Pennsylvania Prisons

Some of the problems I have run into organizing are being targeted by administration for conducting a study group. Some times there’s too many people interested for the space available, then when you’ve got 15-20 people huddled up and no violence is occurring, it scared the C.O.s. They are not used to that type of unity and they don’t encourage anything that has to do with building a collective consciousness. I try to do study groups in smaller circles and more discreetly because some dudes are eyes and ears for the oppressor. Repression is not a good thing at all and I must say that before I continue. However, when they do crack down, that’s when I pay close attention because certain responses help me inventory the caliber of men I’m studying with. The ones who know and understand the full magnitude of what the consequences can be for orchestrating a study group but are still willing to carry on are my type of comrades. In other words, the targeting helps me see who’s who.

[…] As far as the question of being surrounded by enemies, we can list the various forces inside prisons similar to classes/nations outside because there are different types of people and not everybody is on the same page. For example, if in the prison I am housed at I did a united front for Palestine solidarity, certain people would not even consider it because that’s not the level of struggle they are interested in. But if I did one for, let’s say, advocating for more quality programming inside the institution, you will see a different crowd. Even in this crowd, you will have some who fully identify with capitalist principles (even fascism) and their oppressor.

Different initiatives will attract different people. I feel like it’s important to dichotomize because not everybody is qualified for revolutionary work. You’ve got some people who are so broken and battered they will utilize this as an opportunity to gain favor with the oppressor. United fronts can be formed that resolve around us understanding our personal experiences within the criminal injustice system, and putting it in a larger context of abolishing the prison system and all other oppressive, capitalist-imperial systems. By us connecting this link to the outside world, we will see how these systems overlap and the need for a united front for all the oppressed. The fight continues.

MIM(Prisons) responds: Last issue we asked for feedback on what it was like to build support for Palestine in prisons. As this comrade indicates, it can be a hard sell. To focus on quality programming can be a better place to start, but is not inherently going to build the movement. More programming can lead to more state control over what prisoners are doing with their time, more brainwashing. So such a campaign would need to have a component where you were also building programs, or just space for discussion, that serves the movement for it to be a progressive campaign; a campaign that serves the international proletariat. Rather than something that just helps a small group of people get jobs when they’re released or whatever. Campaigning for Palestine is much more inherently internationalist in its content, and does not present these challenges – it presents the challenge of being harder to mobilize people around instead.

Yesterday we published a recent prison book ban list from North Carolina. Today we will analyze and publish a banned literature list from the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections.

The state of Pennsylvania holds around 40,000 people in its prisons, compared to 30,000 in North Carolina. Yet Pennsylvania has only 398 currently banned titles compared to North Carolina’s 480. The Pennsylvania list is not refreshed each year, with some items being banned as far back as 2012, so it seems that overall North Carolina bans more books/publications. Across Pennsylvania school districts there were 186 banned books in 2022/2023 school year. Again, we see that prisons are banning more literature than schools are.

There is a lot of overlap between Pennsylvania and North Carolina’s lists. Pennsylvania seems more aggressive in banning sexual content, which accounted for at least 130 of the 398 titles on their list. (Note: On both lists we do not have reasons for the censorship, and we did not confirm the actual content of each item.) Unlike North Carolina, we did not see any “street novels” or “urban fiction” on the Pennsylvania list, so this was the biggest difference, perhaps accounting for the shorter list. Street novels rival pornography on the North Carolina ban list.

The Pennsylvania list also differs in that it lists titles that were permitted after being reviewed. There were 664 titles that were listed as permitted, giving greater insight into how they implement their rules.

Like North Carolina, tattoo books/magazines were often banned, along with topics like art, guns, hacking, drugs and martial arts. Pennsylvania had more prisoner advocacy related materials on their ban list (like Prison Health News), as well as newspapers that cater to prisoners. They also had more reference books and business related books for some reason (like Legal Forms for Starting and Owning Your Own Business). The obvious political motivations of censorship come through in items like Stop Law Enforcement Violence Against Women of Color and Trans People of Color.

While North Carolina seemed to only target The Final Call and Under Lock & Key there is a much broader list of newspapers that have certain issues banned in Pennsylvania. At the top of that list are The San Francisco Bayview, Workers World, and Under Lock & Key. Other than Under Lock & Key itself, there were no other items on the ban list that MIM Distributors distributes to prisoners, though some were on the permitted list. This mostly conforms with our records that show Under Lock & Key is almost the only thing that has been noted as censored or not received in recent years. The one item that shows up on our list a couple times for Pennsylvania censorship is our Maoist Glossary. As mentioned previously, most of our mail is never confirmed received or not.

Digital Mail Makes Physical Mail Harder

Censorship is challenging to track in the state of Pennsylvania. By law, authorities are required to send us notice of any censorship when it does occurs, but in practice this is uncommon if not rare. The overwhelming majority of our censorship cases in PA consist of mail simply disappearing in the system. What makes tracking censorship so challenging is that this missing mail includes letters that we send prisoners detailing the history of mail we’ve sent to them and when we sent it. Sometimes we have to resort to mailing the cellmates of the prisoners we were trying to contact. It’s amazing how well anger at the police can be communicated just through handwriting.

The fact that Pennsylvania seems to be quietly censoring our glossary aligns with the fact that their tablets provided through GTL do not offer any dictionaries among the 8805 titles available. Only 112 books are free on those tablets. These numbers are from Freedom of Information Act research by prisonbannedbooksweek.org, which also reveals that PA has a contract for $50,000,000.00 with GTL that includes kickbacks for “all annual revenues for music, e-messaging, games, lobby deposit fees and ebooks up to $4,350,000” at 22.5%. While kickbacks are interesting, note that at best the state is getting about 8% of the money back that they are giving to GTL to run their prison tablets. State bureaucrats are motivated to balance budgets, but it’s not like the state is making money on this deal. It is only GTL that is walking away with profits, not the state, and definitely not the families of prisoners who are paying exorbitant fees for these services. The comrade who sent us this ban list wrote:

“I bought this GTL tablet model number TG0802 in January of 2019 for damn near $160.00. But since ViaPath took over GTL a year ago or so, the price has dropped down to $80. But these are refurbished tablets. When I get released I will send it back to the company via the form paying only shipping and handling. Then you get a brand new one without all the D.O.C. settings and restrictions on them… Every song I bought will be on it too.”

It is nice that they have an option to allow you to keep your purchases after release from prison, but we wouldn’t recommend keeping a tablet with a cellular data receiver, camera, GPS and microphone on it from Global Tel*Link after your release.

Thanks to the new digital mail system, Pennsylvania DOC now has three different addresses to send mail to requiring one to identify the type of mail as either General Incoming Correspondence, Photographs, Publications, Photo Books, Official Documents, Original Transactional Documentation, Legal Mail (which can be either “For Attorneys” or “For Courts/Court Entity”), or Miscellaneous.

Under Lock & Key 83 is the only recent issue on the “DENIED” list in Pennsylvania for the reason “Information contained on page 15 speaks of rising up against authority.” Yet every recent issue has been censored for some prisoners, showing that this ban list is only a piece of the censorship going on in Pennsylvania. In recent years this censorship is a combination of mail just gone missing as mentioned above, or mail returned and stamped “REFUSED: Go to WWW.COR.PA.GOV”, implying that we are not following the mail rules. But when you go to their website, the mail rules clearly state that newspapers go to the facility, and many PA prisoners receive them this way. But alas, some mailroom supervisors disagree with the rules.

Despite all these confusing hoops that prison mail must go through, like elsewhere, drugs are more widespread than ever in Pennsylvania prisons. Rampant drug use and censored books and letters are just two of many indications of the failure of U.$. prisons to do anything positive for society.

I just wanted to update on a few things that I found out about recently in regards to a number of corrupt pigs no longer employed by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections or State Correctional Institution - Greene due to their “Going Overboard” with the use of extreme abusiveness against incarcerated prisoners.

Though, I do not know the full list of their names, I do know some possibilities because I have not seen these correctional officers (C.O.’s) lately and I know as a fact that one C.O. Connors is no longer employed at SCI Greene and he was one of those involved with the extremely violent beating of that inmate named “House” last year whom I have written many letters to MIM(Prisons) reporting that incident. I am assuming that every officer (hopefully) who had any part in the severity of that man being beaten to a fucking bloody pulp and broke both of his arms are no longer employed by the D.O.C. or by SCI Greene.

I have heard not only from an actual Sergeant but also from other sources that a huge firing of certain C.O’s, Sergeants, et. cetera who have used overboard tactics which were not needed at the time against several inmates/prisoners had shown up to work only to discover their security punch cards no longer worked and were told at the gate “you no longer are employed here.” C.O. Connors was one of those people. I have not seen C.O. Kametz (not sure on the correct spelling of his name) SGT. Imhoff, LT Smith (Smitty), and a whole slew of others who were involved in the brutality of that man’s severe beating that ultimately landed him to intensive care unit at a local hospital; he was actually life-flighted there. It is always a good thing to know that not all of these places tolerate the abuse of prisoners.

Of course, there is always the possibility that the relatives of House may have gotten involved. Which does happen at times in such situations. I wanted to update MIM(Prisons) on this and supposedly, it is not just the “House” situation either, because they recently fired guards and other staff that are well known for their violently overboard handling of the prisoner population. If only SCI Fayette were the same way and did not permit the misuse of authority (violent or otherwise) in their facility because if they did, I should never have had to undergo the traumatic experiences caused by and started by correctional officers Eric Garland and Reed Patterson. And C.O. Kamentz (or however his name is spelled) actually admitted to me that he and C.O.’s Eric Garland and Reed Patterson are friends and they knew each other very well. So I am not really surprised how big of an asshole he was while employed at SCI Greene. It made sense to me after his confession.

I’m an prisoner in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PADOC) this is my second run inside the claws of Pennsylvania Judicial System and Department of Corrections.

The scary thing now is what I call “the pacifier”. The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections has “Game Rooms” now. Filled with Nintendo Switch (hand-held game system), PlayStation 5, Xbox 1 and throw Madden tournaments along with 2k tournaments. This is the system’s control.

The young generation is being pulled away from the law libraries, school and what’s most important to their release. Keep the youth from the tools and the system doesn’t have to worry about any revolution. The prisons in the PA D.O.C. suspend you for a minimum of six (6) months from the “Game Room” if you receive a misconduct. So the younger generations is tucking their tales and playing games instead of suiting up for the real world and their release.

Thanks to the pacifier, it’s even more important we organize and reach our youth. If not prisons will be seen as playgrounds and acceptable. Maybe I’m wrong. When I started coming to prison there were no tablets, TV’s in the Restricted Housing Unit (R.H.U.) or game rooms. Guys actually like being here.

We need to Reach Our Youth.

MIM(Prisons) adds: In response to our reader survey this year asking if there’s been changes in prisons that make people less likely to subscribe to ULK, a North Carolina prisoner suggested digital entertainment as a cause:

“Change to prison system, yes. Less interested in subscribing, maybe. With tablets a lot of guys don’t care about mail any more. We have GTL tablets. Maybe try to get our content loaded on there? News Inside does, for free.”

ATTN: Governor’s Office Joshua Shapiro, May 10th 2023

From R-Block, Chester County Prison, Westchester

Our Government, has set a Law under Commonwealth Code, 37 PA Code § 95.223 (4), governing Local and State corrections facilities here in Pennsylvania! You now as the elected Governor, “Joshua Shapiro” have duties to enforce these Laws, or correct these customs, used to violate our First Amendment Rights, freedom of speech, use of a protected conduct without retaliation! We have been abused, threatened, sexually harassed, injured and oppressed to a damaging element, involving injury both physical, emotional, mental and sexual in nature by correctional officers, Administration, and the County of Chester’s elected Commissioners! I request your office to fact check this, as I’ve reported along with a copy of herein letter, to Pennsylvania Prison Society, Disability Rights Pennsylvania, PILP, Daily Local News, Fox 29, CBS, NBC 10! This prison population pleads for help of those elected to protect them!

[Signed by 9 prisoners at Chester County Prison]

ATTN: Chester County Commissioners Office, Pennsylvania Prison Society, May 10th 2023

From Chester County Prison, Westchester R-2 Petition

Our Grievance system is broken here in Chester County Prison, and we are all being affected dramatically! Our grievance procedure requires inmates to request a Grievance via Inmate Request Slip, this Inmate Request Slip then in turn is returned to the block correctional officer, who may or may not be involved, but then proceeds to view, and read the request to use our protected conduct. Are we allowed to have our First Amendment rights so openly violated? We become subject to a Campaign of Harassment by attempting to use our protected conducts! Yet our in-house administrative remedies become non-existent! We need help! We have become subject to attack, abuse, retaliation and more!

[Signed by 9 prisoners at Chester County Prison]

The cost of living has really gone up everywhere, and this also includes in the prisons. With the cost of living the way it is due to inflation, I fail to comprehend why the pays for prisoners never go up to make it easier for us to afford the higher costs to survive? I know that out in society whenever the cost of living goes up due to inflation so does our income and of course I am referring to low-income people – people on Social Security Income (SSI) or Social Security(SS) or struggling on Welfare.

Well in prisons we don’t make anywhere near what is made on SSI or SS or even Welfare for that matter. In Pennsylvania prisons we cannot make more than 42 cents an hour depending on your job. Blockworks are not to make more than 25 cents an hour, but I make 38 cents an hour because it was supposed to carry over from my previous location at SCI Fayette. Although I had to fight to make sure I kept 38 cents because they tried to start me over at GLJ and then at 19 cents an hour again. I was not having it. I was not going to let them screw me over like that. Bad enough I had to put up with sexual harassment at SCI Fayette.

Now C.I. workers can make up to 51 cents an hour but still since the prices of commissary has gone up due to inflation I think that all prisoners with jobs should be given pay rate rises to help with the new higher costs of living in the prison population. It is much harder to keep up with the financial strain. I have been poor all my life so I am used to having to live/fight with my money but not everyone is able to a adjust in such a manner every time the cost of living goes through the ceiling. But even with that said, I have always been able to adjust because with the rise in the cost of living I always had a slight raise in my monthly income to meet the adjustment of the rise in living cost every year but in prison the cost of living goes up but our pay rates never do.

In April, there was a group of us that were asking for grievances. There was this one prisoner, he asked for a grievance, I turned around to see who he was so that I could see who was on our side. So when I turned to look at the prisoner and the Correctional Officer: the CO was sitting behind the desk and the prisoner was on the opposite side of the desk.

The C.O.’s name is C.O. Conner. He yelled out: “What did you say?” to the prisoner and ran around the desk to grab the prisoner from the back. The prisoner still didn’t move. The C.O. grabbed the prisoner’s arm and began twisting the prisoner’s arm so bad causing the prisoner pain.

The prisoner screamed out “What did I do wrong? I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t do anything to you.” The C.O. then grabbed the prisoner’s body and picked him up and slammed the prisoner face first on the hard solid ground. The C.O. then started beating the prisoner with his elbow on the back of his head. This is the third time this C.O. is involved in something like this. I asked for help from other staff members but they all have different stories on what had happened and they all cover up the whole story blaming the prisoner claiming that it was his fault. It is on camera but when you file a grievance the staff that is responsible for the grievance always has some kind of excuse and make it seem like we have no case. Almost every staff member is crooked and they enforce this behavior.

I believe that the C.O.’s Sgt, Lt, etc… have it as an initiation to beat us and send us to the hole. Most of the staff members come from the military and police force and have a “I will fuck you up” attitude. We are in the R.T.U. and mostly every staff member that works here is not certified to work here and treat us like shit.

MIM(Prisons) adds: Many years ago MIM published a similar report of abuse from here from a C.O. they called grainy. Turned out to be Sgt. Grainer, who later became infamous for his torture photos with Afghan prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison. The C.O.-military connection seems to live on in Pennsylvania.

On 12 August 2021, staff member Karber at Ionia Correctional Facility in Michigan censored Under Lock & Key 74 for the reason: “Pages 8 & 9 calling for Prisoners to organize for uprising for an up coming date.” These pages featured our center spread on Black August and the September 9th Day of Peace and Solidarity. It is interesting that the oppressor sees prisoners coming together for peace and unity as an “uprising” and something that is deemed a threat to security (which would be necessary to lawfully censor any reading material in the United $tates).

On 7 September 2021, the staff in the mailroom at SCI Frackville in Pennsylvania disliked the same pages and censored ULK 74 for “Information on Page 8 Calls for Action (September 9).” In Amerikan prisons people do not enjoy the civil rights many Amerikans hold so dear. Their right to grieve or in this case to take an “action” is deemed illegal and punished. Banning peaceful protest and other such actions in prisons leads to violence.

Meanwhile a USW comrade in California reported,

“C.O. Solerio [a white female] emailed a Mental Health/Death Doctor a referral against me for displaying erratic behavior. I was exercising and calling cadence out loud ?? As is my custom, I commemorate Black August by demonstrating physical fitness and oratory skills, loud and proud, wherever I be. This year’s action continues to be opposed by C.O.s obsessed with social control.”

This comrade was in quarantine isolation, where ey could not organize eir normal group activities for Black August.

While the President offers up Juneteenth and Indigenous People’s Day as sanctioned celebrations, the imperialists simultaneously repress those trying to commemorate holidays that represent resistance to oppression. In case anyone was fooled into thinking that we’re all equal now.

For every male prisoner locked up in the state of Pennsylvania, I pose some questions:

1. Do a prison have the right to deprive you of food?
2. Do a prison have the right to deprive you of a shower?
3. Do a prison have the right to deprive you yard?
4. To determine when you can see your children and how long you can hold your children?
5. Every prison in the state of Pennsylvania allow gay prisoners inside of each prison to hold hands/hold each other, have make-out sessions and have intercourse. The Department of Corrections in the state of Pennsylvania even sell bras/panties, makeup, provide hormone injections and sex changes.

1. Why can’t we hug/hold/kiss our girlfriends and wives for more than three minutes on a visit?
2. Why don’t we fight for conjugal visits?

6. Do the prisons have the right to talk however they want?

Brothers, they don’t respect us nor treat us like human beings because under the 13th Amendment, we are slaves. Under Dred Scot v. Sanford, no black man has “rights that a white man is bound to respect” and blacks shall never have rights under the Constitution. Under Plessy v. Ferguson, we are cattle.

That is why correctional officers in the state of Pennsylvania do all these things to us and why police officers in society can kill us with little to no consequences.

Brothers, the female prisons in the state of Pennsylvania still have everything and much more, that we allowed the D.O.C. to take from us, men. Two female prisons fought to be treated like human beings and won through pain and sacrifice.

This goes beyond our personal dislikes, gang colors, religious perspectives and individual wants. Ask yourself, if two female prisons can accomplish it, why can’t 3 or more male prisons do the same?

We at SCI-Albion believe we have the power to accomplish it, so on 1 November 2020 we are hunger striking. We are not helping the D.O.C. get rich off of this oppression so we are not spending money on commissary/cable/bake sales. WE will be doing more but can’t go into that here.

We are a group comprised of Muslims from America and the Middle East, Christians, a Pastor, G.D., Loc’s, Damus, Kings, Netas, neutrals old and young. Blacks, Latinos and whites.

This is in response/follow-up to the “PA Mail Disrupted” article on pg. 13 of ULK 66. Enclosed is some info printed off of the internet that you may or may not be aware of. It substantiates what both the comrade that wrote the article and also what MIM(Prisons) responded.

You are probably aware by now, but the “policy” of staff photocopying our privileged correspondence (legal mail) has since been lifted and we now receive the original documents once again. This is ONLY for privileged correspondence from courts and licensed attorneys with approved “ACNs” (Attorney Control Numbers). This changed over a year ago and I’ve provided a copy of the policy update with this letter.

This is a huge victory and to the best of my knowledge, aside from the individual (or groups of) prisoners who I’m sure filed grievances/lawsuits,, etc. to bring about this change, I believe the ACLU played a major role in this win.

But of course it’s one battle in a much larger war. Our “regular” mail is still being scanned by Smart Communications in Florida as well as our photos from family and friends.

All books/publications still must go through the “Security Processing Center” to be heavily scrutinized and censored, which leads to it taking a MINIMUM of about three weeks for us to receive our books. Sometimes it takes upwards of two months.

An alternative to the poor quality printed (copied) photos (I’ve persynally received numerous photos that the jail has printed on the opposite side of the SAME page as my letters, which I hope I’m not the only one that sees this as ridiculous, lazy, and flat out disrespectful) is to receive “photo books” via apps such as FreePrints, FlikShop, Shutterfly, and Snapfish.

These photo books are more expensive (around $10-$15) but are MUCH better quality than receiving the printed copies through Smart Communications. But the photo books must come (from the app) through the Security Processing Center.

Clearly the DOC isn’t happy that we’ve found a “loophole” in eir ridiculous policy regarding photos and I’ve witnessed a fellow prisoner’s ENTIRE photo book be rejected because ONE out of 25 of the photos depicted eir young daughter throwing up the “peace” sign. It goes without saying that ey claimed it was a “gang” sign. How ignorant and disrespectful can ey be? Obviously this question is rhetorical because clearly ey will stop at nothing and have no boundaries when it comes to censoring and harassing prisoners here in PA and around the country.

Bottom line, this is proof that we can achieve victories, albeit small ones, but victories nonetheless when standing up for our rights against the systematic oppression at the hands of our captors (the State).

So I hope it will encourage all of us to keep fighting and keep standing up for the what we believe in and what we know is right.