Illinois Prisons

February 1, 2K10 I will start my suicide hunger strike. I am tired of being transferred, regardless of my psych/schizophrenic suicidal bipolar background. I figure at 1-2 months they should consider moving me to a hospital here at Dixon. I figure I will lose my voice at anywhere from 3-4 months. At 5 months I will be completely weak, the only muscles I figure will be able to move are my eyes. I have NO family or relatives, NO one. Besides, I am sure I am ready to go. The Assistant Warden Dirk Deuce and Warden Mrs. Nedra Chandler were informed of my suicide strike on January 4, 2K10. I also notified the court of claims of my plight/demise here. In fact, the courts might be in shock because I told them I am planning to kill myself.

I have nothing to lose or gain. My death is for my own dignity, respect, and love. My sacrifice is in my best interest. The reason for my suicide strike is because it is not likely I will ever have a cellie here or anywhere else. Moving me from one place to another will stop as of this letter. From here until I die, I will control my last months of 2K10. I see death as a good thing for me. People will try to talk me out of it, but this is stupid.

Trying to talk me out of this is futile or useless. I am taking my own life because it is in my best interest. Not only have I had many dreams where I take my own life happily, I feel as though I am going out/leaving with a degree of power and respect. Also I know for a fact that I will leave this year. The only way to keep me alive is to force food and water into my body. I do not want anything or miss anything.

I am sorry I will no longer be around to help MIM(Prisons). I love MIM(Prisons). MIM, I love your newsletters. I do not want to go off talking about the newsletter but I believe this is the best newsletter I ever got. I have received many educational books and theory from MIM(Prisons). I loved the poetry. I never liked poetry before. I love your Spanish network news. I am self-educated, through MIM’s help. I am sorry I must leave you and everyone. It is in my best interest.

If these people do not transfer me to building 38 before February 1, 2K10 then it is too late. I will not go back on my word. Feb. 2K10 is me all the way. I hope they do not try to force food and water down my throat; I will resist. They have until the end of January to make a move or else. Please forget me if this is my last letter because I will not be in my right mind.

I love and respect all of my MIM brothers and sisters. But most of all I love myself, even though I will take my own life.

MIM(Prisons) Responds: We received your letter from earlier this month about your planned suicide hunger strike. We hope you are still with it enough to read this letter, and are willing to hear us out. We are not blind or numb to the horrible, tortuous effects of the imperialist injustice system, and we understand that there are endless reasons why someone could be driven to suicide. This is especially true if you are trapped inside the belly of the beast, in one of the cruelest manifestation of capitalism, inside of a u.$. prison.

We are not writing to tell you that you’re exaggerating your despair, or that you shouldn’t kill yourself because of some mystical reason like “sin.” We are writing to remind you that your life is very valuable to the struggle to stop the same exact cruelties that have led you to this decision. We encourage you to become more involved in revolutionary struggle instead of suicide.

With this letter we have sent you an article from MIM Theory 9: Psychology and Imperialism entitled “Disavowing Suicide: Testimonial of a Woman Revolutionary.” Her life experience may be somewhat different from yours, but her ability to turn her life into something useful for liberation and revolution is the same.

On page 41 of the article the author writes, “I remembered the Sartre quote in which he says that if you are not working on behalf of the oppressed, you are accomplice to their oppression.” I think this quote is significant because it shows the political character of suicide. You wrote that you need to kill yourself to maintain some dignity and respect, but we would argue that you are just holding your life to bourgeois standards that aren’t useful to stopping oppression. By proletarian standards, to truly have a life (or death) that maintains dignity and respect, one would have to devote their life to revolutionary struggle and the liberation of the oppressed. For someone like yourself, who supports the struggle against all forms of oppression, to remove your life as a resource from this world is to work in favor of the oppressors. You are helping the same oppressors you are trying to get away from with this hunger strike!

In your letter you wrote that you enjoyed the poetry on the pages of Under Lock & Key. This experience might be a good subject to write poetry about. Maybe you would like to write poetry for us? I sent you a poetry guide with this letter which will get you more of an idea of what we look for in poems.

note: Also see “Losing Battles,” MIM Theory 5: Diet for a Small Red Planet, p.51. As Huey Newton said, there is Revolutionary Suicide and Reactionary Suicide. Most revolutionaries in the First World are suicidal to some degree in that they reject safety and security in favor of fighting for justice.

I have been fighting my criminal case for 16 years now and you could not possibly imagine, let alone fully comprehend the unbearable, deplorable and inhumane conditions prisoners endure on a daily basis at the States Maximum Security facilities in Illinois. In addition to having to exist in such a grim and cold reality, prisoners must function under a constant heightened sense of alert in anticipating prisoner upon prisoner, prisoner and staff, and staff upon prisoner assaults. The unwritten protocol, and attitude of prison administrators/staff are a “fuck you convict demeanor” and prisoners are mistreated, harassed, disrespected and provoked so badly by prison guards, prisoners are often left with no other alternative but to take matters into their own hands and brutally assault prison guards. What is most disturbing is the reality that prison guards themselves often instigate, provoke and engage prisoners in physical confrontations, and only the prisoners are criminally prosecuted, because no one wants to acknowledge the heinous, and criminal activity of prison guards.

In some instances prison guards have not only engaged prisoners in physical confrontations out of holding a revile towards prisoners, but in order to gain financially by filing civil actions, seeking promotions, days off, and politicking with prison administrators. The grievance procedure is a complete joke, because the very prison officials who oversee the grievance procedure do nothing more than lie, deny, and make every effort to conceal the egregious abuses of prison guards against prisoners, due to the liabilities involved, and simply because most prisoners are completely ignorant as to how to expose such abuses. I am what is stereotypically referred to as a jailhouse lawyer, because of the various Federal Civil Rights Actions I had or am currently pursuing against the corrupt prison officials/employees of the IDOC.

For years I have gone out of my way or have attempted to compel other prisoners to either pursue civil actions, bring such matters to the attention of public officials, news organizations, or law enforcement, because the horrendous abuses prisoner are subjected to daily throughout the IDOC is un-fuckin-believable. I have seen the news reports about the abuses of prisoners in Iraq, and Guantanamo and such prisoners are treated with dignity, in comparison to how we are treated in American prisons daily. I don’t require some lawyer, judge, or politician explaining to me as to how the system works, because I certainly have enough life experience to realize how fucked up, corrupt, and racist are political, economic, and judicial structures truly are.

I was housed in the very same cell location as prisoner Leezer, just several months before this prisoner was murdered by his (Leezer’s) cellmate. In fact, just several weeks before Leezer’s murder, I personally forwarded a correspondence to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Warden, Director, and various news organizations, including the Chicago Tribune, about how prison administrators were deliberately, and recklessly endangering the health, and safety of prisoners, by housing prisoners two men per cell, despite such celling assignments being specifically designed to house one man per cell. I stipulated in said correspondence that such double man occupancy in a Maximum Security Facility has already lead to literally hundreds of well documented incidents of prisoners brutally assaulting their (prisoners) cellmates, due to prison administrators simply throwing anyone, and incompatible prisoners in the cell together.

To add insult to injury, despite hundreds of prisoner upon prisoner cellmate assaults being well documented, the great majority of such prisoner upon prisoner cellmate assaults go largely unreported and undocumented. I can’t remember too many nights going by where I haven’t heard body blows being struck, due to prisoners being involved in physical confrontations with their cellmates. One of the greatest contributing factors to prisoner upon prisoner cellmate assaults is prison administrators at the Stateville CC deliberately placing, and mandating that rival factions of gang affiliates being placed into the same cell together. No prisoner can be housed in a cell with another prisoner involved in the same or similar gang affiliation, so rival gang members who are killing themselves out in the streets are being forcibly confined into the same cell together in the prison system, and I’m dumbfounded that there isn’t a prisoner/cellmate murder every few days.

I myself have been thrown into the segregation unit on several occasions for being involved in physical confrontations with my cellmates, cellmates which prison administrators themselves (prison officials) had me placed into the same cell with. In one instance I was given six months in the segregation unit @ the Menard CC for being brought up on charges of assaulting my cellmate, despite my numerous requests for a cell change/transfer. Due to the massive overcrowding issues plaguing the IDOC, prisoners who should never be placed into a cell with another prisoner under any circumstances, such as predators, which has only led to further instances of prisoners being savagely assaulted or even raped by their cellmates.

The most horrific factors pertaining to these matters is that, prisoners often go out of their way to avoid such altercations by requesting cell changes, filing grievances on the matter or even claiming their cellmates as enemies, yet prison administrators refuse to follow their own rules and regulations and simply don’t give a fuck about prisoners assaulting themselves because it is simply the norm and an accepted practice. The only time any real fuss is ever made regarding physical confrontations is when prisoners are involved in physical confrontations with prison guards, because in these instances prison administrators really have to go out of their way to cover their asses.

These prisons are being run as if it was the medieval era. There are virtually no real educational or job training programs. Illinois State law mandates that prison officials afford prisoners at least one hour of cell activity daily, which often refers to recreational activity, yet prisoners are left to sit and brood within these cages for twenty three and a half hours a day with only a fifteen minute break for lunch and fifteen minutes for dinner. Prisoners are basically supposed to be afforded at least one hour of recreation/yard activity every day, but here at Stateville prisoners are only being afforded access to the prisons yards twice a week, and with the numerous lockdowns which often last for weeks, if not months, prisoners are lucky to obtain recreational activity several times every few months.

The meals served at these institutions are beyond repugnant and sickening. Many prisoners simply don’t have the means to have relatives/friends forward funds on a regular basis and prisoners often rather starve than consume the road kill served to prisoners in this dungeon. The Stateville CC receives millions in funding from the state in order to serve prisoners proper diets, yet the food service supervisors receive large bonuses to curtail cost, which often means searching for the worst garbage to feed prisoners. Much of the good food that’s supposed to be served to prisoners is often siphoned off/stolen and diverted to the officers kitchen, where prison guards enjoy free meals at the expense of the State of Illinois. How in the fuck the State of Illinois is subsidizing every meal which a prison employee consumes while on the clock/working is beyond me, especially considering the tremendous budget deficit the state is currently facing. It is simply unsustainable for the state to cover the cost of feeding every one of its employees, in addition to having to feed the entire prison population. The cost for feeding every employee here at Stateville alone is well in the millions of dollars every year, and this is taking place throughout the IDOC.

The employees of the IDOC are paid on average $45k a year and many of the Lieutenants and Majors receive salaries well beyond $80k a year, yet the state of Illinois is picking up the tab to feed these welfare recipients for every single meal consumed.

It is a social scientific and statistical fact that crime is driven by poverty, yet the overall prison population is literally cat down into these dismal tombs for years, if not decades to do nothing more than stand by idly, engage in further gang activity and only to be released ten times worse off than when entering the thunder dome. And despite 95% of the prison population ultimately returning to society, nothing is being done to actually better, education and train prisoners to become productive individuals. Upon release prisoners need to be able to provide for themselves, pay the bills, and be able to support our families. When you have a prison system allowed to function in such a cesspool of waste, corruption and mismanagement as the IDOC it is no wonder that so many prisoners return to the streets to continue to engage in gang activity, selling drugs, victimizing individuals and even murdering others, because it’s all a prisoner has been instilled with and after years of being tormented degraded, and dehuamized, I’m stunned that a prisoner upon release has not driven back to one of these prisons to stalk, hunt down and brutally assault or murder one or more of these prison guards for the unspeakable evils that prisoners are subjected to regularly at these concentration camps.

I myself have various litigations pertaining to the overall prison conditions, retribution, etc which I have been subjected to and even despite my litigations prison guards/officials have made me a prime target for all manner of retribution. I possess a tremendous amount of statistical and legal documentation further supporting and proving my claims.

Back in 100 A.D. a greek philosopher named Epictetus uttered these five words: “Only the educated are free.” Today these five words ring true to a lot of us who find ourselves in residence behind the walls of the United States prison system. The U.S. has 5% of the world’s population, yet is responsible for 25% of the world’s prison population. 1 in every 31 adults in the United States is in jail, prison, or on some sort of supervised release. Now, with that in mind, we prisoners should have a strong voice, and I applaud MIM for trying to help us organize that voice for the common good.

Where do we start? Go back to the quote I opened with, and then take a look at MIM platform plank number one: Primary, secondary and college education free to the whole world. Let’s localize that to ourselves for the time being. As “guests” of the prison system, we have lots of free time. In case you have not noticed, the government has no problem with us using all that time to play cards, watch TV, maybe take a few of their so-called “educational” programs and basically kick us out the door no better than we were when we came in. There are a ton of correspondence courses available to prisoners from many different colleges in many different disciplines. Apparently though, a criminal seeking a higher education, to better himself while behind bars, scares those in charge.

In 1994, the government stopped awarding Pell grants to prisoners to pay for their education. Considering that, by the Bureau of Prisons’ own statistics, 40% was the average recidivism rate for parolees in general compared to only 5% for those with college degrees. So one would have to ask, why would the government choose to promote recidivism versus education? There are two simple answers: money and fear. The government makes too much money off of prison and the fruits of prison labor.

As for fear, the government is scared that the prison population will become educated, vocal and organized, which is exactly what needs to happen. Groups like MIM are going to make it happen. I encourage all of you to start a writing campaign. U.S. Senator Jim Webb has vowed to look at every aspect of our criminal justice system from top to bottom to “fix” it. Well, here’s a chance to let our collective voice be heard. Encourage other prisoners to write, encourage your families to write:

Senator Jim Webb
248 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Ask why only the rich and the white collar criminals are deemed worthy of outside education and a realistic shot at not coming back to prison.

MIM(Prisons) adds: Send us copies of letters sent to Senator Webb so that we can also publicize this struggle. We also point our readers to Under Lock and Key issue #8 where we discussed in detail the economics of prisons. In reality the government is not making money off prison labor, but they are benefiting greatly from the social control provided by the prison system.

I am a Canadian citizen incarcerated in a prison of the Illinois Department of Corrections since December 1999. I am trying to get transferred to a Canadian prison but the transfer coordinator of the IDDL denied my requests for the last six years. They don’t even tell me how long I have to stay in the U.S. The only hint I got is that I have too much time left to do to be transferred right now, and I know this only because I wrote to former Governor of Illinois Mr. Rod Blagojevich. I even wrote to President Barack Obama on his inauguration day about my transfer to a Canadian prison but he didn’t even bother to answer, much less to do something. I also wrote to some Illinois state and federal officials but they didn’t do anything either.

This is just another example of American imperialism. The U.S. likes to swing its weight with citizens of other countries incarcerated in this country by not allowing them to return to their home country, while the U.S. wants to have its citizens incarcerated abroad return home. There is a treaty of prisoner exchange and transfer between the U.S. and Canada, but the U.S. usually does not honor it.

There is nothing left for me to do but stay and suffer in U.S prisons among foreigners. Where is the day of equality among nations with mutual respect? Canada is more humane to its prisoners. The U.S. is far behind for human rights that it claims to promote around the world.

Menard Correctional Centers Segregation Unit consists of one abnormally large cell house, which has the capacity of 490 inmates. Menard had only one major incident this year and there’s hardly anyone getting into trouble. So in order to justify using so much space for segregation, the staff issued quotas for each population cell house on how many inmates they need to send to segregation. So the staff sets out to find reasons to place inmates in segregation.

During quota filling time, correctional officers exaggerate disciplinary reports, by writing tickets for “intimidation and threat” because an inmate stared at them too long. Or they charge people with “gang activity” when six or seven people are standing in a small group on the yard. Oftentimes, they can’t exaggerate tickets so they talk loudly and curse at inmates to provoke a verbal or physical response. If all else fails, they will utilize the Internal Affairs Confidential Sources procedure, which uses inmate trustees to lie on gang members. Law advocates say that the inmates are planning some outrageous security threat, so that they can lock them in segregation anywhere from 30 to 60 days under “investigative status.” I encourage any and all inmates to remain dormant to force the staff here to open at least half the segregation unit’s building to the general population, and at the same time neutralize Menard’s Segregation quota procedures.

RAIL and MIM respond: The prisoner is correct to expose the everyday injustice as prisoncrats use their power to fix their stupid mistakes. Like this prisoner, we also do not encourage prisoners to fight the pigs since they are currently armed and dangerous. The demand to reduce the size of Menard’s segregation unit is a correct one. Segregation brings with it such increased suffering for prisoners as sensory deprivation, reduced yard time, highly restricted contact with other prisoners if any, denial of the ability to work, and tighter controls on visitation. All this is in addition to the loss of good time from tickets, forcing prisoners to serve longer sentences before getting the opportunity to parole.

As we point out in every issue of MIM Notes, the size of the U.$. prison population is too big and growing, with more prisoners per capita than any government since Stalin’s during World War II and more Black prisoners than Apartheid South Africa. While we work to bring down this system in its entirety, for the short term we look to fight winnable battles that we can win by legal means. Bettering prisoners’ conditions now is a good thing. Any honest persyn can see that getting the Menard Correctional Center to stop manufacturing charges against prisoners is a positive reform that deserves support. To express your views to the Warden, write or call (please send MIM a copy of any correspondence):

Warden George Welborn
Menard Correctional Center
711 Kaskaskia Street
Menard, Illinois 62259
Phone: (618) 826-5071

The Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) has the authority
and obligation to establish rules and regulations to provide
prisoners with access to published materials including newspapers
and magazines approved by the Director of the IDOC. (730 ILCS 5/3-
7-1)

The IDOC’s regulations for prisoners’ access to publications is
set forth in title 20, Sections 525.200 through 525.230 of the
Illinois Administrative Code (20 Ill. Admn. Code Sec 525.200
through 525.230). A prisoner may subscribe to, solicit free copies
of, or buy individual copies of approved newspapers, magazines,
books and other publications for delivery to the facility of
confinement. “A member of the [prisoner’s] family or a friend may
also order, solicit or bring approved publications to the
facility.” 20 Ill. Admn.Code Sec 525.210(c).

The warden of the Pontiac Correctional Center implemented his own
personal policy which prohibited friends and family members of
prisoners from bringing in approved publications.

A complaint for mandamus was filed in the Circuit Court of
Livingston County, Illinois, seeking an order compelling the
warden to allow family members and friends to bring in approved
publications for prisoners in accordance with established
regulations.

The warden filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the decision to
allow friends and family members to deliver approved publications
to a prisoner is a discretionary act. The warden argued that the
use of the word “may” in the last sentence in Sec 525.210(c)
indicates a discretionary act. Thus, mandamus is inapplicable.

In response to the motion to dismiss, the prisoner argued that the
use of the word “may” does in fact allow for discretion. However,
the plain reading of Sec 525.210(c) clearly indicates that the use
of the word “may” refers to what the prisoner’s family and friends
may do, not to what the IDOC employees may do.

The Circuit Court agreed with the prisoner and denied the warden’s
motion to dismiss. In its holding, the Court ruled that Sec
525.210(c) indicates that discretion lies with the prisoner’s
friends and family members, not the warden. The Court further
ruled that the IDOC must allow prisoners’ friends and family to
bring in approved publications.

The warden subsequently rescinded his policy and permitted friends
and family members to deliver approved publications to prisoners.
[See Markiewicz v. Gilmore , No. 97-MR-22 (Order Filed
July 1, 1998)]

(Note: This action was litigated pro se.)

MIM organizes the Serve the People Prisoners’ Legal Clinic
(PLC). This is a revolutionary program geared toward serving needs
of the oppressed masses as we build opposition to imperialism. PLC
activities vary widely (with room for expansion) and include
fighting censorship, prisoners providing guides on grievance
procedures and the publication of MIM Legal Notes. MIM leads this
program with the knowledge that only armed revolution to seize
state power and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat will
liberate the oppressed. This is one aspect of how we fight
winnable battles to create more maneuverability for political
organizing within the current corrupt system.

MIM Legal Notes is researched and written by comrades behind the
walls. We publish these articles because we believe that the legal
research and information will be useful to other prisoners. But
comrades should be aware that differences in laws between states,
changes in laws and legal precedents over time, and different case
circumstances all mean that even something that was successful for
one person might not work for others. We print the best legal news
and information available to us with the understanding that this
program will only grow stronger with increased exposure and
participation. We encourage prisoners and non-prisoners to
contribute to this program with research and writing.

End the Amerikkkan Lockdown month draws attention to the barbarity of Amerikans fastest growing industry: The incarceration industry

On September 13 of this year, MIM celebrated the 1971 struggle ofthe Attica (NY) prisoners for their basic rights and dignity. On this date we also mourned the brutal murder of 29 of the Attica brothers by New York State Troopers and prison Corrections Officers – who also cut down ten of their own as they stormed the prison and ended the Attica Rebellion. On October 15, we rejoice in the formation of the Maoist Black Panther Party (BPP) in 1966. These two dates encompass MIM’s first annual End the Amerikkkan Lockdown month. Throughout the month we have held educational events about the criminal injustice system and protests focusing on ending various aspects of the Amerikan Lockdown. We have been on the streets educating and organizing progressive people in the small and large tasks of assisting the struggle.

One of these tasks is drawing attention to the growing numbers of politically active prisoners who are being caged in Amerika’s highest security gulags. One of the newest of the torture factories is Tamms. On March 8, 1998, the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) opened a new Super Maximum security prison in the far-southern Illinois town of Tamms.(1) According to a bourgeois press report, optimal conditions at Tamms C-Max include four visits through a glass partition each month, five showers per week and one hour of solitary yard time per day. Prisoners report that under these conditions “You start to lose touch with reality. You become depressed. You become incoherent.”(2) On January 7 of this year, four prisoners at Tamms filed a class-action lawsuit charging that the extreme isolation conditions there are driving prisoners insane. Three of these four plaintiffs are now facing new criminal prosecution from the State Attorney’s office in retaliation for their lawsuit.(3)

Standard treatment for prisoners who speak out against the criminal INjustice system is for guards and wardens to take punitive measures against them in barely concealed retaliation for their activism. All manner of regulations govern punitive measures against prisoners by guards or wardens. But if a prisoner is moved to Tamms or placed in segregation at another facility for “administrative” reasons, no justification is required.(4,1) Many politically active prisoners find themselves under so-called administrative measures that restrict their most basic activities.

The state of Illinois’ retaliatory lawsuit against these four Tamms prisoners and the existence of the Tamms facility itself are aspects of the Amerikan prison system’s agenda of social control. The events at Tamms embody direct retribution for the efforts of the oppressed to make their own situation livable, and extra-legal sentencing that adds time and trouble to prisoners’ sentences after they enter the gulags. MIM sees prisons in this country as part of imperialism’s control over the oppressed nations confined within u.$. borders. As our first annual End the Amerikkkan Lockdown month comes to a close, we look forward to continuing our work against the u.$. injustice system throughout the year. We will continue to work with the MIM-led united front organizations RAIL and USW, and with other individuals and organizations that oppose the prison manifestations of u.$. imperialism.

Isolation, Supermax, Segregation

Bourgeois press reports have noticed that Tamms is about as far from Chicago as a prison could get while remaining in Illinois, even though the plurality of prisoners at the facility come from Cook County –the Chicago area. This placement is part of the formula for high maximum security prisons in the u.$. These prisons are built to subdue “non-conforming” captives through sensory and social deprivation. Many of these more rebellious prisoners are from urban centers like Chicago and part of their deprivation is being placed prohibitively far away from friends and family – to make visiting difficult.

Censorship of MIM Notes is a classic example of this harassing activity – MIM Notes is harassed for organizing prisoners in their own interests, and prisoners are harassed for reading and writing for a newspaper that exposes the pigs’ activities. Our own experience with revolutionary comrades behind the walls demonstrates that even the harshest of lockdown conditions will not “stop the grass [of revolutionary activity] from growing.”(5) In April of this year, an Illinois prisoner filed a law suit against the IDOC, arguing that the prison censors were denying him his MIM Notes subscription because of its political content – although they claimed the newspapers were a security threat. Knowing that this is true, the state has agreed that the publications are a not a threat to the institutions and have turned them over to the prisoner. “Now brothers in Illinois can receive all the MIM-related publications which you offer. They have returned all the Theory Journals that they had confiscated. My MIM Notes, my Maoist Sojourners, Notas Rojas, and the pamphlet ‘What is the Maoist Internationalist Movement?’”(6)

When MIM talks about revolutionary politics among prisoners, we are talking about the idea that prisoners are people who are being oppressed by the imperialist system. Prisons in Amerika are designed to repress those who would rebel against u.$. imperialism from within. Not by accident are oppressed nationalities more than 50 percent of the prisoner population in this country. And it is no coincidence that a Wisconsin prisoner finds that “right now in the hole where I am, it is about 85 to 90% Blacks and Hispanics. When the white prisoners come to the hole, they are released within 2 to 3 months.”(7) Former prison employees in other states have reported identical statistics to RAIL and MIM, and the Committee to End the Marion Lockdown (CEML) publishes the fact that most control units are 85% Black.(4)

The united snakes has always held substantial minorities of the oppressed forcibly within its borders. Settlers conducted a barbaric genocidal campaign against Indigenous peoples and confined those small groups that remained to “reservations” while stealing their land. In the case of the Black nation, kidnap victims were brought and forced to remain here so the white nation could live off their labor. Different Latino nations have been brutalized by a combination of these methods, and conscripted as sacrificial ground troops in Amerika’s wars. The exploding prisons of today are a response to these nationalities’ righteous movements toward rebellion against the u.$. empire. CEML quotes the Tamms warden as saying “Tamms is not about rehabilitation, it’s about punishment … some people may never leave.”(1)

Former prison staff and prisoner advocates with whom MIM has spoken about the prisons in this country report that those prisoners with a revolutionary political consciousness often take the most productive approach to the conditions of their confinement. These prisoners understand deeply why they are in prison, and many spend time educating other prisoners, and organizing among other prisoners to educate people on the outside about the conditions that all Amerikans are guilty of perpetuating within the prison system. Prison officials agree with this assessment of the rebellious prisoners, as a former Marion (home of the Marion Lockdown) warden said: “the purpose of the Marion Control Unit is to control revolutionary attitudes in the prison system and the society at large.”(4)

One Illinois control unit prisoner of nearly nine years has told MIM of his own organizing work among “paralegals, law clerks, and comrades confined in control units for challenging the status quo. MACS comrades engage and instigate the filing of S1983 civil complaints, mandamus actions, post conviction grievances, and civil and criminal appeals. We also write articles to expose the racist system and its docile servants. MACS fights to put an end to the methods of intense repression, kidnapping, torture and prison censorship. Recently MACS members have all been moved to the new ‘Super-Gulag’ in Illinois as a means to break their resistance and spirit. This new place is called Tamms, or for better words, Scams. This is another horror story that by design other comrades are living nationwide.”(8)

Retribution, not rehabilitation is the purpose of prison.

“Every day in prison is but a bureaucratic routine of beatings, continuous harassment and sensory deprivation. These are techniques being used to control prison populations throughout Illinois’ correctional warehouses. The key word here is ‘control,’ for it is now painfully clear that Illinois prison officials have forsaken all attempts at fostering a positive, potentially rehabilitative prison environment in favor of the brutal policies they claim are necessary to maintain ‘control’ over the prison population. Comrades … it is not just about bad food, visits, or brutal treatment, it’s more fundamental.”(9)

Illinois’ only Supermaximum security prison, Tamms, is part of a $73 million complex. Part of the complex is a 200-bed minimum security work camp. The beauty of locating minimum and supermaximum security facilities in the same place? The 445 IDOC employees at Tamms will not have to do any dirty work as the “work camp inmates will handle maintenance, laundry service, groundskeeping and food preparation for the supermax prison as well as public service work for area communities.” “The 23-acre supermax prison compound is protected by double rows of 12-foot high cyclone fencing topped with razor ribbon. A courtroom with video conferencing equipment is located inside the prison. … An execution chamber has also been constructed at the facility although condemned inmates will not routinely be housed at the supermax. It was designed especially for executions by lethal injection.” 312 of the Tamms employees are guards, the facility’s total payroll is $17 million; its total budget is $23.9 million per annum.(10)

Tamms’ budget works out to well over $34,000 per year to control each prisoner, not including the $73 million the state reports spending on building the dungeon.(10) Tamms’ cost per prisoner is more than three times the $11,006 estimated cost of living for a University of Illinois student at the Urbana-Champaign campus.(11) A year at Tamms even costs more than a year at the elite Northwestern University and University of Chicago.(12)

Prison regulations are an additional, hidden punishment for prisoners

“So cruel is the Tamms Correctional Center that a prisoner who tried to hang himself with a makeshift rope was charged the cost of the bedsheet he ruined to make it, according to the action to be filed this morning in federal court in Chicago.”(3)

MIM has argued for years that many prison regulations amount to an additional sentence – meted out by guards, wardens or the state legislature instead of a judge. At Tamms, prisoners are ‘home’ in “8’ x 10’ concrete cement cells, which contain concrete beds, and stainless steel sinks, toilets, and mirrors.”(1) The cells are building blocks of a sensory deprivation experience designed to abort a humyn being’s normal thought processes. For this reason, prisoners argue that the prison is making them crazy; also for this reason, they are correct.

Sensory deprivation at Tamms includes: regulation against prisoners placing phone calls, limited contact with each other and staff, and no physical contact with visitors. Prisoners at Tamms may not smoke, and are “handcuffed and shackled whenever they are out of their cellblock, and recreation will be allowed only individually with recreation equipment.”(10) A prisoner reports new restrictions on reading material: “Tamms has issued a malicious book policy that limits a resident here to having only 25 books and/or magazines combined together as their own personal property. Tamms will not store or exchange personal books or magazines in their personal property storage. … This book policy is a cruel and unjustifiable punishment; reading is one of the few positive activities we have here at Tamms.”(13)

Michigan prisoners have recently been subjected to a new property policy that places similar restrictions on reading materials. Prisoners in the highest security facilities in the state are allowed no more than ten books or magazines – many aspects of this policy are under legal fire from prisoners and their advocates. This is one of many situations in which we do well to compare prison policies and prisoner responses across state lines. See article in the next issue of MIM Notes for more on the conditions of SuperMax confinement in different prison systems.(14)

These conditions of legalized brutality directed at prisoners’ minds and bodies in tandem are designed to break down resistance, to gain submission from the oppressed through terror. But as Mao said of the marauding Japanese army that overran much of China in the 1920s and 1930s, such systematic disruption of the people’s lives “educated the people and quickened their political consciousness.” Through rapid development of a disciplined proletarian party in opposition to the Japanese invaders, China became powerful enough that the Japanese came and apologized for their barbarity. Mao thanked them for doing so much to help the development of the revolution.(15) In the united snakes, the situation is the same – it is an historical fact that repression breeds resistance. Amerikkkan prisons are a school of national oppression for the nearly two million people caged behind their barbed wire. Such education serves only to foment national liberation struggles and socialist revolution.

MC12 contributed research to this report.

Notes:
1. Walkin’ Steel. “Illinois opens”SuperMax” Control Unit prison
in Tamms.” Fall 1998.
2. St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 27 December 1998.
3. St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 7 January 1999.
4. MIM Notes no. 83, December 1993.
5. See poem, www.etext.org/Politics/
MIM/aa/articles/text.php?railfile=controlunits.txt
6. MIM Notes no. 186 15 May, 1999.
7. MIM Notes no. 194.
8. A Tamms Prisoner 5 April 1999.
9. A second Tamms Prisoner 6 November, 1998.
10. IDOC description of Tamms
www.idoc.state.il.us/institutions/adult/tam/
11. www.oar.uiuc.edu/current/tuit.html
12. The schools’ web sites, www.nwu.edu www.uchicago.edu
13. A third Tamms prisoner 8 June, 1999.
14. MIM Notes no. 160, MIM Notes no. 167, MIM Notes no. 168
15. Paraphrased from a 9 January, 1965 interview. Edgar Snow, The
Long Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1973), p. 198-9.