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Prisoners "scared to death"
of Texas
Editors, Asheville Global Report,
Regarding your Feb 22-28, 2001 article by Gloria
Rubac concerning the conditions of Texas prisons, I offer the
following anecdote to support Rubac’s position that conditions
in Texas prisons are inhumane.
In the early 1980s I served as a volunteer, visiting
inmates in the Federal prison at El Reno, Oklahoma (a “class-six”
prison which means it is one of the highest-security facilities
in the Federal Penal System). My visits were intended to provide
inmates with recreational opportunities and advocacy for their
civil rights. I was invited by the official Chaplain of the
prison to participate as a volunteer and I did so once or twice
a month for about two years.
During my stint as a volunteer, I heard a story
about a murder within the prison population at El Reno. An inmate
serving time there was about to complete his Federal sentence
and then he was going to be transferred to the Texas State Prison
in Huntsville, Texas in order to serve a shorter, separate sentence
for robbery. The night before his transfer from El Reno to Huntsville,
this inmate murdered a fellow inmate by cutting the sleeping
victim’s throat. When asked by authorities why he committed
the murder, the man replied: “Because I knew if I committed
murder I would have to continue serving time in Oklahoma prisons,
and I’d rather serve life in prison here than go to Texas and
serve two years. I am scared to death of those Texas prisons;
they torture people there.”
Texas is one of the only states in the USA which
provides no public funding for legal aid to inmates who are
too poor to afford their own legal counsel. A bill to provide
such assistance to the poor passed both houses of the Texas
legislature but was vetoed by the Governor of Texas, George
W. Bush. He later campaigned for President promising to help
the poor and lost the popular election by half a million votes.
But he won the presidency thanks to expensive legal representation
and a prolonged court battle.
Tom Kerr
Asheville
How to join abolition movement?
Editors, Asheville Global Report,
Your article on Texas prisons in issue #110 was
very informative and equally disturbing. In our nation’s prisons,
inmates are forced into slave labor, tortured, and killed. The
head honcho of this abuse is now our President by theft. Reminds
me very much of a time in Germany’s history. The article mentions
the abolition movement organizing a campaign against these atrocities.
Please inform us readers how to contact them and get involved
in saying no to prisoner abuse.
Lola LaFey
Asheville
Editor's note: The Texas Death Penalty Abolition
Movement can be reached at www.geocities.
com/tdpam or 713-521-0629.
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