Deadly Serious Lockdowns Under Cover of COVID at High Desert
State Prison in Southern Nevada
By Jeremy Strohmeyer, January 26, 2022
Click. The guard in the control bubble has hit the button to close my cell door, a solid steel door with a small window in it. BANG! The cell door slams shut with a rattle, locking me in my tiny bathroom of a cell. The date was March 18, 2020. I did not realize that door shutting me in my cell signaled I would never hug or kiss my wife again, never hold her hand again, never have any physical contact with any of my family or friends again, never see or hug my cousin again before he died of cancer (even though I had visited with him regularly up until that point). That was the door shutting on my marriage. That was the door shutting on any access to the courts, on medical treatment of any kind, on any rights established by centuries of law and struggle by countless prisoners preceding me.
I am one of approximately 3,500 inmates incarcerated here at High Desert State Prison (“HDSP”), the largest prison in Nevada, and my experiences the past two years are representative of pretty much every inmate here, with some minor variations. COVID has provided a cover under which dictators, autocrats, and bureaucrats alike have been allowed to act with impunity, inflicting pain and damage on countless human beings while publicly stating that their actions are in the name of “safety and security” for the benefit and welfare of the very populace they are repressing and killing. Warden Calvin Johnsen here at HDSP, with the backing and support of Nevada Department of Corrections (“NDOC”) Directors Charles Daniels and Governor Steve Sisolak, have done exactly that.
The administration here at HDSP has used the cover of COVID and “safety and security” to reduce and eliminate rights and privileges for all inmates here for over two years now, acting with impunity because there is no oversight or accountability. Despite our living in a democracy, the rule of law has been suspended without notice or fanfare. I guess it makes sense, because who really cares what happens to prisoners when the whole world is burning, right? Even after all these centuries, people have still not figured out that the way a society treats its most vulnerable populations is how the whole of that society will be treated by its government at some point. Turn a blind eye to the abuses inflicted on prisoners and so too shall others turn a blind eye when the government inflicts the same abuses on you.
NDOC spends hundreds of millions of dollars of Nevada taxpayers’ money every two years, representing to the public and legislature that they are spending that money on safe, humane treatment of prisoners while rehabilitating them. In fact, NDOC gives lip service to a mission statement espousing those ideals, lying about what they are actually doing, then expending endless resources (in collaboration with the Nevada Attorney General) to hide and cover up their lies and inhumane treatment of prisoners. Sadly, I suspect that the entropy I will describe in this reporting is happening in prisons across the country.
I am a “level one” inmate assigned to work in prison industries (“PI”), with level one being the place where you are supposed to be given the most privileges in exchange for following all the rules and working as a slave for the state’s profit – basically, a “model inmate.” I am housed in a 10’ x 13’ cell with another inmate, with a toilet and sink. Basically, I live in a small bathroom with another grown man. When I first came to this level one unit, I was allowed out of my cell for tier time for over ten hours a day – allowed to socialize with other inmates, call family and friends as much as I wanted, shower as often as I wanted, and cook food in the microwave. I also had an hour of yard every day, weekly contact visits, law library, gym, unlimited canteen, and access to medical care.
When COVID hit, HDSP Administration (“Admin”) immediately shut down visiting and locked the whole prison down, under the guise of protecting us all from COVID. Suddenly I was locked in my cell with my celly 24/7, let out for only 15 minutes for a shower once every three days. Meanwhile, no guards were wearing any masks, nor were the inmate porters that served food to us in our cells with the guards. All of a sudden, I was locked in my cell 24/7 without any visits, yard, law library, gym or canteen. Like most prisoners, the loss of things such as contact visits, yard, gym, law library, phone calls and canteen are punishments inflicted on inmates here for violating the rules, and those punishments are not supposed to be inflicted until due process is given. Well, COVID has killed due process and prison officials have taken away all those privileges and rights for everyone here at HDSP.
It has already been well established that keeping inmates locked in their cells – whether by themselves or with a cellmate – 24/7 for extended periods of time invariably increases violence and mental illness amongst the inmate population, putting the safety of both inmates and guards in jeopardy. Prior to COVID, violence was the exception here at HDSP – stabbings were rare, and murders and suicides even more rare. The extended mass lockdowns here at HDSP have increased violence exponentially. I keep my ears to the ground, and guards tell me what’s happening because they know they’ll stay anonymous. While I acquire a lot of information, I’m still isolated, and so the numbers reported here are likely lower than the actual numbers.
The COVID lockdown began on March 18, 2020. The violence began in earnest on August 24, 2020. Since 8/24/20, there have been at least 10 stabbings, 6 murders, 8 staff assaults, 2 flights for life, 2 assaults where the victims were stomped out, 1 riot, 1 suicide, and 1 attempted suicide. Like I said: those numbers are on the low end of the scale, and the actual numbers are definitely higher. Those numbers represent an exponential increase over the number of violent incidents here at HDSP in the years prior to these lockdowns instituted under the guise of “safety and security” and “protection from COVID.” Based on my previous observations and what I’ve been told by various staff members, the violence of the past 18 months exceeds the total combined violence in the ten years prior. You could literally create a graph showing that as time locked in cells increases, violence increases. Prison officials are well aware of this. I’m not even mentioning the multiple deaths in here from lack of medical care while being locked in a cell the majority of the time.
I hear some of you out there saying, “But, hey, if the lockdown measures prevented the spread of COVID in there, that saved countless lives that would have been lost to COVID; and the murders, suicides and medical deaths are less than what the COVID deaths would have been.” Ah, if only shutting down visiting and everything else for inmates, and locking everyone in their cells, had prevented the spread of COVID in here. It didn’t. “Why not?” you ask. Well, let me tell you.
From the start of the COVID lockdown on 3/18/20 until 12/21/20, I was sent to work in a warehouse in close contact with over 100 other inmates (at some point around 180 other inmates) for a full 9-hour shift 68 times (68 days of that 8 ½ month period). In the past two years I have been given soap and/or cleaning supplies for my cell maybe 10 times (and that’s a liberal estimate). There has been zero enforcement of mask wearing by guards in the past two years, and I would say 90% of guards wear their masks improperly, or don’t wear a mask at all, 90% of the time. There is occasional enforcement of mask-wearing on inmates, but that totals out to maybe 5% of the time the past two years. In 2021, I was sent to work under the same conditions as 2020 for 119 days of the year. Yet when I wasn’t at work, I was locked in my cell most of the time. My job, by the way, is processing used casino playing cards for resale in retail outlets for the profit of the state. How does sending me to work, but then locking me in my cell the rest of the time, make sense to protect me from COVID? It doesn’t. That’s why the endless lockdowns are not about protecting from COVID, but about letting guards and admin sit on their collective asses all day every day while doing nothing and collecting fat paychecks for their effort.
In the past years, I have submitted at least 6 medical kites for medical, dental, and vision treatment (four of those kites were related to COVID). I have been seen by a medical professional in response to my kites zero times. I have received only one kite back with a response, and that response was from dental stating they don’t provide dental care.
Even when locked in my cell, guards would come on the tier with four inmate porters and a barber (5 out of 56 inmates on my tier) with none of them wearing masks and all of them closely interacting with each other. Then the porters and barber would run around, talking to all the other inmates locked in their cells through the cracks in the sides of their doors. Definitely no protection from COVID there.
While I was locked in my cell for the majority of the past two years, supposedly to protect me from COVID, admin made sure to have an employee appreciation week with all staff being served finger foods in the gym from 10/26/20 – 11/1/20. Nachos, chicken, popcorn and root beer floats. Meanwhile, I’m locked in my cell without visits, yard, law library, or access to a phone to call my loved ones. On 11/17/20, the guards shut off 4 of the 7 showers on my tier (and did the same on all the other tiers) “to protect from COVID,” turning them back on about a month later. On 12/1/20, 12 senior guards met with the Director, they all played basketball together. Somebody there had COVID, infecting the others, then all came to work in various units at HDSP and there was a huge COVID outbreak here.
Meanwhile, a week later, about 50 inmates (out of 336) in my unit got called out of their cells together to be piss tested. Guards were being given COVID tests on the first day of their shift for the week but weren’t getting the results until a week later. My boss at work tested positive for COVID on 12/14/20, then about 120 of us inmates spent 5 full days working with him. After those five days, once we all had COVID, we were confined to our cells to suffer alone. I was sick for two weeks and almost died in my cell because all my requests to nurses for medical care were ignored. On 12/30/20, they tested us for COVID, and most of us tested positive. On 1/12/21, I was given my first N-95 mask.
I got my J&J vaccination on 4/26/21. Admin still kept us all locked down but made sure to have another week of all staff going to the gym to get nachos all week from 5/2/21 to 5/9/21 to show appreciation for keeping all of us inmates locked in our cells to die in there, cut off from our families and friends. In October of 2021, Delta variant washed through here. When Delta variant washed through, admin made sure to have a chili cook off contest in the gym for all staff. Meanwhile, I put in a medical kite to get my COVID vaccine booster on 12/15/21 and never got a response.
The most insidious part of this farcical Shakespearean tragedy is how admin gave us a few hours of tier a day for a few months and called that the “new normal” so they effectively used COVID as the cover to keep us all locked in our cells most of every day. They obviously have every intention of keeping it this way after the threat of COVID has passed. Of course, that schedule of being out for a few hours a day didn’t last long before we were all fully locked down again. At the end of December 2021, Omicron washed through here. So, Admin shut down visiting again (even though there’s zero physical contact, plexiglass shields between visitors, visiting recently was the one spot in the prison where mask-wearing was enforced more than 50% of the time, and all visitors are rapid-tested for COVID before entering the prison: thus, guaranteeing the likelihood that it was prison staff who brought Omicron in here, not any visitors). That was January 6, 2022, the same day we were confined to our cells 24/7 again, being let out for only 30 minutes once every three days.
As of 1/10/22, NDOC reported that 76% of staff and 67% of inmates are now vaccinated against COVID. When asked, on 1/17/22, why we have remained fully locked down far beyond the recommended quarantine period – and often we had all been tested for COVID on 1/10/22 and presumably tested negative since no medical staff ever came back to provide any results or medical treatment – a guard responded that admin had given no official reason, but it was COVID staff shortage, and because admin can. He said guards have repeatedly brought it up at meetings with admin that these lockdowns are creating an unsafe environment here, but admin doesn’t care.
I have now been confined to my cell 24/7 (except for that 30 minutes on the tier once every 3 days) for 20 days, subjected to worse than hole time (you at least get yard in the hole). That’s pretty much how much of the past two years has gone. Since that guard mentioned staff shortage, let’s analyze that.
Before COVID, my unit of 336 inmates would be out on the tiers of each of the pods, all at the same time, all day everyday (locking down just for regular counts). Because these units were built with six separate pods closed off from each other, all branching out from a single central control bubble, with multiple surveillance cameras covering every angle in each pod (i.e. panopticon), the unit was easily and safely managed with one guard in the bubble and two guards on the floor (a total of 3 guards. Not to mention the fact that the unit I’m in is a level one worker’s unit where everyone is a “model inmate,” and no serious violence has ever occurred. In spite of those facts, admin added a fourth guard (effectively raising costs by 25%) to every unit around 6/17/20, supposedly because they were afraid of rioting, even though they were letting out only small groups of inmates at a time for only one hour a day. Meanwhile, hundreds of inmates were being sent to PI, with its multitude of available potential weapons, with only one guard supervising. Talk about irrational. It should be noted that the one guard in PI has never had a problem supervising all those inmates in that environment.
When COVID first hit in March 2020, admin gave every guard two weeks or more of paid leave to stay at home. Then admin paid huge amounts of overtime (at 50% to 100% increase over regular wages) to guards to cover for the staffing shortage admin itself had created. The guards would swap back and forth between paid leave at home and overtime. Guards are making anywhere from $40,000 to $150,000 a year, and Administrators are making $125,000 to $200,000 a year, all safely ensconced in little offices with internet access where they do as they please without any supervision, oversight, or accountability. Meanwhile, 3,500 inmates rot and wither away in cells they can never get out of. Many guards get rich off the overtime handed out by admin, then quit or just didn’t show up for six months while getting paid with sick time and vacation time. At one point, admin handed out more overtime in one month than was typically handed out over the course of a whole year. Nevada taxpayers are paying a fortune to enrich hundreds of prison officials for treating thousands of inmates inhumanely, worse than animals. Most of these inmates have been – or will be – released into the community.
As I write this, I can look out my window to see an empty yard with nobody on it. I can look out the window in my cell door to see part of an empty tier. The yard and tiers have remained empty for most of the past two years, much of that time remaining empty 24 hours a day, except when guards and porters come on the tier to feed everyone in their cells – a few minutes in the morning, and a few minutes in the evening – and when porters were allowed to stay out for tier time on their own while everyone else stayed locked in their cells. So, whereas 3 guards used to be paid to watch 336 inmates on tier, yard, etc., now admin pays 4 guards to watch empty tiers and yards. The guards don’t actually watch the tier or yard, though: they spend their 8-hour shifts hanging out in climate-controlled offices and surfing the internet.
In 2016, the US Department of Justice sent out a report defining lockdown cells in Nevada as “restrictive housing,” which they defined, generally, as placement in a locked room or cell, whether alone or with another inmate, unable to leave the room or cell for the vast majority of the day, typically 22 hours or more. The DOJ said that restrictive housing “should be used rarely…When applied without regard to basic standards of decency, restrictive housing can cause serious, long-lasting harm. It is the responsibility of all governments to ensure that this practice is used only as necessary – and never as a default solution.”(1) In the same year, Nevada was given funding to reduce the use of restrictive housing in the State’s prisons and jails.(2)
In February 2017, the ACLU of Nevada, Solitary Watch, and Nevada Disability Advocacy Law Center released a report, “Unlocking Solitary Confinement,” that detailed the conditions – and the harmful effects – of restrictive housing in NDOC. In 2017, the Nevada Legislature enacted NRS 209.369, Limitation on Imposition of Disciplinary Segregation, to ensure that arbitrary and capricious imposition of restrictive housing – like that which all HDSP inmates have been subjected to the past two years – no longer occurred. In September 2019, the Vera Institute of Justice released “The Safe Alternative to Segregation Initiative: Findings, Recommendations, and Reforms for the Nevada Department of Corrections,” which was the result of the 2016 funding. Warden at HDSP at the time, Brian Williams (now a NDOC Deputy Director) responded to that report by locking the whole prison down for about 3 months, under the guise of “safety and security” so he could bypass the due process requirements of NRS 209.369.
Between 2012 and 2015, I spent 820 days in the restrictive housing described in those reports (because of a false disciplinary). I am still litigating that in order to ensure that no other inmate is subjected to that living hell like I was, particularly given the fact that most of the inmates in NDOC cannot speak for themselves effectively on the matter. Those 820 days were a living death, with the complete destruction of family and community ties, and a slow, spiraling descent into insanity. The conditions I have been subjected to at HDSP since September 2019 have been even worse than those 820 days, with all 3,500 inmates here being subjected to nothing but slavery and suffering without any rehabilitation.
Wait…Shhhhh. Do you hear that? Yeah, that scratching at the door. A scraping on the metal like a dog with glowing vulpine eyes tirelessly seeking shelter from the cold outside. That’s despair and madness. Scratching, scraping, clawing, furiously trying to get in. I have to go. It’s getting louder now, and I have to keep that beast from getting in. I don’t know how, but I have to try. I am one of approximately 3,500 inmates at High Desert State Prison. That scratching beast is at the door of every man’s mind in here.
a life without parole 