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Sept. 3

TEXAS: (death row conditions):

*** note *** the following are inmate descriptions of death row
conditions at the Terrell Unit in Livingston....

"And what has been happening here? Every time something good is about to
happen, then something bad happens and it cancels out the good plans. If
the men could behave, then I think that good things (like small groups of
recreation) could be restored. The officers are willing to do it, because
then they have less volume of individual work, but the officers do not
make the policies; administration makes the policies!"

Since the chaplain was attacked...we must sit on our bunds during feeding
time. They tell us to sit on our bunks, then the door (the food slot
door) is opened and they set a tray on the door, then they back away from
the door and we go to the door and grab the tray, set down our cup (if we
want juice or tea), then we must return to our bunk again and sit down
before they will fill the cup with a drink. They they back away from the
door and tell us to come get it. After we return to our bunk, then they
shut the food slot door.

It's a tedious policy, and not all of the officers follow it. Only some
of them! At any other time, they do not follow this policy (when they are
passing out laundry, picking up food trays, and so forth).

Nothing else has really changed since my last report. We recreate
individually still. The necessities are all passed out during the
daytime, so we do have peaceful nights for the most part. Meal times are
3 or 4 a.m., 3 or 4 p.m., and 10 p.m.

The shakedowns, cell-searches, are more respectful here. The officers
search our cells more professionally than they do at the Ellis Unit where
many times properties are destroyed.

What bothers the men the most here though is that we have nothing to do.
The men, most of us anyway, would like to have the work program, group
recreation, craft privileges, and television again. Of course that would
be ideal, but any one of those privileges returned would be a great
improvement. Group recreation would be a good start, because this lack of
human contact is very taxing on the mind and tension easily builds up
amonst the men. Humans need human contact of some type; it's just our
nature. As it stands now, the only contact we get is when an officer
places manacles on our arms before we leave the cell to go to the shower,
visitation, or recreation.

Another problem that still exists is the lack of visitation cages for
"special" visitors who visit from overseas, etc. The prison is only
reserving a few of these cages for that purpose and I have heard that a
few penpals have been denied special visits because of a lack of visiting
cages. That should not be.

Other than that, I cannot think of any atrocities. We are placed on
"lockdown" a lot and when that happens, we receive the same food stuffs
at every meal (peanut butter and pancake sandwiches). That gets old very
quickly!

Outside of those things, this place is not too bad. I mean, no matter
where we go, it will still death row. The lack of human contact is the
worst. I personally can go without television (although I will miss the
Olympics and football!!!), but I listen to the radio a lot, and I get
plenty of world events from it. But men must find ways to remain
creative. Creativity is the last vestige of our humanity in here to
remind ourselves that we are living beings! It would be nice to see the
craft privileges restored."

*******************

(letter 1)

I am writing to you in a state of desperation. I don't usually write
letters telling of the way we are treated or complain about our living
conditions, but the treatment we are receiving here is more than just
cruel treatment, it is a form of torture.

When we got to the Terrell Unit on March 2, 2000 (the first 2 weeks) they
didn't treat us a sbad as they do now. It seems to get progressively
worse. Some of the men seem to losing it. I will try to write this so you
can understand. The officers at night are now turning on th elights from
9:30 pm to 1:00 am. Second shift will turn on all the lights at 9:30 pm
and go around and count, then the lights will go off at 9:50 pm and third
shift comes on at 10 pm and they will turn on all the lights and go
around and count, then they will turn off the lights and about 10 minutes
later they will turn on all the lights and come around picking up and
giving out socks and shorts 3 nights a week ---other nights they will
give out jumpsuits 2 nights a week and one night they will come around
picking up and giving out sheets and pillow cases and toilet paper. They
they will turn off the light and about 10 minutes later they turn them
back on a population inmate will com e around and sweep the runs.

The they will turn the lights off and 10 minutes later turn them back on
and the same inmate or another wil come around and mop the runs. Off with
the lights adn then back on with the lights and a sergeant will come
around and each time the lights are on they have speakers above our doors
and a ding souond will ding every 8 seconds as long as the lights are on.
This will make some of the men go off and they will beat on the doors and
they will yell "turn off the lights!" or other names for officers, which
seems to make the officers do it more and the men go off more.

I hope you can see how this effects all the men and how this is torture,
the same as a military would do to a POW to make them talk. It some times
will get quiet from 1 am until 2:30 am when they turn on the lights for
the nurse who will come around giving shots to the men with diabetes and
then they will come around between 3:45 am and 4 am with breakfast-- so
you can see it is very hard to get any sleep and in the the day time it
is the same way as they come around taking men to rec. or showers to to a
visit or dentist or other medical services and the other 2 meals fo rthe
day and taking count. The thing is these people are doing all they can to
make it hard to get more than 2 hours slleep at any one time. It's this
treatment that makes this place hard, not the cells. It is the attitude
of the officers and the degrading way they treat us.

I don't know what can be done about this, but I do know it is wrong. I
can't help the men here and can only ask God to ease their pain and to
give all of us a loving heart, even to those that treat us badly.

(this was written in April, 2000)

****** (letter 2)

THANKS!! --some changes have occurred....we can now sleep from 11:30 pm
to 3:30 am on some nights and from 12:30 am to 3:30 am on others with NO
LIGHTS OR DINGING SOUND for 3 or 4 HOURS.

We cab see by the attitudes of some of the officers that they feel their
fun has been taken away and they are not one bit happy about that.

********

(letter 3)

"WE NEED FEDERAL MONITORS TO COME INTO THE TERRELL UNIT."

"This is my third letter about the problem the men on death row are
having in regards to not being able to get than 2 hours sleep at any
given time.

The progress that we had hope for was short lived and never did fully
come about.

It only took the officers a little over a week to get a routine down that
is more torturous than before any changes were made.

The superficial change TDCJ made were only cosmetic, because the officers
say they have not been told they are to have the work done by any certain
time, so we can have more than 2 hours of uninterrupted sleep.

There is sleep deprivation gong on here at the Terrell Unit...this is a
well-known form of torture.

Everything I described in my first letter is back into effect. There are
many forms of torture, mental and physical. Here at the Terrell Unit they
are mentally torturing us as well as the physical torture of not being
able to get 5 hours of uninterrupted sleep. The mental torture comes in
the form of a degrading and dehumanizing regulation that cannot be
enforced without being directly detrimentally harmful to the person it is
being enforced on.

HELP!!

***********************************

"All days are a never ending series which seem the same, so that I cannot
tellthe difference from one to the other.

Our existence here at this new death row is so restricted in all manner
that there is no event by which one can differentiate the passage of
days, weeks or months. It all runs together because it is the same. No
worship services on Sundays, no activities except the opportunity to
spend 1 hour of each day, 7 days per week, in a bit larger cage a few
feet distant from the cell. But there is nothing to do once in the cage,
except stand there and talk to the prisoners in the cells. No volleyball,
no others to walk and talk with, just one's loneliness and despair to
visit with. It truly is a mere "existence," not any form of human life we
live here, now.

(source: letters, Texas death row inmates)

************************************************************************************

Reiner Stensgaard Goldau
Ydbyvej 184
DK	7760	Hurup Thy
Denmark
+45-97-407628
goldau@adslhome.dk

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