Snake River Correctional Institution - Federal

I would like for you to print my story, so that the rest of my brothers and sisters who are a part of the movement will know how I have been treated this past year.

It all started in June and July of 2016 when prisoners started passing out from smoking spice. Well because we have prisoners here who are cool with the police my name was said to them, then they came and snatched me off mainline (messing up my programming that the parole board told me to complete, so I would be able to go home). I was ad-segged in DSU. This is not an ad-seg building like I was supposed to be, where I would be able to make phone calls, have the same clothes prisoners have on mainline canteen.

So, not only was I ad-segged in the hole, but my wife was removed from my visiting list, the STM officer asked that I be ad-segged for 180 days, but the superintendent signed the paper and clearly said I was to be in ad-seg for 60 days. Well the hearing officer who used to be an officer here gave me the 180 days, even though his boss said 60 days. The STM released all the other inmates back to mainline that was under the same investigation I was under, so I filled out a discrimination form against the STM, because he was showing a complete indifference with letting them back to mainline, and keeping me ad-segged. Well the STM tried to force me to talk to the state police by telling me that they had me on tape bringing in contraband, which I knew was a lie, because I told them from the jump I know nothing about what their talking about. The STM continued to try to force me to talk, but I told the state police, and the STM that I have nothing to say, and I plead the 5th amendment. Then he threatened me with going to my wife’s house. Well, of course he never went to my wife house, because he knew that she had nothing to say to him, because she didn’t know anything.

Around November I went on a hunger strike, because the Lt Kleier wouldn’t let me use the phone, or move me to an ad-seg building. I have bi-polar, anxiety and I had to fight with mental health about putting on the right meds, so I started tripping out seeing things, thinking that people was out to harm me. I ended up writing a note to someone that I considered a friend, but remember I was hallucinating, because of my hunger strike. Well this person held on to the note where I was talking about me paying someone to hurt another person who I had no problem with, it was all of the craziness I had going on in my head. Somehow the STM ended up with the note, and because they couldn’t get me on the spice they decided to write me up for the crazy note, and have me sent to the SHU Program.

So, it’s almost been a 2 year, and after all my grievances, my tort, and my civil suit against them they come and tell me that they’re sorry for placing me on ad-seg because of hearsay, and they’re sorry for taking my wife off my visiting list, and they’re going to put my wife back on my visiting list, and that they have no evidence against me, so I’m not going to receive a write up.

Well they still sent me to the SHU program which is going to mess up my parole board hearing, so just like I told my wife I’m going to make them pay for all of this mistreatment of me and my family by getting paid on my tort claim, and my civil suit that I have against them, because during the time I was ad-segged I lost a daughter to suicide, a brother who was killed, and found out my mom is dying from throat cancer, and the only time I was allowed near a phone was when they let my wife call in and tell me the bad news, then I had to get off the phone. I wasn’t allowed to call none of my family to speak with them about how I was doing, so of course I mentally checked out, because that was too much for me to handle.

So instead of easing off me they tried to apply more pressure, but they had to admit that I had nothing to do with their bogus investigation, so now I’m fighting against them with the court system, so to all my brother and sisters that’s going thru mistreatment behind bars I want you to grab your pen, and run the ink out of it by filing grievances, tort claims, and civil suits, because that’s all that they understand and they hate for you to go over their heads, so just like they had me under investigation, now I have their bosses doing an investigation on how I was mistreated at the Oregon state prison.

I received a letter from you with a petition addressing complaints with these police retaliating and conspiring to violate prisoner First Amendment rights when exhausting administrative remedies. Well, as soon as I got it I filled it out and sent it in to get copies so I can send it to the Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC), Director, Department of Justice, and Inspector General. But today I received a confiscation form for the petition and a write up for unauthorized organization for attempting to file a petition without ODOC function unit manager approval. I had no idea that if I file a petition addressing a complaint that I could be written up for it without warning but I ain’t sweating it.

In fact, in order to prevent other comrades from being a victim to this corrupt process I have a couple suggestions. First, the back page of the petition at the bottom the last word says “petition.” I believe that not only should that word be replaced with “complaint” but that within this petition it should have a section which states that it is a complaint. Even though a complaint/petition are similar and requests the same conclusions, ODOC and maybe other DOC facilities are playing the word game. Until this is addressed in Federal court, Oregon prisoners, if not prisoners in other states, will be subjected to unnecessary obstacles in addressing their concerns through the current petition format you have. So please re-word it to be a “complaint” and disassociate it as a petition and then resend it to me.

The misconduct report this comrade received reads:

“4.46 Unauthorized Organization II: An inmate commits Unauthorized Organization II if, except as specified by Department of Corrections rule on Group Activities (inmate) (OAR 291 145) (B) 4.46.02 Engages in a petition drive without specific authorization from the Functional Unit Manager

Form was generated from https://www.prisoncensorship.info/, on 4/5/16 I was working in SHU Library, received a kyte from above AIC requesting copies of the petition, I approved one copy due to not being able to identify this form and it was addressed to the Director of the Oregon Dept. of Corrections, due to the question at hand I elected to error on AIC’s behalf and allowed one copy. On 4/15/16 AIC is again requesting copies of the petition. This petition or authorization for envelopes has not been approved for circulation or approved envelopes through out SRCI and other Institutions in accordance with:

291-107-0015 Procedures

1. Those inmates and/or community persons who have not been able to resolve problems through other available channels (i.e., the Ombudsman, Department of Corrections staff, or grievance procedure), may request approval to circulate a petition. Petitions may be circulated with the approval of the functional unit manager as directed in this rule. Circulation of a petition is a process through which inmates can show support for community endeavors. Any inmate or other person desiring to circulate a petition will present the petition to the functional unit manager adding any supporting information that would justify its approval. Permission to circulate petitions within a Department of Corrections facility will be approved if…“

MIM(Prisons) adds: The Oregon Department of Corrections has a policy denying prisoners the right to peacefully appeal denial of their rights. It is ridiculous to expect that the prison administrators would approve prisoners circulating a petition that is criticizing the DOC. What is interesting is that this comrade didn’t even try to circulate the petition, ey merely tried to get copies made for eir peryonal use. Yet another example of the injustice system at work and why we can’t expect any serious progress on questions of humyn rights within the criminal injustice system that serves imperialism.

Let us know if you need a copy of this petition rewritten as a complaint.

Earlier this month I was taken out of my “cell” and off of the seg-cell-block, and was assaulted by these pigs! My hands were handcuffed behind my back. yet these pigs continued to twist up my wrists, arms and shoulders. When I told the pigs to go fuck themselves and asked em if they felt “big and bad” cause they were assaulting a man in handcuffs they then slammed my head into the wall 3 times and placed a spit mask on my head and claimed that i tried to spit assault one of their officers. All to justify their actions.

It seems that these pigs feel that it is okay to assault us inmates. However, when we defend ourselves these pigs then jump us, beat us up, pepper spray us, place us in a cell with nothing more than our underwear and then file charges on us through the Oregon courts, for assault on a pig!

This is a continuation of a letter I wrote you in July about the Long Term (LT) scam here in the Oregon Drpartment of Corrections. Since that letter there have been some changes in here. For starters, these pigs’ schemes worked: they were given authorization to expand the LT program by an additional 24 cells. So they opened up another Intensive Management Unit (IMU) section as LT and are currently using the top tier of that section (12 cells) as LT status. They’ll eventually fill up every cell in that section as LT, then most likely ask for another extension.

One of the counselors also mentioned that they stopped using the custody status “Long Term” and are now calling it “Retain Custody Level 5.” They can call shit by any other name and it’s still gonna smell the same.

Additionally, a not-very-well-thought-out lawsuit was partially won recently against IMU resulting in a 90-day review of all IMU and LT status prisoners. Upon review Inmate Program Committee (IPC) is either supposed to decide to keep us in IMU, release us to mainline, or place us in alternative housing (which will most likely be LT or Ad-Seg). However, very few prisoners were released from IMU and 2 Long Termers got released. That’s nothing to celebrate about when the release of the 2 is weighed against the expansion of 24 cells.

Most prisoners never even get a response about the review, and they’re prime candidates for release due to lack of write-ups or any misconduct while in IMU or LT. The reviews therefore become a convenience for these pigs: when they need the room for more IMU intakes, they’ll release someone to open that cell. It also sets the stage for prejudice and discrimination. If for any reason they don’t like us they can simply deny any change to our status without ever giving a reason why: maybe they don’t like the way we look, our skin art, who we’re accused of associating with, maybe we’ve had confrontations with the piglets and counselors, or maybe even filed grievances and lawsuits. Without ever needing to say why, they can simply deny us, and conveniently declare to have given us our due process.

I will be drafting up a petition to challenge the schemes, but I still don’t feel it’s right for us to individually challenge this after the fact that we’ve been placed in these mental torture chambers. So I will be contacting activist groups to see if they can help to abolish this altogether. I got bigger plans in mind which I’ll share once I get the petitions prepared. It’ll require taking this to the courts, attempting to seek justice in the imperialistic playground of jesters and hypocrites.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We agree with this comrade that reforming any system of control units to allow a few people to get out is not going to change the system. We must demand that all long-term isolation units be shut down. Of course this is still just a small part of the criminal injustice system that we are fighting to dismantle, but it is an important part because it is used to target politically active and conscious comrades, punishing them for their work fighting abuse and isolating them from influencing other prisoners.

I am doing life here at Snake River C.I. in Oregon. Oregon prisons in general censor lots of publications such as the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Rune books, and the Satanic Bible. Books/magazines with pornography photos or adult content are censored.

Also, there are monetary fines. We here in Oregon get fined for things like disrespect, disobedience of order, etc. The way fines work is if you get fines, and you get money sent in, they take half up to $60. After that they just leave you $30. Then at the end of the month they take whatever you have left so you can never save money, can’t buy a decent pair of shoes, can’t buy anything. If you were to get money put on the last week of the month, you’re burnt. They will take the rest. The disciplinary system here is totally inept and unjustified.

The Intensive Management Unit (IMU) is totally out of whack. We are maximum security prisoners, not in a disciplinary unit, but a programming unit. We have no access to phones, we don’t get mainline commissary, we aren’t able to have personal shoes. Yet any other maximum security prisoner is allowed these things.

These issues are some of the things that are wrong with the Oregon prison system. I won’t even begin with the sentencing system!