CUMMINS UNIT - A Prisoner's Wife Tours Cummins - Government - http://maxpages.com/lifemeanslife/A_Wife_Tours

By: AMY BURNETT

In Arkansas, "down on the farm, Where Life Means Life," I was not looking forward to my trip to the Cummins Unit. My husband John had spent many years there after he became incarcerated.

As I turned off on the road that leads to the Cummins Unit, my heart raced and my nerves shook like chattering teeth when it's cold. I knew I would be going back behind the walls of the visitation room I had spent many Saturdays in visiting my husband and walk the very halls my husband walked.

As I pulled in to the parking lot and turned off my car, I asked God to get me through the day. While the other students would just be touring a prison facility, I was about to go on an emotional walk of painful thoughts and feelings. I was scared and full of anxiety. I never wanted to see the prison behind the walls of the visitation room, what it looked like and how my husband had to live his life everyday. However, it was something I had to do.

As I walked through the front door to check in, I felt like I was returning home after a three year absence. I hated being there, but going to a prison is a routine part of my life now. I spent one year of my life going to this unit I was about to tour and it is a place I had never wanted to go back to.

I removed my shoes and belt and placed my belongings in the little wooden box on the table to be checked. These things are so common to me now, just as breathing is. Since I had been there, scanners had been installed to scan people's personal belongings, just like the airports have.

I made my usual technical walk through the metal detector of walking sideways and covering my under wire bra. I was taught that trick from a lady guard at Cummins while I was visiting there once before. It keeps from setting off the metal detector.

We met Mrs. Kennedy, our tour guide, and Assistant Warden Danny Burrows. Major Robertson and Mr. Straun, the Assistant Warden of Security, also joined us for the tour.

I took a deep breath as I walked through Administration in to the 100 year old part of the Cummins Unit building. To my right, I immediately noticed the photo processing room. I realized right then I was inside the prison and there was no turning back. Tears immediately began to roll down my eyes as I looked at the photo processing room and I imagined how John felt the first day he got there. I thought of him, a young man at age 19 whose life had been stripped from him, a lost Army career and a recently widowed young man taken from his family. The photo processing room is where your inmate photo is taken and you are issued an inmate ID card that legally declares you a numbered state inmate. Looking at that room also gave me another hard thought to swallow. It gave me the reality that this is for real, you are now in prison and life as you knew it is over.

As I walked down the hall of the oldest part of Cummins Unit I felt cold, depressed and trapped. I was surrounded by white walls, a white floor and white pipes in the ceiling. As I approached the first set of barracks, I saw more white walls; white rod iron beds with white sheets and all the inmates were dressed in white. I felt like I was in an old insane asylum. However, no one was wearing a straight jacket.

I looked at the small white metal beds with white grated bottoms covered with a thin mattress and white sheets, and it was heartbreaking to imagine my 230 pound husband trying to sleep on those beds. If he rolled over he would fall in the floor. However, it was probably better than the concrete bed with the same thin mattress he sleeps in now at another facility.

Some of the inmates looked out of the bar and plate glass covered windows at us as if they had not seen free world people in regular clothes in years.

Mrs. Kennedy explained how much it took to salvage the one hundred year old building at Cummins to finally meet ACA standards. This was an all too familiar subject I knew a lot about. My husband was a Maintenance Clerk at Cummins for years and was in charge of getting everything in order for accreditation. It is a stressful job that takes several months to complete. I thought of how stressed out he always was during those months in the time we have been together. I thought of all the hard work he had to do with no pay or reward.

As I made my way down the West halls of the Cummins Unit the only color I could see was the yellow lines on the floor where inmates have to walk in single file lines, as I had seen them do in prison movies I have watched. Looking in each of the barracks I passed, I took notice to the pay phones which I have received many phone calls from every Tuesday and Thursday. I also took notice to the television sets of where John watched Arkansas Razorback games on Saturdays and NASCAR races on Sundays. I saw the domino tables he complains so much about, because the other inmates slam the dominos down on the table while they are playing and it's very irritating to him.

Looking in those barracks was a hard sight for me to swallow, as I imagined the love of my life in a cage like a guinea pig I once had.

As we exited West Hall and walked outside I still felt very trapped and claustrophobic. The cool air felt wonderful, yet I was still caged in by the fences surrounding the compound and the walkways. Standing in the walkway I looked out in to the recreation yard at the other buildings and Mrs. Kennedy pointed out the plasma room. I got a sick feeling in my stomach as I thought of the Arkansas Prison Blood Cow Scandal.

During this time, Ray Hobbs, the Assistant Director of the Arkansas Department of Corrections joined us.

While Mrs. Kennedy spoke to the rest of the class about things I already knew and answered questions by my classmates, I stood against the fence alone crying. I looked long and hard at everything around me. I looked at the recreation yard with benches spaced out around the basketball courts, the high voltage lights, the ICA tower, the gym and more fences. I imagined my husband playing basketball, which he tried to do on a daily basis when he was at the Cummins Unit. I wondered about his thoughts on a daily basis about me and our daughter as he walked through those walkways. Thoughts of him thinking, "Will I ever get to go home to my family or will I die here?" filled my mind, and the pain of those thoughts cut me to the bone.

Mrs. Kennedy pointed out the sally port. I asked Mr. Burrows where the Mod Unit was and he pointed out to me the roof that was left of it after being torn down. Mrs. Kennedy's pointing out of the sally port caught my attention. John had lived in the Cummins Modular Unit before he was transferred and when he came in to the main building, he had to come through the sally port. She also pointed out the kitchen dock and the laundry room. The sally port gate rises up and down for trucks to enter and exit the compound, and everyone was busy at work. I looked out across the compound to notice a "Y" shaped steeple. I wondered what it was. Next to the sally port is the creamery and meat processing buildings.

We then entered South Hall. South Hall has concrete cinder block white walls and there is glass and bars over the barrack windows. This hall houses inmates that are classed as 1 B and 1 C, and it was very quiet. Upstairs is the control booth with windows that look down in to the barracks and a grate floor. You can look down into the showers and see everything that is going on. There are stainless steel urinals in the bathroom. In the barracks are five rows of fourteen white rod iron beds. You can see the A/C ducts in the ceiling. As I looked down into the barracks, there were a few guys standing around. One guy looked up at me and I just gave him a friendly smile back.

After exiting South Hall we walked across the lot to enter another building. I had been walking in the front of the line ahead of my class with the Assistant Warden, Danny Burrows. Somehow, Mrs. Kennedy had made her way to the front of the line, and Mr. Burrows was no longer beside me. We entered the building, not being told what building we were going in to. I stepped in the doorway only to say," Oh shit!" I was entering the death chamber. Mrs. Kennedy asked if I was alright and I said I was. The death chamber is housed in the Maximum Security area. There is a gurney with orange and blue straps to strap the inmate down for execution. It has leather arm straps for the inmate's arms. There is a digital clock on the wall and I could smell fresh paint. Inmates are taken to the death chamber three to five days prior to their execution date. There is a very tiny room where the inmate is kept prior to execution. It is smaller than my closet at home. Death Row inmates are only allowed to see their religious figure and family during this time. During execution, the Director, Warden and Internal Affairs are present. There is a tie down team of six full metal jacket guys who strap the inmate down. An unknown person who administers the lethal injection is behind a solid brick wall. Larry Norris, The Director of the Arkansas Department of Corrections, is the only person who knows who is administering the lethal injection. The inmate is asked if he or she has any last words. Six witnesses and two press members are allowed in the viewing area, along with legal council and a spiritual advisor. The inmate's family is not allowed to view the execution. The family of the victim of the inmate's crime may watch the execution from closed circuit TV in the Wardens office. It was hard and very depressing being in that room, wondering if any innocent people have been put to death. It was hard for me to imagine the day may come that Damien Echols is brought there and executed.

Exiting the death chamber we walked the Max mile which used to be Death Row. The concrete rooms are very small with two metal bunk beds. There is a pill call room and the cells are covered with only bars, no glass like the barracks are.

We then approached North Hall where the ad segregation unit is. It is a three tier unit of single cells with two stair cases. The shower stalls are separate from the rooms and have steel doors. Inmates are handcuffed and shackled going to and from the showers. They are locked in the showers while they bathe. Thirteen and Fourteen barracks are also in North Hall. Most new inmates are housed here and put on the hoe squad for the first sixty days they are there.

We then entered East Hall. East Hall houses inmates of different class. The East Dining Hall has stainless steel tables with stainless steel stools attached. The chow line is also stainless steel. The inmate staff that serves the meals is blinded by a stainless steel window while serving meals. This is done to prevent the staff from giving larger portions of food to a fellow inmate friend. The dining hall seats 325 inmates and there is an old guard tower where a security officer used to stand with a gun in past times. This day, no guns are allowed inside the unit anymore.

After exiting East Hall we entered a room in a building and I thought to myself, "I know where I am. This is the strip room for visitation." Sure enough, I walked out of that room and in to the visitation room I spent every Saturday in for almost a year. I looked out of the doorway to the table John and I always sat at. I remembered sitting at the table and looking up at him walking out of that room with a heartwarming smile on his face. I remembered the butterflies in my stomach that I got when he walked out and I saw him every Saturday. I still get those same butterflies and he still greets me with that same warm smile and a big hug. In the visitation room we were greeted by members of the inmate council. One of the guys I knew, because he worked in the concession stand when I visited John there. We had a question and answer session and the inmate council told us about some of the work they do as peers to troubled teens.

My overall impression of prison life at the Cummins Unit was hard work, depressing, and it gave me an eerie feeling. I could see working on the Cummins Farm was hard work for the inmates. I could see and feel that they were there to be punished and that life for them was not easy. I think some of those impressions came from the eerie feeling I got when I was there. I know that many men have lived, worked hard and died there over the last 100 years. I could feel ghosts of the past still lingering there and all the bad history that took place there. While I know prison life at Cummins is not as bad as it was in the past, I could still see it was a rough routine in which to follow by. If you think of the hard work it takes to run a small farm at home, you see at this farm that it is even harder. There is much more on this farm to maintain and keep running.

This tour had a huge emotional impact on me. Walking the same steps my husband walked there, was an emotional rollercoaster of depressing feelings only an inmate's wife and loved ones can feel and understand. It added more pain to my thoughts of, "Why did this happen and will he ever get out of prison?"

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SHELEA SUZANNE (SUE) TANT THURSTON
Mineral Cemetery
MINERAL	WASHINGTON
Linda Tant Miller
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sheleathurston@lewiscounty.com

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Page Updated Thu Jan 24, 2008 12:32am EST