In February, I was transported from Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona, to the Idaho State Correctional Institution in Boise, Idaho, my home state. Under normal circumstances, that drive is nearly 1,000 miles and close to 15 hours long. But for a prison transport, it takes 26 hours. And you’re handcuffed the entire time.
I had arrived at SCC three and a half years earlier. As a solution to prison overcrowding, Idaho sent hundreds of prisoners to out-of-state prisons. The private prison is run by CoreCivic, formally known as Corrections Corporation of America, which was scrutinized heavily in the book “American Prison” by Shane Bauer. I had my share of unpleasant experiences, including harassment by staff.
Needless to say, I was happy to be going home.
Two weeks before my departure, I was notified of my transfer. At that point, I packed my property onto a cart and took it to be inventoried.
Before the inventory was conducted, I had requested a representative from the Idaho Department of Corrections be present to ensure the process was fair. I had known people who had important personal items confiscated. And many of mine were, including some books and a few plastic storage bins that were in excess of the allowable limit. SCC’s property officer wanted to take more, but fortunately the Idaho representative wouldn’t allow it.
Into a cardboard box went my books, a JPay tablet, a TV, legal papers, hobby craft supplies and my most prized possession, an MP3 player, among other personal items I had accrued over eight years of prison. The box was marked with my name and shipped to Idaho.
A waiting game
After the inventory, I was left with nothing but SCC-issued clothes and bedding and returned to my cell. I sat around with little to do for five days. I borrowed my cellie’s copy of “The 48 Laws of Power” by Robert Greene and reread it. I also played a mini-campaign of Dungeons & Dragons.
After the wait, I was escorted to the outtake building. The journey began.
At receiving and diagnostics, I was given a final middle-finger fingerprint, strip-searched and provided with a semi-transparent paper scrub uniform to wear. The material was cheaply made and easy to tear. The baby blue pants and V-neck shirt fit like a paper bag; they weren’t uncomfortable.
My identity was verified at least three times by different officers, each of whom compared the picture on my ID with my face. I then had to recite my inmate number after they yelled my name.
I was one of 30 leaving SCC for Idaho, so the outtake process took a couple of hours. Still, it ran smoothly.
The transport officers, employed by the prisoner transport company TransCor America, were polite and professional. On this particular trip, Sgt. Ambler was running the show along with five other guards. Ambler and his staff understood how grueling the trip would be and used humor and empathy to make us feel more at ease.
For example, there were four transportees named Brown. Ambler used that fact to poke fun and cast lighthearted blame on the Browns for any inconvenience or delay during the trip.
Torturous restraints
Right before we left, we were outfitted with leg irons and a snug belly chain. Handcuffs were attached through a loop in the chain and covered with a rigid black box that prevented access to the keyholes.
In a 2015 essay about prison transports, the author Daniel Genis wrote that the black box left him “only a 6-inch range of hand movement.” This is accurate, but the real cruelty in the black box is that by eliminating that flexibility of the handcuffs, the metal edges cut against the tissue and bones of the wrists.
The black box was the most torturous part of the trip. Imagine the old pillories that offenders once put their head and wrists into before being bombarded with fruit and rocks. Now remove the head hole, shrink the entire contraption to about the size of a Milk Duds box and you’ll have an idea what I’m talking about.
All aboard the transport bus
After everyone was identified and the black boxes and leg irons were secured, we exited a steel door at the back of the outtake room in a single-file line. We entered an asphalt and gravel yard near automated double gates topped with razor wire.
We paused here briefly. An SCC staff member I knew told me she hoped I did well where I was going. She also told me she’d miss reading my monthly newsletter, “The High Seas Of Saguaro,” which covered hope, self-help, enlightenment and life at SCC from June 2023 to January 2024.
Next, we were loaded onto a modern white bus with large, tinted windows. It was the size of a touring bus, like those used for musicians and sports teams.
The bus was divided into three sections, each partitioned by an expanded metal cage and doors. You could barely see from one end of the bus to the other.
The first section was the command post, complete with two bunks, a captain’s chair and desk, and the driver’s seat and steering wheel. During the trip, the transport officers would sleep in shifts. Ambler manned the captain’s chair, except when he slept in one of the bunks.
The second section held three security cages, each with seating for inmates. The third section held more seating for inmates as well as a caged bathroom and a guard post in the back.
The seats were bunched closely together. They were barely padded and had low back rests, which only came up to the middle of my torso. We were connected in pairs by 3-foot chains. I was chained next to a guy named Weigle. We made a pact to swap window and aisle views on our seat throughout the trip.
Goodbye, Arizona
Around 8 a.m. we left the prison. Weigle had lived in the area and pointed out a place he had worked as a carpenter, and the Arizona Cardinals football stadium.
Over time, we climbed out of the Phoenix valley and left the Saguaro cacti behind. We passed a grove of Joshua trees. The landscape was drastically different from the stagnant scenery of prison. It gave me hope for a future beyond prison’s high walls.
But that awe was contrasted with sharp pain. Within the first three hours, the handcuffs’ black box had already numbed my wrists. I felt a deep, aching pain from the bone of my forearm being contorted. My wrists were also swollen and there was no longer any gap between my wrists and the handcuffs.
Four hours into the trip, we arrived at a Love’s truck stop in central Arizona near a high-desert snow-peaked mountain. This was our first bathroom break and meal.
We had to pee in the back of the bus while still in restraints and chained to our partners. The transport officers did allow one hand free when making stool though. I declined that urge because there was pee all over the toilet seat.
Here, we received our first of two sack lunches. It contained four slices of heavily plastic-wrapped bread, two pieces of bologna, 1 ounce of pretzels, an apple, an 8-ounce bottle of water and a packet of juice mix. We had to put together the sandwiches ourselves while handcuffed.
The black boxes and belly chains made eating too difficult for many of us. It was challenging to undo the plastic wrap or bring the food to our mouths. I managed to make and eat my first round of sandwiches, but due to the intense swelling and pain in my wrists I didn’t attempt a second round.
Home sweet home
During the trip, there was no comfortable way to sleep. Any time I drifted to sleep, my face bashed into the hard plastic backrest of the seat ahead of me.
One guy’s wrist became so swollen during the trip that he had to have his handcuffs switched out with a larger pair somewhere near Las Vegas. He was even seen by medical staff when we finally arrived. My wrists were rubbed raw from the black box, and my nose felt like it was broken from bashing my face into the seat ahead of me so many times.
After more than a full day on the road, relief finally arrived. We pulled up to a guard tower near the heavily fortified gate of the Idaho State Correctional Institution.
I was excited to be back in my home state’s prison system, which is more fair-minded than SCC.
There are probably more humane ways to transfer prisoners, but I still appreciated the compassion of the transport staff. More than anything, I was glad to be gone from that private prison 1,000 miles from home.