California Prisons

Let me begin this summary stating that this institution is and has been overcrowded. The actual count it is supposed to hold escapes me, but I am very sure it has been exceeded by 2000. The overpopulation is very apparent since we now are stacked on triple bunk beds which were once doubles. The gymnasiums have been converted into housing units which hold up to 200+ people in an area designed for full court basketball. The inmate to correctional guard ratio is around 50 to 1. As a result of the overpopulation, there have been many infections caused by poor sanitation and the close quartering. Infections range from Staph to ringworm and even tetanus. Not to mention the fact that the facility was built in an area that has a high rate of valley fever.

The food is meager, but I really shouldn’t complain since there are far worse prisons in other countries. Protein makes few appearances in this diet. Medical has been slightly revived in the last few months since the federal government’s threats to come in and clean the place up. A lot of people look forward to them coming in, but we will have to wait and see if they really change anything. Luckily, mail here isn’t heavily censored, but things often change quickly around here.

One of the things I have noticed is the fact that this prison houses a lot of lifers. Now, you would wonder why does this prison accept so many lifers, but it is easily observed when you see the work rosters for PIA (Prison Industry Authority). They employ a large number of lifers to work in their factories for small wages. In facility II, where I currently reside, we have the furniture factory where the inmates make furniture for resale to the state. Where these profits go, no one knows. Information is kept and rarely shared with the prison population, causing a lot of frustration and uncertainty.

This is just a brief summary to outline some of the conditions that we live in. A lot of the prison population states that these conditions have been getting worse. We remain vigilant for any improvements.

I must say that I am indeed a prisoner who is against the hegemonic domination of Amerika over nations and I believe imperialism is the primary struggle to fight again. I believe that the Amerikkkan injustices system is the most fascistic aspect in amerikkkan society and is a tool perpetuating national oppression and social control. I indeed want to see stronger organization and unity against Amerikkkan domination. The USW seems to be a major need and must to the brothas and sistas locked behind these bars nationwide. Because I indeed understand that knowledge is power, and without it you are weak. And right now the prisoners of California are real weak (but only to the oppression of this enslavement). We need real live educational resources that’ll teach the forwardance of this struggle against the “free and almighty land of Amerikkka,” and you can beta believe they aren’t going to give it to us. That’s why we have to take it and pass it on, and enforce this revolutionary lit at all times, while at the same, realizing the following.

It’s known to the mass populations of California Department of Corrections that IGI (Institution Gang Investigator) and ISU (Institution Security Unit) are not trying to let prisoners become educated on a real level, because it’ll have us all united, and we know here in California that’s against everything they stand for (which is the oppression of us and all our families.) California has a Gang Validation law that gives these two prison agencies the authority to hand out indeterminate SHU terms to prisoners who they believe to be involved in a prison gang (such as the Black Guerrilla Family, Nazi Low Riders, Mexican Mafia, etc.)

Take notice that I said “believe”, versus “are”, in a prison gang. Now these are indeed actual prison gangs that are still in existence to this day, but they are also labels placed on inmates who are politically active in trying to educate the general population. With one of the set labels, they are justified (on paper) when they throw you under the prison (indeterminately) and forget about you. If resources provide it, look up the case of Steve M. Castillo vs. Edward S. Alameida Jr in the US District Court of the Northern District of California, case number C-94-2847-MJJ-JCS. It will show you in black and white how they do it.

At the moment I’m in the SHU and I’m in a cell by myself. I try to use this time of solitude to really, really focus on educating my mind about this struggle we all face. Although a lot of brothers on the main lines (general population) are afraid of that validation lawn, and therefore lay down to the oppression when they fail in their duty to preach the real to those who are blind and are dying for their help. I’d rather go out on my feed than on my knees any day. Although I’m young in age, teach me and I’ll indeed teach them.

If we properly prepare for the battle, then we know who we’re up against and can be ready. Don’t be quick to shout out who you’re with and what you’re about, because as I said “divide and conquer” is one of their tactics and it has worked well. That’s the reason for the Inmate Task Force (ITF), rats and infiltrators who play the ears to and for the CIA/FPI/ATF wannabes and prevent the educating of the blind behind bars.

They understand that education is knowledge and knowledge is power. That’s why [our literature] is censored and rejected when being sent through mail. They say it is a threat towards the safety and security of the institution. Wow! And that’s on paper? What happened to the land of the free? As human beings, weather we’re incarcerated or not, in this country we are appointed civil rights. We gotta start standing up together and demand those rights. I believe through United Struggle from Within (USW) we can get that done.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has instituted a ban on educational material within prisons, categorically censoring all literature sent by MIM’s prisoner education program. This ban was mandated by Scott Kernan, Director of the Division of Adult Institutions for California, in a memorandum issued December 13, 2006 “directing an immediate ban on the receipt, possession, or distribution of literature/publications from MIM to or by inmates in the custody of the CDCR.” This ban has been interpreted by prisons to include dictionaries and history books as well as MIM’s own magazine and newspapers. In some prisons the ban has been interpreted to also include all letters written by MIM.

This censorship is in direct violation of legal precedent which requires review of mail for content that violates prison policy. Systematic rejection of all mail from an organization based on disagreement with the sender’s politics is not legal, even within the prison system’s own rules and regulations.

Neither Kernan nor the prison administrators applying the ban have ever supplied any evidence that MIM literature (much less, letters, dictionaries and other books MIM sends to prisoners) present any threat to the institutions. Kernan’s letter contains a review of the MIM political line as supposed evidence that MIM represents some danger to California prisons. The California Code Of Regulations (CCR) Title 15, sec: 3135(b) states: “Disagreement with the senders or receivers apparent moral values, attitudes veracity, or choice of words will not be used by correctional staff as a reason for disallowing or delaying mail. Correctional staff shall not challenge or confront the sender or receiver with such value judgments, nor shall such value judgments be considered in any action affecting the correspondents.” Further, in Procunier v. Martinez, the Supreme Court upholds the right of prisoners to receive mail, regardless of the prison official’s opinion of the mail content, as long as there are no legitimate restrictions from the prison related to correctional purposes.

There is a strong correlation between education and imprisonment. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (the U.$. Department of Justice’s own organization) latest study on 1997 population data, 41% of State and Federal prisoners had not completed high school. This compares with 18% of the general population age 18 and older.(1) Things look even worse among prisoners age 20 to 39 showing that the trend is towards more prisoners without a high school education as younger prisoners are even less educated than older prisoners. Other more recent studies have shown this trend continues. The likelihood of ending up in prison is tremendously higher for young Black men who drop out of school before getting a high school diploma. And a college degree is further protection against imprisonment.

On the other side of education, in-prison education programs have repeatedly been shown to reduce recidivism by helping prisoners to find jobs and opportunities once they are released. Individual and meta studies repeatedly conclude the same thing:

“Since 1990, the literature has shown that prisoners who attend educational programs while they are incarcerated are less likely to return to prison following their release. Studies in several states have indicated that recidivism rates have declined where inmates have received an appropriate education. Furthermore, the right kind of educational program leads to less violence by inmates involved in the programs and a more positive prison environment.”(2)

California already has one of the highest recidivism rates in the country, with an astronomical 70% of released prisoners ending up back inside within three years. And in recent years we have seen education programs, visitation, and even mail cut back so that prisoners are left with very little to do behind bars and a virtually impossible task of going straight from prison to the streets with no education or transitional services.

Implementing a state-wide ban of educational material from MIM is one more way to keep prisoners locked up. Prisoners who read our literature frequently tell us they learn to channel their time into productive activities rather than participating in violence behind bars. And the education helps them have a better chance at staying on the street once they are released. We get letters pleading for reading materials like this one all the time: “I’m an inmate at Salinas Valley State Prison and am on a yard that’s been on lockdown off and on for approximately 4 years. Therefore I’m unable to get to the library here. I’ve read every ‘floater’ here. I would be very grateful for any soft back books you could send. Anything you send will be read and reread by many inmates.” Surely the CDC”R” knows there is a demand for reading materials in the prisons, but they don’t even bother to fill this void with fluff novels. They prefer to spend their large budget on higher salaries for brutal guards and legal defense for their illegal activities like setting up prisoner fights for sport.

Of course, the CDC”R” does have reasons to ban MIM from the prisons. Educating prisoners is counter to their goal. With education comes consciousness, and while prisoners working with MIM report avoiding violent confrontations (both with their peers and with guards), they are also more likely to take up legal and administrative appeals, and to educate and organize their fellow prisoners to stand up for their legal rights. As one California prisoner wrote to us in October of last year:

“In extending my respects to all, I would also like to convey my heartfelt appreciation to everyone working at, working with and/or affiliated with Maoist Internationalist Movement for all that you do and the services you provide. Especially, in regards to prisoners. Speaking from personal experience I can say that in receiving and reading your newsletters, it’s both a major source of motivation and encouragement. To say that your MIM Notes have served me well does not cover any specifics, but I can say that your notes have been a potent ingredient towards my transformation: and your free books to prisoners program has nurtured and fed me like a baby at his mother’s bosom. The books you have been so generous to send have taught me to respect and value the importance of an education…an education that has taught me that with knowledge comes enormous responsibility. The responsibility that arises from not just knowing the difference between what is said to be right, or wrong, testing an deciphering, truth and lies, but knowing and acting in accordance with what is consistent and progressive in the exercise of self determination and self defense.”

We will continue to pursue the fight against this ban in California, working closely with our comrades behind bars to challenge this action in court if necessary. We encourage the CDCR leadership and California state politicians to step forward and overturn this illegal ban before they are forced to waste money needlessly in a legal battle that will only further expose their disregard for Rehabilitation, the welfare of prisoners, and the very laws they claim to uphold.

We need support from prisoners to join this struggle, and support from people on the outside to demand an end to this ban. Write protest letters to: James Tilton, Secretary, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 1515 S. Street, Sacramento, CA 95184

1. Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report: Education and Correctional Populations, January 2003 2. Journal of Correctional Education, v55 n4, p297-305, December 2004. See also The Nation, March 4, 2005: “Studies have clearly shown that participants in prison education, vocation and work programs have recidivism rates 20-60 percent lower than those of nonparticipants. Another recent major study of prisoners found that participants in education programs were 29 percent less likely to end up back in prison, and that participants earned higher wages upon release.”

“We have about 50% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. In this situation, we cannot fail but to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real test in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction - unreal objectives such as rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization.” - George Kennan (U.S. State Department, 1948, Policy Planning Staff)

The above realpolitik or geo-political strategic assessment here quoted ought to put to death all Liberal or social-democratic dreams of the naïve that Amerika is somehow the “good guy” nation on a mission of manifest destiny to bring freedom and justice to oppressed and exploited “uncivilized children” of the world. To actually believe such obvious deception in propaganda and professed public policy of the state and corporations places one in a position of outright complicity with imperialism and white supremacy and operates to mock the very principles of justice and human freedom.

Invariably, when we hear or read or see something regarding concentration camps the immediate image which we conjure without fail are those dealing or associated with the Jewish Holocaust. Perhaps on rare occasions we recall images of the Japanese-Amerikans internment in concentration camps during World War II in the bastion of “democracy” where no German-Amerikans were subject to similar oppressive treatment even though the U.S. was also at war (i.e. imperialist blood-death nation-state engagements by use of their patriotic immersed subordinate and compliant classes as always) with its white supremacist’s brethren Nazi Germany. Vaguely or almost never does anyone recall the imprisonment of Afrikans in Mussolini’s and Hitler’s concentration camps and most certainly absolutely no memory of the First Nations forced marches into united states concentration camps from whence Hitler learned the lesson as a faithful student.

Although these historical atrocities and acts of inhumane repression are no doubt extremely significant and deserving of our sympathetic remembrance and understanding of the political interests and strategic motives that drove them or were involved, these examples of concentration camps are not the ones that I actually have in mind. No, the koncentration kamps are not the ones that I actually have in mind. No, the koncentration kamps that I have in mind are in fact not of some distant or recent past, and neither am I referring to modern day prison plantations for the poor and nationally and/or racially oppressed. The Koncentration Kamps which I have in mind are instead alive and up and running most efficiently in virtually every corner of the world and their rate of blatant and subtle extermination and enslavement far exceeds those above in their incessant and insatiable operations for capital accumulation, i.e. Globalization.

In fact, it can be rightly argued that those examples of people being forced into koncentration kamps and denied their basic human rights were the direct consequence of and indeed prosecuted ultimately by the exact same criminally monstrous phenomenon which is hardly dead or has not been dismantled but is still savagely afoot and gaining momentous raving powers. The oppressive and brutally murderous Koncentration Kamps which I am here referring to is what has been defined politically as Imperialism. Imperialism is precisely that - a koncentration of kamps. Terms like that of “neo-liberalism,” “globalization,” “world market,” etc. are nothing more than deceptive euphemisms deployed to disguise from us the real enemy in which we are confronted and enclosed. To a great extent “he is an old enemy” merely returned in sly new form and with new tricks and treats in tactics as his strategic objective of economic, socio-cultural and politico-military domination remains ever malevolent in its motives.

In Marxist and Leninist terms or political philosophy, imperialism in its “modern” manifestation revolves around the concentration and monopolization of capital by corporations and the penetration of this capital into the global economy resulting, as calculated, in the domination of various or innumerable nation-states whose local economies become nothing more than horse tracks or gambling casinos for imperialist powers from Amerika, France, Canada, Britian, Japan, Germany, etc to bet (invest) in as they maneuver to secure a predominant or influential foothold in the country of target, thus placing themselves in an advantageous position to engage in the exploitation of superprofits via markets, banks, cheap wage labor in industries, theft of raw materials, natural resources, debt-loans, etc.

In other words, it is the accumulation of greater and greater capital (wealth and power) in the hands of multinational corporations from countries which are of the imperialist koncentration kamps. The bulk of the earth’s wealth (every creature’s survival source) is either directly or indirectly under these empires or their corporations domination as they exploit and oppress the Third World.

They pursue and employ a concentrated economic, political and military strategy aimed at securing and sustaining their rapacious death-grip on resources and cheap labor to generate enormous profits for each of their respective kamps, i.e. the spoils of imperialist methods of monopoly-damnation and extermination. Truth be told, the world is a koncentration kamp by the operative measures of imperialism on all fronts (e.g., wars of aggression for oil, economic embargos that literally kill thousands of children as happened in Iraq, IMF/World Bank extortion programs which force reductions in social services like that of heath care, education, and workers to work at lower wages even as the value of local currency decreases by command, famines due to man-made soil contamination by mining methods, etc.).

“I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenue in. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers…I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras ‘Right’ for American fruit companies in 1903. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints.” - Marine Corps General, Smedly D. Butler

Why do y’all really think world misleaders such as the G-8, or is it the G-9 now, concentrate annually in kamps in secluded and heavily guarded imperialist home fronts? Why does every U.$. President meet with corporate executives or owners at Kamp David where they scheme in concentration? What is ultimately the European Union project about but that of imperialist ambitions, i.e., greater penetration and expansion of capital into Afrika, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin Amerika, etc. The G-8 meets in conspiracy to not only resolve their geo-political contradictions but also to discuss a collective strategic program aimed toward consolidation of imperialist interests projected and superimposed on the Third World.

The wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq are very instructive examples of just how koncentration kamps are in definite pursuit of globalization of its economic, political, and military imperatives. At the pinnacle of the primitive accumulation pyramid are multinational corporations (e.g., DeBeers, Lockheed-Martin, Exxon-Mobile, Royal Dutch-Shell, BP-Amoco, Wal-Mart, Starbucket, Carlyle, Bectel, Halliburton and too many more to list from especially the G-8 nations.) They are in pursuit of cobalt, gas, oil, diamonds, rubber, gold, etc.

Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, et al. are another “Texas Alamo” calculating stunt on behalf of the U.S. as it required a pretext to wage wars aimed at checking competitors and destroying nationalization of resources by methods of “hostile takeovers” against weaker nation-states by imperialist enclosures or what I dub koncentration kamps

MIM(Prisons) replies: We believe the term imperialism is sufficient for representing the system of global multinational domination of capitalism described in this article and so we do not see reason for the added descriptor of “koncentration kamps.” But this article is a good overview of the death and destruction brought on the Third World by the world’s imperialist countries.

I am a youngster serving time in one of California’s control units - Tehachapi - and although I haven’t been here long and don’t have much longer to be here, I already have much to say about it and prison in general. But then again, wh owouldn’t in a place where you could compare your lifestyle and living to that of a caged animal?

Twice a day you have contact with someone other than your cellie (that is if you have a cellie). They approach your door opening that small tray slot of your steel door, throwing a meal at you for breakfast in the early hours of the morning. Then you receive a meal for dinner at the late hours of mid-evening.

I understand that it may seem that this is a lot better than it could be, seeing how there are people around the world who are starving. But I ask you, how much worse can things get in this land of the so-called free? When you are served half cooked, spoiled meat in a pot of grease. Then given a mixer of maltodextrin, ascorbic acid, aspartame, and acesulfame K as your beverage to wash it all down. How much worse can it get, when you’re given concrete and slabs of steel for beds to lay on, and told to sit like a trained dog, for sometimes 24 hours a day with no movement.

You probably know already that the pigs have put MIM on their blacklist to be censored again. Despite the court verdicts saying that any censorship be based on the item in question, not the political beliefs of the publishers. Yeah, these pigs are actually happy and proud of their ability to block out the facts MIM provides us. The crono they gave out just said MIM, not MIM Notes or MIM Theory, just the group they hate. Nothing new though because they’ve always hated being exposed as fascists, like their pillow case masks are a matter of government safety and it is another way to defend bourgeois hegemony.

I was thinking that after MIM wins the legal battle against Corcoran’s personal attack on their ideas, the other publications they hate will also win freedom from being blocked, based on publisher.

I just want you comrades to know that we are still fighting the tyranny and we know you are also. The struggle continues. I feel that U.S. imperialism is on its last legs and that all the hate and enemies they have made are catching up to them. 50 million African Americans, 40 million Latinos in America, 20 million Asians, the yankee Ku Klux is gonna have it very hard, conquering all this! And 400 million Arabs, 1 billion Chinese, 1 billion Indians. These pigs that thought they won a new state, when George Bush used the U.S. military to fight his family feud with Saddam, are in for a rude awakening and will perish in their disgrace and sickness of chauvinism.

I remember all the boasts and brags, about how they were gonna crusade and burn crosses on Iraq’s lawn and conquer and settle, but now, 3 trillion dollars later all they have is depleted uranium poison, 4000 dead, I don’t know 30,000 wounded? And a ticket back to their nest.

Just like you taught us. The revolution will become reality as their military becomes over-extended in its campaign to colonize and dictate. MIM, you have to write an article about the facts of global oil reserves and touch on the time limit that this imperial collapse will happen, so that people will be prepared to take their own destiny, their own responsibility in their own hands. Just like the communist manifesto says, where the free development of each is the conditions for the free development of all.

MIM responds: This is a good commentary tying censorship to the global situation of imperialist overextension. In response to the request for an article on global oil reserves, we need our comrades, both behind bars and on the streets, to take up the task of writing the articles that are needed. Just supplying us with ideas is not enough as we never have enough people to cover all the important global events. Even in prison, our comrades are resourceful about finding needed research materials.

Revolutionary greetings to your staff. I just received your letter with the information on prison censorship. I’m fully schooled with the state’s so-called laws. In the past I have not had any problems receiving MIM Notes or the study books. I fully understand that problems do come up behind the hands of the oppressor. This is why freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Let’s test the water for now and please start sending me educational material. The struggle can not be stopped, I refuse to let them take control of my mind. I’m 50 years old, been in prison on and off for 30 years, and now three strikes have me. I refuse to lay down on myself or other oppressed people. The most dangerous weapon in this world is a fully focused mind.

MIM adds: MIM was banned in California prisons by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in December of 2006. We are working with our comrades behind bars to fight this ban. We need support from prisoners to join this struggle, and support from people on the outside to demand an end to this ban. Write protest letters to: James Tilton, Secretary, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 1515 S. Street, Sacramento, CA 95184

I am writing to let MIM comrades be informed on ever more injustice in our so-called system. As of today I have been awaiting trial almost four and a half years, since I was sixteen years old. At sixteen I was placed in a juvenile facility, then the day after my eighteenth birthday was placed in West Valley Detention Center for women in California.

There is not one program at this facility for those awaiting trial - we barely have a library that contains mostly old romance novels. I am not even convicted and have no access to any legal or educational materials. The facility will only provide “Christian” religious materials so any other religions basically do without unless materials can be provided by the outside. We even have some of our religious materials sent back saying they are “gang-related materials” because they are not common beliefs.

How am I to defend myself if I can not get any law books, or educate myself with no real library or any programs? I am 20 years old and have been facing 25 to life since age 16. I now sit idle with my life in the hands of California’s injustice system.

Those who have no financial support must also do without personal hygiene and writing materials as these things are not provided free to indigent inmates. Our canteen prices are so high you’d think they could pay to provide us with something! At least get rid of all the gnats, roaches and rats in our facility! Some prisoners here are even kept in ad-seg for their whole waiting process with no real infractions.

I am only one young female inmate and I need the help from my comrades to fight this ridiculous system. I hope to be able to help in this fight, but I can’t do it alone.

Greetings from one of the realms of concrete and steel within California’s massive prison industrial complex on the central coast in the sleazy valley. In my efforts to re-obtain copies of some records that have been improperly seized I have presented numerous written requests to prisoncrats who tend to ignore such requests.

If or when a prisoner seeks to present such matters on administrative appeals they are customarily mysteriously lost or screened out by the appeals coordinator who acts as a risk manager who systematically rejects administrative appeals on any manufactured ruse he can phantom with impunity, so after going through such headaches one tends to seek alternative means of accomplishing his endeavors.

The California legislature enacted California government code section 6250 which in the pertinent part states “that access to information concerning the conduct of the people’s business is a fundamental and necessary right of every person in this state.” This being a right and not a privilege when you look a bit further 6252 definitions sub (c) “persons” include any natural person, etc. sub (d) “public agency” means any state or local agency. Sub (e) “public records” include any writing containing information relating to the conduct of the public’s business prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency regardless of physical form or characteristics, etc. sub (f) “writing” means any handwriting, typewriting, printing, photostating, photographing, photocopying….any record thereby created, regardless of the manner in which the record has been stored. Sub (g) “member of the public” means any person…etc.

The definitions nowhere state that a prisoner is not a person so the provisions should be equally applicable for a prisoner as it applies to anyone else one. Now pursuant to 6253(c) “each agency, upon a request for a copy of records, shall within 10 days from receipt of the request determine whether the request, in whole or in part, seeks copies of disclosable public records…” sub (d) “nothing in this chapter shall be construed to permit an agency to delay or obstruct the inspection or copying of public records…”

When considering the mandatory language of 6253(d) one would conclude that the legislature did not intend for any state agency, including the CDCR to have the right to delay or obstruct anyone from the obtaining of non-confidential public records. In fact 6258 “proceedings to enforce right to inspect or to receive copy of record” state: “any person may institute proceedings for injunctive or declaratory relief or writ of mandate in any court of competent jurisdiction to enforce his or her right to inspect or to receive a copy of any public record or class of public records under this chapter…”

All of this is quite clear and simple language, right? I challenge everyone to look up the public records act commencing at California government code section 6250-6276. Nowhere does it say that anyone can adopt regulations that are not applicable or conflict with the public records act provisions. Section 6253.4 reads “agency regulation and guidelines which authorize every agency to adopt regulations stating the procedures to be followed when making its records available in accordance with the section”. In fact at 6253.4 (b) “guidelines and regulations adopted pursuant to this section shall be consistent with all other sections of chapter and shall reflect the intention of the legislature to make records accessible…”

How then can the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation simply ignore a prisoner’s public records act request? When one presents the matter to the court for consideration, the state court would then take the position that the petitioner has failed to exhaust administrative remedies pursuant to 15 CCR 3084.1 because he is under the jurisdiction of the department! Yet no where in the provisions of the public records act do I see where it states that the provisions of Cal Gov. C. 6250 does not apply to persons under the jurisdiction of the CDCR or revoke the right to access public records.

It is wrong to compel a prisoner to submit an administrative appeal regarding obtaining a non-confidential information needed as of a result of a federal court order that directed the plaintiff to add some other specific information to an amended complaint within a specified amount of time. Prisoncrats know this and purposely seek to cause the prisoner to not comply with the federal order so as to indirectly cause an action to be dismissed for non-compliance with the courts directive. Well luckily I was able to make some of the required corrections without a complete copy of the administrative appeals. This problem serves to further expose the injustice that prisoners are subjected to in the pursuit of the legally guaranteed rights. Not to mention that a 602 can take over 6 months administratively.

It is with pleasure, plus an urgency now that I have had time to read and sift through the MIM Notes you have sent me. As I began to go over the MIM Notes I noticed a lot of times we are of similar minds in the same thinking mode.

I am in a position to sue this particular institution/prison for what one can call straight out medical negligence. I have already begun with the grievance part being submitted.

I came to this institution in April of 2005. I was diagnosed with cancer in April of 2007. In May or June I had a seizure that busted my lower lip. At that point I began to submit paperwork as well as complain about pain, also bleeding that never was able to be stopped or controlled in any way.

It was as though my complaints of pain, as well as visual bleeding, sometimes even cracked lips, were of no concern, or even taken seriously. It was in early 2007 that a psychiatrist took it upon herself to get involved. I had been telling her about how much pain that I was in constantly, and this institution’s yard doctor at that time would not send me out to an outside doctor or hospital for a real consultation. Instead for some reason they kept trying to keep it all in house. I kept telling her that they were trying to hide something, sweep something under the rug, even trying to slip something past me knowing my mental health was not up to par at times.

I was finally diagnosed with a type of cancer that attacked my lower lip mostly on the right side. I have had surgery on the bottom lip, as well as my throat cut. All this in a 9.5 hour surgery. I am doing radiation now 5 days a week, and I will probably have another surgery once radiation is finished.

I have taken it upon myself to get all my medical records Xeroxed in case this ever gets into a he says - she says predicament. Now my problem is I need a lawyer, I want to sue as well as expose the medical mistreatment in this system. It took close to two years to get the actual medical help that I needed and deserved to have. I have all the names of the players as well as their positions, plus their positions when it comes to me and this matter.

MIM adds: We hope that by publishing stories like this one we will both inform our readers about the injustice and outright negligence in the Amerikan prison system, and also inspire our readers to get involved in the fight against the criminal injustice system. It’s not just individual cases that need to be tackled, but the entire system that is causing unnecessary deaths and suffering. The health care in California prisons is so bad that U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson placed the prison health care system in receivership in 2005 after finding it responsible for as many as 34 prisoner deaths and far more cases of negligence.