Almost Murdered in Wisconsin's Secure Program Facility (WSPF).

 Despite solitary confinement having long been recognized as being torture by neuroscientists, former U.S. President Obama, Justices of our Supreme Court the U.N., etc., the State of Wisconsin, "God's Country," continues to house people in Solitary Confinement, calling it "Restrictive Housing" (RH) so they can claim "We don't house people in 'Solitary Confinement.'"

In 2011 I began posting my writings about my experiences/observations in Wisconsin's main Solitary confinement facility, WSPF, on my blog, Prometheus Writes: https://betweenthebars.org/blogs/540/. Then, in 2018, with a friend's help, with a friend, I expanded my blog to facebook.com/PrometheusWrites, where I was able to post more details, including the names of corrupt/abusive prison staff. That same year, while I was working on a comprehensive lawsuit that challenged the condition/practices in WSPF's RH unit as being inhumane, on 8 Oct., I was stabbed in my head three times by another prisoner while at rec (despite WSPF officials labelling us as "high-risk" prisoners, they required/require us to go to rec, in small, locked rooms, with other high-risk prisoners, to prove that we are safe enough to be let out of RH; that has resulted in numerous stabbings & assaults. (You can see photos of the foot-long steel knife, its tip curled up from impacting my skull, on @PromWrites on Twitter; I was also stabbed in my lip & gumline, left leg, arm, finger & eye socket.)

 Repost from ABOLISHmke

Green Bay CI[/caption]

Despite many cultural differences, Wisconsin’s prison system has a similar negative impact on people in both under-resourced rural communities and Milwaukee’s northside. Those who have been cut out of the jobs economy, who’ve been marginalized and neglected by political elites, business owners, and corporations, are more likely to struggle with addiction, despair, and violence. We know what comes next – they end up going to prison.

In prison, negligence, abuse, and confinement cause great and lasting harm. People then return with that trauma to the same struggling communities they were taken from. The addedhe stigma of a criminal record further removes them from economic opportunities. They become more likely to resort to crimes of survival, or of addiction and emotional distress. In this way, prison drives up crime. It contributes to a cycle of harmful behavior, of people hurting their neighbors.

Union Supply Monopoly

 Repost from ABOLISHmke

Prisoners are isolated to ordering solely from union supply as a contracted vendor... I'm under the impression it violates the consumers protection  act where we are to have price competitiveness  and is at contrast with the reasons the doc initially cited as their reasons to start the four original vendors contracts in 2007 or so, which included wider selection and “price competitiveness”. Please advise … and stop this unjust overtaxing of loved ones and prisoners hard earnings especially where union charges way more than  others, takes three times the wait to deliver and puts families on hold hours to place orders. Also, where prisoners earn 5¢ per hour and doc takes 50% of hat 5¢ for restitution even hough courts imposed 25% and hen turn around and take another 10% for release accounts. Who is criminal in his situation?!!

—Jose Soto #307830, prisoner at Waupun Correctional Institution

 

The Wisconsin DOC is working towards only allowing one vendor to provide essentials to their captives: Union Supply. There’s a whole host of issues that come along with this, not least of which being that monopolies are historically price-gougers and unreliable, because there is no competition, so they can proceed however they want and do whatever maximizes profits, disregarding the needs and rights of the people they’re doing business with.