We would ask all supporters and their friends to send a copy of the following letter to the addresses shown

below. Please feel free to personalize the letter in any way, but please do not refer to any inmate by name! We would prefer that at least one of these letters is sent by post. However, email, fax, and especially phone, are also acceptable and welcome. Only a 100% response to this appeal for action, protesting current treatment and policies at Polunsky, stand a chance of effective change. PLEASE send letters etc. TODAY, and urge your friends and their friends to do the same. To read about some of the issues, please see under the sample letter , addresses to where to send the letters are under the issues to be addressed. Please send letters, email, fax to all, even though some are the same address, still send individual letters.

**SAMPLE LETTER****
Dear Sirs/Madam I am aware of increasing reports of harassment and illtreatment on the Death Row wings of Polunsky prison, Livingston.I should like to remind all parties responsible for the administration and policy of that unit that inmates are held there on the instruction of the Court, pending final determination of the fairness and right of sentence, and prior to execution in some cases. It is not and never has been the direction of the Court that punishment, beyond secure and safe detention, should be permissible by penal authorities, other than reasonable and humane enforcement of equally reasonable and humane prison regulation. Harassment and excesses of punishment imposed on prisoners have a direct effect on their mental and physical health. That is not permissible under US law and is in contravention of International law. It is the requirement of every penal establishment to adhere to standards of practice and policy that reflect an appreciation and concern for humane and lawful detention under State,

Federal and International Law. I respectfully request that you exercise the powers of your office to effectively investigate, oversee and review current practice at Polunsky, and to make public your findings. Please also see the Issues to be Addressed. Sincerely

ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED
LOCKDOWN FOOD ISSUES Polunsky Unit Death row had a lockdown in February, but now they are again locked down so POPULATION can be searched... What is unfair is that when DEATH ROW is locked down, population is not, they still get hot meals. Now because They are locked down, Death Row, get stuck with cold sacks.. They are suppose to feed them 720 calories per meal... Well, the first day they served (for lunch) ONE CORNDOG, ONE SLICE OF BOLOGNA, AND ONE SQUARE OF CORNBREAD. Tuesday was ONE PIECE OF CHICKEN, AND EIGHT DRIED PRUNES. Wed. (Today) was (for dinner) ONE BAKED POTATO, ONE CHEESE SANDWICH, ABOUT 4 SPOONS OF RAISINS!!! This is not enough to feed a grown man and should be revised.

Food Service:
Violations of food service policy has increased lately. The trays we are served differ from those served to general population inmates. Many of the serving carts are broken and do not heat up the food properly. Preliminary investigation has shown that all of the food carts are broken and some beyond repair. It should be noted that the same food carts are in use that were in use when Death Row arrived here over 10 years ago. TDCJ policy states that we are supposed to be served the exact same thing that is served in the Officers Dining Room (ODR) but this does not happen. We never receive the condiments that general population and staff receive. The portions are smaller and on numerous occasions the food has been served spoiled. We respectfully request that these issues to be fixed and monitored, the food service menu be followed, and

policy not be violated.

Inadequate Medical Treatment:

The Medical treatment here is at such a low grade its ridiculous. Sick call slips are not answered and when they are you cant see a doctor. When a medical problem is brought up the inmate is still told that it wont kill him or told to take Non-aspirin. On numerous occasions inmates has been prescribed psychotropic medication for pain or some type of physical medical problem. We respectfully request the medical issues be paid more attention to. All the issues presented above have merit. Most of the issues can be proven by the million dollar cameras thats now mounted on the walkway ceilings.

Grievance Procedure:
There has been an increase lately of problems with the grievance procedure, including non valid responses to meritorious issues and disappearances of grievances. We request this stop immediately and grievance staff at the Polunsky Unit follow proper TDCJ-CID policy, including the Grievance Operations Manual. Furthermore, it should be noted that many inmates feel that because the grievance procedure is a joke their only option is to engage in acts of protest such as Use of Forces and some have been pushed to violence.

I-60 Requests:
I-60 Request Forms are not responded to now about 90% of the time. Once again, the formal avenues that are in place are no longer valid at. We do not want to be engaged in protest actions, but we have been forced to because certain staff members have made the formal channels of resolving complaints completely invalid.

Excessive Use of Force:

Recently, there has been a dramatic increase in excessive Use of Force (UOF). For example, for the first time a Death Row inmate was assaulted with a bean bag concussion weapon and knocked unconscious, another was beaten with a metal riot baton and another was hit 11 times with the pepper ball launcher (a paint-ball gun that shoots gas balls), then gassed with two cans of crowd control gas, and sprayed in the face with pepper spray. The Pepper

ball launcher shoots gas balls at such a high power when it connects it breaks the skin. The bruises it leaves are atrocious. There have been violations of the TDCJ Use of Force Plan as well as the management and Utilization of stateIssued Chemical Agents policy SM 05.03. Furthermore, after a UOF, and indeed at other times, there have been many violations of the offender management Restrictions policy SM01.29. We request that these violations stop and UOF be monitored by a higher office.

Shakedown Team:
Two special shakedown Teams have been created which consist of approximately 7 officers on two separate cards. These teams were created in order to search for weapons, cell phones and drugs, yet their main mission has become to oppress and harass us. The team tears any property up and operate in a rouge and out of control manner. On numerous occasions, theyve used their power to retaliate against an inmate. We would like them to focus on the main reason they were put together and act in a more professional manner.

Commissary Issues:
The Disciplinary Rules and Procedures are very clear, when an inmate is given commissary restriction as a result of a disciplinary hearing this does not include legal correspondence materials or hygiene items (GR-106 VII. A 1. C.2) These items have been routinely restricted. We request this practice end. Death Row inmates are currently only allowed to spend $85 every 2 weeks (L-1) This includes food, clothing, hygiene and electronic items, After purchasing necessary items like legal material, stamps and hygiene, theres no money left on the spend to purchase food and clothing. We request that either the spend be raised or that electronic (special purchase items) and legal material not come out of the $85 spend. L-II and LIII offenders only get to make commissary once every 2 weeks with a spending limit of $10 correspondence (including stamps and legal material) and select hygiene items. This rule was enacted when stamps were 27c. Back then $10 was enough to buy the 30 stamps max were allowed every 2 weeks and correspondence material we need. Being that stamps has raised to 44c theres no way to purchase 30 stamps with $10 and the correspondence material needed. We respectfully request that L-II & L-III offenders be allowed to buy, 30 stamps, no matter the price and $10 in legal

material material i.e. paper, envelopes, pens, writ envelopes, etc.

Unsanitary Conditions on the pods:

Staff members have not been following policy concerning the cleaning of the pods. We request that adequate cleaning supplies be provided an appropriate number of S-S-Is be assigned to cleaning duty and the pods be properly cleaned and sanitized per policy, there should be no mould in the showers, backed up drains, caked on dirt and dust on the day room bars and filth on the floors furthermore, there should never be a single day where an officer comes up with some unjustified excuse for not having the pods cleaned properly.

Necessity Items 1:
Soap and bippy (scouring powder) used to be passed out weekly without exception, and extra soap and bippy would be kept in the picket and passed out as needed for example if an Officer, while rushing to serve chow, accidentally spills the thick greasy liquid that accompanies many tray items which happens quite often, the C.O would give the inmate extra soap and bippy to clean his food slot and door. Recently, soap and bippy has not been passed out, For a decade, since Death Row has been on this unit, this has never been a problem until recently

Necessity Items II (clothing):

Recently, the necessity items that have been passed out have been exceedingly dirty and dingy. Death Row is issued a pair of boxers with 2 strings on each side no elastic, these boxers usually are issued with some or all the strings missing or are too small in the thigh area. They issue General Population inmates regular boxers with elastic. The boxers issued to death row serve no purpose in maintaining security and should be discontinued. Also, previously we were allowed to keep our jackets and blankets year round and they would be washed about every 3 months. Because of the way the AC/Heating systems functions it is sometimes extremely cold in our cells during the summer when blankets are taken, were left with only the two thin sheets thats issued to us. Our jackets are the only protection from rain when on the outside recreation yard. (Regardless of the season. We request our jackets and blankets! be given to us year round.

Mail Issues:
Problems with ingoing and outgoing mail have dramatically increased recently. Mail is being held in the Mail room for outrageously excessive amounts of time. TDCJ CID policy (correspondence rule B.P. 3.91) states that incoming and outgoing mail is to be processed and delivered within 24 hours (48 hours for inmates under specific official security threat watch) We respectfully request that the mail problems be immediately resolved.

Level II and level III Property:

A dramatic rise in destruction, unjust holding, arbitrary confiscation and disappearance of property, when a person when inmates have been dropped to Level II or Level III has occurred recently. Previously, when a person was dropped to L- II or III he was given all of his hygiene items in his possession at the time of levelling. Now, it seems staff are trying as hard as possible to limit hygiene items. On numerous occasions staff only gave levelled inmates a small portion of their property for example, inmates are giving 2-5 bars of soap leaving the other 20 in the in the property room box. There are two options to curb this problem: 1). When inmates are levelled give them all of their hygiene items or 2). Assign several new staff members to the job of daily bringing inmates replacement items from their property when the inmate runs out. We respectfully request these property issues be resolved.

Shower Slots:

For 10 years never once was the handcuff removal slots closed when inmates are showering, until recently. The exhaust vents in the showers do not work correctly when the slots are closed and this creates a terribly oppressive situation where the showering inmate cannot breathe correctly. Several inmates have passed out in the shower and many have vomited or become nauseous. There is absolutely no valid reason to close the slots on the showers. Furthermore the open slot is where people place their clothes. Now, the only options are to either place ones clothes on the filthy shower floor where they will get soaking wet or have the C.O.s violate policy and place the items on the day room bars or hang them out on a door fixture.

Arts and Crafts:

TDCJ-CID policy clearly states piddling (craft) privileges will not be

considered a leisure activity that may be suspended as a (disciplinary) penalty (GR106, pg. 17). Policy states that we are not allowed to purchase arts and crafts items in accordance with our Incell Arts and Crafts program, on L-II and L-III but previously we were allowed to keep those items which we possessed when levelled. We request that this be the case again. Note: If inmates are doing arts and crafts, then they are not causing problems.

Levelling Prior to a Disciplinary Hearing:

Until recently Death Row Inmates were never dropped from Level I to Level II before a disciplinary hearing. This new pseudo- policy is in direct violation of TDCJ-CID policy, ACA standards, states & federal law. The only way a person can justifiably be immediately moved to L-II or L-III status is it they fall into one of the following categories: 1) He/she is a current escape risk. 2) His/ her presence would create a threat to the physical safety of other offenders or staff, or 3) It is necessary to maintain the integrity of an investigation, i.e. to preserve the integrity of information either in the offenders possession or another offenders possession. Now, against policy, people are being levelled for the most insignificant cases imaginable such as passing a newspaper (which is not even a real justifiable case). Being levelled is an extreme form of punishment which entails an offender having his recreation time immediately cut in half, his visits immediately cut in half, all of his commissary items taken (except hygiene and writing supplies) including his radio and hot-pot and losing his special visits if they were already scheduled (which can mean friends and family members losing hundreds or thousands of dollars on pre-bought plane tickets) All before being found guilty of any disciplinary infraction. Unjust levelling is not only an assault on the inmate, but an assault on the inmates friends and family.

Telephone Calls:
All other inmates in the Texas Prison System are allowed telephone service except those on Death Row and inmates who are in Administrative Segregation (who are there for violating TDCJ rules). We are theoretically allowed only 5 minutes call every 90 days only, if our request is acknowledged which could take weeks and/or months. We respectfully request to be allowed the same telephone access as the general population.

Death Watch Levelling:

Previously, if an inmate who was on disciplinary status (L-II/L-III) received an execution date the ranking staff members would give him the option of immediately being upgraded back to L-I status and if of course the inmate committed any rule violations that warranted him being dropped to L-II or L-III when on Death Watch this would occur. We respectfully ask that this be re-enacted.

PLEASE SEND LETTERS TO: * Polunsky Unit Tim Simmons, Senior Warden 3872 FM 350 South Livingston, Texas 77351 936-967-8082 (ask for Wardens office) ----------------------------------Texas Department of Criminal Justice Executive Director Brad Livingston PO Box 99 Huntsville TX 77342 Phone: 936-437-2101 Fax: 936-437-2123 ----------------------------Bryan Collier Box 99 Huntsville TX 77342 Phone: 936-437-6251 Fax: 936-437-8925 ----------------------------------------Ombudsman Debra Booker PO Box 99

Huntsville TX 77342 Phone: 936-437-8035 Fax: 936-437-8067 ------------------------------------------* Rick Thaler, Director Texas Department of Criminal Justice Correctional Institutions Division P.O. Box 99 Huntsville, Texas 77342 Phone: (936) 437-2169 Fax: (936) 437-6325 ---------------------------------------------* Linda Shaw, Ombudsman Coordinator TDCJ Ombudsman Office P.O. Box 99, Huntsville, TX 77342-0099 (936) 437-6791 (936) 437-6668 fax ci.div@tdcj.state.tx.us -------------------------------Michael Upshaw Texas Department of Criminal Justice Region I Directors Office 1225 Avenue G Huntsville, Texas 77340 Phone: (936) 437-1770 Fax: (936) 437-1988