When Virginia assumed control of the prison in August, the for-profit company previously hired to manage the place— The GEO Group— allegedly left the shelves bare.
“They took everything with them -- all their supplies, all their computers, all their copiers,” says inmate Keith Hill, who's serving 60 years for stealing a shipment of cigarettes.
When he was transferred to Lawrenceville last summer, he found prisoners had run out of soap and toilet paper, because GEO had taken existing supplies and failed to order more. When prisoners tried to buy personal hygiene products at the commissary, some were told they had no money in their accounts.
“They’ve got to just sift through all the information that GEO left for them and just try to reconcile accounts," he told us. "It looks like they’re just trying to reconstruct their whole financial database and everything, because they just left it a mess up there.”
That problem has been resolved, but another inmate reports trouble getting his prescription drugs.
“They’ll say things like, ‘Well the pill call nurse isn’t here today, or we’ll have to order that. We didn’t order that,’" says inmate Douglas Ankney. "Tere’s this constant delay in trying to get your medications.”
He has had a number of medical problems, including nerve pain in his arm.
“Have you ever been socked or grabbed an electrical wire? That is the pain that continually shoots all the way down my left arm. I can’t use my arm sometimes, my left hand.”
A nurse at the prison offered him five days' worth of Tylenol. The pain got worse, and a nurse practitioner then prescribed another drug. It, too, was ineffective against the pain, but it caused him to sleep more deeply, and one night – from a top bunk five feet up, he fell.
“I was asleep, and I just rolled over, out of bed. My face hit the footlocker and the concrete floor. I broke my jaw in three places.”
He needed surgery, was on a liquid diet for weeks and was in terrible pain.
“The pain is almost like someone has just hit you in the face with a bat.”
The man is 60, but he didn’t qualify for assignment to a lower bunk.
“They don’t have anything on there for like your age or arthritis.”
And he says getting to that bed, which is just 26 inches wide, is not easy for older inmates.
“There’s no ladder or anything. You have to stand on this stool, and then you step on a table, and it’s all very slick, and more than once my feet have slid out from under me," he recalls. "One officer told me that he simply knocked on a door one time to get a gentleman up for count, and it startled him and he fell out of bed. Other prisoners have told me they’ve fallen.”
He worries about another injury, because he says getting healthcare at Lawrenceville is tough. His arm still hurts, but it took multiple requests and grievances to see a nurse/practitioner.
“This is, by far, the worst I’ve ever seen as far as actually getting medical treatment. Like you put in requests. They don’t answer them. You’ve got to file grievances, and the prison right now is just half full."
But there is good news from Lawrenceville. Inmates like Hill report the food is far better and more plentiful than at other prisons.
“When they have Taco Day here on Tuesdays, the whole tray is full. It’s full with melted cheese, taco filling, onions and peppers, taco chips, the dessert. I mean very seldom do you go to a DOC facility and all the tray slots are full.”
And he’s pleased by the number of courses available to inmates. The assistant warden once told him Lawrenceville would no longer be called a correctional center or a compound but should, instead, be referred to as a campus. We have asked several times to speak with the Department of Corrections about Lawrenceville, about whether safety bars and ladders might be added for top bunks and why prisoners find it hard to get medicine and healthcare, but we’ve received no response.
