Dear Reader,

Lately, as mental health issues make headlines and dominate news feeds, it’s sparked conversations for people behind the fences about the need to change prison culture and move away from the practice of suffering in silence. 

Behind bars, we see TV ads that promote the use of antidepressants or recommend apps that allow you to speak to trained mental health professionals. In the media, we hear about a celebrity’s public “meltdown,” followed a few weeks later by a story that details the celebrity’s entrance into an exorbitantly priced rehab. For the incarcerated masses, none of these are options for dealing with mental health issues. All we can really do is turn to one another for advice and guidance.

According to the nonprofit Prison Policy Initiative, U.S. prisons and jails incarcerate a “disproportionate amount” of people with mental health issues, and facilities overwhelmingly fail to meet their treatment needs. The organization also found that prison actually creates and worsens symptoms of mental illness.

The issues that so many people face outside are also issues that bubble up inside, though with fewer solutions within our reach. I’ve always thought of this column as a way to help you, dear readers, better understand how societal problems unfold behind bars. So today, I want to introduce you to a man we’ll call Hawk. He’s a father, a former minister, and someone for whom prison did indeed create symptoms of mental illness. 

Like many men I’m incarcerated alongside at Burgin, Kentucky’s Northpoint Training Center, Hawk was eager to tell his story, but anxious as hell about being interviewed. 

“Promise me you’ll edit this,” he said. “I tend to ramble.”

Like many people, Hawk had heard stories about how men inside treat other men accused of sex crimes. Needless to say, he had a lot of anxiety when he was first sent to La Grange, Kentucky’s Roederer Correctional Complex, the facility where many are held before they are transferred to a place like Northpoint more permanently. At Roederer, Hawk said he met his first classifications officer, who is responsible for case management and determining the security level and housing assignments for people in custody. Hawk’s classifications officer told him he’d be better off keeping his charges to himself.  

After he was placed in a cell, it took about three days before other men inside started sniffing around the new guys. 

“This was for extortion,” Hawk explained. “The guys who’ve been in prison before knew people with sex crime cases were good targets.”

Once the other men knew Hawk’s charges, it was game on. A group of young men approached him and gave him one of two options: pay them or get his ass kicked.  

“I refused to pay anyone anything,” Hawk said. “They laughed at me, and one guy caught me in a blind spot—a place the cameras couldn’t see—and he swung on me. I must have been hit five or six times. I’d never been in a fight before, or hit in the face. I went to my bed and cried. I’m not ashamed now. I was then.” 

But it didn’t stop there. 

Not long after, Hawk was challenged to a fight by the entire group of men. He knew there was no way he could take on that many guys at once, and he tried his best to ignore the provocation. But you can’t ignore these kinds of challenges in prison; things always come to a head. 

“I didn’t know it was happening until it happened,” Hawk said, explaining how the group of guys followed him into the bathroom and started wailing on him. “I couldn’t do a thing. Nothing. I just waited until it was over.” 

When officers finally came around, Hawk requested a new cell. The officers peppered him with questions, wanting to know why he wanted to move. He gave them nothing. So the officers conducted their own investigation by reviewing camera footage. One of the guys who assaulted Hawk was sent to solitary confinement. Hawk was returned to his old cell, along with friends of the guy now in the hole. Of course, everyone assumed he was a rat. 

In the middle of our conversation, Hawk took a deep breath and said a short prayer before exhaling and continuing his story. 

“Basically, at that point, the only thing I wanted to do was survive. I had to stay in that cell until I was sent somewhere else,” Hawk explained. 

So, he strategized. He stayed in bed all day and slept as much as possible, and only went to the bathroom when everyone else was asleep. He pretended not to hear when the guys openly discussed their plans to kill him. When they smacked his bed with books and locks or made stabbing motions at him with a pen, he pretended like it wasn’t happening.

“This happened over a three-day period, and even though much of it was just meant to scare me, I was absolutely terrified. I’d snap awake at the slightest noise. I knew I couldn’t go to the officers because they just make things worse,” Hawk said. 

Hawk stopped speaking and locked eyes with me. I reassured him that I understood how debilitating these kinds of threats could be. He took another breath and went on with his story. 

Hawk was finally moved to another cell, but not because of the threats. COVID hit the prison hard.

“Everyone was testing positive, and nearly everybody took their fears and worries out on everybody else,” Hawk said. 

Eventually, he was moved again and finally left alone, but then another horror unfolded. He watched the same cycle he lived through play out for another new guy, who also refused to be exhorted. Hawk watched the harassment play out; he saw the man get beaten by a guy brandishing a lock hidden away in a sock. The new guy was hit repeatedly before he fell to the ground.

“The cowards always target weaker guys,” Hawk sighed. “I couldn’t speak up or interfere because then I’d be assaulted too, so I pretended not to notice. If it’s not happening to you, you tend to feel relieved. I know how that must sound to people, but it’s true. I was just so scared, I sort of pretended none of it was happening.” 

These prison conditions and dynamics—which are quite common and normalized, I might add—led Hawk to feel constant anxiety. He was always on watch. The fear of another beating consumed him to the point where he sometimes couldn’t sleep. Instead, he lie awake wondering when they would come for him.

Hawk hoped this horrible time in his life was over when he was transferred from Roederer to Northpoint. But within five minutes of getting off the bus and entering his new dorm, he said a man approached him and asked if he had “a case.” Hawk knew lying was futile, so he admitted he was there because of a sex crime. 

“He told me I had to pay,” Hawk said, explaining that this was a different kind of shakedown than the one at Roederer. This guy protected men with cases … for a fee. Hawk agreed at first to pay the man $50 for protection.  

“Prison is very violent and very scary,” Hawk emphasized. 

After about a month, Hawk told the guy that he didn’t want to pay for his protection. He was immediately threatened, but when Hawk didn’t back down, the guy eventually left him alone. Still, these interactions and the constant fear he experienced took a toll. 

“Ever since then, I now always look over my shoulder,” Hawk said. “I hate crowds of people, and I basically feel like I’m reliving being assaulted anytime I think or talk about it. It makes my heart rate jump. I breathe faster and feel like I’m zoning out.” 

He would eventually learn these were pretty classic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and while there are some limited mental health options available at Northpoint, many are afraid of the stigma that might come with accessing the services. As Hawk’s story illustrates, any kernel of information can be used against you in prison, to make you seem weak or to exhort you. It’s a dog-eat-dog world inside, and even the men who perpetuate this culture would tell you it’s exhausting. 

“The system plays us against each other,” Hawk said. “That’s part of what keeps me scared and awake at night. It’s not just individual guys; it’s the culture. The PTSD it causes is real. I just hope more people can learn to stand together against this bullshit.”

The Right to Write (R2W) project is an editorial initiative where Prism works with incarcerated writers to share their reporting and perspectives across our verticals and coverage areas. Learn more about R2W and how to pitch here.

Editorial Team:
Tina Vasquez, Lead Editor
Carolyn Copeland, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor