William Blake Transferred To Attica Solitary:  Update on Novel “Caged to Kill.”

I regret taking so long to write a blog post about William Blake and my novel, Caged to Kill. The past few months have been painful and it’s painful for me to write this update.

But before getting into the events of the past few months, I want to note that the petition to change the laws in New York and to release William Blake from solitary has received 1,011 signatures.  Thank you to all those who have signed the petition. If you haven’t signed it, you can do so at this link. 

Over the past month, I lost contact with Billy. I mailed a letter to him while he was still at Great Meadow Correctional facility in Comstock, New York on June 28. It was received July 1 as date stamped by the Great Meadow mailing room. But even though Billy was not transferred to Attica (pictured in this post) until July 11, he did not get my mail while he was at Great Meadow. Instead, my letter followed him to Attica where he finally received it on July 24, almost one month later.

I could have literally walked the letter to him in Attica faster than it took for him to get it through the New York State prison system. Getting mail is so important to inmates in solitary because it is really the only contact they have with people on the outside.  

I got a letter in response a few days ago from Billy. He is still in solitary in Attica and, as of the date of his letter, he has still not received his property from Great Meadow. This has been a recurring problem for him every time he transfers which, on average, is about every five or six years. You see, with nothing but four walls in his life, he finds an identity in his property. By property, I’m talking mainly about his books, letters, legal papers, and writings. I know that his property has gone missing before when he has been transferred. One time, he lost a manuscript for a book he wrote.  By denying or delaying Billy’s access to his property, they have cruelly stripped him of his identity as a human being. Doing this to someone in solitary is the definition of torture.     

At the time of his letter to me, Billy had four postage stamps to his name and two of those came from the kindness of others.  Now he has three stamps after sending a letter to me. He is a man trapped in a box with only a few postage stamps. I cannot send him stamps in the mail because that would be considered contraband. According to the rules, inmates in solitary can only receive books, periodicals, and legal materials in the mail.

They have told him that he is in a pilot step-down program to get out of solitary. Only thing is, they haven’t given him the details of how long he will be in this program. “Program” might be too strong a word to use here. They can’t or won’t tell him how long he will be in this so-called program. You would think that the existence of such a program would have been announced by New York State, but I can’t locate any material on the program, if there really is one .

In essence, his stay in any step-down program is indefinite, just like his sentence to solitary has been indefinite, going on thirty-three years.

And this is precisely why legislation like the HALT solitary bill is needed.  In my view, the system, left by itself, is absolutely incapable of admitting that enough is enough. The system just keeps him and others in solitary because it’s the easiest thing to do and that’s what it’s always done. There’s just too much internal resistance and paperwork to deal with to give this man the chance to live in the general population.  

As for now, nothing has changed for Billy except the location of his solitary cell. He has a television in his cell but he’s not allowed to use it. He is allowed one phone call per month.  And if he’ good for the next four months, he will earn a total of two phone calls per month. He might be getting an hour more of recreation time per day at Attica.   

It pains me that I won’t be able to visit him anytime soon. What used to a day car trip to Comstock for me will now at least be a two-day overnight trip with a hotel stay near Attica. I hope he gets visitors, but I’m afraid he won’t and that pains me too.   

I am also in pain because the HALT Solitary bill in New York failed to make it to the floor for a vote in June this past legislative session, despite having enough votes in both houses to pass. The legislation got pushed to the back of the bus and supporters were told to wait at the curb. Then, on the last day of the legislative session, the bill got shoved out of the rear door of the bus as it pulled away. Supporters were stunned to see it go splat on the pavement.    

There’s enough blame to go around for that epic failure. And, unfortunately, it all stems from the fact that not enough people care.

Period.

That’s the sad truth. It’s the way it’s been for decades. Not enough people give a rat’s ass about prisoners in solitary and actions of the legislators and the governor during this last session are representative of that sentiment.  This legislation should have had a front seat on the bus because stopping the torture of people should be a priority. The governor should have been driving the bus.  

Now if the prisoners in solitary were puppies or kittens, there would be people protesting 24/7 at the prisons and demanding an end to it. The movement would go viral. A Twitter jury would be convened and people would be tried and convicted in a matter of minutes. No appeal.

But men and women? Forget about it. We figure they deserve what they’re getting otherwise they wouldn’t be in solitary. You know, they are there because they belong there. How could anyone argue with that crisp logic?

Perhaps you say, “This guy is full of it. They all belong there.  They must. We’d never do something so cruel. Honey, what’s for dinner tonight?”

I know this mistaken belief doesn’t apply to William Blake. I’ve done the research. I’m sure there are more like him. Lost and forgotten in solitary.

And that’s the mistaken belief that has most of us doing nothing about it.

Same as it ever was.

We’ll do anything, anything at all, except think about the people in solitary.

Think.

Think that you are alone in room the size of a small bathroom.

No windows.

You sleep on a cot the size of a bathtub.

They let you out for an hour per day to wander in a cage.

Voices in agony echo outside your room.

Someone down the hall is banging on his/her cell door throughout each day.

Food is given to you through a slot in the door.

You are now on day 11,986 of your captivity—going on 33 years—when the United Nations says that more than 15 days is too much.    

Had enough yet?

Need to stop reading?

Exactly my point.

And so it goes.

Year after year.

Nothing changes.

Except for the calendar.

The head of the prisons in New York cracks a joke about solitary and people in the legislature laugh at while the United Nations condemns the practice of solitary in New York and specifically names William Blake as a victim.

There is not enough family or victims of solitary for some politicians to care about. People in solitary don’t vote. The voices of family members aren’t heard except by other past victims or the families of other victims.   

The media says nothing about the laughter. Crickets. NYSCOBA  (The  New York State Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association) runs continuous advertisements on television and the radio telling us what a fine job they are doing in protecting New Yorkers. It’s a tough job for sure and there are a lot of fine correctional people who are doing good work. Still, a lot of money is changing hands between NYSCOBA and the media. Is the money buying something more than ad time?        

Our President seems to get all the attention these days. People love to love him or love to hate him. What did he tweet today?  So much time wasted. Issues like solitary confinement are ignored.

The United States Supreme Court loves to quote Charles Dickens in its opinions about solitary, but can’t or doesn’t do anything about the condition.  Hey, maybe it’s time for a road trip for the Justices.  Maybe they can pay some visits to actual people in solitary TODAY and work on some prose of their own.  At least use some prose from prisoners themselves trapped in solitary today. Dear Justices, I’ve got plenty of poems and letters here in my office. Call me.     

Dickens had access to solitary confinement cells. It’s interesting that the cells he observed were bigger than they are now. Yet, as a writer, I can’t get access to the cells in New York today. The year Dickens visited prisoners in solitary was 1842. How is that for progress measured over 177 years?  

177 years since solitary was criticized by Dickens and the practice still continues today. Like I said, the only thing that changes is the calendar.

The United States Supreme Court has addressed slavery, Jim Crow laws, and civil rights since 1842, but evidently the slavery of solitary can’t be reached or is too much to handle. Solitary confinement disproportionately affects people of color. In essence, it is a civil rights issue.

Out of sight, out of mind.

We still live in Dickens’ time.

Think about that while the sounds of torture play in your head.

Meanwhile, there are a few people in the anti–solitary movement who have united themselves against my novel, Caged to Kill. Yes, you read that right. These people don’t get it. They criticize the book as a work of fiction with plot twists and all the elements of a thriller.

Caged to Kill was written to expose people who have never considered the issue of solitary confinement and never would consider it if it wasn’t for the entertainment factor inherent in the novel.

Preaching or writing to like-minded people who are already against solitary alone doesn’t cause monumental change.  In order to create monumental change, you need all the support you can muster from all types of people from all different walks of life. You can’t claim to own the anti-solitary movement like some of these critics have. You need to be inclusive, not exclusive to create monumental change.  I’ve got history (start with 177 years) to back me on that point in addition to the failure in the New York State legislature this past session.

Now these self-appointed critics could approach Caged to Kill differently and use it as a springboard to discuss the issue of solitary confinement from their perspective. But no, their goal seems to be to isolate the book and hurt its sales. Such is life in the hate-filled environment we live in today. If they could, they’d probably ban the book, even burn it.

Here’s the rub. Solitary confinement doesn’t work for inmates and it doesn’t work for books either. Note the irony in what these folks are trying to accomplish with Caged to Kill.

Caged to Kill has the support of Gilbert King, a Pulitzer Prize winning author on the topic of civil rights. He gets it:  “Tom Swyers has written not just a suspenseful and chilling work of fiction, but an important treatise on solitary confinement and mass incarceration in America. Anyone interested in criminal justice reform should be prepared to have their eyes opened after reading Caged to Kill.”

One critic wrote that Caged to Kill actually does a disservice to the people in solitary confinement. Really?  One inmate housed in solitary for fifteen years wrote this review about the novel:  “Evocative! I laughed, got angry, and became sad–all in the first chapter. And it carried all the way through moving seamlessly from intense suspense to killer thriller, arousing feelings long dormant as it ends in a heartfelt delight.” 

Caged to Kill continues to sell better on Amazon than most any traditional non-fiction book dealing with solitary confinement. These other books are good and I have bought and I have read many of them. But these non-fiction books are priced way too high and their publishers don’t give any ebooks away for free to reach new readers.  I spent over $25 to buy and deliver a new hardcover copy of one of them to Billy. The net effect is that these books primarily reach readers who are already against solitary confinement or who are strongly inclined to have that opinion already. Obviously, that’s not enough people to cause change. Again, I’ve got history (start with 177 years) to back me on that point in addition to the failure in the New York State legislature this past session.

I’ve given away copies of Caged to Kill for free to help the cause and the reviews show that it’s reached people who have never thought about the topic. I will continue to do so. But for now it’s one book floating in a sea of books.

People read it. I see the number of pages being read daily on my computer through my Amazon platform—about 40,000 pages per month in the Kindle Unlimited program.  More pages are being read through individual ebook and paperback sales, but I can’t measure those reads. People wouldn’t read it if they didn’t find merit to it.

Still only 1-3% of all readers take thirty seconds of their lives to leave some words of support in the form of a review on Amazon.  That’s been my experience with any book whether it’s my book or a book written by another author. That’s too bad because more positive reviews might help trigger Amazon’s algorithms to show the book to more readers. And more readers means more supporters which all translates into change.

If only these people in solitary were puppies or kittens. People would write positive reviews in defense of them.

Are readers in shock after reading Caged to Kill? At a loss for words?  Who knows.

We all leave tips for waiters and waitresses at restaurants. 

I guess thirty seconds of time is too much to ask to leave a review to help spread the word, to help stop the cruelty, to help end solitary confinement.

Thirty seconds versus thirty plus years alone in a box.

It’s just too much to ask.

If only I were a waiter, not a writer . . . if only the people in solitary were puppies and kittens, not people.

I’m signing off for now. It’s 5:00 a.m. and I’m going to write a letter to Billy. I will send him some books from my library too. It’s the least I can do. In fact, it’s really the only thing I can do for now.

When I’m done, will I rest easy knowing that I’ve done something positive for him by sending him books?  Yes, he’ll be able to read again. But only while he’s being tortured.

In the back of my mind, I picture Billy as a puppy.  I feel like I’m throwing him a bone before someone kicks him.  

Did I mention that writing this update is painful?

Tom Swyers is an award-winning, Amazon best-selling author of three standalone novels in the Lawyer David Thompson series: Saving Babe Ruth,  The Killdeer Connection, and Caged to Kill.

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