Kentucky's Transition Unit Program Violates State Limits on Segregation
In Kentucky dept. of corrections, the D.O.C. is being funded with grant money to operate a 1-year-long program for prisoners whom are in the hole for a long period of time, to slowly re-integrate back into general population.
The “T.U Program” (Transition Unit program) started out as a voluntary program, to help prisoners and prevent them from doing long stretches in segregation. Then the “30 day law” came along, which says no prisoner can spend more than 30 days in segregation because it’s been proved to cause “Mental Deterioration”. Because it was a voluntary program, not all the bed space was being filled causing the prison to lose its grant money due to lack of prisoner participation! Very quickly (within a few years) it evolved into a program that the D.O.C. made mandatory, for all prisoners whom received multiple disciplinary reports with any kind of violence, drug offenses, or assaults on staff.
Now, there’s only 2 prisons in the state that has this program and due to it becoming a mandatory program, this has caused a major overload, to where there’s now more prisoners that have to do the program than there is bed space, causing prisoners to sit in segregation for 18 months to 2 years waiting on bed space.
Frankfort(Kentucky’s capital) “Classification Branch” for D.O.C. recommends for a prisoner to complete the T.U. program and if the prisoner refuses they will remain in seg until they complete it. Example, I have a staff assault, I was given 30 days seg time altogether. Classification branch recommended me to do the program in which i was put on the “waiting list” (which is up to 24 weeks long) and then once 24-weeks is up and a bed space comes open I’ll have to do another 24-weeks to complete the program. The program is 4-phases and 6-weeks each phase, then you graduate to general population. How is this just when all I had was 30 days in Seg?
They tell me I can’t get out of segregation until I complete program, but I can’t get in the program, because there’s not enough bed space. How can this be legally taking place when the law states it shouldn’t be? I came to seg in September 2021, and I’m still on the “waiting list,” almost a year later! There’s other prisoners who’ve been waiting for 2 years in seg and nothing is happening. I plan on continuing the fight from within. It’s very hard for the lumpen class to be heard but we’ll continue to stand in strength.
“Human life, then involved a curious paradox; it seems to require injustice, for the struggle against injustice is what calls forth what is highest in man.” - Francis Fukuyama
