Federal Prisons

There is a control unit in every prison in Pennsylvania, and I’ve been in three of them so far. In every one of them I have personally witnessed or been affected by mistreatment by the guards. I was in Camp Hill when the guards opened the windows, which are about 3 feet by 4 feet, when it was around 20 degrees out and left them open all night. I filed a grievance about this and the response was that they opened the windows to reduce germs. I was forced to stay in a cell with a blanket that was nothing but a bunch of strings and had a lot of holes and spaces in it. I could not sleep due to the fact that I was shivering so badly all night long. When I would breathe out, I could see my breath in the air.

I have also personally witnessed several beatings by the guards on prisoners. Somerset was one of the worst that I have seen, as the Corrections Officers there seemed more apt to assault a prisoner. I saw one guy who was handcuffed and had a big yellow rope attached to him get punched in the face several times by a sergeant while still restrained. He ended up with a big black eye and several bruises on his face, as well as severe rope burn on both wrists.

Pennsylvania is notorious for abuse of prisoners. They cover everything up. The medical staff also changes dates on their paperwork and does not place all of the information on the medical reports. This is all an effort to cover up all the abuses. I was in the Restrictive Housing Unit (RHU) at SCI Somerset for 8 months. In that time, I personally witnessed at least 10 assaults by staff on prisoners that were handcuffed. I am now in SCI Mahanoy. I have been to the RHU here a few times. I have also witnessed assaults here on prisoners that were in handcuffs. The guards will not even try to assault a prisoner unless they are handcuffed.

I was also placed in the RHU for absolute lies. The staff here can place you in the RHU at their discretion. All they have to do is put on a write-up that you used foul and abusive language or threatened them. It does not matter if that is what happened or not. The hearing examiner will not call any of your witnesses to the hearing. They give us a witness form only because they have to. It is just a waste of paper. You are guilty before you walk through the door. The hearing examiner here will even tell you if you do not plead guilty to whatever is on the write-up, that they are going to place you in the hole for the maximum time for each and every charge on the write-up. So most people just plead guilty to get a little less time in the RHU.

The RHU here is also 23 hours in and 1 out. We only get 1 hour of recreation during the week, and that is only if the guard feels like taking you out. Then we are strip searched before we go out and then have to stand in the cell handcuffed until they get around to taking us out. The guards here also take pleasure in burning us for showers and recreation time. They will even burn us for meals. They simply yell out “Refused!” when they get to your cell with the food trays. It happens here all the time.

I was even sexually assaulted by a staff member here, named Ms. Longo. I reported it and requested the state police, as in the handbook it states that I have that right. They refused to call them. Then they hurried up and wrote me up saying that I was stealing several jelly packets. I don’t even eat the jelly here. They did this to discredit me and then they actually fired me from my job in the kitchen. Then that same staff member was accused of doing the same thing to several other prisoners and she still has her job. I made several complaints against her prior to this whole thing and nothing was ever done.

Longo constantly curses at prisoners, which is an offense that a prisoner would go to the RHU for. Longo on a daily basis calls prisoners “pussies, cunts, bitches, faggots, mother fuckers, assholes” and several other things. She also had several complaints about her doing “pat searches,” during which she likes to grab the penises of the prisoners.

She is in her late 50s or early 60s and has bowel issues, so she needs to wear a diaper. She constantly poops herself and then just stands there. This is also in the food service area, as she works in the kitchen. When on a serving line with her you are stuck in a very small area with very little air flow. It is about 10 feet by 30 feet in the serving line. She stands by the door to the serving line, which is where the air comes from. So the smell just travels all through the line and lingers. We are forced to stand there and smell and breathe that nasty stench in. This is cruel and unusual punishment.

We have all complained about Longo’s mistreatment and swearing at us, as well as the smell of her going to the bathroom in her diaper. The prison won’t do anything about it. These people here are all related or neighbors. They all know and protect each other no matter what. Pennsylvania put this prison and two others in this rural area on purpose. They know this is a small community and that the staff will protect each other. The prison never has Ms. Longo here when there are inspections or visitors to this prison. It seems she is always off on those days. They will not have her here for anyone to see from outside this prison.

They will also not allow us review of any security tape if we report an assault by a staff member. It seems there is never a tape unless it is used against a prisoner.

Pennsylvania is one of the most crooked prison systems in the country. That is why they had a riot at SCI Camp Hill. They were afraid that a riot was going to happen here a few years ago. There have been several staff here taken out in handcuffs since I have been here. Even one of the superintendents was taken out in handcuffs for sexual harassment of another staff member. They think that they can get away with anything here. They even tell prisoners here that if you put your hands on a staff member “we will beat you all the way to the hole.” And they have done this since I have been here at least five times. I have seen blood from prisoners all the way up the walkway. We can see the guards beating the prisoners while dragging them up the walkways. They punch and kick them while other guards are dragging them. They do this in plain view of the blocks so that we can see it out the windows.

MIM(Prisons) adds: Many prisons are built in rural areas where the staff is mostly white and tight-knit if not blood related. Prisoners are generally shipped from metropolitan areas to these back country prisons where staff have no cultural awareness or exposure to non-white people outside of their occupation. This combination inevitably leads to all levels of staff protecting each other against grievances from prisoners who they seen as less than humyn.

For more articles on this issue check out…
Dixon’s Disabled done wrong
Find Your Strength
The Pigs Feed at the Lockdown Trough
My Environment! Real as it gets!
Prisons Used as Political Tool in Rural Communities

First and foremost, I would like to salute all the comrades around the world that stood up and protested against Arizona’s Jim Crow laws of segregation. Amerikkka’s up to its dirty tricks once again. All was fine when they rode the backs of Latinos for cheap labor, but now that individuals are using their minds and starting their own small businesses, they (the U.S. or Arizona) want them out because they can’t use (exploit) them any more. Never turn your back on a snake! Amerika was built upon corporate capitalism. If Latinos are all illegal then Christopher Columbus was illegal when he “came” to Amerikkka.

The Columbus anniversary is a celebration of mass murder, slavery, and conquest. He used religion and guns (after he was welcomed as a guest) against the Blacks and the indigenous in the Americas, mistakenly called Indians. All this was done in the name of white supremacy based upon the concept of “chosen people” and manifest destiny, and was designed to further cultural genocide and maintain mental slavery. Arizona is trying to put this back in full swing. They are capitalist parasites; blood-thirsty opportunists. People who would sell their own grandmother’s burial plot. Amerikkka is a region of political injustice and great suffering. Columbus didn’t discover shit, he came to America and exploited America with his illegal ass!!!

I’m a powerful Black conscious man, so I yell out Black Power and I fully support my Latino comrades in struggle and solidarity. And we demand justice or there will be no peace!

In struggle

Not long after the end of World War II, Comrade Mao Zedong put forward his famous thesis, “All reactionaries are paper tigers.”(1) This thesis armed the people of China ideologically, strengthened their confidence in victory and played an exceedingly great role in the People’s War of Liberation. This thesis is still relevant today and we would be wise to heed its message.

Comrade Mao Zedong regarded imperialism and all reactionaries as paper tigers. This thesis is a fundamental strategic concept for the revolutionary people. Since the Second Revolutionary War, Mao Zedong repeatedly pointed out: “Strategically, with regard to the whole, revolutionaries must despise the enemy, dare to struggle against him and dare to seize victory, at the same time tactically with regard to each part, each specific struggle, they must take the enemy seriously, be prudent, carefully study and perfect the art of struggle and adopt forms of struggle suited to different times, places and conditions in order to isolate and wipe out the enemy, step-by-step.”(1)

Year’s later, comrade Mao stated that: “Just as there is not a single thing in the world without a dual nature (this is the law of the unity of opposites), so imperialism and all reactionaries have a dual nature - they are real tigers and paper tigers at the same time. In past history, before they won state power and for some time afterwards, the slave owning class the feudal landlord class and the bourgeoisie were vigorous, revolutionary and progressive, they were real tigers. But with the lapse of time, because their opposites - the slave class, the peasant class and the proletariat - grew in strength step-by-step struggled against them more and more fiercely these ruling classes changed step-by-step into the reverse, changed into reactionaries, changed into backward people, changed into paper tigers. And eventually they were overthrown or will be overthrown by the people. Even in the face of the last decisive struggles waged by the people, the reactionary, backward, decaying classes retained this dual nature. On the one hand they were real tigers, they devoured people by the millions and tens of millions. The cause of the peoples struggle went thru a period of difficulties and hardships and along the path there were many twists and turns. To destroy the rule of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism in China took the Chinese people more than a hundred years and cost them tens of millions of lives before the victory of 1949. Look! Were these not living tigers, iron tigers, real tigers? But in the end they changed into paper tigers, dead tigers, bean curd tigers. These are historical facts.”(2)

So there you have it. Comrade Mao all those many years ago held that the Chinese people would be victorious in their war of liberation. This wasn’t hopeful idealism on Mao’s behalf, it wasn’t that the Chinese people and Mao really, really, really wanted liberation for themselves, that they just knew if only they kept on struggling they’d someday achieve liberation. No! It was through the correct practice of dialectical materialism that the Chinese people were able to finally cast the yoke of imperialism off into the sea. This is something that many bourgeois scholars just can’t grasp. Dialectical materialism is something the bourgeoisie either doesn’t correctly understand or they don’t want to understand exactly how Mao and the CCP were able to lead the Chinese people to victory against insurmountable odds or how comrade Mao was able to become such a brilliant military strategist.

However, for us to really get the full understanding of the “paper tiger” thesis put forward by Mao, and in order to see how it is still relevant today, we must dive head first into the subject of dialectical materialism.

When comrade Mao stated “just as there is not a single thing in the world without a dual nature,”(3) he was referring to the law of the unity of opposites. The law of the unity of opposites, that is the law of contradiction in things, is the basic law of materialist dialectics. Dialectics in the proper sense is the study of contradiction in the very essence of objects. Dialectical materialists hold that a thing is made up of its being and of its opposite, this means that no contradictory aspect can exist in isolation. The basic meaning of this would be, for example, that from its very inception and all through its existence where there is light there is also darkness, because without the darkness there can be no light, because they are both mutually dependent, and in order for one to exist its opposite must also be.

So the persyn who is “good” or who does what is morally right can also be “bad” and do what is considered morally wrong. This is another example of the unity of opposites, nothing in this world is immutable.

So now that we know what the basic meaning of the law of the unity of opposites is we know exactly what Mao was talking about when he said, “Just as there is not a single thing in the world without a dual nature, so imperialism and all reactionaries have a dual nature.” What he meant by this is that even though the imperialists, and the reactionaries were strong and terrible looking at one point in hystory, they were also weak and vacillated in another point in hystory, and furthermore it was our job (the people’s) by our will and our struggle to form the correct strategic point of view to see the imperialists and reactionaries as paper tigers and know that we can defeat them in the end. However, because of this paper tiger’s dual nature, we must also be aware that this tiger can also be a real tiger and can defeat us if we don’t respect him tactically.

Now some of you who are familiar and experienced with materialist dialectics will right away say, “wait a minute, the law of contradiction says that the motive force of a thing is internal and not external.” Yes, this certainly is true. The condition of change is internal and not external, however the law of contradiction also shows us that there is antagonism inherent in things, which basically means that from its very inception antagonism exists as the struggle of opposites, as contradiction, but not until the contradiction develops into open antagonism in a thing does it push development forward and resolve itself. So first however we must find the principal contradiction, and only by finding the fundamental contradiction can we find the principal contradiction and get along with the business of resolving it.

We already know that the fundamental contradiction on a global scale is the bourgeoisie vs. the proletariat, and that the principal contradiction on the international level is imperialism vs. the Third World. In Amerika the principal contradiction is the oppressor vs. oppressed nations. So how do we resolve the principal contradiction in the united $tates? Once again, this is possible by a things dual nature (society), and if society has a dual nature then it has to have two opposing, yet equally dependent, aspects. In this case it would be the oppressor nation (euro-Amerikkkans) vs. the oppressed nations (Brown, Black, etc). So how do we resolve the principal contradictions in the united $tates? Just as the imperialists and the oppressor nation has their tiger, we too can have a tiger and defeat theirs. However, this is once again only possible when the struggle of opposites reaches its point of open antagonism, and to know when this happens we must take careful watch of the situation and always keep the concrete analysis of concrete conditions acutely in mind.

At this point in hystory our so-called “tiger” is non-existent – it is neither a real tiger nor a paper tiger. It is a dead tiger. What is meant by this is that we as a collective (Brown, Black, etc.) have been continuously colonized and oppressed by capitalism/imperialism and we are almost helpless to stop it from destroying us and our cultures. Yet, hystory teaches us that imperialism and the ruling classes have never been able to completely wipe out all traces of a nation or its people, even though it has come pretty damn close and continues to advance.

Therefore our only choice, if we are to survive the anarchy and destruction of capitalist construction, is to get to constructing ourselves. We must build this “People’s Tiger”, and the first step to building this internal force which will push development forward will be in the unification of the people. This means building a united front for a united struggle against the oppressors.

Unity evolves from the inside out. This begins with the revolutionization of our consciousness, our minds. First we change the way we think, then we apply this to our material conditions and in the way we interact with others, this is how we change our surroundings. This applies to all peoples of all societies, especially that society within a society, that society separated by the rest of the people, separated by concrete and steel - This is unity from the inside out in all its glory.

Power to the People!
Long live the Maoist Internationalist Movement!
Long live the United Soldiers from Within!

Notes:
1. “Talk with the American Correspondent Anna Louise Strong” August, 1946, Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung, Foreign Language Press: Peking, 1971, p.345.
2. Ibid. p. 346.
3. Mao Zedong. On Contradiction.

The gaping jaw of the
prison industrial complex beckons,
grinding away basic human decency

Men forced into a blast furnace
of warehoused existence,
the ore of humanity smelted away
until only the dross remains

Kindness…compassion…love…
…all that defines one as human…obliterated.

Anger…resentment…despair…
…the remains of a once caring human.

Treated worse than rabid animals,
for are they not graced with a peaceful
death?
Animals are not stripped, forced to
parade around naked, mocked and
humiliated, flashlights beamed into
every orifice.

Animals are not caged in a
claustrophobic atmosphere, living
amidst a breeding ground of hatred
and rage.
Animals are not forced to survive
lives of mind-numbing tedium,
interspersed with moments of
chaotic violence.

Corrections & rehabilitation?
Corruption & retribution…
… closer to truth
human-form enters one end,
animal-form expelled out the other.

Take heed society, for these animals,
these human animals, shall one day
walk amongst you.
They are your creation,
created by societal apathy and
political fear-mongering,
created at your factories…

…the animal factories

They thought that this would break me
They tried to tear me down
Confinement made my mind get stronger
You should hear me now
I wasn’t hip to all their tricks
They had me stuck before
I had to grow but now I know just what it’s hitting for
Their mission is divide and conquer
Their goal is menticide
We must protect our minds from them
Don’t let them get inside
Cus if they do
then they’ll use you to do the dirty work
Unconsciously they’ll make you be the bringer of the hurt
Unity’s ingredients are power, strength and love
And if we come together we will surely rise above
Divided, we are midgets with no hope to ever rise
But together we’re a giant who can choke them till they die.

Can’t u see
Inacell is where we dwell, sippin’ coffee,
Smokin’ bugler, plottin’ the future, goin’ straight
4 the jugular
incarcerated, never intimidated, just fighting
2 be liberated from these chains and fences,
no repentance while doin’ this life sentence
Killings and drug dealings goin’ down in this shit
called the game, brothas lookin’ 4 fame, dying
4 gangs when it’s the system that must be
changed, revolution is the solution, not prostitution, we aimin’
at the kapitalist, imperialist institutions, and the
chumps pimpin’ the sistas, they birth the
future
can’t u see
Pain, sweat and tears over 400 years, oppression,
emasculation, mass incarceration, kapitalist exploitation,
it’s time 4 self-determination
This shit has gotten deep, sometimes we weep,
fueled by past and present images of brothas and
sistas being railroaded, given lengthy sentences,
being misplaced in the census
Can’t u see
altho we exist in the undaground, we persist
the possibilities of a new world, unfurled like
a mother giving birth 2 a new baby girl
we exist in tha undaground, in a hellhole, yet
have we 2 fold
we’re not jiving, not hiding, always ready 2 face
the cold
that’s why we be so bold in our maneuvers, we
see a beautiful future
They say the game ain’t 2 be told, but sold
this ain’t no game, people, you be gold if the
truth be told
As we started 2 grow in the undaground
some tried 2 kill what we feel, that’s the
real deal
Others claimed we were out of season, how
can that be correct reasoning using the
logic of a heathen and ignoring the bleeding
refusing 2 read the signs of the times
that’s why i designed this rhyme, hoping you
see what time it is 4 real
Predatory lending,
subprime mortgage schemes, prisons filled 2 over
capacity with the masses
crack, heroin is back
fat cat CEOs paid obscene salaries in stacks
off the backs of the working classes
the holice using the hoods as shooting galleries
Politicians lying, young folks dying
mothers crying
brothas neglecting responsibility, hiding instead
of protecting the community by riding
Can’t u see
Political prisoners, pistol packing, poetic poetry
power, survival of the illest, the realest
Elections, defections
wars being fought with toys of destruction
the game of elimination is being employed
the environment is being destroyed
Can’t u see
that’s why i propagate what we see, hear
and feel, hoping you see what is real.

In Under Lock & Key issue 13, we published an article announcing a campaign about the improper handling of grievances by prison staff. Below is an update from the California comrade who originally turned us on to the campaign.

I initially mailed out my own petition to the CDCR Director Level back in Nov./Dec. of ’09 as part of the first wave of petitions. This was done under the auspice of its originator. However some time after the first wave went out, the persyn who devised this plan was subsequently taken to the hole. It was rumored that it was exactly because of this persyn’s legal maneuvering that he was sent to the hole. Anyway, back in January ’10 I received a response. As it turns out, these petitions were never investigated or even looked into as we requested. The Appeals Coordinator at the Director Level simply re-routed my petition back to the Warden’s office here at this institution, at which time the warden here implied that the appeals which I had pending were screened back to me because I basically failed to comply with inmate appeal regulations. This is of course total bullshit! The “W.” pretty much just issued me a de facto “695 Screen Out Form” without ever really looking into the matter, thereby sweeping the matter back under the rug.

I then decided that someone needed to step up to the plate and pick up where this petition’s originator left off. I began by tracking down as many people as I could find who’d participate in the legal action. I tracked down about eighteen people, of which only three others besides myself received responses. As it turned out, we all got the same document with seemingly no other action taken.

I then proceeded to make as many copies of the original petition as I could obtain. I was only able to make 20. Of these 20 I only had twelve more people agree to mail the petitions out. As of today nobody’s received any responses.

I contacted the Ca. Prison Law Office, useless. The Ombudsman, useless, no response, and a few other organizations claiming to offer inmates assistance (Critical Resistance? critically useless). I didn’t bother with Internal Affairs or the Inspector General as they are both connected to CDCR and seemingly cover their asses. The DOJ is a different story. However, they will only take action if it can be proven that civil rights abuses are taking place en masse. Since only four of us received responses, the DOJ will not take action.

So it hasn’t turned out as we hoped [with an investigation into the failed CDCR grievance system]. I suppose it wasn’t a total failure, though, as we have proved yet again that the inmate appeals procedure in the Ca. Dept. of Corruption is nothing but an obstacle placed in front of prisoners’ path to the U.$. judicial system.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This comrade’s initiative to pick up a worthwhile project, after state repression stopped the original leader, is commendable. Others who have this kind of initiative should be working with the United Struggle from Within, the MIM(Prisons)-led anti-imperialist prisoner organization. Comrades have been working diligently to expand the scope of the campaign and we now have petitions prepared for CA, MO, OK and TX. If you are filing grievances about any issue and they aren’t being handled properly by staff, consider becoming a part of this campaign and spread it to your people inside.

This comrade’s analysis of the success of the campaign is completely accurate. We can hope for an investigation into the corrupt grievance system, but if it doesn’t happen, then we have instead successfully exposed yet another flaw in the Amerikkkan “justice” system. It is important to not give up even if we feel like nothing will happen because these exposures are agitational points that we can rally people around. Also, like this comrade pointed out, if we send in enough petitions to the DOJ s/he believes that they may respond. So continue to send in your grievance petitions and get with MIM(Prisons) to get involved!

I’m writing in regards to a letter I had read asking for us prisoners to provide art in order to convey the message of injustice in prison. As you know in prison there are many unjust actions that occur on a daily basis so there is a lot to draw on. However, one of the many recent hardships brought upon us Mexicans (specifically northerners) is a mass validation sweep in High Desert State Prison on 8/4/09. 58 northern hispanics were taken off the mainline without due process and stuck in Ad-Seg (Z unit). Now we are all diligently striving to appeal these false fabricated lies on our people but administration has found a new way to hinder our progress by preventing us ample time to go to the law library, making it difficult to get Title 15s, make copies, etc.

I am a prisoner at Northeast Correctional Center. For 17 months I have been on max (solitary confinement) for assault on a prisoner with major injuries. It was a gang fight, and a bunch of us ended up on max. With an assault charge they are supposed to hold us for six months to a year. But here in the rebel state of Tennessee they got what they call election day, the day they sign a new government into the state office. That takes up to a yeer, the year when the government changes, the wardens around the state of Prisons of Tennessee change also, which also takes up to a year. Being that election day is around the corner, the warden here where I am housed has decided to hold us prisoners until the government has changed and the wardens have changed. We will be housed here until 2012 with a whole bunch of time here on max and a bunch of problems, from racial slurs to profanity, these COs try to keep us prisoners out the box, and you have some prisoners who can’t control their tempers and quickly lash out, which leads to more write ups and more time in max. I feel that this is wrong.

The Texas prison system is fucked up. We were the last state to get telephones in the units. Our governor called phone privileges pacifiers. We inmates have so few privileges it is sad. I believe we are the only state that doesn’t pay the inmates to work. we get “good time credits” but the good time credits don’t count if you are an aggravated offender or if your custody level is high.

Texas definitely endorses slavery. If you refuse to work they take away what few privileges we do have. I have now been in this cell for three weeks without drinking water. If I want any water I have to get it out of the toilet like I am a dog. Grievances don’t work here because when we get them back they all have the same answer on them “officer denies allegation no further action will be taken at this time.”

Censorship is crazy here. They ban books by Mao, Lenin and Stalin. But we can get books on genocide, ethnic cleansing, Adolph Hitler, and the K. I have actually seen a book called The Hitler We Loved and Why by Christof Friedrich and Eric Thompson. Friedrich is a Nazi sympathizer and should have been imprisoned for his active role in genocide. I am including an article from the Austin American Statesman on the redundancy of the censorship. The article is titled Variety of Books Banned in Prison.

Medical conditions here are no better. Back in January I was being treated for H. Pylori virus. It is a virus that lives in well water. The system has prevented us from filing a class action lawsuit on it. They claim that we could have got it in the free world. While I was being treated for H. Pylori half the unit along with myself came down with the Novo Virus. The officials said that we got it from the food. What I can’t understand is why only half the unit came down with it and the other half didn’t.

Now I want to take a little time talking about racism. It is not just corporate white colonizers that are the bigots. But it goes on in every nationality. We need to set aside skin color and look at the bigger pictures. Communist leadership and rule was formed to go against imperialism and capitalist bullshit. It is not a movement against whites. From what I understand, Marx, Lenin and Stalin were all white. There are too many people of the Latino and Black race who are caught up in the imperialist and capitalist movement for it to be only the whites to be put down like they are in some of the articles. When it comes to the U$ imperialists the only color that I can see is green. So stop hating on skin color. The only way we can make a change is to put race aside. Remember, we are all red inside.

MIM(Prisons) responds: While we share this reader’s call for unity among all people fighting for communism, we do not agree that whites should be equated with other nationalities within U$ borders. The reality of Amerika is national oppression, and whites enjoy the role of oppressor. Historically, being Amerikan has been defined by pseudo-scientific ideas of race. As other groups become more integrated into the amerikan nation, the idea of race could become less significant, but Amerika would still be the oppressor nation.

We don’t believe in race, so we would never say that whites can’t join the revolutionary struggle, but when we talk about whites as a group we have to recognize their role as an oppressor nation. Whites do have to work against their national interests to join the revolutionary struggle. Similarly, all free U$ citizens have class/economic interests that they must work against to join the revolutionary struggle.