Kneel

In solitary confinement at Red Onion State Prison in Virginia, before your cell door is ever opened, every time, for any reason, you will be ordered to strip completely naked.

A corrections officer will press his face against the skinny window in the cell door. He will slide the rusted metal plate that covers the slot in that door sideways. It slides with a metal-on-metal shriek. It is yanked hard, so it bangs open. Beyond that opening there will be a metal box attached to the outside of the door. The metal box will have a lid on top of it that has a plexiglass window in it. The box is coated with food from the three trays per day that are passed through it.

The officer at the skinny window will order you to take off all of your clothes and stuff them through the slot into the metal box. It does not matter that you were already in the act of removing your clothing, you will still be ordered to do so. Once you have stuffed all your clothing into the filthy metal box the officer will slam the slot closed. A second officer will be outside the cell door. The second officer will check your clothing for anything that could be considered a contraband item.

The first officer will keep watch over your naked body through the skinny window while the second officer takes his time checking your orange scrub top and bottom, T-shirt, socks, shoes, and underwear. The first officer will keep watch over your naked body while the second officer thoroughly inspects your meager attire. After your clothing has been searched for contraband, you will be ordered to stand naked in the center of the cell. Then you will be ordered to surrender all dignity as follows:

The officer at the skinny window will order you to raise your hands to the level of your head, palms forward, spread your fingers, run your hands through your hair, open your mouth, lift your tongue, pull down your bottom lip, lift your top lip, all while standing totally naked.

The officer will then order you to lift your penis, lift your scrotum, turn around, show the bottoms of both of your bare feet, squat down, spread your cheeks and cough. Once you have allowed officers to inspect parts of your body that no one else will ever see you will be given back the clothes that have already been searched for contraband. The officer at the window will watch as you put on your clothes.

Every time, before the cell door is opened, you will have to be handcuffed behind your back. You will stand with your back to the door. An officer will pull at your wrist as he attempts to handcuff you through the box past the slot. It will be aggressive. The cuffs will be tight.

Then you will be ordered to kneel.

When the door opens you will remain on your knees. You will not rise. You will not stir. You will kneel to be allowed to see a doctor because your illness is worse than the humiliation. You will kneel to see a dentist, for x-rays because it must be broken. To see the physical therapist after a knee surgery. Get on your knees for the option of showering three times per week. Get on your knees to go outside, into the dog cages, with their concrete floors and years of built-up filth, droppings, urine and rust. Kneel down to attend mandatory programming sessions where your shackles will be bolted to the foot of a metal table and your handcuffs will be moved to the front and padlocked to a metal cord on the top of the table. Kneel to go to those same tables if the officers decide that that is all you get as an alternative for your recreation, when they decide that that is all you get because they don’t want to take you outside to the dog cages.

The officer will say, “Kneel down,” when you are already on one knee headed for two, when you already know because you did this yesterday when he was here. But he will say it anyway, so that it is done by his commanding it.

Then he will tell you to move back some so that your feet are outside of the cell door. He will tell you this when you are already kneeling. He will tell you to do this so you will be walking backwards on your knees. For whatever reason you have for leaving the cell he will be telling you that if you want to leave your cell you will have to walk backwards on your knees. He is telling you to crawl.

But first you will kneel. You will lower yourself in the presence of the officers. You will kneel like peasants did for kings and queens. Kneel, like worshipers do for gods, like the condemned do for their executioners, like prisoners do for corrections officers. To leave the cell you will kneel, like whores do for johns.

Once the officers have had you on your knees for a sufficient amount of time your ankles will then be shackled in heavy metal cuffs with a short chain in between. The shackles will either be ratcheted too tight or tighter. All of this will be done at the officer’s speed, by his discretion, his decision, no sooner. Until all of this is done, the officers will stand over you while you stay on your knees.

And after you have been stripped naked, after you have been ordered to show every individual inch of your skin to the officer at the window, front back and underside, after you have had your clothes searched and returned to you, you’ve dressed, been handcuffed, knelt, after you have crawled, and been shackled, you will be told to stand. And, after all of that, you will still receive a “pat down.” An officer will rub his hands up and down, in between, all over your body just to check to make sure that you could not possibly have any dignity hidden anywhere.

I spent two years surrendering my own dignity in solitary confinement. This was the price for a chance to see general population again. I voluntarily displayed myself for officers when I had to. The worst were those corrections officers whose eyes never rose above my waist, even when I was ordered to lift my tongue for inspection.

I cannot describe the feeling.

This practice is unnecessary. The shower has openings at the bottom so there is no reason to kneel when officers take off and put on the shackles and handcuffs to leave you inside and to get you to take you back to your cell. There are identical openings in the dog cage doors. It is only when exiting the cell that you kneel and then again when you are back inside.

The penalty for not kneeling before the officers who demand it is getting your cell filled with tear gas. If you don’t comply after that, then you will get a violent cell extraction where a group of officers will enter your cell with an electrified shield, wearing riot gear and you are very forcibly handcuffed and shackled after many punches and kicks.

Of all the institutional indignities this is the most painful. It does not become routine. It never seems like just another hurdle. No one could get used to it.