Brutality Under Color of State Law
As I laid there on my prison issued bunk, nursing my wounds and pains, I thought back to the very day I was sentenced to prison. Did my sentence also include occasional excessive force? Did the judge also pronounce contrived rule violations as part of my sentence? Were all my constitutional rights relinquished that day? I don’t recall the judge asserting anything to that fact. But evidently, brutality perpetuated Under the Color of State Law is an inherited trait of prison.
The term “Under Color of State Law” means that civil rights were violated by an individual or individuals who at the time of the violation were employed by the local, State, or Federal government.
Since brutality under Color of State Law is so prevalent, it would be appropriate if the sentencing Judge would state the obvious during the sentencing phase of whatever crime a person was convicted of. The Judge could say something to the fact, “I’m sentencing you to 10 years in prison, plus some occasional excessive force, which will be administrated by various rogue Correctional Officers throughout the course of your confinement. In addition, you will also be subjected to several contrived rule violations. The frequency of these false rule reports will depend on the utter lack of integrity and the psychopathy of each rogue Officer.” At least this information would give a person facing incarceration a heads up. Time to mentally prepare themselves for the Guantanamo Bay-style treatment that will be visited upon them.
During the course of Correctional Officer B. Johnson’s assault on me, I felt as if I were somehow transported to a Third World country where human rights and regulation did not exist. Apparently, my assailant felt the same. How else could he feel so at ease with openly violating my civil rights, right there in front of two other officers, who evidently concurred with B. Johnson’s views on civil rights? Maybe the three officers forgot they were in Amerika? That they were correctional officers employed to uphold the law in a system governed by the U.S. Constitution? Or just maybe they forgot that I am a human being? Officer B. Johnson did call me a “Jungle Bunny.” But if that were the case, shouldn’t animal rights have protected me that night? Here in America, if you harm an animal, you will go to jail. Who knows what the three officer’s were or were not thinking. Whatever it was, the shear, sadism of it all was revealed that night.
The assault was witnessed by two prisoners. Both were housed in a cell that gave them a direct view of the incident as it took place. One prisoner, who initially claimed that he witnessed the assault, later recanted his story. He became a confidential informant. He had alleged to the investigating Officers that I conspired to falsely write up B. Johnson for assault. He was originally placed in the hole for a cell fight, whereupon he threw hot boiling water on his cellmate. His cellmate received 3rd degree burns on his face and chest area. At that time he was facing a segregated program (SHU term) for assault on a prisoner with a weapon (hot water), causing serious injury. Also a possible DA referral. But all that disappeared after he provided false confidential information concerning B. Johnson’s role in the assault. This prisoner was released from the hole and placed on Corcoran’s SNY yard, which is a protective custody yard, equivalent to Disneyland.
Officer B. Jonson, has a history of assaulting prisoners in handcuffs. Now I have a permanent shoulder injury. I will need surgery at some point. I have received physical therapy treatment.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this comrade’s assessment that prison sentences in Amerika come with implicit brutality and both physical and mental abuse. These go well beyond the legal punishments supposedly a part of criminal “justice” in this country. As this abuse is standard in Amerikan prisons, we disagree that the perpetrators are “rogue officers.” We need to expose this systematic brutality and organize towards a level of unity that will make it very difficult for individuals to turn against their fellow prisoners, and where the guards know that we have the numbers to fight back and prevent this violence.
