ALLEGES CRIMES COMMITTED BY PRISON OFFICIALS
by Sharon Rondeau
(Sep. 25, 2017) — On Monday The Post & Email received a letter from an inmate at the South Central Correctional Facility (SCCF) in Clifton, TN stating that the prison “has been on lockdown since Thursday without running water or water for drinking, no air conditioning, and using the toilet without flushing, locked in a cell with another person…”
In the letter, which is dated September 19, he wrote that the prison managers cited in the subject line of his letter (“RE”) are allowing “criminal, barbarous and duhumanizing act(s)” [sic] to take place.
Private prison operator CoreCivic owns and operates the facility under the supervision of the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC).
The inmate who supplied the information is one we have heard from before and who The Post & Email believes is a very reliable source. The same inmate previously sent us a letter reporting the existence of bedbugs in at least one part of the institution, a claim that had been presented to Channel 4 in Nashville earlier this month when an SCCF inmate mailed dead bugs to the station. In turn, Channel 4 supplied the bugs to an expert who confirmed that the bugs did, in fact, belong to that species.
In the third and fourth paragraphs, the inmate alleged violations of Tennessee Code Annotated (TCA) 39-16-404, 39-16-403(b), and 39-16-402.
The first law refers to “Misconduct Involving Public Officials and Employees” and reads:
The second law to which he referred, 39-16-403(b), is a subsection of a four-pronged statute covering “official oppression” on the part of government officials.
The inmate directly quoted from a portion of the third law allegedly broken, TCA 39-16-402, which states:
The body of his letter reads:
He additionally provided a tip which The Post & Email will be investigating.