Conditions at WCU: Mail delays, medical neglect, corrupt grievance process, harassment, and rights violations
We recently received this letter from Tyrone Hull, who is locked up in the Westville Control Unit (WCU). In the letter, Tyrone describes the rampant corruption and miserable, inhumane conditions that people incarcerated at WCU are subjected to.
10/9/19
Hey my brother! I hope you are in good spirits when you receive this letter. As for me, I am trying to hang in there mentally, but in real life there is so much bullshit and corruption going on in this place. I feel like they are purposefully depriving us of our prisoner rights and also changing and making their own rules specifically to cover their tracks to prevent us to not accumulate a paper trail to push paperwork on them to expose their wrongdoings . . . 1st off, the C.O.s [correctional officers] back here in WCU all the way to the administration are so unprofessional and bias they are making it a lose lose situation for mental health and all inmates here at WCU.
There are specific officers that are purposefully writing conduct reports to keep people in segregation for retaliatory purposes. C.O.s are using racial slurs, provoking heated confrontation and harassing ones by shaking them down and taking personal belongings every time we come out of our rooms. They have started refusing certain inmates their rec [recreation] and shower out of retaliatory purposes based off of emotions.
It is our prisoners rights to be able to take a shower, receive and send out mail, have 3 meals a day, and to have the proper medical care. They don’t give us the correct servings on our meals, they are never hot and something is always missing from our trays.
Whenever we get injured or sick and we put in a medical request to see a doctor, they don’t come see us until 2 months later. They never take our medical or mental health serious! We try to kick in the door to get their attention for medical emergencies and they will ignore us and shut the dorm doors on us to prevent from hearing the noise. Honestly someone can die of a serious heart attack and they will be too late to save anyone because they are too lazy and careless . . .the psych doctors are no help and they are just going through the motions here. They have no compassion for us and they are of no assistance. They are taking away mental health meds if ones get caught with pills in their room instead of making them take their pills in front of them. How can you punish a mentally ill person by taking away their meds just because they had pills in their room?
As for the mail here, our outgoing mail may not reach our family for a week and most of the time it is 10 to 14 days. And for our incoming mail, we don’t get it for a month. Sometimes 2 months. We have a counselor (caseworker/manager) that never answers our questions, never wants to work to help us get our paperwork straight and she doesn’t want to collect our grievances to send to the correct department.
The grievance process is a joke. I’ve put in 4 of them in the last 2 ½ months and yet no response, when the policy says they have to respond in 10 days! I’ve wrote the Warden 3 times and he doesn’t even write me back! (That’s crazy) . . . .
Like I said brother, these people are very unprofessional, bias, lazy, and retaliatory against ones who are trying to stand up for what is right. I’ve been locked up for 13 years and 3 months and I’ve never experienced such corruption and unprofessionalism [as] my oppressors are demonstrating on us . . .I’ve wrote every authority in the past. Lieutenants, sergeants, captains, wardens, and no one ever writes me nor do they come pull me out to talk, but as soon as an inmate wants to snitch about drugs or violence on their C.O.’s, then they run and pull people out to talk!!!
Brother I am tired of this form of modern day slavery and I need your help putting these people on blast on social media and down state. As a matter of fact, I need a change of scenery!
Update 10/31
The living conditions and the way the officers and administration are treating us by not following their own policies and procedures and ignoring mental health inmates and their situations are very very wrong and we dont have a voice to express or complain. So we need ur help to contact central office to get them to start a investigation on this wcu segregation department we also need to contact the ACLU and let them know that they r not attending to the mentally ill when they have suicidal thoughts or try to commit suicide. Officers all the way down to the administration is corrupt. They are not feeding us our correct portions on our treys basically starving us which we raise hell about but they never fix, ones tell the police that they r suicidal and are cutting theirselves and they never follow procedures and or ignore us. We put in medical to see medical and they dont answer for 2months, we try to grieve officers, aramark, lieutenants sargents captains medical department and the grievence process is a joke. 89% of the time they never answer. Officers are refusing certain people out of their recreation and showers and we only get to shower 3 times a week already. They are not being professional as they r suppose to be when they sign up for this job but yet they call us racial slurrs, bitches and other deragatory words. Ive honestly have been biteing my toungue for a very very long time bcuz i am trying to get bak to poulation in 4 months and me getting phsycal or going on strike or going on strip cell for months is not worth it when they ignore us any way and dont fix the problem. Ive wrote the captain lewis sargent Herr the warden and put in multiple grievences and they all are in cahoots with keepin their foot on our necks so i chose to be smart and go around them and contact ur group to explain to aclu and central office that this wcu needs to get and investigation started on them ASAP..
You can support Tyrone by sending him money and writing to him via web.connectnetwork.com, or by sending regular mail to: Tyrone Hull #172195, WCU, 5501 S 1100 W, Westville, IN, 46391
