2/4/21 Follow-up Action to Change Cruel Conditions on the SHU

On 1/4/2021, IDOC Watch and other organizations around the state and country organized a mass Phone & Email Zap to change the cruel and illegal conditions faced by people locked up on Indiana’s most repressive solitary confinement units, the Secure Housing Unit (SHU) at Wabash Valley CF.

You can read and listen to the call to action for the phone & email zap here: 1/4/21 Call to Action: Stop Illegal, Inhumane Restrictions on Secure Housing Unit (SHU) at WVCF

The main issues the Phone Zap attempted to address were the lack of access to video visits on the SHU, starvation diets, and lack of access to commissary, all of which are violations of IDOC Policy and Procedure governing the operation of restricted status housing. As of this writing, there has been no change with regard to any of these issues.

We are organizing to bring the force of a more powerful movement together to address these and many other abuses by IDOC. In the meantime, however, it will be useful to create a paper trail documenting these abuses and our attempts to address them. One way we can do that is by emailing the Grievance Specialist on the SHU, who has refused to acknowledge the dozens of grievances filed by the people caged there about these issues. His refusal to acknowledge the validity of the grievances means blocks any further recourse through the facility administrative process, and also prevents the people on the SHU from being able to file lawsuits about the issues because under the Prison Litigation Reform Act they can only take an issue to the courts after exhausting administrative remedies.

Please email Grievance Specialist Tommy Templeton at tamiller@idoc.in.gov and demand that he formally acknowledge prisoners’ grievances and allow them to proceed with the administrative process to address their issues.

Script:

“Hello, I am writing to express my concern that grievances people are filing on the SHU are not being formally acknowledged as grievances, thereby denying them their Constitutional right to due process. In late 2020, dozens of people caged on the SHU filed grievances about the lack of video visits, starvation diets, and commissary restrictions on the SHU, all of which are violations of IDOC Policy. These grievances were returned without formal acknowledgement, preventing them from filing an appeal or moving forward with the grievance process in any way. Please review these grievances, assign them case numbers, and allow them to appeal your decision, as is their Constitutional right.”