LIVE AT 5

About two weeks ago, a resident tested positive for Covid in the trailer park. He was immediately locked down with his roommate to prevent the spread of Covid. That would have been a brilliant idea except for the fact that each of the 18 rooms are connected by a 3ft X 3ft metal louvered vent that has no filter. You can literally look through it and see into the next room. It ironically started in room one and then spread to room two then room three…and I’m sure you can see the pattern. By the end of the week, it had made its way down to the other end and that was a week after all the trailer park had been on lock down. 

The trailer park houses the T4s and what is called AGE (Advanced Group Environment), Everyone in the trailer park is supposed to be saving for their eventual release, and I’m using the term “release” loosely. There are countless delays, excuses, stall tactics and junk science in the form of polygraphs and PPGs used to hold people back. They will tell men to their faces that these things will not hold them back. They say they are simple “treatment tools”. Tell that to the six guys being held back because they don’t like their PPG results Again, just a reminder, PPGs have not been standardized on the general population. So, no one knows how the average person would fair having his penis wired into a computer. You’re penalized for not having a response- regardless of age, medical condition, anxiety of having to sit in a chair with your pants pulled down to your ankles and a rubber band placed around your penis with a brown pillowcase used to cover you up while a correctional officer sits 5 feet behind you and monitors your responses while you’re being shown pornography and disturbing images of women and children being molested, raped, strangled and even murdered. They also throw in what they conclude is a healthy scenario and if you don’t get aroused to that, they decide you are interfering with the response. If that occurs, they want to polygraph you with more junk science. Junk science so unreliable it’s not even used in the court of law, but it’s allowed to hold men in tiers. 

Let’s talk about the stall tactic being used today. The T4s are going on their 3^rd week of lockdown. All the T4s work and are supposed to be saving but none have worked in the last two weeks. Their jobs were given to volunteers and the few T3s eligible for work. Yesterday after 2 weeks they decided to pick up our clothes to wash. The food has been hit or miss, mostly miss. As of yesterday, they stopped bringing our medication that we take at noon. A nurse came last night to drop off meds called KOPs (Keep on person). I told her that we didn’t get our noon meds. She rep(lied) “Yea, I don’t know what happened with the morning nurse.” And she walked off. I just heard one resident yelling over the fence to the maintenance supervisor that we haven’t had our meds in two days. He said he’d call them. Surely after 6 years of this they don’t need a daily reminder. Maintenance supervisor Solis did kick up some dust and they reluctantly brought our meds standing at the end of the sidewalk, yelling for us to come get them. 

I told my roommate (in jest) that we were getting locked down another 30 days as the President just tested positive for Covid. He said, “That makes about as much sense as everything else they do around here.” When the press asked Biden’s doctor if he was tested every day, his reply was, “THERE IS NO REASON TO TEST EVERY DAY.” Apparently, that memo hasn’t made it to Littlefield, TX yet, and I don’t mind being tested every day, even though I had it four days before I was even told. My issue with being tested every day is the timing. They can’t make it out here at noon with the medication we need, but they are here at 4:30 in the morning like clockwork, depriving me of my best REM sleep. Why 4AM? I have a great idea…Why not bring it at noon with the noon meds and kill two birds with one stone? Work smart MTC, not hard. But then, they wouldn’t get the pleasure of waking us up out of our sleep. 

Two men were slated for AGE panel today. Of course, that was cancelled even though everyone out here has tested negative on the rapid response test. They won’t let us up because we must a PCR test which is more reliable and taken to a lab for results. However, we can’t get those today because interestingly, they don’t have the tests on hand. After two weeks, they didn’t anticipate or have the forethought to order these tests. So here we sit until Monday to get the test which takes 2-3 days for the results to come. Then we might get off lockdown next week sometime, provided nobody tests positive. 

This exact scenario occurred on Echo wing a week ago. This is where T3s are housed. A T3 tested positive and was put in a cell with someone who did not have Covid. Interestingly enough, they didn’t respond by locking down the whole wing like they did with the T4s, who are closest to being released. They simply locked down the one guy who had Covid. Covid out in the trailers didn’t start spreading until we were locked down through the ventilation system. 

Now I hear that they are just taking precautions and it’s being done to protect us…blah, blah, blah. What I see is more stall tactics. They don’t have to run panels, look for housing, pay us, help us put money in the bank. They can sit back and enjoy their fat paychecks. Anyone that says they don’t do this for the money…Ha! Right! The person who runs this program draws a quarter of a million dollars a year. Her salary along with what MTC makes is contingent on how many people are housed here. WHAT INCENTIVE DO THEY HAVE TO RELEASE ANYONE??? They’ve even cut our group times in half- pulling a slight of hand by adding more classes and assignments that have nothing to do with treatment. Life skills classes that ALL of us have had in the decades of prison sentences we served while actually fulfilling our debts to society.

NOW THEY ARE IN VIOLATION OF THE LAW BY NOT GIVING US TREATMENT TWICE A WEEK, LEAVING THEMSELVES OPEN TO LAWSUITS AND LITIGATION FOR NOT FULFILLING THEIR OBLIGATION TO US- WHO THEY CHARGE 25% OF EVERYTHING WE MAKE OR ARE GIVEN TO HELP PAY FOR “TREATMENT” WE ARE NOT GETTING. 

I mentioned we worked and I’m grateful to have a job, but we only make $5.43 an hour, well below minimum wage to pay for the treatment we are not getting. Then they have the nerve to send us treatment memos adding more assignments with less group time to present those assignments to cover their own butts so they can call it treatment. They’ve added these classes that we must attend. Classes that discuss what things cost, how much sugar is in a can of soda, and other things that could be beneficial if I was actually living in society. Now they want T4s to go to rec and recruit residents to teach classes. The subjects range from meditation to sharing our feelings with each other. When this was presented to the T4s, there were some long faces and THE SECOND IN CHARGE COMMENTED ON THAT, SAYING IF WE DID NOT PARTICIPATE, SHE WOULD HAVE TO RE-EVALUATE WHY WE WERE EVEN TIER 4 TO BEGIN WITH. (Blackmail anyone?) The fact that she’s blackmailing us into teaching a class that we’re not qualified to teach and TCCO gets money from the Texas legislature to hire professionals to teach these classes or else she’s going to keep us here for YEARS MORE THAN WE NEED TO BE HERE… That’s even more years away from our families because we KNOW we’re not qualified to do what TCCO wants us to do, because we know TCCO CONTINUES to misuse the money they’re getting from the state, because TCCO knows they can do whatever they want to us and nobody cares is totally wrong.                           

First off, I’m not a teacher, therapist, or role model. I’m here to do my individualized treatment and return to my family. I’m responsible for me, no one else. They have paid professionals for that task and shouldn’t be pawning their workload off on us when they can’t keep therapists employed here. 

Maybe somebody from the list our loved-ones have called (Adult Protective Services, Texas Health & Human Services, Texas Senators & Representatives, numerous newspapers and TV reporters, Texas Rangers, NAACP Lubbock, State of TX NAACP, etc.) should actually do something about this hell hole! 

Being that this is a for-profit business, MTC has found that it is more profitable to pay fines than to fix re-occurring issues. THREE AIR CONDITIONERS are down while the temperature gauge hits 3 digits. A new AC unit would cost $83,000 times 3, or they just pay a $10,000 fine. Do the math. The septic system leaks sewage into the ground, but again, just pay the fines as they are cheaper than fixing the problem that causes long-term damage to the environment. Sshhhh! Don’t tell the people of Littlefield what’s really going on! MTC recently added rented trailers to use as classrooms and TCCO offices. These trailers are not ADA compliant. There were no ramps for the handicapped men. MTC has added ramps, but they are not compliant to the placement and grade of them. Try rolling a wheelchair up a 20-foot, 60-degree incline when you’re 70-plus-years-old with one leg and no muscle mass. 

Speaking of the bottom line, there is no money to be made when a resident becomes so old that he had to be placed in a nursing home. Lonnie James, AKA “Coon” was sent to a nursing home last month when he became so sick, he could no longer adequately be cared for in this facility. Last week he was sent back here because MTC didn’t pay the bills at the nursing home. MTC staff, who admittedly doesn’t have the resources to care for this individual, was told by TCCO to “make it work”. How about letting this man go home to live out the remainder of his short life with some peace and dignity? But who cares about his dignity? He’s a “sexually violent predator” who committed a sex offence decades ago. Even though, now, he’s an old, broken down, shell of a man in a wheelchair. TCCO and MTC both see him as someone who brings in $30,000 a year to this unscrupulous corporation. So, his usefulness hasn’t been completely depleted just yet. 

They came in here several months back asking why the moral was low and why everyone had bad attitudes. After serving 30 years for my crimes, do you really have to ask that? It would be one thing if I was acting out or getting into trouble, but when I’ve made an honest effort at reform and change and still get more of the same, how could you possibly have the nerve to ask me why I’m not jumping for joy? My present situation and future look bleak, and it doesn’t matter how I act. There’s nothing I can do about it. 

Stay safe and God bless,                                                                                                        

ALM 300