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<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/print/21928" eudora="autourl">
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<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/03/camp-j-red-hats-and-hole">
Camp J, Red Hats, and the Hole</a></b></h2><font size=3>By
<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/authors/brooke-shelby-biggs">Brooke
Shelby Biggs</a> | Thu March 5, 2009 11:44 AM PST<br><br>
There are three levels of
<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/03/solitary-confinement-brief-natural-history">
solitary confinement</a> at Angola Louisiana State Penitentiary:
"Closed Cell Restricted," "Camp J," and "the
hole." Herman Wallace,
<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/03/angola-3-dispatch-albert-woodfox-hearing">
Albert Woodfox</a>, and
<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/03/convict-confection">
Robert King</a> Wilkerson have experienced them all. <br><br>
<b>CCR:</b> "Closed Cell Restricted" is known as "extended
lockdown" in official Angola parlance. Angola CCR cells contain a
bed platform against one wall, a steel combination-sink-and-toilet unit
against another, and only a few feet in between. Penal historian
<a href="http://www.burkfoster.com/">Burk Foster</a> notes that until
recently the condemned had more privilegesincluding access to
televisionthan inmates relegated to CCR. By many accounts, death row is
a more comfortable place to be locked up. CCR is where Wallace has spent
his days for most of the last 36 years. Placement in CCR was originally
used as a temporary punishment, but Wallace, Woodfox, and Wilkerson's
experience with CCR has been
<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/03/36-years-solitude">
anything but temporary</a>. <br><br>
<b>CAMP J:</b> In 1998, <a href="http://www.harryconnickjr.com/">Harry
Connick Jr.</a>, (whose father, Harry Connick Sr., was the Orleans Parish
district attorney for 30 years) was escorted into Camp J in leg irons and
handcuffs. He had asked to spend three days in solitary as research for a
role in a film, but lasted just the first night in Camp J before he asked
the warden to let him out. <br><br>
Camp J is a "punishment camp," and the second level of solitary
at Angola. Here, inmates are not permitted to have personal belongings,
apart from law and religious books and basic toiletries. The food is
notoriously inedibleusually made up of leftovers from the main prison
cafeteria mixed together and baked into an amorphous "loaf."
Inmates frequently strip naked and lie on the cement floors to keep cool
during the long, humid summer days; in the winter, the cells can be
frigid. Suicides are an ongoing problem. In the book
<a href="http://www.randomhouse.com/acmart/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780345435538">
<i>God of the Rodeo</a></i>, Daniel Bergner described how inmates cobbled
together crude cannons to rifle streams of diluted feces at one another
from their toilets. In 2000, death row inmate Abdullah Hakim El-Mumit
sued the prison to be returned from Camp J to death row, saying
conditions in the punishment camp were worse than in the death house and
thereby unconstitutional. <br><br>
Wallace has been sent to Camp J for a number of infractions. Once, he
says, a guard mistook the metal pocket clip from his ballpoint for a
"shim," or handmade handcuff key. Later he was sent to Camp J
for destruction of public property, allegedly because a guard found a
scratch on his light fixture. There are three levels of Camp J; inmates
generally start at Level Two and work their way up to Level Threewith
good behaviorand can be out in six months. Getting busted down to Level
One means months more effort to earn your way out. Between 2001 and 2003,
Wallace was busted down to Level One repeatedly, although his record
shows no serious behavioral infractions. <br><br>
Camp J's predecessorthe Red Hatsderives its name from the straw hats
dipped in red paint that identified inhabitants of the cell block when
they were working in the fields. Men who survived Red Hats told of a
dungeon crawling with rats, where dinner was served in stinking buckets
splashed onto the floors. Reforms in Louisiana led to the Red Hats cell
block being condemned and closed in 1972. Camp J took its place in 1977
as the worst spot on the 18,000-acre prison grounds in which to find
yourself. <br><br>
<b>THE HOLE:</b> The worst solitary at Angola is called the
"dungeon" or "hole" by inmates and
"administrative segregation" by officials. Here, inmates are
held to await disciplinary hearings. A recent offense that landed Wallace
a blanketless overnight stay in the hole: gifting a pair of earrings and
a poem about solitary confinement (unflattering to the prison) to his
lawyers during a legal visit. He was cited for possessing contraband.
Later, the charges were dropped, and he returned to CCR.<br><br>
<br><br>
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