MIM received several letters from an Iowa prisoner, entitled, "The Iowa Dungeon Report." We provide these reports, and MIM's response, below.
June, 1998
July, 1998
MIM comments on Iowa Dungeon Report
June, 1998
The use of incarceration in Iowa has become a standard of Iowa living
especially if your part of the lower class citizenship" which without
doubt does not have the privilege of rights and political expression, as
is demonstrated with the substantial placement of these people in Iowa's
penal system which continues to grow in leaps and bounds as expanded
legislative policies enacted against what the state bureaucrats like to
call the criminal class. In the appearance of locking away "Iowa's
Dangerous" even though the majority are doing time for non-violent
offenses, the prison populat-ion in the last decade has grown 138 percent
from 2,851 at the end of 1987 to 7,300 prisoners on May 31, 1998. This is
even after serious crime in Iowa and the nation as a hole has fell for the
6th year in a row. Iowa is warehousing these people in extremely crowded
facilities with only a designed capacity for 5,701 beds despite the recent
opening of three new medium security prisons in the last two years in
Newton, Clarinda and Fort Dodge, that have created space for 2,250
prisoners.
Along with this growth the operating budget for the Iowa Department of
punishment has soared from $74 million in 1986 to $198 million during the
current fascal year. This extension of cancerous growth is only the
beginning as state correctional officials recently forecasted Iowa's
prison population will soar to 10,870 over the next decade facilitated by
ongoing and planned policies and practices such as tougher sentencing laws
which length prison terms, more people going to prison for drug offenses
and increased reasons to violate those on probation and parole.
The newest of these medium-security facilities is Fort Dodge constructed
in a small community where this outside "Industry" and it's jobs were
enthusiastically welcomed at a groundbreaking ceremony during July 1996 as
state politicians lead about 200 attending the event in an empty farm
field that would soon become another Iowa dungeon in a high school like
pep rally chanting, "It's a great day for Fort Dodge and a great day for
Iowa!" Proclaimed reactionary Iowa governor Terry Branstad. While state
representative Michael Cormack a republican from Fort Dodge, then led the
audience in a series of cheer-like questions and answers: "Are we proud to
live in Fort Dodge, Iowa?" He asked. "Yes," The crowd replied. "Is the
city moving forward?" "Yes," They said. "Is this the end or can we do
more?" He asked. "More," they said. Cormack then declared "I'm proud to be
a Fort Dodger." This rhetoric continued with eight other speakers, at the
end of the ceremony each guest was given a tiny gold shovel pin and a
small card, which reads "A shovel full of progress." Now that Fort Dodge
is open Iowa lawmakers are already poised to approve an expansion at the
750 bed facility by allowing an additional 400 beds at an added cost of
$10 million.
The fact state politicians can openly call prison expansion "Progress" is
disturbing and can only worry to what degree those right-wing extremist
will go to reach their ultimate agenda of complete domination over an
anesthetized society. Other con-struction expected to begin next year is a
200 bed addition to the women's facility in Mitchellville, Iowa at a cost
of $1.4 million, and a 200 bed unit at the state Penitentiary in Fort
Madison at a cost of $6.5 million. Even three different private correction
corporations have jumped in to the states prison construction derby, by
proposing to build and operate the next planned 750 bed prison at a
discount to the state. Even though the bed space is needed per say the
institutions are filled to the max, like at Clarinda correctional facility
where prisoners stuffed four into a nine by six foot cell designed for
only two prisoners, whereas at the receiving facility for Iowa s prisoners
Iowa Medical and Classification Center, prisoners are being made to sleep
out in the day rooms.
Fortunately, the idea to build a private prison was met by opposition when
the Iowa Board of Corrections and a key lawmaker distanced itself from the
idea of allowing the first private prison in Iowa. And though they lost
this round its expected a multimillion dollar contract will eventually be
awarded, as greed will rule once private correction industry lobbyist
greases a couple of bureaucrats and legislators hands with dirty
greenbacks. Although this has not stopped the increase in the use of
exploitative prison labor by the private sector, especially since these
companies know they'll maximize profits, simply because such cost as work
compensation, health care and other benefits are covered by the state, not
to mention the free on ground rent to industry buildings and lower wages
paid compared to workers on the street.
Currently there are 175 prisoners working for private business here in
Iowa and its expected it will grow to 400 prisoners in the next year, one
such company request to gain access to cheap prisoner labor is Boomsma' 5
Inc. A major egg supplier wants to hire 50 inmates from the North Central
Correctional Facility in Rockwell City, IA, to process and package eggs
for grocery stores. In accordance with this contract with the Iowa penal
system Boomsma' 5 president John W. Glessner must have made a deal with
the Iowa Attorney Generals Office and Wright county prosecutors when they
refused to seek further criminal charges when the Iowa supreme Court
reversed a criminal conviction of false-imprisonment when Glessner and
Maron Lawler, a supervisor for Boomsma's kidnapped Lucas Ortega, an
employee who they suspected of theft by the hair from his apartment took
him to Glessner' 5 warehouse bound him with duct tape and then slapped him
around forcing to admit he was involved in a break-in at a Wright county
egg plant, and that they planned to turn him over to authorities. In all
prosecutors have asked for the charges to be dismissed based on two key
witnesses could not be located and the Iowa Attorney General's Office had
declined a request to prosecute in a retrial. In addition the Wright
County Board of Supervisors had declined to pay the $15-20,000 needed to
hire an independent prosecutor, which would have been necessary bec-ause
the county attorney's office had been disqualified from prosecuting the
case. As is the Deputy Director of corrections heading the Iowa prison
industries advisory board boasted Iowa will become one of the nation's
leaders in private employment of prisoners. To keep in line with this
prediction department of punishment already emp-loyees prisoners for such
jobs including making package sandwiches for convenience stores, welding,
manufacturing goods; mostly light-assembly work, woodworking, sewing
graphic design and telemarketing. The wages these companies claim to pay
prisoners varies significantly from the Iowa minimum wage of $5.25 an hour
to $12 an hour, but after deductions are made from prisoners wages for
state and federal taxes, child support, restitution, prison room and
board, and prison work programs, they actually only receive around 25 to
50 cents an hour. This is about the same amount paid to prisoners working
for state industries producing products like license plates and of-fice
furniture for state government agencies, or prisoners working for the
upkeep of the institution where they reside like food preparation to
janitorial work. To make matters worse the little pay received by
prisoners is still not enough to afford the basic necessities of life
including hygiene, writing and postage supplies needed most by those
inside one reason such items are so hard to purchase is that each facility
has strict limits on where you can buy items from and the one store that
has the market totally covered is the institutional canteen which
over-prices commodities at 20 percent or more then you'd purchase the item
on the street. As it is these "canteens" are usually operated and owned by
a private contractor who in return for allowing them to sell to the prison
population.
While slave "employment" has increased in all areas, access to educational
programs has declined, especially after the federal Pell grant program
was modified in 1994 specifically eliminating federal funds for prisoners
wanting a college education during their incarceration. With the money
dried up, local community colleges which had a contract to provide college
level courses to prisoners statewide stopped any further classes and now
the only subjects taught to this day are GED and high school level
curriculum which is limited to old text books and a few on loan teaching
assistants to each facility.
To add to the madness all Iowa prisons are connected to a fiber optic
network that stretches into all Iowa public schools, colleges and major
universities. This real time, two way, digital video conference network is
the most comprehensive in the nation designed to allow educational
opportunities, but instead is used in the prison svstem for parole
hearings and other bureaucratic business a sham to say the least.
In addition treatment or "Rehab" programs are very limited with prisoners
access to such is not based on need but availability. Along with this
prisoners who are recommended for such programming like TOW which is an
extensive six month drug rehab program as stipulation to gain release from
prison in most cases have to wait sometimes for years increasing the time
a prisoner has to be incarcerated. Another great concern is the number of
mentally ill persons within the prison system which there is no
counseling and if they are not isolated then their usually mixed with the
prison population and put on strong psychedelic medications.
With the overcrowding and the lack of programs the number of hostilities
between prisoners and the number of guards being assaulted has gone up to
the degree that every day "incidents" are being reported through the
newspapers or the prison grapevine some of these incidents can be caused
by some of the most trivial matters to outright gang fights over territory
which is becoming more common in this state. In return the department of
punishment is abusing the use of isolation units throughout the state
confining more prisoners to these units for periods lasting years. Not to
mention the taking away of certain privileges such as full time yard usage
whereas prisoncrats have split the yard times where only certain prisoners
can go out at certain times of the day along with the lose of basic
television cable and more disciplinary rules of which they seem to be
creating on a monthly basis, even though the administration and
correctional staff and guards have a personal mentality to break or design
their own rules or policies at an immediate pace which benefits them!
And if this was not enough Governor Branstad and the new corrections
director W. L.kevtzky just recently got their wish list when legislators
approved repressive measures against prisoners convicted of violent
sexual crimes whereas parole officials now have the authority to force
prisoners to undergo chemical castration and indefinite time in custody at
a "special facility" at one of the prisons once they complete their
original sentence. Lastly the state is now using an 85 percent law where
priso-ners convicted of a violent crime now have to do eighty-five percent
of the sentence before they are eligible for a parole from the prison
system. In all, it can pretty much be said the Iowa penal system is
playing catch up with the rest of the America's criminal (in)justice
system in this new era of keeping tighter control of the Proletarian
class.
-An Iowa Prisoner