The segregation unit here at CCCF is still a big problem. We are sure it is at other facilities also. We have a lady here in her early 20s who has been here for years in segregation. Our heart goes out to her. She is not allowed anything in her cell and when she comes out for showers she is handcuffed, leg shackled and a leashed like a dog. Once she was getting in the shower and all of a sudden several officers tackled her. This is almost like several reported events in Virginia where officers tackled a man in a facility and killed him. In case here they claimed that she tried to head-but an officer. But none of the other officers said they saw her do that.
The segregation unit here is just a place where officers practice abuse of power and abuse prisoners. According to the Geneva Convention, solitary confinement with no stimuli is considered to be torture. If officers do not feel like bringing prisoners books, then they do not get any books. The same goes for cleaning supplies, meals and showers.
In the segregation unit here, if officers do not like a lady for some reason they conveniently “forget” about getting them anything. Once they decided not to allow one lady a shower she heard them saying they hoped the other ladies would beat her up for smelling bad. They will conveniently “forget” to give that lady meals as well. Also, officers have been known to give some ladies extra food if she has beaten up another lady who they do not like.
President Biden vowed to do away with segregation in prisons and we want it done away with too. Please write to the President at 600 Pennsylvania Av, Washington, DC. Please write also to
Adrian Wulff
Ombudsman to Gov. Tina Kotek
900 Court Street SE, Ste 254
Salem, OR 97301
You may think that segregation is for “trouble makers” and for people who do not follow the rules here, but that is not necessarily the case. If officers do not like a lady (and sometimes this is just because of race or color) they will try to throw that lady into segregation for almost anything. For example, ladies can be sent there for sharing food at meals. Most officers here practice favoritism and will send one lady to segregation for something small, and let another do the same thing with doing anything to her.
Consistency is a big part of ladies’ mental health while at CCCF and similar facilities. But each officer runs a given unit completely differently, so it can be very confusing to adjust to varying rules all the time. We are just trying to live our lives here as best we can. But when different officers come on a unit with different rules it interferes with our efforts to live our lives and also to try to fight the charges that brought us here.
We have many ladies here with wrongful convictions that are doing their best to research and navigate the legal system that brought us here. It is hard enough to do that, without having to deal with officers yelling at us and not being consistent about rules. All we want is a fair chance to live our lives here and to try to find ways to eventually be set free.
It has been proven that the lawyers who are supposed to help us do not really fight for us. They are lazy and even leave out important evidence from our case histories that may have led to wrongful convictions. Between that and corrections officers here seeming to always have it out for us, there seems to be no fairness or mercy!