Florida Prisons

All of our readers who operate within the hideous belly of the beast that is the United $nakes prison system know about this system’s cruel and unrelenting oppression in every facet of daily life. This article serves to highlight and expose the asinine nature of one particular aspect of this oppression that is particularly relevant to our work: censorship. Every time we send out a document, book, or newspaper, there is always the risk that whatever pig is working in the mail room on the day it arrives will arbitrarily opt to censor it for any number of made-up reasons. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, this behavior has the backing of the U.$. court system which has granted the prison bureaucrats almost total control over deciding what comes into prisons. Like every other instrument of control wielded by the state, the pigs use this power to repress the masses of the oppressed groups, especially if this repression targets political content that challenges the status quo.

However, there are still victories to be won in appealing these cases of censorship, which comrades in Anti-Imperialist Prisoner Support (AIPS) are striving to do for every incident that comes to our attention. With this in mind, we hope to start publishing these censorship reports as a way to communicate to you, our readers, our efforts in combating censorship as well as to showcase particularly pathetic attempts by the pigs to censor our mail.

North Carolina’s Brazen Hypocrisy

In ULK 84, we included a piece of art sent in by a subscriber of ours which depicted a pig officer beating a prisoner with a baton. This was apparently too far for the North Carolina Division of Prisons (NCDOP) who said that they don’t allow “depictions of violence” and that this image “may encourage a group disruption.” We simply had to scoff when we read this in light of the fact that the NCDOP specifically lays out guidelines on when it is “appropriate” to beat prisoners with “impact weapons” like the baton depicted in the art. To the pigs, it’s fine to physically abuse and maim prisoners. But showing them a cartoon of such acts? That’s where they draw the line.

MIM(Prisons): Political Organization or Tattoo Artists?

MIM Distributors recently sent a copy of the Fundamental Political Line of the Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons (FPL) (which we recommend to all our readers who wish to get a deeper understanding of our organization’s politics) to a comrade serving time in the heinous Florida Department of Corrections. Usually the FPL gets through to prisoners fine, so we were a bit surprised to receive a censorship notice in this case. This unfortunately means that FPL is now on the Florida ban list, preventing any Florida prisoners from doing our intro study course (they were already prevented from doing our 12 Step Program). And the official reason listed for this censorship? That the FPL contained an image “large and distinctive enough to be used as a tattoo pattern.” This was truly a new one for this author (though our records show it’s been done before). Apparently, sending any sort of art can justify censorship if some pig decides the art might make a good tattoo! The silver lining to this abuse of power is that it provides the perfect example of how the pigs will use any justification to achieve their goals of repressing the masses.

Indiana Finds “Drugs” in Our Letters

The third and final case of censorship we’ll discuss is more aptly described as a crusade against one of our comrades in Indiana. Nearly every issue of ULK or any other mail we send to this comrade is censored for some inane reason usually relating to our alleged promotion of “Security Threat Groups.” We think it’s more likely that the state has it out for our comrade though, seeing as ey are currently filing a lawsuit against one of the pigs at the Indiana Department of Corrections. Recently though, the mail room at the facility this comrade is imprisoned in decided that MIM(Prisons) had laced one of their letters with drugs. Not only this, they threatened the comrade with a year in lock up and to take away all of eir legal work. After sending our letter off to the lab it turns out that the “drugs” were simply some ink that got smeared. When the oppressed simply try to survive, the pigs will resort to beatings, administrative punishments, and acts of sabotage. But when the pigs are caught actively lying to facilitate such cruel acts, the oppressed get nothing, not even an apology.

In spite of this brutal repression, our comrade in Indiana is continuing on with eir lawsuit in an attempt to expose and hold accountable the pigs who think they can just violate the rights of prisoners without a second thought. If you’d like to read more about our campaign to support this prisoner as well as ways you can help, look to our campaign linked below (or p. 16 of ULK).

The Runaway Slave Coalition is an umbrella where lumpen sets of the various street organizations operate under MIM(Prisons)’s United Front for Peace in Prisons - Statement of Principles.

I have already taken measures to develop peace and unity between factions here at the Bay Correctional Facility in Panama City, Florida. As a basis here we are opposing oppression of prisoners and oppressed people in general. Work has begun, and we will campaign around the September 9th Day of Peace and Solidarity.

The objective this month is getting every organization on the compound to make sure every member of their various organizations send a short, one paragraph letter to the USW Council pledging allegiance to the Runaway Slave Movement and making sure every member of the various respective organizations are on MIM(Prisons) newsletter subscription list.

MIM(Prisons) adds: Greetings to the Runaway Slave Coalition and all associates in Florida that are working towards a united front of the oppressed. This comrade wrote asking for certification and official sanction for eir group. We do not certify anyone who is not a member of MIM(Prisons). And no one locked in prison can be a member of MIM(Prisons). United Struggle for Within (USW) is an independent org working under our leadership. This means they should not be promoting things that disagree with our 6 main points (see page 2 of ULK) - if so, they are no longer USW as they have broken their charter. Even if they are acting under the broad definition of USW as an anti-imperialist prisoner organization, that does not mean we agree with everything they say or do, and we do not have any say in their day-to-day operations. In the case where someone reports a USW member breaking USW policy, even then it is hard for us to investigate or intervene.

Similarly many organizations have signed onto the UFPP, but that doesn’t mean we agree with everything they say or do. We have only pledged to agree to the 5 principles of the UFPP. This is how united fronts work, everyone maintains organizational independence, while uniting around common goals or principles (see MIM Theory 14: United Front for more info).

Anyone can write to us to get Under Lock & Key in U.$. prisons. Just because someone is distributing ULK or claiming they have articles published in ULK does not mean that we endorse them. Everyone should be judged by their actions. USW comrades must be accountable to the masses. Ultimately it is the masses at your locality that must judge the correctness of a USW leader or chapter, not MIM(Prisons). We do our best to support comrades from a distance in these endeavors.

Usually we would be writing you via JPay tablet, but here at Suwannee Correctional Institution, the content of our emails regarding prison conditions would get us censored, deleted, and bring retaliation against us in one way or another.

We are writing with the intent of informing you of prison conditions here:

1. Overseer abuse and brutality of prisoners; for example:

22 November 2023, there was the death, possible murder of prisoner Germaine French in confinement, P-dorm. Overseers are saying that he hung himself from the cell water sprinkler, but such is impossible, whereas, the cell water sprinklers do not extend out of the wall enough to tie anything, especially not the hanging of a body.

12 December 2023, Sgt. Finney gassed (pepper sprayed) a prisoner, with an expired canister, then beat em outside of N-dorm. This prisoner was informed that Sgt. Finney had been terminated, however, on 1 January 2024, Sgt. Finney pepper sprayed a mentally ill prisoner in the chow hall in the middle of dinner meals. Sgt. Finney pepper sprayed this prisoner to impress Female Sgt. Aldridge, who stood by laughing while prisoners coughed and gagged trying to hurry out of the chow hall leaving our food untouched. Sgt. Finney is still here threatening to gas and beat prisoners and using profanity and abusive language toward prisoners.

2. Food Service

All the trays are caked up with brown and black scum and mold from not being properly washed or scrubbed.

Prisoners working in food service are being threatened with confinement if caught putting too much food on the trays.

Food portions are so exiguous, prisoners are risking confinement and brutality doubling back, sneaking back in line trying to avoid hunger.

3. WiFi:

Overseers are controlling the WiFi, cutting WiFi on and off, high and low, preventing prisoners from listening to or watching podcast and/or movies.

4. Deleting outgoing emails:

STG (Security Threat Group) and mail room personnel are unconstitutionally censoring, withholding/delaying and/or deleting outgoing emails in retaliation where emails are about prison conditions, overseer abuse, brutality and even murder of prisoners in handcuffs or in secure cells, not being a threat to anyone.

5. Collective punishment

The entire O-dormitory was placed on lockdown (28 December 2023) from after dinner till breakfast, due to one or a few prisoners not walking in single file line to and/or from dinner, creating and perpetuating a hostile environment, leading to prisoner-on-prisoner conflicts, arguments, fighting and/or stabbings, based on the orders of Captain Demouro.

On 16 November 2023, Captain Demouro conducted a shake down (mass search) in O-I dormitory in retaliation, all due to one prisoner checking in. Captain Demouro entered the wing and had his overseers toss every prisoner’s personal property all over the cell. Again, all in the means of creating and perpetuating a hostile environment, resulting in prisoner-on-prisoner violence. Divide and rule, while referring to prisoners as “fuck boy” and “fuck face”, etc.

6. Medical

Sick call being submitted via drop box rather than in person wherein which prisoners can obtain signed carbon copy for record keeping. By conducting sick call request via drop box, prisoners sick call request come up missing, no matter how sick they may be, they may not be seen.

7. Body Cams

Majority of overseers here are wearing body cams, which only get turned on when convenient for overseers and FDOC. Society will never see or hear the reality and brutality. Body cams are only for show, they’re not continually recording.

8. Surveillance Video

No surveillance videos on dormitory sally ports, a blind spot where overseers abuse and brutalize handcuffed prisoners, rendering the sally ports the most dangerous spaces at Suwannee C.I.

9. Captain Demouro leads the way in use of abusive and threatening language and profanity. Threatening to gas and beat prisoners who write him up.

10. O-dormitory overseers keeping prisoners on lockdown way after count clears. O-dormitory prisoners are still on lockdown while every other dorm is out attending callouts (prison appointments), recreation, etc. O-dormitory prisoners are being treated as if in confinement. Same apply to legal mail access.

11. One overseer, Linblade, has been working in O-dorm since 2012, despite policy that overseers can only work the same post for 18 months.

12. Trashing submitted grievances

Grievances placed in drop box by prisoners are not being processed, logged, or returned. Grievance Coordinator is throwing grievances in the trash, denying prisoners First Amendment rights, with no video surveillance at drop box and no carbon copies on grievance forms, prisoners cannot prove they submitted grievances, or obtain copies for record keeping. Discouraging and hindering the grievance process, which makes prisoners feel hopeless and in fear of intimidation and retaliation.

We bring these issues to your attention, whereas, it is a known fact that public opinion is the most effective tool and means of bringing any kind of relief or betterment on the inside. We are voiceless without you on the outside and we ask that you speak for us. The rules apply only to and against us, prisoners.

13. Air Circulation

Please note that as of current, the entire O-dormitory at Suwannee C.I. has no exhaust fan, no air circulation in all 4 quads, prisoners (myself included) are sick, sniffing, coughing, sneezing. Upon entering any of the wings, you can smell nothing but human bodies and sweat, as if in the belly of a slave ship.

The exhaust fans has been broken over a year now, prior to my arriving here. In November 2023, several prisoners and I submitted grievances, those grievances never returned. They were thrown in the trash by the grievance coordinator. We have also complained verbally to dormitory inspectors, white shirts, warden, etc, all to no avail. There are no windows in this building, O-dormitory.

This document is being sent out to any and all outside support people and organizations, we are trying to get as many people outside to at least call or send as many emails as possible (and spread the word) to FDOC Secretary, Ricky Dixon, Region II regional director, John Palmer, and Suwannee C.I. warden, Michael Lane, regarding the issues mentioned above. We need all the outside support we can possibly get.

Please and thank you, in egalitarian solidarity and struggle.

This year Tennessee banned all forms of slavery in the state. Now I’m trying to find out how to fight to get fair wages for work. If you can send info on how to fight that, that would be great.

A Florida Prisoner writes: Do you guys know the steps California prisoners took to gain their liberation from being treated as slaves under the 13th Amendment of the Constitution? I need to know the steps they took because I would like to initiate these same steps in the Florida prison system to see if we can also gain our liberation under the 13th.

A Texas Prisoner writes: This is a plea for us to come together in a prolonged effort to get the Texas Legislature to end slavery in Texas by removing the exception clause from the Texas Constitution. This is what we’re asking each and every one of you to do: From now until the Texas Legislature convenes, write to your state Representatives and Senators and ask them to convene a special session or whatever it takes to remove this clause. You should also write to Sunset Advisory Commission PO Box 13066 Austin, TX 78711.

Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) responds: In the November 2022 elections the vast majority of Tennessee voters voted to amend their state constitution to read:

“Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.”

We print the first two comrades’ questions for others to answer. We’ve been asking for years what the point of these campaigns to amend the Constitution is? How does this get us closer to liberation, not to mention just benefiting prisoners in the short-term? An attempt to search for increases in prisoner wages in Tennessee just brings up articles on massive increases in C.O. pay (prior to the above amendment).

As for California, the Constitution still says slavery is okay for the convicted felon. So there’s been no “liberation” in that regard. California prisoners are required to work or engage in other programs deemed rehabilitative by the state. While California legislators have cited cost concerns for not supporting amending the Constitution, it is not clear that states that have changed their constitutions in this regard have had financial impacts (especially by requirements to pay prisoners higher wages).

If our readers have information to the contrary or examples of these campaigns leading to anything, please write up an article for ULK. But we know from a historical materialist understanding that slavery has only been ended through class struggle, not by voting or writing your Senator.

Comrades, I know most of you are aware of the fact that we are a study specimen for experimental purposes but let me give you some details about one of these experiments that most of you are familiar with.

“Behavior Control & Human Experimentation”

These are two names with the same meaning: Behavior Modification & Special Holding Units.

SHU -> These are units that have been specifically designed to control behavior. Here is where human experimentation is legal. The purpose of these experiments is to control rebellious and revolutionary attitudes in the prison system and in society at large. In several instances the control units have been used to “Silence Prison Movement Criticism”. In 1964 at a meeting in Washington between social scientists and prison wardens addressing the topics of “man against man”, brainwashing was said to produce marked changes of behavior in attitudes necessary to weaken, undermine & remove the supports of the old patterns of behavior and old ideologies attitudes. It’s often necessary to break these emotional ties. This can be done by either removing the individual physically, preventing communication with those whom the prisoner cares about, or by proving to him that those whom he respects aren’t worthy of it and should indeed be actively mistrusted.

I will share a few specific examples:

1. Physical removal of prisoners from those they respect to positively break and seriously weaken close emotional ties

2. Segregation of natural leaders

3. Use of cooperative prisoners as “leaders”

4. Prohibition of group activities not in line with brainwashing objectives

5. Spying on prisoners & reporting back private material

6. Tricking prisoners to write statements which are then shown to others

7. Exploitation of opportunists & informers

8. Convincing prisoners they can trust no one

9. Treating those who are willing to collaborate in more lenient ways than those who are not

10. Punishing those who show an uncooperative attitudes

11. Systemic withholding of mail

12. Preventing contact with anyone unsympathetic to the method of treatment & regimen of captive populace

13. Building a group conviction among the prisoners that they have been abandoned by and totally isolated from their social order

14. Undermining all emotional supports

15. Preventing prisoners from writing regarding the conditions of their confinement

16. Making available and permitting access to only those publications which are neutral or supportive of the desired attitudes

17. Placing individuals into new and ambiguous situations from which the standards are kept deliberately unclear and then pressuring them to conform to what is desired to win favor and some respite from the pressure

18. Placing individuals whose willpower has been severely weakened or eroded into a living situation with several others who are more advanced in their thought-reform, whose job it is to further undermine the individual’s emotional support

19. Using techniques of character invalidation; i.e. humiliations, revilement, and shouting to induce feelings of guilt, fear & suggestibility coupled with sleeplessness, an exacting prison regimen & periodic interrogation-interviews.

20. Meeting with renewed hostility all the insincere attempts to comply with prisoners’ pressures

21. Repeatedly pointing out to the prisoner and their cellmates where he has in the past not lived up to his own standards or values

22. Rewarding of submission and subservience by lifting of the pressures

23. Providing social & emotional support that reinforces new attitudes

Comrade, if any of these points were used on you then you have been part of the experiment.

U.$. Imperialists have tried to manipulate our environment and culture, in particular those who belong to oppressed minority groups. Reader, you might question “What they mean by Revolutionary attitudes??”

In this experiment it evidently refers to anyone who thinks and behaves as an individual, who they feel must be made to become part of their subservient system. The point is to make people less human and “subject entirely to their will!”

Comrades, we should be truly aware and on guard that the above techniques to condition people are now general practice in most if not all prisons, state and federal throughout the United $tates as well as in workplaces, schools, and other government organizations.

The author of this article has have been in the SHU-EM at a prison in Florida State and I’m a true witness that all this has been in effect for almost forty years, and what is worse is… its working!!

Don’t be part of the experiment, don’t let the system work on you – be strong minded and of impeccable heart as well as relentless spirit. Imperialism might be able to kill a Revolutionary but never the internal Revolution of the soul!

1. RE: Blatant & rampant First Amendment Right violation via indefinite(unconstitutional) suspension of my visitation, due to a December, 2020 Peaceful Protest in FSP(Florida State Prison) Parking lot while on CM(close management) status.

2. In December 2020, my visitation was unconstitutionally indefinitely suspended without even a DR(disciplinary report) due to a 12/6/20 Peaceful Protest, in honor of Florida Prisoner Solidarity Organizer, Karen Smith(Rest In Power) and in solidarity with all Florida prisoners(myself included) against prison conditions: overseer abuse, brutality and lynching of handcuffed defenseless prisoners in secured cells.

3. On 11/9/23 and 12/3/23, I submitted request to classification regarding reinstatement of my visitation, classification response states as follows:

“you have had 3 DRs since the incident & one of them being for (1-3) spoken threat, you also have an overall unsat institutional adjustment, your request is denied at this time.”

Classification response is not only inadequate, it is in direct cahoots with FDOC continuation of mendacity and retaliation, whereas, I was never served any notice whatsoever in relation to or as collateral effort to my already indefinitely suspended visitation, for any of those mendacious, retaliatory DRs, which I would have easily successfully appealed had FDOC not been so blue line KKKorrupt and cohesive. Plus, neither of those mendacious, retaliatory DRs are listed anywhere in the visitation privilege suspension matrix in Rule 33-601.729-31 FAC.

4. If FDOC wish me to stop writing grievances, and reporting to society about prison conditions: everything from food service prisoner workers being threatened with confinement and being placed in confinement for refusing to shake the spoon, or short food portions on prisoner trays, to prison overseers abusing, brutalizing, even lynching(murdering) prisoners in handcuffs and secured cells, as was the case with Germaine French on 11/22/23, FDOC will have to do more than mendaciously, retaliatory, indefinitely suspend my visits, FDOC will have to lynch me, or send its prisoner hit-men to stab me, to silence me. The world will know that FDOC stand for Florida Department of Cruelty, not corrections. No correction or correcting going on here, just warehousing and sadist, racist, fascist, punishment, a waste of tax payer and family/loved-ones, hostage-for-ransom prisoner, dollars.

5. And you will throw this grievance away as is culture and practice here at Suwanee, a copy has been sent to my loved-ones, and the Federal District Court, as an addendum in case #3:23-CV-01278.

6. REMEDY: Reinstate mendaciously, indefinitely suspended visitations done in retaliation for peacefully protesting prison conditions; Overseer abuse, brutality, and lynching of handcuffed prisoners, is a blatant and rampant authoritarian violation of rights against retaliation, guaranteed by the First and Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

I received the September 9th Organizing Pack and I am humbly and proud to say that with my broken English and strong Boricua accent I spoke (mostly yelled) from behind the door to the whole unit. Out of 85 prisoners in the SHU-CM1, at least half of the unit denied all three food trays that were put on the slots. Even though I was yelled at by guards to shut the fuck up and that i was disrupting their unit, I made my point.

At lunch time the guards had called the captain cuz they didn’t know what the hell was going on and that prisoners were refusing their trays. When the Captain asked me I informed him that it was out of respect for all those brothers that became martyrs in the Attica uprising and all those who have sacrificed their lives for the struggle against oppression. After, I was called a “radical freak.” He told the guards in the unit to not disturb us on that day. Later I found out that the Captain was from NY and has a blood brother doing time at Clinton Correctional Facility in NY.

Power to the People!

Revolutionary Greetings,

The USW update requests that we report some progress. Well the truth is there is no progress. I just went 4 days on hunger strike, ate 2 meals and did another 2 days without meals; none of which were logged in on daily 229 except the lie that I accepted trays when I didn’t. No mental health staff or medical came to see me, nurses walked right past my hunger strike sign on my cell door 3 times a day the entire time without even looking my way.

Today, 7/19/23, approx. 4:26 pm, prisoner Devin Lamm nextdoor to me in H2304 just cut himself and I’m talking really bad. The prisoner has a serious history of self harm. He has had over 25 blood transfusions. He is the 8th most cutter (self harmer) in the state of Florida, and I’ve repeatedly witnessed him tell the head psychologist, Dr. E, and every staff member and overseer here that he wants to kill himself and they all ignored him until today.

He is on CM (close management) for having a plastic bag of carrots in his cell. He was shipped to FSP for writing grievances and outside organizations about abuse and his gender dysphoria. He just got continued on C14-3 without reason except that he writes grievances regarding administrative neglect and abuse; heat and lack of air circulation due to overseas keeping the pipe chase open; disrupting the exhaust fans from pulling air into the cells from outside; and the fact that J Pay/Securus Technologies is making hundreds of thousands of dollars daily via the JPG tablets, but won’t issue chargers. Only two or three chargers on the wings of 51 prisoners, arguing and fighting about getting their tablets charged up.

He cut himself, we kicked and screamed “man down in 2309, man down in 2309” until the overseers came rushing in once that one overseer hit his radio. He was taken out on a stretcher - only then we knew how bad he had cut himself. At 7:45 pm, on my way to the shower, an orderly was cleaning up his cell and when I looked there was a puddle of blood still liquid. It had to be a few cups of blood on the floor in his cell.

I watched the look on the face of Dr. E, who stood right outside my cell watching Devin Lamm fight for his life while overseers placed him in handcuffs and strapped him to a stretcher. The prisoner who has repeatedly informed him that he was going to kill himself in word and in writing is now laying on a cell floor swimming in his own blood - all because he was repeatedly ignored by an entire administration which kept lying to the people outside who prisoner Lamm had kept writing about prison conditions.

Another prisoner asked me to get on his tablet and email his brother who has news connections on the outside. I wrote his brother a whole page about the lack of tablet charging situation. His brother called Warden Donald Davis. Donald Davis tells his brother that there are charging stations in the wing and every prisoner’s tablet is charged up 3 times a day: a pure 100% lie. That’s what we are dealing with here at FSP, Department of Cruelty.

I remember a comrade that wrote an article a few years back, about the way some prisoners were doing the pigs’ job and that he won’t be surprised if in the near future the prisoner will be doing count. If the comrade who wrote that argument was still receiving ULK, I want to tell em that eir comrads back then were not wrong, because in my institution of the Columbia Correctional Institution the “inmates” (I will not call them prisoners) that work the outside hallways of the butterfly dorm are doing the pigs’ job, even the “master count”. These four inmates represent and run under a nation (gang). Because they stay in the pigs’ face at all times kissing their asses, they receive special privileges. They pass supplies, they call out the prisoners that come from other dorms to violate for any given reason, they prey and benefit from the contraband that the pigs take from the cell searches. The pigs at that dorm have no reason to come out from the control bubble because these inmates do the jobs all for them in exchange for just staying outside.

When I wrote that article that was printed in ULK #79 Winter 2022 page 13 “The Common Colonial History that Led Us Here” – I finished off in the last paragraph saying: “in prison there is only 2 uniforms – the prisoners and the guards – remember always which one you wear”.

That part right there I wrote it because of actions these inmates performed. The night of the Super Bowl, after these inmates made the count in the dorm, the Sgt. in charge authorized me to go to another wing to watch the same; Sgt. opened the door and on the hallway I was stopped by these inmates because they told me that I couldn’t go to another wing because the count wasn’t clear. I told them that wasn’t their problem, besides if they could see Sgt. opened the door for me (I don’t have keys). I keep telling them that that wasn’t their problem, then I told them that I had two life sentences and if the front gate happened to be open that they would expect me to not walk out because if I escape I could mess up the count.

Long story short when I turned around and kept walking one of them swung a punch to my face from the back and all of them started to reach to their waists making it seem like they were armed. Sgt. saw everything and came out running and took me back to my wing – Sgt. didn’t say or do anything to them. That is how much pull these inmates pig fuckers have with security.

I didn’t say nothing to nobody in my wing, didn’t tell nothing, I just packed all my property and stayed up the whole night. Breakfast was called at 5:20 AM and I went out to the chow hall for a hunt. Out of the four that were the previous night 3 of them were at the chow hall sitting together at a table. Long story short on the way back to the dorm all three of em were stabbed and the one that throw the punch at me was air lifted in a helicopter to the hospital. I came out that morning ready for war and when I pulled out all ey had on em was the apples for the tray. Nobody will never threaten my life, my circle or my inner peace, on top of that put their hands on me and think the next day that everything is over.

When I got to the confinement unit all prisoners from every nation, of every skin color were standing at their door clapping, “Oye we salute what you did”. Because of this incident I was given 90 days in SHU plus I’m under review for Control Management Level 1. Most definitely it will get approved which means I will stay in SHU–CMI for at least 2 years and if I keep myself out of trouble then I can start to work my way down so I can finally be back on general population. I’ve been in prison for 26 years, everything has a limit and these inmates were far beyond that line, and because they have a group of lapdogs behind them they think that they can do anything. If I have problems listening to the pigs orders, definitely an inmate ain’t going to dictate how I am going to do my life sentences. I ain’t no snitch – I don’t work with the pigs or for the pigs.

I don’t know if in other state prisons the comrades tolerate that kind of behavior but ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!! You must definitely print my name on it!! Is about time we take the bad apples from the bucket because they are fucking up the whole basket. You have now all these young comrades that come in the system for the first time and see this shit from gang members and think that is cool. IT IS NOT!

History is not a prophet who looks back: because of what was, and against what was, it announces what will be. I don’t just make war, this comrade makes history.

MIM(Prisons) responds: One of the five principles of the United Front for Peace in Prisons is Independence. This issue of Under Lock & Key has a number stories highlighting how the agents of the state sew death and destruction among the prison population. Without independence from that system, we cannot build a peace between prisoners that serves prisoners. The story above is an extreme example of how working with the state creates violence between prisoners.

Lumpen organizations (L.O.s) are a wavering class in the war of the oppressor nation against the oppressed nations. Prisoners playing the boss role for the pigs is nothing new, but back in the day it was only white prisoners who played boss over oppressed nation prisoners. Today the neo-colonial state knows that it’s better to use the respected organizations of the oppressed to oppress the oppressed nations. From what we hear across the country, we are in a period when the above is often tolerated and the L.O.s in prisons are not maintaining their independence. This relates to the plague of drug deaths in prisons as well.

The SHU/RHU/Control Units are tools of social control, and they are used to target the politically conscious. They use these torture units because they work to achieve the goals of the oppressor. We encourage comrades to do their best to avoid getting sent there. We know this comrade sacrificed a small study cell ey had by being sent to the SHU. We must apply standards and we must make sacrifices. But we must also always focus on what is most effective to serve the people.

The author above asked that we print eir name because of the influence ey has. But we don’t print names for security and political reasons. We hope our readers can see the truths in the above without being told that this or that big homie/shot caller says so. That type of thinking is what has so-called gangsters playing as junior pigs. We all need to learn to think objectively and strategically to have any hope of success in this struggle.