DRAPER: “SECTION 6”

By Sue Steel

PAG (Prisoner Advocate Group)

The Utah Department of Correction’s follow-up policy to the A/B day rec elimination is being referred to as “Section 6”, or the “Gladiator pit”.  There have been many rumors from the inmates, to their families, based on information they have received from the Correction Officers in their sections. 

The information we have put together, in a combination of statements from inmates who have spoken with CO’s and an anonymous source currently working as a CO in Draper, details how the “section 6” policy will be implemented.

The Northern and Southern gangs have all been moved into the Uinta Max units.  These inmates are given the opportunity to work through a program called the “Phoenix” program.  The program has 3 phases.  The first 2 phases are self-paced and include 16 packets each.  After each phase the inmate completes, they get additional phone calls each week as well as an additional visiting day each month.  This is incentive to complete the program.  After the inmate completes phase 2, they become eligible for phase 3.  The 3rd phase is teacher taught and the inmate will need to attend class.  The inmates are chained to special chairs, in order to keep order in the restrictive inmate classroom setting. 

As they become eligible for the 3rd phase, the new prison policy is to move these inmates to Unita 2, “section 6”.  They are moving them to “section 6” to test them to see if they will fight.  The expectation of a gang member in prison is that if they see their rival in the open, they are to fight.  These guys have no choice.  They know the consequence of not following orders.  The prison has not integrated any of these rival inmates yet but have continued to slowly move all of them over to “Section 6”.  

On March 18, 2018, the prison staff is planning on pairing up inmates, as they did with the A/B day rec elimination, by size, weight and threat level.  They will “pop” the doors of 4 Northern inmates and 4 Southern inmates, leaving all other inmates locked down.  The CO’s will stand back and watch these 8 inmates fight, again, as they did during the A/B day rec elimination.  Inmates will be forced to defend themselves from their rivals, and fight back as dictated by the prison leaders of their individual organizations.  There will be multiple inmates transported to hospitals by ambulance and life-flight, in danger of losing their lives over a power play instigated by the UDC and Prison leadership and staff.

A CO was quoted by one of the inmates preparing to go to “Section 6” that “they can do whatever they got to do and if they fight/stab each other, they will go back to Uinta 1.”  They will bring in another 8 rival inmates and repeat these integrations, “until they get along.”  “Getting along” is just not going to happen unless the sanctioned fights result in killing off all gang members.  These gang members, again, know the price of disobeying orders. 

Our anonymous source also told us that this “Section 6” policy was put up for vote in a meeting in January, 2020, including all Utah Department of Corrections administration staff and Prison employees, after the A/B day rec elimination.  There was a group of Correctional officers who deal more closely with gang inmates that voted “No” on the “sanctioned” fights.  They believed that it was far too dangerous for the inmates, as well as the officers, but they were over ruled and the majority of employees voted “Yes”, knowingly putting these inmates lives in imminent danger.  The “Section 6” policy was put into motion.

When the original A/B day rec elimination policy was put into place, the UDC public information officer, Kaitlin Felsted, told us that if the inmates chose to fight during the elimination of the A/B schedule they would be moved to max and they would have to stay there, lose their privileges and potentially pick up additional charges.  That would be the price of fighting.  That appears, now, to be untrue with this newly added stage of sanctioned human “dog fights”.

The 8th Amendment of the United States Constitution states:

“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”

These inmates were sent to prison because they committed a crime in our society that demands they serve time, locked away from society, to compensate for what they have done.  Nowhere does it state that they are to be continually tortured, day and night, by threat of structured violence, loss of life, taunting by prison staff, and extended separation from family by means of limiting, or eliminating, visits and phone calls.  Most of these inmates just want to come home to their loved ones!

These are beyond reasonable expectations for any human to constantly endure.  They are in a constant state of “War!”  They all suffer from some level of PTSD.  This is clearly “cruel and unusual punishment”.  Is there any wonder why these imprisoned human beings come back to society so damaged, and unable to cope with “normal” life?  That they return to prison at a National average of approximately 80% recidivism rate? 

Utah, we can do better than this!  We need to be the example for the rest of the country.  Can we create a world where HUMANS pay their debt to society for the mistakes they have made, be forgiven those mistakes, and while doing that we give them purpose?  We offer education, job training (trade skills, coding, sales, art, etc.) emotional and mental health care, along with social skills training so that when they leave prison they can be a positive contributor to Utah and humanity?

Destroying them with the absence of basic human dignity and respect, is NOT working.