Missouri Prisons

In the March 2009 Peace issue of ULK, I submitted an article entitled “More Police Not the Answer.” Since the writing of that piece, pig chief Joe Mowka has been forced into retirement after an investigative report surfaced that his estranged daughter (who has a history of drug abuse) had been using vehicles confiscated by the St. Louis City Police and held at a towing company with a lucrative contract by the City Police. But that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Since December 2008, there have been 13 St. Louis City Police officers charged in state and federal indictments. New pig chief Don Isam, the Black face in a high place, says that he is committed to “rooting out those who violate the laws they are sworn to uphold.” Yeah right, we’ve heard it all before… Brotha!

The first week of October 2009, one pig was fired and another suspended after they filed criminal charges against a man for allegedly trying to run over one of them with his car. But due to the diligence of the man’s girlfriend, a videotape surfaced which showed that the officers had in fact lied. All the charges were subsequently dropped.

Two other pigs were caught lying in search warrants. Pigs Vincent T. Carr, and Bobby Lee Courrett, were recently given slaps on the wrists, after being indicted in December 2008, along with pig Leo Liston (indicted in April 2009). They were indicted for stealing drug-linked money and planting illegal evidence on an innocent man and lying to cover up their wrong doing. As a result, over 1,000 cases in which these pigs were involved have to be reviewed.

Some other cases involve pigs lying in court proceedings, doing computer database checks for buddies and theft of U.$. government property. Pigs Ronald H. Jackson and Christian A. Brezill were caught in a scheme in which they would take stolen goods from thieves and keep them for themselves, sell off what they didn’t want and break bread with the rat who set up the other crooks. The indictment involves them taking what they thought was the thieves property, which actually belonged to the FBI.

But these things are not “new” to anyone, nor are they “isolated” incidents. Corruption is part of the pig culture. I can remember back to the late 1980s when George Peach was the city’s head prosecutor, sending thousands of men and wimmin to prison, only to be caught in a federal prostitution sting.

Pig abuse and pig corruption are a part of the capitalist-imperialist system. So while some “citizens” cry for more pigs to be added to the city’s payroll, we say that the imperialist system is the root of all of these problems and that the entire system must go and not just a few greedy, fucked-up pigs!

MIM(Prisons) Adds: We’d like to emphasize the argument that this comrade makes against the “bad apples” theory, which comes from the false bourgeois psychological idea of persynalities and persynality traits. The idea of persynalities serves the bourgeoisie by focusing the masses on getting rid of the few people who are inherently “bad,” instead of analyzing society and how it feeds into some people having antisocial behavior. “If we just lock up so-and-so the rapist, and so-and-so the thief, and fire so-and-so the racist pig, then society will be a better place.” This incorrect logic is used for cleaning up the pig herd as well as locking up oppressed nations. In reality, people are a reflection of the society that they live in. If you live in an oppressive society where we have unequal power, and we’re taught to behave in antisocial ways, then it’s necessarily true that some people will abuse that power, and some will have antisocial behavior.

Not only is corruption a part of the pig culture, like this comrade says, but it’s their job to do fucked up things, that’s what they get paid to do. It’s their job to kill people, exploit people, rape people, and get away with it. Pigs of all kinds are specifically hired and promoted based on their loyalty to the amerikan nation. It’s like working at a burger joint in this society. If you don’t flip the burgers and serve them to the customers, then you aren’t enabling the restaurant to work how it needs to in order to be a restaurant. Similarly, as a pig, if you’re not locking up thousands of people, or planting drugs on them, or stopping them from organizing for liberation, then you’re not enabling society to function properly. The only way to truly get rid of the “bad apples” and corruption is to address these problems on a societal level.

I am currently in the Missouri Department of Corrections at Potosi Correctional Center. I am being housed at a prison which my state defines as a level 5 institution. Which is the most secure of our classification system. Our state has five of these institutions for people with anywhere from 8 years to life without parole and this particular prison of oppression also houses the state’s Death Row prisoners. Outrageous if I may say, because i found myself here for one reason alone, accumulation of minor write ups.

Housed with murderers, rapists and well humans I should say who have messed up and got way too much time. Why? Because this state and many other states would just assume to warehouse us for many years than try to help us. My environment is as real as it gets and here’s why.

There are six housing units on this prison yard and they break down like this: one house - supermax (where I am at right now we’ll touch on that later) holds 22 people and two suicide cells (no cameras in these cells) we have showers in our cells in one house and the temperature stays so cold it’s quite unreal, which I believe is to punish the ones who are at times in the suicide cells, which they also use for punishment/strip out/dry cells.

Then there comes two house, the worst house on the yard! This house is also the hole or segregated/oppression house. It has 3 wings A-wing consist of 30-double bunk cells, a total of 60 people. B-wing 32 single man cells and C-wing 30 single man cells. This house is out of control when it comes to custody officers. What is known to any and every prisoner is if you’re in two house you must stay on your toes, especially during the 7:30am to 3:30pm shift when the 5 “C’s” work Culton, Clubbs, Conrad, Comer, and Copeland. These oppressors are treacherous because they will deny you food, exploit your mail, ruin you property, free-case you, retaliate on you with frivolous write ups, and these five rogue oppressors have backing all the way to the sergeants, lieutenants, captains, majors, deputy wardens, and the top oppressor, the warden.

The things they do come natural to them: deny, abuse, exploit, deter. But all this doesn’t stop on their shift, it goes on 24/7, especially on weekends. What we refer to as the good ol’ boys, because we’re in a little prison in a little town, where damn near everyone knows everyone and they’re all related and friends.

I just watched a comrade refuse to be put in a hazardous environment man-handled by these people all except Copeland, who was the Bubble/Control Unit officer, maced this guy, pulled him out of his cell, and as soon as they were in a blind spot where no camera could see, he was slammed on his face/neck and shoulder. He is two doors down now in a cell that floods during showers.

But wait, there is more. Let’s examine why I am in a supermax cell. On September 11, 2009 I was given a medical lay in to receive a brown bag with my trays. Everything was going like it should, then comes Sunday evening dinner tray pass. I didn’t get my brown bag, was told they would order it, they gave me an excuse as I would get it later. I believed them, later came and went. This started at 4pm, it turned into 10:30pm. Still nothing so I covered my window in an attempt to see/get a Sargent, a custody count came by, they didn’t even see me. The sign in my window said I wanted a Brown Bag. I was told by one officer “your beat” the other said “wan-wan”. So I did get quite angry and decided to make the sprinkler head come alive and flood my cell and the walk. Yes, I know, stupid but can’t change it now. Well, anyways my cell started to flood and here com the oppressors. 4 or 5 blue shirts (foot soldiers) and the sargeants two or three of them. Now I’m not exactly calm so maybe I warranted 2 or 3 but 8 or 9, c’mon folks!

So I remained in the cell for about 20 minutes with oily/nasty water pouring by the gallons until I was given the directive to “cuff up”! I complied only to have the handcuffs slammed on my wrist. My door was opened and I was jerked out, put in a restraint hold with my arms lifted above my shoulder and practically drug out of the wing into the rotunda, I was doing everything I could to walk, well needless to say, on the way out of the wing I was slammed into a door frame causing a pretty nice cut across my right collar bone and a swollen eye/cheek, but they aren’t done with me yet. So far this was witnessed by quite a few. As I am being escorted out of the housing unit to medical I assume as soon as we are in another one of the blind spots I was slammed on the concrete causing quite a few inflictions. Left shoulder all scraped/cut up, left knee split open. Right side below my armpit a few scrapes. Right eye/cheek bone nice and swollen and cut open. Does this seem unreal? Believe me it’s not.

After they did the usual stop resisting shenanagins twisting my shoulders and wrist to points of probably near breakage I was lifted up and forced to walk bent over at a rapid pace into medical. I was sat into a chair while a nurse used some type of water and gauze to treat/first aid the multiple bleeding wounds. All the while I was having my wrist twisted when I made the comment. I’m not trying to resist I was told to shut up and twisted harder, again lifted up and walked say 500 feet to one house, put into the suicide cell, even though I’m not suicidal, completely naked. Searched forced onto a concrete slab onto my busted knee, almost over. Door shut unshackled and handcuffed. Phew I still have cuts and scars still healing due to improper medical care and the Good Ol Boys. I’m telling you as real as it gets this is not unusual, quite typical. People getting slammed, spit upon, mace bombs thrown in on us, riot cans of mace used, forced to subsist in freezing temperatures stark naked, it don’t stop, and when we try to organize and let our oppression be known about we are placed on limited property where we don’t have access to paper, pen or envelopes or stamps. This is outrageous. I ask myself why all this because we want our civil rights and we want our state issue (things we are entitled to) food, clothing, bedding, legal.

One more instance and I’ll be through for now. We have a chapel library assistant who was said to have been doing it for 3 years. Well just recently he was in the fabled two house and accused of bringing in contraband. No way, no how would he have if you knew this guy. Now we in two house have no chapel access.

Now back to the housing unit breakdown. Three house A-wing: 46 cells all double man cells, general population. B-wing: 23 double man cells, general population, the other 23 the hole. That’s 3 holes total! Crazy huh, and they all stay full, then we got 4 house with two wings 46 cells apiece, single-man A-wing sensitive needs unit, B-wing protective custody unit, 6-house with two wings general population, 92 double man cells total. 5-house - the honor house full privileges, no 22 hour lockdown. The ones who make no noise of the oppression are the ones who get to stay there and the ones who lay back and don’t do much of anything good or bad.

We are trying to get the ACLU involved in our struggle within. Grievances are met with excuses as to why we’re in the wrong. Seldom are they remedied inside the institution, and occasionally when they get to central office and when they are this prison doesn’t follow up. It’s chaos, it’s surreal, it’s downright bullshit!

Thanks to Under Lock and Key I know this is happening abroad and all around the U$. We must stand united. We will win!

Hip hop culture began in the late 1970s, but it wasn’t until the middle to late 1980s that the cultural life and expression of hip hop began to grow and influence youth throughout amerika and the world. Many people wrote this phenomena of hip hop culture as some fad that would soon wither away.

During the late 1980s, early 90s, the era I coin the Black Consciousness era of hip hop, Black and Latino youth found a way to use hip hop to express their anger, fears, ideas, art and frustrations within the dominant white-oppressor culture, police brutality and poverty.

Hip hop culture isn’t just about the music, it’s about a lifestyle - from the clothes we wear, style of hair, taggin’ rail cars and walls with radical art and graffiti, unity and more. It’s a culture of resistance.

However, white-owned corporations saw a profit to be made and stepped in to co-opt the movement. Yes, a lot of us found a way to eat, but the result was a lack of potency in the music and a watered-down culture where cars and ICE are the motivating factor. It is a culture that is teaching our youth that it’s all about them (as individuals). That it’s cool to be a dope field (sippin’ syrup, etc.) and to be victims of HIV/AIDS (it’s ok to have multiple sex partners). Is there any wonder why the highest rates of HIV/AIDS are among Blacks and Latinos between the ages of 13-24?

Culture in general, and hip hop culture in particular, plunges its roots into the base of the material reality of the environment in which we live in the hoods and barrios and it reflects the organic nature of society, which is more or less influenced by the dominant white society and culture of our oppressed communities.

Can hip hop be a vehicle for revolutionary culture? Yes, it can be, but it is not now. Culture is an essential element of the history of a people, and it’s social development. Amilcar Cabral once has this to say about culture: “Study of the history of liberation struggles shows that they generally have been preceded by an upsurge of cultural manifestations, which progressively harden into an attempt, successful or not, to assert the cultural personality of the dominated people by an act of denial of the culture of the oppressor. Whatever the conditions of subjection of a people to foreign domination and the influence of economic, political and social factors in the exercise of this domination, it is generally within the cultural factor that we find the germ of challenge which leads to the structuring and development of the liberation movement.”

If hip hop is to transform into a true vehicle for social change, we must demand that our artists keep it a hundred and give us more analysis in their music. Stop promoting the use of addictive narcotics, that they become more active in our communities, and give our youth the encouragement to study, unify, and resist oppression. If they fail to do this, hip hop remains sterile and dead. Long Live 2Pac, Biggie Smalls, Eazy-E, Left Eye, Pimp C, Big Pun and all other hip hop artists that paved the way for the next generation to refuse and resist.

In my quest for freedom I continue to struggle
spitting conscious thoughts, so I’m flexing my muscle
overdosin on oppression on this modern day plantation
with knowledge. I rebel to improve my situation.
I strive for the greatness that our people once displayed.
No longer influenced by the beast, disgusted by his wicked ways.
I’m militant like Huey
Ready to lead like Marcus
I come in peace like Martin.
But like Jonathan I’ll spark shit
Like Malcolm by any means necessary
For my people I’ll go there,
might get assassinated like George
with the Black Power fist in the air
I’m a conquerer like Hannibal
A warrior like Shaka
lead you to freedom like Harriet
might break out like Assata
I ride for the cause
and stay on point like a needle.
What more can I say
Power to the People.

Noble salutations comrades! I have been a recipient of your prison newsletter for several months now. In January I was transferred from the South Central Correctional Center in Licking Missouri to Crossroads Correctional Center in Cameron Missouri. I have been in administrative segregation (Ad-Seg) since November of 2007. In Feb of 2008 a classification hearing was held (unscheduled) and it was then recommended by the housing unit staff of one house at SCCC that I be placed on “mandated single cell confinement,” a status with no end. This hearing was held but twenty four hours after I filed paper work through inmate grievance procedure of the functional unit manager of my unit for staff familiarity and personal conflicts. The day following this unscheduled hearing, I filed again on this DOC employee for retaliation which is plain to see. All of my grievances and appeals were denied and have now been exhausted, my situation remains the same although I am in a different correctional center.

SOP 21-1.2 Administrative Segregation, page 2 states the following: Assignment of an offender to a single cell within an administrative segregation unit [is] for documented safety and security reasons, i.e. offenders who are considered an immediate or long term danger to other offenders that would be celled with that offender based on extremely violent, aggressive, threatening actions towards others, which may include murder/manslaughter, sexual assault/rape, assault with serious physical injury, sexually active HIV positive offender. This offender is not to be celled with other offenders.

Page 8 of the same SOP 21-1.2 states:
Mandated single cell assignment:
1. The administrative segregation committee will evaluate offenders for single cell confinement at the time of the hearing. All offenders who are considered an immediate/long-term danger to harm a cellmate as explained in definition II.E of this procedure should be assigned to a single cell in administrative segregation.

2. Offenders who have recently assaulted/harmed a cellmate or other offenders who staff believe are a continuous threat to other offenders if housed in a cell with them, should be submitted to the deputy division director, who, in consultation with the division director will approve/disapprove these actions. Offenders who have been approved for mandated single cell assignment will require approval from the deputy division director prior to removal from this status.

Upon my arrival to this institution I asked the classification staff if I would now be removed from the mandated status. I was informed by the head of the committee that no one gets removed from this status once placed on it. All staff present for this made noises that I “have life without in the hole,” as I’m serving two consecutive life sentences, one of which is without parole.

I have been denied my right to due process. I have quoted their policies and procedures in all my filings. Every action I have taken has been within and following all guidelines. No justice has been given.

I have written several prisoner rights advocates and contacted numerous attorneys offices, all futile.

This is not just a solitary issue concerning just one prisoner. Missouri has prisoners that have been on this status up to ten years (that I know of). Some have had no violations in several years yet remain caged 24/7 like some rabid, volatile beast.

Many of us have no one to reach out to for aid and assistance. More than one is being held for past acts or political reasons while others committing the same or worse acts are given a year with a cellmate in ad-seg then released back to general population.

The South Central Correctional Center hands out this status as though it were candy to any prisoner who staff seem to have personal issues with. And it continues because we have no one to assist us.

In July 2008, the St. Louis City Police Department, under the leadership of Joe Mowka, Chief of Police, initiated a program to reduce the city’s homicide rate. The city at this time had 89 homicides, on pace to reach the highest total in 13 years. As of November 23, 2008, there have been a total of 161 homicides.

The police department says that since its program of “saturation” patrols (as they began to call the increased police presence), 123 arrests were made in one week with the help of U.S. Marshals. Yet the crime rate hasn’t gone down and murders are still happening at an alarming rate.

It is my contention that more police in the neighborhood isn’t going to change a damn thing. More police, more brutality. more police, more poor Blacks on their way to jail, penitentiary, probation and parole.

Of course, everyone has a right to be safe in their home, on the street and in their neighborhood. But if no social, educational and employment opportunities are being made available, it doesn’t matter how many mobile command units sit on the street corners, crime is gonna continue unabated. If you change the social conditions that caused the social ills, then there would be no need for more police. People will not behave according to truly human standards until they live under truly human conditions.

The people need power to determine the destiny of their own communities. The masses needs access to more educational and employment opportunities, not the penitentiary and graveyard!

Power to the people who don’t fear real freedom!

I am writing you to report a misuse of power within the walls of the DOC. A tragedy between a woman of power and a woman without power.

I’m being held captive for 20 years at 85% in an institution where our biggest fear of sexual harassment not only lies at the feet of the male officers but also at the feet of a female officer. I’ll admit we’ve had a few male officers disappear in my time due to sexual harassment, but nothing has ever been done to right the wrongs of this particular officer I’m speaking of, for fear of being locked in the hole for a long period of time for a formal investigation. Therefore no one has ever filed suit against her for her actions.

I recall my friend being searched one night after leaving the chow hall. No big deal except this officer ran her hands across my friend’s very petite breasts. My friend told the officer what she had done and the officer laughed and said “you don’t have any to touch.”

Later that same evening, the officer caught my friend in the bathroom and used the fact that my friend was on room restriction for an excuse to make my friend strip out. The officer didn’t follow the normal procedure and make my friend cough and squat. She just wanted to see her breasts. The officer has my friend grab her own nipples while the officer placed her hands over my friends hands to lift her breasts up, supposedly searching her for a cigarette or lighter. The whole ordeal was demeaning.

We brought the situation to the attention of the Sgt who was on duty and we were told that if we wanted to file charges against the officer she was going to file charges against my friend for assault because when my friend reenacted what had happened for the Sgt, my friend touched the Sgt’s hand in the process, therefore end of story.

Both officers still work here and misuse their power. Someone has to do something or I fear it will never stop. I myself am risking hole time just by writing this letter to you but my outrage concerning this matter outweighs my fear of the hole so let my story be known.

We are living our lives as captives trapped
behind this prison gate
Our bodies are tortured but our will to survive will never be
slain by this system that believes in nothing but hate.
Daily we’re patronized ridiculed with our hearts filled with pain,
Ever so fearlessly we fight so that our hearts and souls will remain.
We rebel against our captors tooth and nail,
Refusing that the numbers we’ve become won’t be our only tale to tell.
We retaliate by planning, dreaming, and persuing our goals,
We’re accustomed to the system’s hard knocks and low blows.
When our lives became no longer our own we vowed to fight and win our struggle.
Never to surrender our individuality at any cost or the respect thereof,
for it is everything during our struggle inside this concrete jungle.
We have the right to keep our bodies, minds, and souls safe
from the pollution inside this hell.
Regardless what our captors think while we’re caged like
animals inside these cells.
This battle we fight has been going on for decades of years.
A war fought for humanity by many good soldiers
through blood, sweat, and tears.
Year after year we continue to fight against a system that
believes in nothing but wrong.
Our powers take aim towards helping those who have fallen and are less strong.
A healing must take place for the oppressed, the beaten,
the battered and abused.
Cease movement I say to racism, sexism, and all of the hate
that is used.
Our fight shall never end until Power to our People shall
be granted again.
May our fight touch many lives Peace, Love, and Solidarity
to all from our hearts deep within.

Under the United States Constitution, in particular the First Amendment, is Our fundamental right of freedom of speech, expression, association and religion. This means that people have the right to freely express themselves socially, politically or religiously no matter how radical or backwards the ideas may seem. Everyone has the right to believe what they choose and to freely express those views. At lease that is what the law says.

However, prison administrators across the country have continuously and deliberately violated prisoner’s rights based upon the false assumptions that the social, historical and political material that they are receiving is somehow a threat to the prison safety and security.

What this amounts to in reality is the prisonkrats suppressing Our right to associate with, receive mail from, correspond with, possess the literature of, or be part of any group or organization that is political in nature, and especially those groups or organizations which are critical of the prison industrial complex. The last thing the prisonkrats want to see is a bunch of prisoners who are socially and politically conscious and active. They want Us to stay ignorant and in the dark, as We are their job security.

Everyone who is currently incarcerated must learn not only mailroom policy and procedure, but what federal case law supports and protects Our rights. If you aren’t doing anything to challenge the repressive/oppressive conditions, then you really have no right to complain. I am encouraging all of you whose rights have been violated to appeal those decisions through the grievance process and to exhaust all of your administrative remedies. Once this is done, you should prepare and file suit under 42 USCA 1983, which is the federal civil rights lawsuit and the proper legal avenue to challenge the system’s censorship of your mail.

For those of you in Missouri, I am currently preparing a federal complaint and once filed, you may be able to become a part of this suit if it is “certified” as a class action, meaning that the censorship policy is violating our rights as a class.

I am asking all of you on the outside who support Our right to receive literature and information to write letters to the Director of the Department of Corrections. and the warden here and let them know that you are aware of their illegal activity of violating Our rights and that you support Our right to receive information, correspond with and be members of outside social and political organizations.

For those who are not too abreast of the law, here are some cases that the courts rely on regarding censorship. These are your weapons, use them well.

Turner v. Safely 482 U.S.78. 107 S.Ct 2254
Proconier v. Martinez 416 U.S.396. 94 S.Ct 1800
Thornburgh v. Abbott 490 U.S. 4o1
Johnson v. Raemisch 557 F.Supp 2d 964
Jacklovich v. Simmons 392 F.3d 42o

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Thank you for your support. You can also contact me through MIM for more information. Send letters of support/protest to:

Larry Crawford, Director
Missouri Dept. of Corrections
PO Box 236
Jefferson City, MO 65102
(573) 526-6607

Troy Steele, Warden
Southeast Correctional Center
300 E. Pedro Simmons Dr.
Charleston, MO 63834
(573) 683-4409

I am writing to inform you that I received the back issues of MIM Notes that you sent me. The papers were informative concerning the issues affecting some of the Souljahs within these slave plantations. Some of the stories motivated me to attempt to put together a study group. We shall see how long this lasts. I say that because I’m the only individual with literature and these guys in the Missouri Slave System are only concerned with what type of material things they have. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few revolutionary souljahs who still hold the spirit within, but the numbers are dwindling.

I’ve managed to organize a few uprisings here in the ASU of the Southeast Correctional Center that caused these hyenas to change a few things. As a result, I’ve been beat by the goon squad, labeled as an agitator, and my mail has been “disappearing” somehow. Yet I remain strong and rage on!

These hyenas have taken away our phone calls here in the ASU and they’ve taken away the razors, preventing us from contact with family and grooming ourselves. We don’t know what’s to come next, they might take away the 3 hours a week recreation in the “dog cages” outside. Soon, I pray that the souljahs and sistah souljahs here in Missouri catch on and rise up.

I’m about to file a lawsuit with the District Court in protest of the “blanket ban” preventing Missouri inmates from receiving free books. Any info on this issue will be appreciated. They feed us romance novels and rob us of substance with this blanket ban in an attempt to keep us deaf, dumb and blind.

Listen brothas, sistahs, souljahs and sistah souljahs, keep the fight going, our time is now. If we don’t fight for us, who will. Like I’ve said, I will continue to form this study group and create as many uprisings as I can.