Kern Valley State Prison - Federal

A LOT of these guys here are on Suboxone (synthetic heroin). I was offered some, by a medical staffer. I assured her that I’ve never had a drug abuse problem, but I do like Peppermint Schnapps, German beer and the occasional magic mushroom. She insisted that the Suboxone would be good for me. That creeped me out. That stuff, along with the bath salts and the bug killer these guys widely use in this facility seems to affect them like a chemical lobotomy. They have super short attention spans, and fiend for more of that shit all day, every day.

MIM(Prisons) adds: In ULK 76, we printed a report on the government-sanctioned spreading of Suboxone throughout California prisons that began in 2020. While some have found Suboxone helpful in an injustice system that offers no real solutions to the oppressed’s problems, the overall net effect has been a continued numbing and division of the imprisoned population. This comrade’s experience speaks to how the state is acting as a drug pusher on the oppressed, using drugs as weapons against us.

14 JUNE 2018 – Uhuru! As of today’s mathematics, 14 June 2018, prisoners are being violently pent against one another in a last attempt to interfere with current demands by both the people of California and the federal government to release its ridiculously large prison population.

CDCR, at prisons like the Substance Abuse Tratment Facility (SATF) and Kern Valley State Prison (KVSP), has begun engaging in policy changes that manufacture hostilities between the prison populations. One particular change involves rehousing what is called “mainline” prisoners on yards that are considered Protective Custody (P.C.) yards by force. Now these are not P.C. yards by the standards of the law, Protective Custody. Instead they are Sensitive Needs Yards (SNY). These yards house a combination of offenders/prisoners, including prison gang organization defectors called “drop outs”, prisoners with sexual offenses, prison sex victims, victims of exploitation by other prisoners and a wide range of other types.

There are offenders who were/are members of street gangs/organizations whose particular gang has been targeted by the larger gang alliances like the Mexican Mafia. Then there are those individuals who are members of left wing political organizations who struggle against corruption and blow the whistle against crooked cops and politicians in office. Though it has been promoted that all who are housed at SNY facilities are child molesters, police informants, gang traders, etc., this is a lie spread by the police pigs in order to establish the chaos that is being born across California in prisons, CDCR.

Prisons have begun rehousing small numbers of mainline prisoners who are considered the “actives” on facilities that have been established as SNY facilities amongst those who are often mis-construed as “non-active.” Because these facilities are not what CDCR claim them to be; an environment with no gang activity and very little criminal violence, these facilities are a melting pot for chaos. There are possibly more STGs on the SNY than on the mainline, as the 2012 Pelican Bay SHU Agreement to End Hostilities was designed to cease gang hostilities and stem criminal behavior for all mainliners. (Mainliners are prisoners who were until recently housed at General Population (G.P.) facilities, but now SNY facilities are considered mainline, as there are more SNY facilities than G.P.)

Let the authorities that be take notice: There are those of us who will not participate in wars against ourselves but instead will bare arms against the agents of oppression, where ever they be. And we know all of you. You who see what is happening but do nothing to protect those of us unable to protect ourselves. Trust that justice will be done on the yard as so in the streets. Your time is no more!

[NOTE: The author is among a group of New Afrikan and Chican@ leaders of the United Struggle from Within (USW). Ey was among 40 prisoners transferred to Kern Valley State Prison D-facility after a riot between SNY gangs united against New Afrikans and Chican@s refusing to endorse gang culture and hostilities amongst prisoners, working the police agenda. The author was transferred from a lower level institution less hostile to growth amongst prisoners, and placed into an environment that would definitely invite conflict between them and corrections officers.]

A while back you had sent me the book Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlan. Well, recently I went to ASU for violence and while packing my property the C/O threw it away along with every book I owned having cultural literature. While throwing out Chican@ Power ey stated that the cover is red, therefore it looked gang-related. While I’m 602ing this, is there any way i can be in line to recieve it again?

Psychiatric prisons, gulags and dungeons are the worst of the worst when compared to the standard human warehouses. These foul dinosaurs are established under the guise of compassionate medical intervention (yes, they actually expect you to believe such garbage). Mental health treatment in psychiatric prisons can be and is torture.

Currently in California, the prisoners are rounded up daily, drugged and forced through the cattle stockades of court cells and into the courts where they are dragged before those of black robe who arbitrarily and capriciously commit them to a virtual (if not actual) life in prisons now designated for those thought to be mentally ill from the viewpoint of imperialism’s labor aristocracy. However, one need not be actually suffering from mental illness at all. I was not, and am not, yet this fact had no effect. I myself and many others have been railroaded into psychiatric imprisonment with doctor approved authorization to be at all times heavily sedated. In my case it was only for the use of body building steroids with no prior mental health history requiring medical intervention of any kind.

And, while being held within these psychiatric prisons and jails I have been, and many others are, tortured and abused, starved and injured, sometimes on a daily basis. I have observed young guys whose faces are now a mass of scarring due to them being drugged to the point of unconsciousness and where massive enforcer brutes are purposefully let into their cells to beat those who are drugged, and the victims of such beatings are left to suffer within their cells with no medical attention at all.

These designated prison and jails have cells with feces on the walls and floors. Desk-type tables caked with old dried foods and grime combined to form an un-cleanable cemented solid. And they are usually air conditioned in winter and heated in summer, especially where these cell occupants are given no mattress and sometimes for days no blankets as well. I currently have prison guards who pass my cell door, which is all steel, every fifteen minutes, 24 hours a day, and bang on it loudly with a steel baton like device. Try attaining a deep restorative pattern of sleep under those conditions. This is the current living environment of Amerikkka’s psychiatric prisons and the pitiful inhabitants of its populations.

I am not under the illusion that these facts are not already known by our professionals of community, politics and prisons. Yet, according to a recent news publication, “[in the state of California] the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) funnels hundreds of millions of dollars to construct prisons and jails - and many have been pitched as ‘mental health treatment facilities’.”… “It should come as no surprise that the BSCC is mostly composed of cops: Jeffery Beard, Secretary of the California Department of Corrections, Sheriffs, probation officers, and chiefs of police.”… “It is not shocking when that group of people thinks that the best way to invest in mental health treatment is to build shiny new jails.”(1)

What is termed pathological and rooted in psychosis in Amerikka’s systems of injustice and unjust forensic psychology are in fact political offenses in nature. Such people incriminated and imprisoned should not be civilly nor criminally committed at all. “Mental health treatment… [should be provided and] funded in the community”(1); preferably by a community of communists. “We need to stop pretending that prisons solve the violence in our communities, or we will never actually end that harm or end mass incarceration.”(2)

Onward! in psychiatric prison abolition efforts, and even more so the world-wide abolition of the parasite imperialism.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This writer correctly identifies a problem with Amerikan prisons that is actually pervasive throughout imperialist society: the use of psychiatry to label people as mentally ill because they do not conform to capitalist behaviors and values. As we explained in the ULK article Mental Health: A Maoist Perspective:

“In imperialist prisons, the ambiguity of diagnosing people as mentally ill becomes very pronounced. Part of the problem is that imprisonment causes mental health problems, so people who may not have had symptoms that would lead to a diagnosis often develop them. Yet it is not in the oppressor’s interests to recognize this problem, so staff feel that they must draw a line between the truly ill and the”fakers.” Rather than seeing the prisons as causing mental illness, they see people acting out for attention in contrast to those who were born with “real” mental illness. Such silly exercises allow them to keep some prisoners sedated while pushing others to suicide.”

Ultimately the purpose of prisons is social control, and the purpose of mental health facilities is the same. They are another tool of this social control which targets oppressed nations within U.$. borders. We must expose these facilities and fight against the torture that this comrade describes.

Things have been pretty rough here at Kern Valley State Prison (KVSP). A prisoncrat-orchestrated racial riot has put me in administrative segregation since July. KVSP’s “A” yard (the only general population, non-honor yard) has been, more or less, on a constant lock-down since the beginning of the year. This lock-down is due to racial tensions that have been exacerbated by the prison’s state-sponsored security threat group, also known as the goon squad, or simply the gooners.

The best way for the prison oligarchy to remain in power and thwart any organizing or political dissent is to keep us all fighting amongst ourselves. Of course this is nothing new for many of us, but for some reason we all find ourselves locked down time and again, pointing fingers (and unfortunately, knives) at one another instead of using our minds of reason to see that clearly this whole war/mess has been instigated by the very pigs that always have the most to gain. It’s extremely frustrating to sit here watching the same pattern of senseless fighting and rioting occur while the pigs laugh, crack jokes, and generally play us against each other for their sick jollies and political agenda.

This madness on “A” yard at KVSP and elsewhere in the state is definitely part of a much bigger political agenda. One of the results of the 2013 general hunger strike is that, slowly but surely, a lot of those guys have been returning to the main lines after spending ten, fifteen, or twenty years back there in the SHU. Well, CDCR can’t just let those beds remain empty so we’ve been seeing the gooners dropping fallacious gang validation packets on people for all kinds of erroneous reasons. And the best way to “prove” gang conspiracy or activity is to run us all into these stupid racial riots. The fucked up thing about it is that it’s working. Every time we all go out to the yard and fight each other is another victory for the pigs, and another bus load of “gang members” heading to the SHU torture units and thus, the very “evidence” CDCR points to as justification in keeping those control units open and full.

This white vs. Black violence needs to stop for the benefit and health of both our people. Let’s stop and remember that it should always be blue vs. green! It’s time for peace on these yards. Don’t forget who the real enemy is.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This comrade’s call for peace on the yards underscores the importance of the United Front for Peace in Prisons. We need organizations to come together behind bars to stop the pigs and the imperialist system in general. A United Front is comprised of groups with different views and goals, that have a common enemy. It doesn’t require everyone to agree on everything, and in the case of the UFPP there are just five key principles around which groups have unity: Peace, Unity, Growth, Internationalism and Independence. If your organization is interested in putting an end to the fighting amongst the oppressed and ready to take a stand against the oppressor get in touch for more information about the UFPP.

Since my arrival at Kern Valley State Prison (KVSP) in July 2013 I’ve had to file numerous 602 appeals just to be able to utilize my two hour a week constitutional right to use the prison law library. At KVSP they like to run a very oppressive program, or I should say lack of program, and keep everybody on lockdown 24 hours a day, even on the general population and non-discipline yards. This was done all under the guise of “safety & security.” Their stratagem is that we can’t file any complaints on them if we don’t have access to legal forms.

For the more creative prisoners, we’ve been able to bypass their little games and still file 602s and habeas corpus writs in our attempts to inform the outside world of the illegal practices here at the prison.

One of our writs must have struck a nerve because on 10 April at 4am, the prison’s “Institutional Gang Investigators” AKA the goon squad, raided our building in full riot gear, and confiscated everyone’s paperwork (books, family/legal letters, and writing materials) all in the name of “safety & security.” It has been over two weeks now and the warden has given no word on exactly when we will be given access to our legal/personal documents.

Even though the majority of us have already bypassed their little blockade and have filed writs or found ways of informing our lawyers and family on the outside, these things take time. So here we sit on lockdown, with very limited access to the courts and family, awaiting relief or a full blown revolution to kick off. And although it is my personal belief that the latter will happen at some point, I also feel that it’s going to take a whole lot more hard work in order to open up the eyes and ears of our fellow brothers and sisters around the world, before we all as a whole, can shout “stop!” and really have the means to add weight to our words.

Until then keep up the faith and hard work. Stay strong! This current system is at the breaking point. There is light at the end of the tunnel!

MIM(Prisons) adds: We agree with this comrade that we have a lot of work to do to educate our brothers and sisters before we are ready to kick off the revolution. In the meantime we need to do what s/he is doing: the day to day work of exposing the abuse and brutality of the imperialist system and organizing others. We all have a responsibility to educate others however we can, whether that’s by writing articles for ULK, talking to others on our block or yard, organizing a study group, teaching someone to read, or whatever else you can do to use your skills and talents to advance the struggle. Don’t just sit back and read about it, get involved!

We are currently [5 November 2013] on lockdown since 29 October 2013 and each housing facility on D facility is being thoroughly searched due to an isolated “threat to staff” and weapon being found here on the SNY yard.

Contrary to the report in ULK 27, July/August 2012, Appeals to Sacramento Politicians Lead to Improvements at KVSP, I have continued to experience retaliation for utilizing the CDCR 22 and CDCR 602 process.

On 26 June 2013, while being interviewed by Lieutenant C. Waddle concerning the improper cross-gender and group strip searches of transgender inmates, Lt. Waddle fabricated a spurious disciplinary charge of “illegal sex acts” with my cellmate, which Sergeant M. Jones wrote in a falsified report. Two days later I was placed in ASU [isolation] and given an additional RVR for simply notifying Lt. Waddle of specific transgender housing and safety concerns by her intentionally rehousing me with a homophobic inmate!

Black & Pink has led an advocacy campaign, with letters of protest to Warden M.D. Biter and CDCR Secretary Jeffery Beard, concerning the sexual harassment and retaliation I have experienced at Kern Valley State Prison.

When I filed a property appeal for items lost during the above incidents, I was subjected to more retaliation, a punitive cell search and RVR disciplinary action for “Falsifying records and documents,” by Sergeant D. Williams and Correctional Officer Walinga. This also was witnessed by my cellmate.

I believe that things may improve in the immediate future as a result of my appeals, but I have suffered irreparable harm in my struggle for equality and liberation. 602 appeals are currently pending in Sacramento.

MIM(Prisons) adds: While all prisoners (both male and female) are in a position of subjugation that leads to gender oppression while they are locked up, gay, lesbian and transgender prisoners face additional harassment, abuse, and oppression. As we discussed in our review of The Anti-Exploits of Men Against Sexism, fighting gender oppression in prison is part of the battle against imperialism in general. We have seen some recent examples of growing awareness and unity around this struggle, and we will continue to publicize these battles and educate prisoners on gender oppression in general. For more reading on gender, write to us to request a copy of MIM Theory 2/3.

The main problem with the grievance process is at the informal level, when a prisoner has to get two responses from staff on a CDCR 22 form. Unless you’re challenging something out of the Title 15, the CDCR 22 must be filled out. That’s very hard to do, considering most staff just throw them away. The CDCR 22 is designed so that officers can sign it at the door, verifying that it was sent, and give the prisoner a receipt. However, even with the receipt, if the prisoner does not have two staff responses, the appeals coordinator will reject the grievance. The Title 15 Section 3084.3 (b), (c), and Section 3086 (e)(2) allow them to do that.

What we should do is file a grievance on those three Title 15 sections I just listed, requesting that they be changed to state: “One or two signed CDCR 22 receipts requesting remedy or supporting documents that also show that the staff member to whom the CDCR 22 was mailed did not respond within the time limits detailed in Section 3086 (f)(4) and (h) shall be receipted in lieu of requested supporting documents pursuant to Section 3084.3.” The legal argument for this is the 14th Amendment (access to courts) and Title 15 Section 3084.1 (right to appeal).

Just jump through the hoops until the grievance is exhausted. Then, write the Prison Law Office and the ACLU and tell them you’d like their help in filing a §1983 suit. Since it’s a major issue, a prisoner advocate group will probably pick it up, and the petition distributed by MIM(Prisons) could be used as evidence.

Another good grievance would challenge the Title 15 Section 3123 (b), which gives CDCR the power to limit the law library hours to whatever it wants. Here at Kern Valley State Prison, the law library is open 2 days a week. The Title 15 should be amended to say: “Each law library shall remain open five days a week, for not less than six hours per day.” The 14th Amendment should also be cited for that grievance.

MIM(Prisons) responds: CDCR Form 22 is a reform to the CDCR grievance system that was rolled out December 2010 in response to the campaign to End the High Desert State Prison Z-Unit Zoo.(1) Participants of this campaign sent petitions to CDCR administrators and legal protection groups such as the Prison Law Office and the U.S. Department of Justice. An investigation was conducted, prisoners were interviewed, and even some of their demands were met.(2)

But this contributor shows how our struggles for reforms, and even our victories, will be met with more and more red tape under the current power structure. Form 22 was supposedly designed “so that our requests may be answered in a timely fashion by COs, with a receipt. Now we have a clearer paper trail to use should K9s decide to implement their underground rules.”(1) But still, there’s nothing stopping the COs from simply throwing Form 22s away.

This contributor’s suggestion to change some of the language of Title 15 may be an improvement on the current grievance system in California. But until COs and prison administrators acquire a proletarian morality that values the well-being of all people, they will figure out ways to continue to oppress those who they deem as unworthy of basic humyn necessities, and their higher-ups will cover for them. This proletarian morality doesn’t develop from procedural changes in prison operations, no matter what documents we amend. Material conditions shape our worldview, and until the material conditions that support national oppression are abolished, the oppressors will continue to justify their sick behaviors.

While we fight for reforms to improve our current conditions, we must accept the necessity of total social change, namely the change from capitalism to socialism. Until then there will always be a trade-off; where one group gains, another loses. We must allow our own acquired proletarian morality to infect our political work and inform the orientation of all the battles we take on.

I’m reporting from Kern Valley State Prison (KVSP). I’ve been engaged in the last 16 months educating our comrades to the increasingly aggressive tactics California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has taken in the course of systematically depriving us of every human and civil right a prisoner is supposed to retain. I’ve also been attempting to strengthen communication and, aside from a select few, have been met with complacency and apathy.

We few have organized effective communication with one another and have used creative strategies to combat certain conditions we’ve been experiencing. At first, utilizing the 602 grievance process was only met with rejections, so we took our well written 602s (grievances) that used Department Operations Manual (DOM), California Code of Regulations (CCR) Title 15, California penal code, and U.S. law, and bypassed the lower level institutional coordinators and submitted copies to:

1. Governor Brown, State Capitol, Ste. 1173 Sacramento, CA 95814
   
2. CDCR Secretary Matthew Cate, 1515 S. St., Ste. 330, Sacramento, CA 95811
   
3. CA Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, Capitol Bldg, Rm 4005, Sacramento, CA 95814
   
4. Inmate Appeals Branch, Chief CDCR, PO Box 942883, Sacramento, CA 94283-0001
   

Ever since these reprimands have supposedly taken place, there has been a notable change in everything. Our 602s are being accepted for review, 22 forms are being answered within time limits, program has resumed on modified procedure, and our food is adequately proportioned. We’ve had no cases of staff misconduct, threats of any kind, or adverse retaliatory actions from administration, from January through today’s date of 5 June 2012.

I’ve created a private law library of essential regulatory content and political value which has been utilized and facilitated by interested prisoners and we are accumulating knowledge.

These are still initial stages and our struggle needs lots of work, but even minor accomplishments are boosting morale. I encourage everyone to take the steps we’ve taken and stay strong and diligent. Keep records, daily logs, and file immediate complaints of misconduct.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This prisoner is setting a good example of how to push forward the legal struggle for basic rights. And this article provides some good advice for California prisoners working on the grievance campaign demanding that grievances be addressed. Improving conditions within which prisoners live and organize is an important step in the struggle against the criminal injustice system. We know these reforms will only bring short-term relief, as the system itself serves the interests of the ruling imperialists and so substantive change will not come until we overthrow imperialism. But these battles are important for both education and the successes they bring.

In the course of my imprisonment at this facility we’ve been on a perpetual lockdown induced by the administration to conserve the limited resources and money appropriated to operate the facility. We’re currently in our cells 24/7 and are only afforded escorted showers every few days. We have been denied yard, dayroom, phone calls, visits, law library access, adequate and nutritious food, education, and work.

I recently came in contact with a camarada who referred me to your organization and I would like to contribute any way I can to unify peace in prisons. Over the last few months, I’ve organized a campaign to bring change to our conditions and have been utilizing the administrative process to seek relief, which has been otherwise unsuccessful and only brought about the “privilege” of purchasing items from their canteen and the order of items through package companies who extort our family members by making them purchase luxury items at a 500%-1000% mark up, so that their private industry of capitalist pigs can profit from our poor families. I’m moving for a boycott on such items and to not put any more money in their fat pockets.

I’ve also been educating those who wish to learn and build up their minds. Since coming in contact with your newsletter, I’ve taken the liberty to expand your mailing list by assisting a few comrades in contacting you and have shared ULK with comrades who have been interested.