(Content warning: Solitary confinement, Incarceration, Mental health, Medical neglect, Alcoholism, Drug addiction, Law enforcement, Suicidal Ideation, Restraints)

Dictacted 12.1.24 from Dane County Jail, Madison, WI

Dear Mom, 

You get used to a lot of noise in jail, but this morning was something special. All of a sudden we heard smacking, louder than I’ve ever heard, accompanied by quite a lot of yelling for 9:00 in the morning. I told you before that it’s been pretty peaceful in our cell block, and it has been. But next door, not so much.

Some women here were more concerned with the drama. Who was fighting? Why? Most importantly, who was winning? Me, I wasn’t thinking about that kind of stuff. Deprived of ESPN, I was entertaining myself watching the deputies run down the hallway and giving them scores, as if they were competing in track and field in the Olympics. I’ll tell you something, Usain Bolt they were not. Some were more nimble than others and got points for being semi-athletic, but others were less convincing. 

In all fairness, I don’t think I would’ve fared much better during my time in uniform. While the Ironman prepared me to run for horrendously long distances and periods of time, such a talent is not really required or ever called upon in law enforcement. I can’t say I’ve ever gotten in a foot pursuit that lasted from Stoughton Road on the beltline all the way to Old Sauk Road on the same highway, though such a thing would have certainly been a sight to behold. I might have actually been useful in that scenario, but the majority of them lasted approximately 60 seconds or less. And as far as sprinting goes, I think you’ve run enough miles by my side that we can both say that was never my strength. 

As I stood there and watched the commotion unfold, I felt reassured and validated that my lack of athletic prowess was not, in fact, my downfall in law enforcement. There were these deputies, more or less as athletically inclined as I am, gallivanting down the hallway of the jail to go save the day, heroically or otherwise. And I thought to myself, Yep it was definitely the alcohol that did me in.

In my experience, every addiction story, including my own, has its roots in mental and/or physical health problems; the pain patient who develops an opioid habit, the depression patient that cannot access adequate mental health care and decides self-medication is better than nothing at all, the schizophrenic patient who just lost their insurance and simply wants to “take the edge off” and quiet the voices. This jail is a warehouse for addiction stories, as I said earlier. You could just as easily call it a repository of stories that document our country’s struggle with providing adequate mental healthcare. 

So you might be saying to yourself, Well, clearly, Eli struggles with addiction and mental health issues. And if you accept that the purpose of incarceration is rehabilitation, maybe you’re asking: What kind of care does the Dane County Jail provide? What sort of mental health treatment or rehabilitation can one access in the Dane County Jail?

Spoiler alert: I’m still waiting to find out, but so far, not much at all. In fact, at the time I am dictating this entry, I am receiving discipline for a request I sent to the mental health unit. At this point in time I have been incarcerated for two weeks and I have yet to receive my medication that I’ve been prescribed since 2017. (Editor’s note: Eli was eventually able to start some of his meds. He received his HRT and SSRI 18 days after he reentered the jail. It took a full two months before they started a sleep med, and a medication that helps with PTSD symptoms. His other two meds, prescribed long-term outside jail with great efficacy, the jail will never provide him because they don’t deem them necessary, in spite of what his doctors say.) 

It is true, Mom, the order I submitted to mental health for approval did call them “ineffective, unethical idiots,” and helpfully encouraged them to “do their job barely adequately for once.” As a result, I am currently serving a one-week disciplinary sentence in which I am restricted from messaging communication as well as music privileges. It’s not really the end of the world.

I was given the chance to appeal this discipline, which I did. I confirmed that their accounts of my statements to mental health were accurate. I then advised the individual holding the disciplinary hearing that the behavioral health unit itself should be renamed as “The Beatings will Continue Until Morale Improves” unit. That sounds like an asshole thing to say. And it kind of is, but here’s why I said it. 

Mental health and I got off on bad terms. Reason being, the mental health unit here in the jail plays a huge role in deciding who stays in solitary confinement, and additionally, has the ability to decree that you do not leave solitary confinement. By prolonging an inmate’s label of having “mental health issues,” the jail was able to stall in making a decision as to how to house a transgender individual. By using my documented mental health issue as fodder, classification was able to justify not housing me in general population, and jail administration was able to rubber-stamp ridiculously constrictive housing options, (46 days in solitary confinement with no soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, or diversion of any kind). This was done despite the fact that administrative confinement facilities, just across the street in the Public Safety Building, were available, as they knew perfectly well. 

Here’s the reality: everyone who comes through the Dane County Jail has a mental health component to their trip here. It’s also the case that my experience is radically different than most people incarcerated here, whether in the City-County Building or the Public Safety Building, but it’s not like my history points to any particular danger to others that I pose. And yet, 99% of those people are not housed in solitary confinement. And one percent of those people are transgender, and I would wager to bet that that specific one percent is housed in solitary confinement for extended periods of time as a result of “mental health.”

You may also know solitary confinement by the name of segregation or “seg.” And this isn’t your plain old solitary confinement. If staff decide you are at risk of harming yourself, you end up in solitary confinement with something called “precautions.” 

Picture this: You are in mental health crisis, suicidal and desperate for any human interaction, as you’ve been trapped in a cement sensory deprivation chamber since your arrest. You scream for help until your throat is raw, but when someone finally comes, they handcuff you and eight deputies file into the room to force you onto the bed, and lay on top of you, holding you down. Your shirt, pants and underwear are ripped off. You are stripped naked in the cell by deputies. You are then dressed in a “turtle suit”. This is a sleeveless dress, attached with Velcro and fashioned from the same material as the anti-suicide blanket you are given (think kindergarten art smock, with nothing underneath.)  

Every single item is then removed from the cell except for a “mattress” (essentially a sandbag) wrapped in orange plastic. You are given no soap, no toothbrush or toothpaste, no comb, no shampoo or conditioner, not even toilet paper. It is you, a sandbag posing as a mattress, a cement block to put it on, and an empty room, also made of cement. 

You will be given nothing to pass the time or take your mind off how you feel; not even pieces of paper are allowed. No books, certainly no TV to watch. There is nothing in the room except for you and your sandbag. Well, nothing except what’s between your ears, and believe me, that can be plenty, especially after a day or so. While I was given 23 hours inside my “transgender haven” of solitary confinement with one hour out to make phone calls, when you are on precautions by mental health, you are in your cell for 24 hours a day. 

You can make zero phone calls to anybody for any reason. You don’t get any mail you may receive. You are allowed no visitors. You have no means of contacting even your attorney, and if your attorney comes to visit, they will be turned away. You will receive no commissary; you cannot order it. You receive your three meals through a slot in a metal door with a thin window, your only evidence that outside that door, the world continues to turn. 

The lights are on in the room at all hours of the day and night. During the daytime, a blinding spotlight shines down on you. At night it is nearly as bright. That one thick, green anti-suicide blanket you receive, presumably to sleep with, is your only possession. If you request even toilet paper, it is suggested that this blanket be used to clean yourself after going to the bathroom. 

You will sleep on a bare plastic mattress that sticks to your skin when you sweat under the hot, blinding spotlight. You receive no sheets, no other bedding, no pillow. You live in your own filth.

If your behavior is deemed to be even more “dangerous” during your stay, staff will wheel in a chair, and strap down your wrists, your shoulders and your ankles for your safety. Then they leave you in the blindingly bright room, lights on indefinitely, until you are deemed to be “safe.” 

As far as therapy goes, mental health will stop by once every 24 hours. They will “safety plan” with you. You’ll be asked a series of questions to see if you’ll agree to be done feeling sad and no longer threatening to yourself in the way of self-harm or suicide. If you’re lucky, and they believe what you have to say, you will be cleared from precautions, and you will be returned to jail. 

That’s the entire approach. They are taking people with mental illness, denying them meds, putting them in sensory deprivation chambers, and then punishing them further for not being on their best behavior. All while they are presumed innocent until proven guilty. That’s what this boils down to. 

This was my experience when I resisted being put on precautions. In my particular situation, I was cleared from precautions on day three. However, the assistant director of mental health left to enjoy a long weekend. As a result, I was left on precautions for eight full days. For eight days, I was in extra-solitary confinement for having mental illness while already being housed in solitary confinement for being trans. However, now, with clothing, personal items of any sort, the ability to leave for an hour a day, and the ability to make phone calls subtracted. That one hour, those phone calls, were the only things that were keeping me going, the only things I had to look forward to each day, and they took them from me to force me to be less suicidal. Like I said, The Beatings will Continue until Morale Improves.

The treatment of individuals in mental health crisis situations or any mental health disrepair is guaranteed to confirm any existing suicidal urges you may have. In my experience, the mental health unit of the Dane County Jail has one useful function that I’ve discovered. They will deliver huge amounts of lined paper to almost anywhere in the jail. This is extremely useful, as composition notebooks are $4.50 at commissary, and writing is therapeutic. How this function fell to the mental health unit instead of any other function, I am not sure, but I have not come across any other productive use of this unit within the jail. 

As somebody who majored in psychology and has spent time working in the field of psychology, as well as personally navigating the mental health system, I find the label of the mental health unit as a “mental health unit” insulting to the people who work in mental health. But let me make one thing clear. 

I worked within law enforcement, I understand the desire to join a system that some consider broken and “be the change you want to see in the world,” to try to repair it from within. But such change is so incremental as to be almost imperceptible, and I found myself unable to maintain the fiction that I was successful in doing so. 

Another response to this, one that I eventually took, was to be the “squeaky wheel” that gets the grease, to attempt to speak out within the institution. These attempts proved similarly unsuccessful and ultimately caused me additional mental health trauma while accomplishing no changes to the existing system.

The option that remained to me at this point was to disengage with a system I could not change. That was the option I took at the time, but that does not do anything to attack the problem or make any positive contributions that effect change. In the intervening months and years I have attempted to actively work for positive change – to be the change I wish to see in the world, not by being complicit with the institution, but challenging it. 

So, with that said, I don’t have any hostility towards any given member of the mental health unit. Possibly they are still in a phase of their careers where they think they can make an institutional change. But I feel that many have not even gotten there yet. They do not understand that they work for a system that is completely broken. They are cogs in a machine that is so far beyond repair, any attempt to fix it is futile.

Well Mom, I started this post intending to be uplifting, but even the lighter content borders on serious issues with our society, issues to which we cannot afford to turn a blind eye. It’s been a little dark lately (in December, both literally and figuratively), so let’s end this on a sillier note. 

Here’s a thing: I spilled my Kool-Aid packet on the white table, and now the table is pink, appropriately enough for lady jail. How’s that? Not all that funny? But it’s the little things, and the table is, in fact, pink. 

Still me,

-Eli