Sitting in obscurity in solitary confinement now, for over 280 days, in the inferno of the entrails of the Restricted Housing Unit, RHU, at Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution in Pine Grove, litigating my federal lawsuit, Arroyo vs. McGinley, No. 1:23-CV-01O83. While trying to figure out how I ended up in this situation many of my comrades, advocates and supporters from the eastern region of Pennsylvania, must be thinking that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections put my freedom of expression into a recession. They certainly tried by denying me a single cell accommodation for my health issues and by forcing my transfer from the State Correctional Institution at Coal Township to the one at Pine Grove. This is in retaliation for my work as a whistleblower, which is defined as an individual who exposes the corrupt or malicious, venal actions of a public or private organization, government or entity; leaking information thought to be pertinent to the general public.
My fellow inmate William Billy Renick and I blew the whistle on Coal Township. Specifically, we blew the whistle on the fact that the state prison was in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and various fire safety codes, for its failure to install handicap accessible fire and safety exit ramps. They were well aware of the fact, as evidenced by the prison’s Lieutenant Cahoon, who declared that it would cost several millions of dollars to bring the prison into compliance, and that that was the real reason why I was placed in solitary confinement, to await transfer to another prison. The pretext was that Bill and I were punished for exposing the names of corrections officers in the Workers World publication. But as Lieutenant Cahoon stated, “It was never really about you guys exposing the staff members names in the Workers World newspapers.” It was squarely about avoiding the Department of Corrections from spending millions of dollars to install emergency exit and handicap ramps throughout the entire Pennsylvania prison system. It just isn’t economically feasible. Lieutenant Cahoon then sought to extinguish the exercise of my constitutionally protected free speech rights by forcibly removing us from the general population and placing us into an RHU. This was done under the false pretext of encouraging unauthorized group activity, for assisting Billy Renick with his article, which focused on negating fire and safety risks by implementing fire exits throughout the entire facility at SCI Coal Township.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.