Federal Prisons

Pantera Negra
Marvel Studios (Estudios Marvel)
2018
(ESTA OPINIÓN CONTIENE SPOILERS)

Siendo una película de Hollywood basada en una historieta de Marvel, Pantera Negra se destaca por un tema político abierto y varias discusiones honestas sobre opresión nacional. El largometraje es sobre los Wakandas, una sociedad Africana sumamente avanzada y pacífica. Una sociedad que incluye mujeres fuertes y facultadas en funciones de defensa, ciencia y servicios a l@s oprimid@s.

La sociedad Wakanda está completamente oculta del mundo y dirigida por el Rey TChalla, el héroe de la película. Su aislamiento es basado en un legítimo temor al mundo imperialista, el cual tiene una larga historia de opresión y explotación en el África. La solución de los Wakandas fue ocultarse y enfocarse en construir una sociedad fuerte y pacifica internamente. Eran extremadamente exitosos, sobrepasando al resto del mundo en el campo de la ciencia y lo que es más, la película sugiere que Wakanda se construyo con las riquezas de sus propios recursos naturales, una sociedad sin una aparente explotación u opresión. Pero este aislamiento tiene una oposición creciendo desde su interior, de quienes quieren ayudar a l@s oprimid@s del mundo.

Podemos comparar el aislamiento de Wakanda a movimientos revolucionarios que han tomado el poder en un país, solo para verse rodeados de enemigos. En lugares como Corea del Norte, Cuba y Albania, el aislamiento fue una estrategia en contra de influencias externas, pero al final fue también una gran dificultad para estas naciones. Wakanda no encara dificultades similares debido a sus tremendas riquezas, pero tampoco nadie conoce sobre su sociedad avanzada y no tienen gastos excesivos de recursos para la defensa de la propia nación. El mundo piensa que los Wakandas son sólo una nación Tercermundista llena de guajiros (Agricultores).

Lo que encontramos más interesante acerca de la película no fue el protagonista, pero el antagonista, Eric Killmonger, quien creció en Oakland en los 1990s. El padre de Killmonger (el tío de Tchalla) estaba sirviendo como un espía para los Wakandas en Oakland cuando se enamoró de los nuev@s African@s oprimid@s con l@s quien convivía y decidió que debía tomar recursos Wakandas para ayudar a liberar a esta gente. Por traicionar a Wakanda, el padre de Killmonger fue asesinado por el Rey (su propio hermano), dejando a Kilmonger abandonado en Oakland. El Rey mantuvo la traición, muerte y a Eric, en secreto, que llevó hasta la tumba, siendo la aparición de Killmonger una sorpresa súbita para l@s que llevaban una vida idealista en el capitolio.

Eric Killmonger es producto del abandono por l@s Wakandas y su crecimiento en las calles de Oakland. Killmonger vio la desesperada lucha que la nueva nación Africana pasaba en los E$tados Unido$ y no podía perdonar a l@s Wakandas por no ayudar a estas personas. Killmonger no sólo buscaba venganza personal por la muerte de su padre, sino también buscaba continuar con el sueño de su padre de ayudar a l@s oprimid@s a liberarse. La educación de Killmonger (en MIT) y su entrenamiento (en la milicia Amerikana) fue determinado, enfocado en obtener una posición para controlar los recursos Wakandas a fin de poderlos utilizar para ayudar a l@s oprimid@s. Killmonger cultivo la pasión y la perseverancia para llegar hasta la sociedad oculta Wakanda y luchar por el trono.

Killmonger no vacila en matar, hasta aquell@s a quien aparenta querer, para lograr su meta. Pero esto es guerra, y las vidas de millones alrededor del mundo están en riesgo. Nosotr@s respetamos su enfoque y dinamismo. Porque preguntar amablemente al Rey Wakanda, de entregar algunas armas y tecnología para ayudar a l@s oprimid@s, no iba a funcionar. Incluso peticiones similares fueron denegadas, a pesar que fueron hechas por personas influyentes en la sociedad Wakanda. Por esto Killmonger razonablemente creía que la única opción era tomar lo que necesitaba por la fuerza.

Hubieron reacciones diversas a la contradicción entre el aislamiento pacifico contra una revolución violenta, estando en juego la batalla por el trono. Uno de los bando Wakandas (la fuerza de la defensa civil) entusiastamente se unió a Killmonger una vez que les explica su plan de armar a l@s nuev@s African@s en los E$tado$ Unido$ y a l@s espías Wakandas alrededor del mundo. La propuesta de Killmonger incluía también que el sol nunca se pondría en el imperio Wakanda. Si la defensa civil se unió por razones altruistas o hambre de poder, esto queda a discreción de la audiencia.

La defensa real de mala manera se queda Leal al Trono cuando Killmonger toma el poder, esta por la obediencia a las tradiciones conservadoras más que alguna otra cosa. La defensa real rápidamente cambia de bando cuando se suscita una justificación técnica – el duelo por el trono no había acabado, porque TChalla estaba vivo. Este bando de la milicia fue hecho para ser héroes, pero ell@s estaban defendiendo a un Rey que mantenía el aislamiento en contra de un Rey que quería ayudar a l@s oprimid@s del mundo.

Sin embargo, hay otro ángulo que está representado por el interés amoroso de TChalla, Nakia, una espía quien trabaja entre l@s refugiad@s y víctimas del tráfico humano. Ella obstinadamente rechazó la oportunidad de ser reina, para poder continuar con su tan importante trabajo ayudando a la gente fuera de Wakanda. Aunque ideológicamente Nakia tenía mucho en común con Killmonger, por lo menos en oponerse al aislamiento Wakanda y en querer liberar a la gente oprimida mundialmente, se mantuvo fiel a Tchalla. Nakia, como much@s otr@s Wakandas, estaba principalmente en contra de la estrategia de Killmonger de enviar armas y armamentos alrededor del mundo entero, y los sentimientos personales hacia TChalla eran un factor influyente.

En la estrategia de Killmonger de solucionar la opresión imperialista había muchos problemas estratégicos, incluyendo la falta de liderazgo o de un movimiento de liberación para tomar el cargo de la milicia y los recursos tecnológicos que estaba ofreciendo. Es difícil ver como entregar armamento a l@s oprimid@s l@s va a llevar a la libertad. De hecho esas armas pudieron haber caído en manos de l@s imperialistas, lo cual, - a diferencia de tradición y “no es nuestra forma” – fue la primera justificación que TChalla dio y otras para mantener Wakanda oculta al mundo.

Al final el rey conservad@r gana, pero aprende que tiene una responsabilidad con las personas del mundo. En perspectiva el cambio de Tchalla de seguir ciegamente el camino de su padre en mantener la tradición en un pedestal, se da en gran parte por el descubrimiento del secreto familiar. La aparición de Killmonger es un gran giro para TChalla. TChalla llega a ver a Killmonger como un@ mounstr@ el cuál fue cread@ por las manos de su padre. Tchalla ve cómo el adherirse a las tradiciones y el aislamiento en realidad enajena a las personas, tal como al pequeño Eric, quien TChalla siente debe de alguna manera ser incluido bajo la protección de Wakanda en ayudar y asistir.

De esta manera, TChalla al final a llega a estar de acuerdo con Nakia y Killmonger que Wakanda tiene una obligación moral de compartir su conocimiento. Desafortunadamente, a pesar de todos l@s espiás internacionales de Wakanda, el Rey TChalla fracasa en correctamente evaluar el equilibrio de fuerzas, y l@s amig@s y l@s enemig@s de l@s oprimid@s. La última escena de la película muestra a TChalla dando un discurso en las Naciones Unidas (N.U.), anunciando que Wakanda comenzará a compartir su tecnología y conocimientos con el mundo. Él también compra varios edificios en Oakland, California para abrir los primeros centros Wakanda de educación y alcance para la juventud.

Si TChalla realmente hubiese querido ayudar a l@s oprimid@s del mundo, él podía utilizar la tecnología Wakanda de poder quedar ocultos a plena vista y la reputación de ser una nación agrícola no riesgosa para armar una fuerza armada en secreto – bajo las aguas – para luchar a l@s opresores por el doble control y luego liberar, incluyendo poner fin al capitalismo. En vez de haber ido a la N.U. y anunciar “¡Oye! !Nos estamos organizando y haciendo cosas extraordinarios que pueden amenazar su poder! !Vélenos de cerca!” Él pudo haber hecho esto discretamente y con éxito. Al parecer TChalla deja de ser conservador para ser liberal y no da el paso a ser verdaderamente revolucionario.

The primary problems and concerns I have for women prisoners that reside in Gatesville, Texas are the following:

• Extreme deadly heat: The metal walls on our cubicles, metal bunk and tables are burning our skin to the touch (i.e. arm, face, legs, feet, etc.). The building made out of metal and cement is cooking us alive!
• Poor ventilation: The hot air that does come in thru the sparse vents and small windows is burning our lungs and cooking our organs, to the point that it feels like suffocation. (The fan that is sold to us on commissary feels like blowing fire to our face and bodies).
• Medical neglect: Unethical, unprofessional, abusive, retaliative, cruel, prejudistic, threatening, neglectful, deliberately indifference, inhumane (violating 8th amendment). Note: women are dying due to this medical neglect – none were sentenced to death penalty.
• Suicide encouragement by CO staff and security: Taunting, coercion, verbal abusive, bullying, extreme heat, neglectful mental counseling, prolonged exposure to segregation contribute to this problem.
• Mal-nourishment and food deprivation: Incorrect amount of portions served to women, excessive amount of “Johnnys” served daily and 3 times per day (with no fruit, no vegetables, nor drink when Johnnys served). The “milk” that is served at chow is not properly made. It looks more like dirty water. Lack of proper nutrition is causing a myriad of diseases, illnesses, bone deficiency and/or death for incarcerated women.
• Black mold: Showers/toilet stalls are grossly infested with this killer mold, which causes headaches, ailments, debilitating the already weak immune system that is caused by lack of healthy nutrition. Mold is getting in our lungs and colonizing – this is verified with chest x-rays and shows granuloma.
• Sexual harassment: Cameras are pointed directly into cubicles. We are continuously being called bitches, skanks, cunts, hoes, sluts, dope heads, crack whore, dumb ass and fuck you. (Please note, rank and COs equally do this.)
• Unsanitary conditions: Captain Dixon, kitchen CO, makes the women combine all the leftover used kool-aid by other women to be drank by women that are showing up to chow hall to eat. This is causing cross-contamination, illnesses, spreading diseases, health put at risk daily. (Note: no gloves, no proper PPE, reusing 1-time-use hair nets, and being served by women that have poor hygiene, carry Hepatitis, HIV and other diseases.) This is illegal.
• No outdoor recreation: Due to the claim that there is short staff, or no staff, we are continuously denied sunlight and fresh air. This neglect is causing our health problems to exacerbate, hair fall out, skin develop psoriasis. Our skin is pruning.
• Immigrant discrimination: No rehabilitation opportunity, no education/vocational/college opportunity because of our nationality and/or our legal status. No TV channels in our Spanish language, and no interpreters available.

We need your advocacy so that we receive the correct and legal conditions and medical treatments. Please note that none of us women prisoners were sentenced to the death penalty, but yet many women have died due to cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners in this unit. We have dubbed these units “the Texas holocaust” because of the horrific and sadistic living conditions.

MIM(Prisons) responds: The horrible conditions listed above exist throughout the the United $tates prison and jail system, in some facilities and states more or less than others. MIM(Prisons) and United Struggle from Within have an analysis of why the U.$. government tolerates and encourages these conditions, namely to perpetuate a system of social control. You can find this analysis scattered through Under Lock & Key.

We encourage our subscribers to also think more deeply about these problems. Reporting on the conditions is just the first step in our struggle. Ask yourself, what do you think are the reasons for the horrible conditions at Lane Murray Unit, and at the facility where you are held. What is it about our society that makes this possible? And what can we do to change it? What has been tried in the past, and what has had relative success? What has failed? Why? What is one thing you can do today to work to the end of the conditions listed above? How does that one action relate to a long-term strategy to resolve the conditions laid out in this letter from Lane Murray Unit?

It is through this sort of analysis that we can build correct revolutionary theory and practice. So we encourage our readers to discuss these questions with others at your unit, and send us your answers to these questions so we can continue the dialogue.

The Western press often aims the disparaging term “labor camps” at Asia and the former socialist countries of the world. Yet, with the largest prison population in the world, it should not be surprising that it is the Amerikans who have more prisoners working for them than any other nation. And their labor subsidizes the cost for Amerikans to maintain a highly structured and institutionalized system of national oppression in this country.

While prisons do “cost” taxpayers money, Amerikans benefit directly, indirectly and psychologically from the criminal injustice system. There is a lot of money being made off the system, not by exploiting prisoner labor, but in the form of public employee salaries. In Pennsylvania, for instance, prison guards are among the state’s highest paid employees.(1) And in many states these jobs are so important, the guard unions will successfully fight against any prison closures, even when there aren’t enough prisoners to fill the cells. Meanwhile, prisoners are doing much of the maintenance work in these institutions, for little or no pay. In the vast majority of U.$. prisons, the state would need to hire more people if they couldn’t use prisoners to help with prison operations.

In this article we will look at the relationship between prisoner labor and the cost of running prisons. Our goal is to understand what work prisoners are doing, what they are being paid, what the impact of that work is, and how battles around prisoner labor can be a progressive part of the fight against the imperialist criminal injustice system.

This winter MIM(Prisons) conducted a survey of ULK readers regarding prison labor, in part in response to many organizations’ recent focus on this topic. The results are what we believe to be the most comprehensive dataset on prison labor in the United $tates.

In our 2009 issue on this topic, we reported on prison labor in 11 states and the Federal system, representing over half the country’s prison population. In 2018, we received reports from 20 state systems and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. This survey far exceeds our 2009 survey in content and consistency. This article will present our preliminary results, with the full report to come in a later, more in-depth publication on the economics of the U.$. prison system.

How many prisoners have jobs?

Overall, 44% of prisoners have a job assignment, which includes school and other programming in some states. This varied greatly between prisons, from less than 1% to a maximum of 100% where working is mandatory. Of those who do work, most are engaged in work related to maintaining the prison itself.

What do prisoners do?

The chart below shows results from our survey showing at least 63% of prisoners engaged in prison maintenance. There is a significant “Other” category that may or may not fall into prison maintenance. While our survey results so far show 25% of prisoners working in agriculture or industry, this does not correspond with other information available. UNICOR, the state-run industries for the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), accounts for less than 7% of those held by the BOP. Yet UNICOR is the biggest user of prisoners in the country, with half the revenue of all other state-run industries combined.

While our results confirmed a majority working in maintenance of prisons, we believe this to be greatly underestimated and will work to refine our figures. Meanwhile the three biggest prison states only use 2-6% of their prison population in their state-run industries.

How much are prisoners paid?

Working prisoners mostly fall into two categories: prison maintenance and state-owned industries. The latter generally offers higher wages. Below are averages for all U.$. prisons from a Prison Policy Initiative survey of state agencies(2):

Our statistical analysis of low and high wages by state matched up quite closely with the Prison Policy Initiative survey, with many states being right on. This helped us confirm the numbers reported by our readers, and substantiates the Prison Policy Initiative data set, which covers every state and comes from state sources.

From our data we can say that almost half of prisoners who work in the United $tates make $0.00. Generally in lieu of pay, 43% of jobs in our survey offer credits of some sort (usually promising time off their sentence). Though states like Texas are notorious for these credits being meaningless or not applied. About 11% of prisoners who work do so for neither pay nor even the promise of credits, according to our preliminary results.

Who do prisoners work for?

The state.

The portion of prisoners working for private industries is very small. We’ve long been frustrated with the outdated, self-referential, or complete lack of citations used by most when writing about private companies using prison labor.(3) Our initial results only returned 4.3% of prison jobs being attributed to a private company, and of those who produce a product, 1.8% being sold to private companies. While we will continue to tally and interpret our results, these are in the ball park of what we can infer from a literature search of what is going on in prisons across the United $tates.

As John Pfaff pointed out in eir book Locked In, “Public revenue and public-sector union lobbying are far more important [financial and political engines behind prison growth].” These state prison industries are becoming sources of revenue for state budgets. This could be worse than private corporations lobbying for more imprisonment. It’s the very state that decides policy that is directly benefiting financially.

A U.$. Proletariat?

Of all the so-called “workers” in the United $tates, prisoners, along with non-citizen migrants, are some of the only people who face working conditions comparable to the Third World. OSHA has no real ability to enforce in prisons, and in some cases prisoners do hazardous jobs like recycling electronics or the tough field work, that many migrants perform. A recent expose of a “Christian Alcoholics & Addicts in Recovery (CAAIR)” program in Oklahoma documented that prisoners were promised drug treatment but when they joined the program were forced to work in chicken processing plants. The prisoners suffered gnarled hands, acid burns, injuries from machines and serious bacterial infections.(4) While this is only a tiny minority of prisoners, the fact that they are susceptible to such conditions does speak to the closeness this class of people is to the Third World proletariat.

While at first glance the pay rates above clearly put U.$. prisoners with full time jobs in the exploited classes, we must consider that by default prisoners’ material needs are covered by the state. However, there are still some basic needs that are not covered in many prisons. Many prisoners face conditions with insufficient food, exorbitant co-pays for medical care, and a requirement to purchase hygiene items, educational materials and other basic necessities. And for the lumpen who don’t have money in the bank or families who can cover these needs, pay for work in prison is essential.

Labor Subsidizes State Budgets

Ultimately, we’re talking about a criminal injustice system that costs $80 billion a year. There are profits from the 4.3% of prisoners who work for private industries. But most of the revenue comes from state-run prison industries. These state-run industries bring in a revenue of $1.5 billion a year.(5) At a generous profit rate of 10%, that would be $150 million in net gain, or 0.2% of costs. Because so many prisoners aren’t paid or are paid very low wages we could even double that profit rate and still have a very small gain relative to the cost of prisons.

Another way to look at this calculation is to consider the costs to house one prisoner compared to the potential revenue they generate when working full time. It costs about $29k/yr to house a Federal prisoner. If these prisoners are leased out to private companies for $10/hr and the state keeps all the money, the state only makes about $20k, still losing money on the deal. Obviously, when the state undercharges for labor, private companies can make a profit. But that profit is subsidized by the state, which has to pay for prisoners housing and food, with the greatest expense being in how to actually keep people locked inside.

We can also calculate savings to the state from prisoner labor using our survey numbers. We chose $10 per hour below as a rough compromise between the Federal minimum wage, and a typical CO’s hourly wage. In reality, no U.$. citizen would work maintaining prisons for minimum wage. And a negligible number of COs would bring themselves to do something “for” prisoners, such as cleaning their showers. If non-prisoners were needed to maintain prison facilities, we suspect only migrant workers would be up for this task.

Another consideration is that jobs in prison are mostly used to keep people busy (i.e. keep people not reading, and not organizing). If paying “freeworld” people to do these jobs, they would certainly hire many fewer employees than they have prisoners doing the same tasks.

These calculations are primarily to demonstrate magnitude, not actual budget projections.

62% of 800 thousand prisoners (percentage with state-run jobs) = 496 thousand prisoner workers

150 hours/mo work on average * 12 months of work = 1,800 hours of work

So we estimate that hiring non-prisoners to do the work that prisoners do would cost about $8.9 billion, which adds up to an additional 10% of the overall costs of running prisons. That’s a sizeable increase in costs, but prisons are still far from profitable. We can add the two numbers above together to estimate the total earnings + savings to the state from using prisoner labor. That total is still less than $10 billion. Bottom line: the state is still losing $80 billion a year, they’re just saving at most $9 billion by having prisoners work and earning back another $150 million or so of that $80 billion, through exploitation.

Those arguing that a massive prison labor strike will shut down the prisons may be correct in the short term, to the extent that some prisons which rely heavily on prison labor will not be able to immediately respond. But that certainly doesn’t mean prisoners being released. More likely it means a complete lockdown and round the clock johnnies. And historically states have been quite willing to pour money into the criminal injustice system, so a 10% increase in costs is not that far-fetched. On the other hand, states are even more willing to cut services to prisoners to save money. So the requirement to hire outside staff instead of using prisoner labor could just as likely lead to even further cuts in services to prisoners.

History of Prison Labor in U.$.

In 1880, more than 10,000 New Afrikans worked in mines, fields and work camps as part of the convict lease system in the South. This was shortly after the creation of the 13th Amendment, and eased the transition for many industries which made use of this prison labor. In the North prison industries were experimented with around this time, but imprisonment costs prevented them from being profitable. And in response labor unions began opposing the use of prison labor more and more. By the Great Depression, opposition was stronger and the government banned the use of prison labor for public works projects.(5)

In 1934, the Federal Prison Industries, or UNICOR, was formed as a way to utilize prison labor for rehabilitation and state interests without competing with private industry. This protection for private industry was ensured with strict restrictions on UNICOR including limiting them to selling only to the states. This has maintained the primary form of what might be considered productive labor in U.$. prisons. UNICOR does function as a corporation aiming to increase profits, despite its tight relationship to the state. While state agencies used to have to buy from UNICOR, this is no longer the case, making it fit better into Marx’s definition of productive labor. Those running the prisons for the state, whether public employees or prisoners preparing meals, would not fall into what Marx called productive labor because neither are employed by capital.

Starting in the 1970s, there has been legislation to loosen restrictions on prison labor use by private industry.(5) (see Alaska House Bill 171 this year) However, we could not find in our research or our survey any substantiation to claims of a vast, or growing, private employment of prisoners in the United $tates.

The Future of Prison Labor

The key to all of these battles is keeping a focus on the national liberation struggles that must be at the forefront of any revolutionary movement today. There are Amerikan labor organizers who would like to use the prisoner labor movement to demand even higher wages for the labor aristocracy. These organizers don’t want low-paid prisoners to replace high-paid petty bourgeois workers. This might seem like a great opportunity for an alliance, but the interests of the labor aristocracy is very much counter to national liberation. They are the mass base behind the prison craze. They would be happy to see prisoners rot in their cells. It’s not higher pay for prisoners that they want, it’s higher pay for their class that the labor aristocracy wants. On the other hand, the prison movement is intricately tied up in the anti-colonial battle, by the very nature of prisons. And to move the needle towards real progress for humynity, we must reinforce this tie in all of our work. This means we can’t allow the labor aristocracy to co-opt battles for prisoner workers’ rights and wages.

While U.$. caselaw does not recognize prisoners as employees, there continue to be new lawsuits and arguments being made to challenge prison labor in various ways.(6) We see these challenges to certain aspects of the law on unpaid labor as reformist battles, unlikely to have much bearing on the future of the prison movement. It is unlikely the courts will see prison maintenance as labor requiring minimum wage protection. So if changes are made in the law, we expect them to be very marginal in scope, or to actually encourage more private employment. In contrast, the mass mobilizations that have focused on pay, among other issues, are advancing the struggle for prisoner humyn rights by organizing the masses in collective action.(7)

While half of prisoners work in some form, about half of them aren’t paid. And this is because an income from work is not a condition of survival when food, clothes and shelter are provided by the state. However, we have noticed a trend (at least anecdotally) towards charging people for different aspects of their own incarceration. The narrowly-focused movement to amend the 13th Amendment could have the consequence of expanding such charges, and actually making it affordable for the state to imprison more people because they are paying for their own needs. While we concluded in ULK 60 that there has not been a strong decrease in imprisonment in response to the 2008 financial crisis, the rates have certainly stagnated, indicating that we may be bumping up against financial limitations.(8) A scenario like the above could undermine these financial limitations, unless they are accompanied by laws prohibiting the garnishing of prisoner wages.

The delinking of Third World countries from the U.$. empire will create more economic crisis as wealth flow from those countries to this one will decrease. This would create more incentive for forced labor in prisons that is productive, providing value for the rest of Amerikans. This is what occurred in Nazi Germany, and could occur in a future fascist scenario here. While we can definitively say the last prison surge was not driven by profits, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen. And if it did, it would be a very dangerous thing. On that we agree with the mass sentiment opposed to prison labor. But to date, in this country, it’s been more expedient to exploit value from elsewhere. Even the convict leasing of the late 1800s was the vestiges of an out-dated system of exploitation that was eventually abandoned.

Very few prisoners in the United $tates are close to the means of production. Therefore it is not the role of the prison movement to seize the means of production, as it is for the proletariat. It is our role to build independent institutions of the oppressed. And this has often meant seizing institutions like churches, schools and even prisons in the examples of Attica and Walpole. Ultimately, such acts must build support for larger movements for national liberation. Prisoners have an important role to play in these movements because they are one of the most oppressed segments of the internal semi-colonies. But they cannot achieve liberation alone.

I have been in Correctional Training Facility Ad-Seg for more than a year now and plenty is foul with O-wing and O-wing staff. Everything from infestation of birds and rats, bird shit on the tier and windows, to electric clippers being forced upon us to use in a wet shower with Barbacide that is foul. It is contaminated with toe and fingernail clippings, blood, dead skin and hair and being that it is watered down, who knows what kind’ve bacteria is growing in the Rubbermaid bowl. Clipper heads are often broken and rusted. These are but a few issues.

2017 DECEMBER – My beloved comrades at ULK, please take whatever steps necessary to convey this information to your readers, particularly those on the Texas plantations. It is my hope this will move a few to join in this all-out attack against mass incarceration, which those brothers on the Eastham Plantation are being persecuted for.

First, we have launched an attack on the totality of the living conditions on this plantation: double-celling, sleep deprivation, extreme heat, contaminated water, no toilets in the day rooms and rec yard, overcrowded showers. At present we have 5 lawsuits filed and hoping to have 5 more by the first of the year. They are listed at the end of this missive for those who might want to obtain copies and/or file for intervention. I would urge each plantation to file because each plantation has different violations, which in their totality are cruel and unusual.

Next, we have launched an at attack on the symbiotic-parasitic-relationship between Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) and the American Correctional Association (ACA). Last year we sent numerous letters to the ACA headquarters in Virginia with various complaints including the delayed posting of scheduled audits. Apparently someone was moved to do the right thing. Then notices for the January 2018 audit were posted here in October. As a result, we of the Community Improvement Committee (CIC) here on the unit have sent petitions with hundreds of names with numerous complaints of ACA violations and requests for a Q&A in the gym or chapel. This is being done with individual letters as well. Plus, we have sent the actual notice to various reform organizations requesting them to visit the unit during the audit and act as overseers pointing out particular areas of violations such as the giant cockroach infestation beneath the kitchen.

Next we have and intend to continue to urge the public to stay on top of their legislators to change the law, making it mandatory that prisoners be compensated for their labor.

Finally, we have filed an application for Writ of Habeas Corpus requesting to be released immediately due to the fact that the time sheet shows one has completed 100% of his sentence – that even without the good time, the flat time and the work time equals the sentence imposed by the court. In addition we are drafting something similar for those sentenced under the one-third law. We are submitting to the court that these prisoners have a short-way discharge date. The application for Writ of Habeas Corpus was first filed in the state court in Travis County and denied without a written order in the Texas court of criminal Appeals (#WR-87,529-01 Tr.Ct. No. D-1-DC-02-301765A). We are now in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District Tyler Division (McGee v Director, #6:17cv643). This info is supplied so that those with the means may download the info and/or keep track of the case. The following are the case numbers for the totality of living conditions complaint, which is also in the U.S. District in Tyler:

The Devil whispers: “You can’t withstand the storm”
The Warrior replied: “I am the storm.” - The Mateuszm

MIM(Prisons) responds: These comrades are pushing the struggles to improve conditions inside Texas prisons along its natural course. Countless prisoners have sent grievances, grievance petitions, letters to the Ombudsman, letters to elected officials, and letters to various TDCJ administrators on these same issues. We have seen some victories, but mostly we’ve had barriers put in our way.

The next step laid out for us is to file lawsuits, which is another kind of barrier. Lawsuits take years and sometimes decades to complete, and innumerable hours of work. When we do win, we then have to go through additional lawsuits to ensure enforcement. And on and on it goes…

If we expect the lawsuits to bring final remedy, we must be living in a fantasy. A quintessential example of how the U.$. government behaves regarding lawsuits can be seen in how it totally disrespects treaties with First Nations. When the U.$. government, or its agencies, doesn’t like something, they don’t really give a shit what the law says. This has been true since the beginning of this government. We don’t see any evidence that this will ever change.

Yet, lawsuits aren’t all bad. They can sometimes create a little more breathing room within which revolutionaries can operate. Lawsuits can also be used to publicize our struggles, and to show just how callous the state is, if we lose.

Yet, most importantly, lawsuits keep comrades busy. Before any lawsuit, there needs to be a solid analysis of winability, and the likelihood of other options. While we are relatively weak as a movement, lawsuits are a fine option, and building a movement around these lawsuits will give them strength. But if your legal strategy doesn’t also include building up collective power to eventually protect people without petitioning the state to do it, then your legal strategy is as useless as a feather in a tornado.

The comrades fighting these battles inside Texas have done a great job of spreading the word to outside organizations to garner support and attention for their lawsuits. We support their efforts to make Texas prisons more bearable for the imprisoned lumpen population, and we support their efforts to link these lawsuits to the greater anti-imperialist movement. And when they decide that lawsuits aren’t enough to bring a real change in conditions, we’ll support that too.

The U.$. legal system’s role is to keep the United $tates government as a dominant world power, no matter what. The extreme heat in Texas prisons isn’t just an oversight by administrators. And it’s not even just about racism of guards. It is directly connected to the United $tate’s role in the oppression and repression of oppressed nations across the world. If the legal system fails, don’t give up. Try something else to bring it down. Lawsuits are not the only option.

05/05/2017 – I don’t know what prisons people are talking about when they say that they don’t make a profit, because here the furniture factory is almost all profit. The wood is donated from the free world on a tax write off, they buy glue, paint, nails, etc. And the state pays the guards. The electricity is paid on a scale. They pay a set price no matter how much they use because they couldn’t afford to pay for all that they use.

The bus shop where they rebuild buses in the free world is almost all profit because the freeworld people pay $5 to bring it in to get fixed. They pay only for materials and the prison furnishes free labor.

We have thousands of acres of land where we grow our own food plus prisons ship stuff back and forth to other prisons. We have hogs, chickens, cows and slaughter houses so our prisons in Texas are pretty self-sufficient in food. So cost is the guards, the rest is profit here in Texas. The little things like fuel, tractors and such is cost which they are all paid for.

Here’s some more examples from Prison Legal News:

“Rep Alan Powell of Georgia says the state gets better results out of a prisoner in 12 months hard labor than sitting in a cell. If the tax payers pay to build roads or pick up trash, they let the prisoners do it. In keeping with that philosophy, Georgia’s Department of Transportation is using parole violators to clean up trash on highways statewide. It costs the department millions of dollars every year to pick up litter along Georgia’s 20,000 miles of state and federal roads. …

“In October 2011, Camden County, Georgia considered a proposal to place two prisoners in each of the county’s three firehouses. The prisoners would respond to calls alongside firefighters, who would be responsible for supervising them. It was hoped that using prisoners convicted of non-violent offenses rather than hiring more firemen would save the county $500,000 annually. The prisoners would not receive any pay but would be eligible to be hired as firefighters five years after their release….”

“In Washington, with a $1.5 billion apple crop at risk, state officials ordered prisoners into the orchards in November 2011.”

I’ve been to prison 7 times in 4 states and I have 20 years done. I’m on this side where you can actually see this kind of stuff happening from day to day. They do illegal stuff all the time to cover up stuff, and freeworld people never hear this because they try to keep it all on this side of the fence.

“Colorado has used prison labor on private farms since 2005, when the state enacted stricter immigration laws. Around 100 female prisoners from La Vista Correctional Facility are employed weeding, picking and packing onions and pumpkins under the supervision of prison guards. The prisoners receive $9.60 an hour, of which about $5.60 goes to the state. At least 10 Colorado farmers use prison labor….

“In Arizona, Wilcox-based Eurofresh Farms employs around 400 prisoners through an Arizona Corrections Industries program. The prisoners are paid close to minimum wage. …

“Florida is another state that has put its prisoners to work on farms, including a program that began in 2009 which uses work crews from the Berrydale Forestry Camp on a 650-acre publicly-funded farm at the University of Florida’s West Florida Research and Education Center. The prisoners grow collards, cabbage and turnips in the winter, while the spring crop yields snap peas, corn and tomatoes.

“The arrangement provides the University with agricultural research and supplies vegetables for prisoners’ meals. In 2010 the farm program resulted in $192,000 in food cost savings at the prison and saved the University $75,000 money that otherwise would have been spent on paid staff.”

MIM(Prisons) responds: This letter is interesting in that it provides an array of examples of what prisoners are doing in their jobs. Just looking at agriculture, the examples from Texas and Florida involve prisoners producing of the food they eat. This is not economic exploitation. But what are the conditions that they have to work under? We would support prisoners fighting for proper sun protection and water breaks at such a job, but do not see a good economic reason to oppose working to produce food for one’s own population.

In the other scenarios, the prisoners are producing food for private companies, who are profiting off the sale of their product. In the Colorado example prisoners are being “paid” $9.60, which is well over the U.$. minimum wage, and well over the global average value of labor.(2) So if the prisoner actually received all that money, ey would be participating in the exploitation of the Third World proletariat, receiving superwages. This becomes more true when you consider that the prisoner has food and housing provided.

In reality, the Colorado prisoners receive less than half of the wage, which is less than minimum wage. Arizona prisoners also receive minimum wage. This puts them near the average value of labor. If they were paid, say, $2 per hour, then we could say they are clearly making less than the average value of their labor and being economically exploited.

By virtue of being in the heart of empire, we are all benefiting from the economic system of imperialism. Even to some extent most U.$. prisoners are better off, compared to life in the Third World. It is this reality that makes battles over wages and labor organizing in general rarely a progressive battle in this country. It is only when talking about populations who do not enjoy full citizenship rights, such as prisoners and migrants, that we can even consider progressive wage battles.

I am still here in TDCJ doing time. I’m still locked in administrative segregation and the living conditions here are still not good. It’s better now in this unit than it was 2 years ago, and I believe this is because we have a new dept. warden here in high security and because of all the inmates filing lawsuits.

The main issue that makes it so hard is the excessiveness of force. The officers are slamming inmates to the floor and beating them senseless for something as small as cussing them out.

Getting medical care is a hard thing to do, because the nurses and doctors won’t treat us. Receiving medical care here in TDCJ is not easy to do, it’s a system-wide problem for everybody involved.

Everybody that works for TDCJ is corrupt in one way or another, and I believe this corruption goes all the way to the governor of Texas.

I am writing to inform you that this unit no longer allows us to mail out SASE so that people like you can mail information back in that we request. I don’t know if this is being done system wide or just this unit. But I do believe that this move is being made to hinder prisoners being able to get outside help because they know that most people will only send us information to help us legally fight back if we send a SASE. No SASE, no information…because most people can’t pay to send every prisoner what they request. They don’t want us to be educated to resist by using that mighty ink pen and paper. I just wanted to let you all know what was going on in case you start getting more requests but no stamped envelopes to help with postage.

I’m just reading your info pack for the first time in 9 flat years. This is the first time I’ve seen it. I’d like to get involved in your program and get on your mailing list.

What’s started all this is this unit we’re on, C.T. Terrell only returns 20% of the grievances we send in. This grievance system on this ifs totally broke down.

Another thing that got me started on this is that I got issued a case for contraband, i.e. a sewing needle. This guy in the craft shop sold some needles and they told him if he got them back nobody would get a case.

So this guy started going all over this trusty camp gathering up the needles. This craft shop officer was standing at the front desk trying to write down the cubicles he was going to. So she wrote all these cases that half of them were frivolous, so they tore them up and wrote some more and my name came up on the second batch of cases.

They come to my work and read me the case and took my statement. The first thing I noticed was the wording of the case on the second thing & noticed our sgt.’s name stamped on the bottom. I asked this sgt. about this case she wrote and she told me “I did not write any of these cases!” She told me the craft shop officer wrote all these cases and stamped her name on them.

They got all the needles back and the guy that sold all the needles only got a level 3 case when everybody else got a level 2 contraband case. So I’m 99% sure I’ll get the contraband case stuck on me. But I am going all out on the craft shop officer for PD-22-10, pg 6 for falsification of records.

This is really the straw that broke my back with this system. The grievance system on this unit anyway is completely broke down. If we write our grievances to the ombdudsman’s office they just send them straight back to this warden. I just saw in your Texas Pack A RRM Division Administrator. Who that is I have no idea, but I want to find out all I can because I am going all out. I want to educate myself as much as I can before I start writing letters on stuff I have no idea what I’m talking about. I think with y’all’s help, I can educate myself in standing up to these people.

An I60 is a form used throughout Texas Prisons as a means of paper communication. On the Wynne Unit, and perhaps other units, an “Escape I60” is supposedly an I60 written by another inmate claiming that an inmate is planning to escape. The I60 is unsigned.

An “Escape I60” is used to “lock up” inmates in a segregation cell, a.k.a., PHD. An “investigation” is supposed to occur usually, a few inmates are called out in the middle of the night to sign statements that they have not heard of anyone looking to escape.

There are sometimes other reasons that are used to “lock up” an inmate.

On 5/9/18 I was called out and told an “Escape I60” was written on me. It stated that I was planning to escape and had stolen an officer’s ID.

Questions:

1. Wouldn’t you immediately check to see if an officer’s ID was missing?

2. If not, wouldn’t that indicate that the I60 was BOGUS?

The officers who took my statement as to how false this was, also asked if I possibly knew who wrote it. I said that I have a new cell mate but have no proof that he or any other inmate wrote it. Later I remembered that the officers also said the I60 stated I intended to harm Nurse Jackie Fisher.

On 4/3/18 when I incured a urinary tract obstruction and was taken to medical, I was refused medical care. It took almost 26 hours for the obstruction to clear at which time my urination was painful and had blood. The nurse who refused me was Jackie Fisher. The officer who took me to medical and told me that Jackie Fisher had refused medical care, was the same officer interviewing me.

COINCIDENCE?

I also realized that I had told NO inmate this. I had only conveyed this in letters and grievances. Something only officers/staff have access to. I recently filed 6 grievances.

Inmates say that only a few “Escape I60s” are written by other inmates. Most believe that a majority of “Escape I60s” are written by officers looking to lock inmates up–retaliation?

One inmate was locked up for almost 30 days because an I60 claimed he intended to assassinate Warden Strong. Warden Strong actually came to see this inmate.

If officers on the Wynne unit “truly” beleived that someone was planning to assassinate Warden Strong, why didn’t they alert local law enforcement or the FBI?