AnnaMercury
By Bradly Zadul, inmate #21B0085
Editor’s note: On February 17, Correctional Officers across New York went on strike, demanding safer working conditions and less overtime. The state deemed the strike illegal and deployed 6,500 National Guards members. The strike and negotiations are ongoing.
At Groveland Correctional where I reside, there was a strike. Two people are dead.
When the guards walked out, we were locked in our dorms, without medication or meals. The governor and national news outlets have been silent.
For now, the National Guard has stepped in. The difference is striking. The Guardsmen behave far differently than the Correctional Officers who walked off the job. They follow protocol. They try their best to make sure we get our basic needs, as far as they are available. And they see firsthand the corruption, the neglect, the systemic abuse that is inherent in the prison torture system. In short, they treat us like human beings, not commodities who exist only to vent and express their sadistic desires.
Ironically, in their endeavor to treat us with some shreds of dignity, even they, the Guardsmen, are experiencing mistreatment by the remaining administration officials whose conduct arguably contributed to the walkout of Correctional Officers in the first place.
This story I’m about to relate is not about a single event. It is not even about a walkout, which in it’s own peculiar and strange way, has served as a form of relief from the daily torture that we experience at the hands of an unhappy group of men and women who have adopted as their career or employment the role of Correctional Officer. For the moment, we are deprived of medical care, we are locked inside 24/7 without any yard time.
Four days. That’s how long we were left without food, without medication. When the officers walked off the job, they broke the law.
For those who don’t know, any prison system operates on a strict routine. Medications need to be distributed at specific times. Meals are prepared and served on a schedule. Security must be maintained. But when the Correctional Officers went on strike, the administration had no plan in place. They simply locked us in our dorms with no food, no meds, and no one to ensure basic order. It was chaos. If it weren’t for level-headed prisoners stepping up to keep things calm, the death count would have been higher.
You don’t realize how much control a prison has over your life until you need medical care. Outside, if you’re sick, you see a doctor. If you’re in pain, you get treatment. Here, your health is in the hands of people who seemingly are indifferent to whether you suffer or die.
Last week, an inmate, William Sheldon, suffered his second stroke in less than a month. Why? Because the prison didn’t provide his medication. He had hit his head, started vomiting, and if we hadn’t heard him choking in the night, he would have choked to death.
They cut our food rations to the point of every prisoner was hungry all the time. Ironically, the Correctional Officers have been gone for some time, and now, for the first time, the National Guard is delivering our medication and food on time. That should tell you something about how the place was run. The people in charge of running it have to go on strike in order for the place to be properly run.
People die in prison from wholly preventable causes. The irony is, the contrast. A little humanity goes a long way. Though we’re doing with less, and the Guardsmen are strained to the max to make due in a system that delights in deprivation, there’s a tangible feeling of relief in the air from the prisoners at Groveland for the feel and the taste of sadism has vanished from the air. We can smell it a little in the distance from the administration whose sole goal is to administer a system of hate and sadism, but the Guardsmen are resistant and continue to treat us like human beings. It is a welcome change.
To be continued…
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Prison is punishment.
Sad to see the soft-handed Biden swamp voters have been placed in positions of guarding the scum who end up in prison.
Should just lock the doors, throw away the keys and let the animals tear each other to pieces.
Thank you for posting this important news story. I’m appalled that the NY Times does not cover such stories adequately (or sometimes, at all). To Brad Zadul, thank you for speaking up and sharing this with us. Hats off to Frank Parlatto for providing access to important news we can’t learn about anywhere else.