A NATIVE AMERICAN’S VIEWS OF VIRGINIA’S RED ONION STATE PRISON (2024) By Kevin “Rashid” Johnson (featuring an exchange with Arlen Hatten)

INTRODUCTION

During Jan 2024 I was transferred away from Virginia’s notoriously racist and abusive Red Onion State Prison, after participating in a group hunger strike protesting conditions at the prison. My strike ultimately lasted 71 days. I returned to the prison during Sept 2024 where I was placed in GP for just over a month, but was ultimately thrown in solitary confinement after officials claimed I was trying to procure weapons to attack guards after they attempted to instigate conflicts between me and other prisoners by trying to put hits on me and spread false rumors that I am a pedophile, rapist and snitch. Numerous prisoners came forward as witnesses to this to my attorneys. No weapons were recovered from me however, so an inmate informant, Dennis Webb, was used to implicate me in all this (in a statement he gave Red Onion investigators that I received copies of in litigation I had against Red Onion officials).

In the solitary cellblock I was housed in a cell next to Arlen Hatten, a Native American who was recently transferred to Red Onion from South Dakota. Arlen and I had many conversations and he witnessed my efforts to challenge and bring public attention to the conditions at Red Onion, which he commended. Although reluctant, he agreed to share and for me to publish his impressions about Red Onion, giving the perspectives of someone new to the prison and Va, who had no agenda for or against Va officials. This article expresses Arlen’s perspectives which he gave during an exchange between us in latter Nov 2024.

HERE’S ARLEN

Arlen was surprise transferred to Red Onion on Oct 6, 2024 directly from a South Dakota prison. He received no prior notice or hearing to facilitate nor contest the transfer.

Arlen is a registered Oglala Lakota Sioux, who was a spiritual leader among Native Americans in the South Dakota prison system. When he arrived at Red Onion he was escorted into the prison from the transport vehicle by a group of guards led by a lieutenant Joshua Massingill. Massingill made a lasting impression on Arlen with his first remarks to him, namely, “Don’t give officers here a hard time because we WILL fuck you up!” Arlen said he initially laughed in response, not thinking it was meant to be taken seriously. I asked if he now took it serious. He replied with a emphatic, “Yes!” I asked what changed his mind.

He responded that he has seen how quickly things can and do escalate from 0-to-100 with guards at the prison. Arlen said in just the the two months he had been at Red Onion, he’d seen guards repeatedy tear gas prisoners in the cellblock for next to nothing, many others he’d seen slammed face first to the floor or beaten while restrained from behind, others still he’d seen attacked by groups of guards dressed out in body riot armor.

He even witnessed an elderly prisoner beaten by a group of guards who just entered his cell and attacked him for no cause.

He noted the psychological effect of Red Onion on prisoners is that if they get out of line in the slightest way or guards even believe they have, the situation will instantly go from something small to something huge. Which induces a sense of terror, like experiencing an abusive parent.

He feels he was sent to Red Onion to instill fear in him; because he is not supposed to have gone there as a new admission to the Va prison system. As a new intake he was supposed to go to the Virginia DOC’s reception center, Nottoway Correctional Center, to be classified and orientated into the prison system. But, instead he was sent to a super-maximum security prison before he had even been classified to any security level at all. Worse still, once he was classified at Red Onion, he scored a level 3 security level which is medium security, meaning he didn’t meet the level 5 and 6 security levels of Red Onion and was by Va’s own prison policies never supposed to have been housed there.

Arlen said his biggest takeaway from observing and experiencing Red Onion officials is their total lack of decency or moral fiber. “They have no sense of right or wrong,” he noted. With them, “It’s my way or the highway.”

Arlen said Red Onion staff simply don’t treat prisoners as human beings, in which case they obviously didn’t regard them as such. He points out that their practices of hurting and abusing people only traumatizes the victims, worsening the problems. “They’re only doing more damage,” he pointed out. I responded that these officials have no intentions of helping us. Their abuse is motivated by disdain, hatred and a conditioned compulsion to dehumanize us, with which he agreed.

He noted that officials at Red Onion are deeply deceitful. They merely pay lip service to being humane, rule-abiding, and considerate, and one must take EVERYTHING they say with a grain of salt. They almost NEVER do what they say they will, when it is something of benefit or service to a prisoner. They lie as a matter of routine. He advises one to not believe anything they say. He says facility requests he writes never come back. When he first got to the prison he was told by counselors that they would contact his family and let them know where he was. They never did.

He observed that when around me all the guards were required to wear and activate body cameras. And with the cameras on their demeanor immediately changed from not talking or being arrogant and rude to being courteous and polite. But as soon as they turn the camera off they are not nice at all, and seem relieved to drop the act and take off their masks.

He says he avoids trouble with them by simply not talking to them or giving them any reason to notice him. He observes they are openly racist and he sees the way Blacks are treated at Red Onion a lot like he has experienced racism as a Native American. He wants to be away from Red Onion asap.