“The DOC Goes Cuckoo.”
It began with a 10-day lockdown, almost 50,000 men and women held in 24-hour solitary confinement for almost two weeks in their cell. Why? Ostensibly because of several dozen staffers who were sent to sick in because of drug exposures.
Medical experts in drugs, chemistry, and drug treatment heard the DOC claims and poo-pooed them. The drugs they described, like K2, a chemical form of marijuana simply didn’t produce the symptoms they described. Indeed, the DOC staffer’s semblance were more in line with what some scientists have called mass psychogenic illness, or a mental reaction to fear and paranoia.
In response, the DOC attack prisoners and their friends and family by outlaw and banning books, by replacing mail by xeroxing copies of letters, and by xeroxing all legal mail and holding the originals for weeks. On visits, they removed all food and drink from vending machines.
In a word, the DOC went mad. Almost 50,000 men and women suffered for what may actions of perhaps a dozen people. Ain’t nothing correct about that.
From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
