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In November, I was transferred from U.S. Penitentiary Big Sandy, a high-security prison in Inez, Kentucky, to yet another wretched facility that is far worse. About a three-hour drive from Big Sandy is a sleepy, creepy little town called Pine Knot, Kentucky, home to USP McCreary.
At this high-security pen, Warden John Gilley has created a house of horrors.
Prisoners are hungry. Violence is everywhere. And those things, I believe, are not unrelated. Gilley’s policy of collective punishment—where many are punished for the misbehavior of a few—has weaponized the prison’s cafeteria food and commissary privileges and created animosity among those of us who are incarcerated here at McCreary. Fights and assaults are regular occurrences, often over food. There is a ban on books sent into the facility, and plexiglass barriers left over from the pandemic diminish the value of contact visits.
Soon after my arrival, a man was killed in his cell, and his body went unnoticed by guards for 72 hours. We are supposed to stand for count twice a day, but officers only realized the man was dead after his neighbor complained of the smell.
The collective punishment policy hinges on the assumption that prisoners will hold each other accountable. But that policy, where an entire housing unit’s commissary privileges are taken away for any act of violence or found contraband (drugs, alcohol, weapons), is doomed to fail.
Why? Here’s the situation: Prison gangs are like a secret society. Nonmembers are not privy to gang members’ plans. If a gang’s shot-caller decides to green-light a hit on a member who has fallen out of favor or a rival member who attempts to walk the same prison yard, a nonmember will not interfere. Meddling in prison politics can cause unnecessary beef.
Basically, what I am saying is that I jumped straight out of the frying pan and into the fire.
***
My ears were bombarded with rumors of the miserable and inhumane living conditions at USP McCreary (about 570 miles from my hometown D.C.) while I warily waited in the transit unit last year.
When I arrived on the yard at McCreary for the first time, the first thing to grab my attention was just how depressed and raggedy the men appeared. They reminded me of still images of starving POWs in Japanese internment camps and Nazi concentration camps, or more recent images of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Prisoners walked around the housing unit and rec yard looking stressed and undernourished. They wore old, dingy gray sweats and gym shorts and worn-out tennis shoes—some with the soles hanging off. A common theme reverberated through the conversations I had with men from various ethnicities and geographical locations: hunger. Every single man I talked to complained of being utterly and completely hungry.
Those living in the 5A housing unit where I have been assigned haven’t been allowed to purchase electronics, clothing, or food items (rice, beans, meat, fish, flour tortillas, spices, etc.) from the commissary since the start of 2023. The restriction was already in place when I arrived and is the result of the warden’s collective punishment policy.
If you happened to see a man on 5A eating a bag of Doritos, chances are he paid another man a hefty price tag—$16 or more is the going rate, depending on whether a bidding war had started over the nacho chips. In December, I overheard a young man announce that he was willing to pay $50 for a $3.50 bag of Keefe freeze-dried coffee.
In my view, Gilley’s excessive collective punishment policy has led prisoners to exploit each other’s hunger pangs for their own financial gains. The policy has created skyrocketing inflation in the prison’s black market economy as the price for food items and prison contraband has risen to astronomical heights.
Then there’s the matter of the bologna diet. The administration doesn’t allow us to eat dinner in the prison cafeteria. We’re told that this is to reduce the potential for prisoner-on-prisoner assaults in the dining area during the evening shift when there are fewer guards on duty to respond to distress calls. (The staffing shortage in Federal Bureau of Prisons facilities is well-documented, as are the consequences, including horrible conditions, inhumane treatment, and violence.)
Instead, we are fed a low-calorie diet consisting of four pieces of bread, two slices of low-grade bologna, 1/4 cup of diced carrots or celery, and a single, one ounce bag of chips. On other days, we are fed a cold piece of roast beef, tuna, or peanut butter and jelly, with the same ole sides.
The men I’ve spoken to in the 5A housing unit, and throughout the prison, are losing weight because of this diet. Many have complained to me about their health problems, including hypertension, high cholesterol, acid reflux, gas, and constipation, which they believe are due to their current diets. Even the medical department here makes fun of the bologna diet.
Editor’s note: In response to questions about food service and collective punishment, a BOP spokesperson declined to comment on specific claims. Generally, the spokesperson says via email, wardens can “establish controls or implement temporary security measures to ensure the good order and security of their institution, as well as ensure the safety of the employees and individuals in our custody. In making any modifications, it is always the hope the security measure will be short-lived and returned to normal operations as quickly as possible.”
The spokesperson says “sanctions are not imposed in a capricious or retaliatory manner” and discipline “is administered based upon specific individual details of each incident and may vary from facility to facility.”
People held in the BOP have the opportunity to purchase food, clothing, and other items other than those provided, the spokesperson says via email, but the warden has discretion to limit or deny access to that privilege. BOP provides three meals per day, “two of which are hot,” the spokesperson says.
***
At least one man has died inside USP McCreary since I arrived in November, and several others have been seriously injured.
The death, I’m told, stemmed from a dispute between cellies over allegations of stolen property. The deceased man’s body remained in his bunk for 72 hours before guards noticed. (The BOP spokesperson confirms that a man was found unresponsive inside the prison in early November and was transported to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The FBI was notified, according to BOP, and the death remains under investigation.)
Another man overdosed in the visiting room after he swallowed a balloon filled with drugs. I think it was fentanyl. Medical staff was able to revive him.
A third man was beaten so badly in the cafeteria that I’m told he went into a coma. There have been a number of fistfights, assaults with weapons, and officers assaulting prisoners over the smallest of incidents. The violence here is far worse than at Big Sandy.
Hell, on Dec. 10 in the 5A housing unit, a rival Mexican gang member was repeatedly shanked, and no less than 20 minutes after the biohazard detail crew cleaned the blood off the floor, another small brawl broke out in a different unit. The entire prison was locked down 24/7 for the next week and a half.
In my view, the only thing the warden has successfully accomplished with his growing list of deterrents is to create a famished, desperately aggressive, hostile, and unsafe environment. Any prisoner serious about rehabilitating himself faces long odds.
Editor’s note: The most recent report on USP McCreary from the D.C. Corrections Information Council, which draws on survey answers and interviews with D.C. men incarcerated in the facility, corroborates many of these details. According to the report, every resident interviewed said the whole unit is punished when one person does something wrong. “Residents state that this is unfair and causes more violence in the facility,” the report says.
The report also says corrections officers in the special housing unit (or SHU) “try to provoke residents to engage in fights,” and 25 survey respondents say the staff makes racist remarks. Another 25 respondents say staff behavior at McCreary is worse than other penitentiaries.
One unnamed resident said he was assaulted by a correctional officer after he told the officer a light was busted out. “The officer slapped him and put him in the SHU because he would not say that he broke it,” according to the report. “He also said he has marks from restraints, and that officers use pepper spray.”
Another resident said he was “slammed to the floor while in handcuffs. My head hit the floor, also I was wrote up for assaulting an officer. I’ve been placed in restraints so tight where they cut into my skin. Also my circulation was being cut off. I was in chains twice: once for 16 hours—the other over 13 hours. The lieutenant came in every 2 hours and roughed me up. I still have wounds to show.”
***
Warden Gilley’s collective punishment extends to his efforts to keep contraband out of the prison. He has banned prisoners’ family and friends from ordering books and having them sent to us—but not everyone is trying to smuggle illegal items into the prison.
I believe another motivation may be at play.
The majority of men who are locked up inside USP McCreary are African American, and most of the reading material coming through the mail room is progressive, Black cultural literature. I believe Warden Gilley is fearful that certain books could arouse motivations to organize against his collective punishment’s sanctions.
Editor’s note: A BOP spokesperson says via email that “agency guidance is clear that we do not implement blanket restrictions on book ordering.” Rejection of any publication is made on an individual basis and that “the specific publication at issue was detrimental to the security, good order, or discipline of the institution, or might facilitate criminal activity.”
The warden has also maintained the plexiglass partitions that were erected inside of the contact visiting room during the start of the pandemic. The partitions were meant to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. But even after the pandemic has ended, and in-person visits have resumed, the plexiglass remains, creating a physical barrier between us and our visitors.
The warden intends to keep the plexiglass dividers as another way to prevent contraband from getting in, but the barriers defeat the whole purpose of contact visits—to maintain human contact and healthy family ties. You cannot feel the same connection from behind plexiglass.
I, along with every other Washington, D.C., prisoner at USP McCreary, humbly request that a delegation of D.C. representatives, including Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton and Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White, joins with the Corrections Information Council to visit with us and check on our repressive and inhumane living conditions here at USP McCreary.
Askia Afrika-Ber was born and raised in Southeast D.C. and Prince George’s County and is serving a 53-year sentence for felony murder in USP McCreary, a high-security prison in Kentucky. You can read more about himhere. Thiscolumnis produced in collaboration withMore Than Our Crimes, a nonprofit dedicated to raising the voices of people locked in federal prisons across the country.
