Willacy Unit - Federal

I see a lot of complaints in ULK 76 about problems with Grievance Officers. I’ve been having those problems too and have gotten in the habit of undertaking the laborious task of hand-copying several copies of my grievances and keeping one to “file”, sending one to the “grievance box” and one to the “District Clerk”. That seemed to get a response when I did it on Willacy and sent a §1983 along with incorrectly screened (blocked) grievances. The wheels of justice quickly started turning the other way. Even though I don’t really have the money to file another §1983, I can’t afford to allow these Grievance Officers to get away with not responding to our grievances even more.

This grievance system was certified by the District courts as you’ve explained in the TX Pack and I’m hoping the courts will not be happy to see TDCJ blocking and denying our access to courts.

I’m not even sure a §1983 would be necessary if I were to somehow be trying to file for Contempt in the Cole v. Collier class action but I think Contempt has to be filed by Class Counsel? I’m not sure but am looking into it. It is a little confusing to know who all is a “class member” of that suit since the class extends to all who may be housed at the Pack Unit in the future that seems to me it covers the many prisoners TDCJ has rapidly assigned “Heat Scores” to.

Today our Unit is officially being taken over by a private prison company called MTC. We were being operated by La Salle Corrections before. This Unit is really not designed to house state prisoners, therefore we are being denied numerous services & privileges that we would have on a normal unit ran by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Correctional Institutions Division. Most of us have been sent here due to the heat-related lawsuits. Probably the number one thing that would help us all at this Unit is better access to a better stocked & updated law library. As it is we are only allowed three inmates in the library at a time & it is very difficult to even have our I-60 requests returned to us.

All of the services here are overwhelmed by the recent influx of TDCJ prisoners. Dental, mental health, medical records, the barber shop etc are all behind and unable to provide adequate services to us. Our outside recreation yards do not have toilets no shade nor cold water & when they do call outside rec we are only given 30-45 minutes once a day. We will see if things improve under new management. The new warden is a female named Rodriguez. She showed up at our dorm at 6:30 AM yesterday to say hello & look around while they were serving chow … I have fallen back on writing my grievances because I was driving myself a little crazy & I also believe that grievances are the reason that I have been transferred all over the state & sent to a Unit where I am not allowed to have my typewriter anymore. TDCJ is supposed to be issuing tablets to all of its Units within 18 months but it is unclear if we will get them here at the Willacy Unit.