LIFE ON THE FARM - BEHIND THE WALLS - Government - http://maxpages.com/lifemeanslife/Behind_the

BEHIND THE WALLS

Most persons who enter the Cummins compound are visitors of the prisoners here. The Visitation Center on the left edge of the promenade immediately inside the main gate is a spacious, brightly painted building on the inside. Past the reception area where visitors sign in and accept their ultraviolet light detectable ink stamp is the heart of the Center. It's also spacious, brightly lit and unthreatening.

Since the installation of a public address and music system that the prisoners recently paid for, the area can even be made comfortable and relaxing. A well-stocked concession stand, run by the inmate Jaycees provides food and refreshments. On weekends, some 50 round tables and a few hundred brightly colored chairs are provided. The only sign that Big Brother is present is in the form of a few guards and remote cameras in two corners and on the center beam high up in the roof.

The "Strip Room" and the inmate entry area from the prison proper is blocked from visitors' view as if it does not even exist. On the backside of the Center is a riot gate, and a walkway leading to another barred gate going into the main hallway of the prison. The prisoners are thankful that their visitors are not filled with the fear and dread so common to visitors of most other prisons. The pretentious calm and tranquility of the promenade and the Visitation Center does have a welcome benefit.

For those not entering the compound to visit, coming through the main gate and directly ahead, is the PBX. All except weekend visitors to the unit must provide identification and sign a registry there. On three sides, the PBX is lined with plate glass windows to give it a modern air despite the fact that this section of the building was built in the 60s.

Inside and to the right is a sealed off area where most of the Administrative Offices are located. It too, is brightly painted, and the floors are polished like mirrored glass. Soft lounge chairs, plants and other comforts are evident there. Only Class A or Class B trustee prisoners are allowed into this area, and then never without permission.

Straight ahead in the PBX area, and through a designer steel door, is another open-roof promenade leading through double plate glass doors into the lobby outside the offices of the Warden, left. More soft chairs, a couple of coffee tables, and a series of vending machines dot the area. In the corner left is the Shoe Shine Stand, the Free World Barber Shop, the Mail Room, and the entry to the PenStore. Immediately right in the lobby is a network of offices leading into the Records Office, which itself loops around to connect into the administrative section behind the PBX.

Also to the right us the hallway leading through four solid steel and electronically controlled doors, between each of which is a group of offices, right for Classification, the Hoe Squad, Major's Office and scattered other offices. Cameras dot the ceiling everywhere. Behind the solid left wall of this hallway is the inmates' library.

Past the fourth steel door and recessed into the north wall is the new Control Center from which all the riot gates and other doors, cameras, and security features are monitored and executed. This Center is less than two years old. Before that, there was merely a "Yard Desk", an L-shaped wooden box cramped into the hall for the shift supervisors or other staff. The cameras did not exist, and the gates and doors were all manually opened or also did not exist. (President Clinton has filtered quite a sum of money into the Arkansas prison system.)

The Control Center juts a few inches into the main hallway of the prison proper. The main prison complex was built in the 1950s on the traditional "telephone pole" layout - meaning a long central hallway with barracks leading off at perpendicular (right) angles like crossbars on the tops of telephone poles. Left, for some 200 yards stretches the East Hall, and right for about the same distance stretches the West Hall. This division has a far greater purpose than merely giving a directional index to how the prison is divided. The East and West halls are like two entirely different alien places one to the other, but that is another part of the account.

Within the area occupied by the Control Center, and between the first riot gates on either end, north is the Inmate Library. South are the entry ways to the Officer's Mess and West Hall prisoner's mess, the outer door leading to the Sally Port on the far end of the compound east, as well as to 19 Barracks, the Vinyl Bindery, and the Garment Factory. Inmates housed in 19 Barracks either work at the Bindery or Factory, or are trustees who work outside the main fence. Beyond the Sally Port there, is the Modular Unit exclusively housing trustees, as well as various farm related buildings and offices.

THE EAST HALL

Back at the Control Center, turning down the East Hall and going through the first main riot gate in that direction, immediately left are some new offices for the Major, Captains, the Drug Urinalysis Officer, and the Assistant Warden of Security. Just past the latter is the barred gate and the fenced walkway leading out to the Visitation Center mentioned in reverse before. In that area of the hallway, center and right, in is the Cummins Unit Infirmary, whose infamy is hinted at by the fact that it is the only offshoot building on the compound that has both a huge wrought- iron riot gate, and double steel doors both at the front entrance, and at the ambulance dock at the rear.

Passing through the next riot gate east, are 9 and 11 Barracks left and 10 and 12 Barracks right. Until recently these and their mirrored barracks on the West Hall were open dormitory-style barracks housing 200 plus men into the mid-1980s, and 100 plus men into the 1990s. Due to recent renovations each barracks was split in half by a floor-to-ceiling brick wall, and the halves are now designated as A or B sides of the barracks housing some 40 prisoners each. Like the cross of a "T", across the front of both halves of the barracks is an inset guard station that allows a view into either side. One to two officers are now also placed directly inside the barracks with prisoners due to federal court orders issued in an effort to curb the rampant violence and deviant sexual activities festering there.

Through the next riot gate identical Barracks 11A, 11B and 12A and 12B are located. These barracks, 9-12 house mostly hoe squad prisoners who are compelled to work in the fields chopping seas of grass flat, or doing other useless work of that kind. A large group of disciplinary problem inmates, who are a problem mainly because of the Hoe Squad, and most of the newly committed prisoners. 9 Barracks now houses the Protective Custody inmates who, for whatever reason are not able or willing to live within the general population. 10 Barracks also houses most of the prisoners medically classified to be unable to work on the Hoe Squads, or only in limited capacities. 11 Barracks is known as "Little Saigon", while 12 Barracks is "The Jungle." The East Hall at large is known as "The Dungeons."

Beyond the final riot gate east are 13 and 15 Barracks left, which are actual "cell blocks" with three tiers of two-man cells each, and right are the dreaded Administrative Segregation units. Barracks 14 and 16, with mostly two-man cell and steel-reinforced tier and floor-to-ceiling rails that make the three tiers together look like one, huge cage.

Finally, at the end of the East Hall is a network of fanning hallways where, behind many solid steel doors and wire-reinforced glass, is punitive isolation. It is officially known as "The East Building,' but to the prisoners it is known as "The Hole."

To the inside right of The East Building is a separate area containing the holding cells for Death Row prisoners about to be executed. There are several such cells because Arkansas appears to have an affinity for executing as many prisoners as possible at once. This is perhaps a carry-over from Fort Smith's "Hanging Judge Parker" days of the west, when ten or twelve men were lynched at one time. Arkansas also does not like being outdone by Texas in anything.

The Death Chamber is a separate and tiny cubicle formerly housing the electric chair, "Ol' Sparky", but which now houses merely an ambulance Gurney for administering death by lethal injection, and a few (sadly non-electric) chairs for the spectators to the event. Death Row itself was formerly here at Cummins as well, but it was moved to another unit a few years ago. Prisoners under sentence of death are generally brought to the Cummins Unit a couple of days before the execution.

THE WEST HALL

Turning west at the Control Center and going through the first riot gate, left, is the door leading to the Recreation Yard. Through the next two sets of double steel doors are Barracks 5 through 8 A & B, respectively. These barracks generally house prisoners that work at jobs such as the Laundry, Kitchen, Gymnasium, or School and most of whom are at least not chronic disciplinary problems. Near 5 Barracks, and north through the door there, is the walkway leading to the Chapel complex.

Through the next riot gate are Barracks 4 and 2, left and 3 and 1 right, called The Pods. They are generally two-tiered split barracks , housing some 35 prisoners per side, most of whom are model prisoners with responsible clerical and other jobs. The rooms are individual and more like college dorm rooms (by impression, not reality, because some of them have become Death Chambers as well).

The East half of Barracks 4 houses the mental health prisoners of the Special Management Barracks (SMB). In the rear of that barracks is a hidden-from-sight room where patients are four-point strapped to a concrete block and "persuaded" to behave.

Outside the back door of the West Hall is the complex of buildings and fenced walkways that include the SATP program (formerly the notorious blood bank), the gymnasium and the School building, which are part of the unit first visible from the access road. This entire area is fenced off from the Yard by additional cyclone fences.

This fairly describes what the Cummins Unit looks like. It does not even begin to describe what the Cummins Unit is.

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SHELEA SUZANNE (SUE) TANT THURSTON
Mineral Cemetery
MINERAL	WASHINGTON
Linda Tant Miller
tantsy1@msn.com
sheleathurston@lewiscounty.com

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Page Updated Sun Dec 5, 1999 7:25pm EST