The State Correctional Institution at Frackville is a small facility located in the Pennsylvania, Pocono Mountain region. Opened in 1987, this facility originally housed problematic prisoners. Currently, SCI Frankville houses about 1,140 prisoners and is a classified security level four facility, the highest general population security level. SCI Frackville is known as a craphole; in the prisoner community, perhaps the worst state facility.
This reputation is warranted by the extremely poor conditions, coupled with the guards overly negative attitude. Indeed, serving time at Frackville is a depressing, miserable experience. Daily operations entail severely restricted prisoner movement and manic adherence to daily routines. Many SCI Frackville prisoners are confined to their cells up to 20 hours each day; confinement conditions that approach the 22 hour daily confinement conditions in the hole. The arrogant, hostile attitudes on the part of the guards contribute to the harsh, oppressive environment. The guards seem to find great pride, even honor, in perpetuating their anti-prisoner culture, thus creating a fiefdom of arbitrary, unrestrained authority separate from the state correctional system.
Even state correctional officials know SCI Frackville is a crap hole. It is frequently utilized as a last stop destination for disfavored prisoners like jailhouse lawyers, writers, and activists. Transfers to SCI Frackville are generally considered emotional or punitive in nature. Certainly no Pennsylvania state prisoner wants to serve time here, including myself; see our moves as a punitive action.
In early 2014, the Pennsylvania correctional system designated certain facilities for regional mental health treatment units. Consequently, hundreds of prisoners were transferred among the various facilities as those with psychiatric problems were placed in one of the regional units. The State Correctional Institution at SCI Mahanoy was a facility designated mental health unit, and quite naturally, the administrators there took advantage of the situation to remove “troublemaker prisoners” from its population. As a result, I was among the 100 prisoners to be transferred from SCI Mahanoy to SCI Frackville in April and May of 2014. The records of those transferred with me confirmed that most of us were writers, jailhouse lawyers, and advocates. Nevertheless, the administrator still insists that our transfers were not emotional or punitive in nature.
Many of us, upon our arrival at SCI Frackville, began experiencing problems from the moment of our intake. Personal property items were damaged or arbitrarily confiscated without the standard procedural protections. Property Room Sergeant, Sergeant Kraynak, is ultimately responsible for his corner of this fiefdom. He knows his actions are essentially unreviewed by any higher authority. Many transferring prisoners property items were simply lost, damaged, or confiscated in accordance with local practice, and in disregard from the DOC regulations.
Prisoner Jose Salinas, EV 9035, stated, “These rogue officers run with impunity, accountable to no one.” Any prisoner who dares to file grievances will end up threatened, harassed, intimidated and/or physically harmed any way they can manage to get away with. On many occasions, Jose has filed grievances and somehow, they strangely disappeared without a trace, and literally have exhausted myself to refile the same grievances multiple times. prior to obtaining an official number indicating the grievances were received and processed. Many prisoners’ family members have been sexually harassed and discriminated against by officers in the visiting lobby where visitors are processed. The officers utilize metal detectors and run them over the female breast area as a pretext to find out whether or not the female visitors are wearing a brassiere with a metal wire. In order to delay the visit, they’ll provide them with the option of entering the bathroom, only to have them destroy their brassiere by having them take the metal wiring out, and/or depart from the prison complex and spend time and money to drive to the nearest outlet to purchase a non metal wireless brassiere, causing an unnecessary delay of time and expenses overall.
On September 5, 2014 Mark Shetton from the Pennsylvania prison society arrived at SCI Frackville as an official visitor at or about 8:50am. At or about 10:35am, I was paged to report to my pre-scheduled official visitor to meet with Mark Shetton. A sergeant directed me to report to the property room for them to inspect my legal materials prior to entering my official visit. I sat idly for 45 minutes before an officer proceeded to inspect my legal work. Upon my arrival to visiting search, another officer grabbed my legal work and inspected all of it again as Mark Shetton proceeded to enter the visiting room and informed me he was highly disappointed with the way our visit was handled by the lobby officers at SCI Frackville, having to wait for two and a half hours without any explanation for the extreme tardiness.
Lieutenant Reese’s response to my grievance, number 527603, to what occurred during our visit is somewhat troublesome and remains quite peculiar, to say the least. On October 7, 2014, Lieutenant Reese stated, “In response to your grievance dated 9/10/14, all relevant parties were interviewed concerning your grievance. I can assure you that the delay in your visit was not premeditated nor deliberate action. There were three consecutive, ‘extraordinary occurrences’ that required staff response on the day of your visit. These events were not in our control, causing an uncommon delay in your visit. Again, I assure you that staff did not intentionally delay your visit and further, such visits should not encounter the same circumstances.” The irony in all of this is that Lieutenant Reese openly admitted SCI Frackville staff lost complete control of institutions function which affected the visitors lobby area, allegedly causing an uncommon delay in our visit.
Upon entering the visiting room, Mark and I noticed many prisoners enjoying their visits without incident. This raises certain questions about why our visit was specifically treated indifferently, if in fact, Frackville security department were experiencing events that went far beyond their complete control. However, many visitors were processed without these events affecting the process of their visit, just our visit was held in abeyance for two and a half hours. Lieutenant Reese’s baseless and unfounded explanations leads one to clearly see the faulty facts contradicting the circumstances that took place on the day of our official visit. The rationale is anemic and specious at best, and warrants further investigation into this incident affecting our visit, unnecessarily causing a two and a half hour delay. Note that the natural explanation to all that has occurred with our visit is simply answered: This is Frackville, an anonymous kingdom all to its own.
Brandon Miller, JG 5529, states, “Upon being blackballed for this transfer, as the pick of the litter from SCI Mahanoy to SCI Frackville, I’ve been subjected to get on top of the bunk every waking day and night by first stepping on the toilet, two) the slippery sink, three) to the top of the unsteady cabinet, four) and with a leap of faith, jump onto the top bunk, which is literally an accident waiting to happen. The top bunks are without ladders and safety rails to get up and down safely from.” Superintendent Brenda L. Tritt stated the top bunks were never constructed with ladders and safety rails when SCI Frackville was built in 1987. It is unsettling and mentally frustrating having to just think about getting up and down from the top bunk with impending thoughts of one day becoming the next victim to an unforeseen, terrible, and tragic accident every day and night.
An anonymous female veteran officer inquired about where we came from. I responded from SCI Mahanoy. With a wicked witch grimace, [she] smirked and said, “Youse guys got the messy side of the tampon, nice and fresh. Welcome to Frackville, boys.” Till this day, I haven’t been able to figure out why I was transferred from Mahanoy to Frackville.
Frankville has commenced engaging in stripping Z codes from prisoners who are being housed in single cells due to their history of mental health issues, by forcing them to accept cell mates, with predictably violent consequences and vice versa. One such prisoner by the name of Carlos Iglesias, has vehemently rejected the idea and indicated if the DOC happens to place any one inmate inside my cell, he would be confronted with the potential reality of committing murder and/or literally sodomizing the individual inmate the DOC decides to set up for this death trap. Carlos readily admits this is a sad and stark reality for the unsuspecting and unwitting victim. Carlos has a checkered mental health history and refuses to cohabit with any prisoner. He promises to take any and all measures to defend his position. If the DOC enforces to impose him with the idea alone, there will be detrimental consequences for both the DOC and the alleged victim. Obviously, this transfer has the insidious and nefarious hallmarks of retaliation encoded in it. Roger Buehl, AM 7936, is a lifer and has been incarcerated at PA for over 30 years at various facilities, including security level four and five facilities. While each facility has its own particular character, SCI Frackville does stand apart in both reputation and negative attitude.
Indeed, most problems here are rooted in the guard’s culture of arrogance towards all prisoners generally and rule, procedure or right that tends to protect or favor prisoners. This culture encompasses disdain and blatant disregard for principles of fair and humane treatment. Open disrespect towards prisoners and arbitrary abuses of authority and petty harassment are routine practice. Larger issues contributes to the SCI Frackville misery quotient. Prisoners access to health care has been a serious problem in the state system at large. Another issue arises from food service. Budget cuts have already reduced prisoners’ meal portions and selections, and the state system’s summer menu was objected to — even further cuts. The guards, however, still get unlimited meals, including specialty food items, all at state expenses. Of course, the kitchen reserves freezer number six, strictly for staff members, which contains a treasure trove of specialty food items, separate from the prisoner items. SCI Frackville’s practice of confining prisoners to their cells for a majority of the day, foster feelings of frustration and depression. These problems all add up to a stressful, depressing experience for any prisoner, particularly those who were transferred here without notice or legitimate penological reason in the absence of any misconduct.
This administration at SCI Frackville has undergone some changes in the last two years. A new superintendent, Ms. Brenda L. Trigg, was posted here in 2013 and she has made some major personnel changes which resulted in marginal improvements. The Administration recently included replacements as a Deputy Superintendent position, Grievance Coordinator position, and the Security Department position. Superintendent Tritt is an able administrator, and she has at times, accorded fair treatment towards prisoners. This not to state that she is pro-prisoner, which she is not, but rather, she’s not overly focused on the unjustified grind up of prisoners. Unfortunately, Superintendent Tripp is dealing with a strong, entrenched negative culture decades in the making, and she probably gets more resistance as a female administrator in a male dominated environment. These factors appear to preclude any major changes to improve our conditions or rectify the problems that impacts those prisoners transferred here to this anonymous fiefdom. Respectfully submitted, Bryant Arroyo, at SCI Frackville, for prisonradio.org, the face and voice inside the nation of prisoners.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
