Federal Prisons

U.$. imperialist leaders and their labor aristocracy supporters like to criticize other countries for their tight control of the media and other avenues of speech. For instance, many have heard the myths about communist China forcing everyone to think and speak alike. In reality, these stories are a form of censorship of the truth in the United $tates. In China under Mao the government encouraged people to put up posters debating every aspect of political life, to criticize their leaders, and to engage in debate at work and at home. This was an important part of the Cultural Revolution in China. There are a number of books available that give a truthful account, but far more money is put into anti-communist propaganda. Here, free speech is reserved for those with money and power.

In prisons in particular we see so much censorship, especially targeting those who are politically conscious and fighting for their rights. Fighting for our First Amendment right to free speech is a battle that MIM(Prisons) and many of our subscribers waste a lot of time and money on. For us this is perhaps the most fundamental of requirements for our organizing work. There are prisoners, and some entire facilities (and sometimes entire states) that are denied all mail from MIM(Prisons). This means we can’t send in our newsletter, or study materials, or even a guide to fighting censorship. Many prisons regularly censor ULK claiming that the news and information printed within is a “threat to security.” For them, printing the truth about what goes on behind bars is dangerous. But if we had the resources to take these cases to court we believe we could win in many cases.

Denying prisoners mail is condemning some people to no contact with the outside world. To highlight this, and the ridiculous and illegal reasons that prisons use to justify this censorship, we will periodically print a summary of some recent censorship incidents in ULK.

We hope that lawyers, paralegals, and those with some legal knowledge will be inspired to get involved and help with these censorship battles, both behind bars and on the streets. For the full list of censorship incidents, along with copies of appeals and letters from the prison, check out our censorship reporting webpage.

Florida

Following up on our protest letters over the censorship of ULK 58, Dean Peterson, Library Services Administrator for the Florida DOC responded:

“The issue in question was impounded and the impoundment was subsequently reviewed by the Literature Review Committee on 11/15/2017, at which time the issue was rejected. This means it will not be allowed into any of our institutions. The stated reason was Florida Administrative Code (FAC) Ch. 33-501.401(3)(m), which states: ‘It otherwise presents a threat to the security, order or rehabilitative objectives of the correctional system or the safety of any person.’”

Peterson went on to quote the mail rules on how publishers can obtain an independent review. But did not bother to respond to any of our arguments in our previous request for a review of this decision.

Florida - Charlotte Correctional Institution

“If a publication is impounded or rejected, a notice will be given to you. Every issue of Lock & Key has been rejected by the State since January 2014. Notices have been given to all subscribers. There is no record of you subscribing to this publication. Your informal grievance is DENIED.”

Washington - Clallam Bay Correctional Facility

CBCC also rejected ULK 59 “pending review” because it

“Contains articles and information on drugs in prisons and the cost comparison of inside and outside of prison as well as movement of drugs.”

Washington - Stafford Creek Correction Center

Michigan - Marquette Branch Prison

“Under Lock & Key #59 will be rejected because the articles contain information about criminal activity that could promote uprisings, unrest and disruption within this facility. The entire publication has a ‘revolutionary, protest, uprising’ theme. There is also red ink on the back page that will be rejected because it cannot be searched thoroughly.”

ULK readers know we do not print anything in colored ink, so red ink (if it really was there) is either from the post office or the mail room. Additionally, political or revolutionary content is illegal as grounds for censorship going all the way back to Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401.

Mississippi - South Mississippi Correctional Institution

A prisoner reports:

“The South Mississippi Correctional Institution has implemented practices by which ANY book sent to a prisoner for ‘free’ is censored, rejected, and returned to the sender. The rejection notices say only that ‘free books are not allowed’ and/or that ‘inmates must pay for books.’ There are 33 facilities housing MDOC prisoners and SMCI is the only prison doing this! This means that prisoners cannot benefit from any free books to prisoners programs. Some prisoners, including this writer, are challenging this practice via legal venues (i.e. grievances, potential lawsuit). Anyone wishing to protest this practice may do so by writing Superintendent Jacqueline Banks, PO Box 1419, Leakesville, MS 39451 or jbanks@mdoc.state.ms.us. If possible cc all letters to MDOC Commissioner Pelicia Hall, 633 N. State Street, Jackson, MS 39202 (peliciahall@mdoc.state.ms.us).”

I’ve come to recognize here at California New Folsom State Prison, that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated and the condemned.

Prisoners housed at New Folsom EOP/GP mainline are being denied the right to earn good time/work time credits, and therefore can’t get paroled or released. We are being denied the opportunities and support which are given to every other prisoner and at every other prison within California.

The 4th and 14th Amendment declares that “equal protection of the law” cannot and must not treat prisoners differently then others without reasonable and probable cause. People who are eligible for an earlier parole hearing under Senate Bill 260 and Senate Bill 261 pc 3051 (Youthful Parole) shall and must earn credits toward reducing time on their new parole date, not their original parole date or false reported date.

Snitches are benefiting. Lifers are getting time knocked off such as 9 to 10 years due to reasons of Prop 57. It doesn’t even matter to them because they still will be labeled as lifers by the CDCR/DOC. Also those with money and/or are white have been benefiting.

Without dehumanizing or snitching or becoming SNY, we want to secure the Prop 57 rights granted us under law. We continue to struggle not to be set up and framed with charges. Many of us have caught fake cases because we’ve stayed silent and solid.

Please send us advice and materials so we may continue to organize.

CA USW Council Comrade Responds: The only thing I can say is that CDCr made promises that they’re not living up to, once they let us all out of SHU. I can attest to the truth of the above statement. You will get privileges if you go SNY, as I met a few people while in Ad-Seg that were going SNY so the board can release them. They’re not releasing anyone who has the gang label or STG label on them.

What I can say is that anyone wanting material concerning Prop 57 can write to: Initiate Justice, PO Box 4962, Oakland, CA 94605. This is the litigation team that’s fighting for the changes in the regulations so that people can get parole.

First, I don’t think we should waste our time organizing around these reforms because we are not a reformist org, we are a revolutionary org. Secondly, according to Prop 57 guidelines, everyone who hasn’t served a SHU term is eligible for good time/work time credits, however they are not retroactive but only go towards the remainder of one’s sentence. So if you’ve been incarcerated for 20 years and you still have 5 years left on your sentence you will only be able to be awarded good time credits towards your remaining 5 years. As soon as Prop 57 was enacted, case records began re-calculating everyones sentence who qualified. The entire process took about four or five months here.

Also, according to Prop 57 people who fall under any of the Youth Offender laws SB9, 260, 261 & 262 cannot receive earlier parole board dates than that which they already qualified for under the various State Bills. The only thing that changed is your MERD (Maximum Eligible Release Date). For example, under Prop 57 my MERD went from 2030 to 2028 but under SB261 my parole board date dropped from 2030 to 2021 at the soonest but no later than 2023.

For more information on Prop 57 people can write to the San Quentin Law Office which sends free legal materials to prisoners or they can contact Initiate Justice, Lifer Support Alliance and many other reformist orgs. By the way the final regulations on Prop 57 already came out and NOTHING CHANGED! But what else could we expect from CDC? Fuck reforming the system, smash it!

I’m writing in response to an article in ULK 58, “Illinois Budget Doesn’t Include Due Process.” The Illinois prisoner states he cannot get a grievance form from staff. The U.S. Supreme Court has addressed this issue in Ross v. Blake 136 S.Ct. 1850 (2016) which states “An inmate need exhaust only such administrative remedies as are available,” as stated in the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The Supreme Court named three cases where this might be true:

1. “an administrative procedure is unavailable when (despite what regulations or guidance materials may promise) it operates as a simple dead end — with officers unable or consistently unwilling to provide any relief to aggrieved inmates.”
2. “an administrative scheme might be so opaque that it becomes, practically speaking, incapable of use. In this situation, some mechanism exists to provide relief, but no ordinary prisoner can discern or navigate it.”
3. “the same is true when prison administrators thwart inmates from taking advantage of a grievance process through machination, misrepresentation, or intimidation.”

When grievance forms are not provided, prisoners need to use any available paper and write the grievance, clearly titling the form “Grievance” and explain why no official grievance form was used. Staff will either accept it or reject it. If it is rejected, get it in writing if possible. If not possible, document the date, time, location and the person rejecting the form. Include this info and/or rejection letter with the legal suit. The courts will accept this the majority of the time. If not, appeal and reference Ross vs. Blake from the US Supreme Court.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This is a helpful citation for reference since we know many prisons offer virtually useless grievance systems. This Supreme Court opinion should help some take their appeals beyond the non-existent appeals processes in their prisons. We are also adding this information to the cover letter that comes with petitions demanding our grievances be addressed, which we mail to prisoners upon request.

This grievance campaign is just one piece of the larger battle to demand basic rights for the millions of people locked up in jails and prisons in the United $tates. And these demands for basic rights need to be connected to the larger struggle against the criminal injustice system as a whole. While we might win individual battles in some cases, we will never stop the injustice until we put an end to the system. This is because prisons under imperialism aren’t built to rehabilitate or reeducate people, they are built as a tool of social control. And so oppression of prisoners, and denial of their rights, is just part of the system.

We urge everyone interested in fighting to get grievances addressed to join our campaign, and use it to educate others about the injustice system. Mobilize people to do something, even if it’s just mailing out a few petitions. And help them make the connections between this battle and the reason for the conditions they are fighting. Through this campaign we can build and educate for the larger fight against the imperialist system.

There can be no doubt a capitalist system excludes a majority of any country’s populace from decision-making processes. These people are excluded only for their class and nation characteristics. Capitalism has two ways of addressing this exclusion: ghettos and imprisonment.

Oppressed nations, lower classes and lumpen are all corralled into poverty-stricken ghettos or barrios. Once there, the oppressor class can turn a blind eye for the most part. Only one problem stops them from completely ignoring the ghettos – crime. We oppressed nations face a disparaging reality. Poverty, violence from authorities and among our own, remedial education, dismal employment opportunities and little to look forward to other than prison or death. This is part of popular control. Noam Chomsky previously pointed out, “isolation makes it easier to shape people’s perceived realities and influence them according to your agenda.”(1)

Reality in our barrios push many towards crime which in turn brings them to the attention of the oppressors. Existence in the ghetto or barrio tends to culminate in our introduction into the “justice” (injustice) system. Imprisonment is another aspect of popular control. In order to address capitalistic exclusion of so many oppressed nations and lower classes, mass incarceration has developed into the primary solution. Here I am only reiterating what is a well-documented fact.(2) We all know that life in the barrio – where opportunities are close to non-existent, oppression is ever present, help is unknown and the future is bleak, at best – leads many to either helpless struggle and/or outright rebellion against injustice. Crime is a common occurrence among those of us attempting to survive and those rebelling. Its outcome is generally imprisonment.

The cycle is simple: capitalism excludes masses of people from decision-making processes, isolates them in poverty-stricken barrios, limits access to legitimate means of survival and pushes oppressed nations to seek alternative means: crime. A cycle ending in the authorities imprisoning and further isolating the oppressed. Of course this is not a linear process but rather circular. Once released from prison one has the “credential of a criminal record,”(3) and can only hope to gain employment and meet society’s and authorities’ expectations (i.e. police, parole, probation, and such), and as a result of slim prospects turns back to what ey knows. Crime and the barrio. And around and around we go. Where does it stop?

Only those caught up in this vicious cycle can say when enough is enough. Whether in society (see: Notes on Advancing the Struggle Outside) or in the dungeons, there comes a point in which one must join the revolution. Becoming class conscious and politically aware is only the beginning. After studying theory for the real circumstances oppressed nations, lumpen and lower classes face, we must contribute to the struggle of toppling capitalistic systems. Knowledge is meaningless unless it is put into practice by direct action. Dungeons can be the force in which revolutionary awareness is built, hardened and sharpened into the many blades necessary to behead this many-headed hydra of capitalism.

For as long as capitalism rules there will be oppressed nations existing in perpetual turmoil, never equal nor finding happiness. Sigmund Freud asked a good question, “what good is a long life if it is difficult and barren of joys, and if it is so full of misery that we can only welcome death as a deliverer?”(4)

MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade is right on about the cycle of imprisonment created by the criminal injustice system in the United $tates. But we want to clarify that it is actually a majority of people in this imperialist country who are being represented by the government. The majority enjoy economic benefits from the exploitation of Third World peoples. We agree with the author that the government is using prisons for social control, alongside the barrios. But when we look at who is locked up and who is in the barrios, we see a minority of the population of this country. And mostly oppressed nations. Not a majority of the Amerikan people.

The author says that the reason the government doesn’t ignore the ghettos is crime. But this is the reason the government wants us to believe, not the real underlying problem. Crime, in the forms of guns and drugs, was promoted into the ghettos by the government. There is much documentation, for instance of the CIA’s role bringing in cocaine to the Crips and Bloods as a part of their attempts to overthrow the Sandinista government in Nicaragua in the 1980s. This drug trafficking served two purposes: 1. to finance the imperialist-backed Contra army in Nicaragua and 2. to sidetrack potentially powerful New Afrikan lumpen organizations with drugs. And these drugs created the perfect excuse to round up New Afrikans for imprisonment during the so-called war on drugs that followed.

It is true that the ghettos create the conditions for crime, but we also see a long history of the Amerikan government promoting and perpetuating crime in the ghettos. And of course this makes it even harder for people to break out of the cycle of imprisonment that this author describes. And in the end, this comrade is 100% correct: the only solution is to take down the capitalist system.

“As did witch hunters in the past do we still have ‘criminal’ scapegoats?” This is a good question but a better one to ask is “are we still sometimes misled by authorities who define crime in their own interests or out of ignorance, as authorities did in dealing with witchcraft?”(1) For those conscious of being oppressed this isn’t a hypothetical, but an actual problem to be solved. Even those unconscious of the political situation, living in the barrios, this is an everyday problem; it is reality. The problem turns on what is “criminal” and who should define “crime”?

Nobody doubts that poverty, lack of legitimate opportunities and such in the barrio leads people to alternative methods of survival, which the system has declared criminal. Consider this: a brown boy grows up in a violent, poverty-stricken barrio. He is denied most, if not all, “socially appropriate” methods/means for success (e.g., role models to learn from, positive environment, good education, adequate employment opportunities). Without access to approved avenues for social survival – yet still held to society’s expectations – our brown boy turns to alternative means and learns the perils of the injustice system. Is it criminal that he turned to the only obvious option available? Or is it criminal that capitalists have attempted to make that his only option?

The United States has an injustice system which focuses on the actions of an individual, not on the reason, motivation, or purpose. To address this failing and irradiate it, those caught up in the vicious cycle must rise up. Our communities must also join in the necessary revolution for hope of success. Activism on a proactive level is needed. We cannot be liberal-minded (reforming without making substantive changes to the system structure) in our objectives. Changing only definitions ignores the problem, which is the process itself. Reform of existing systems is equal to affirming their correctness but asserting that some fine-tuning is needed. Such is not the case.

A quantifiable and qualitative change is necessary which cannot be accomplished within the current system.(2) We, the people, must construct independent resources and systems if we are ever to supplant capitalism and its inherent inequality. In pursuit of this, our community members must connect with prisoners (current and former), coordinating and cooperating, building and spreading consciousness, correct political views, theory, practice and support for the movimiento.

One’s actions cannot be labeled criminal if those are the only options made available. Today our communities generally face an alternative of evils: spend one’s life struggling within a system meant to keep us outside the power structure, never progressing, or refuse to be subjugated and be labeled criminal. The choice is between a slow and torturous death and surviving by “crime.” Those not faced with this drastic choice of evils cannot rightfully say what is and is not criminal.

“Law provides the baseline for formal social control. Criminalization of behaviors is a political process…”(3) The first steps towards changing this political process – the arbitrariness of labeling procedures – is to correct the criterion of what constitutes crime. From there, remove those who have contributed to labeling criminality and re-educating them as communists did in China during the 1950s.(4) Pressure from below provoking pressure from above to induce meaningful change.(5) Supplanting capitalism is a marathon not a mile-long race. Every stage must be approached and accomplished with care and attention. We revolutionaries must be methodical, concise and avoid impertinence. Success will come, just not overnight.

Regarding ULK 57 and “disability”. A deaf person is hearing impacted. A paralyzed person is mobility impacted. Together they are physically impacted. Their physical states are influenced by what impacted them – some ailment, incident, or birth condition.

“Disabled” and “challenged” takes something away, some quality or value of the person, as if they are the sum of their physical condition, objectified. “Disabled” in today’s reactionary culture and mindset conveys inferior, a tacit separation that, repeated ritually to and by the impacted person, becomes psychologically embedded and the person feels actually inferior – has self-doubts, is self-conscious.

I’ve been deaf since age 15 and could never say that I was “deaf” even, but said I had a “hearing problem.” When referred to as being “deaf,” I felt lower than everyone else. I’ve gotten over it by now, of course, at age 63, but just to say that semantic runs deep with physically and mentally impacted people, and can be a very sensitive thing. Another angle is that transgender people are considered in Western medicine to have a mental “disorder,” and so on. Well, that’s my 2¢. The article was rather interesting to me.

MIM(Prisons) responds: Language is an important part of culture, and something that revolutionaries have a responsibility to use for political purpose. So we appreciate this comrade raising criticisms of our use of language in ULK 57.

As a launching off point in this discussion, we will bring up our use of the word Chican@. We use an @ symbol instead of an ‘o’ or ‘a’ to convey multiple political points: the @ is not gender-specific; the term is encompassing an oppressed nation and explicitly rejecting Amerikan labels like “Hispanic.”

With that in mind we want to look carefully at this term “disability” to consider these criticisms. We do not want to suggest that someone who cannot hear or cannot see is inferior to someone who can. All people have different abilities. Some of these abilities can be trained, but some are things we’re born with. Some people, for instance, are stronger than others. The weaker folks aren’t inferior, but they might be better suited to tasks that don’t require as much physical strength.

This was discussed in the book Philosophy is No Mystery which describes struggles in a village in revolutionary China. One of the challenges they faced was strong young men acting as if their work was more valuable than that of weaker folks (mostly wimmin, but also elderly people and children). However, upon deeper discussion everyone came to agree that the work done by all was critical to their success, and valuing strength over other types of labor was counter-productive.

Let’s address the question of whether the term “disability” is similar to saying a transgendered persyn has a “disorder.” Transgender folks are often said to have “gender dysphoria” which is the stress a persyn feels as a result of the sex they were assigned at birth. The assigned sex does not match the persyn’s internal identity. That’s a situation some transgender people seek to address by changing their physical body to match their internal identity. Transgender folks face a difficult situation that needs resolving for them to lead healthy and happy lives.

It’s true that when we hear “disability” we generally think of things we would want to fix. But is that a bad thing? When people have vision problems that can be corrected, we want to use medical science to correct them. For instance, removal of cataracts cures blindness in many people. Similarly, if someone is missing a leg, getting fitted with a prosthesis is often a very good thing. In these situations someone lacks the ability to use a part of their body to its full potential. And in some cases this ability can be restored.

So perhaps the analogy we would make is that missing a leg is like someone being assigned a sex that doesn’t match their internal identity. The gender dysphoria they experience before transitioning is like lacking a prosthesis for someone without a leg. Making the transition to a sex or gender expression that matches their identity is for any transgender persyn somewhat analogous to people with physical dis-abilities getting them surgically or prosthetically corrected. If we can resolve gender dysphoria, by changing society or improving the persyn’s individual situation, we should do that. Just like if we can provide prosthetic limbs and cataract surgery, we should do that.

Where using the term “disability” becomes more complex and muddy is in cases where the persyn impacted doesn’t want to make a change. There are some good examples of this, like neuro-atypical folks who have developed highly specialized skills because of their neurology, but struggle to socialize or interact with other people. Some argue this is not something to be fixed but is just a humyn difference. And so we shouldn’t call that a disability, but rather just a different ability. However, in the types of cases that were discussed in the issue of ULK in question, the ailments and physical limitations are things we all agree should be fixed if possible. We don’t see anyone arguing that keeping cataracts help people in any way.

The question here is whether we can distinguish between conditions that people don’t want to change, differences between humyns, and conditions that people can generally agree we should change if possible. If we can, the term “disability” may be appropriate for the category of conditions we would change if possible. And then the final question we must answer is whether the term “disability” in our social context implies that someone is inferior. As we’ve already said above, we want to use language to empower and build revolutionary culture. This last point is the most difficult one and we’d like to solicit input from other readers, and especially those who contributed to ULK 57. Send us your thoughts on this topic and we will study it further and publish something in an upcoming issue of Under Lock & Key.

I am currently incarcerated in Pennsylvania at the State Correctional Institution: Chester. And every day as I look around this place I’m forced to live in, all I see is a growing number of “synthetic snaps.” When I first came to state prison in 2006 drugs were an issue but not like they are today. These new cheaper, and more easily obtainable synthetic drugs such as suboxone or subutex and K-2 synthetic marijuana, are making prison society worse and more depressing than ever. These subs cause withdrawal symptoms like heroin and are causing convicts to throw away their solidarity to scumbag each other in pursuit of their next fix.

Suboxone strips are flat and very easy to smuggle into prisons and all one needs to obtain them on the streets is to test positive for opiates at a clinic to receive up to 90 strips a month for a small co-pay. They then smuggle them into the prisons where they can sell for up to $100 apiece wholesale which is like a 10,000% profit which is irresistible to most “hustlers.”

This new opiate replacement has prisons in an uproar. Convicts are stealing from and robbing each other to get just a little “piece” to chase away their withdrawal symptoms. And our RHUs are filled with “protective custody” inmates who ran up drug debts on credit that they couldn’t cover.

Then we have the so-called “synthetic marijuana” product K-2. I was an avid marijuana smoker on the streets and this stuff is way different than blowin a sacc of loud. K-2 can cause violent outbursts, passing out, seizures, suicide attempts, and serious mental breakdowns. I have seen people attempt to fly over the fence earning them escape charges. People lose touch with reality and lash out at everyone around them. Guys pass out standing up, cracking their heads open, and to top it off a guy on my block at SCI: Somerset went all zombie on his celly biting him on his face and arms. This stuff is more like bad PCP than marijuana. It just blows my mind that synthetics are causing more problems than their “real” counterparts.

We as a united front against the injustice system need to stop trying to capitalize off the downfall of our comrades, and utilize our efforts to solidify our ranks against our oppressors. The rapper Meek Millz is a prisoner here at Chester with me and has stated that even growing up on the drug-laden streets of Philadelphia he couldn’t imagine a cell block in prison so closely resembling a drug block in the badlands of his home city. We can’t continue to give the oppressors more ammo to use against us. I understand that boredom, hopelessness, and other forms of incarceration depression tend to drive us to find ways to numb us. But let’s try to come together and help our comrades strive to kick habits they have already acquired, and to prevent anyone from picking one up.

This is just another battle we need to unite to win. Whether you’re White, Black, or Hispanic, Crip, Blood, Latin, or Aryan, come together for the greater good of convicts everywhere. Pay attention, comrades, because Amerikkka wants to catch us slippin’.

MIM(Prisons) responds: In the November issue of Under Lock & Key we got deep into the issue of drugs in prison. All writers agreed it’s a big problem, though what is used and how the problem plays out varies from state to state and even within each prison. And a lot of folks came to the same conclusion as this comrade: we need to stop trying to make money off the suffering of others and instead come together against the injustice system. This letter is a good follow-up to that issue of ULK because we need to keep this topic front and center as we work to find ways to help people kick the habit and join the revolutionary movement.

As we live in a world full of icebergs as well as Trump towers, we as a country overcame cheap labor such as cotton picking, tobacco farming, child bearing, sugar caning, to the industrialized warfare, to white flight/red line federal housing (which was a calamity also labeled as the Jim Crow north) to the penal correctional nightmare we live through today. They call it rehabilitation, which takes millions off the streets to feel the reign. Years of disfranchisement, hatred, street wars that last decades, as well as innocent bystanders gunned down, as tears flow from mothers’ eyes.

We are investments as soon as we jump off the porch, moving targets for bounty hunters. But they got us focusing on the gang, when the biggest gang is theirs. It has been seen on TV: dumptrucks of guns being delivered to children high on PCP on the streets of Chicago, or the deliverance of cocaine to Rick Ross/Nicky Barnes. But now we got a problem with Mexicans importing a little weed over the border? Get the F out of here! The government is El Chapo, when that same gov benefits/prospers off every play.

They call this justice. Alright, where is the justice in charging $3 a day for being in your jail? Or charging $1 for a 15-cent soup? Or matter of fact $8-15 for a free long distance call. Do you see the incentives? Also you got private institutions that pay for a full prison population (90+%). So why would I not hire more police to put more minorities in here?

If we truly hate white superiority/supremacy, why do we kill our own at a higher rate than the right-wing klan or policemen? When the government owns the whole monopoly board. Every day is the million man/woman march. All we got to do is follow the examples already solidified. Call out our heads or our officials that hold any position. Mumia Abu Jamal said it best, “The state would rather give me an Uzi than a microphone.”

MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade is right to expose the private industry benefits of the criminal injustice system. And also the hypocrisy of the government’s claims that prisons are being used for justice when it is the government that runs the biggest gang, drug dealer, and criminals. But we can’t ignore that prisons are a money-losing operation for the government. Sure the private industries that are profiting do lobby for more prisons, and that’s a financial interest for sure. But the government itself is losing money.

Social control must be the driving reason behind the enormous money-sucking prison system in the United $tates. The criminal injustice system serves that same purpose of social control of oppressed nations within U.$. borders.

In recent months, the Countrywide Council of United Struggle from Within, or Double C for short, has been discussing campaigns, tactics and strategies. One question posed by MIM(Prisons) was about the September 9th Day of Solidarity, an annual event to commemorate the Attica Rebellion of 1971 and to promote the United Front for Peace in Prisons (UFPP). So far the consensus in the Double C is that this event is an important one for promoting the UFPP.

One member told of an older comrade who has been in since 1979 who recently told em, “Thank you for waken me up to this Sept 9 day.” Others agreed that the people are hungry for this message. Another Double C comrade quickly made copies of the fliers and distributed them at the library and jobsite at eir new facility where ey sees strong prospects for building anti-violence programs among lumpen groups.

In ULK 58, we printed a letter from the Double C to a reformist group called CURE, and laid out our strategy and guidelines for reaching out to other organizations. In recent months, Double C comrades have helped get excellent articles promoting the UFPP in two newsletters read by prisoners: Turning the Tide and Propter Nos. USW comrades should follow these examples of ways to get the line out on the UFPP, a campaign we can unite with all progressive groups on, revolutionary or not.

In writing to other organizations and newsletters, USW has goals of popularizing USW campaigns and increasing ULK subscribership. But we should not let these goals take us toward a strategy of sizeism. Our goal is not to get our address in as many newsletters as possible at any cost, rather we should be focused on unity and struggle. We should be building unity where we see potential for it around practical work, while struggling to push others ideologically.

Building a united front of prisoners, involving various prison-based lumpen organizations, is a long campaign that must be carried out in our daily work. September 9th is just one day when we organize a coordinated action to actualize that unity. September 9th is a time to reflect on the prison movement that came before us and on how to develop the prison movement of today and the future. September 9th will not become big overnight. When it does get big, it will because of years of hard work of USW cadre across the country.

Comrades in the Double C are reviewing the September 9th Organizing Pack and existing fliers promoting the United Front for Peace in Prisons, to come up with tactics, art and slogans for further popularizing the event. This is something that all USW comrades can participate in. Starting with this issue of ULK we plan to print a piece of art on page 3 behind the UFPP statement that can be ripped out and copied as a flier. If you don’t have access to make copies write MIM(Prisons) for more copies of these fliers. Send in your art promoting the UFPP and September 9th. Send in your slogans. Report on your organizing successes, strategies and challenges to share in the pages of Under Lock & Key. Build the United Front for Peace in Prisons!

[MIM(Prisons) has received some well-researched information on filing grievances and fighting the grievance system from several readers. Various court cases and rulings can be contradictory. This is in part due to local court differences, but it’s also important to know when a particular decision has been overruled by a higher court. This is hard to stay on top of! We rely on our legally savvy readers to let us know when something important has changed because we don’t have the money to pay lawyers to do this work for us. ]

Caselaw on legal protections

The First Amendment protects the right of the people “to peaceably assemble, or to petition for a governmental redress of grievances.” These rights are severely restricted in prison. Prison officials may ban prison organizations that oppose or criticize prison policies, and court decisions have generally upheld restrictions on those prisoner organizations that are permitted. There is no constitutional right to belong to a gang, or “security threat group” as prison officials often call them, and officials may impose restrictions or take disciplinary action based on gang membership.(1) In some instances courts have declared religious organizations to be security threat groups.(2) Courts have disagreed on the Constitutional status of petitions in prison. Some courts have held that they are protected by the First Amendment, while others have approved restrictions or bans on them.(3, 4) Whether prisoners can be punished for circulating or signing petitions will depend on whether prison rules give notice that such activity is forbidden.(5)

Grievances filed through an official grievance procedure are constitutionally protected(6), even though there is NO constitutional requirement that prisons or jails have a grievance system(7), or that they follow its procedures if they do have one (8), or that they issue decisions that fairly resolve prisoners’ problems(9).