Obviously, all those things have to be paid by the prisoner himself. Those supplies can be ordered only by prisoners who are not in the two higher punishment Levels above the first one. Anyone, among the prisoners, who is lucky enough to have relatives or friends that visit them, once more have to follow other rules: each prisoner has to submit a list of visitors and he can't change it for six months.

Visitors are subjected to severe inspections, thorough checks and they cannot bring anything with them especially something for the prisoner. It is forbidden to send anything through the postal service. If anyone wants to send something to somebody they have to go to outside stores, submit a list and pay the items; the items purchased will be delivered to the prisoner later on, but only if the jail's administration agrees upon on accepting the goods. Just to show how absurd these inspections are, I can tell you that a friend of mine had sent a list to a Texas library and had inserted, in a book among those ordered, a small bookmark with a dedication written on it, well, the bookmark was confiscated!

The diabetes medication, a life-saving one, consists of a daily insulin injection that must be administered even in the middle of the night to avoid the risk of an insulin shock! Various Italian Associations, because of the several bad health situations that were verified, have sent letters of protest to the Texas prison authorities (the TDCJ, Texas Department of Criminal Justice) complaining about the total absence, or inadequate health care provided for prisoners. Another letter was sent to protest for inhumane life conditions which have been imposed to inmates. (1*) Responses to the letters (we have to say that sometimes the authorities do answer, which may be due to some kind of American fair-play) were absolutely disappointing, filled with information about how much the authorities supposedly do for the benefit of the prisoners. They requested specific information about the origin of the complaints. Of course no one informed the authorities about the origin of these complaints for fear of getting the prisoners into trouble and therefore subjected to further ill-treatment.

The security guards treat the prisoners (male and female), with few exceptions, like wild beasts. There are frequent cell inspections and if the prisoners complain about it they are manhandled or gassed by special gas bottles that send asphyxia even to the surrounding cells.

The tension between prisoners and guards, sometimes gets really high and even recently some prisoners seized and beat one of the guards. Each guard can write up an accusation against the prisoners, for nonsense too, being absolutely sure that, even if the prisoners are sending complaints to the authorities, those complaints will be rejected or not even acknowledged.

Go to Rules in Texas prisons to have more informations.

Read this Washington's newspaper article to understand how they live in the death row (with notes by Euegene Broxton).

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