Lockdown! Part 2

In the second part of this podcast series about prison lockdowns, we hear from our guests behind bars WHY the federal Bureau of Prisons uses this tactic so much. Watch to see the rather dramatic ending.

Follow this podcast so you'll be informed when new episodes are uploaded (twice a month). Meanwhile, read more stories and learn how you can contribute to reform; visit MoreThanOurCrimes.

Chapters

• 0:00 Prison Lockdowns
• 7:58 Lockdowns and Recidivism Links

Transcript

Lockdowns manufacture psychopaths. Now, what happens is, you have people who are inmates who are returning to society, right? And when they return to society without the skills to become independent (and have not been) rehabilitated during lockdowns, guess what happens when they come home? They're likely and prone to recidivate. They're likely and prone to commit crimes and come back to prison.

PAM BAILEY: Hello, I'm Pam Bailey, co-host of Voices Unlocked, which is produced by More Than Our Crimes. And my co-host today is Conrad Stewart. This is the second part of a two-part episode focusing on lockdowns, which is when an entire unit or prison is shut down. People are not coming out of their cells, either completely for days at a time, or on a modified basis, which might mean for three or four hours here, or three or four hours there. And in this second part of the episode, we're going to start with the answer to "why?" Why does the Bureau of Prisons do this when it has negative effects? And in the next interview, you're going to hear some of the reasons why that happens. 

ARTAVIOUS LOVE: I was just locked down for 46 days or something like that, for a threat to staff. There's around 1,300 inmates here. Firstly, there was no actual thread to staff. [Staff] had stolen something, and they didn't want any consequences. So they made this allegation. Now, when they made this allegation, it caused us to go into a disciplinary lockdown, when we're locked down all day, all night, and we only come out for 10 to 15 minutes every two or three days to take a shower. That's it. So, no access to the law library, no access to programs, no access to religious services. That's ultimately a violation of our constitutional rights.

PAM: So, Artavious... I just want to pause and say Artavious' last name is Love. So, in prison, he is just known as Love. I sort of like that idea. Maybe you'll hear that he's got a lot of spirit in his voice when you talk to him on the phone. But what he was just talking about illustrates the principle of collective punishment. Very often when there's a disciplinary lockdown, it's not because there was a riot that everybody was participating in. Very often it's because there was an incident between two people or just a couple of people, and then they end up punishing everybody. And Artavious explains why it's actually not effective. It doesn't work. It doesn't make everybody try to please each other, for instance, because it keeps happening again and again.

ARTAVIOUS: They locked me down, you know, even though I'm not in a gang. I don't participate in any type of behavior like that. I've never been disciplined for disobedience or any type of reports like that. But everyone is grouped in the same category of inmate and we all suffer the same consequences, which is counterproductive. For instance, say you have brothers and sisters. And if you do something wrong, you and your brothers and sisters get punished. Now, the behavior that you display is affecting them. So, it's kind of like not a punishment, because you're there along with other people who are being punished because of your behavior. Now, for instance, say that instead when you do something wrong, you're punished and your brother and your sister go on with life as normal. The ramifications or the channel or the outlet of your behavior causes you to think about the repercussions because you're witnessing life going on. You're witnessing normalcy of life through your brother and sister. So, it really doesn't help if one person does something and everybody gets locked down. There's no motivation to prevent them from doing something again, because we're all going to be in the same boat anyway. It just is counterproductive.

PAM: So, you heard that another common reason for lockdowns, especially now, is staffing shortages. That's what the unions talk about a lot and it's definitely a problem across the system. They really need to start looking at why people don't want to work in the federal prisons. But there's also a lot of other sort of seemingly humorous reasons for the lockdowns: staff appreciation days, or it's foggy. Now, the reason [they lock down] when it's foggy is that they think that if they let people out, like into the rec yard, they won't be able to see if somebody escapes if it is foggy. I actually recently heard from Hazelton that they were going to lock everybody down on a particular day because the staff wanted to watch a big football game. Another reason, though, that's becoming increasingly common -- and you're gonna hear about that in the next bite -- is when the hole or the SHU is full. I mentioned that's where people are often sent for punishment. But also, I guess I'll mention that the SHU is also where somebody goes to "check in." Normally that means they go there for protective custody, like, maybe they have a debt, for instance, and they can't pay it back to another prisoner. And so, they're afraid.

CONRAD: They also take individuals, and I experienced this myself because I was a victim of this for real, and lock them down, saying it's for their own safety. Prison has a lot of politics. I was the imam, the spiritual leader of the (Muslim) community, and there's a lot of politics dealing with the SIS, the special investigation service. They are like the FBI of the institution. And they took me and locked me in for my own safety because they said they were getting a rack of notes. Now, notes means they're getting a lot of information, right? Basically, getting information that somebody's gonna do something to an individual. So, since I was a spiritual leader, they said, "We're gonna lock you down for your own safety." Now, there's no special accommodations there. I'm in (the SHU) just like anybody else who committed a disciplinary infraction or who violated an institutional policy, which is crazy to me. But yeah, there's many, many reasons to be there.

PAM: And what's crazy is, just to talk about those check-ins: So, yes, as you heard, check-ins can be either something you do to yourself, or they do it for your protection. But what's happening in Hazelton, which is where Donald and Brooke are from, what's actually happening there is so bad, it's known as Misery Mountain, as I mentioned. It's so bad that when buses of people arrive from another prison, they don't want to be in Hazelton. So they immediately check in. That's the only way to force a transfer to a different person. But here's what happens when the SHU or the hole is full. What do you do when they want to send somebody else there? Well, what they're starting to do is lock down an entire unit of people, because of maybe one person in that unit who should have been in the SHU. And that's what he talks about next.

DONALD FEREBE: Well, the way they have it set up here is they tell us that the SHU is consistently full. So, if a person comes in and catches (commits) an infraction that will normally send them to the SHU, because the SHU is full, they'll house him on a specific unit. So, because this inmate is being housed on this unit, that complete unit is locked down. Just take... what is the day? Today is Friday. Just take Wednesday. Wednesday we had a total of seven units locked down on this compound, because they had guys who maybe had checked in for protective custody reasons. Or they may have guys who broke institutional rules housed in their unit instead of the SHU. So it shuts down a unit, which is now not in operation, yet they're still telling us they're short on staff.

PAM: We talked about how all the different reasons why somebody goes to the SHU or the hole. But because there's so many different reasons why they're going, it's full. What do they do then if somebody needs to go there or they want to send somebody there? Well, that person will remain in the unit, but they lock the entire unit down then, just because one person is in the unit that should be in the hole. You may be thinking yeah, that sounds really bad. But they committed a crime. Maybe they deserve it. Why should you care about all these lockdowns? Well, Artavious talks about that.

ARTAVIOUS: When you lock someone down and you isolate them, what happens is you isolate them from social and physical engagement. Now when you do that and that someone displays aggressive, anti-social, physical behavior, that's a clinical definition of a psychopath, right? So No. 1,  lockdowns manufacture psychopaths. What happens is, you have people who are inmates who are returning to society. And when they return to society without any skills to become independent because they have (not) been rehabilitated during a lockdown, guess what happens when they come home? They're likely to recidiviate, they're likely and prone to commit crimes and come back to prison. This revolving door stimulates the economic growth of penitentiary facilities in America. No. 1. So...

PAM: Oops, where are you? I lost you. Hello? I can't hear you anymore. 

And from that point on, whenever Artavious tried to call me back and finish the interview, we were cut off again. 

CONRAD: On that note, we're gonna end today's episode. We thank you all for tuning in. Y'all please remember to subscribe to Voices Unlocked. And we'll see y'all next time.