Jail Conditions a Menace to Health, Says Prisoner
Revolting and intolerable conditions exist in the Blountville, Tenn., jail, according to a letter made public here yesterday by a prominent social worker. The letter, written by a prisoner confined in the Sullivan County jail at Blountville, declares lice, bed bugs, poor food and lack of proper sanitation constitute a serious menace there.
Crowded conditions in the jail and diseases also play a part in making the place unfit for human habitation, the letter says. The full text of the letter follows:
Letter in Full
Dear Mrs ——:
“This evening finds me in one of the most disagreeable places of my life. I am not trying to explain my charge. My wife can tell you that. I can only regret the many times I’ve ignored the prayers of my ten-year-old darling and trampled the advice of the good people under foot.
But that’s done done. And this evening finds me here in Blountville jail, away from my little family. They are alone. No one to care for them through this winter, and —— is sick too.
But that’s not the point yet. I’m not trying to enlist anyone’s sympathy with my disobedience. This is the point: Here I sit in a cage 21 by 14 feet (that’s a very small place) with 21 other prisoners in this small place, crowded to death. All of us are forced to sue the same toilet, and it’s the worst you ever looked at. And all have to bathe in a small wash tub, part of the time without soap.
We are compelled to wash clothes in this small crowded place, without soap part of the time. We just can’t keep clean and the body lice and just eating us up. And besides this, we’ve been hampered in here with seven negroes, one of them infected with a disgraceful disease which I can’t explain to you. He had great sores on him, and an odor that was horrible. You can’t imagine what a life like this means to [a] human. This cage has never been scoured since I’ve been here.
We’ve got an old man in here with us about 65 years old. How pitiful, you can imagine. He had a broken leg one time, and now he has a sore on this leg about three inches in diameter, and his leg is inflamed from his ankle to his knee, and he has begged for a doctor for more than a month, and all he gets is rough answers.
No Doctor
The doctor has never visited this place in near four months, so I’m told, and this entire bunch of men really needed a doctor today.
Yesterday afternoon at three o’clock we were fed out supper with less respect than dogs. We were given a piece of corn bread about four inches square and very thin. This was cooked very rough. With this we were given a small tin pan with about a teacup full of rice and beans it. And – God is giving me counsel concerning this statement, and I won’t lie – these beans were soured! And they made 18 of us soi sick we just like to died.
We are locked up at night in separate cells. These cells are 7 ½ feet by 6 feet and five of use are locked away from water and the toilet. In each cell we have an old water bucket that answers as out commode – for five men and them sick from being forced to eat rotten food.
Can you gather any idea as to how we rested that night? Our bed was a little tick with about a good armful of wheat straw in it, chaff and all together. We have no sheet or bedclothes except one thin cotton blanket to each bed. Our beds are full of bed bugs and lice. This is honestly the truth, and I could cry if it would help me case any.
Published Report Untrue
I saw in last Sunday’s paper a statement concerning the way prisoners were cared for, and that statement is untrue as the worthless offer that Satan made our Savior, when he said he’d give Him the whole world if he’d fall down and worship him. That broad-minded gentleman who put such tantalizing message in the news sure was having a vision of some hotel. It sure missed this place in its comparison.
Here is our bill of fare: At nine o’clock in the morning we get a spoon full of gravy made of water and bacon grease, not even cream gravy, and it’s not even brown. With this we get 5 small biscuits and a cup of chicory coffee, very weak-no longer sugar or cream. Then at three o’clock we get a few white beans and a little piece of corn bread and drink a cup of cold water, and then right [fight] the lice and bed bugs till morning.
We have no light, and if we ask for one, we get a good cursing, and the jailer or someone destroys most of our mail, or at least we seldom get a letter to or from our family. This is unhuman like.
We have a broom in the cage, and we sweep the filth out of our cage into the hallway around the cage, and it lays there sometimes for eight days before it is moved. Now there is some reason in all the things, and I think the state of Tenn. and Sullivan County has some better appropriation for prisoners but this rough treatment is being carried on under cover. And won’t you and Mrs. —— for the sake of humanity and souls of some men who probably are unjustly confined to this disgraceful place come down and investigate our care and try to get us a doctor when we ask for one and a little more to eat. And above all things make some change in the sanitary conditions of this place.
Sounds Warning
And I trust this letter may be used as a sound warning like the rich man wanted to use Lazarus to warn others not to come to this place.
It’s true that the law is good, and without the law my family and all others would be in danger. But to deprive men of his privilege and confine him in prison is severe enough without the officials of our law violating the laws of the State Board of Health and other laws of our country in order to administer such punishments as they think best. And by doing so they do violate the State Board of Health laws, and the outside world never knows the least about it. So we beg for some attention from some kind-hearted person.
You can publish this if you wish, for it’s every word true.
Very respectfully yours.
