Federal Prisons

This prison facility is denying me my rights on filing administrative remedy procedure by not answering the grievance.

I put in the grievance on 6 May 2016, and it has been 18 days. The response is supposed to be given to me within 15 days.
The grievance no: 4850-2016-FPD-202128
The grievance was about grievance no: 4850-2016-FPD-201593
All of this is about a false statement of a write up and a complaint to Greene County Sheriff about it.

I sent a letter to the court in DC and the Federal court in North Carolina and to the FBI in Washington DC and North Carolina and I appealed the write up on April the 4th. All of this about is about the crimes they have done to me:

• Class 2 misdemeanor making false reports
• false imprisonment
• felonious restraint of NC criminal law is a class E felony.

They know I cannot read or write because I have no education.

I have got to look at the words to write what little I do write.

The terrorist attains his goals
by means of instilling fear and intimidation.
The revolutionary, being an egalitarianist,
attains his goals by means of instilling courage.
So who then but the government is the real terrorist?
Using the press and the media,
showing off weapons and technologies,
instilling fear in oppressed people,
giving them nothing but worries.
Wonder why the people are standing up no more?
After decades of being psychologically bombarded,
with nothing but pro-imperialist goon (pigs)
and military blows?
Big Brother’s watching you, everybody knows.
Got you watching yourself too, from head to tippy toes
like you was living in One Nine Eight Four.

Click on yer teevee whut’s the first thang ya see
The U.$. military ova in da Middle East
Still starting shit
Wondering when will it quit
Constantly oppressing the third world
Wondering y we can’t find love
I’ve been dere and seen it all
Watched dem stack deadbodies high as the Berlin Wall
While pouring on aggression
Without any form of repercussion
Contaminating the public peevish li’l minds
wit’ lossa propoganda crap
And yu wonda y we write rap
We’re tryin’ ta put fools on point
To what the coprolited president
Wanna keep quiet

I have papers showing that the prison on this unit violated the Ground Water Rule. TDCJ Pack Unit failed to collect the required number of triggered source bacteriological samples for fecal indicator monitoring of the ground water system during the last year. This monitoring is required by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality Drinking Water. They are in violation of the drinking water all over the system. I wrote the U.S. Department of Justice Special Litigation Section. I got a letter from the Chief of that Department, no results.

While oppression in prison is nothing new and far from shocking, the current situation in the New Mexico prison system is not only shocking but also comical due to the ridiculousness.

Allow me to explain. Due to a budget shortfall in the New Mexico corrections department (NMCD), all state-run prisons in New Mexico are placed on a week long lockdown every month. This lockdown is said to be cost-cutting allowing the NMCD to continue functioning.

Yet even with the NMCD in this “dire” circumstance the state legislature is passing new laws enacting new mandatory minimums. Programs previously offered to prisoners allowing them to collect good time lump sums and result in an early release have been taken away.

Lastly, NMCD has placed all prisoners labeled as gang members into restrictive custody housing (level 4). This custody is costly in comparison to general population. In addition to being costly, this move is prejudicial. Only prisoners from California or having ties to California are subject to this action. Disciplinary history, charges, etc. have no bearing on the decision and most prisoners in this situation have years of clear conduct.

Level 4 is usually reserved for prisoners whose actions are considered problematic. However as I said the “California” label is all they are going off.

Well comrades, I must stop and apologize to all. I fell back into the street life, I had no place to live, I could not get a job, so I went back to the old habits. I have no family support. I came back with 12 years to do. These things are very important in the post release: a place to live, there’s a lot of people that come back because of this. We also need to help find comrades jobs already lined up so they can touch down running. Also if there’s anyone like me, x-gang members, felon, tattooed up, it’s very hard.

Please put me back on the list for ULK. I’m no longer an active Crip, I’m going to college in prison. I am now on the SNY yard because of dropping out. It’s hard to have a political life. It’s easy in here because we have a place to stay, but when comrades touch the streets, life moves very fast and I was too slow to keep pace. So I’m starting over. I want to get right. One thing I do know is the imperialists must not win.

In Struggle.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade echoes the theme of most submissions to this issue of the Re-lease on Life newsletter: life on the streets is hard after prison! We agree with this writer that we need to set up serve the people programs to help our comrades hitting the streets. Jobs and housing are a priority. We don’t have the resources to do this right now, but these programs are part of our longer term goals for the MIM(Prisons) Re-lease on Life program. And this is a way that people on the outside can get involved. Help us seek out existing resources that new releasees can tap into, and build the groundwork for programs we can set up independently. As a first step, if you know about resources in your area, send us information so we can share that information with others. Anything that you find useful will probably be useful to others: how to get food stamps, where to find temporary housing, places that help finding jobs, etc. Until we are able to build our own resources we can at least offer our newly released comrades some help with finding some of the existing services that might help them get along on the streets.

This year’s election reminds me of the 1980 Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter neo-conservative presidential campaign. We have Donald Trump, the competitive imperialist bizzness mogul. Now we must ask ourselves, since we have lesser of the two evils, what is it that we as a nation want as a leader? But I find myself not liking or feeding into the rhetoric of both candidates, Trump or Clinton. Hillary Clinton favors exploitation of Third World international proletariat. Both Trump and Clinton have no solutions for the oppressed nations here in the United $tates or abroad. As senator Sanders pointed out, Clinton is in the pockets of big bankers and Wall Street. And Trump seizes the opportunity to expand his ego and exploit more oppressed nations, by building casinos, resorts and handing out slave wages to the proletarians of that land.

But what are the solutions to our problems in this capitalistic culture? One solution which needs to be addressed is a separate party which would be for the people and by the people. We must not allow the media to downgrade socialism. Socialism and a socialist party in the United Snakes of America is a must. We have to overstand what socialism is and what it can do for oppressed nations here in America. Bringing equality to all people, and ending global imperialism. But this brings me to Bernie Sanders. His rhetoric of free education and universal health care sounds good, but if you are going to support socialist ideas, then you must go all the way and build a socialist party, and not allow the two party system of Amerikkka to stigmatize socialist views and its persistent hopefulness.

As long as the wings of establishment support imperialism we will never get close to fruition of socialism. But what really upsets me is that New Africans in America sell out to capitalistic rhetoric by upholding or embracing bourgeois cultural propaganda. This is why the title “lesser of two evils” is used for this essay on the awakening of the lumpen to class consciousness.

There are so many contradictions within Donald Trump’s “Let’s make America great again” slogan. First and foremost, we must overstand what made so-called Amerikkka great. Stealing land and demoralizing the First Nations. Denying them culture and their own way of life. Enslaving New Africans, or might I say oppression of all people of color who do not represent white supremacy. That Trump slogan alone is a subliminal white supremacist statement. Making those who support the labor aristocracy continue and support efforts to exploit the white lumpen and the people or nations of oppressed people of color. Creating more wars, and war on the revolutionaries who will stand up to imperialism. And I can’t forget about Hillary Clinton who will continue where her husband left off. She was a supporter of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, signed into law by Bill Clinton. And we have the nerve to say oh she’s for New Africans. I must conclude that what we have in this election is lesser of the two evils, Trump vs. Hillary. Capitalism vs. mass incarceration.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade is on the right track in condemning the Amerikan election system as a tool to reinforce imperialist power. There is no choice for the truly oppressed and exploited of the world. In fact, the vast majority of those exploited by Amerikan imperialism aren’t even eligible to vote in these elections because they aren’t Amerikan citizens.

We agree that the lumpen should be paying attention to this election and using it to raise class consciousness, but we’re not in agreement with the implication that Bernie Sanders represents socialist ideas. In fact, he is just the other side of the Donald Trump “Let’s make America great again” coin. Both want to increase the wealth for the Amerikan labor aristocracy which can only come at the expense of the exploited Third World proletariat. Even if Sanders spreads those super profits around a bit more, that doesn’t help the oppressed majority of the world. Sanders supports the same aggressive militarist international policies of all the other imperialist candidates: “We live in a dangerous world full of serious threats, perhaps none more so than the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and al-Qaeda. Senator Sanders is committed to keeping America safe, and pursuing those who would do Americans harm.”(1)

The problem isn’t just that Sanders doesn’t support an independent socialist party, the problem is that Sanders is muddying the word socialist, just like the “national socialists” (aka fascists) in Germany did in their day. This is not a word meant to ensure greater wealth for privileged nations at the expense of oppressed nations. And while it’s possible Sanders could pursue a policy of greater advancement for the oppressed nations within U.$. borders, this would only serve to expand the ranks of the labor aristocracy on the backs of oppressed nations globally. We cannot support that sort of rhetoric.

MIM(Prisons) maintains that it is possible one day Amerika will fully integrate the oppressed New Afrikan, Chican@, Boriqua and First Nations like the Irish, Italians and others who initially faced oppression but later fully integrated into Amerikan society. This could even be done by shifting around some money from within imperialist Amerika. But judging from the popularity of the overtly fascist rallying cries from Trump and eir ilk, it seems more likely that national oppression abroad will continue to engender national oppression and racism at home.

This election is important for lumpen consciousness within Amerikan borders because it would be easy to be taken in by the Sanders rhetoric. Or to be frightened by the Trump rhetoric. And so be moved to rally around “the lesser of two evils” campaign to get on the streets working for the “Democratic Party.” But the lumpen class consciousness needs to be tied to internationalism. We need to diligently point out the suffering of the international proletariat at the hands of imperialism, which is the same oppressor keeping the lumpen down. The alliance should be between these two oppressed groups, against the imperialists. Not between the lumpen and the so-called left wing of the imperialists against the international proletariat. Our job as communists is to push the oppressed and exploited classes to the right side of this equation: the side of the world’s oppressed.

When the Black Panther Party’s Ten Point Program included: “We will not fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America” they were demonstrating this internationalist class consciousness, specifically in the context of the Vietnam War. This writer is correct that we will never get close to socialism within the imperialist establishment. But we disagree that there is actually a lesser of two evils in any imperialist election, or a choice between imperialism and mass incarceration. These things go hand in hand, and one side’s rhetoric benefits some Amerikans more while the other side would benefit a slightly different group of Amerikans, while the white nation remains firmly in power, and the wealth continues to come from the exploited in the Third World.

Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition
By Griffin Fariello
Avon Books, 1995

Red Scare is set in the time when there were open communist witch hunts across Amerika. Younger people may not remember or even have heard of the time when it was a crime to be a revolutionary in the United $tates. Although the laws have made it “legal” today to be a communist, it really isn’t as legal as many think. The state’s old methods have only been fine tuned and made more subtle, but the repression still exists and may even be more dangerous today than in years past.

Senator Joe McCarthy, elected in 1946, started off as any other Senator and then took a real fascist turn in 1950 when he began his anti-communist terror. His political life did not last too long as McCarthy died in 1957 but his ideals lived on and took on even more deadly ways in the years after, especially for oppressed nations in Amerika.

The 1950s was a tougher time for communists in Amerika. There were many laws that were anti-communist in nature. In the state of Texas for instance, membership in the Communist Party would get you twenty years in prison. In the state of Michigan to just write or speak subversive words would get you life in prison! No wonder Michigan today has some of the largest white supremacist militias in Amerika. The state of Tennessee would give you the death penalty for what it called “unlawful advocacy” that was aimed at communists.

This was a time when buying a house came with having to sign a “loyalty oath” denouncing communism. A student receiving a diploma had to first sign an oath, people living in the projects had to sign it for the landlord at rent time. This was the “war on terror” on steroids. Think of the round ups and harassment of Muslims in Amerika post-9/11 and triple that!

By 1956 Hoover’s FBI spread its slimy tentacles so much that in the CP-USA, whose membership at that time was less than 5,000, one out of three members was an FBI informant. This may help explain CP-USA’s passivity on many issues at that time. It was a time when the feds had three informants in a three-persyn CP unit, so entire units were comprised of informants, which also helped to ensure who was supplying reliable information and who wasn’t as the informants were not aware the others were informants.

The information on surveillance and what one ex-FBI agent called “bag jobs” was enlightening. It was a look on how the feds really teach their agents about those of us who want to free the people from oppression. An ex-FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen is interviewed about his targeting of a communist group in COINTELPRO-like methods, defends his self-described “hundreds” of bag jobs by saying

“none of us worried too much about the illegality, because most of us were veterans from World War II. Gee, all you had to do is wave a flag and we’d stand up and salute and do all kinds of things. And after the indoctrination we got in training school about communism and the communist party and how they were trying to overthrow us, it was like war all over again, just that no one was shooting at anybody yet…”(p. 86)

Like in the 1950s, the FBI enjoys recruiting its agents from police or military. Like Swearingen noted above, all you have to do is “wave a flag and we’d stand up and salute and do all kinds of things.” And so when people want to stop genocide, exploitation and other madness, the state is meanwhile teaching its agents that it’s war, only no one is getting shot yet. It’s war because poor people don’t want to live in land contaminated by toxic waste, because poor people are protesting the corporate greed, the war on the Third World, etc. For objecting to this monstrous behavior it’s like “a war all over again.”

The “bag job” involved breaking into a home of a suspect, and if the suspect was a communist or member of the CP the agents would search for any pieces of paper with anyone’s names. It could be the paper boy’s name but agents would gather these names and add them to the “security index” which was a list kept by the FBI of those “subversives” (communists) who, in case of “national emergency,” would be rounded up in concentration kamps. This was awfully similar to how in California prisons the state deals with the validation process: during all searches any names found in a supposed gang member’s cell are added to a database as a gang associate for future targeting and possible round up into SHU (concentration kamp). The similarities are uncanny, if you simply substitute “communist party” with “prison gang” you would think a lot of this was written about California’s validation program.

For example, the ex-FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen goes on to say

“During the Church Committee hearings one of the Senators asked James Adams, who was the associate director of the FBI, how long a person would stay on the security index. I think they were talking about one individual who had been on there something like twenty or twenty-five years. And the senator said ‘Did you have any information that he was still a member of the communist party?’ and Adam’s response was ‘we didn’t have any information that he was not a member of the communist party, then we’d keep him in there and we’d keep him on the security index.’ Sometimes we would get information that someone did drop out of the communist party, but we wouldn’t believe it anyway. Bill Sennett stayed on the security index almost ten years after he quit the party because no one would believe it.”(p. 95)

The chapter titled “Five minutes to midnight” discussed the underground. In the late ’50s CP-USA began discussing the inevitability of war between the Soviet Union and the United States. It was decided that the United States was on the verge of repression and so to survive the coming fascism the party would need an underground organization.

The underground apparatus was organized in three different levels. The first level was called “deep freeze” which were top leadership who jumped bail for conviction on the Smith Act which basically criminalized the act of being a communist, along with those who it was assumed would be in the next sweep of arrests. The second level was called the “deep deep freeze.” These were trusted members who would be a source of leadership should all the other leaders be arrested. Many of these people were sent abroad to Mexico, Canada or Europe, kind of like sleeper cells, to lead normal lives and not engage in any political activity. The third level was called “operative but unavailable” who traveled state to state in disguise working as liaison between the aboveground party and the deep freeze.

According to the author, millions of dollars were spent on the underground apparatus with lodgings, transportation, and the courier system that kept the hundreds of men and wimmin underground. This took its toll with almost everyone abandoning the party within five years. The writer states “seasoned communists realized the impossibility of carrying a political movement in this fashion.” A couple of decades later, activists would probably beg to differ with this because of the targeting, murder, and imprisonment that followed being above ground.

The Smith Act created some real anti-communist ways of thinking. The city of Birmingham, Alabama for instance passed a law in the 1950s mandating that all communists had forty-eight hours to leave town or face imprisonment. This was looked at as normal treatment for political ideas by many. This continues to sound like the witch hunts progressive prisoners face today in Amerika where you are locked in control units, not for acts, but ideas, beliefs or assumed beliefs and yet it’s not for 2 or 3 years like when the Smith Act was enforced but decades and sometimes for life!

Red Scare falls short in not analyzing the politics of this era, not discussing the political line of revolutionary groups of the 1950s. The Jim Crowism was not even really talked about much. The author does discuss events like the Rosenberg trial/execution, children of the persecuted and what ey calls “redactors” who were the teachers who were persecuted under McCarthyism. But ey does not get into the oppressed nations of that time. The author gives one example of the CP-USA going to New Mexico to work in the Chicano barrios, briefly mentions the Black Panthers, and does not even mention the First Nations.

One will not learn anything of the different ideologies of that time yet this book is worth reading if you seek to understand the birth of COINTELPRO which really decimated the oppressed nations’ struggles in the ’60s and ’70s. Although this book was written in the 1990s it reads as if it was written in the 1950s with its oppressor-nation outlook on struggles during the McCarthy period, a little too vanilla and boring, but worth plowing through the 500+ pages only for its content on early COINTELPRO.

Red Scare speaks volumes about the success of the Soviet Union in building socialism, a more popular alternative to capitalism. While it is easy to laugh at the extreme paranoia expressed by the state in this period, there was a real fear starting in the 1930s when the Soviet Union was developing in leaps while the capitalist world crumbled under the great depression. Coming out of World War II, during which the Soviet Union demonstrated its technological and ideological strength, the Red Scare of the 1950s reflected this.

I received ULK 48, thank you. From 1998 to right after the towers fell in New York, I received MIM Notes, which were instrumental in my politicalization and capacity to be critical with information. Hopefully re-connecting with MIM will aid me in similar if not greater ways.

As far as the ULK 48, dedicated to the discussion of religious organizations in prison, I would like to add a few observations, critiques and opinions that may aid in better understanding what I consider, the functional limits of prison religious organizations.

I preface the following by stating that like many young, impressionable Black males who entered the Michigan penal system in the mid-1990s, I was heavily recruited by a non-orthodox Islamic sect. It was part religious, part Black nationalist, part civic, radical in the sense that it gave it to the grey and black as well as it took it, but the religious organization was mostly philosophically and ideologically backwards. No clearly defined political lines, no effort toward developing social change theory, and no revolutionary practices or principles cognizable to a revolutionary novice, let alone a seasoned agent for change.

However, the group did introduce me to books, which I fell in love with after spending four years in solitary confinement where there was little else to do besides read to escape the attendant activities characteristic of that environment. In the beginning, narrow nationalism and Islamic related literature is all I read. Far more lasting than any specific set of facts or pieces of knowledge obtained, reading provided me with the understanding of how to acquire knowledge on my own. I learned how to read an essay closely, search for new sources, find data to prove or disprove a hypothesis, and detect an author’s prejudice, among other skills, that were not promoted during my K-12 educational experience.

Considering the inescapable oppression of long term solitary confinement, it was inevitable that my attention would be turned to ideas and actions I could take to prevent future experiences of isolation, for myself as well as others. Trying to pray or wish my problems away proved extremely ineffective. I abandoned closing my eyes and hoping for a different reality when I opened them, rather quickly. But I do feel indebted to the group for leading me to books - prior to prison I had never read a book from cover to cover, or for more than entertainment.

After reading ULK 48, the first question that comes to mind is, do religious groups in Michigan prisons possess any power - real or latent - to stimulate and direct constructive social change? Or are they, too, victims of the overall U.S. capitalist structure?

While I’m aware that many people would answer these questions in many different ways, I observe that religion plays chiefly a cathartic role for the imprisoned. It provides an opportunity for followers to “let off steam,” to seek release for emotions which cannot be expressed to administrators and guards without consequences. Prison religious organizations are social and recreational and a haven for comfort, no matter how illusory or temporary. Within these groups imprisoned people can assume responsibilities and authority not available elsewhere in the prison. For example, s/he can be the head of security, treasurer or public relations director. Only within the religious organization can imprisoned people engage in political intrigue and participate in decisions open to non-imprisoned people.

The potential power of religious organizations in prison is the ability to attract large numbers of imprisoned people. Although their ability to recruit is severely being challenged here in Michigan by the rise of street organizations i.e., gangs, whose numbers have skyrocketed in the last ten years. Among their more flagrant weaknesses is the fact that their potential strengths can all too easily be dissipated by preoccupation with trivial matters (e.g., did Moses part the Red Sea; did Jesus walk on water; what did Muhammad say about facial hair, eating pork, or what activities should be performed with the left hand?), and the desperate struggle for the empty status, bombast, and show of the prison world.

It is not inevitable, and virtually impossible to politicalize and transform members of these groups into social change agents when religious doctrines emphasize the idea of someone other than you/me/us possessing the power to change present reality: the instruments of escape, weapons of protest, the protective fortress behind which adherents seek to withstand the assaults of a hostile environment and within which s/he plans strategies of defiance, is prayer.

It is no wonder then why imprisoned people who have been politicalized tend to reject religious organizations as a multiple symbol of fantasy; and tend to regard prison religious organizations as basically irrelevant to challenging the hard and difficult realities of capitalism, white supremacy, police powers that can reach all the way into one’s bedroom or a woman’s womb, and so on.

That this is not more widely recognized by members of these groups may be in part because religious organizations are not an effective model of critical thinking. The fact that religious organizations are the most pervasive groups in Michigan prisons, and the fact that they do not play any measurable role dissenting or resisting the frustrating, oppressive, degrading experience of incarceration, are cruelly related.

If religious organizations are a powerful social force, either the facility, Central Office, or the State would severely restrict/eliminate them. The facade of power which these groups now present would be removed. Think about it, most religious meetings in prison go unsupervised.

Members of these groups hold on to the idea that an all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present being will save them at some appointed time and date, while this being had neglected their other needs as human beings. The punishment of “crime” is a political act. It represents the use of force by the State to control the lives of people the State has defined as criminal. No concerted political efforts have been made by these groups to deal with the politics, i.e., the underlying causes of incarceration.

My objective is not to argue that religious belief and political consciousness are incompatible. Speculation on that level is pointless and irrelevant for the purpose of this discussion. However, the simple truth is that the trouble imprisoned people find themselves in, the sham and corruption, the class and race biases of criminal law enforcement, cannot be solved unless imprisoned people feel obligated to learn about systems of power, privilege and oppression, and also feel obligated to do something about them.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade is correct to point out that there are significant limitations to religious organizations, whether behind bars or on the streets. And ultimately only by targeting the underlying systems of oppression will we put an end to criminal injustice and imperialism. However, what this letter does not address is the distinction of some of the more anti-imperialist religious movements like Islam. As we argued in ULK 48 “Just as religion is today an outlet for many radical youth in the Third World, religion has been influenced by revolutionary politics in the context of New Afrika. In the 20th century we see a turn towards Islam by a number of New Afrikans who are searching for identity and liberation from oppression by Amerika.” We do not push people towards religion, but at the same time we look to unite with those whose religion is compatible with or promoting national liberation. We have a good historical example of this united front in the Christian liberation theologists in Latin America who were a part of revolutionary national liberation struggles in that part of the world starting in the 1950s.

Uniting with organizations that do not share our political line entirely is part of united front organizing. We focus on the principal contradiction, and unite with others who agree with this goal, while retaining independence to make clear where we disagree politically. In a united front led by communists religious groups can be important allies. But we should always be clear that true equality for all people will not be achieved through belief in a higher power or any other unscientific mysticism.

To: Head Warden Cato, Coffiel Unit

Re: Unconstitutional Conditions of Confinement at the TDCJ/Coffield Unit, Institutional Division

The Conditions as described herein should be obvious to the trained eye of professional Correctional Staff. These conditions are longstanding and pervasive. I respectfully request to not be retaliated against for the exercise of my constitutional rights. It is well noted in every Circuit and the Supreme Court that “prison officials may not retaliate against or harass an inmate because of his exercise of his First Amendment right to seek redress of grievance.”

I. Unsanitary Conditions in Chowhall

The conditions in the chowhall are unsanitary. The spoons, trays and cups are not properly washed and sanitized before and after each use. The trays often have standing water in them, the spoons are greasy and often have food residue on them. The chowhall floor is filthy and there are puddles of standing water on the floor on a regular basis. The staff and inmates who are serving food do not wear gloves. The tables are not properly wiped and sanitized.

The chowhall is known to be infested by cockroaches, mice and birds. The birds are known to eat the cornbread out of the pans in the baking area, and to defecate on the cornbread. It is believed that security cameras in the baking and kitchen areas confirm this. The floor drains in the cooking area are known to back up with raw sewage.

These unsanitary conditions, individually and collectively, may be conducive to the spread of food borne illnesses; these conditions pose a threat to the health of inmates at the Coffield Unit.

2. Sleep Deprivation

The policies of TDCJ/Coffield Unit contribute to and cause the sleep deprivation of inmates. Sleep is recognized as a basic human need. TDCJ’s system-wide policy of having Correctional Staff conduct late-night bed-bunk counts deliberately causes sleep deprivation.

Between 11:00 PM and 2:00 AM, inmates are awakened by a Correctional Officer, and are asked to present their Prison Identification Card, or to recite their number.

Furthermore, several times throughout the night, the guards in the Control Picket, or “Rotunda,” are blaring announcements on the intercom loudspeakers. This disturbs inmates from their sleep.

Finally, Coffield begins feeding breakfast between 2:00 AM and 2:30 AM. Feeding time may run until 4:00 AM. If an inmate goes to have breakfast they may lose an hour of sleep, or possibly more. They are forced by this ridiculous schedule to choose between sleep or food.

Then between 4:00 AM and 5:00 AM, Coffield begins showering. Thus causing the loss of at least another hour of sleep.

Therefore, because of the bed-bunk counts, loudspeaker blaring, breakfast and showering schedules it is near impossible to get even 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep per night. This sleep deprivation poses a serious risk of physical and psychological harm to inmates.

3. Overcrowding

The cells at the Coffield Unit are too small for double occupancy. The cells were only designed for single occupancy. Hence it follows that the day-rooms are overcrowded and must serve double the number of inmates for which they were designed.

Inmates at Coffield in the main building are confronted with the reality that overcrowding is omnipresent within the confines of the prison. This overcrowding has an adverse effect on all the day-to-day operations of the prison.

The cells at the Coffield Unit and the other older model units have an area of only forty-five square feet, with only twenty-one and a half square feet of usable floor space. So cramped are such cells, that two persons standing, must squeeze by each other in order to pass. This cramped closeness of confined persons causes tension and sometimes leads to fights and violence.

These cells are not equipped with a table or bench to sit on. The top bunks are not equipped with a ladder or steps to assist inmates in climbing up and down. This is an obvious safety hazard.

Some of the obvious psychological effects of such overcrowded confinement are, i.e. the spread of disease, the enhancement of stress, tension, hostility, depression and physical and psychological deterioration.

These negative effects due to overcrowding run counter to the process of rehabilitation, and are the cause of serious behavioral problems.

4. Day-rooms/Ingress-Egress

The day-rooms are overcrowded, they lack the necessary area required for the number of inmates they house; they also lack sufficient seating. The bathroom facilities in the day-rooms are inadequate: there is only one urinal, one sink and NO toilet.

Hourly ingress and egress moves are not conducted. Per TDCJ Policy, these moves are to be done hourly. However, often times inmates are trapped in cramped, overcrowded and noisy day-rooms without adequate bathroom facilities for 2 or 3 hours at a time without being given the opportunity to go to their cell.

The day-room’s whole back wall window panels do not have tint of shade to guard against the hot bright sun. The sun is magnified by the glass panels and shines directly into the day-room, blinding inmates and turning the day-room into a very hot and muggy torture chamber. There are no fans to circulate the air. There are no screens on the windows to keep mosquitoes out. Mosquitoes are carriers of disease.

V. Lack or Regular Exercise/Outdoor Exercise

Inmates at the Coffield Unit on P3 & P4 are not afforded regular opportunities for exercise, and they are not afforded regular/any opportunities for outdoor exercise, and access to fresh air and sunshine.

Regular exercise, fresh air and sunshine are basic human needs. They are necessary for maintaining one’s physical and psychological health.

By contrast, inmates in medium custody are afforded regular outdoor exercise during the afternoon. Likewise inmates in P5 and P6 receive outdoor exercise daily. Only inmates in P3-P4 are singled out and denied outdoor exercise.

Furthermore, per TDCJ Policy, there is supposed to be a recreation schedule posted for inmates to consult. There is no such schedule posted in the cell blocks at Coffield.

6. Lack of Exercise Opportunities for Inmates with Chronic Medical Problems/Disabilities and Aging Inmates

There are no Exercise Programs for older inmates (late forties and older) or for inmates with disabilities or other medical conditions.

When gym, a.k.a. “indoor recreation” is called, it is extremely overcrowded and it is difficult to get any exercise at all. All Coffield offers is basketball, handball and an overcrowded universal weight machine.

These recreational policies systematically discriminate against and deprive older inmates and inmates with health problems and disabilities from being able to get any exercise at all.

The inmates do not even have an opportunity to walk or jog for thirty minutes to an hour, 3 or 4 times a week.

Inmates who are older, as well as inmates who suffer from chronic health conditions/disabilities form a recognizable class of inmates who are protected under the “Equal Protection Clause”, and also the “Americans with a Disability Act”.

The discriminatory conduct perpetrated by TDCJ/Coffield Unit are actionable in Federal Court. Furthermore, the conditions described herein are in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, and constitute Cruel and Unusual punishments.

7. Conclusion

It is obvious that the Conditions of Confinement deprive inmates of the minimal civilized measures of life’s necessities, and subjects them to unreasonable health and safety risks.

These conditions described herein are longstanding and pervasive; they do pose a serious risk of harm to all inmates at the Coffied Unit.

Copies of this letter have been sent to:
1. Senator John Whitmire
2. ARRM, Division, Huntsville, TX
3. U.S. Attorney General, United States Department of Justice, (USDoJ)
4. Human Rights Watch, Austin, TX
5. Texas Inmate Family Association
6. Brad Livingston, Director TDCJ