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unusual; I frequently saw black and brown correctional officers at other prisons. I was
subjected to an elaborate admission process and given a beeper to activate if I was ever
threatened or distressed while inside the prison. I was escorted to a forty-by-forty-foot room
where more than two dozen incarcerated men sat sadly while uniformed correctional staff
buzzed in and out.
There were three six-foot-tall metal cages in the corner that couldn’t have been more than
four feet by four feet. In all my years of visiting prisons, I had never seen such small cages
used to hold a prisoner inside a secure prison. I wondered what danger the caged men
presented that they couldn’t sit with the other incarcerated men on the benches. Two young
men stood in each of the first two cages. In the third cage, which was wedged into the corner,
sat a small man in a wheelchair. His wheelchair faced the back of the cage, so he could not
look out into the room. I couldn’t see his face, but I was certain it was Joe. A correctional
officer was constantly walking into the room and calling out a name, prompting one of the
men to get up from his bench and follow the officer down a hallway where he would meet
with an assistant warden or whomever they were scheduled to see. Finally, the officer called
out, “Joe Sullivan, legal visit.” I walked over to the man and said that I was the attorney for
the legal visit. He summoned two officers, who went to Joe’s cage to unlock it. The cage was
so small that when they tried to remove Joe’s wheelchair, the spokes on the chair got caught
on the cage, and they couldn’t budge it.
I stood there watching for several minutes while more officers got involved in an
increasingly elaborate effort to dislodge Joe’s wheelchair from the tight cage. They pulled up
on the wheelchair. Then they pushed down on the chair, raising the front off the ground, but
this didn’t work, either. They tugged at the chair with loud grunts and tried to force it free,
but it was completely stuck.
Two inmate trustees who had been mopping the floor stopped to watch the officers struggle
with the wheelchair and the cage. They finally offered to help out, even though no one had
asked for their input. The officers silently accepted the assistance of the inmates, but none of
them could come up with a solution. As the staff became more frustrated by their inability to
get Joe out of the cage, there was talk of using pliers and hacksaws, of putting the cage on its
side with Joe in it. Someone suggested trying to lift Joe from his wheelchair to remove him
without the chair, but both Joe and the chair were packed so tightly into the cage that no one
could get in to move him.
I asked the guards why he was in the cage in the first place, which prompted a brusque
response: “Lifer. All lifers have to be moved with higher security protocols.”
I couldn’t see Joe’s face while all of this was going on, but I could hear him crying. He
occasionally made a whining sound, and his shoulders jerked up and down. When the staff
proposed turning the cage on its side, he moaned audibly. Finally, the prisoner trustees
suggested lifting the cage and tilting it slightly, which everyone agreed to try. The two
trustees lifted and tilted the heavy cage, while three officers yanked Joe’s chair with a violent
pull that finally dislodged it. The guards gave each other high fives, the inmate trustees
walked away silently, and Joe sat motionlessly in his chair in the middle of the room, looking
down at his feet.
I walked over to him and introduced myself. His face was tear-stained, and his eyes were
red, but he looked up at me and began clapping his hands giddily. “Yeah! Yeah! Mr. Bryan.”