State Correctional Institution Forest - Federal

I am in SCI Forest, and have been fighting to get our mail back and this is the outcome of it so far. I am fighting for regular mail to come to us to and I hope soon we start getting the original mail too. So I am sending this to you so you can put it in your ULK.

To: All Inmates
From: Tabb Bickell, Executive Deputy Secretary, Institutional Operations
Date: March 21, 2019
Re: Changes to PA DOC Privileged Correspondence

This notice is to advise you that the Department is implementing a revised Attorney Control Number process for privileged correspondence. With this new process, the way you receive your privileged correspondence is changing. Effective April 6, 2019, you will begin receiving original privileged correspondence. Similar to the current process, you will be present when the privileged correspondence is opened, the privileged correspondence will undergo a security screening and then you shall sign for the privileged correspondence received. Privileged correspondence shall only contain essential, confidential, attorney-client communication.

Failure to comply with the below requirements may result in the rejection of the correspondence:

1. Envelopes do not contain the appropriate identifying information.
   
2. The correspondence contains non-privileged correspondence.
   
3. The privileged correspondence contains documents that did not originate from the sending attorney(s). Third party original documentation is prohibited.
   
   If an attorney inquires to you about this new process, please refer them to the Departments public website for all the necessary information (www.cor.pa.gov).

I am a inmate in the state of Pennsylvania. I am in a state prison in Marionville, PA called Forest. I’ve been reading Under Lock and Key for some time now.

I would like to know how honest are they really being to you. When you see the state jails reduce their population. Then the county increased the population. How many of them prisoners are waiting to be sentenced for state prison, or even waiting to go to one? Within the past few years, I’ve seen the state of Pennsylvania close down 3 to 4 jails yet open up two big jails. How is that saving any money? When it will cost more to run them than it did for the 3 to 4 they closed down. I am very confused.

Now they got all our mail going to the state of Florida, blaming it all on drugs, yet you got several guards coming down with food poisoning. That is the same food us prisoners eat. So tell me how many prisoners have food poison, but yet not saying nothing about it?

So let’s really be honest with one another. I am just getting sick of reading all of the stories about state prisoners, but yet never really seeing anything really happen. This is all one big money scam. You know it as well as I do so who are we trying to B.S. Like I said, let’s be honest with each other. All of us prisoners are in jail for breaking the law at some point.

Yet they do it each and every day, and get away with it.

Yet everyone is always talking about the population of prisoners. Give them something to work for. It will stop a lot of violence in the jails. I do realize I am making a lot of sense. Yet they do not want to do so. Only because that will be taken money from them.

Yet it’s okay for them to start an prisoner late in a program. When their time is up, parole will give them a hit only because they are not done with their program. Yet most of the programs can be done on the outside.

I am a prisoner in the state of Pennsylvania. When you first get put into a state prison they give you programs you have to do. Yet most of the time you do not even start them until your minimum is just about up. If your minimum does come up and you are still in the program the parole board gives you a hit until you are done with the programs. Yet the prison itself starts us so late into our programs. If our minimum is up and we did not do anything wrong to get a hit we should be able to get out of jail and do the programs on the streets.

They are doing this to just about every prisoner that I know and getting away with it each and every time. We are being held over our minimum for something they are doing.

Me myself I’ve been on the honor block for the last 3.5 years if not longer. I have 3 years to go until my minimum. Yet I have 2 more programs to do. So I’ve sent them a request slip asking about the programs. All I have got told was it depends on your minimum. I could be held over my minimum for something they are doing. Yet the programs can be taken on the outside. We may be told to take them all over again. So why should we have to take the programs twice?

I am currently being held captive in the Restricted Housing Unit (RHU) at SCI Forest and would like to apprise you of some recent events that have taken place:

On February 21, 2012, a mentally ill prisoner told Lt. Raymond Burkhart and other staff that he was feeling suicidal shortly after breakfast trays were distributed to prisoners in the unit. In turn, Lt. Burkhart summoned an extraction team, which consisted of approximately seven guards clad in full riot gear - helmets, body armor and gas masks. Moreover, the extraction team carried Conducted Energy Devices (CEDs), chemical agents, nightsticks, and other weapons. Bear in mind, the mentally ill prisoner, like most other prisoners in RHU, was housed in a single-man cell and with no clothing except for a jumpsuit and underclothes.

Instructed by Lt. Murin, the extraction team accosted the mentally ill prisoner and demanded that he relinquish his plastic breakfast tray. Disregarding the extraction team’s orders, the prisoner requested psychiatric care apropos of his suicidal feelings. The extraction team then blasted the prisoner with a chemical agent. With his eyes and skin burning from the chemical agent, the prisoner relinquished the breakfast tray. The extraction team then left the unit. Lt. Burkhart and other staff left the mentally ill prisoner in the cell with the chemical agent burning his eyes and skin, and causing him to experience breathing complications overnight. All requests for medical and mental health care were denied.

The following morning, Lt. Burkhart summoned another extraction team to deal with the same mentally ill prisoner. Fortunately, that extraction team did not attack him with chemical agents. Unfortunately, they opted to charge into his cell, stun him with CEDs and pummel him bloody. Even after he was fully restrained by handcuffs and leg irons, one extraction team member (C.O. Woods) repeatedly struck his face with fists and elbows. The prisoner suffered a broken nose in addition to other facial injuries.

The extraction team then locked the mentally ill prisoner in a hard-cell (a cell with a concrete slab for a bed and no other furniture). He was left naked and bleeding with no running water. Several prisoners made requests to Lt. Burkhart and other staff for the mentally ill prisoner to be given medical treatment. These requests were denied.

On February 23, a comrade had words with Lt. Burkhard about the fact that the mentally ill prisoner was being denied medical treatment and held under inhuman conditions. Lt. Burkhart insulted the comrade with racial epithets.

That afternoon, the comrade was asleep while a pig was counting prisoners. The comrade didn’t respond to the pig’s calling of his name and consequently Lt. Burkhart ordered several guards to enter the comrade’s cell. Awoken by the opening of the cell door, the comrade sprung to his feet and defended himself from the attack by the pigs. In fact, he defended himself so well that one pig ended up with a broken nose, and another with broken ribs. The comrade received minimal damage to the body.

Then, yesterday, four prisoners refused to return to their cells from the RHU yard in what began as a peaceful protest to seek the removal of Lt. Burkhart from the RHU. True to form, the pigs quickly got into riot gear and stormed the yard. They attacked one of the four prisoners with a stun shield. Be mindful of the fact that each prisoner was in a single-man exercise cage. Seeing no possible victory in combating the extraction team under the circumstances, the other three prisoners chose to return to their cells and excogitate new strategies.

It is well understood that MIM(Prisons) believes that the time is not yet ripe for armed struggle in this imperialist country, as their regime is still very powerful, and a minuscule percentage of the people are ready and able to partake in real revolution. Furthermore, when prisoners use violence against guards, then those who want to keep the prison industrial complex functioning label such prisoners incorrigible in order to increase the fear, and decrease the support, of prisoners in general by the populace. This makes easier the accomplishment of the government’s goal of social control. Notwithstanding, prisoners often feel the need to take up arms against oppressors as guards are given free rein to physically assault them, deprive them of meals and subject them to various other forms of torture.

Even when prisoners endeavor to resolve issues the “right” way, i.e., filing prison grievances and lawsuits, they are often faced with coverups and injustices. For example, the same Lt. Burkhart mentioned earlier in this report often goes into cells while prisoners are in the yard and discards prisoners’ legal materials. There are video cameras recording every pod in this unit 24 hours a day, but when prisoners request the use of the videos that would show Lt. Burkhart leaving cells with legal materials as proof of claims to resolve grievances, Lt. Burkhart’s coworkers either refuse to review and preserve the videos, or say they can’t see him on them. Such experiences are frustrating for prisoners.

The unity, discipline and hardihood displayed by the prisoners who partook in the hunger strikes in Georgia and California is commendable. And albeit not all participants belong to LOs, respect must be given to the many who do and yet were able to put their differences to the side and federate to take a stand against the common enemy. We are not close to having that type of unity in Pennsylvania, as individualism is prevalent out here. Nonetheless, there are some inspired guerrillas paying attention and working to radicalize others. Moreover, some of us are building the foundation of a movement that will aim to join the United Front for Peace in Prisons.

So, as other comrades and I strive to devise and employ tactics to thwart Lt. Burkhart and other oppressors, we look to strengthen solidarity with those who desire a communist world.

MIM(Prisons] adds: These struggles in Pennsylvania are similar to those going on across the criminal injustice system in Amerika. And this comrade does a good job describing the contradiction between the immediate desire of prisoners to fight back physically against the physical brutality they face daily and the potentially detrimental consequences of this armed struggle at this stage of development. We continue to encourage all prisoners to work with the United Front for Peace in Prisons and avoid physical confrontations whenever possible. We will build a movement that demonstrates that it is the oppressed who want peace and the prisons that promote violence.