"I Ain't Ever Heard of Nothing Like That"
Prisoners in Bullock Discuss the Chow Hall and Kitchen Failing Inspection and Being Closed and Moved to Another Dorm
“They’re supposed to be shutting one of these dorms down here,” says the prisoner referred to as “Chris” in these articles when I interview him again in early April. “The sewage is backing up in the kitchen. They’re supposed to make a portable kitchen out of one of these dorms, and they’re going to transfer everybody [in whichever dorm is chosen], and we don’t know what dorm yet.”
Chris just heard about it himself not long before this interview. At least the temperature outside has finally warmed up a little, so the prison isn’t as cold as it has been, he tells me. He and multiple other prisoners also say an employee was recently busted for bringing drugs into the prison.
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I interview the prisoner referred to as “Nick” again in early April.
“Our dorm rep went to a dorm rep meeting yesterday, and they’re fitting to close the chow hall down here in Bullock,” he tells me at the beginning of our conversation. “They don’t know which dorm they’re going to pick to make the chow hall, but if they choose the dorm that we’re in, they’re going to transfer everybody that’s in the dorm. So, we won’t know until a week or two later. You know what I mean?
“But, they’re supposed to close the chow hall down and — I don’t know if they can —make one of these dorms the chow hall until they… They’re going to redo the chow hall, is my understanding, and whatever dorm they pick, they’re going to transfer everybody to another camp. I ain’t ever heard of nothing like that. You know what I mean? The chow hall is real small though. You feel me? And they weren’t too smart when they built it, for real.”
Asked how this might affect him and other prisoners, “Believe it or not, I hope they pick this dorm, because I’m ready to leave here anyway. We’re locked down all day. This is an inside camp. We hardly ever get to go outside. But I hope they choose this dorm, so I can get away from here. A lot of us want to get away from here, for real,” he answers.
“But,” he adds, “I’ll still have your number, and I can let you know what’s going on at any camp. Matter of fact, I’ve got it in my head. ‘Derek’ too, he got [your number] in his head.”
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“They’re trying to change one of the dorms into a chow hall, something going on with the chow hall. I don’t know if it’s some kind of malfunction or what, if they failed some kind of inspection or what, but they said they have to move the chow hall into one of these dorms, so they’re going to have to transfer everybody out of the dorm to another facility for bed space,” says the prisoner referred to as “Cecil” in these articles when I interview her again in April.
Asked what the impact of that is like on the prisoners, “That impact is messed up, for real,” she answers, “because we done already got settled in. Some of us are settled in, and we really don’t feel like moving right now, and we’re kind of alright where we’re at, so we don’t really want to relocate, because you’ve got to find a whole new setting, got to get into a whole new mode of things. It’s a whole new vibe. You’ve got to go through the reprocessing part.”
This could also make the overcrowding problem worse, since they probably won’t have people sleeping in the new chow hall or the old one. Furthermore, if they don’t transfer a large number of prisoners and simply spread them out into other dorms, it will make the overcrowding even worse.
Also, at the time of this interview, “They’re still running the [old] kitchen after they done found roaches and rats. Like I said, they probably failed the inspection, or there was some kind of malfunction inside the kitchen… something going on where they’re having to move the kitchen out of the dining hall into one of these dorms and transfer everybody that’s in that particular dorm,” says Cecil, adding, “We’re going to keep you family. Even if we get moved, we’ve got your number, man. We’ll stay in touch with you, and we’ll keep you posted on what’s going on… inside the prison.”
Cecil also says she has my number memorized, and toward the end of the conversation, calls another prisoner, referred to as “Seth” in these articles, over to ask if he has my number memorized as well, and they both recite my number back to me, one from the background and one into the phone.
“We got it, man. We’re going to keep you posted,” she says.
She says they won’t know if or where they’ve been transferred for a couple of weeks.
The Alabama Department of Corrections again did not respond to my request for comment on this article.
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“Pretty much the same,” says the prisoner referred to as “Seth” in these articles when I interview him again in April, “prison being prison. They came in and fixed the hot water. And up in here, you’ve got to stay to yourself, stay in your lane, because if not, trouble will come find you in here, man.”
Despite fixing the hot water, “They said the kitchen didn’t pass inspection,” Seth reiterates. “I don’t know what it was, rats or roaches or what, because we’ve got roaches really bad in our dorm, so I'm thinking that’s probably what it was, rats and roaches in that kitchen when they came through there.”
He adds, “They’re supposed to be making one of these dorms a kitchen dorm, and putting a portable kitchen outside in the back or something, but they said that everybody in the dorm that they choose is going to be transferred out to other facilities, but we will keep in touch. We’re going to basically make you like part of our family, Matt, whether you know it or not, man… We’re going to keep you posted on the inside view of everything going on in here, man. That way, you get it from the horse’s mouth itself instead of just assuming, having the inmates in the stories and the articles that you put out, the full fledged truth.”