veteran of the secure housing unit. out of sight, out of mind. the outside world, out of sight, out of mind. they don t probably don t want to know what goes on in here. the population of the shu lives on 23-hour lockdown. leaving their cells only for showers and solitary recreation. some people will tell you that segregation unit is not the place for people with mental illness because we didn t design that particular unit for treatment. particularly for mental health treatment. we just didn t anticipate us having the numbers we have and going the way it s gone. although acute cases are referred to the psychiatric unit at a neighboring correctional institution, the staff in the shu deal with a variety of mental behaviors. there are those that are dangerous people, that you have to be very cautious of when you interact with them. inmate douglas mccombs, who is serving time for burglary, has spent three months in the security housing unit at wabash.
yeah. how are you doing? so i see people when they need to be seen, when they asked to be seen, when somebody else thinks they need to be seen. i will see what s wrong, see what can be done in the institution to help them cope. the only way i can get out of this mood, i mean, i don t care, you can give me drugs, alcohol. the only way i can get out of moods is through self-injury. okay. group therapy in the shoe is conducted with each inmate locked in a separate holding cell. dr. sims moderates this small group of self-mutilators. once i see my blood, i m in another world. i m a different i m someone totally different from myself. i mean, that s the only time i actually, you know, can actually feel real, feel alive, and feel like everything s going to be okay. for me, it s being in control. my whole life, i felt like i wasn t in control. but then when i had times when i do cut myself, i m in control of the situation. there are a group of people that self-injure when
little more exciting. we had an offender who became belligerent in the shower. the offender was mccombs who told us he had good reason to be upset. try to get me to take a shower. but they don t have no soap or nothing. i said, ma am, i just came from the other side, it was nasty where i come from. i need something to wash, a bar of soap. she s talking crazy to me. right. she come up here and talking to me and started, talked to me, well you [ bleep ], you called me a [ bleep ], and i said wait a minute. i said, i just asked you for some [ bleep ], and i snapped on her. he threatened to kill everybody out there. staff and all. when we tried to get him to come out of the shower, he was refusing, and started throwing toilet water on myself and several other staff members. i got it all through my face. all down my back. it was toilet water. our cameras were present when mccombs was moved from his cell. but because he is so dangerous, we were restricted to shooting
valley correctional facility, officers in the security housing unit were dealing with the latest in a string of violent incidents involving convicted burglar, douglas mccombs. since he s been inside the shu, he s been on strip cell. when you see the offender coming out of his cell only wearing his underwear, he was on strip cell for resisting staff or trying to assault staff before. we have had trouble with him on about every range we ve put him on so far. i can t get along with people too much. especially when they re evil. one of the people mccombs claims was evil, officer sachen. an average day in the shu can be pretty mundane. you have rec and showers to do. chow to serve, md sick call, so on and so forth. some days like today get a
from the unit s security center. i ll be on your ass every time you come [ bleep ]. i will need your hand, i tell you something, you start throwing [ bleep ] water and i will be on your [ bleep ] every time you come through the seven! easy. easy. easy. put him on the wall first. we say put him on the wall. have him face the wall. we want him facing the wall. we don t want him turning his head, getting mouthy and this and that. that s when you get spit on. we want his nose to the wall. i don t want to talk to him. he can talk to the wall. face the wall. turn around. face the wall. [ bleep ] sit up there and talk to him. face the wall. [ bleep ]. why don t you [ bleep ]. [ bleep ] why don t you just [ bleep ] [ bleep ]. i m tired of your [ bleep ]. stand still. mccombs freely admitted to