Looking out: Learning & teaching

By Brandon Astor Jones

The Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Center (GDCC) is a prison situated about 50 miles south of Atlanta, the city and regional site of the 1996 Olympic Games. More than 1700 men are held at the prison; that makes it larger in population than many of the towns in the region. Seventy-five percent of the prison's population is African-American, despite African-Americans being only 12% of the population of the United States.

Prisons are big business in America. The officials at the GDCC will do just about anything to make money; and, if in the process they trample over the humanity of the prisoners, so be it.

For example, on June 21 I initiated a confidential inmate grievance form (CIGF). The GDCC has started its own lucrative “compost operation”. Very often, the smell from that is so bad that there are no words in the English language to adequately describe the death-like stench.

On the CIGF I complained, “Every weekend, and often at night during the week, the smell that comes from the composting is so bad it literally permeates G-Unit (that is to say, in all four cell blocks and the corridor)”. It should be noted too, that Monday through Friday, from nine to five, there is hardly any smell at all. During these times state officials often visit the prison, and it would be hard for the prison administration to justify or explain the odour. I went on to say, “The smell is so bad that a fart smells like perfume by comparison. We ought not to have to eat our meals amid the stench.”

We are locked in our cells and must choose between the toilet and the bed to sit on while eating our meals. So there is no escape from the stench of the GDCC's compost operation.

Unfortunately, for those prisoners at the GDCC seeking relief from administratively inhumane treatment, the CIGF is at best a sad joke. When a prisoner initiates a grievance form, more often than not what he or she will get is the kind of administrative rhetorical response that I did: “[GDCC's] composting operation undergoes extensive regularly scheduled testing by state agencies and private laboratories. Data regarding environmental impact consistently receives approval from all licensing personnel. This grievance is denied.”

Such a response is designed to obscure the seriousness of the complaint cited. When and if an objective and non-prejudicial review of the complaint is conducted -- and there are no reasons to expect that will ever happen -- a rational mind would immediately recognise that, in effect, the response is little more than a rhetorical attack upon the environment in general and the prisoners' humanity in particular.

Prisoners are subjected to hundreds of similar forms of dehumanisation every day, year in and year out. You will be able to understand how some prisoners can and do lose touch with their humanity when they are treated this way for prolonged periods. The cumulative effect of long-term administered dehumanisation is predictable in most people.

A society gets back from its members -- particularly from those it finds cause to imprison -- exactly what it gives. Prisoners learn quickly, and prison administrators teach violence and every manner of dehumanisation. Your loved ones will encounter those prisoners at some point in their lives. What they learn from such encounters will be, more often than not, what society allows prison administrators to teach those prisoners today.
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He is happy to receive letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G2-51, GD&CC, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA.]

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