But that's what department officials are asking you to believe. If anything about that explanation strikes you about as phony as the old soap pistol, read on. The hunger strike on Death Row was, in fact, an exercise in frustration, as are most such desperate actions. It was a protest against conditions which, under the administration of Warden Gregory Harmon, have grown increasingly arbitrary, heavy-handed, and, at times, unconstitutional. That way, inmates know that they will be rewarded for abiding by the rules and punished for breaking them.
Guards too feel safer in such a reasonable climate.
But this is not how Harmon runs the Maximum Security Unit. Here, an inmate may comply with regulations and still be punished at the warden's whim. Mail is being withheld. It is common for friends and families of inmates to send books and other legal items by mail, only to subsequently learn that the inmate never has received them. Once when I sent a book and the inmate inquired about it, he was told that no book was received.