Jail: Cold Cell Torture

In Jail and Prison, the correctional officers believe in correction through punishment. While this is an effective way to treat someone with a personality disorder, it is a terrible way to treat someone with paranoia, psychosis, panic disorders, and depression. I was arrested for forgetting to pay a ticket. I have never broken a law such as stealing, lying or cheating. I did not need correction through punishment.

However, Correctional Officers assume that everyone in jail requires correction on some level. I didn't realize this is what they were doing until several days into my stay. Before that I was so terrified and hell bent on killing myself I wasn't thinking about what their actual motives might be. I got into trouble in isolation many times but the worst punishment was when I flooded my cell. I thought for certain they would have to let me talk to a doctor or call my Mom if I did it, it was the only thing on the list of things I hadn't done (either then throw feces and I never did that one).

On day three I stuffed my sleeping bag into the toilet and flushed it until they flooded my cell. They turned off the toilet fairly quickly, but not before I had managed to get an inch of water and my sleeping bag and smuch completely wet. They keep the cells around 60 degrees to "avoid the spread" of disease. Within a few hours I was freezing cold.

I begged the CO's to dry my cell and my limited bedding, they refused. I was already dehydrated and sleep depriced. I spent the next 24 hours in my cell fighting hypothermia and frost bite. I was naked and without shoes. I had to walk on cold hard concrete in a circle for hours to keep the blood pumping. I screamed that I was cold for hours. Simply "I'M COLD" and I was ignored. The game the correctional officers played was that they would always leave you in whatever mess you made for yourself, even if there was a chance of you dying from infection, exposure, or self-inflicted injury. They believed it taught us to not take such action in the future.

This fundamentally failed to understand why I took such actions. I was psychotic and desperate, I was not trying to ruin someone's day by making them clean. That was the furthest thought from my mind. It was not logical action to take but I only did it after days in isolation begging to be placed in general population or at least given a book or something to do. With nothing to do I took the only actions I could; resulting in terribly cruel punishment.