Corruption Inside the Feds

by Jay Goodman

As the weeks passed by, I was learning more and more about how corrupt this first federal detention center was. I have wondered many times how this type of corruption can continue to exist not only in the state prisons like I’ve written about for years in Texas, but now inside the federal prison as well. Every single day there was someone having episodes from smoking K-2, or from using heroin that was cut with fentanyl. It was as common to see someone overdose each day in my cell Block as it was to see a person make a cup of coffee in the morning. The K-2 smokers would collapse and have seizures, or the nurses would have to come to our cell block and give the people who overdosed on the fentanyl a shot of a drug called Narcan. Which is a drug that’s used to bring people who’ve overdosed on heroin back from the brink of death. It just one day the nurses came to my cell block seven times to inject someone with Narcan because they almost died. It was odd to see how nonchalant the staff was. But it was also shocking to see how the medical staff would laugh and joke about these prisoners almost dying. They would say to the guards “oh, it’s this guy again. This is the second time today I’ve had to come give this guy a shot of Narcan.” Another nurse said to a guard, “I wonder how long we can wait before he almost dies?” Then another time a nurse showed up and gave this guy a shot of Narcan and when he woke up, he was so mad at the nurse for ruining his high that he hit her in the face and broke her nose. The guards did beat the shit out of him but they still never put him in isolation or wrote any disciplinary case.

Like I said before, nobody ever received a disciplinary report because they wanted to keep what was going on a secret from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Under no circumstances do they want to lose their contract again. It got to the point where I started wondering if they would let a person kill someone? Then one night a guy told the guard, “I believe my cellie is dead.” The guard went to the cell and looked at him and immediately called for medical. When the nurse arrived, she checked for a heartbeat and said “my God, he only has around 12 beats a minute.” I was watching her and this man looked purple. Then what happen next surprise me. The nurse was getting ready to give this man a shot of Narcan but at the last second recognize who he was and stopped. She told the guard, “This is the man who punched the other nurse last week when she saved his life. I don’t give a fuck if he dies.” A friend of this guy told the nurse, “look you stupid bitch, you will give him the shot or you’ll die with him.” By now there was around 10 prisoners who surround the nurse and guard. The guard told the nurse, “please give the man a shot of Narcan, don’t let him die.” The nurse started to understand the dangerous situation the guard and she were in and decided to give him the medicine. After a few minutes he started to wake up. But before he got mad again someone told him not to say nothing. Then she slowly got up and left. The prisoners told the guard “go sit down, we got him from here.” Soon as the guard left, one guy seen the dude who overdosed was mad because he lost his high off the heroin. He asked, what had happened? His friend smacked the hell out of him and said,“look you fucking idiot, I told you how strong this heroine was. But you still had to do a big shot. You’re lucky we were here tonight or your stupid ass would be dead.” They helped get him up and said here you go and handed him some more heroin. And now to my surprise once again this guy sits down and fixed himself another shot. I went to my cell and thought about everything that just took place. This person was so out of control that it’s no wonder someone wasn’t dying every single day. And truthfully there probably would be if the medical department didn’t keep Narcan on hand to save everyone who had overdosed.

Another thing also hit me, was that a registered nurse was going to allow a man to die. It’s not like I don’t understand this guy was a complete idiot. Hell, I couldn’t stand him. But just because someone is an idiot, at the end of the day he is still a human being. And more importantly, she is a registered nurse whose job is to help save lives not let them die because you don’t like them. I was also thinking about how happy I was to get away from Texas, I thought for sure that the federal system had to be better than Texas. Once again, I saw nobody was written a conduct report. All of the fights, stabbings, overdoses were kept a secret. They made damn sure not a word of that was ever reported.

Now it was different on the other half of the prison. The State of Ohio prisoners were getting disciplinary reports wrote on them. If they got out of line by fighting, getting caught with drugs, or anything of a serious nature, they be put in isolation. This place was getting a lot of money from the federal government to house federal prisoners, and under no circumstances do they want to lose that contract. Can anyone reading this imagine a prison being run like this? I have been asking myself over and over again the last 16 years where is the rehabilitation? If present is not for rehabilitation what’s it for? Surely, the states of America and the federal court system don’t send men and women to present so that they will leave worse than when they went to prison. But if you’ve been reading my book from the beginning until now, I would like to ask everyone how on earth can someone prosper and grow under the conditions are described? Because very few do. Most people who come to prison hoping for change find out quickly that there’s just as much drugs in here than there is on the streets. Most of the prison systems are controlled by criminals, and unless something or someone stops it, it will be a never-ending revolving door.