By: AMY BURNETT

Varner/Varner Super Max

As I walked through the gate of the Varner Unit I took notice very quickly of the red brick on the outside of the building. It gave the building a more laid back feeling and a feeling of life, not imprisonment. Prisons in Arkansas consist of so much white; it was nice to see a bright color intergraded in to the structure.

The chapel was absolutely beautiful and gave you the sense of a real church, and not just an extra room in a prison made of white brick to hold church services in. I felt that as a prisoner, going to the chapel would give me a sense of not only being in a real church, but a sense of being free from cells and fences to worship God, if only for a little while.

The chapel had a wonderful setup to accommodate all types of religions. There were beautiful colored and detailed rugs lined up on the floor near the front of the chapel set up for inmates of the Buddhist religion.

There was a white tub used for baptism and an area for a band for music.

The chapel also had a closed circuit television set up for Death Row inmates to watch the services.

I immediately thought of Damien Echols, a Death Row inmate I know, and I wished for him to be able to come to the chapel and see it in person. I imagined him being able to sit on one of those beautiful rugs to practice his Buddhist beliefs.

During my tour of Varner, I was amazed at how it is really set up like a small town. Our corrections book teaches us that prisons are built like a small town and operate the same way, just behind a fence of razor wire. The barracks were the homes. There was a public library, a school, a college, Vo-tech and the vegetable processing plant was the local factory were everyone in the town worked. The Warden served as Mayor of the town and the rest of the administration and guards served as the City Council, fire fighters and police officers.

The recreation yard served as the local public park and reminded me a lot of Saline Counties own Tyndall Park. It had soccer field, baseball fields, a basketball court, benches and a set up for horseshoe games.

I thought about all the beautiful work my Uncle Lynn and Aunt Peggy had done at Tyndall Park when my Uncle was Mayor of Saline County. I wished they could come to Varner and do all the same beautiful work and landscaping they had done at Tyndall Park.

The recreation yard was busy just like a summer day at Tyndall Park would be, with people playing soccer, baseball, basketball, horseshoes and sitting around on the benches chit chatting and enjoying a beautiful afternoon. The only difference was the people were all dressed in prison white uniforms, and not regular colorful shorts and shirts.

The school was very much like a regular school with classrooms, a computer lab and a gym. There is one teacher to every fifteen students. They have a graduation just like a regular school and even have a cooking class as I did in Home Economics in Junior High School.

Walking into the Varner Super Max Unit, I felt like a pirate on a ship walking the plank. I was scared and nervous, and I had no idea what would happen at the end of my walk.

When the tourist guide announced we were on Death Row I was extremely shocked. It was not like what I had imagined or seen on television and in the movies. It was a large, three tiered white brick building with single cells aligning two sides of the wall. The cells had solid metal, pale bluish doors with a small window.

It was silent at first, but became noisy as we began walking through the building. There was hooping and hollering and whistling at the girls. Some guys were hollering, “Hey girl in the red shirt and the green shirt!” I was the girl in the green shirt.

One guy was ranting and raving about his rights being violated. Most of the students were snickering and laughing under their breaths, but I felt sad because I knew what he was talking about and what he meant.

As we turned around to come back down Death Row I looked up at the second tier and noticed a sad looking man staring back at me. At first I thought it was Damien Echols.

Being an avid supporter that Damien and his friends, Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley, also known as The West Memphis Three, are innocent of the crimes they are in prison for, my heart sunk to my guts. It breaks my heart to think of Jason and Jessie in prison for life and Damien being executed for crimes they may not have committed.

However, we turned the corner to view the visitation room for Death Row inmates who are allowed to have contact visits, and there was Damien sitting in a visitation cell with his wife Lori. He was dressed in his prison whites and they seemed to be in deep conversation.

The visitation cell reminded me of an old standard jail cell with nothing but metal bars all around. Damien appeared to look well as he glanced up at our class with his pale face for just a second.

Seeing him there visiting his wife gave me a better feeling than the man I thought was him looking down at me from his cell. I was happy to see him looking as well as he can be under the circumstances and visiting with Lori. I smiled at him; hoping he would just know I had all the hope in the world for him.

My overall impression of the Varner/Varner Super Max Unit was great. The feel of a small city atmosphere gave me a more comforting feeling than the Cummins Unit did. It really was a small city just like the city I live in. The only difference was it was surrounded by a metal razor wire fence and the people are not allowed to leave the city.

The administration seemed very proud of their facility and compassionate about their inmates in giving them the best care possible. My impression of the inmates and their life at the Varner/Varner Super Max Unit was more comforting than I had originally thought it would be. There life is structured by time, place, work and education. The movement in the prison halls, of walking along the yellow lines on each side of the hall, is really the same as the structured lanes on the highway in which we drive along going to and coming from a destination.

The only question I was really left with after the tour was care of the Death Row inmates. How much counseling and psychiatric care do these inmates receive? I know they receive spiritual counseling, but do they receive any psychiatric help with medication? Do they receive any counseling about the crimes they committed and the right and wrong way of life?

While I know these inmates committed horrific crimes and most of them could care less about being a good person; can they receive rehabilitative help if they want it even though they will most likely die there? If not, are these guys just locked up there to go crazy and mad?

The Varner/Varner Super Max tour did not impact me as much as the Cummins Unit tour did. The surroundings and the administration really put my mind at ease about any horrible thoughts I originally had about it.

The only bad impact it had on me was the wondering about the impact on Damien Echols life it had, and what effect it will have on him in the future if he should ever get out of prison.