STRIP

I thought of something you might want to know about.
It is a procedure they use here that started about 5 years ago. It is called "property restriction" and it's a cruel thing. They use it out of context. Whenever you piss off a guard he will lie and find a way to put you on property restriction, better known as STRIP.

They don't just take all your personal property they take everything out of your cell. They leave you a pair of boxers, that's it. No mattress or sheets nothing in your cell but you and your boxers. You sleep on steel for 3 days that's if you can sleep at all.
When it's winter time they will turn on the fans so you can be as cold as possible. It is like torture.

I went through only once but it was in the winter so it was really bad. Not something I ever want to go through again if I can avoid it.

So just another one of the ways they find to legally abuse us and we have tried, there is nothing we can do about it. They pass it off as a security issue and there is no way to prove they are abusing it.

The following poem is about how I felt when they put me on property restriction.
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FIGHTING THE CHILL

It's so very cold,
please bring me the heat.
I can't fight the ice,
I must now retreat.

I backtrack from war,
in the deep white snow.
I look over my shoulder,
and no footprints show.

It's cold, it's so cold,
I feel frost in my veins.
I seek the warmth of a smile,
and find only disdain.

I treck on, I treck on,
but there is no end in sight.
It all feels so real,
why do my lungs feel so tight?

The pain is to great,
it knocks me to my knees.
It's so fucking cold,
I think I will freeze.

It's cold, it's cold,
I must get away.
Yet there is no safety,
I'm dead anyway.

by Ricky Silva, June 2013