Massachusetts Prison An Appalling Travesty
North Central Correction Institution located in Gardner is a blight in the Massachusetts prison system.
On March 22nd, I was transferred from Souza-Baranowski, the states only maximum security facility to NCCI-Gardner, a medium security institution with a troubled past and bad reputation. NCCI-Gardner has a bad reputation for being the first stop for sex offender's, and last stop for informants. About 80% percent of the general population have some sex based charges. And, pedophiles live side by side with typical convicts. Most sex offender's in Gardner are transitioning to a treatment center, or recently arrived from sex offender therapy. There are no shortage of informants in Gardner. Men will tell on anyone over anything. This is a safe institution for men who testified at trials, or simply participate fully in progressive incarceration - informing on fellow inmates. Once home to a state asylum, today the picturesque grounds and gardens is an overcrowded pile of turn-of-thecentury houses currently used as squalid, filthy dormitories. My first day in the reception, or ''new man'' unit was a shock. A graying White man with a long sad face was walking in circles talking to himself. It was a nightmare right out of a mad house. Black prisoners self-segregate on a row of bunk beds on one side of the wall, Whites bunk together on another end of the prefab dorm, and a mix of old men and Spanish speaking inmates occupy the widest part of the barracks style housing unit. The common bathroom must accommodate about sixty men. Toilets are broken, and the cheap plumbing fixtures resemble something found in a trailer park Recreation Vehicle, plastic and a patchwork of repair. Shower curtains are ripped and held together with strips of cloth torn from bedding. The disparate population is decidedly old. Many are short timers with months to parole or release. And, there's a sizable population of gender nonconforming, non binary, trans, and gender fluid prisoners. It is not uncommon to see post-op trans inmates in full makeup, lipstick and living their truth. NCCI-Gardner exceeds its operational capacity, by about 160% percent. Originally built to house about 500 adult male prisoners, today's population exceeds 900. Dangerous overcrowding is tolerated by administrators who must consolidate hundreds more from the recently shuttered MCI-Concord. In the new-man-unit, there's no peace and quiet. Noise, conversation, a rabble presses on each individual. Sleep is hard to come by, and the double-bunking overcrowded conditions are deplorable. Surprising, there's little real tension, and so far no violence. There's a very real effort to be respectful and stay to ones self. Some pockets of conversations erupt. And, some inmates talk to friends and family on a telephone app on an Android Tablet, it's like having a cell phone. The prefab dorm stinks from every kind of disgusting smell. Inmates heat up fish, like mackerel, in a microwave and the smell reeks. Some men shower, others don't. The stench of other peoples food is sickening. The public would be shocked and appalled by the travesty of NCCI-Gardner. A blight on progressive Massachusetts and its liberal hypocrisy. The treatment of its prison population in this correction facility deserves a good long look from the Department of Justice.