Tracy Lee Kendall took a poll in the largest prison in Texas — Coffield Unit, asking people what their very best and very worst part of prison life was and this is what they answered.
QUESTIONS:
a. “What’s the best thing that’s happened to you in prison?”
b. “What’s the worst thing that’s happened to you in prison?”
The answers are in the order I received them:
1a. Changed my way of life and grew up.
1b. Being in a riot where people were stabbed to death.
2a. Getting good at art.
2b. The roaches and spiders and other bugs that crawl all over me at night.
3a. My mother getting off drugs and the streets and writing to me.
3b. Being raped repeatedly and the guards and administration refusing to help me.
4a. Nothing.
4b. Losing my entire family in a car wreck and then trying to kill an officer who was fucking with me after it happened.
5a. Being put in Metal Fab after I was told I couldn’t have a job.
5b. Seeing people get extorted, then beat, then killed.
NOTE:
The Coffield Unit is a maximum security unit and as such, movement is extremely limited as is access to other areas. Getting information from those in the [low-security unit] meant I had to catch them by chance as they came into the building for educational and other activities. [Administration Segregation/Solitary] was trickier, I had to send word back to them through other prisoners who have jobs which require them to go to Ad-Seg for work.
6a. Learning to read and write.
6b. Getting old and losing years I can’t get back.
7a. Gained better decision-making through spirituality.
7b. Being away from my family. [from a man who was beaten by 8 people at once and whose girlfriend was sexually violated by guards and prisoners, at the guards’ provocation.]
8a. Learned self control.
8b. Found out I wasn’t really a good person.
9a. Being educated.
9b. Loss of loved ones.
10a. Quit smoking.
10b. Having my rights taken away.
11a. Coining my family [gang].
11b. Being segged [put in Administrative Segregation, a form of solitary] after me and some homeboys stabbed a punk who wouldn’t pay us.
12a. Being made a trustee and able to work outside the fence.
12b. My grandfather dying.
13a. Seeing family I have in here change for the better.
13b. Seeing prisoners being preyed upon sexually, financially, etc.
14a. Quit drugs.
14b. Seeing a man held down by same people who did something to him I couldn’t see which made his eyes pop out of his head.
15a. Found true meaning in life.
15b. The prejudice of the guards. [This was from someone who has been stabbed four times in a riot.]
16a. Not a damn thing.
16b. I’m not there for my family.
17a. [Finding] a higher level of living.
17b. Having to strangle one of my cellies because of something he was trying to do to me.
18a. Found God.
18b. Not being in touch with my kids.
19a. Realizing of things as they truly are.
19b. Being cut off by my family.
20a. I don’t know.
20b. Seeing the pain and suffering when people’s families pass away.
21a. Going through a change for better.
21b. Going through my daughter’s death ten days ago.
22a. Nothing.
22b. A cellie [cellmate] I had dying in front of me from medical problems because security would not let the nurses know on time.
23a. Finding a perspective of rationality.
23a. People viewing me through a label instead of for who I am.
24a. Learned to appreciate life and love.
24b. Seeing a man hang himself with bootlaces while guards laughed at him.
25a. I get more sleep.
25b. I can’t leave.
26a. My family staying strong for me.
26b. When I lost my nephew on Mother’s Day.
27a. Being segged [put in Administrative Segregation, a form of solitary] so I don’t have to kill for my family [my gang] or be killed by them.
27b. Being forced to stab someone in their ass.
28a. Met the woman I love through the mail.
28b. My father dying and my son coming to prison.
29a. Seeing a guard who had raped me get his throat cut.
29b. Hating myself so bad I won’t look in a mirror.
30a. Outside volunteers showing me people still care.
30b. Being violated and looked down on because I’m gay.
This is one of my all-time favorite stories, PLEASE, I’d love to hear your comments and thoughts if you read through the whole thing — such poignant and thoughtful answers, didn’t you think??
POLLING METHODS:
RISKS:
The risks I took are that I could receive disciplinary cases for trafficking and trading or I could be “segged” [put in Administrative Segregation/Solitary] if deemed a security risk for being able to orchestrate such a wide ranging operation at will in a maximum security prison by myself. Or if they construed any of my behavior as controlling the movement of offenders in a penal institution, I could get time stacked on this sentence [additional criminal charges served consecutively] which means that I would have to do the whole thing, [current sentence] without parole, then, when I’m 85, I’d start the second sentence. So, it’s a good thing that the administration will have no way of ascertaining if these are false or true claims.
IDENTIFICATION:
I left everything anonymous for two main reasons: I wish this to be viewed outside of who or what these people are and according to only what they say. It also makes it easier for people to disclose things about themselves and also not attempt to make false statements to put themselves in a certain light.
LIMITATIONS:
Originally, I planned to include TDCJ employees as well, but the threat of termination and other forms of retaliation prevented their involvement. Anything released to the public from correctional officers or other employees of the TDCJ is normally censored or scripted beforehand to portray to the public whatever is politically, legally, or financially beneficial to those using their positions within the TDCJ for personal gain and/or job security.
[reposted]
24 Comments
The amount of K2/Spice in prisons are being brought in by guards, this tells me they have criminals being supervised by protected criminals. There is no difference between inmates and guards only who has been caught and who has not yet been caught. The prisons do nothing to try and even control the flow of these drugs in the prisons, they should and need to be held accountable for the deaths that happen in their prisons, out in the free they are charging dealers with murder if they sell drugs to someone and die why isnt it the same for prison guards and staff? Prisons are full of drug addicts and anyone who knows anything about addiction, know that if you put a bone in a dogs face they are gonna want it and go for the bone well its the same for prisoners and drugs.
My son is serving 35 years at Coffield Unit for confessing to an horrendous crime which he DID NOT commit. He did this to try and save someone whom he believed would live an abusive and terrible life under her mother’s drug induced sexually manipulating “guidance”. The plan was to get the child into the custody of her grand-mother. The “plan” failed. And now he is paying for his false confession with 35 years of his life without parole…no evidence, no accusations, no medical or psychological examinations and no jury. I talk to him 3xs/week and he never complains though he was raped twice among other horrors. He is a witness to his fellow inmates and says he is happy to light up a brother’s day with some ice cream from the commissary. I am his 70 y/o mother who has known his heart since he was a baby. He is in God’s hands now. I would appreciate your prayers not only for my son but for all the inmates there. It is a dark place.
My son is currently housed at Coffield unit ad seg meals I wouldn’t give to a dog.under staffed and it sucks because my son’s been there longer then ppl who have sexual assault charges.my son grew up in prison and is up for parole but to know the injustice that the guards show to Inmates all behind hate or knowing they can’t eat without thier permission is evil and I pray for every one of them that God has mercy on the ones that did him wrong.still waiting on food and commisary sad to know this is what our tax Dollars go to how u gonna put a child with other child minded ppl to be guards there should be more training on both ends it shouldn’t be so easy to be a guard pay them more then they’ll do more u under pay anyone you get what you pay for poor lost souls looking for a quick job to make a few bucks but have no compassion or understanding it’s all sad all of it but I know my son’s coming soon so I pray protection over all these Inmates
As a CO with an actual moral compass I tried to get the FBI to assist with public corruption information that I supplied them through inmates and after 25 months of working undercover for them I discovered that they did nothing with the information except get promoted for doing nothing.
I know the truth and will not give up the fight I can’t use ny actual name yet so I hope that you still print this . Im a small proof that
Not all COs are psychopaths.
Please email me , I know a few people in the unit and need some help from someone who not behind the bs
My brother is at coffield aswell. He was sentenced 55 yrs for something g he did not do. We still trying to fight for his freedom. I pray I e day our loved one get a second chance. God bless every human!