Behind the Walls Talk

What changes would you like to see happen within the NCDAC? Directly from those who are being held in North Carolina Prisons.

We decided to take this question a step further and ask our Comrades the same question that was posed to family members holding us down. The answers should be what we all would like to hear and know about. Who can tell us better than those who are living it and witnessing things every single day. When you have non-profit organizations and politicians who have access to meetings with the wardens and prison officials, just to take their word on what is happening and never even speak with a resident of these facilities is baffling to us. You cannot expect transparency from them. Example Garland Pierce, Danny Britt and other elected officials toured Scotland Correctional a while ago. The newspaper quoted Garland saying that he walked away with some concerns about the prison. When we contacted him about the mole, bugs, and other living conditions in Scotland, also asking what his thoughts on the facility were after he left being that he had some concerns and what was his concerns as well. He did not answer the question he asked if we had spoken with Danny when the answer was that everyone is attached to the same email, we then ended the call, and shortly after that there was a response back to the email. And it was not addressing the conversation but stating that he is glad to hear that our concerns are being addressed. Same email that Danny sent as well. How are we the constituents met with lies, no response to emails, lack of transparency, being ignored, and at times attitudes? We voted for you to be in the office and to be our voice. I will also post screenshots of the responses down below.

So, the next words you will be reading will be from our brothers/comrades who are Behind the Walls.

First person will be Scottie Menser 0663922

1.  Have a point system put in place that gives inmates that have remained infraction free some type of incentive to remain infraction free.
2.  Have wardens picked from a pool of people that have been officers before, instead of appointing people who never had to deal with inmates before.
3. Give inmates an opportunity to turn a life sentence into numbers.
4. Bring back fare sentencing.
5. Get rid of mass punishment. If an inmate does something, do not punish the entire inmate population for his wrongdoing. It only makes inmates question what good it is to follow the rules.
6. Allow family and friends to visit more than one inmate at a time. Many people have multiple friends and family members in the system, and it is not fair to them or the inmates to have to choose who is more important.
7. Bring more educational programs to prisons without any. Rehabilitation takes time and effort no man grows by being stagnant.
8. Allow inmates to pay for their own medical care if they can afford it, instead of being subjected to the medical care that is given with a dollar amount holding president over the inmate’s health.
9. This might sound crazy, but conjugal visits (family visits) would remove almost all violence in prison if done right. Use the infraction process to dictate the ability to have them.
10. Have an independent panel to handle infractions and grievances so we as inmates can get a fair chance at the justice we need when we try to use the means given to fight when we are done wrong.
11. Free calls between inmates and lawyers.
12. A more user-friendly law library on the tablet. And the addition of a law dictionary on the tablet.
13. Higher wages to match the increase of prices that we must pay on commissary and all other expenses.
14. A way for inmates who do not have jobs to be able to reach their minimum sentencing.
15. Programs that allow us to reach out and point the youth away from prison.
16. Allow inmates to use prison resources to start their own businesses and make money with the understanding that a percentage of all wages will be taken by the state. (room and board, taxes, and fees owed)
17. Stop allowing Christianity to control our every decision in prison. Even the educational programs are Christian based. (i.e. Edovo)
18. Give us the right to vote, since we are counted as part of the population that grants the electoral vote.
19. Post all laws that affect prisons and inmates as soon as they are introduced in the government so we can get our families to help push such legislation.
20. Allow us programs that allow us time with our children, so they do not grow to resent us for things they don’t understand.
21. Stop restricting our television programming and reading material, because it offends an individual. If it is not for them, they should not partake in it.
22. Allow female and male inmates to correspond with each other through the textbehind system of mailing. Allowing us to have connections to avoid becoming a social hermit.
23. Close custody needs to be allowed to be out all at one time. Even though the staff say it is better for us and them, it is the main reason for the violence in close custody. Why? Because inmates trying to police the number of inmates on the floor and assist the officers causes us to look at one another in ways that are not positive, in turn causing us to react towards each other violently. You are not going to get rid of gangs or drugs because of the way inmates are so crafty with obtaining the things they want. But allowing us all to come out at the same time would allow us to segregate with like-minded people and not have to deal with people we do not see eye to eye with as much as we do now. As it stands, we must deal with the people that are allowed to come out with and even if it is counterproductive we are going to because humans are social creatures. It is built into us.

Ramar Crump 0886684

1. Systematic fairness is the opportunity to collect days. Certain jobs offer more in days than others and the jobs that afford the most days are limited and few. An inmate can follow all the rules and still be in a position where he is not able to earn the maximum number of credits solely because someone else was chosen for the jobs instead of him. Credits should be applied the way they are in the feds where you start out on your minimum and if you get an infraction then you move away from your minimum.
2. Greater oversight in ensuring that case managers know and have access to resources and programs for the benefit of the inmates. Create a portal that has information on all up-to-date state programs and resources and all contacts associated with them that way if a case manager is unfamiliar with this it can easily be searched instead of hoping the next coworker will be familiar with it.

Barry McPhaul 0637876

1. It would be new life sentences that could get honor grade.
2. More incentives which would give people things to look forward to.
3. Litigators come and show people how to properly file motions.
4. The food, processed meat, is high in sodium so with us having high blood pressure the food only puts us more at risk of increased symptoms.

Andrick Lane 0512982

1. The education status, the programs that I have taken are not in the system anymore and those self-help programs not only helped me progress as a man, however they developed a keen mind set that allowed me to evolve. Characteristic education, Anger management. Napoleon Hill’s Keys to Success, Youth Offender, Violent Offender. Those classes afforded me as a young man in prison an opportunity to get my act together. Mainly because of a choice. And bringing those classes back would give these young men a chance at a choice. Constructive!!
2. The food for vegans should be uplifted because of the same ole meals weekly.

Finally, our brother who is at Maury CI would like to give insight on how he was treated and the way they run things over at this prison.

My name is Larry Robinson, but to the average person I am 1016665 or bunk 30. I understand prisons were built for a specific reason, but one of those reasons shouldn’t be to strip our humanity.

I’ve been incarcerated for 17 years, and I am currently housed at Maury Correctional, but what is correct about it? On June 23^rd I was involved in an incident with an officer and was pepper sprayed for no other reason then that they were frustrated for being at work and they quote having to do their job unquote.

If you read the write up on the face, I’m not only the antagonist but also the reason why excessive force was used on me and covered up by saying I assaulted them that left no injury.

DHO is nothing but a fake remedy provided so they can say that one was given to us. Even when you are right you are wrong. Of course, when you come and visit this place, giving them prior notice so they can harass and belittle us into waxing the floors, paint, and scrub the prison clean so it can look presentable on the surface when you show so everything will look good.

But ask yourself why they do not let you talk to us. Maybe it’s because they don’t want you to know we haven’t had rec regularly the two plus years I’ve been here. That the excessive force that is being used on us without proper medical attention is why some people are locked in the hole for extended periods of time.

How by me writing this letter to you and you mentioning my name as evidence I will be retaliated against by either having a weapon or contraband planted in my locker during a supposed routine search, or being shipped to the worst facility they can find making it even harder for my family to visit.

When my family calls up here it’s not to reward them with a salad bar and tell them how great a jo they are doing by keeping me locked in the block all day unable to go to canteen but one time a day at seven in the morning with no outlets even though I am in medium custody. They call to see why when I was on my two-year mark and been on the shipping list a year and a half of that time without being shipped. I started getting A charges because they were calling too much. A charge for incense and retaliated against by the same people they are supposed to help me rehabilitate myself. So, no they won’t let you talk to us, but hey we’re just inmates who’s going to believe us, we just like being punished and subjected to cruel and unusual punishment for no other reason that we like it, right?

The link, graphs, and charts below are on the grievance process. When you look at the images from the grievance page, it shows what the complaints are, the amount of them, and each facility. This should align with what we all are saying rather than the narrative that is being fed to society. People lie but numbers do not. Do I think these numbers are accurate, not at all knowing that so many grievances do not make it pass the officers who pick them up. One thing that is missing is the numbers on how many times they have sided with us.  If anyone have anything to add to this article, feel free to message on Facebook or Instagram, email, or text us. All the information is on the website. Thank you for taking the time to read this post.