Prisoners Report on Conditions in

Louisiana Prisons

Got legal skills? Help out with writing letters to appeal censorship of MIM Distributors by prison staff. help out

www.prisoncensorship.info is a media institution run by the Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons. Here we collect and publicize reports of conditions behind the bars in U.$. prisons. Information about these incidents rarely makes it out of the prison, and when it does it is extremely rare that the reports are taken seriously and published. This historical record is important for documenting patterns of abuse, and also for informing people on the streets about what goes on behind the bars.

We hope this information will inspire people to take action and join the fight against the criminal injustice system. While we may not be able to immediately impact this particular instance of abuse, we can work to fundamentally change the system that permits and perpetuates it. The criminal injustice system is intimately tied up with imperialism, and serves as a tool of social control on the homeland, particularly targeting oppressed nations.

[Censorship] [Political Repression] [Abuse] [Winn Correctional Center] [Louisiana] [ULK Issue 51]
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Private Prisons Exposed, and Same as Public

UFPP for all liberation

Recently an exposé of the private prison Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, Lousiana, run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), was published in Mother Jones.(1) The article explains conditions which are completely inhumane, and many of the atrocities are linked to the CCA’s drive for profit.

In the section about the mailroom, the author Shane Bauer mentions Under Lock & Key:

“Around the mail room, there are bulletins posted of things to look out for: an anti-imperialist newsletter called Under Lock and Key, an issue of Forbes that comes with a miniature wireless internet router, a CD from a Chicano gangster rapper with a track titled ‘Death on a CO.’”

Curiously, Winn mailroom staff consider political education just as dangerous to the prison environment as electronics and death threats. This blatant censorship is not unique to this facility, and is not unique to private prisons. There are many state-run facilities all across the country where we know our mail is censored in a similar manner. Unfortunately we don’t have an investigative reporter inside, and, only being able to communicate with our comrades through the mail, we are not able to combat this censorship or expose it. We post known censorship incidents on our website, but the reality is that we will never know what happens to approximately two-thirds of the mail we send in.

In reading the exposé, one might start to believe this private prison is different from public prisons. That’s one of the major downsides of this piece: it leaves the reader wondering, assuming that state-run facilities are inherently better. Yet we post many articles from our correspondents inside showing that state-run facilities can be just as bad as Winn Correctional Center: lack of appropriate medical care leading to long-term health problems, lack of programming, arbitrary lockdowns, excessive use of force, lack of discretion in hiring personnel, and the list goes on.

To campaign against private prisons is to assert that state-run prisons are acceptable. It legitimizes the United $tates government as an impartial arbiter. It says that it isn’t the prison that’s bad, but instead just the aspect of private ownership. Yet MIM(Prisons) sees the prison struggle in the United $tates as one against social control generally – whether private or state-run.

We thank Shane Bauer for writing this horrific piece for the benefit of our fight against inhumane prison conditions. And we must look at the bigger picture, how state-run facilities fit in, and how the prison reform movement interacts with the struggle for self-determination of the internal semi-colonies and the liberation of the Third World from imperialism’s death grip. Certainly imprisonment for profit must be abolished. But this phenomena could only develop inside a capitalist economy. If not this atrocity of capitalism, then there will be another one, and there certainly are. If our struggle is limited to simply abolishing private ownership of prisons, we will have wasted much time and energy that could have been spent on a broader struggle.(2)

Notes:
1. Shane Bauer, “My Four Months as a Private Prison Guard,” Mother Jones, July/August 2016 issue.
2. See our updated article on the DOJ’s announcement against private prisons: MIM(Prisons), <a href-“https://www.prisoncensorship.info/article/acknowledging-doj-report-on-private-prisons/”>“Acknowledging DOJ Report on Private Prisons,” August 2016.
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[Hunger Strike] [Abuse] [Organizing] [Control Units] [David Wade Correctional Center] [Louisiana] [ULK Issue 52]
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Louisiana Prisoners Hunger Strike Against Inhuman Conditions

I’ve been in solitary confinement here at Louisiana’s Prison for 2 years now. David Wade Correctional Institution is a DOC facility. A disciplinary, concentration camp. Louisiana’s most repressive prison. Everywhere you move you have to be shackled and handcuffed. Even to the shower if it’s a few feet from your cell. You use the phone once a month, for 10 minutes. Our yard time is only 5 days out the week for 1 hour, inside of a chicken wired cage almost the same size as your cell. The prison is designed to break the mind, body and soul.

Incarcerated individuals here are living in inhumanity in its purest form. I met some guys who have been here on extended lockdown (solitary confinement) for six, seven, eight years straight. Our superiors are antagonists that despise the strong. Their job is to introduce us to the elements of repression. Their goal is to break you… by any means necessary.

It’s the heart of the summer and it gets really hot on these cell blocks. We’re the only prison in the state of Louisiana that only has one fan on each tier. Its nearly 100 degrees! On top of that, there’s no water and we’re not allowed ice on the tier. The only water that we’re allowed to drink is out of our sink. And sometimes our pipes are backed up, or there’s a boil-water warning on the news. If we want water, our only option is to drink contaminated water out our sinks, which is cruel and unusual punishment. Inhumanity. Not to mention that we’re only allowed books and newspapers. We have no access to any television or radio. The papers is how we find out about the boil water warnings, and sometimes the newspapers come too late because of slow mail.

They want you to put your jump suit all the way on, while you’re in your cell all during the day while it’s nearly 100 degrees. This is only a tactic to make you as uncomfortable as possible. You see, every day in these cells is war. They take you to war every single day. Psychological warfare.

A lot of the guys here can’t endure the delinquency of the officers, nor could they endure these extreme circumstances of dehumanization. I watch guys break right before my eyes all the time. The mind is very elusive… Hold it tight. One minute you’ll be talking to a guy and the next minute they just snap, right before your very eyes, as if their mind was an egg that slipped out of their hand, and splattered across the hard rough pavement.

These situations are so frequent that a lot of the individuals here have gotten used to it. They have so adjusted to where they believe that these abnormal situations are normal. Just a couple of weeks ago a guy hung himself in his cell. His body dangled for a couple of hours before anyone even noticed. He was then rolled off the tier, and it was as if nothing had happen.

Guys use to be killed here by guards all the time. That was until word started to leak outside of these walls and into the free world. But that still wasn’t enough to mentally liberate us. We need outside help… recognition… the voice of society… we need revolution!

I’m fortunate enough to be one of the few to be spiritually emancipated. Subsequently I have become a revolutionist. The change has already begun. And unity is a very fundamental principle.

We’re dying to live….but we’re living to die.

There’s about 11 of us total who have been on hunger strike. Today makes my 4 1/2 day without food [11 July 2016]. About 8 or 9 other guys have reached their 7 day mark. But this is only the beginning. We would probably have to go a couple of weeks on hunger strike for them to even take us seriously, which is hard work without the outside help, or support. Also the oppressor refuses to stand down without opposition. Their tactics are vital. You could be on hunger strike for 4 or 5 days and they wouldn’t even document it. That way they won’t have to report so many to D.O.C headquarters. But also subsequently you wouldn’t receive mandatory medical treatment, which is protocol after a prisoner misses 9 meals.

You’re declared to be suicidal. By refusing to follow their protocol they violate our constitutional rights. But we’re willing to go however long it takes. We also have multiple comrades who have made it to the courts system to push even further after they have successfully exhausted the grievance process. Our fundamental goal is for change… Better circumstances. We want the same thing that the “Pledge of Allegiance” taught us. We want Liberty and Justice for all.


MIM(Prisons) responds: We stand with this writer and the comrades in Louisiana fighting back against the dangerous and inhumane conditions at David Wade Correctional Center. This comrade is right that actions behind bars need outside support. It is also important to have some clear demands when we undertake big protests like a hunger strike. This will help focus the response, and ensure that we know when we have won. Fighting for general liberty and justice is definitely our goal as communists, but we know we will never achieve that under capitalism, and so our actions should be focused on winnable battles today while we build for liberation for all through revolution.

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[Censorship] [LA State Penitentiary] [Louisiana]
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New Afrikan Books Censored in Louisiana

On 13 February 2015, the books Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon, The Souls of Black Folks by W.E.B. Dubois, The Mis-Education of the Negro by Carter G. Woodson, and Blood In My Eye by George Jackson arrived at the Louisiana State Prison in Angola. They were sent to me by a family member directly from the Amazon.com as per the requirements of this institution. However, I wasn’t notified of their arrival until six months and two weeks later. Added to that outrage was the rejection of the absolutely essential, must-read piece of literature for the New Afrikan Guerilla, Blood In My Eye.

The institution, perhaps on some “legitimate self-interest” grounds, could have possibly raised a plausible objection to the book. For it is known throughout the corrections racket that the book “Blood In My Eye” has been known to elevate the consciousness of the oppressed captives subsisting behind its walls. And of course conscious elevation equals prison population deflation, I get that. What I didn’t get was this institution rejection the book on the grounds that it contained nudity or sexually explicit material. Yes you read that right. The book by Comrade George was rejected, according to this institution, because it contained nudity or sexually explicit material.

I of course immediately appealed the decision through the administrative remedy procedure. Three and a half months later - mind you that policy only allows 40 days for a response - I received an answer. Amazingly the book was now being rejected because it “contains material that could lead to inmate unrest for racial reasons.” Not the nudity issue I addressed in the appeal! If it wasn’t for the fact that I understand how the administration does battle, they would have totally thrown me off course with that move. But they didn’t so I continue to fight on. Just another episode in the never ending series of “Administrative Justice”. A Luta Continua.


MIM(Prisons) responds: We commend this comrade for continuing the fight in face of the prison changing rules and reasons, failing to follow their own policies, and unjustly denying em educational material. We should all strive to have this same attitude of perseverance when we are repeatedly put down by those in power. We will lose most of our battles right now because we do not have power. This is why our tactical battles, like the one against censorship, must always be in the context of the larger struggle to overthrow imperialism. Only when we have a government that is serving the interests of the majority of the world’s people, rather than one serving the minority of wealthy people, will we be able to implement real justice. This power will not come with a few petitions and legal battles, but these campaigns are part of the long hard work we do at this stage of the struggle.

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[Abuse] [David Wade Correctional Center] [Louisiana]
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Louisiana Small Victory, Ongoing Struggle

This is a plea for help from all prisoners housed in Louisiana at David Wade Correctional Center (DWCC) located in Homer. This plea is for advocacy against the cruel and unusual conditions. Thanks to lawyer Jonathan Goians at 318-787-5607 and lawyer Kathryn Fernandez at 504-522-2337 they have put fans in here. But we are not done fighting. No one in their right mind should let this suffering and these inhumane living conditions go on. The unconstitutionally torturous conditions need to be stopped. This is solitary torture.

There are many uncertainties and overwhelming challenges for us here in SHU torture chambers and in prisons across the state. Through sacrifices and hunger strikes we can make a change and instrumental changes that will positively affect our future generations and shine a brighter light on all those living in oppression and perpetual torture. And we just did that here! And got fans! We need legal counsel representatives to expand our movement to bigger, stronger and more informative horizons.

We have rights to organize and freedom of speech and expression to violations and we will fight them, but we need your help from the outside to make our voice be heard. These torture chambers/prison walls do not form barriers separating inmates from protections in the U.S. constitution including our 1st, 8th and 14th amendment rights. The officers’ indiscretions cause unnecessary discord and hinder our overall struggle, we must come to an understand their intentions. Only through unity and peace can we come together and create sustainable change for all of us. We need to overcome solitary confinement, but continue to work to find justice, prosperity, equal opportunities and peace in every facet of society by working to fix the overwhelming disparities in and out of these walls that never can contain us.

All my brothers here have been going on hunger strike and cutting ourselves to show how the conditions are here. We have over 10 of us in court on all these conditions. Please look us up as we are in the 19th district court in Baton Rouge, Louisiana trying to make it a class action now!

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[Abuse] [Riverbend Detention Center] [Louisiana]
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The Morals Money Ignores

The last few weeks at Riverbend Detention Center have been more trying than usual. Despite the usual complaints about prisons (bad food, dishonest guards, lack of protocol for inmates, etc). This facility is one of several dozen privately run prisons in this state over which there are very few governing statutes all of which are unreasonably vague. We have no protection legally from our captors. We are fed like second graders, cheated at commissary, and denied visitation. Riverbend is owned and operated by the local sheriff in a backwoods parish of a notoriously backwoods state. Money is a determining illusion in the voters decisions because there is no revenue at all. As part of his campaign, Sheriff Wydet made it his point to exploit the unused space in his jail to house DOC inmates. Like most of the poorer parishes, the prison is the primary employer. This is a result of the low educational standards (another record held by Louisiana). This summer was unusual for us because a portion of the prison (one of three buildings), which up until now was used for storage, was refurbished to be ready to accept prisoners again for this fall. Several men were put to work, all were occasionally paid scraps of extra food or a couple of cigarettes but they made it happen. Even if they did it right at the deadline set by their slave drivers (thank you 13th amendment), but DOC didn’t send any prisoners - somebody else did.

After Katrina, New Orleans was constantly both rebuilding (which is still going on) and restructuring. Being a transplant to this state listening to the horror stories told by the prisoners who were in OPP during the storm (they were abandoned for a week) seems like something that couldn’t happen in a Christian based land, but we all know now that it can and does. The prison, however, has been getting a makeover. Orleans Sheriff Marlon Gusman pushed for years to get funding to build a brand new 1400+ bed facility so that he could shut down the Main Jail at the Sheriff’s office. Orleans employed five separate jails when I was there in 2010. The Sheriff’s office was split down the middle to create CLU and HOD. Then had tent city next door, which was literally eight military hangar-type tents. These three no longer exist in their prior functions. The other two are Conchetta (which is used for DOC) and the Old Parrish (which is in the court house to hold violent offenders and escape risks). The new prison utilizes a large re-entry program that is only a couple years old but both New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and Gusman insist has lowered recidivism. September 10, 250 pre-trial inmates of every spectrum of the criminal code were moved three and a half hours away to Lak Providence. They are here now, mixed together under no variation or classification (murderers with sex offenders with pot dealers with traffic violators) and being guarded by the lowest common denominator of the states workforce. This is for an increased rate of $30 a day per head, a 20% increase from staying in Orleans to be milked from the taxpayers. Some of the guards enjoy telling us about their time in prison and how that makes them one of us.

The Orleans public pretender office is taking issue with this because they are also broke and short staffed. Traveling here to see their clients is obviously unrealistic to both the lawyers and the clients. Who are now going to be down several months longer due to missed court dates and other scheduling conflicts. A motion to forbid Gusman from moving pretrial detainees before DOC inmates was put before U$ District Judge Lance Africk, who is overseeing a federal consent decree aimed at reforms at OPP; Africk ordered Gusman to appear in his chambers to discuss these problems. The Sheriff has so far ignored all attempts to work out some other alternative, he obviously wanted this move to happen. Something tells me he’ll be bringing money when he visits the judge. As Darren Sharper and Jaime Foxx have shown, prosecution in New Orleans only happens when District Attorney Leon Canazarro doesn’t get paid.

The prison here is full and content not unlike a corpulent child after a buffet. No one here seems to mind and I will tell you from experience that Gusman will not do anything unless it appeals to his own personal interest.

Now, I could expound on the human cost or push the legality of access to one’s lawyer but all of those things make sense. Not dollars. I’ve seen almost every state in this union but nothing compares to what I’ve been forced to witness in Louisiana. I tell you that this will be the outcome for the rest of this country and all capitalist societies. Prisons come before schools, profits come before rights and politics come before people.


Sources: Public defender: transfer keeps OPP inmates from counsel; Jim Mustian, Baton Rouge, The Advocate 9/18/15.

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[Abuse] [Prison Labor] [LA State Penitentiary] [Louisiana]
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Angola Louisiana Warden Making Money on Prisons

I’ve decided to place my pen to paper and let you know about some reprehensible bullshit the imperial pigs who run this whole prison complex racket are up to and are hoodwinking the public about.

I was reading the June 2012 issue of Prison Legal News, Vol 23, No 6 and I was utterly floored when I read the cover article titled “God’s Own Warden.” [This article was reprinted from Mother Jones magazine.(1)]

There is a Warden of Angola prison in Louisiana by the name of Burl Cain. This man has a full blown racket going on down there, where he not only exploits inmates with blatant slave labor, but then hides it behind religion, and openly broadcasts his money making exploits.

This imperial pig “pays” inmates 2-20 cents to move the wheels of his little prison industry down there. He’s got a “museum,” farming fields, a gift shop, and a rodeo arena which seats 10,000 people and draws 70,000 people each spring and fall for “prison rodeos.”

At these “rodeos” they have “convict poker,” where they put 4 prisoners around a table and tell them to remain seated while a 2000 pound pissed off bull charges at them. In another event they call “guts and glory,” they tie a poker chip to the horn of an angry bull. While it hangs from the horn “inmates vie to snatch the poker chip off the horn” while the prisoners run after and are chased by said enraged animal. These events are done for the laughs of the people who’ve bought themselves tickets to this idiocy.

In 1998 Daniel Bergner wrote a book titled “God of the Rodeo” where he himself researched this rodeo and wrote a book about it, saying that he “observed the reaction of the crowd which was electrified, exhilarated, by the thrill of watching men in terror, all made forgivable because the men were murderers.” He then goes on to say “I’m sure some of it was racist (see that nigger move) and some disappointed (that there was no goring) and some uneasy (with that very disappointment).” Then he goes on to say “many people were not laughing, were too bewildered or stunned by what they’d just seen.”

And of course this industrial pig has prisoners outside the arena selling arts and crafts, crawfish étouffée and Frito pies. In his “gift shop,” he sells miniature handcuffs, prisoner-made jelly, and mugs that read “Angola: a gated community.” Then people move on to a display of “Gruesome Gertie” which is dubbed as “the only electric chair in which a prisoner was executed twice.” (The first time didn’t take because the executioners were “visibly drunk.”)(2)

So not only does this imperial pig make money off live inmates, he cashed in on their cruel and unusual deaths as well. But that’s still not enough for the deep pockets of this racketeering Warden. He contracts his prison out to Hollywood and “allows” prisoners to be extras, all for a nice fee of course!

Cain gets away with it because he hides it all behind religion and converting prisoners to Christianity. So with his money he tosses up a few plywood walls and roof, calls it a church, and says he’s “saving souls.”

This is the prison where a trio of prisoners had been locked down in solitary confinement longer than anyone in U.S. history, because they were Black Panther Party members (Albert Woodfox, Herman Wallace and the now released Robert King). They were put in solitary confinement, and have spent nearly 4 decades there, simply for their political beliefs.

In 2008 Warden Cain had a disposition taken in which Cain says of Woodfox, “He wants to demonstrate. He wants to organize. He wants to be defiant… He is still trying to practice Black Pantherism, and I still would not want him walking around my prison because he would organize young prisoners, I would have me all kinds of problems, more than I could stand, and I would have the blacks chasing after them.”(3)

Never mind the fact that these two heroic comrades are in their 60s and have a near perfect record for more than 20 years. Warden Cain says “it’s not a matter of write-ups. It’s a matter of attitude and what ya are… Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace is [sic] locked in time with that Black Panther revolutionary actions they were doing way back when… and from that there’s been no rehabilitation.”(3) Warden Cain then “suggested that Wallace and Woodfox could be released into general population if they renounced their political beliefs/views and embraced Jesus.”(3)

Cain’s policy is if inmates don’t attend church services they don’t get the good jobs (that pay 2-20 cents), or other goodies, such as a day or two off from plowing and farming his fields, a good meal, special banquets, ice cream, etc.

There should be a public outcry of complete outrage over this shit. This is the very sickening degeneracy which we as communists strive to stomp out. These atrocities going on down in Angola under the skirts of religion piss me off, and only strengthen my resolve to standup and fight these imperial piggies every step of the way. With every breath I take it fills my eyes with only the color of red. In solidarity we stand.


MIM(Prisons) adds: As we’ve explained in articles on the U.S. prison economy, the exploitation of prison labor by private entities is very limited in scope, with most prison labor contributing to prison maintenance and expenses. In the case of Angola, the farm laborers, making a maximum wage of 20 cents per hour, are actually engaged in productive labor and are likely providing a net surplus value to the prison after factoring in the room and board they are provided. But even in this large, well-organized operation, the income is only an offset to the total costs of keeping these men imprisoned, in particular paying the salaries of guards and administrators.

Those prisoners making jam, and other trinkets for sale outside the rodeo are raising money for Christian organizations.(1) In this case private interests are benefitting financially from coerced labor, but even then there are no capitalist profit interests behind these projects as implied by the myth of the “prison industrial complex.” Petty economic interests aside, the bigger story here is the national oppression faced by the 75% Black prisoner population at Angola coerced into supporting Christian organizations and pushed into the rodeo. This is a reprehensible example of treating men like animals and turning social control into a sport for the entertainment of reactionary spectators.

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[Religious Repression] [Prison Labor] [Organizing] [LA State Penitentiary] [Louisiana] [ULK Issue 17]
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Political Activism Killed by Religion in Louisiana

I have begun to receive ULK and I have not had any problems with censorship. There are not very many politically active people/groups here now, such as in California, so the mailroom is not hyperaware of radical political publications.

This was not always the case. Louisiana State Prison (Angola) in the 60s, 70s and 80s was a hotbed of political activism, primarily with the Black Panther Party. It was also considered one of the bloodiest prisons in America. Since the 90s it seems political activism/education has evaporated. This is mostly due (in my opinion) to the prison becoming admittedly more safe, the aging and death of the older inmate population (as the 60s and 70s were a universally more politically active time across America), and the current Warden. Warden Burl Cain has quite effectively turned the prison into a church, with even a 5-year seminary college funded by the Southern Baptists of America.

This has had an enormously detrimental impact on the prison population. There is no longer any prisoner solidarity (beyond the individual self-serving prison clubs and organizations) or any real political movement. Most (though not all) prisoners now play the religion game as a ticket to move up within the prison society and garner favor with the administration. In fact, to essentially get in any position of prisoner power - such as a club president or to work for the prison magazine The Angolite (which came to prominence under Wilbert Rideau) - you must be an active professed Christian.

The true harm in all of this is that there is no real rehabilitation or education within the prison now. Louisiana does not have parole for people sentenced to life and 90% of the 5000+ prisoners here at Angola will die in prison. This is a proven statistical fact even admitted by Louisiana DOC. The only option for lifers in Louisiana is the possibility for a sentence reduction by the pardon board. This is not a legitimate option though. It is extremely rare (once every 10-15 years) that they recommend a lifer for a sentence reduction and the governor signs it.

In the farce of this hopelessness, the warden has pushed the panacea of religion both to fight hopelessness, as well as the idea that if you garner enough favor and play the religion game well enough, you will be lucky when you go before the pardon board. The warden has made moves to place himself as an “advisor” to the pardon board to give recommendations as to who should be given a pardon (sentence reduction) and who not. This means you either toe the warden’s line - be Christian, not exercise your rights, make no waves, become an informant to show you are “reformed” - or you essentially have no hope whatsoever of ever being granted relief by the pardon board. This includes those prisoners with lesser sentences who go before the parole board. The pardon and parole boards are one and the same.

All of this is a preamble to my real reason for writing this letter to you. I am attempting to re-energize a political base among the prisoner population. The most possible form this may take is by labor unionizing. Angola is one of the last great prison farms (18,000 acres for crops and cattle), along with places like Parchman in Mississippi. A good many of the prisoners here still perform agricultural labor. This food is primarily sold for private profit, not fed to us. This prisoner labor saves the state (and earns it) million of dollars, while prisoners receive little or no “incentive pay” or wages. Field workers earn 4 cents an hour or less, half of which (up to $250) must go into a “savings account” the prisoners may not use (except for a few narrow reasons) even if the prisoner is a lifer and will never get out to use his “savings.” This money sits instead, in perpetuity, earning interest in DOC bank accounts for the state.

The only practical political force prisoners here may exert is by unionizing. Not only to work towards better living/working conditions in prison, but towards more just sentencing laws. Unionization as well creates a solidarity movement younger prisoners may never have experienced before which can prove fertile grounds for Marxist/Maoist education. It would be fitting to see such an agrarian Maoist movement take hold and grow here. Unionization and the educational benefits of a labor movement create the grounds for producing politically aware cadres, some who will remain in prison, but many who may return to their communities to expand the movement.

Consequently, it is my hope to recruit and develop a dedicated cadre of individuals here to research the possibility of a prisoner labor movement and further that idea by education and activism.

I have already circulated the introductory letter you sent to me describing MIM(Prisons)’s platform, as well as the first issue of ULK I have received. I further plan to enroll in your Maoist study cell. I have read and studied Marxism-Leninism for many years but am not as familiar with Maoism or how such Maoist principles may differ in form or function from Marxism. As I have always generally understood, Marxism-Leninism applied to an industrialized (to a large degree) proletariat, where as Maoism was an agrarian movement. I’m sure this may be a huge oversimplification. For that reason, I wish to educate myself more, with your help.


MIM(Prisons) responds: We support this comrade’s efforts to organize prison workers. Rather than a proletariat or peasantry, the U.$. prison population’s relationship to production puts it squarely in the lumpen class, as we explained in a report on the U.$. prison economy. Prison labor is used to save the state money, as this comrade points out, in its excessively expensive project of imprisoning this class of people that capitalism has no use for. Therefore organizing prisoners to heighten the contradictions of the state in fiscal crisis is of great value. And there is no doubt that this organizing serves an excellent educational purpose as well.

Maoism is an advance on Marxism-Leninism that still bases itself in the revolutionary class of the proletariat but also sees the peasantry as a key ally to the proletariat in countries like China where the system is semi-feudal and the population is so dispersed in the agrarian countryside. While we can’t just take this theory and apply it to farming in the U.$. where conditions are very different, the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM) is still very relevant today. The dialectical materialist method teaches us to learn from the best that history has to offer (MLM) and apply it to our conditions today just as groups like the Black Panthers and Young Lords did with the lumpen before us.

The history of prison labor organizing at Angola pre-dates the Panthers, and according to one blog, during a strike in 1951, 31 prisoners cut their Achilles tendons so that they could not be made to work on the farm. Acts like these distinguish those who really have “nothing to lose but their chains” - one definition of the proletariat. Religious brainwashing can be effective at diffusing such resistance, especially when there are bribes involved, but the oppressed will gravitate towards Maoism as it represents their interests as a people and not just short-term individual interests.

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[Control Units] [Louisiana]
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Signing petition to shut down all control units

I agree that control units are not productive means of rehabilitating prisoners for productive living in society, but do the exact opposite of their original purpose. Control units starve life mentally and physically, creating an insensible life. These control units create this insensible life by: 23 hour lock down (sometimes more), no religious programs, no school of any type of educational purpose. Maximum $10 store (no food products), one roll of toilet paper every two weeks and anything else punishable and inhumane the system can get away with such as excessive temperatures, followed by abuse of authority.

By no means is this program of life in control units to help a person be better than when they entered. I know this ala because I am a victim.

I condemn these control units and demand the united states to eliminate these unconstitutional disciplinary control units.

MIM(Prisons) adds: See our web page on prison control units for more information on this campaign.

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