A few weeks after his 18th birthday, Jonathan Baake was charged with illegal possession of a firearm – given a mandatory minimum sentence of five years. He had a hard time adjusting to prison life and was transferred twice to higher security correctional centers.
That has his mother on edge. She reports that Wallens Ridge has been on lockdown off an one for months – keeping inmates away from jobs, educational and therapeutic programs and preventing emails, visits and calls. When her son is finally out of his cell, Stephanie Baake says, the place appears no safer.
“He calls me and he goes, ‘Hold on Momma, I’ve got to get on the ground.”And I said, ‘Get on the ground?!” and I hear screaming, and my heart is pounding. I don’t know what’s happening, and then the phone clicks off, and I’m calling the prison. Nobody is answering. A couple of days later I finally get another phone call from him, and he literally says, ‘Hey, Mom!’ and then I hear dogs barking, and two seconds later the phone shuts off again.”
Now, Jonathan Baake tells his mother there’s a new approach to discipline at the prison. If one inmate breaks a rule, his entire pod or unit is punished – denied access to television, tablets, recreation and commissary.
“So that means they don’t have access to personal hygiene products, foods to supplement the diets that they’re given in prison.”
That’s Eden Kinlock with FAMM – a group that advocates for prisoners and their families.
She says they also suffer when their loved ones are punished for something they didn’t do.
“A lot of these people are parents, and they need to maintain a role in their children’s lives, and so everyone is impacted by it really.”
At the University of Birmingham in the U.K. Professor Tim Edgemon says this business of collective punishment is unfair and not very effective.
“If you decide to break the rules, that may not be a rational decision.Rule violations may be more emotional.You may not be thinking, ‘Oh, if I do this it will cause a unit-wide lockdown.’Especially for people with mental illness, they may be unable to think about those things -- about the consequences of their actions.”
At the Green Rock Correctional Center, inmate Tim Wright says prisoners were locked down for a week when one inmate was caught with a small amount of suboxone – a drug used to help opioid addicts quit.
“When we were on lockdown, the major and the warden walked around, and they came to our doors and multiple of us asked them about why we were on lockdown, and they said, ‘Well if you don’t police your own, we’re going to punish you with up to 30 days of lockdown every time something happens.’”
Wright says that’s just wrong.
“It’s illegal to tell me to police my own.I’m not a cop.”
And, he argues, challenging other inmates could lead to fights.At Red Onion Correctional Center, inmate Otis Madison agrees.
“We should police each other, or snitch if somebody else is doing something wrong?You know that creates a conflict between me and other inmates. “
In response to a complaint from the Coalition for Justice, an advocacy group in Blacksburg, the Department of Corrections said group restrictions may occasionally be applied to ensure safety and security of staff and inmates, but these measures are not intended as punishment but as temporary management. It added that it encourages inmates to positively influence the culture within their housing unit, as this will be the expectation within their community upon release.
Stephanie Baake isn’t buying it. She calls the prison and the Department of Corrections often in protest.
“They want to blame it on MS-13 gang members, and they stabbed a dog. I’m an animal lover, but let’s see the video that led up to that. I’m advocating for my son, but I’m also advocating for the gentlemen who don’t have anybody, because it’s not right, and something just has to be done.”
Other prisoner advocates are calling on the state legislature to step-in with greater prison oversight, to insist on due process before anyone loses property or privileges and to pass a law preventing the punishment of innocent people for acts committed by others in their unit or cell.
