Clinton Young: Loud & Clear
Topic: They like it dirty
Date: Sept 29th 2019
TDCJ allocates certain items. 3 times a week can exchange towel, jumper, 2 pair of boxers and 2 pair of socks. On Mondays get 3 pair of socks. Tuesdays can exchange 2 sheets and a cell towel. A cell towel is basically a long wash cloth. It can be used to scrub body with or the cell when cleaning. All these items have been used by others. Imagine sharing underwear with your classmates!
Now if one is blessed to have someone send them money to the inmate trust fund account. Can buy wash clothes, socks, t-shirts, boxers, tennis shoes, boots, and cleaning supplies. TDCJ only provides 5 bars of cheap hotel size soap, roll of toilet paper and a small paper cup of Bippy a week. Which is an Ajax type cleaning powder. Twice in the past 4 weeks there has been no Bippy.
Now today they informed us will no longer be exchanging cell towels. As for a new guy enters the system and has no money. He has to just use his hand and the tiny bar of state soap. The water is not always the hottest. How can a person truly wash off grime and dirty body oil? Or clean the cell properly? General population have long not been getting cell towels. Though they have access to brooms, maps and scrub brushes. Things we can’t get due to “security reasons”. Hence the cell towels. Now by policy, before a prisoner is moved into a cell. It is supposed to be cleaned by the working prisoners. Swept, mopped and areas wiped down with bleach water. As some prisoners are dirty. Psych patients leaving bodily fluids. Additionally, there is the fact of hepatitis C and its ability to live over a week outside the body. Prison is bad with hep C. as many are former drug users, prison tattoos, exchange of blood during fights, etc. A cell towel cost these people 5 cents to make! Hep C treatment cost $80,000. I went to public school and even I get that math makes no sense!
Most on death row wash their jumper, sheets, and using commissary bought boxers and such. It is easy to tell who washes their jumpers. They are actually white! The ones these people wash take on a dark tan color. Water is not tan, bleach is not tan, detergent is not tan. As how a white jumper turn tan? They stuff the machine to max with clothing, so dirt and grime just gets swashed around. Those that do wash our own clothes, we do so in the sink or in cereal bags. They are large and sturdy. (Some people in prison wash in their toilet).
Back to matter at hand. With them not issuing Bippy powder and now no cell towel.How is a guy to clean his cell? I already documented how the showers are. Prisons get access to vaccines, the same as nursing homes. As the people in such have weaker systems than the general public. Plus the way people are crammed together. It is a perfect breeding ground for a virus to evolve. When the swine flu scare happened in the U.S. Politicians complained in Texas that a large number of the limited vaccines was going to TDCJ. That prisoners should be last on every list. What the idiots didn’t think about, was how if a guard brought a virus from home. Then infected a couple prisoners. If not enough on the prison population is vaccinated. Then the virus can evolve and become resistant. Then pass to other guards. Who then take it home. Can infect children, who then take it to school. A whole new struggle begins. A clean prison is thus about more than prisoner care. It is a matter of public safety. More so given the size of the prison population. Also, guards are considered low wage employees. Poor people take the longest to seek medical help; due to costs. It seems that TDCJ insists on operating on the edge of crises at all times. They are reactionary. As outbreak happens. “Then” they come around washing all the hand nails and door knobs with bleach. Why not do that before and thus prevent the outbreak?
Additionally, there is a huge staff shortage. They had to shut down recs and showers 2 days in a row here. Some guards are having to work 16+ hours. Normal shift is 12 hours. Some drive an hour to get here. This means they spend 18+ hours a day for work. Add in eat, bath and etc. They end up with maybe 4.5 hours of sleep. Some have slept in the parking lot in their car. The less officers show up for work. The more strain on other officers.
If an illness gets passed around. More will not show up for work, due to being sick. Yet now they pick to reduce our ability to be cleaned!? TDCJ is over 4000 guards short. That is a safety risk, due to prison generally being a violent place. They could easily fix financial problems, so they would not have to budget cut cleaning supplies. They can expand commissary spends. Sell TV’s which generates money and would be less rec. I mean for the entire system!
General population prisoners have TV in the dayrooms. The more prisoners in dayroom. Greater chance of conflict. More so with staff shortage. If a guy could buy his own TV. He could hang out in the cell and watch it versus giving to the crowded dayroom.
Death row and Ad-seg would rec less and also help with mental stability while in isolated cells. It would be easier on guards and generate money. The same goes for Jpay tablets or GTL tablets.
Most states have these systems. One state sells actual custom made cell phones on commissary for $100,-. It is a flip phone called ‘cellmate’ with no internet and some restricted applications. All these other prisons, including federal prisons, can have these systems. Yet Texas prisoners are too bad to have them? King pins go to federal prison. Not state prison. So mafia Dons, drug lords, and such can have access to e-mail systems and tablets. Yet a beer store stick-up man in Texas can’t?
The system fears a baseless and invisible foe. That people in society will complain. So they focus on oppression and stay on the edge of crisis. All under guise of “tough on crime”. The reality is, that most people already think we all are sitting in here watching TV and playing video games! Even the cops, that escorted me to Midland. They were shocked, when I told them we didn’t have TV on death row. TDCJ keep guys in cells that make them crazy. Which increases conflicts. They keep things dirty. Hmmm. Maybe the prison system is really a giant college study on crises management.
We can’t blame the wardens always. Warden Perez is actually extreme about wanting everything clean and neat! It is the politicians that insist on slashing budgets and try to outdo each other on who can be the most oppressive.
On Sept 1st a law went into effect making Brass Knuckles legal in Texas. A law is on the books that an 18-year-old can buy an AK-47 with a 100 round ammo drum. He then can walk around town with it openly. Yet I can’t have a cell towel or buy a bullshit ass TV? Huh…
Take care, smile and strive for all that you desire.
P.S. several blogs have been posted recently. Make sure you didn’t miss any.
Veni, vidi, vici
In solidarity I remain
Veni, Vidi, Vici.
In solidarity I remain.
Clinton Lee Young #999447
D.R. Polunsky
3872 F.M. 350 South
Livingston, TX 77351
United States of America
Clinton young #999447