was a Friday and my/our mail still had not been picked up. I was telling Unit Manager Scott what the Counselor had told me about the U.S. Mail Box and Control One. Lieutenant Ethridge walked up and both men felt the need to remind me of the DOC SOP’s 1:00 p.m. instruction. I thought both of them were missing the point, since it was almost 2:00 p.m. and no midday count or mail pick up had taken place.
(D) I should add here that sometimes, even when the U.S. Mail Box has been brought in, and the mail has been picked up, and the midday count has been conducted at 12:00 p.m., that is no guarantee that the mail box will be taken out of the G-Unit area. On July 19, 2013, at 12:02 p.m., Officer Wallace brought the U.S. Mail Box in and picked up the mail during the midday count. However at 1:53 p.m. that day I was at the G-Corridor Gate talking to the nurse. The U.S. Mail Box was still sitting by the desk. Sergeant Biggs was sitting at the desk eating his lunch. I asked him, “When is that mail box going up to Control One?” He got up and looked through the large slot and saw that our mail was still in the box and said, “I’ll take it up [to Control One] myself”. I thanked him and left the Corridor Gate.
Commissioner Owens, not all but certainly most of your subordinates resent doing their jobs when it comes to anything connected to prisoners’ outgoing or incoming mail, especially “privileged mail” and seeing doctors, nurses, etc.
(E) When I needed to see the doctor (prisoners must fill out and turn in a “Health Services Request Form” before getting certain medications) recently, there were no forms to be found in any of the four Cell Blocks of G-Unit, for three days. Nurse Booth got tired of waiting for security officers to get a supply of forms into G-Unit, so she brought me one herself and had me fill it out at the Corridor Gate in her presence. Your subordinates frequently will not keep the necessary forms, toilet paper, soap and other things needed to run G-Unit; and no one in G-Unit’s administration requires them to do their jobs. In fact, I get the feeling that they are encouraged not to do their jobs!
(F) On prisoners’ family and friends’ visiting days there, more often than not, are rarely enough Security Officers to escort prisoners to a visit. Last week I saw a prisoner stand and wait forty-six (46) minutes at the Corridor Gate before someone could be located to escort him to the Visiting Room. G-Unit needs more security staff.
(G) Very often officers who operate G-3 Cell Block’s Control Booth, it seems, choose not to let me out of Cell number 81 to get coffee or tea when my group is let out to eat. This may have started out as an innocent mistake and would have been treated as such had the officer simply admitted her mistake to her supervisor and me. Anybody can make such a mistake. However, it started happening repeatedly. The next time she told the Sergeant Yaughn that she did let me out. Of course, that was not true. No one likes being called a liar, no matter how indirectly: I wrote a Grievance, its number is 147817. On 5-3-13 Warden Carl Humphrey wrote:
There is no evidence to support your allegation of Officer Tooles denying you the right to get tea. All inmates in each group must return to their cell prior to the next group coming out. This Grievance is denied at the institutional level.
The only reason there is no evidence to support my Grievance is because the person or persons who do the reviews of such “allegations” have not looked at the dates and times in question on the cameras in the Cell Block. The cameras will unequivocally substantiate my “allegation” and more. If the cameras would substantiate Officer Tooles’ position they would have been reviewed long ago. This habit of not letting me out only happens with three officers, and all three of them are on Sergeant Yaughn’s shift. It does not happen with others on his shift, or anyone on any other shifts.
For me, seeing Officer Tooles training a new officer to do what she does in G-Unit is testament to G-Unit’s adminstrators’ complete willingness to accept incompetence and unprofessionalism from their subordinates.
(H) On July 8, 2013, at about 5:00 p.m.—about 20 minutes after Sergeant Yaughn had given me what he and I thought was all of my mail—I was given an issue of the New York Times newspaper by the prisoner Mr Pac. The newspaper had been given to him by the prisoner Mr Brannan. My newspaper had been given to him by one of Sergeant Yaughn’s officers. This is an uncommon situation, as described, but it happens often enough with the same officers to indicate that SOME OFFICERS should NOT pass out mail.
Letting such officers pass out mail is akin to putting a person who has severe visual impairments in a prison watch tower. Yet, the administration that runs G-Unit continues to allow such officers to pass out my mail. Please reconsider this practice.
I am sending Counselor Hughes-Whiters a copy of this last letter because she is the only administrator here, at the GD+CP, who has taken a genuine interest in one of the many issues I have raised in this series of ten letters to you. Can you find some time to do likewise? I would be forever grateful, Commissioner Owens.
Respectfully requested,
Prisoner Brandon Astor Jones
I’m from Chicago, Mid West, United States. My astrological sign, for those interested, is Aquarius, and I’m a writer.
Brandon Astor Jones 