There’s always a jail within jails — the one called “solitary confinement.” In fact, when incarcerated persons ask one another where so-and-so has disappeared to, the answer oftentimes is “he’s in jail” which means he (or she) is in the hole.
“Solitary” connotes being placed in an isolated cell where one is devoid of all human contact. Jailers and prison psychologists know this will cause trauma, pain and stress but sometimes is a necessary move to protect the individual or others, including staff.
Nonetheless, some prisoners — not many, but some — thrive off of it. At least they have some privacy, something that is very hard to come by in jail or prison.
However, “red-zoning” as it’s called at the Cuyahoga County Jail, is something altogether different. It means to lock all of the prisoners that reside in a particular pod in their cells, usually because of understaffing. No day room, TV or intermingling with other prisoners — a form of solitary even though the prisoners have broken no rules.
Sometimes if there are not enough corrections officers (C.O.s) on duty to properly supervise the prisoners within the pod, the population is then “red-zoned.” But one of the problems with our county jail — and they are myriad — is that supervision of C.O.s is so lax that red-zoning is sometimes abused. In some instances C.O.s are just lazy and in other cases they have another reason for locking the prisoners in their cells.
Say, two C.O.s are in a romantic relationship and want to spend some quality time at work in each other’s company. They can simply lock their wards up and then meet out in the hallway so they can kick it.
But that would never happen in the Cuyahoga County Jail, would it? Would it? Hey, I asked you first!
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.