Texas Prisons

As you might know, there is pending litigation in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice(TDCJ) here at the Wallace Pack Unit in Valentine v. Collier 4;20-cd-01115 over the COVID-19 virus, under-protection from this virus.

Well, as of today (15 April 2020) it has infiltrated this unit due to the fact that staff here has not done their job.

This class action lawsuit is being handled by Edwards Law Firm and has been assigned the same judge that handled the Cole v. Collier case.

I can keep you updated as needed so that all my brothers and sisters are aware that staff has failed in protecting us in prison once again.

Greetings. Sorry for the mix up but my unit is so chaotic that I can’t honestly remember when I wrote last! No I did not get a copy of the appeal grievance letter but I was informed you would file for one! Most importantly yes I do want a copy of the grievance manual! … it has been crazy here (Polunsky) from celebrities (K.M.K.) to multiple deaths - lethal injection - inmate on inmate - officer negligence. To the unit putting out a short of staff S.O.S. We have other officers from all around pulling shifts and the reg. staff keep quitting due to the unjust action, overworkload, and underpayment. In short the manual is in dire need and would be greatly appreciated by not only myself but others that make an attempt at combating the injustice and harsh conditions here.

Another major issue that needs to be looked into is the G-3 status (lifers or 50 yrs + over) inmates with stacked time or I.W.O.P. that have completed the required 10 year G-3 status, are being placed back on G-3 status and are told they will never receive a G-2. The G-3 status restricts inmates to certain and/or no jobs and keep them from attending vocation or college class educations. A law was passed concerning a group of G-3 sex offenders because one raped, beat, and killed a guard on another unit but that law applies to sex offenders that are G-3 only. This unit has taken many G-2 and placed them back on G-3 but those offenders have over 10 years done, and no recent disciplinary offense. That is just one of the many issues we are fighting. Again thank you and you all are appreciated.

I’m currently incarcerated at the Garza East Transfer Facility. I’m writing this letter in regards to a subscription to Under Lock & Key. Also we’ve been without water for 48 hours now, and it’s to the point that I had to defecate in a chip bag. There are 54 men in a dorm, and 4 toilets.

What are our rights? Can we write to anybody? Hopefully by the time you receive this letter the problem will be fixed, because the whole unit Garza East and Garza West as well as the trusty camp are without water. Please help, send info to someone that we can write to, because this happens often.

I have recently come across your publication and would like to request the Texas Pack. I was told that the Texas Pack would greatly assist me in writing an effective grievance.

We have some issues that need to be addressed. We are dealing with unsanitary conditions, lack of maintenance, and as of 1 March 2020 we will no longer be able to receive greeting cards from our friends and families, further restricting our correspondence with the outside.

I would like to thank you in advance for your time and consideration with this request.

Greetings!

Recently I read one of you printouts and was very interested in getting one. I am enclosing some stamps that I hope will cover the mailing cost.

I am not sure if you can provide me with a bit of information but I am going to ask anyway…

Here on the William P. Clements Unit we NEVER have access to gym rec. ALL the gymnasiums have been taken over by staff for other uses. Building 3’s gym is for prisoner property… Building 4’s gym is for the craft shop that is NEVER open (staff shortage)… and building 8’s gym is for religious gatherings.

I don’t know if the TDCJ had a recreation policy change eliminating gym use for prisoner recreation, or if this is just something done on this unit. I am hoping you can let me know something.

Right now I am on G4/medium custody. We are only given 2 hours of day-room per day. No job assignments, other than field squad, which doesn’t exist. No educational programs. No religious services. Going to the law library is a tortuous experience because the staff member in there will do everything she can to keep a man from studying policies about TDCJ.

I don’t know if you can get the TDCJ Administrative Directive about general population recreation and let me know about the gym’s and about out-of-cell time for medium custody; but I’d be grateful if you can let me know something about this.

If this unit is in violation then I’ll be able to file the grievances, then get the courts to assist in correcting the violations.

Hope to hear back soon. Enclosing seven new stamps.

Thank You!

Take Care! Stay Healthy!

PS: I only have six stamps right now; will do more later. Thanks!

I just want to thank you for the Texas Pack. It’s quite sad the things that are kept from us so that we ignore the corruption. Let me tell you what’s going on with me.

I did a I-127 to appeal a case and 40 days passed without me hearing from the grievance lady. Your packet came today and pretty much walked me through what I needed to do next, because I had no clue. The case that I’m appealing lowered my custody level to G4. This goes to the next set of problems I’ve encountered.

I did an Offender Protection Investigation (OPI) because an offender who was also G4 was Gun Ho on kicking my ass. They failed to investigate properly, then said “unsubstantiated evidence” even though officers seen what happened.

It’s so much that happened with not enough room to write. But I’ll keep it basic.

They moved me to another dorm. And a few days ago I got assaulted by another offender. That’s right man, hit on my right eye with a scratch under my eye. The officer that seen it said nothing about seeing it, yet she called an “ICS.” The offender that did it was G2 status and should not have been mixed with G4s. OPI was done that rank did not want to do. So a fighting case was wrote. The other offender denied of course and “I folded.” That was my statement. I walked out with a march and they allowed the offender to go to work.

Now they have me on a unit transfer, but this offender has not been held accountable for her action. How do I press the issue on this when no one is talking?

Before I walked out my building I had no marks, but as soon as I step outside in less than 2 minutes I’m being escorted to medical.

PTT from MIM(Prisons) responds: This report shows how much effort Texas prison staff put into protecting prisoners. Seeking protection from staff offers predictable results. Sometimes they’ll listen, and sometimes they’ll transfer you. That’s if you’re lucky. Most of the time they pretend they didn’t see it, never got the grievance, etc.

If we want to end the assaults, we can ask ourselves: what are the core issues causing these assaults? When that’s clear, we can ask: will staff do anything to address those core issues? It would probably benefit them to do so, but decades of practice shows they likely won’t put in the effort to make that kind of difference.

So this report also shows the importance of prisoners building their own peace in prisons. We have a slightly different approach to ending these assaults than this writer. This might sound crazy, but what we’re working toward is helping prisoners build a culture of comradery and peacefulness on their units, so that this kind of behavior is not tolerated among the prisoner population.

When this comrade asks us what we think ey can do to end the assaults, we don’t advocate for more punishment from admin on the people committing the assaults. We advocate for building bridges, improving communication, and standing together in a United Front for Peace in Prisons.

That work is NOT EASY. But if we want to end assaults in prisons, and if we want to build a society that isn’t centered around unnecessary violence, then we have to commit to doing the hard work. No one is going to hand us a world free of oppression and exploitation. We have to build that ourselves. And that’s a beautiful thing. To be alive and have the opportunity to contribute to the future in this way.

MIM(Prisons) does everything we can to help support prisoners in this task, including providing education opportunities, organizing materials, and resources (like the Texas Pack). What of those materials and concepts would improve the situation with these prisoners who seek to cause you harm? Grievances and OICs aren’t working, and probably will never really work. So what do WE need to do about it?

Dear Sir/Madam

First of all, I’m diagnosed as being legally blind by an ophthalmologist and an optimist alike. I use special design magnifiers to read and write as I am doing now. I’m a patient of the talking book program and am a Muslim whom practices the faith of Islam.

I have filled both step one’s and step two of the Texas criminal department of Justice offenders grievances which I and other disabled state prisoners are being discriminated either by their disabilities or religious beliefs or such policy that we are not allowed to read as patients or monetary which I do have their unconstitutional violation responses and helpful other evidences. As well grievances no 2019001726 steps 1/2. I’m an indigent Texas prisoners and yes I know you are not a lawyer or a paralegal but you know people whom are that can considered an possibilities a class action law suit?

The address to the Texas disability officers has turned me down too many times before that why I’m going out side of the box.

I have been trying to organize a new group but I am failing. People here want things done but don’t want to do it themselves. I help with what I can. They don’t want to grievance the officers because they are worried about retaliation. In short, they are scared of a case and not making commissary.

I am fighting them and putting paper whenever I can. Shortly after I received my packet of Texas campaign materials, I got a frivolous case for failing to go to work. I was on my way to my wing from work and didn’t make it out the door. I had two offenders, a sergeant, and a kitchen captain as witnesses. The lieutenant running the case said that he didn’t give a f*** and that I was guilty. This was in May.

I filed a Step 1 but never got an answer. I did a I-60 request for the Step 1 grievance number. I got it with a request for a 40-day extension, 89 days after I filed the grievance and 11 days after I requested it, but predated for the week before I requested it by I-60. I did file a Step 2 without the Step 1 attached (I never got the Step 1) in October 2019.

I can’t wait to hear from Huntsville and the Ombudsman over all of this. Since I have no family out there, they are trying to ignore me. I refuse to go away.

In the meantime, I will keep writing and fighting this injustice $ystem that we are in. I will keep sharing my Texas Pack. I could use some group information that might help me if I can get one going again. They want to but don’t want to. I don’t get it.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We commend this comrade for sticking up for eirself, and “staying committed even when your homies ain’t with it” (shout out to Dead Prez). Even though it can be totally baffling and frustrating when people want to but don’t want to, know that you’re not alone in facing that challenge. Prison life is designed to make people ambivalent (or even completely disinterested) and handling that ambivalence is all part of the process of building for revolution and a new society. Accepting it as just part of the process can help us to not get frustrated by it.

We had a lot of discussion about the topic of how to organize people who are ambivalent in ULK 66, which was on the topic of Recruitment and Retention for Revolution. We are sending this comrade a copy of that ULK and a few more to study and share. And we encourage everyone to continue to send us updates on what it’s like in the facility where you’re held. We publicize conditions reports on our website www.prisoncensorship.info, and conditions reports about organizing help us consolidate and support the national liberation struggles developing inside United Snakes prisons. In Struggle!

Peace,

I am writing this scribe from segregation (SMA), the reason being because I will not cut my hair. I am practicing Rastafarianism and as of September 1st, 2019, Amerikkka’s legislature passed laws contenting to hair growth of 9 inches as long as your travel card reflects Native American, (as if that represents a religion and not a nation) or “Rastafarian.” My card has reflected “Rasta” since August. It was previously “Nation of Gods and Earths” (NGE) But Texas’ private facility Billy Moore(MTC) does not accommodate so I switched to another that I knew they wouldn’t understand let alone provide for.

My calculations were correct, all I had to do now was wait and see which little piggy would be so much of a control freak that they take “lawfully sanctioned” religious expression as a personal challenge and seek to champion a crusade. I caught a big one. I won’t go too much in detail because if they weren’t reading previous kites, they are definitely tuned in now. It ended with me being assaulted and sprayed with chemical agents and no one can explain how and why it escalated in the first place. The pigs tried to draw me off sides through intimidation, harassment, and after I filed grievances behind cases that I was told, by my prized stuck pig I would get. But due to well written grievances, I never did, nor did I get the grievance response retaliation. They couldn’t win, and I had the unit laughing at them, so they geared up for a final showdown. I admire Malcolm more than Martin, but I respect them both. I am the dream and the hope of the slave, as Maya would say, so you must know when to incorporate strategies against our oppressors.

The issue that I’m working on here at the Clements Unit is what the laws here call “time out.” By the way, I received the Texas Pack and it has been a huge help. I can’t thank you enough.

Anyways, when a law decides to harass an inmate, and gets a response he don’t like, they place you in restraints and escort you do the Administration building, and put you in a holding cell with no restroom. There ain’t no PHD(?) cells on that building. And they leave you in there for hours.

So while you’re gone, your property is just wide open for grabs. Officers hate to inventory property but they quick to lock you up. So when you file a grievance, grievance staff try to save these laws by screening the complaint, and putting the wrong grievance code. So the objective is to stop all that deliberate indifference, and stop the due process violations and make it better for the next man. And the Texas Pack is one of the tools I needed to get me started.

If officers put as much effort into inventorying your property as they do locking you up on PHD, we wouldn’t have to file property claims. But no, they use your property loss as a retaliation act.

So what I did is, on my complain (I-127), my opening statement made it clear that I was filing on the guidelines outlined under grievance code #515 (property lost/missing/stolen/damaged). Because if you don’t state the grievance code, the investigator may put a different code. Grievance codes 512 through 515 consist of issues about property here in Texas.

Also, I was going through my past complaints (I-127s) and the action you request to resolve your situation could change the grievance code number. So be careful, and make sure your resolution request runs consistent with your statement of complaint. Because if you file a harassment complaint, and you request that a case be overturned, the grievance will be graded as “improper.” “Staff harassment” is grievance code #812, but if you mention that you want the case he wrote you to be overturned, then it changes the issue. Then the complaint conflicts with the resolution, so therefore the grievance becomes “improper.”

And I’m sure that is mentioned in the grievance manual that Texas hides. So inmates become frustrated because they don’t understand and give up. Then the law wins again. Much love to MIMP and all my fellow inmates.