Wednesday 24 July 2013

Return to my soapbox...

...Death Row, and in particular, the barbaric conditions on the Row in Texas. These are apparently my least popular posts, but I still want to spread the word. Here's part of an article written by a man released after many years on the Row. He was lucky (if you can call him that). Many innocent people have almost certainly been executed, with Texas just passing the 500 mark for executions carried out since the death penalty was reinstated.

There are 12 more people like me from Texas. Twelve people who spent years of their lives locked alone in concrete cages waiting to die before they were set free, exonerated for their innocence.

Eleven people have committed suicide on Texas' death row. All because of the conditions.

When I was sentenced to death, I did not know that this sentence would also mean that I would have 12 years without any human contact, i.e. my mother, my son, my friends. All those people were stripped from my life because of this injustice. I did not know it would mean 12 years of having my meals slid through a small slot in a steel door like an animal. I did not know it would mean 12 years alone in a cage the size of a parking spot, sleeping on concrete steel bunk and alone for 22 to 24 hours a day. All for a crime I did not commit. The injustice.

For me and the 400 other prisoners on Texas' death row while I was there, a death sentence meant a double punishment. We spent years locked alone in a tiny, concrete cage in solitary confinement, with guys going insane, dropping their appeals, doing everything they could to check out of this place before we were ever strapped to an execution gurney. All because of the conditions.

I am writing today because the ACLU has put out an important new paper about what it does to people to lock them alone in cages on death row. They found that over 93% of states lock away their death row prisoners for over 22 hours a day. Nearly a third of death row prisoners live in cages where their toilet is an arm's length away from their bed. Sixty-percent of people on death row have no windows or natural light.

Solitary confinement is like living in a dark hole. People walk over the hole and you shout from the bottom, but nobody hears you. You start to play tricks with your mind just to survive. This is no way to live.

I saw the people living on death row fall apart. One guy suffered some of his last days smearing feces, lying naked in the recreation yard, and urinating on himself. I saw guys who dropped their appeals and elected
to die because of the intolerable conditions. To sum it up, I saw a bunch of dead men walking because of the conditions that killed everything inside of them. And they were just waiting to lie down.

After I got out, I have tried to use my time to raise awareness about these conditions. I am currently working on a book and traveling the globe trying to share my message and educate people about the effects of solitary confinement. I have createdAnthonyBelieves.com, which is my consulting firm that I use to help attorneys, nonprofit organizations, etc. I am asking for your support in my endeavors to bring attention to such inhumane issues by going to my website and ordering anything from my store to help offset my travel expenses. There's also a petition on my webpage that I am asking 10 million people around the world to sign in solidarity with me as I stand up for justice.

Please help me and the ACLU get the word out about these conditions. Our death penalty system is broken in this country – it is applied unfairly against people. When you have a broken system, innocent people like me can end up on trial for their life. And subjecting anyone in prison to solitary confinement is torture. I am speaking on experience. Many of these same people are returning to our society, and when they do they come with all the baggage we put on them in the system. This keeps the rate of recidivism high.

In this country, we should be doing better than that. We should not have a criminal justice system turned into a criminal by the way we treat our citizens. Even when we do not like people or believe they have done something wrong, our emotions should not govern
our society. We should be making laws from a rational perspective. We have to be above the criminal by keeping our system humane. Everyone should be treated like a human being. This is America.
http://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights-capital-punishment/when-i-was-death-row-i-saw-bunch-dead-men-walking-solitary

15 comments:

  1. I admire your fight. It is barbarous behaviour. Those bible bashing cretins in the southern and mid-west states need reigning in....Notice that?...I'm getting literate....I didn't right raining.

    It's not just a bit out of order it's horrendous.

    I have just sent an e-mail to Dithery Dave asking him to explain all write minded peoples disgust to Barack O'Bama next time he wanders across him at our expense. I won't copy the e-mail here as GCHQ will have a copy available in thirty years. It has a lot of rude Anglo Saxon words in.
    Keep knocking your head on the concrete. It has to stop and will but not in our lifetime.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. PS. Just downloaded a load of buuks from Amazon but couldn't find a cheap one of yours. I'll look again tomorrow. I happen missed an 'R' or an 'O' out.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for the comment, Adrian.

      Delete
    3. PS all my books are available to download for around £2,50. Please try again if you,can be bothered!

      Delete
  2. The link doesn't appear to work and when you remove the words after the last forward slash you learn that the site has been altered and that link no longer exists.

    You know my views Frances but, frankly, this is only part of a massive problem which encompasses everything from the Macarthyism mentality to state torture. I know you will think it narrow minded but there are far too many problems in this country in which I have an interest for me to campaign on a subject in someone else's country.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm so sorry about that link. It worked yesterday! As for worrying about problems overseas, one of things that bother me most is the fact that the US is our ally, and most people over here have no idea of these atrocities. I'm not asking for campaigners; just letter writers if anyone has, say, half an hour every couple of weeks.

      Delete
    2. I'm sorry Frances but it's just not something feel that I could do even if I were prepared to devote the time to it.

      Delete
    3. That's fine, GB. No pressure!

      Delete
  3. I know the media in other countries love to indulge into some Germans-bashing every now and then, and each time our chancellor is mentioned somewhere, they are very quick to draw the Nazi parallel (which has become really boring, especially as almost nobody who was an adult in those days is still alive). Seems quite unreasonable, doesn't it, when there are such atrocities going on in "the land of the free"!

    You write that your posts about texas death row are your least popular ones. I wouldn't call them that, Frances. If any of your other readers have similar feelings to my own, then they will simply not know what to say in the face of such horrors presented to them, and therefore not comment. Every time you write about death row, I read it and feel terrible afterwards (which is, I know, no comparison to what those poor men and women have to endure). And every time, I am simply at a loss for words. If I can not contribute anything clever or sensible, I rather write no comment at all.
    (Well, I just have done, haven't I.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I see the stats, Meike! But thank you for your long and thoughtful reply.

      Delete
  4. As always, I really admire you for taking such positive interest in this atrocity, Frances. It's too horrendous to imagine and I hope that this man will make a huge impact since he has gone through this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Roasemary. Not really admirable, thoug. I just felt that if I feel that strongly about something, I should act rather than just rant!

      Delete
  5. " Librarian" has put my feelings into the words that I couldn't manage yesterday when I read only the first part of the above blog. It was too distressing to continue. Cowardly I know, but I am not in a position to do anything about it, and while I admire you immensely for writing to these prisoners, it is not for me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Frances. If it's not for you, but you know someone who might be interested, do please give them my email address.

      Delete
  6. I think the most important thing here is the innocent being found guilty. Mind you, it's difficult to find anyone in prison who doesn't claim to be 'innocent'.

    I was listening to a piece on BBC world service about a couple who were both found guilty of crimes they didn't commit (one in the UK, the other in US), they eventually met and married and are now living in Ireland. They both spent about 12 years in prison. It's hard to imagine anything worse than 12 years out of your life for something you didn't do!

    ReplyDelete