Protests in Colorado Win Some Improved Conditions
Fremont Correctional Facility (FCF) was recently supplying labor energies (human cattle) to 2-3 other correctional facilities within the Canon City Industrial Corrections Complex to cook, clean and do maintenance (and previously build) these maximum security facilities, and paying us very low wages. We were driven back and forth daily to maintain these other facilities, which included daily strip-outs and other various degrading experiences.
Due to administrative budget cuts and pressure from passive resistance labor strike movement protestors, FCF prisoners will no longer be forced into working and maintaining those job assignments as of (approximately) 21 February 2012. But, those facilities are opening up for “incentive” living units: single cell occupancy with a TV. Hobby work items such as color pens and pencils are also being added to the monthly catalog canteen and we are no longer in need of special “hobby permits” in order to obtain those items.
On the down side, I was just recently released from “punitive segregation” and am being charged $122 for two bursts of OC [pepper spray] that were sprayed on me and fogged my domicile, and which also saturated an FCF library book, for which the library has charged me $29.95 to replace. I am also being charged for lost and/or destroyed (missing) bed sheets, not accounted for with my personal and private property withheld from me during my wrongful stay in punitive segregation. I was occupying my domicile sanctuary in protest against administrative corruption and for the inalienable rights to vote on all matters concerning my liberty interests.
Also while in punitive segregation I had mailed out many letters to other comrades within the facility and many of those letters were never received and CDOC did not notify me or the addressees of their interception.
MIM(Prisons) adds: These local protests that lead to improvements in conditions for prisoners are a good example of what is possible with greater unity. We stress the importance of building a United Front for Peace in Prisons to expand our ability to fight for legal rights while building a broader movement to educate and organize the prison population for fundamental, revolutionary change that will bring an end to the criminal injustice system in its entirety.
