By Pablo Salgado
Sadly, for far too long we have been greatly deceived. Force to conform to policies adopted from inhumane sadistic animalistic concentration camp mentality by IDOC Administration without at times the slightest discomfort or outcry in our part. Because of this, the deception continues to succeed, converting itself to a perpetual system of mental deterioration and nothing else.
In order to understand this abstraction, it’s important to fully accept that we are not only prisoners in the physical sense. We are also prisoners in the disturb minds, ideals and concepts of IDOC past and present. Administrations, who long ago, has enter a cycle where we have been viewed NOT as humans, but rather as objects.
This has facilitated the emergence of such practices, having on inmates in their cells 23/1. The introductions of soy, lack of the basic medical attention. Long term segregation. A.D. (Administration Detention) etc., which are all part of the long spectrum of extreme isolation and a form of social deprivation and dehumanization.
IDOC will introduce new policies once in a while to give the illusion that prison reform is in the fore front in their agenda. These policies and new regulations only serve as a twofold. First, to continue blinding the prisoners to their current condition and extinguish any thought of resistance. Second, to shock the morale and while still in shock implement further submissive, sheep mentality tactics.
IDOC view with great triumph, what they believe to be effective policies, practices, regulations, as management tools to rehabilitate and also deter any disruptions or rebellion inmates. Not fully understanding the only thing that has been achieved is a complete failure from every level within IDOC administration. A great chasm between inmate and staff its final product. A.D. (Administration Detention), and long-term segregation prisons like Pontiac C.C, a daily remainder of their failure to perceive a prisoner as a human being, but rather simply as objects. In order to appease whatever conscious IDOC staff has left, they continue to remind themselves, as they slam steel prison cell doors every day, that they are simply doing their jobs.
So, who is to blame, in this daily spectacle within IDOC? Who has lost touch with reality? Who has fallen victim to the fog that descended over their minds, which enables them to fully grasp what they have become? Are we? Are they? Who is to Blame? ■
Originally published in the Fall/Winter 2018 edition of Stateville Speaks.