From this vantage, a guard can see and control the doors of every cell on both sides. Bulletproof glass protects the center in the event that a gunman were to get past the metal detector, the sets of solid-steel doors and the armed guards that stand between the center and the prison entrance. Blocks A through E have a more expansive feel than maximum-security blocks F through I. Concrete and metal combine in the restricted housing unit building creating a claustrophobic feeling. A second block being built will house inmates at the next two lower security levels. The restricted housing unit blocks are stark, each containing two groups of 24 solitary-confinement cells that a control center resembling a concrete bunker separates.
Inmates share showers next to their cells but are handcuffed before, during and after bathing.
Handcuffs are placed on inmates through a slot in each solid-steel door before they leave their cells. In G Block, where death-row inmates live, there are three cells reserved for inmates whose death warrants have been signed. Those inmates are under 24-hour video surveillance. I hold this slow and daily tamperings with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body. SCI Greene opened the same year Eastern State Penitentiary reopened as a museum showcasing early U.S. penology.