The Divide and Conquer Phenomenon

   The System will always find ways to propagate itself, usually by playing on the fears and ignorance of those who buy into its deception. Case in point, today I found out from another prisoner (whom I will not name in order to protect him from repercussions) that one of the guards involved in the phone privilege incident several weeks ago (whom I also will not name, to protect the same prisoner from repercussions) told several prisoners in no uncertain terms that if they continue to “fuck with Duncan” (a direct quote that in this case means talk to, or otherwise associate with, contrary to its apparent meaning) that they themselves would be put on “status” (i.e. treated with the same overt disrespect that the guards use to treat “cho-moes”, “or “child molesters”). When I asked what that meant specifically the prisoner told me that the guard said, “no more passing shit between cells, or getting the phone when you ask for it”, as just an example.

   I guess I’ve been on “status” since I’ve been here, but never realized it until recently when some of the guards elevated my “status” a couple of notches in order to teach me a lesson (presumably for calling counselor Edwards a “cretin”, which apparently was an indication to these guards that I “didn’t know [my] place”).

   It seems the guards who refused to pass me the phone last month (see “Phone Privileges?” and “Counselor Edwards” expositions) didn’t expect the other prisoners to treat me with any respect at all (by insisting that the guards pass me the phone, for example) when they decided to arbitrarily punish me for “disrespecting” the badge (or so I assume that’s what the “punishment” was for, but since it was all done according to the rules of some unspoken and decidedly childish game, I can only be sure that it had something to do with someone’s precious “pride” being offended). So they solved the “problem” by reminded the other prisoners that if they want to keep receiving “favors” from the guards then they themselves will have to “respect” the guards when they decide to “disrespect” Duncan (me) for being a cho-moe.

   I think this is a pretty good example of how the System propagates the very violence and prejudice that it pretends to protect us all from. This kind of prisoner agitation is common. The guards do it in order to “maintain control” of the prison population. Of course all they are really doing is instigating the very behavior and attitudes that they need evidence of in order to justify their abusive authority measures. It’s the same tactic that “authorities” have been using forever. It even has a name, “divide and conquer”. It can be as obvious as this situation (explained above), or far more subtle and hard to detect at all, as when the police, FBI, and other government authorities in the real world do it. And it’s not a conspiracy; it’s something far more sinister than that. It’s a phenomenon; presently beyond all direct human control (i.e. the guards have no idea that they are creating the violence that it is their job to control, they are only responding out of their fear and ignorance). And it will only stop being a phenomenon when we become aware of it in general terms (philosophers and many other serious thinkers, including some statesmen, have been aware of this phenomenon for thousands of years; but the general public remains oblivious to it, and that’s the only reason it continues to be a phenomenon).

   To be honest, what this other prisoner told me earlier today does not surprise me at all. It is perfectly consistent with what I have come to expect from the “System”. It also helps explain why I have experienced so little (yes, little) harassment from the guards. It seems they have been harassing me in their minds all along (not all of them, just the more ignorant and fear-driven ones, but the rest condone the “harassment” lest they be labelled “sympathizers”) but I haven’t noticed simply because I never (or, at least, rarely) ask them for “favors”. I can only assume, now that I now I’ve been being “harassed” all along, that they’ve assumed I knew I was “harassed” and accepted it as “my place”. So, when I called the counselor a “cretin” they figured I needed to be reminded of “my place”. They’d be really surprised if they knew how much I have refrained from doing far more than name calling, all simply because I no longer cater to such ignorant and fear-based behavior.

Ice Cold Kindness?

   The same guard who threatened my life, if I requested to come out of my cell for “recreation” on his work shift, (because of my crimes against children) has been passing out the daily single scoop of ice to each prisoner on the tier lately. We get one scoop a day, which I genuinely appreciate since it allows me to save one of the 8 oz. skim milks we get each day for breakfast, and drink it cold either with lunch or later in the evening with some saved bran cereal. But, when I saw that “He-man” (not quite sure his real name) was passing out the ice ration I thought, “So much for the cold milk.”

   This is the same federal prison guard who told me he’d kill my family if he knew where they lived and fuck me in the ass (see “Walla Walla Flashback”). He also frequently refused to even just open the food slot for my cell during meals, making the other guards do it instead even when it was his job to open the slots while other guards passed the trays through. So I really wasn’t expecting him to open my food slot and offer me a scoop of ice; but he did! And, he has been scooping ice for me, without comment or prejudice apparent, for a couple of weeks now. Not only that, but the other day he even passed “cell phone” to me from another prisoner when all the guards from the precious shift had refused to do so (see “Phone Privileges”).

   And today, just moments ago, as I stood at my cell door with “ice bucket” (a clean wastepaper can) in hand awaiting my daily ration of frozen water, I watched as he not only scooped up my ice, but went back with the scoop and topped it off to make sure it was as full as possible! He didn’t even do that for the prisoner who got ice just before me!

   I honestly thought that the only reason I’d been getting any ice from this guard at all was because he was trying to alleviate any damage he might have done to his professional reputation with the overt threats and subsequent refusals to do his job opening my slot for meals. But, if that were the case, then why would he so nonchalantly take the extra measure of tapping off the scoop of ice for a prisoner he once refused to even feed?

   Has he changed his opinion of me for some reason? Or, has he simply grown up enough to realize that he is a “professional” after all, and his personal feelings have no place at work? That would be amazing, but not impossible. Or maybe he has just pushed me so far out of his mind, and out of his reality, that I don’t even exist for him as an individual anymore (that’s my preferred solution for people I have to be around that I really can’t stand --- it might not be mentally “healthy”, but it works great if you can do it). In that case then maybe he was just topping off the scoop absent-mindedly, and had no specific thoughts or feelings about me whatsoever.

   Of course, the most likely explanation for this guard’s apparent kindness is, “none of the above”. Whatever the answer is I’ll probably never know. I can’t just ask him; out world isn’t anywhere near being so mature that it would allow such open and honest communication between socially established adversaries. He probably couldn’t tell me the real reason if he wanted to; he mightn’t know how. Or, maybe HE doesn’t even know. Anything is possible, even ice cold kindness.

[J.D. - September 3, 2014]

Phone Privileges?

   At 11:30 this morning I hollered out on the tier to find out if anyone was using the phone so I could “get in line”. Another prisoner hollered back that a Mexican prisoner had the phone and he was presently on it, hence could not answer for himself without interrupting his call. This is the established protocol for getting access to the phone. The basic idea is that each prisoner knows who is next in line, so when a guard comes on the tier, they can tell him who to pass the phone to (it’s an old princess model touch-tone that is passed through the food slot to be used in the prisoner’s cell with the cord plugged into an outlet in the hall; this it is commonly, and jokingly, called “cell phone”).

   When the guards came by to pick up lunch trays (a prime opportunity to get the phone or anything else passed to another cell through the open food slots), I asked the guard who picked up my tray if he could get the phone for me. He said; “Sure, no problem.” And then he got the phone and passed it to another prisoner instead of me.

   I didn’t realize I had been slighted until after the guards left the tier. The prisoner who got the phone instead of me finished using it quickly (probably just checking his account balance, which the phone system lets us do) and then asked if anyone else needed to use it. After me there was a “line” of at least two other prisoners who both knew that I was supposed to be next. So, when they heard that someone else had the phone instead of me they thought it was a mistake (which happens) and informed the prisoner with the phone that I, Duncan, was next. I didn’t say anything at the time because the necessary information was clearly established and nothing needed to be said. Everyone understood that I was next to get the phone.

   About twenty minutes later, a guard came on the tier in order to cuff up another prisoner through the door so he could be escorted to another room to use the “law library” computer (a routine practice). The prisoner who had the phone and at least two other prisoners asked this guard to pass the phone to me. But, asking a guard to pass anything while they are busy doing an escort is hit-or-miss. The guard left the tier with the prisoner in tow without passing the phone.

   A moment later one of the prisoners waiting for the phone after me came to his door and yelled, “Where the fuck is the phone? I’ve been waiting over two hours for it! Who has it?” When he found out that someone who wasn’t supposed to get it until after him, me, and one other prisoner had it then he started yelling, loud enough for the guards out in the common area to hear, “Phone exchange on C-upper!” (another common practice anytime there appears to be a hold-up on the phone exchange).

   Though he, and several other prisoners yelled similarly over the next hour or so, no guards came on the tier to pass the phone. It was now about one-thirty, close to the two-o’clock shift change. I finally spoke up and told the prisoner in the cell next to me that the guards had been refusing to pass me the phone all week, which they have, and it seemed to stem from an incident earlier in the week when I called Counselor Edwards a “cretin” because he stood on the tier for ten minutes harassing another prisoner and also refused to pass me the phone (directly to my face that time --- see “Counselor Edwards” entry). And since then Edwards has been stopping by my cell every day and essentially harassing me by telling me to do something to make my cell “compliant” with policy, such as removing the cardboard window shade that I (and many other prisoners on the tier) use to block the bright sunlight from coming into the cell while I’m sleeping in the morning. Edwards is known for this kind of behavior and seems to derive great pleasure from it.

   I might have been overstating my “victory” over Edwards when I wrote earlier that I had “won” the exchange with him by getting him to react (i.e. pushing his buttons the way he seems to enjoy pushing the prisoner’s buttons). I knew full well that a person who so flagrantly abuses their authority the way Edwards does can’t be one-upped without expecting retaliation. So hi harassments came as no real surprise; I pretty much expected it. But I was content to let him play his childish game until he got bored (because I didn’t react, I’d just get up, take down the cardboard, smile and say, “Anything else?”) and decided to go find someone else to pick on to make himself feel good (a typical bully with a badge).

   But now it seemed that because he couldn’t get a reaction from me by harassing me in my cell, he decided to try pushing the button that he thought got me to react earlier in the week by telling all of his crony guard buddies not to pass me the phone at all.

   So for several days when I asked to use the phone, even when no one else was using it and the food slots were open (on two days this happened when I asked at breast, including earlier this morning) the guards either ignored me, or said they would “check on it” and then not do it.

   When I explained this to the other prisoners waiting on the phone they agreed that it was a “typical Edwards move”, and suggested that I “write it up”. But, I asked, how can I? The “grievance” procedure requires you to only write up specific incidents, not general circumstances. So unless I could prove that Edwards was harassing me --- which he was always careful not to do anything that he could not say was “his job” to do (like telling me to comply with policy) --- I couldn’t write it up. Not to mention the fact that Edwards himself is on the Unit Team Staff that directly controls access to the grievance program, a fact that he has successfully used to block me from getting an Administrative Remedy Review in the recent past (see: “What’s Justice Got To Do With It?”).

   A bit later, just before shift change, a guard came on the tier escorting the law library prisoner back to his cell. This is normally a fairly good time to ask for a phone exchange because after the prisoner is locked up and cuffs are removed the guard is “between tasks” and has the food slot key in his hand.

   So the prisoner who had the phone asked him to pass it to me. The guard opened the slot, retrieved the phone, then carried it to the cell next to me and offered it to that prisoner (who was in line after me). My neighbor dutifully told the guard that, “Duncan is next in line”.

   At this the guard ask him, “Do you want the phone or not?” To which the prisoner said again, “Duncan is next!”

   The guard then set the phone down on the ground in the hall and left the tier.

   The other prisoner who hollered earlier for a phone exchange then came to his door window again (he is across the hall from me so I can see when he comes to his window) and asked me if I got the phone. I told him no, and when he asked who got, I told him the guard just set it down in the hall and left the tier.

   By now even some prisoners who weren’t even interested in getting the phone were yelling from their doors. One prisoner told me to demand to speak to “the lieutenant”, which, according to him, they have to do if I ask. I knew better than that, but decided to play dumb and started yelling and hollering demands to see the lieutenant. I knew they’d never call the Lt., (because they knew they’d get in trouble for playing their little game), which in my mind was a kind of “permission” to yell and scream for the lieutenant all I wanted. (Normally I would never demand any form of “official” assistance in such a matter, but since I knew no such assistance would come in this case I yelled and screamed and even kicked my door (spraining a small bone in my foot, but at least not breaking anything like last time) to put on a good show.

   This, of course, “woke up” everyone on the range. Several other prisoners started chipping into the protest. Even my old “pal” Gabrion put his two-cents in and started hollering also, “Do your jobs and pass the phone or go home!”

   There is a certain subtle dynamic here that I should mention. When guards change shift it is considered amongst them “bad form” to pass of the watch with a bunch of hostile inmates. It is considered a kind of dumping on problems to the next shift. One of the side effects of this is that if the inmates are riled up when shift exchange occurs, the guards that are coming on shift will make it a point to get things “quieted down” as quickly as possible, thus demonstrating their own prowess and skill at “managing” the inmates. The new shift also has a distinct advantage over the old, they can claim (for the prisoner’s sake) that they “just arrived” and could hence not be blamed for whatever the previous shift had done to get them so riled.

   And that’s exactly what happened next. The first new shift guard that came on the tier was immediately bombarded with protests from several prisoners about the phone not being passed. I remained quiet at this point, since my show was for the other prisoners, not the guards, and also because one of the prisoners who got woke up asked me to quiet down so he could ask a guard himself to pass me the phone, asserting that as long as he asked calmly and politely then they would do it (he had missed everything that had just happened).

   When the fresh guard came on the tier he denied any knowledge of why the phone had not been passed, so when the helpful prisoner asked this guard to pass the phone to me he promptly did so. He even let the prisoner use the phone first briefly to check his account balance.

   And get this! This guard, who finally did pass me the phone, was the same guard who threatened my life, and my family, if I ever came out for rec on his shift again! Try to figure that one out (I assume that perhaps impressing the other guards with his ability to “manage inmates” was more important to him than his prejudice against child rapists, but I’m only guessing; as usual).

   After I finally got the phone the prisoner who “helped” me get it, who happens to be the one prisoner who deals with me the most (though that’s not saying a lot) and the closest I have to an actual friend here (he’s just one of those real “friendly” types), started telling me how his “honey instead of vinegar” approach works best. This apparently offended at least a couple other prisoners who started yelling that the only reason the guard passed the phone was to quiet the tier down. My “friend” couldn’t even finish telling me what he wanted to say (and later the “argument” over why and how the phone gets passed continued, and I stayed completely out of it as usual, though it became very heated; they accused each other of “sucking dick” and “raping children”, but once more nobody said anything about me or my crimes, even though in this case the guards had managed to put me in the mix of it; Go figure that one out too, I’m still trying (though my attorneys have suggested that it’s because I don’t act like the typical “sex offender” in prison who walks around in a fearful disposition all the time always trying not to be noticed; I always look the other prisoners in the eye --- not intentionally, but naturally --- and though I keep a low profile I don’t hesitate to “speak up” like I did today when I need to; so, my attorneys say, they don’t know what to think of me or how to react, so they just give me “space” which I interpret as “respect” --- I could test this theory easily enough, by testing the boundaries of the “space” I am given, but I’m really not that interested in knowing such things).

    So anyway, I got the phone, and I made an overdue call to my mother, who has dementia and lives in an “assisted living” home (semi-nursing home). She was very happy to hear from me and told me all about a nurse who has been bothering her by whistling intentionally to wake her up in the mornings. Then she told me the really bad news that her older sister, my aunt Naomi, has been placed in a nursing home with Alzheimer’s disease; which made my mother cry. I did the best I could to comfort her over the phone in what remained of the 15 minute call limit before we were cut off. And then as soon as another guard came on the tier I passed the phone to my neighbor and that was that.

[J.D. August 20, 2014]

What Happened In Prison – Part X

   When I recently tried to mail a long written “confession”, about my time on parole in Seattle, to a friend in Europe so they could post it on the Fifth Nail blog it was returned to me with a Post.it note attached that cryptically read, “Inappropriate Content/Unauthorized Blog/X Return”.

   I double checked the Bureau of Prisons policies and could find no restriction concerning mailing out things that are consequently posted on the Web, or “blogged”. So the Post-it did not make any sense. When I asked one of the “Unit Team” staff what the note meant he told me he had no idea, but also told me that maybe someone was trying to prevent me from getting in trouble by returning the mail to me.

   Yeah, right. Since when does prison staff concern itself with preventing a prisoner from getting in trouble? Their whole thing is looking for trouble; that’s what they do. Since the letter was returned with an informal Post-it note, and not a formal rejection notice or infraction report, it probably means that someone was trying to get around the rules and reject the mail illegally. Apparently someone found the content of the letter offensive, or as they themselves put it, “inappropriate”, and decided the hell with law and order, a little vigilante rule enforcement was in order.

   Of course this comes as no surprise to me at all. My entire life has been spent under the foot of such “rules”. So I simply re-mailed the letter the next day but, first I made some changes to make sure it contained nothing “offensive” (such as removed the word “f*ck” in one place, and some descriptions of homosexual behavior in another). I also explicitly wrote my friend, in a new cover letter, that I was NOT asking them to post anything on the web for me; but neither was I asking them not to do so (i.e. they could post whatever they wanted; they were, after all, still ostensibly “free”). That way if the letter got returned unmailed again my appeal argument would be somewhat stronger (i.e. I can’t be expected to tell the people I write to not share my letters on the web). Not only would the rejection be against the rules, but it would be against the law as well. (According to the Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook, the courts have consistently ruled that prisons can only restrict outgoing mail for exceptional reasons, and never to intentionally block access to the media, and hence, the Internet.)

   I’m not so naïve as to think for a minute that just because something was unconstitutional that it would stop someone strung out on power and control from invoking their authority. The practice is to do whatever they think is right, and then twist the rules and regulations later to justify what they do, until some court steps in and reminds them of the legal pecking order of power and control. So, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that it has been over three weeks since I re-mailed that letter (in three separately addressed and posted envelopes, so it’s doubtful if all three got “lost” on their way overseas) and it has yet to arrive.

   I expect the letter is now being held for “investigation”, which is a favorite catch-all excuse for doing what they want. I’d be a little surprised if they (the prison officials) didn’t send a copy of the letter to police detectives in Washington State because I wrote about the two Native American girls that I murdered while I was on parole. I was never charged in that case, even though I freely confessed on numerous occasions to the police and FBI that I did it. So now it is officially an “open case” still “under investigation”, which means they can suck up every attempt I make to publically confess without ever letting anyone else see or hear the truth.

   This attempt to keep me from “exposing” the truth (and the lies and insanity that superficially conceal it) motivates me to redouble my efforts to do so. And no, I don’t think I have a “right” to do it. But, I do have the “opportunity” and hence a “responsibility” to the truth. Nor do I harbor some belief that this “responsibility” gives me any other kind of special status. The truth does not NEED me to defend it; it can, and always will, defend itself. All deception eventually ends, but the truth will live forever. I see my “responsibility” (to the truth, or in general) as something that benefits everyone, and only int his way does it benefit me (as an individual).

[J.D. - August 29, 2014]

P.S. For the last several days, ever since my run-in with counselor Edwards the other day, the guards have been refusing to let me use the inmate telephone. I don’t know if this is related in anyway to what I have written about above, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.

P.P.S. I just learned today (August 31) that the three part “What Happened In Prison – Part VI” exposition was received by my friend last week. It appears that it was held for about a week before it was mailed (mail normally goes out and is posted the day after it is picked up). The fact that it was held for at least a week indicates that it was read, and no longer found to be “inappropriate” or “unauthorized”. I’m still not sure what this means regarding the blog.   

Counselor Edwards

   Counselor Edwards came on the tier a few moments ago to facilitate a “legal call” with a prisoner down range from me. I had already asked another prisoner to send me the “cell phone” (a touch-tone princess telephone with a really long cord that is plugged into an outlet in the hall and then passed into the cells through the food slot by a guard), and if Edwards were interested in doing his job for once then he should have passed the phone for me while he was waiting for the legal phone to ring (The legal phone is plugged into a separate “unmonitored” phone jack that allows incoming calls, which are prearranged with an attorney for certain times at which the counselor comes on the tier to answer the call then passes the receiver only through the food slot so the prisoners can talk to their attorneys). But instead, Edwards stopped in front of the door of a prisoner that he knows is mentally unstable and is prone to making ridiculous demands like, “I need to talk to the governor!” And it’s usually a matter of life and death, of course.

   Edwards knows full well that Jeff (the unstable prisoner) is going to holler and scream about something “urgent” and completely nonsensical, and yet he frequently goes to Jeff’s door seemingly just to provoke him, or at least to sadistically patronize him. (And Edwards isn’t the only one I’ve seen do this, the head of the SCU used to do it a lot too, until I called her out for it once by yelling, “Jeff! Jeff! Don’t listen to her! She’s just riling you up and has no intention of helping you with anything!” I’m not sure why she reacted the way she did, but she immediately stopped “talking” to Jeff and left the tier; later that same day Jeff got a “shot” (disciplinary action) for “threatening staff” because of how he yelled at her, even though she clearly provoked the whole episode, and in the past, even when he was far more threatening, he had never been written up before; maybe she was punishing him to cover up her own guilt, a very common practice with such small minded people). So, anyway, I waited patiently for ten minutes (I checked my clock) while Edwards stood outside Jeff’s door listening to the urgent rants about how he was being killed illegally, to which the counselor would interject such equally nonsensical retorts such as, “You’re not being killed, Jeff. You’re standing in your cell talking to me,” as if the figurative context of Jeff’s meaning were completely lost to him. Jeff, of course, did not realize he was being patronized, and would then shoot off on an urgent tangential explanation of what he meant, making the whole conversation sound even crazier and pointless- Apparently this is what Edwards does to alleviate his boring existence, not surprising in places like this.

   When Edwards finally decided he’d better go pretend he was working someplace else he simply walked away from Jeff’s cell while Jeff was still talking. I was watching and waiting for him to do this from the door window of the cell I am in, and as he walked past I asked if he would pass the phone for me. I waited until he was done talking to Jeff and directly in front of my cell so he couldn’t just ignore me like he is most of the time. And because he couldn’t ignore me he said that he phone was “being used”. I quickly replied that the other prisoner was not using the phone and had already agreed to pass it to me. But by that time Edwards was already exiting the tier so he could ignore me; classic.

   Now, I don’t mind so much when Edwards or other staff mess with me because of my crimes (child rape/murder), but it bothers me a lot when I see them playing games with a prisoner who clearly does not even really understand why he is here. I wouldn’t say that Jeff is stupid, he shows signs at times of real intelligence. But his thinking is confused and unorganized. He is unable to make connections in his thoughts that most of us take for granted. In other words, he is clearly mentally handicapped, and everyone knows it (including him it seems). He simply does not have the mental capacity to appreciate why he is on death row. It doesn’t matter to me what he did to get here (I don’t even know, and really don’t care), but it matters to me a lot that HE doesn’t know! So when staff like Edwards deliberately provoke him and patronize him for their pleasure, I get upset. Because of this I couldn’t just let Edwards leave the tier without taking a shot at him for what he had just done. So, I yelled, “You spend ten minutes pulling Jeff’s chain but you can’t even take one minute to actually do your job for once!”

   Edwards actually came back to my cell and asked, “What did you say?” I knew full well that he heard me, so it was just as obvious that he was fishing for a reaction. Great fun for him, I suppose. So I just calmly repeated my statement, word for word. At this point he stymied, and I could see the wheels in his brain working desperately to find some witty provocative thing to say, but apparently he found none and just said, “That’s right [I’m not going to do my job]” and walked away.

   I saw that I had the upper hand, so pushed the advantages by berating him further as he walked away, “That’s what I’d expect from someone like you; cretin!” And this time it was me who got a reaction. He practically stormed back to my cell door and exclaimed, “Cretin! You’re calling ME a cretin?!”

   I just smiled and waved at him. I had nothing more to say, especially since I knew I had won. This time it was him that got his buttons pushed, and as if to confirm my victory he hollered angrily through the steel door, “Look in the mirror you fucker head!” (Yes, he cussed, which only better illustrated my point, that he did not have enough intelligence to even think of something coherent to say).

   And such is the bane of my existence. Edwards is no more than a typical example of the kind of people who are drawn to “positions of authority” like flies to dead flesh. And somehow society expects justice to be served? Perhaps in some poetic way you could call it justice. I just call it insanity.

P.S. Some Notes:

   When I write cynically like this I try not to forget that it’s always my own insanity that I’m “exposing”, not anyone else’s. I’m sure Mr. Edwards is in many ways a decent person who would be unfairly considered if someone thought they could judge him based solely on what I have written here. No one can be, or should be, judged in this way. As I have argued elsewhere: not even the extreme rigors of the law can justify the judgment of any person (which doesn’t mean we should not protect ourselves or society for that matter, only that we need not pass judgment in the process --- it is out judgment alone that is the fundamental flaw in our system, and in our thinking; and it is this judgment alone that makes all of our efforts to protect ourselves so futile and counter-productive). So, when Edwards suggested that I “look in the mirror”, I could have told him that, “I do, all the time, and what I see is every man (person) reflected back at me.” But like Jeff, I don’t think he would have been able to understand.

Just-Us Criminals At Work

I’ve been awake an alert all morning, either reading, or listening to music with my headphones on and watching VH1 on T.V., but listening to my own music mostly. The guards skipped me for lunch, and when they came back to pick up trays I told them I didn’t get a tray and they said that they banged on my door but I didn’t get up.

That is a lie, of course. Even with my headphones on I would have heard them banging on my door, ad if they had opened the food slot like they are supposed to do to offer me a tray I would have definitely seen them. The truth is that they skipped my cell, like they often do when passing out trays, only this time I didn’t catch them doing it because I had my headphones on and did not hear them in the hall passing out trays. So, they only claimed that they banged on my door so that if I complain it looks like it was my fault that I did not get fed. I would rather go hungry than play their childish games, so of course I will not complain (and no, I’m not complaining here, I’m only exposing the incident so that people might see how the System promotes the very insanity that it pretends to protect society from). I think what I will do however is stop “reminding” them to give me a food tray in the future, and just go hungry instead. If it makes them feel more manly (or whatever it makes them feel) to deprive me of food, well, then good for them. If I starve, well, then good for me. I don’t much care to live in their world anyhow, and I don’t like accepting food that is not offered sincerely.

[J.D. July 30, 2014]

Note: It’s interesting also that after the guards lied to me about banging on my door, another prisoner offered to give me the chicken he saved from his own tray so that I wouldn’t go hungry. I declined, even at the risk of seeming rue, but the point is that the other prisoners on death row have consistently treated me with more respect and concern than the guards. As a matter of fact, the ONLY harassment and threats I have received my entire time on death row (since 2010 and before) have been from the guards, never from any inmates at all (not counting inmate Gabrion, who doesn’t respect or show concern for anyone, not even himself, and even he has never made a point out of disrespecting me the way some of the guards do).

P.S. Several hours have passed now since the lunch incident I described above, and the prisoner next door to me (not the same prisoner who offered me his chicken) just let me know that not only did the guard bang on my door, but he (this prisoner) was banging on the wall between our cells because he didn’t want to see me miss out on the chicken (one of the best meals we get). So, I was wrong about the guards lying in this case, but let this entry stand as a testament to my own ignorance and biased view of things. It doesn’t change my overall view though, nor what I said about the general harassment I get from some of the guards. Also, I have said before and I’ll say it again, that most of the guards treat me fairly and do their jobs like true professionals, much to the dismay of my long-standing resentment.

What’s Justice Got To Do With It?

Every six months or so, prisoners of the Federal government are given a “six month review” by the “Unit Team” staff comprised of the Unit Manager, Unit Counselor, and Unit Case Manager, and occasionally attended by staff from the psychology department. More often than not this so-called “review” ends up being little more than a paperwork shuffle, and no actual review hearing even occurs. Or, if a hearing does occur, then only a subset of the expected staff bothers to attend. My last review, for example, which just happened a couple of weeks ago, consisted of the Case Manager, alone, coming to my cell door, informing me of the “review”, asking if I wanted a “hearing” (I said no, of course --- any chance I get to avoid the bureaucratic song and dance I consider a blessing), and then informing me that my Financial Responsibility Program, or “FRP”, payments were to be increased from $25 a quarter, to $25 a month. And that was it.

Since then I’ve decided to not pay the FRP prison tax, which means I will be restricted for the next six months to a limit of $25 per month on commissary, amongst other restrictions, but that’s no bother, at least not for me (I usually only buy coffee, and salt for my food, on a regular basis; anything else I buy I consider treats that I can live without (and often do anyway). The restriction doesn’t apply to phone calls or stamps, which is where a lot of my money goes anyway; so it’s no big deal.

But, at one of these “reviews” earlier last year (March 2013) I was given a notice, signed by the Unit Manager, informing me that my “personal history, prior offense conduct and convictions” had been reviewed, and it was deemed that my “history of behavior could jeopardize legitimate penological interests”. And therefore, I was precluded from using the TRULINCS program (i.e. limited e-mail for prisoners).

When I asked why I was being restricted (and I have since learned that this notice is supposed to tell me the SPECIFIC reasons why I was restricted, according to BOP policy) counselor Edwards told me that it was because of the “Walsh Act”, which means that the restriction was imposed by Federal law, not prison policy, and hence could not be appealed. I didn’t find out until a year later that the restriction in my case went explicitly against BOP (Bureau of Prisons) policy, and that I could have appealed it. But, because Edwards lied to me, by claiming it was a Federal law, I didn’t appeal it. Instead, I asked my attorney about the “Walsh Act”, which he had never heard of, but he promised to look into it for me.

My attorney eventually sent me a copy of the BOP policy concerning TRULINCS e-mail restrictions, and that’s how I found out that the policy explicitly states that in cases like mine, that are considered a “high risk public safety factor”, a restriction must not be imposed unless there is some evidence that the prisoner has a history and/or knowledge of “using computers/e-mail/Internet or other communication methods as a conduit for committing illegal activities”. This policy states very explicitly that, “Inmates must not be excluded from program participation based on general categorizations of previous conduct”. And yet the notice I received from Unit Team staff during that particular six month review gave only the most general reasons for my restriction; in fact, it gave only the most general reason of all: because my “history of behavior could jeopardize penological interests”. The notice did not say what “history of behavior” or what “penological interests”. So, all I had to go on was this so-called “Walsh Act” as a reason for the restriction.

At the next six-month review I asked again about the reason I was restricted from using TRULINCS e-mail, and I was again told it was because of the Walsh Act. I explained that my attorney couldn’t find any reference to prisoner e-mail restriction in any Federal law, and I asked for a specific reference. Mr. Edwards promised that he would look it up and send it to me.

So I waited a couple of weeks but got nothing from Mr. Edwards. In the meantime, I had purchased an MP3-player, and began using the TRULINCS computer (available in the “recreation” rooms) to purchase and download music for my player. This gave me an opportunity to send an electronic message to staff, so I did. I sent a message to Mr. Edwards, politely reminding him of his promise to send me the relevant “Walsh Act”. He responded electronically as well, by simply typing “noted” as a reply (which I printed out and kept a copy of as evidence of his deception, since the system automatically erases all messages after 90 days).

When I saw Mr. Edwards in the hall, outside of my cell door, I reminded him again about his promise, and he finally responded by giving me a copy of the 64 page “Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006”. I carefully read the entire act, and it made no reference or inference at all concerning prisoner e-mail.

That was when I realized that I had been duped. It seemed obvious then that I had clearly been restricted from TRULINCS e-mail directly against policy, and then lied to in order to keep me from appealing the restriction. So, I immediately sent an electronic message to the Unit Manager, Ms. Bayless, to make her aware of this discrepancy, and asked her to tell me what specific reason I had been restricted for, and I pointed very specifically to the policy which stated what kind of reason was necessary.

Ms. Bayless’ response was: “Mr. Duncan, The information in the memo [from March 2013] was the specifics, i.e. personal history, offense conduct, etc. Due to these specifics, you were deemed inappropriate for program participation. Your personal history indicates that you have knowledge of computers, as you ran a website. In regards to your offense conduct, in multiple instances you have orally persuaded and/or forced minors into engaging in sexual activity. Additionally, it indicated that in some instances you videotaped these acts.”

That was her entire reply, but it didn’t make any sense! First of all, there is nothing “specific” about “personal history” or “offence conduct”. By claiming these to be “specifics”, as she does, she is clearly abusing her authority to interpret policy, especially since the policy itself gives very specific examples of what “specific” reasons must be given.

The policy states, “For example, inmates with a personal history of, or prior offense conduct or conviction for, soliciting minors for sexual activity, or possession/distribution of child pornography through the Internet or other means, are excluded from [e-mail] program participation based on their history.”

I have no such history or convictions. None of my crimes involved “soliciting minors” or “possession/distribution of child pornography” THROUGH THE INTERNET, or any other means of communication. Yes, I had made videos during my crimes, but I also deleted them before I was arrested (they were forensically recovered by the FBI from the deleted files). I never distributed them, or had anything at all on my computer, phone, or cameras, illegally downloaded from the Internet. There is nothing in my file, or “history” that indicates I ever used the Internet, or any other means of communication, to commit any crimes. Other than the “porn” I made myself, and deleted, no “child porn” was found on any of my computers (not on the laptop I had when I was arrested, or on my home desktop that the police confiscated from my home office in Fargo), or anywhere else in my possession.

I have never “solicited minors for sex”, by any means, much less via the Internet. All my crimes involved direct force only, and I have never so much as even been accused of soliciting any child, not even when I easily could have.

It was clear to me that Ms. Bayless and Mr. Edwards had decided that a “child rapist” like me, should not be allowed to use prisoner e-mail on GP, and they weren’t going to let some nuisance like BOP policy tell them otherwise. The lies that Mr. Edwards told to prevent me from appealing Ms. Bayless’ deliberate abuse of authority was a clear indication that they were also conspiring to do so. I knew immediately that my only remedy would be in the courts, but before I could go there I was required, by law, to exhaust all institutional remedies. So that’s what I set out to do next.

The first step in all institutional remedies is to file an official “informal resolution request”. Which I did. The response I got was short and sweet: “Your Administrative Remedy [sic] is untimely. You received notice of the [TRULINCS] restriction on 3/21/13 which is over a year old. You have 20 days upon notice to file the grievance.” And, it was signed by, guess who? Mr. Edwards and Ms. Bayless! Remember, this is the response I got to the initial “informal resolution request”. It was not yet an “Administrative Remedy Request”, that is supposed to come next. So, in essence, they completely side stepped their policy violation by asserting a time limit that doesn’t even apply to the informal resolution (by calling it an “Administrative Remedy”, which it was not, yet).

I then submitted a formal “Administrative Remedy Request”, in which I not only explained the original issues, but also took the time to point out that the reason for the delay in filing was caused by the lies I was told by Unit Team staff (Mr. Edwards specifically). According to the A.R.R. (Administrative Remedy Request) policy, such reasons for delay are accepted, but must be confirmed in writing by Unit Team Staff! So, my A.R.R. was, of course, rejected (i.e. not even accepted for review at all) as “untimely”. Under “remarks” on the rejection notice it said, “Must have in writing from Unit Team that it is untimely due to being mis-informed of remedy process.”

So, what else could I do? I sent another electronic message to Ms. Bayless, asking her to confirm that Mr. Edwards had lied to me. And, of course, she refused to do so. But, she didn’t deny the lie, or refute it in any way at all. I had evidence, remember, so she couldn’t. She just simply refused to document the lie in writing for the A.R.R..

So, I initiated a separate A.R.R.. In this one I pointed out that Ms. Bayless was blocking my legitimate access to the Administrative Remedy Program by refusing to do her job by not so much as even investigating the alleged lie by Mr. Edwards, her subordinate, much less put it in writing as policy dictates she must do. And here is where the fun really began!

The new A.R.R. was immediately rejected also, without any review at all of the issue I raised, again as “untimely”. So I wrote the person who signed the rejection notice, the “Administrative Remedy Coordinator”, and explained that my A.R.R. was NOT untimely at all, since the “possible staff misconduct” occurred only a few days before.

Of course, I didn’t expect that my letter to the “Coordinator” would accomplish anything, so at the same time I submitted an appeal of the rejection directly to the regional office in Kansas City, Kansas. B.O.P. policy explicitly allows for this kind of appeal in cases where an A.R.R. is rejected without an explanation that allows for the reason it is rejected to be corrected so the A.R.R. can be resubmitted. I got a response to this appeal around the same time I got a response to my letter to the “Coordinator”, both responses were completely nonsensical!

The response I got from the coordinator didn’t make any sense at all, and it completely ignored my assertion that the A.R.R. was not untimely. The Administrative Remedy Clerk, “M. Joy”, stated “A review of our records indicates you were instructed in the remarks section [of the rejection notice] that you had to have in writing from your Unit Team that you were not properly informed of the Administrative Remedy process. You failed to provide this information…”

So, I wrote “M. Joy” back again, and tried to explain again as plainly as I could that my A.R.R. was not untimely; I gave the specific dates of the incident involved to show that it occurred less than 20 days ago, so having a written explanation from Unit Team made no sense. But, of course this second letter made no better progress. The response I got was again nonsensical, this time clearly confusing my first A.R.R. with the new (and separate) one. So I wrote yet again, pointing out the confusion by giving specific A.R.R. filing numbers, and yet again I got another completely nonsensical response that, yet again, completely ignored my very plainly stated observances.

And at the same time as I was going back and forth with the institutional clerk, I was bantering just as insanely with the regional office. The appeal I had sent to Kansas City was also rejected without review because, “You did not provide a copy of your institutional administrative remedy request or a copy of the response from the warden.” So, I returned it to the regional office again, with a cover page that explained that there is no “response from the warden” because the A.R.R. was rejected, and that’s why I was appealing. They returned it again, with another rejection notice, giving the exact same reasons: no “response from the warden”.

At this point I just gave up. It was clear to me that we weren’t communicating, and I doubt if we were even speaking the same language (They apparently were speaking some institutional dialect of “legaleze” that I obviously wasn’t able to comprehend).

(To give you an idea of how this language barrier is set up, consider a memo I saw just a few days ago from the warden’s office: It said explicitly that all letters to the warden from prisoners would be automatically rejected, without explanation, if they did not contain a specific phrase at the top of the letter indicating the status of the prisoner’s intentions. If that makes no sense to you then welcome to the club! The point of course is that if you missed this memo, or any of the thousands of memos like it, then your ability to communicate with institution staff is clearly restricted, severely! And I’ve missed a lot of memos!)

I’d been keeping my attorney appraised all along, and he had agreed long ago that after I’d exhausted all the institutional remedies that he’d help me take the matter in court, and even file the actual documents for me as my attorney. So, when I’d informed him about the repeated nonsensical replies I was getting to all my requests for “remedy” he agreed that it was time to file a legal suite. He also expressed (half jokingly) his surprise that I suddenly seemed willing to engage the system on its terms (i.e. legally). That actually bothered me. But, in my mind, as long as I wasn’t asking the system for “justice” (for me, that would be like asking a man for love while he was raping you) then I was still being true to my principles. And as far as I was concerned I wasn’t asking for “justice” (i.e. I never once accused Mr. Edwards of lying, or Ms. Bayless of abusing her authority in any of the “remedies” I filed – and I was always very explicit in my intention of “correcting an error” and not “seeking justice” of any sort).

But, when my attorney sent me a copy of the “Jailhouse Lawyer’s Handbook”, so I would understand what he needed from me in order to file a lawsuit, I was aghast! Right on the cover of the handbook was the subtitle: “How to Bring a Federal Lawsuit to Challenge Violations of Your Rights in Prison”. And if that weren’t bad enough (I don’t recognize any so-called “rights” that the system claims I have – which is essentially the reason I refused to invoke my “right to appeal” my death sentences in the first place, and the reason my attorney was surprised by apparent change of heart), in a note from the editors, on the first page of the handbook, they refer directly to the “struggle for justice”, which to me is the most futile (and ignorant) struggle of all. To parody Tina Turner, “What’s justice got to do, got to do with it? Who needs the law when the law can be broken?”

The handbook made me realize that I had come to a line that I can’t cross. I’d rather die first than ask the system for justice. Maybe (probably) I’m being ignorant. But, I’ve never been ashamed to say that my ignorance defines me. The “epiphany” that I had that caused me to stop killing and turn myself in didn’t change my views, it only made me realize what my views were (i.e. limited and selfish). So, there will be no lawsuit, and I will accept this whole fiasco concerning my attempts to “remedy” the “error” concerning my access to prisoner e-mail as clear evidence of the system’s fundamental inability to function with any semblance of sanity.

(Note: As evidence of my ignorance, I am compelled by my desire to be honest to admit that Shasta, the child I had intended to kill but returned home instead after I “woke up” (i.e. realized my own insanity), did essentially in fact “ask” me to “love” her, even at the very moment I was about to crush her skull with a large rock. In light of this, and the ultimate effect it had (I threw the rock down and took her home, in effect trading my own life for hers at that point, which the Bible calls the greatest love of all) is a clear indication that my aversion to asking the system for “justice” is born in ignorance. Though, I’m not sure the comparison is fair, because even though I refuse to ask the system for justice on its terms, I am still “essentially” asking the people caught up in the system for justice on nature’s terms, in much the same way Shasta asked me, the man behind the mask, for love. In other words, she didn’t ask the monster for a kiss, nor did she ever say the words, “will you love me”. And so I will not file a lawsuit (akin to a kiss), nor will I ever say the words, “give me justice”. But, make no mistake, it is justice I desire, not from the monster we call the Justice System, but from the people behind that mask – from society itself.)