Richard Keech Newsletter!
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Subject: Richard Keech Newsletter #3 9-27-99
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 01:08:06 EDT
e
Note from Joan: Sorry, I’m a day late with this...just got back
from the
1999 Sweet Adeline International Competition in Atlanta. So,
with a heart
full of music I’m back in the Editor’s chair. Here’s Richard’s
letter.
September 19, 1999 Sunday
Dear Internet Friends,
Let me tell you about the building I live in. There’s a lot
more to a
prison than meets the eye.
First of all, my building is one of four, laid out in the
form of a
quadrangle. Four such quadrangles make up the prison. Each
encircles an
open grassy area. This is the ‘yard’ or exercise field for the
men in the
encircling buildings. The newer prison buildings here in
California are all
three stories or less. this is earthquake country.
Not all of the buildings surrounding a quad will hold
prisoners. Some
will house offices, mess halls, storage areas and space for
other services.
Each quad is managed as an entity in itself. Prisoners are
not allowed
to visit another quad. Except when assigned to a work detail or
a class that
must draw on the entire prison population, they will never meet
the men of
another quad.
I am in building 3 of the B quad at CMC in San Luis Obispo.
There are
some 600 men in my building. There’s one other building in our
quad with
some 200 men in it. It also has some other men in ADSEC which
is a sort of a
jail within a jail. (The men call this ‘the Hole’. We never
see these men.)
Thus our quad holds, all together, about 800 men. This is
considered to be
a good figure, not too many to crowd the mess hall or the
playing field. We
are known as the ‘laid back’ quad because of this smaller
figure.
There are three floors to our building. Each floor holds
about 200 men.
For control purposes, our building is divided into six sectors.
That’s
fairly easily done by the means of putting steel gates at the
ends of the
hallways where they access the central stairwell and guard
stations.
My cell is located in the southern sector of the third
floor. It is one
of 25 that face another 25 across the aisle to make up the 50
cells, (with
100 men) for this sector.
Now here’s where it gets interesting. (Sorry to have wasted
so much time
just setting the stage.)
Only the men of my sector are allowed through the steel
gates at the end
of our aisle. No visitors. No wandering friends. In fact no
one is allowed
in our building unless he lives there, nor are men allowed to
roam between
floors. This is what the guard stations on each floor are for.
This is for my safety. This is what modern prisons are all
about.
In the old days it was quite different. In those days
prisons were
turned over to the prisoners to run. The guards just made sure
no one went
over the walls. It was, sadly, a vicious system of control, with
each level
of control brutalizing ever more cruelly the level below it.
The old system was a lot cheaper to run, if you ignored the
law suits.
It took fewer guards, who needed little training. We prisoners
can thank the
strong labor union the represents the Prison guards for
insisting on
improvements in management that justified ever more and ever
better jobs for
themselves.
Enough of history; back to me and my home away from home..
My cell at
CMC is roughly 7 by 10 feet. That makes it the smallest of all
the
California prison’s cells. There’s a story behind this.
CMC has always been the “Showplace” prison in the California
System. It
was originally designed as a one-man-to-a-cell prison. When the
prison
population exploded, rather than give up its star status, it
modified its
small cells to accommodate two men. As it did this, it took one
unusual step
that ultimately proved advantageous to the men. To ease the
pressure of such
crowding it gave the men keys to their cells and allowed them to
spend a good
bit of their day outside of the cell. (Editor’s note: Actually
the men had
keys to their cells even in the one to a cell days)
So what could have been a very stressful situation actually
worked to our
advantage. Our cells have no space at all left when both of the
men are
there. But, with the freedom to spend most of the day away from
the cell,
this is not a problem.
Now, more about my building. We have two“rec” rooms for
the use of the
men of our sector. These are at the end of our hallway, just
before the
steel gates to the central stairwell. They have benches with
backs (only at
CMC would you find this), tables with seats and 19 inch TVs
mounted on the
wall. One room is a bit larger than the other due to the
building design.
It has more benches.
In general the larger room is more popular with the blacks.
The smaller room is where the Hispanics hang out. I quite often
use the
larger two table room to do my typing in. (to give my partner
some space
during the day.) If my hearing were better, working in the
“rec” room would
be a bit of a problem. It is so noisy. One of the benefits of
age and the
resultant loss of hearing. The noise doesn’t really bother me.
Where is the noise coming from you ask? Well not from where
you might
think, not from the TV. Admittedly the TV is always tuned to
one of the
rock-video stations. But that’s not the problem. Would you
believe the
noise is coming from four excited black gentlemen who are
playing dominoes on
a stainless steel table.
When played the way they do it the noise level in the room
far exceeds
acceptable decibel levels. In their game one makes one’s
domino “play”
with a forceful slap of the domino on the steel table, while
yelling
something succinct and terse to emphasize the brilliance of the
play.
Statements such as “We going home”, “Now you cry”, “Cut the
cake” come to
mind here. I don't know what they mean, but they sure make the
walls
reverberate.
What else are the men doing in the “rec” rooms? Again, not
what you
would think. One would think that the two giant TVs would be
the important
attraction of the rooms. Not so.
The main reason for this is that almost every cell has a TV
of its own.
Men partner up whenever possible so that a man without a TV can
share a cell
with a man that has one. (No point in having two TVs running
when there’s
hardly room for one.) Thus TV in the “rec” room is more of
interest as a
source of background music, to be enjoyed while playing chess or
dominoes or
monopoly with one’s friends.
Monday night football games are the exception to this.
Football is more
fun to watch when you’re sitting with friends. So, the “rec”
rooms are busy
on Monday nights.
Hey! This report could go on forever if I let it. Actually I
intend to do
just that, but, not all in one report. Enough, for today, about
my prison
home. I have much more to tell about the events of our days and
how my
friends and I live them.
Thanks for your interest. Until next time!
Semper Fidelis - Richard Keech
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