Screening on Prison Abuse Turns Into Reality

HRC-FedUP! recieved word last week that the 3 Correctional Officers - Dutton, Taylor and Brown, that were cited repeatedly in recent assault reports from Red Onion State Prison have been split up. Prisoners claim that when these guards work together they are a violent trio and welcomed this development. Attached is a more in depth article about the recent abuse at Virginia's notorious supermax. Thanks to everyone who took action in reponse to the initial call.

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On November 24, 2007, the Human Rights Coalition- FedUp! Chapter hosted a screening of “Up the Ridge” at the Undaground Lounge in the Northside. About 15 people turned out to see this one-hour documentary that offers viewers an in-depth look at the United States prison industry and the social impact of moving hundreds of thousands of inner-city offenders to distant rural outposts.

The idea for the film began in 1999, when filmmakers Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirby were volunteer DJs for the Appalachian region’s only hip-hop radio program in Whitesburg, KY. It was then they received hundreds of letters from inmates transferred into nearby Wallens Ridge, the region’s newest prison built to prop up the shrinking coal economy. The letters described human rights violations and racial tension between staff and the prisoners.

The morning following the movie screening, FedUP! received a disturbing phone call from Red Onion State Prison (ROSP). It was a prisoner calling from his solitary confinement cell with alarming news. The guards were getting bad again, he said. During the past eight months FedUp! has hardly received any reports of physical abuse at ROSP.

The caller proceeded to list names of prisoners who were assaulted, and the guards involved. On November 10, 2007, Corderio Carter alleges he was attacked by Correctional Officers Dutton, Taylor and Brown, when he was taking a shower. There was some confusion and Carter asked to speak to a Sergeant. His request was denied, he was dragged into the middle of the room, and slammed face first into the concrete with handcuffs and shackles still on. In the last month, we received four reports from people who claim that they have been placed in ambulatory restraints for longer then 21 hours without being given food, bathroom breaks or medications if needed. This results in prisoners being forced to urinate and defecate on themselves while in restraints.

Over the last month, the atmosphere at ROSP has intensified in regards to racial harassment of prisoners as well as physical abuse. It has become a regular occurrence for prisoners to be called racial slurs when receiving food. If the prisoners responds in any way their food is taken from them and the Sergeant says the prisoner refused the meal. Personal property of the prisoners is also being destroyed. Prisoners believe this upsurge in abuse is related to the reinstatement of Assistant Warden Richard Rowlette. Rowlette was a major at Red Onion State Prison when it was first opened and sited for extreme acts of abuse by Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org/reports/1999/redonion).

When questioned by prisoner advocates, a Red Onion State Prison officer identified as Sergeant Adams claimed he knew how to do his job and that nothing was going wrong. Adams expressed no interest in investigating the incidents and was hostile and defensive. Another officer of the Special Investigation Unit spoke with me for a half hour. He said that it was almost impossible to “prove” allegations of racism and that the whole time he has worked in the Special Investigation Unit (the Virginia Department of Corrections internal investigation department), he could not remember one time a claim of an officer abusing a prisoner to ever have been “founded” or proved. My jaw dropped. “Not once?” I’ll believe that when politicians start telling the truth.

“Up the Ridge” highlights many perspectives, from the prisoner to the politician. The film shows ex-prisoners testifying to the abuse they suffered, “Not being able to be with your family is punishment. Not being able to be with your mom when she is dying is punishment. Prison is the punishment. We do not deserve to be beaten.” One of the head politicians in the prison town of Big Stone Gap was addressing the comparisons human right advocates were making with the incidents at Wallens Ridge. When referring to the prisoners at Abu Graib he said, “Those people were living in caves before…[they were in Abu Graib],” insinuating that being in Abu Graib was a step up from the way the detainees were living before. My jaw dropped. The whole movie had that effect on me even though I had seen it before. My mouth kept dropping – then my heart – listening to the families who had lost loved ones in the prison. The apparent injustice is so upsetting and the disregard for even the smallest bit of decency is appalling. William Frazier was electro shocked to death in 2001. Frazier was a diabetic who was having a reaction to the insulin. The guards reacted with stunguns. His body was wrapped in a bloody sheet and sent home to his family in Connecticut.

After Frazier’s death and the suicide of 20-year-old David Tracy things did change in Virginia. Connecticut pulled all remaining prisoners from Virginia, a moratorium on the Utron 2 stun device was instated and Ron Angelone, Director of the Virginia Department of Corrections, resigned on May 9, 2002. Wallens Ridge State Prison even went down a level in security from Super Max to a level 5. These and other changes seemed to indicate progress in Virginia’s compliance with constitutional and international conventions on protection of human rights. Unfortunately, the prisoners say otherwise. FedUp! has been documenting abuse at these high-level security institutions in Virginia since 2005. While there have been very few claims of abuse from Wallens Ridge State Prison during this time, reports of excessive force and brutality continue to pour in from Red Onion State Prison, the sister SuperMax a half hour down the road.

I leave you with the words of Kevin “Rashid” Johnson, co-founder of FedUp! and prisoner at Red Onion State Prison: “The state’s government is using a poor, economically depressed and exploited segregated White community to brutally oppress a vastly non-white prisoner body, exactly as impoverished whites were deliberately used to savagely brutalize Blacks with license and impunity during the chattel slavery process of this same rural Amerikan south. There is clearly no interest and no intent by government officials to reign in such abuses. [In fact, the situation is] created by such authorities.”

If you would like to see or show the movie “Up the Ridge,” contact us at 412-802-8575 or hrcfedup@gmail.com or visit the Fed Up Web site at www.thomasmertoncenter.org/fedup.

- Etta Cetera, HRC-Fed Up!