Editor’s note: This is a letter from an inmate at Ouachita Parish Correctional Center.
Dear Editor;
There have been a number of unreported happenings at OCC.
There have been a lot of stabbing here at Ouachita Correctional Center, because a lot of us guys trying to get transferred from here because we have two years and some guys got up to 30 to 40 years left and got to be left here at a parish jail.
Now, from January to the month of June there have been 10 or more serious stabbings and other violence such as people getting hit, over 20 of them plus over more than 100 fights from January to the month of June, and over 50 to 100 more fights that the Deputies have not stopped or turned a blind eye to, cause there is camera’s everywhere is why I say turn a blind eye to.
Now, this is only on the men’s side, not including the women’s side and I can imagine they are trying to get transferred as well.
Now, they have guys when it is the D.O.C. – Department of Correction policy for D.O.C. inmate to go to immediate family members funeral when a family member call the Chaplain at whichever facility they are at, but even after they are approved to go to the funeral, and here at Ouachita Correctional Center still do not get to go, and if that or those inmates was at any other D.O.C. facility besides O.C.C. would get to go.
And, this is another reason why we D.O.C. Inmates trying to get transferred from Ouachita Correctional Center which is Parish jail for West Monroe, Monroe, and Richwood Louisiana.
Our families, during this pandemic, have only a limited amount of money resource, but O.C.C. commissary prices are heartless, when one Roman noodle which is about 12 cents to 20 cents in society, but here at Ouachita Correctional Center is it’s 95 cents + 5 cents tax which equal a dollar for Ramen noodle, which is not right and is heartless, and every other item is unreal, and how could a person who got two years to up to 30 to 40 years left going to be forced to be left here at a Parish jail and the jail refuse to shift any D.O.C. inmates with this kind of time. A lot of us with this kind of time cannot do enough to get transferred from this parish jail.
Also, two more things that are a problem, the same company providing D.O.C. prison commissary is the same company providing Ouachita Correctional Center and the prices here are three times more than D.O.C. prisons or other D.O.C. facilities.
The times we get outside in a month here at Ouachita Correctional Center is what we get in a week in the D.O.C. prison facility. We even got a COVID 19 vaccine shot so we can be transferred cause we got from 2 to 40 years left and some of the guys were brought here back in 2017 who have already been incarcerated 10 to 30 years and been trying to get transferred from Ouachita Correctional Center.
Some of us just got sentences during the pandemic and got 2 to 30 years to do. The issues here have not gotten better and will not get better. We’re just trying to get transferred that’s all.
By Roderick Bernard Matthews
