In 2012 at Wheeler Correctional Facility (a “Corrections Corporation of
America” facility) the prison was following Georgia Department of
Corrections (GDC)’s standard operating procedure (SOP) for it’s
grievance procedure. Step 1 was an informal grievance (with a 10-day
response time). Writing space on the form was limited to just 3 lines.
Responses were also limited to 3 lines. Step 2 was a formal grievance
(with a 30-day response time). Writing space was a 2.5” by 6” box on the
form. If required, the prisoner could attach 1 additional page to the
grievance. For my formal grievance, I used the entire box and 1
attachment page. This was approximately 34 more additional lines of
pertinent information to investigate than on my informal grievance.
However, the response I received was the same verbatim 3-sentence
response I received to my informal. This was the practice at Wheeler
Correctional Facility in 2012. At Step 3, the appeal to GDC’s Central
Office, I complained that merely repeating the same response to the
informal grievance was ignoring the information/concerns contained in
the 34 more additional lines of information in my formal grievance. I
also pointed out this implied the prison wasn’t investigating formal
grievances and that this would constitute deliberate indifference.
Later the same month GDC’s central office issued a statewide memorandum
to both it’s state facilities and the private facilities who’s grievance
procedure it oversees (Wheeler Correctional Facility is one of them),
announcing statewide policy changes in the following manner: 1. The
informal step of the grievance procedure is abolished, and; 2. an
optional 10-day extension was added to the 30 day response time for
formal grievances.
This is actually a decision in our favor. One reason is because now the
facility-level grievance process requires less unnecessary writing.
Another reason is because the optional 10-day extension is rarely, if
ever, being taken and because of this it is now taking less time to
receive responses to grievances which formerly would have initially
lingered, unresolved, through the informal step of the process. This is
true for the majority of all grievances filed.
I will now share one of the methods I’ve created for defeating one of
the tactics which prison officials use to wrongfully deny grievances. A
tactic frequently used by prison officials, to wrongfully reject or deny
a prisoner’s legitimate grievance, is to intentionally misinterpret
pertinent information relevant to the grievance as being “multiple
issues” or “more than one issue”. This doesn’t necessarily mean the
grievance is complaining of more than one issue. It’s often just
information necessary to explain or understand your grievance, or to
allow an effective investigation into your grievance, etc. Whatever the
scenario in your particular case, you should emphasize this in the
appeal of your rejected/denied grievance.
As a pre emptory strike to prevent prison officials from utilizing this
“multiple issues” tactic, I will begin the 1st sentence of my formal
grievance by writing “this is a grievance of…”, then I state the single
issue I am grieving. I follow this by writing “all other information
contained in this grievance is necessary for explaining or understanding
the grievance”, etc.
Because I have already clarified this to prison officials in advance,
they cannot rely on their supposed confusion, as to what issue you are
grieving, to reject or deny your grievance for “multiple issues”. If
they do, then just point out this error in reasoning in your appeal. For
example, “The grievance is not of multiple issues, as I have clearly
identified the single issues I am grieving in the 1st sentence of my
grievance”. Your appeal of such a denial should also explain that prison
officials allegation of “multiple issues” (when they already know
better, because you’d already clarified this for them in the first
sentence of your grievance), can only be construed as a retaliation
against you for having utilized the grievance procedure. Be sure to
explain your latter allegation, of retaliation, “information necessary
for an understanding of the appropriateness for this appeal”.
I have seen that when you are consistently being this specific and
reasonable it renders prison officials unable to utilize this particular
tactic without it becoming obvious that they are retaliating against you
in violation of your 1st amendment rights. This makes a prima facie
showing of retaliation so plain it would allow a court to side with you
against prison officials’ motion for dismissal of summary judgement
(alleging that you failed to exhaust your administrative remedies), by
ruling that you properly complied with the grievance procedure and
therefore have exhausted your administrative remedies as required by the
Prisoner’s Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) §42 U.S.C. 1997(e)(a).
In addition, I encourage anyone who encounters this “multiple issues”
tactic to report it by executing the grievance petition available from
MIM’s “We Demand Our Grievances Be Addressed” grievance campaign. Like
the editor’s have said, even if this initially fails, such failures can
be used to show how the purportedly neutral criminal injustice system
contrives against us.