Texas built more prison cells than they can currently fill, so they are renting out cells to other states at a profit. Good for the Texas pig-system, but not good for the prisoners. The Texas County Jail is essentially a control unit. The cells are cold and prisoners there are denied clothes warmer than a t-shirt. The water tastes like beer, and the medical care is scarce. Already one prisoner has died from the AIDS virus because he was denied AZT.
Two thousand miles is simply too far to travel for many families. Immediately after the transfers were announced, RAIL sprang into action. We organized rallies and petition campaigns demanding the return of the prisoners and an end to prisoner deportations. Less than 3 months after the initial deportations, Weld got $485 million to expand prisons in Massachusetts. The prisoners were not returned to Mass as promised by Weld.
The issue became more acute when prisoners began falling ill in Texas. RAIL held one rally in Boston specifically to demand the return of one particularly ill prisoner.
In the almost 3 years since the initial transfers, RAIL has held countless information activities on the transfers and gathered hundreds of signatures on petitions demanding the return of the prisoners. While we have not yet ended the transfer program yet, the protests of RAIL and other organizations have won two important victories: Sick prisoners have been sent back to Massachusetts and in an aParent admission to the destructive character of the transfers, prisoners are now being rotated thru Texas instead of being sent their indefinitely. The battle is not over.