Clive McFarlane
cmcfarlane@telegram.com
This week I received a three-page handwritten letter from
an inmate on behalf of himself and other inmates at the Worcester County House
of Correction.
The letter, accompanied by more than 70 signatures, outlined a number of
concerns the inmates thought I should help them raise.
For a minute, I was troubled by a line in the letter that said, “I know that you
will understand our situation.”
Was the letter writer saying that being a black man is synonymous with being a
prisoner?
I let that pass, however, since the statistics on that front would probably not
work to my advantage in a rebuttal attempt.
In any case, the inmate who wrote the letter appeared very measured in his
approach. His grammar was correct, and he presented a rather coherent argument.
I felt compelled to at least make a cursory call to the jail.
Sheriff Guy Glodis and his deputy, Jeffrey Turco, were only too willing to
answer the complaints. They even invited me to come up and look around the jail
for myself. I told them I would love to take them up on the invitation sometime.
But until I can find the time to spring a surprise visit on them, I asked them
to respond to the inmates’ complaints.
Mr. Turco did the honors.
Inmates: We lack proper access to legal material and help. The clerk who is
supposed to be helping us is actually an informer who alerts the DA and jail
officials to our legal tactics.
Mr. Turco: We run a prison, not a law firm. Nevertheless, we provide the inmates
with two lawyers and one paralegal paid for by taxpayers’ money. Under federal
consent decree, they get access to the legal material that they need. We spent
$50,000 to update our legal library last year. I guess, sometimes a lot is not
enough. Inmates: The water is no good. It gives us skin rash. The medical staff
does not help to fix either the water or the rash.
Mr. Turco: There is no special water for inmates and staff. We get our water
from West Boylston. It is the same water that our taxpayers drink. As far as our
medical department, it is the only portion of the jail that is nationally
accredited. Just last Thursday, they sent a warden from Maryland to audit us. He
gave us a rave review. We do struggle to fill nursing positions.
Inmates: Despite the high humidity we have been having, they will not turn on
the fans.
Mr. Turco: This is not the Hilton. Still, if you come up here right now, you
will find that the fans are on. We do not have air-conditioned cell blocks. Yes,
if you have 120 inmates in a block, and it is humid outside, it is going to be
humid inside. Yes, we are overcrowded. We have 1,340 inmates in a facility
designed to house 822.
Inmates: When you get here they charge you $50 for used clothing. If you don’t
return the proper amount of clothing when you leave, they keep your money.
Inmates are here for years and years and they are expected to wear the same
underclothing they get when they first come in, although the state says we are
to receive new underclothing every 90 days.
Mr. Turco: We don’t have that 90-day rule around here. Inmates do not purchase
clothing. We provide them with tens of thousands of dollars worth of clothing
each year. The problem is that inmates sometimes ruin or lose much of the
clothing we provide them. The sheriff thought that to get a better control over
the clothing, he would have inmates provide a deposit of $46.05 when they come
in. They get their money refunded, if they turn in the clothing when they leave.
It is a move to protect the taxpayers.
Now, some might say the inmates are in no position to complain about the
harshness of their incarceration. After all, by committing whatever offenses
that brought them to the jail, they have basically forfeited any right to
complain.
I don’t know about that. I mean, if the international community can be up in
arms about how suspected terrorists are being treated at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
we can at least listen to our boys in jail.
Of course, we all know that being in jail does not mean a person is guilty. All
you have to do is visit the local courthouse on any given day to understand that
justice is less a search for the truth and more an exercise in compromises and
bargains.
Most of the time, the search for the truth is too expensive, and the consequence
of failing too high, for the average guy charged with a crime. Some 99 percent
of the time, he has to accept the deal struck between his lawyer and the DA.
Having said that, let me say this to our boys in jail.
Maybe the conditions are what you say they are. Maybe Mr. Turco and Sheriff
Glodis do not know what is going on in their own jail. If that is the case, you
should contact the ACLU. I am sure their lawyers will be more than willing to
look into conditions at the jail.
In the meantime, my best advice to you is to hurry up and get the hell out of
there. No good can come from hanging around in there.
I know that that is easier said than done, but that is your best course of
action here.
Please, please don’t become like that one inmate who approached Mr. Turco
recently with the following observation.
“I have been coming here since 1984, and this is the worst it has ever been.”