Tucker Max Unit - Federal

Sergeants here are not doing rounds and when they do they’re not signing grievances, so my grievances don’t get signed and they expire. We have to hold the shower or yard down just to get someone down to sign something. Even that doesn’t always work.

The Lieutenants and Captains feel they’re too high in rank to sign grievances, and they don’t make their Sergeants do anything. My question to you is what do I do? I’ve wrote it up and all they do is deny my allegation and find it without merit. I have a paper trail on the same issue though.

Also, our due process is being violated at Disciplinary Court. 1) The Serving Officer is refusing our court appearances because she doesn’t like us or is trying to get done early; 2) The Disciplinary Hearing Officers are not even trying to see if the prisoner is not guilty. You can’t use the camera as a witness but they can to find you guilty. They’re putting “staff eyewitness is accepted” but policy states they cannot just put that, they have to list all “evidence relied upon.” Finally, policy states you have to sign a waiver if you refuse court, but they’re getting away without that.

We can’t get a notary here, no problem solver, so most guys end up “bucking” and ultimately they lose. I know Arkansas is a little better than other prisons, but it’s not all green down here. We’re one of the few states that still do “hoe squad” for free, prisoners don’t get paid to work in Arkansas. I’m here to fight and spread the word!

MIM(Prisons) responds: It sounds like the people held at Tucker Max Unit have tried a number of different tactics to get grievances heard and have begun to assess which ones work when and how they might be improved. In that sense, you are in a better situation to answer your question of “what do I do?” than we are.

We can offer some advice for how to approach this problem. All of the tactics you mention above should be on the table. Tactics are things that we must choose day-to-day based on specific situations, and there will not always be a “right” answer. Strategy however, is our overall approach, and this can decide whether we succeed or fail. Strategically, we must rely on the masses to win. In other words, your real strength comes from collective struggle, whether that’s holding down the yard or filing 100s of simultaneous grievance petitions to state officials.

As this comrade recognized in their letter to us, there are often no quick solutions. The grievance petitions that prisoners have developed and that we distribute cannot solve the problem of oppression in prisons. They can be a tool in getting state officials to support your ongoing collective struggle.

As we recently reiterated, freedom from oppression can’t be won through the courts. The law is a tool of the oppressor. Keeping paper trails is part of the struggle to hold them to their word, which can sometimes be done, and should be done to advance the struggle of the oppressed.

Please continue to send us updates on the struggle there. We will print them on our website and maybe in ULK. This is one more tactic to expose what is going on and to share lessons with others struggling in similar situations.

Whom it may concern,

I’m reaching out asking for help. The conditions here at Tucker Maximum Security Unit are horrifying. I’ve done wrote numerous letters to prison personnel including Director Dexter Payne, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Internal Affairs, Attorney General’s Office, The Department of Health And Human Service, Channel 7 News, and the FBI in Washington D.C. No one has investigated or corresponded to any of my letters. I don’t know if my letters are arriving at their destinations. Please send me confirmation correspondence. These are some of the horrifying conditions and/or treatment I have persynally encountered.

On 28 April 2023, I received a breakfast tray in East Isolation at approx. 5:57 am without a spoon. I’ve been here since 24 January 2023 and every tray always has a spoon. As I was eating the oatmeal I noticed a chunk of unknown substance under my oatmeal. It was huge with a foul odor. I had been hearing inmates stating that the kitchen supervisors will put harmful things in our food if we made them mad. When I noticed the chunk of unknown substance I was wondering “was that tray meant for me?” Then later that day I received my mail including a grievance I had wrote about the food preparations. In the warden’s response it stated that Building Major Mahoney counsel with the kitchen staff. That’s when I realized that the tray was specifically meant for me in retaliation for the grievances and some rude requests I’ve wrote. I was poisoned and had to see the prison medical staff about some problematic stomach conditions and receive treatment. Then on 16 May 2023 I had to go to St. Jefferson Regional Hospital in Pine Bluff, AR because of some problematic stomach conditions among other issues pertaining to the food process and preparation. Now I’m waiting to go back to St. Jefferson Regional Hospital to undergo a couple different surgeries that were scheduled by a doctor at that hospital. However, I have not been taken back to have the scheduled procedures carried out. Prison personnel are constantly rescheduling and/or refusing to take me back to be diagnosed and treated. Prison Medical Staff stated I was scheduled to undergo surgeries by the end of June, but I was never taken back to receive treatment. The procrastination can cause me a life-changing medical condition.

Another thing is the beverage container has mold, fungus, and slime build up. The orange juice and apple juice is always undergoing fermentation. The tea, kool-aid, and water always has a coffee taste like it’s being mixed with coffee. The water in my cell comes out brown sometimes. I’m assuming it’s lead from the pipes or radium. Maybe it’s sewage.

Then since 13 June 2023 and still continuing in East Isolation there’s a horrific amount of mosquitoes. Before 13 June 2023 there weren’t any mosquitoes, now there’s a horrific amount. There’s no way I should have to live with mosquitoes biting me in my sleep. I have been informed that I can contract a disease via a mosquito bite. That is a danger to my future health and well-being. I have rodents living in my cell door. Every cell in East Isolation has rodents living in their cell door. Along with the insect infestation, I’ve been housed in East Isolation since 24 January 2023 and I haven’t seen anyone deploying repellent. An investigation should be conducted to prove a repellent is being deployed and test the repellent to make sure it is repellent.

With the information here an investigation should be conducted. I will testify to any and all knowledgeable matters. You should see how unsanitary my cell is in East Isolation, it’s horrendous. A similar letter like this was forwarded to the wardens of this unit Warden Shiman, but corrective action was not taken and I’ve experienced retaliation. I’m asking for a surprise inspection and/or investigation into these matters. I will submit to a polygraph test. I request criminal charges be filed for me being poisoned. Sgt. J. Lee and I think the kitchen supervisor that morning was Ms. Relefore. The conditions and/or treatment here is horribly below constitutional standards. Therefore, I pray action will be taken. Prison personnel should be held accountable for their actions. If not then what’s topping them from violating policies, procedures, rules, regulations, and constitutional rights? Please help.

I declare under penalty of perjury that the forgoing is true and correct.

31 July 2023 Tucker Maximum Security Unit 2501 State Farm Rd. Tucker, AR 72168

First off I want to express gratitude and respect to the comrades that contributed to ULK 68. It has sparked some interesting conversations on the tier. And this dialogue is strengthening the unity; the only unity I’ve seen at this unit in the year and a half I’ve been here.

Here at Tucker Max Unit they have been keeping us restricted housing prisoners locked in our cells 24/7. We get one hour of yard every two weeks here at Gilligan’s Island due to “lack of security.” They recently re-opened their re-entry program and when they did so, they took officers off yard crew to go work the re-entry. They have made no effort in the past 3 months to replace these officers so re-entry is essentially running at the expense of our constitutional rights. Yard call is a constitutional right, re-entry is not. From my understanding they receive so much money per each prisoner enrolled in their programs, i.e. re-entry, substance abuse treatment, therapeutic comm., and in my opinion the biggest sham of all: the step-down program that restricted housing prisoners are being forced to enroll in. The parole board is notorious for stipulating the first three programs as a condition for prisoners to be considered for release. They reap double benefits thru this system. They get extra money for your enrollment in this program and they can release you with some semblance of rehabilitation.

We, the prisoners, know these programs are a joke. And when they don’t provide the rehabilitation sufficient upon release to hold it down and keep on top of our responsibilities then we become we the repeat offender. And the Dept. of Corruptions is right here with their paternalistic arms wide open, all the while telling us it’s our fault.

But to get another shot at freedom we’ll be forced back into the same programs. Spoiler alert: it’s not gonna work no matter how many times you take their programs, and that’s by design. They don’t want the programs to work. Why would they want us to stay out of prison? A requirement of these programs here in Arkansas is that you drop kites on other prisoners for shit as small as not tucking their shirts in, and if you don’t you’re considered as not “participating”. What the fuck does that have to do with a person getting their shit together and preparing for the responsibilities that weigh us down when we get out?

To boycott these programs would be ideal, knowing the money they rake in off of them. But far be it from me to tell the next man to not do what he’s gotta do to go home. But we can’t depend on these programs to be the substance of our rehabilitation.

So now that I’ve made the argument against their programs there are two questions to be addressed. How do we implement our own programs, and which programs should take priority? Well, as far as the programs that should take priority, we’ve got to implement those that build unity into community where everyone has a role, minus our egos. We must work together to come up with a format that has a higher potential of success when it comes to tackling the issues that perpetuate our carceral existence, and by “our carceral existence” I’m speaking of the shackles on our mind that even upon release from these dungeons into the free world, remain fast in place.

The Five Stages of Consciousness model in the Five Percent tradition will break these chains when utilized to the fullest, but so many of us only attain the base stage of consciousness or the second stage of subconscious and go no further. So many of us attain all this knowledge on our quest for truth, only to use it to know more than the next man. But how many of us are using our knowledge to help win lawsuits, win appeals, and other battles that build upon our independence from this paternalistic system? I constantly see pride and ego hinder all 5 of the United Front for Peace in Prisons points of unity, and keep a lot of prisoners from reaching out to others to build these independent institutions. It’s imperative that we tear these individualistic walls down and build upwards on community consciousness. We need examples of what these independent programs look like and how to build them.

The book Prisoners of Liberation by Allyn and Adele Rickett that MIM(Prisons) refers to in its response to “Fighting the System from Within” in ULK 68 sounds like a good place to find this example. The writer makes a good point in eir letter that if our people would come to work in these prisons that they could expose the deficiencies and ill treatment.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This writer picks up on the theme from ULK 69 where we discuss building independent institutions. As this comrade points out, we can’t count on the criminal injustice system to provide us with effective programs for rehabilitation or release. And so we need to build these programs ourselves. One such independent program is this newsletter, in which we are free to expose the news and conditions that the bourgeois press refused to cover. An independent newsletter is critical to our education and organizing work.

Another example of independent institutions is MIM(Prisons)’s Re-Lease on Life program to help releasees stay politically active and avoid the trap of recidivism. This program isn’t yet big enough and is greatly lacking in resources, so right now we’re not very effective. But we have to start somewhere. And we work to connect with comrades like this writer to build this program on the inside and on the streets.

In the short term, anyone looking to build small independent institutions behind bars can start a study group. This is a good way to start educating others while also learning yourself. And you can build from there with anyone willing to sit down and study. We can support this work with study questions and literature, just let us know you’re interested!