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More, Longer Solitary Confinement Molds Recidivists [JJIE.org]

 

I arrived at the Anamosa Iowa Men’s Reformatory in October 1992. I can still remember riding in the van, wearing a set of cold steel shackles and handcuffs attached to a long dog chain that went around my waist and attached to a black box. The black box was padlocked around the cuffs, immobilizing my hands. I had heard rumors that a prisoner actually invented this black box contraption and I cursed him silently as we took a 2½-hour trip, which seemed more like it took all day.

Immobilized in cold, noisy chains, I silently looked out the window of the county van, watching cornfield after cornfield pass by. An ex-convict, who had been to prison several times and was on his way back with me, excitedly explained the ropes to me and told me I needed to be ready because I would be going to “gladiator school.” His ramblings were soon drowned out by my own thoughts about how I would survive. Gladiator school was a term used to describe how prisoners were ready to fight at a moment’s notice.



[For more of this story, written by Jeff Wallace, go to http://jjie.org/more-longer-so...-recidivists/235084/]

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