My name is Ozzie and I’m putting this blog together to show the results of how letting my pride and ego dictate how I reacted to a particular situation ended up getting me into trouble.
I’ve done a pretty good job of putting my past behind me and only bringing the experiences of wisdom with me into the future. I was recently surprised by a situation that took place with an officer and me. I was called a “lazy mexican” by an officer because I didn’t want to unplug the cell house phones which inmates were still using. I was shocked because I have never been confronted with racism like this before so I naturally lashed out and spoke out of anger and called this officer a “fat bitch” and told him to unplug the phones himself.
Before this heated argument between him and I took place, I adamantly tried to explain why I couldn’t unplug the phones while inmates were using them. I would have angry inmates mad at me and possibly wanting to fight me. He wasn’t trying to hear the common sense behind my reasoning hence came the verbal confrontation between us. This officer wrote me a disciplinary ticket which stated that I disobeyed a direct order, I was insolent, and intimidation of threats.
I had a cellhouse help job which consisted of cleaning the cellhouse. I was well liked by the regular officers who work the cellhouse and they told me this officer has a history of provoking inmates to assault him, that way he gets time off with pay. He also has a history of saying racist comments to both officers and inmates. This officer is not a regular officer in my cellhouse and was only working there that day.
The regular officers told me that they would speak on my behalf when I heard my ticket and they would make sure that my ticket was thrown out. Unfortunately, none of this took place and I was given two months in segregation despite the fact that I had six officers speaking up for me. This really bothered me because I prided myself in maintaining a good prison record and I’m not know for being a trouble maker. And I let the ignorance of a miserable officer cause me to stumble.
The irony in this situation is that I’ve prepared myself for any and all trouble and how to avoid it whether it be from gangs, drugs, or just angry, disrespectful inmates-but I failed to prepare myself for problems with an officer.
We as men have a vision of what courage is, many of us have different views on that concept and let our pride and ego define what courage is for us. Ironically, I recently cam across a quote from Ernest Hemingway in which he says “Courage is grace under pressure.” I see how I should have responded more gracefully to that situation but I now have the experience of what can go wrong so when I face similar situations in the future, I will know how to navigate through them gracefully.
It’s been close to 8 years since I’ve been in trouble and caught any disciplinary tickets which can result in me going to segregation. For those of you who don’t know what segregation is, allow me to give you a visual of the madness that is an everyday thing here in segregation. Here at Stateville, we have a building called F-House which is built like a Roman coliseum except F-House has a big gun tower in the middle with an officer who is armed with a variety of weapons! He has assault rifles, shotguns, and tear gas which he can use at his discretion when protecting the lives of other officers, as well as trying to break up any fights between inmates. The officer is allowed to fire a warning shot into the air to get the attention of the inmates to get them to stop fighting. Sometimes when an inmate or inmates are assaulting an officer, they can shoot into a crowd of inmates if it results in the officer being assaulted getting away to safety. Sadly, sometimes these officers that are assigned to these guard towers are not trained right and often prematurely shoot their weapons, injuring innocent people that weren’t involved in any fight.
This building has four galleries with 61 cells all going in a circle around the tower-that is 122 inmates per gallery! Only one gallery has segregation in F-House and that is one gallery. The rest of the galleries, which are on top of each other like floors or tiers, starting from 1 gallery up to 4 gallery, that is approximately 488 inmates housed here in F-House with maybe 8 officers that have the job of maintaining order.
The inmates have no control over who we get housed in the cell with. They usually try and mix things up and not have guys who are in the same gang housed in the same cell. At times, us inmates are forced to deal with cellmates who are mentally and emotionally disturbed– and it feels like I’m left to deal with the issues of these individuals troubled pasts. I try and show compassion for these guys because no matter how different we all are, whether it be character or race, we all share one common bond and that is pain.
Unfortunately some cellmates are worse than others. Sometimes you are struggling to maintain some sense of order in your own life and now you are left to be Dr. Phil and try to help someone else who either doesn’t want help or doesn’t know he needs help-either way, it’s an arduous tack.
Shortly before I came to segregation, some crazy dude just snapped and beat his 65 year old cellie up and after that he raped him. It’s hard for me to understand how someone can give up and decide to be an animal rather than a loving and respectable person. Guys have killed their cellies back here in segregation for something petty like his cellie didn’t want to stop having a conversation with his friend in the cell next to him while he was trying to sleep…
When we are placed in segregation, we are placed here for any number of months. Some guys come to segregation and lose their mind and never come out.
They have a committee of two officers who hear your disciplinary ticket and once you are found guilty, they sentence you to a length of time that your particular charge carries. For example, if an inmate fights another inmate he can get 30 days in segregation. If that same inmate fights and the officer in the guard tower has to shoot warning shots (as a means to get control), then that inmate can get 3 months in segregation for “dangerous disturbance”. In segregation, we are in our cell almost always. We shower once a week, on Sundays, depending on what side of the gallery you are on. Most guys including myself still wash up in our cell everyday which we call “bird baths”.
We go to yard (recreation) for 5 hours, once a week on Saturdays. These yards are fenced in areas with a basketball and rim. The officers divide us up between fenced in cubicles. A lot of these guys go to these yards and fight other inmates, which results in them getting more time added to their sentence in segregation. Sadly, some of these guys rack up so many segregation tickets/seg time that they have 20 years in segregation! I can’t even imagine having to spend 20 years here in segregation.
Our food is brought to us in plastic trays three times a day. During these times is when the cell house is loudest because guys are trying to buy and trade certain food items off their trays in return for an item from someone elses tray.
It’s amazing what a human being can get used to. Just when you think you can’t make it another day, somehow you wake up the next morning with the strength to make it through that day. I used to look at guys who had done a lot of time in prison and I had asked the how is it that you have done 25 years in prison. One wise old man told me that you only have to do one day and that is today. That advice still rings in my head today as I wake up in the morning and prepare myself spiritually and mentally for the day.
I do a good job of keeping my head up and maintaining a positive attitude even when, like now, I can find a ton of things about my current situation that I don’t like. It’s a balance that is imperative for every person to maintain whether free or in prison because no matter what, your situation can get worse and somewhere in this world there is a person with double your problems and half of your resources and yet they are happier than you.
Anyway, let me get back to the living conditions…. We are housed in two man cells with a sink that is connected to the toilet, both are steel. We have a window which gives us a view of the segregation yards I mentioned earlier. Some cells have a view of different parts of the prison, depending on where you are at.
A lot of guys inside here don’t bother to read and spend a lot of time talking over the gallery. Sometimes it is too loud and guys can’t yell from one side to the other with everyone in the cellhouse speaking at the same time so guys developed a form of sign language in order to communicate with one another. They call this “prison sign language” texting. Unfortunately, this place is in dire need of repair. A lot of windows in segregation are broken out and have been like that for years. In the winter, this is a real problem and our cells become ice cold to the point where you have to put all your clothes on when you go to sleep. The officers know this is a problem and try to give guys tape and plastic to patch up their window and that’s only if you find an officer that cares enough to help you. You shouldn’t be able to see your breathe while you are in your cell. We have a radiator in each cell which unfortunately doesn’t work half the time and when it does you can barely feel the difference in temperature.
We have roaches here in segregation that are unlike any other roaches I’ve ever seen! don’t even think about turning the light off in your cell because that is their signal to run wild! 🙂 A friend of mine told me to place a potato chip bag upright against the wall and shelf that usually has the most traffic. He said to place a little piece of cake inside the bag and that the roaches would smell that and climb into the bag and after eating, wouldn’t be able to get out! I tried it and left it over night. There must have been over 200 roaches in the bottom of that bag-so many that you could hear their legs scraping against the inside of the bag as they struggled to exit from the bag. Apparently the material in the inside of the bag doesn’t allow traction for the roaches to leave once they’ve eaten enough. 🙂 I was amazed and somewhat scared because now I had to empty this chip bag in the toilet QUICKLY as I flushed it so no roaches got out. I continued this process a few times and slowly the amount of roaches decreased a lot and after a couple weeks, I’ll be lucky to catch a few roaches. Now I am able to shut the light off in my cell and enjoy a night of sleep without feeling imaginary things crawling on me, thank God!!
We also have timers on our toilets which only allows us to flush our toilets once every 10 minutes. This can become a problem especially when your cellie needs to use the toilet and you are forced to smell him for 10 LONG minutes. In the past, some inmates would plug their toilets up with a rag and flush the toilet a hundred times in an act of defiance, flooding their cells and gallery with water, just to make the officers angry. Most of the time this would charge up other inmates and before you know it, you have water everywhere!
You have perverts back here in seg who get off on flashing the nurses who make their rounds, bringing medication to inmates. You also have guys who use their feces as weapons by putting their feces in empty milk cartons and letting them ferment for a few days, often mixing it with urine. After that they would fill up empty toothpaste containers and when they see someone walk in front of their cell and they would quirt it into their face. Not only is this inhumane but it’s also dangerous considering that some of these guys have HIV, hepatitis and other illnesses.
Sometimes Stateville allows tours to come in and view this place (F-House) and I recognized the fear and awe in their eyes because I felt that way when I fist saw this place. It’s an intimidating place to see let alone to live in! When these tours come, often they have women who are in these tours and this place erupts with guys yelling profanities and saying a number of nasty things to these ladies. Some nasty things are said to the guys too. I silently apologize to these people on the behalf of these 488 inmates who are only adding to the negative stigma and stereotype they probably already have of us guys in prison. They view us like animals in a zoo.
Evolution is part of life. Either we take control of ourselves and evolve into better people or continue to add to the dysfunctional mindset of people who observe our behavior and actions only to pass that mindset on to the next person.
I hope that this paints a different picture of what you have about prison and how you view us buys inside here. Yes, a lot of guys inside here come from a troubled past and continue to dwell in that mindset but you also have guys like myself and guys involved in the website (prisonersmakingadifference.com) who have taken upon themselves to put to rest their past and are driven to evolve into better people so we have something positive to offer our families, friends and society.
A Prisoners Thoughts 
