Federal Prisons

On June 13, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) released an Amerikan student, Otto Warmbier, who was imprisoned there for 15 months. The student came home in a coma and died a few days later. According to Korean officials, Warmbier had been in a coma since shortly after his arrest due to complications from botulism, a condition that can be contracted from contaminated food, soil or water. It’s likely that the imprisonment of Warmbier was just a political move by the DPRK government. He was convicted of stealing a propaganda poster.

What is unusual about Warmbier is that he was a young, well-off white guy, enjoying the privilege of his Amerikan citizenship and wealth by going on a fun adventure to visit north Korea. Amerika mostly targets lumpen from oppressed nations and non-citizens for imprisonment, as well as people who take up the fight against imperialism. So in this country Warmbier would be very unlikely to end up in prison.

After Warmbier’s death there was an outcry of criticism of the DPRK government, with Trump attacking the “brutality of the North Korean regime.” These criticisms come from the same people who are silent on conditions in Amerikan prisons that lead to deaths regularly. Prisoners regularly get sick from conditions that include insufficient or even contaminated food(1), mold(2), toxins and other environmental risks in old and unclean prisons(3), contaminated water(4), unsafe levels of heat(5), and inadequate, incompetent and willfully neglegent medical care.(6) And that is just the list of “negligence” abuse. Meanwhile, over 100,000 prisoners are tortured daily in U.$. prisons(7) and some politically active and critical prisoners have ended up dead.(8)

In a parallel to this case in Korea, Amerikan prisons hold many non-citizens(9), especially from Mexico and Central America, locked up for small or bogus charges. If not for conditions caused by imperialism, these people want to go home to their country and families. Some don’t speak English and so can’t even fight for their rights. Some were railroaded into pleading guilty without really understanding the trial. And some of these prisoners will end up seriously ill or even die due to conditions in Amerikan prisons.(10)

We don’t hold out hope that the white nationalists will offer a criticism of the “brutality of the Amerikan regime” for all these crimes against prisoners held behind bars in this country. It should be an embarrassment to Amerikans that the United $tates locks up people at a rate higher than any other country in the world. But this system of social control is swept under the rug, while appologists for imperialism hypocritically criticize the DPRK (and other countries) for their treatment of one Amerikan prisoner.

MIM(Prisons) struggles for an end to a system where prisons are places where people suffer and die premature deaths.

A mí no me gusta meter la cuchara porque la mayoría de mi tiempo me la paso peleando el sistema, es lo que hago. No me gustan estos cerdos y no me gusta la forma en que estos aspirantes a presos les gusta hablar mierda pero en cuanto estos cerdos sacan su pluma y el reporte de mala conducta ¡se van a esconder bajo sus camas!

Soy una mujer transexual y ¡no le tengo miedo a estos cerdos! Estuve trabajando en la cocina y el cerdo más temido me tuvo en la mira y cuando puse una queja contra él, todos esos aspirantes a presos me dijeron que no me meta con él porque podría tomar represalias. Yo dije, “que se vaya al carajo!, Yo seguiré siendo yo misma.” Y sí, tomó represalias pero yo también. En el manual de empleados del estado de Nueva York en la sección 2.12, dice que ellos no pueden usar lenguaje abusivo, agresivo o vulgar, así que cuando lo escuchaba quebrar esa regla, escribía una queja contra su culo. Tomó represalias al escribirme una papeleta falsa. Me dio 7 días encerrado y luego regresé a trabajar. Dos días después me corrieron del trabajo y me amenazaron con nuevos cargos si seguía escribiendo quejas. Dejé de quejarme contra su culo y escribí a la oficina del Inspector General. (¡sí, sí!)

Pero mi pregunta es esto: ¿Por qué chingados tienen miedo estos presos que tienen 15, 20, 25 años y más, a darle gas a estos cerdos? Pero cuando un camarada les debe $3.24 ¡están listos para acuchillarlo en la espalda! ¿Por qué cuando un cerdo te falta respeto te fajas la cotila como perro y le corres, pero cuando un camarada te falta respeto, de repente sí tienes huevos?

Te voy a decir porque es así. Porque ellos saben que un cerdo les va arrastrar al hoyo a puros putasos. Pero si te peleas con un camarada, esa madre nomás va a durar a lo mucho un minuto. Y luego te dicen, “Trate al piso o te volamos los sesos.”

Yo me ha peleado con estos cerdos más de 5 veces en los últimos 3 años y !me han dado 2 cargos nuevos sobre eso! El año pasado ya estuviera en mi casa, pero hay una línea que si se cruza, van a ver consecuencias. Convertí mis 10 años en 20. No estoy orgulloso por eso para nada. Y no voy hay diciéndole a todos. Pero a veces te tienes que defenderte a ti mismo. Si no defiendes algo, ¡caerás por lo que sea!

Así que, para todos mis camaradas, defiéndanse contra estos cerdos. No te estoy diciendo que les llegues a putasos, pero no les dejes que te hagan lo que quieran. Atácalos con pluma, huelgas, protestas, putasos o ¡como sea!

En las palabras de Malcolm X “De cualquier forma que sea necesaria.”

Me voy con paz camaradas!

P.S. “Con los años he aprendido que cuando la mente ya está decidida, el miedo desaparece.” - Rosa Parks

MIM(Prisiones) responde:

I am hearing (deaf) / speech (mute from past strokes) / vision (blind in one eye and impaired in other eye) and W/C [bathroom] restricted/disabled. Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) was refusing to turn the closed captioning on the televisions for me and other offenders who are deaf, hearing impaired, disabled, or hard of hearing.

Also, being given disciplinary case knowing I was deaf, violating my due process rights by not passing a note. No written communication of what was going on during the disciplinary process so-called “investigations.”

Now, thanks to Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), Mr. Brian R. McViverin and Ms. Barke Butler and three others, TDCJ is to have closed captioning feature on these dorm dayroom TVs from the time they are turned on to rack time. And any disciplinary cases I’m (or others of my type of hearing disabilities in accordance of the ADA) given, TDCJ must use special forms for me to read, answer, and sign/initial during the whole process. And anything spoken must be written down. If I see any lip movement and it is not written down, this becomes a violation of my Civil Action suit.

So, if you can, read this Civil Action No. 4:12-cv-02241 compromise and settlement agreement. Please let others know of this. I know I can not have been the only one that has had these problems with TDCJ.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This contributor shouldn’t have had to go through the trouble of filing a Civil Action Suit in order to be afforded what is already guaranteed to em from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). We here at MIM(Prisons) are disgusted by the behavior of TDCJ, which we see reflected all across the country in various forms. In a society that isn’t run by profit and pigs, the courtesy of inclusion wouldn’t require all the runaround and paperwork.

Revolutionary Greetings,

This is my report about how the Prisoners’ Legal Clinic here in the Corcoran Ad-seg/SHU is going. As a Clinic Coordinator, I’ve been responsible for showing inmates how to read and study the Title 15, which allows you to know what rights you have as a prisoner, and learn how to file a box. You’d be surprised to know, a lot of inmates don’t understand the basics, but we’ve had minimal success. The accomplishments have resulted in (1) inmates getting their property in an orderly fashion, (2) getting allowable items that were granted from the hunger strikes, (3) receiving our program of yard & showers that we’re being denied for lack of staff, (4) and being assigned a regular counselor to come by once a week to see if we need any assistance and making sure we get our NDS privileges (phone calls weekly or monthly & canteen draw of $165.00 instead of $55.00).

I’ve also filed a few written letters that have helped a few people get back to court, and allowed them to also be able to go to the law library once a week without having a case pending, which was the only way before. At this time we do not need any legal materials as we have enough at our disposal. This is a positive endeavor here, and this concluded my report.

MIM(Prisons) adds: The Prisoners’ Legal Clinic is a serve the people program, made up of prisoners in the United $tates who are fighting injustice in the anti-imperialist movement. Through the PLC legally-savvy comrades offer legal assistance to others in their prison in exchange for some political work. And behind the scenes MIM(Prisons) provides the resources and support needed by our Clinic Coordinators. This program helps support necessary legal struggles of prisoners while also making the connection between these struggles and our broader political organizing. Write to us for more information if you want to coordinate a Clinic where you are at.

There is no genuine or legal justification for still using strip searches in prisons today, except to breed homosexuality and cause aggressive sexual assaults, using it as a punishment to humiliate someone. I can prove without a doubt that times have changed/evolved and this strip naked prison rule is outdated. Modernized technology has invented what is called x-ray machines, which are used to search/see the body without forcing nude search. Prisoncrats provided prisons with sufficient funds to purchase and provide such x-ray machines. Prison staff, in their sadistic practices and policies to punish captives, refuse to use the x-ray machines for body searches.

Metal detectors are stationed throughout the prison, checkpoints forcing captives to walk through them, in their policy to confiscate any and all illegal metal objects. Captives are never asked if they are allergic to the radiation of the metal detectors or x-ray machines, which explains the prison staff’s complete disregard for the physical or psychological effects on the captives.

We captives of the Pennsylvania state prisons ask for legal advice in our desires to sue the Department of Corrections for forcing the strip search policies. We live during advanced technologies and modernized minds, which dictates, strip searches are outdated, violates religious rights, breeds sexual predators, and are methods used to harass, humiliate and harm captives. Not to mention strip searchings are methods used identical to the times of slavery.

If for no other humane reasons, prison strip searches needs to be abolished, eliminated, minimized, because state prisons have been provided with the necessary machinery and manpower to secure prison grounds and facilities. The time is here. We the state captives in Pennsylvania prisons ask any and all judicial scholars and students of civil law, for legal advice, and to petition the courts to abolish all prison strip search policies.

There is the questions raised about prison security being vulnerable, and breached, if the strip search policy is eliminated. Such positions, beliefs or arguments are simply said to continue this long practice of psychological slavery in prisons. When in fact, x-ray machines detect any metal or foreign objects and contraband. Therefore, since state prisons have x-ray machines and metal detectors on facility grounds, it shows any need to search a subject can be done without the need of such said subjects being forced to disrobe, strip naked. Which means, if the metal detectors and x-ray machines they have are not successful to secure the prison facilities, then their machines are obsolete and obtained falsely.

However, if such machines and technologies are vital and essential to the security orders of running the prisons, then strip searchings are deemed obsolete and performed falsely. It is our contention, challenge, calling, that because x-ray and metal detector machines are used, that shows strip searches are no longer needed or necessary. Which proves strip searching are being used simply as a form of the prison’s psychological punishments.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections state prisons has implemented a new policy against sexual assaults/harassments, called the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). This PREA policy exposes its own ineffectiveness and prejudicial punishment, under the disguise of prosecuting sexual harassment and/or predators. To prove that this new PREA policy has been designed to minimize and eliminate sexual assaults in all of its manifestations on prison grounds, strip searching would also be minimized or eliminated as a means to sexual assaults and sexual harassments on state prison grounds.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This writer makes an important point: guards use strip searches as a form of gendered power that humiliates and degrades prisoners. But we don’t agree that this abuse of power causes guards (or prisoners) to become homosexual. And even if that was possible, it’s patriarchal society that teaches people to use gender for power and abuse which is the problem. There is no evidence that any sexual orientation is more predatory than any other. We need to focus on the real enemy here: the patriarchy which trains people to enjoy the abuse of gender power.

Prisoners are in a unique position in that they face gender oppression as a part of their imprisonment. This is true of both male and female prisoners. Strip searches are a good example of this gender oppression. This writer raises a good point about the abuse of power, and specifically gender power, that happens every time there is a strip search. This degrading practice is not for security, as this writer clearly demonstrates.

Identifying this form of oppression and calling it out for people to see is the first step in fighting back. The idea of using PREA to fight strip searches is an interesting approach. We’d like to hear from others who are fighting strip searches about what tactics are and are not working. Ultimately gender oppression in prisons isn’t going away while we have a criminal injustice system serving imperialism. The patriarchy is an integral part of this system. But we can sometimes win smaller battles against these forms of humiliation and degradation.

The May 2017 issue of the Family Fun magazine (owned by the media conglomerate Meredith Corporation) has produced and distributed an advertisement that meets the federal definition of child pornography. The ad shows a boy duck-taping a prepubescent girl to a garage wall. The image does not depict any nudity or sexual activity, but this does not matter under the law, which defines “sexually explicit conduct” to include “sadistic or masochistic abuse.”

[One prisoner] found out the hard way. He is serving a 97-month federal prison sentence, to be followed by a lifetime of “supervised release” and registration as a dangerous “sex offender” for having received a similar but less explicit image. “All I remember about getting it was that it was in some ZIP file,” said [the prisoner]. “I didn’t think anything of it, as there was no nudity or anything sexual about it. But the government has destroyed my life.”

“Then a friend of mine in prison saw this ad for Capri Sun,” [the prisoner] said. “It is worse than the image I was sentenced for in every possible way. It shows clear and unambiguous active bondage; the girl is younger; her legs are spread; and there is a masochistic smile on her face.” [The prisoner] wrote Kraft Heinz, the President, congress and as many civil rights and legal assistance organizations as he could. [The prisoner] continued, “Although the Capri Sun ad is tasteless, sexist, and more than a little disturbing, I don’t think anybody should go to prison over it. Yet I am in prison and the rest of my life is destroyed for receiving an image that is mild by comparison.”

MIM(Prisons) responds: Although we couldn’t find a copy of this magazine ad, we don’t doubt that this and many other magazines and so many other capitalist advertisements include pornographic images. Even billboards feature girls who look like they are 10 modeling skimpy clothing with a sexy pout on their faces. It is this patriarchal culture that puts pornography out in everything we see. And it is this culture that teaches people to enjoy pornography, coercion and sexual assault. Essentially capitalism is creating rapists while pretending to be shocked and offended by them.

People who get locked up for sex offenses are right to claim a double standard. That doesn’t make what the sex offenders did right, it just makes society so very wrong. And as a result we’re left with a criminal injustice system that gets to pick and choose who they want to prosecute. No surprise we end up with a disproportionate number of New Afrikan and Chican@ men locked up for these crimes.

It will take a revolutionary culture, and many years of fighting to eliminate the patriarchy, before we can truly eliminate pornography and sexual assault from humyn society. We will need to not only revolutionize our culture, but also re-educate everyone who has been inundated with patriarchy from birth. And those who internalized it to the extent of acting out violent sexual assaults and other crimes against the people will need even further re-education and rehabilitation before they can safely re-integrate into society.

For now, whether you are locked up justly or unjustly we urge you to take a hard look at your views about gender, how you treat people and how you view people, and consider how this is conditioned by patriarchal culture. We welcome all revolutionary activists to take up the struggle, regardless of your past, but we all need to be conscious of the effects of the patriarchy on our actions and beliefs.

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?

Another pretrial detainee and I were rolled up and put into punitive segregation for the grievances, appeals and letters that we wrote to the Alaska DOC commissioner and our state’s Lieutenant Governor, in standing up for our rights here at Anchorage correctional Complex (ACC). Detainees here are afraid of the retaliation brought upon those that stand up for their rights.

Superintendent Jesse Self, Assistant Superintendent Sondra Thomas, Lieutenant Jason Hamilton, Segregation Sergeant Tania Enyard, and Standards Sergeant G. Helms have all participated in violating pretrial detainees’ rights at ACC. Grievances take four-plus months to be processed, if they even get processed. Many request for interview (RFI) forms never see an answer either. Requests through proper channels like RFIs, grievances and appeals go to the ears and eyes of the deaf and blind officials that condone these atrocities of injustice to happen. If one makes too many, or too loud, complaints against the officials in charge about the conditions here at ACC, they are relieved of all legal and personal property and put into punitive segregation for up to three months, without due process.

I have been in punitive segregation for only three days and I had to practically beg to get law library access once, for an hour. Under Alaska law we are to be allowed law library access at least seven hours a week. I may end up writing more grievances and appeals from punitive segregation than I have written total in the last two years. Of course, that depends on how long they keep me here in punitive segregation.

On your grievance campaign, I rewrote the copy that you sent me and I will try to get a version of it sent your way. I have not heard back from any of the officials that I sent it to. I sent, on my behalf, copies to Alaska DOC Commissioner Dean Williams, Alaska Lieutenant Governor Byron Mallott, and the Department of Justice in Washington DC.

So many Alaskan pretrial detainees and prisoners do not know that their rights are being violated under both the U.S. Constitution and the Alaska Constitution. The guards run over them and their rights, stomping them into the ground. I am not legal knowledgeable, although I’m learning more all the time. I am trying to put together a lawsuit on my own behalf against officials of Alaska DOC. I have read enough to know that administrative remedies must be exhausted, and the lawsuit must be written correctly to be kept from being screened out of court. I have the grievance and appeal process down fairly good, it’s the court filing that I was working on before being put into punitive segregation. I’m not beat, they have only slowed me down.

I share your publications with anyone and everyone that I can. I can’t keep much in my possession anyway, so I write down what I’m interested in and pass on your publications. Thank you for the informative publication.

I’m a medical doctor (trauma surgeon) with extensive combat medical experience/expertise. I have first hand knowledge of some of the atrocities that were done in Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan by not only the United States but other coalition forces. Medical teams would perform hours of surgery to help civilians and military alike. Only to have them tortured, maimed or killed. This was done in order to retrieve so-called military information. We were told these individuals were ISIS, Taliban or others. I threatened to go to the news media with this information.

All of those acts were totally illegal, inhumane and un-called for. I was then sent back to the United States in chains (hands cuffs) and thrown into jail. Actually prison. I’m here on a bogus, trumped up charge – armed robbery. I’ve never stolen anything in my life. And of all places to put me in they send me to the most ass-backward state of the union (Mississippi). There’s nothing here but gun toting rednecks and the Dixie-mafia. I’m exactly like Eric Snowden.

I’ve written to numerous foreign embassies requesting political asylum. I even informed these countries they could extradite me as a fugitive or a witness. Only a couple of countries have yet to even respond. And the ones that did told me I must be on their soil in order to be considered for political asylum. I’m hoping you’ll print something about me and someone around the world will assist me.

I ask that you don’t use my real name. I’m tired of getting beat by these guards. I think these countries take my letter as a joke, scam or a hoax. It’s neither. I’ve even offered to repay the cost of the process. I told them I’m able and willing to work in remote or hostile areas. I have no living relatives. I have no need to return to this country and I won’t get homesick.

To whom it may concern, this is a plea for help from all prisoners housed in David Wade Correctional Center (DWCC) located in Homer, Louisiana.

Warden Goodwin is locking us inside these torture chambers for years with no educational activities, no corrective-rehabilitative programs, and no counseling for mental health. The lawmakers’ and courts’ intentions were to send those convicted of a crime to prison as a punishment, not to be oppressed, tortured in a cell 24-7 with nothing to do for years with nothing to better themselves, also with no TV or radio to have contact with the outside world. The lawmakers’ intent was that prisoners receive correction and rehabilitation so as to return to society as productive, tax-paying, law-abiding members. By prisoners not being able to better themselves behind these walls, that is what makes us the highest incarceration state of the U.S.

Warden Goodwin is forcing mentally ill prisoners in a cell together 24-7, only coming out for a shower, and in turn these prisoners are hurting each other and raping each other. The policy #035 stated no maximum ext-lockdown inmate should be housed together but they are at DWCC where if you do not go in the cell you will be pepper sprayed. And not knowing what to expect or having any idea as to the length of confinement is added stress and particularly traumatizing, compounded by simplistic practices. The courts have also held that housing mentally ill prisoners under conditions of extreme isolation is unconstitutional, see Wilkerson v. Goodwin 12-17-14 [This case addressed long-term/indefinite solitary confinement, not specifically for the mentally ill - ULK Editor]. There has been much research that demonstrated that prolonged solitary confinement is most dangerous to the mentally ill. Thus, we become disturbed with mental anguish that compels us to grab and adopt to other means and channel our pain, many are cutting themselves and going on hunger strikes. These are only a few experiences of prisoners. We need help, we need change, expose this torture!

Help us today, make a call or fax our governor and head of DOC. Ask them to close the torture chamber confinement unit at DWCC:

MIM(Prisons) adds: As we have discussed elsewhere, isolation in prisons and mental illness reinforce each other under the current imperialist prison model. Too often people in these institutions are seen as lacking as individuals, when it is a system that creates this crisis in mental health. That is one reason we have continued to focus on the campaign to end the torture that is solitary confinement in the U.$. injustice system.

This issue of Under Lock & Key is focused on disabilities in prison. The use of control units to torture people, leading to physical and mental health problems is very much related to this topic. Long-term isolation is creating more and more disabled prisoners, by destroying their health. And then prisons are perpetuating this problem by failing to provide adequate care for the problems they created.