Cruel Denial of Access to Bathrooms at SCI Benner

It has been over a year now since the staff at SCI-Benner placed a padlock on the inmate’s bathroom door, because two inmates were allegedly indulging in a sexual act. This is the only bathroom available for the inmates to use in the education building. Now we have to report to the guard’s deck and wait on him to open the bathroom. Since this absurd procedure started, numerous inmates had to file grievances, because they were denied by the guard to use the bathroom. Just last week, an elderly inmate was forced to urinate on the carpet in the law library, because the guard refused to allow him to use the bathroom. This incident infuriated the librarian.

Placing a padlock on the bathroom door won’t stop a sexual behavior that has been around for centuries. The staff think that inmates have an off and on button that control their urine, because several of the guards become arrogant or get irritated when an inmate ask to use the bathroom.

This inhuman decision not only exposes the administration’s irrational thinking, but the passiveness of the inmates abiding to this cruel procedure. To cooperate passively with an unjust system makes you no better than your oppressors. Power precedes nothing without a demand, it never has and it never will, and a demand is only as good as the force which backs it. God will not change the condition of a people until they first make an effort themselves.

If you don’t stand up for something, you’ll be treated as nothing. And if you don’t believe that the pen is mightier than the sword, then try it.