Oklahoma's
Death Row
H-Unit, Oklahoma State
Penitentiary
McAlester, Oklahoma
The following is a
description of what it's like, as a prisoner, to arrive at H-unit and
proceed into the prison facility. He asked that his identity remain
anonymous.
"Yeah,
it was very scary when I got here! It wasn't so bad until I walked
inside. When I
walked in is when I
really was frightened. It's like I was going deeper and deeper into
an abyss! We walked down here from the clothing building, into
H-Unit, down the hall to SW quad. We entered SW quad, then into SW-3
side and from there to a tiny cell.
"So
what do I mean? Everything got smaller and smaller the further I
went, until finally I am sitting here eating my meals, not 3 feet from the
toilet. One minute I have the sky overhead and nature all around me,
and 5 minutes later I'm in a tiny cell deep within a building covered with
dirt. I thought I was ready for whatever it was going to be like,
but I was wrong. Totally wrong!!"
In 1994, representatives of
Amnesty International toured H-Unit and released a report on the
conditions for its death row prisoners. It found "the
conditions under which death row prisoners are currently confined in
H-Unit amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in violation
of international standards." Conditions cited include:
prolonged confinement to windowless cells, physical cell conditions,
lack of natural sunlight and fresh air, isolation, and lack of
out-of-cell activities (work, social, recreational, educational).
H-Unit Photo Gallery
(photos
courtesy of Jan Skaggs)
