Federal Prisons

Every night we go to sleep feeling hungry and wake every morning disappointed because the breakfast is so minute; still feeling hungry after breakfast.

To all concerned, we submit this Human Rights (HR) call of investigation of abuse and possible embezzlement by Columbia Correctional Institution (CCI) and the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC). Sometime back in 2010 or 2011 Wisconsin law makers planned, with serious malice, of reducing meals to twice daily or even once a day. These ideas were scrapped, due in significant a way, because even jail and prison officials felt it will cause unrest. So what they have done and are doing is slowly, and not so subtly any more, reducing and cutting the portions down on all three meals to where it has the same or even more quantitative effect as if they took one to two meals depending on the weeks in play.

We are calling upon Human Rights and journalistic investigators to study these allegations. We call upon the collective community of concerned citizens to be alarmed at the allegations and tactics. We believe but cannot prove. But confirmed by DOC line staff who will not go on record that this is true and part of policy now. We know that here at CCI they are doing tactics such as measuring the portions like this: One measurement portion is scooped or ladled out, weighed on a scale or eyeballed, then multiplied times the number of prisoners on the unit. While this seems like ALL business/hotels etc measure and cook food. But the portions are designed to say eight oz., yet the actual amount is four or five oz. Not only is you skimming, but, as shown everyday, food is skimmed down more by the server as they try to extend those four oz. Stuff like juice, soup, oatmeal is watered down or substitute additives incorporated so that the quality of the oatmeal is damaged and it becomes merely fiber powder with hot water with no taste. But they may be writing the expenditure off as real oatmeal.

The sadists among those permitting this, like CCI Warden Michael Dittman, will say, well, this is prison. You get what you get. This is not the Hilton or Marriot etc (not actual quote, but analogizing his and others state of mind). These reductions, additives, and cuts are not only barbarous, but violations of human rights, cruel and inhuman treatment and malicious punishment (CIDTS). It causes daily discomforts, anxiety, frustrations, stress, anger and hatred of those administering it all. And all of these are counterintuitive to what corrections goals and aims claim to be.

Still more, it’s being done secretively (well started off that way). Not as a public policy, but skullduggery to embezzle more funds for stuff that benefits Wardens/guards etc. For overtime more “workdays”, pensions, sick days, vacation days etc. Hiring family members, etc.

This is not an issue of prisoners whining about mere discomfort. We are losing weight. We are not exercising normally and regularly due to lack of energy and for some, the brain registering hunger creates lethargic states so that very little exercise can be done. You no longer have the drive that one needs to exercise properly and consistently and regularly. And your metabolism go into a stop-loss mode to save fats and energy because the quantity of food is so small.

Add more to this two additional facts that innocuously contribute – the hard mats we are forced to sleep on don’t let you sleep at all. Another design to punish and cultivate dependency on sleep/drugs/meds so they can control. A very large percentage of prisoners who have been held in long-term segregation start taking sleep meds for various reasons. The hard mat is one. People like me who have convictions against meds/sleeping drugs must suffer with the lack of energy and sleep until the body gets so tired it shuts down and collects its overdue.

Recently we learned that one of our readers and a long-time activist, Zero, had a letter published on the Anarchist Black Cross Portland (ABC PDX) website and in the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) newsletter responding to an article in Under Lock & Key No. 50 (May/June 2016) about the September 9 work stoppage. Zero invited us to respond publicly and so we have done our best here to distill this debate down to what we see as the most important points.

With IWOC, ABC, and Zero, we have a common enemy in the criminal injustice system and imperialism more broadly. We are writing this response with the goal of building unity, not division, between organizations and individuals that are working hard to fight this unjust system.

Anarchism vs. Communism

Fundamentally we have a disagreement over anarchism vs. communism, but we believe that both camps are fighting for the same thing at root: an end to oppression of groups of people by other groups of people. We just think that communists have a more scientific plan for how to get there than anarchists, based on our study of how these same efforts have been attempted, succeeded, and failed in the past. The oppressed people of the world deserve the best and fastest route to liberation. Communists hope to discover what that route is through not only our study but also our practice.

This disagreement over the importance of science to revolutionary struggle is highlighted in a lot of what Zero wrote. Ey accuses MIM(Prisons) of being intellectuals whose “theory is based in theory.” Zero also claims to have no interest in political line in the development of the September 9 work stoppage: “I don’t care what your line is, nor does anyone else I work closely with on this project. Beyond small friendly jabs at each other, nothing I’ve seen or read, or heard from anyone in this campaign suggests anyone cares much about line.”

Yet it’s a discredit to the hunger strike organizers to say that they don’t care much about line. It is precisely political line and theoretical analysis that drives the concept that “prisoner labor is slavery and this mass work stoppage is a good plan to shut down prisons.” Without unity on this analysis, the organizers might have decided (as an example) the best approach is for everyone to fast because the Amerikkkan farms depend on prisons to buy agricultural goods and so this boycott would shut down the farms and hence force prison reform. IWOC and ABC aren’t suggesting this, and that’s probably because of their correct theoretical understanding of agriculture in this country. In forming their alliance on this campaign, Zero, IWOC, and ABC at least agree on this political line, even if they don’t talk about it. After all, they are all anarchists (or anarchist-led), so they have much unity on line already.

Zero finds “contradictory statements” in our original article that help demonstrate where we depart from the anarchists because our strategy differs from theirs. Zero wrote:

“In paragraph #5 you say: ‘we do see power in the ability of prisoners to shut down facilities by not doing the work to keep them running for a potentially longer period’. But then in paragraph #10 you say ‘the organizers of the anti-slavery protest are misleading people into believing that shutting down prison work will shut down prisons’.

If masses of prisoners stopped working, forever, some facilities may close. This would likely be because of where they’re located geographically, the layout and security level of the facility, and how easy or difficult it is to staff the prisons to accommodate for the loss of labor. But would that close all prisons in the United $tates? We doubt it. Does that mean we think prisoners should all just keep working? No! Short of overthrowing capitalist Amerikkka’s power altogether, we will still have prisons in this country based on national oppression. But making that oppression more difficult is always a good thing.

Our point is that Amerikkka is willing to spend a lot of time, money and resources on imprisoning a staggering number of people, all at a financial loss. So we do not see evidence that if prisoners stop working and it suddenly becomes more expensive to imprison people that that will shut down the prison system. It most certainly is a form of resistance that heightens the contradictions between the oppressed and the oppressor, and even within the oppressor camp. Such an act would certainly have great influence on the ever-changing realities within the U.$. criminal injustice system, as would any sustained, mass prisoner mobilization.

Elitism?

Zero goes on to say that MIM(Prisons) “… refuse[s] to even mention the names of these other revolutionary organizations so that your readers can reach out and seek information on their own. Another display of elitist hegemonization of line.” Yet this comment is in the context of criticizing an article that specifically named the IWOC and included a link directly to its publication, so we’re confused about where we failed to mention the other organizers’ names. On this point, however, we did fail to convert the web address to a print address in our print version of ULK, which of course makes it harder for subscribers to reach out directly to IWOC, and we are correcting that mistake in our footnote to this article and our general practice. We actually print many articles debating theory and practice, including some that explicitely disagree with us. To be clear though, the purpose of ULK is to educate and inform people on what we see as the most correct political line and practice and so we always offer our response to those points of disagreement and allow our readers (and history) to decide who is correct.

On this same point, we also highlight the correct practice of our predecessors in the Maoist Internationalist Movement (MIM) who distributed a pamphlet “What’s Your Line?” with the names, addresses and political positions of a wide spectrum of political organizations. We haven’t put the time or money into compiling a similar up-to-date list because our resources are sadly limited, but we still support this practice. Perhaps an innocent oversight, but neither the ABC nor the IWOC bothered to link to our website or print contact information for MIM(Prisons) alongside Zero’s long and scathing critique of our organization.

Nihilism or Subjectivism

Citing Webster’s dictionary and dictionary.com, without acknowledging the class interests that those resources represent, and saying “that’s good enough for me” is simply subjectivism. Denying the importance of theory to our practice is to make us slaves (pun intended) to our emotions and subjectivism, which are very thoroughly conditioned by our residence in an imperialist country. We cannot expect to overcome subjectivism 100%, but through applying dialectical and historical materialsm we hope to make the fewest errors in our revolutionary work as possible.

Zero gives a good example of theoretical analysis in eir criticism:

“In closing, let me clarify that dialectical soundness can often depend on interpretation. You all use orthodox marxist definitions of ‘slavery’ even though we live in a post-modern, post-fordist time and place. The dynamics of our current reality are different. And so we must also re-assess our definitions. Besides, though personally I use marxist formulas I’m ultimately a nihilist, un-beholden to an particular ideological parameters. In other words. My definition of ‘slavery’ is reflected by our material conditions, not political agenda.”

Zero is correctly stating here that we must adapt our theory to current conditions. What held true in Marx’s day may not be true today. We can’t just get stuck in what Marx wrote and ignore changes in conditions. We agree with that. But we ask Zero, what is it but theory that allows us to discuss who is or isn’t a slave? If this discussion isn’t based in theory, then it’s just subjectivism.

For example, here is an instance where MIM(Prisons)’s analysis has adapted to changing conditions since Marx’s day. We see that while the vast majority of workers of all countries were exploited in the past, and made up the proletariat class that Marx wrote about so thoroughly, today imperialism has advanced to the point where workers in imperialist countries are mostly petty-bourgeois. This is a point where we tend to disagree with groups who organize people in the First World around their economic interests (as opposed to national interests).

Finally, demonstrating the difficulty in remaining anti-theory while discussing political theory, Zero critiqued our point that work strikes will not in-and-of-themselves bring down the Amerikan criminal injustice system: “I’d ask on what dialectical evidence you base your theory that america would ‘figure out’ how to keep us locked up.” This is a good example of the importance of theory. If we’re wrong, then we should focus our efforts into organizing work stoppages. And Zero is right, it is dialectical materialist analysis that will help us figure that out here. The article that Zero responded to actually went into a lot of depth on this very point, explaining that prisons are primarily tools to control society, not make profit, which aid in the oppressive force of the bourgeoisie by keeping lumpen and anyone deemed dangerous to their power locked away. We know that prisons are not reliant on the money made from prisoner labor, because there is public information showing that prisons are money-losing operations.

Political debate is not the same as political opposition

To clarify our position, in the original article about the September 9 protests we talked about the similarities and differencess between the five-year history of the United Front for Peace in Prisons September 9 Day of Peace and Solidarity, and this newer call for prisoner activism on September 9: “First we want to say that we are always happy to see people taking up organizing and trying to build unity behind bars. There are some very good points taken in this call to action… we would hope to work with these folks to broaden our movement.” We followed this up with multiple articles reporting on the work stoppage and praising the widespread protests.

But Zero seems to think that by publically criticizing an incorrect point of political theory from the organizers we are opposing the protests. Ey wrote

“What we have here is a huge social base, across prison walls, that is extremely pissed off. And we have an opportunity to harness that anger and point it at our enemy on September 9th, thats all the analysis I need. and I say that if you oppose this in any way, you’re nothing but a house slave ready to defend your master. your complicit and should be among the first to be taken to task.”

If we won’t just blindly agree and follow eir leadership, apparently we are written off as complicit with the enemy. Isn’t this the squelching of political debate that anarchists so vehemently oppose? To be clear, we support the September 9th protests, both those organized by members of the United Front for Peace in Prisons, and those promoted by the IWOC. Our criticism is directed toward statements that participating in these protests will shut down the prisons because prisons are dependent on prisoner slave labor. If we did not make this clear in our articles about September 9, we will take this criticism to help us approach the struggle with a clearer focus on unity.

Finally, Zero wrote that we should have known about this work strike sooner. It looks like there was some censorship of our mail from em so letters from Zero about this didn’t get to us. We did reach out to IWOC and others about working together on September 9 organizing once we learned about the work strike (which we did hear about from a number of ULK subscribers). We never got a response from the organizers. We hope that going forward we can collaborate in the fight against the criminal injustice system to build a stronger movement. This doesn’t mean we will give up our communist position, nor does it mean that Zero, ABC, or IWW need to give up their anarchism, and in fact we would argue that continuing this debate publicly is good for everyone. In practice we hope to collaborate on the September 9 protest in 2017.

Hays State Prison (HSP), Georgia’s most dangerous and high-profile maximum security prison, is located in the northwest mountains of Georgia. The cold bland setting gives way to its racist history of profiling and beating handcuffed Black prisoners. The media did a great job of highlighting the HSP murders starting in December 2012. One would think it is calm at Hays since the national spotlight has somewhat subsided. Now HSP, backed by the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) is doing something new to make a name for itself. The GDC and HSP are falsely validating non-gang members so to appear proactive in the GDC’s phony fight to curb gang violence within the GDC, and specifically at Hays.

I am an educated African-American man with a Bachelor’s Degree. I am a member of the National Lawyers Guild as an active “jailhouse lawyer.” I have filed numerous lawsuits aginst GDC since being incarcerated in Georgia. I have shown a consistent propensity to be unafraid to challenge the GDC in court when they often violate my Georgia and United States rights.

From the date I entered the GDC, I was not affiliated with any security threat group (STG) gang. However, during my recent court filings, a GDC staff member found a way to retaliate against me, by placing a false STG gang validation on my prisoner profile. In the GDC, if you get validated as a STG gang member, you are looked at unfavorably and often get denied work assignments, safety housing, parole and transitional center placement, and educational and pre-release programs. It’s a negative classification. How does a person like myself get classified as a gang member? A GDC staff member, who does not like me being a jailhouse lawyer, created a false narrative that I deny. The STG report reads that I admitted to being a “blood/PIRU” gang member. This is a total 100% fabricated lie.

The validation occurred during a period of July to September 2016, during which I was locked in a one-man segregation cell. Yet the GDC states I joined a gang.

I would like to bring to your attention a proliferating issue and a sophisticated form of manipulation and capitulation by certain female guards here, which is threatening my motivational efforts and energy of prisoners who are trying to mobilize pockets of resistance. The prisoners in our immediate cipher and midst on a daily basis, in the disguise of recreation, study groups, or just basic conversations, are involved in some alarming episodes of perversion here at Sussex Sucks I State Prison. If we stand by and just criticize, make fun of, or gossip and back bite about those prisoners who get snaggled up in this spider web/trap, then the pigs are going to use this misguided erotic behavior to destroy the elements of positive aspirations that iz being pushed forward by a different segment of conscious prisoners here on this slave pen of oppression.

Everyone is aware of the enormous amount of jobs that become available because of the booming rise in the prison construction throughout the Amerikkkan colony. But no one seems to have noticed the alarming amount of female guards that are subsequently recruited, hired and then trained for a job inside this bulging prison culture complex! So today, a lot of these same female guards are assigned to the actual cell blocks/pods that house many of the state’s most violent male prisoners. And as a direct result of the placement of these female guards inside each of these components, you now see these same so-called violent prisoners becoming mentally and emotionally hypnotized by the astute beauty of some female guards who exhibit this aura or facade with their tour of correctional duty and within their clandestine episodes of flirtation.

In some of these housing components, I have even witnessed female guards displaying their siren characteristics in an attempt to control and compel the feeble-minded guys into conforming with the prison rules and regulations. In some cases these female guards are playing mind games, as they get off on the drama of seeing several men chasing them and even fighting over them, and manipulating them into becoming pod police by telling and doing the police job as an incentive. These female guards want the prisoners to help them stroke their own clandestine exotic or erotic fantasies while making money as a past time and advancing their career in law enforcement!

Before I commence my conclusion, it iz essential and imperative that I maintain the organizational strategy by indicating that there are numerous female guards who despise being exploited by the display of male sex organs in the workplace, and I really support all of these female guards who take a stance against this form of sexism. Because to subjugate women in general and solely on the basis of gender iz not only wrong, but dudes who believe and practice these subjective axioms and the actions that stem from this obnoxious belief are really saying that women are not worthy of genuine respect, or perhaps those prisoners think that a woman cannot be feminine without being submissive! All prisoners, brothas, all nations must begin the task of taking a personal analysis of themselves immediately and we should be self-critical. Otherwise we won’t understand what our criminal thought pattern iz doing to the overall struggle of the masses here in North Amerikkka.

Correctional male chauvinism must be eliminated if prisoners really plan to make it past this adolescent crisis that arises to the level of this extracurricular prison activity.

In closing, I felt the need to proselytize to the conscious prisoner class, clearly it iz better to err acting to bring about positive change than to do nothing for fear of erring. Please spread this word and cogitate what has been evaluated and written here in adroit-like fashion, because we have to stop this new wave of mental, physical, and emotional ignorance. Peace!

I want to know if other comrades are dealing with these same issues. If so, no one is speaking on it. Stop watching the idiot box, it’s hypnotizing you!

MIM(Prisons) responds: This is a good point to raise for discussion which we hope will inspire others to write in. There is, as this prisoner explains, a general contradiction in imperialist society, with the treatment of females under the patriarchy. But in prison this situation is changed. There is still some clear gender oppression of females, but in male prisons (which are the vast majority in this country) there is a reversal of roles in some ways. Males face gender oppression due to their unique status as prisoners.

We see this with the example given here of female guards manipulating prisoners through sex and flirting. The female guards are using patriarchal objectification to keep male prisoners passive, and even serving the very system that locks them up. We need to expose this manipulation and talk about why it can happen, and what we can do about it. It should not be ok to do any guard’s bidding, male or female. Are other people seeing this? What can be done to fight back?

As to the comrade in Ohio and MIM(Prisons)’s response on “Coffee House Revolutionaries or Real Militants?” in ULK 54 I don’t think the comrade in Ohio knows or realizes what MIM(Prisons) does or does not have in the organization’s caches or whether or not MIM is or isn’t physically or militarily preparing for the perfect time to do what that comrade is expressing in this letter. Also MIM follows Mao’s line on war strategy. MIM(Prisons) is not a street gang, or a criminal org. If you want to, and feel the time is perfect to take on the imperialist U.$. army, you’re sadly mistaken. In your commentary, I understood where you’re coming from because I am not much of a politician. I’m a soldier, and fighter as well. I, comrade in Ohio, agree with you that violence is a necessary means to achieve one’s goals in our type of struggle, and little by little, on a small scale the snowball has begun to roll. Trump is helping us push that ball forward, with his political ignorance. He’s threatening to dismantle people like us, who have outside organizations – other than MIM(Prisons) – whom we have direct third world connections to.

Now, where I am in disagreement with MIM(Prisons) is that they, or we, should not be reluctant to put a cache of weapons in bunkers or safe-houses just because of what MIM(Prisons) says “recent history” in the United $tates reveals about the murder or imprisonment of revolutionary groups that have attempted to do that. There does not have to be a set time to get weapons ready. That can be done clandestinely. I will not elaborate on that any more at this time. I will say that I do respect how MIM(Prisons) responded to the comrade in the Ohio prison. You, MIM(Prisons), stated at the end of your response that you “look forward to learning and building with this comrade and eir organization for many years to come.” The organization I’ll be working for out there are ex-military, ex-cops, and from ex-intelligence of 3rd world military groups from all over the world, and of whom they, as well as all other organizations like them, can’t be too happy about the hard line President Trump is taking.

Greetings to everyone at MIM. I am a prisoner held captive here at High Desert State Prison, in Susanville, California. I’m writing to inform the people of this new and improved form of repression tactic hidden behind the name of public safety and security. An investigative report came out in December 2015 by the Inspector General about the abuse and cover-ups by officers at this prison for 2 decades. Since then, the powers that be have started to install the video recording cameras in the prison, which is not a bad idea. Most prisons have cameras on the yard. However, these new high-tech cameras now have audio/voice recording which is new for CDCR.

They have also installed them just about any and everywhere, in the chowhall, gym, dayroom, yard, medical, law library, chapel, laundry, school/education, even in N.A. (Narcotic Anonymous) and A.A. (Alcoholic Anonymous), which begs the question, who’re they really keeping an eye on and watching? Now don’t get me wrong I’m all for holding these pigs/officers accountable for their actions. But now they’re watching and listening to our conversations in the chapel during our religious services where prisoners talk freely and enjoy open discussions on religion, race, politics, without the eyes and ears of the custody staff. N.A. and A.A. is suppose to be Anonymous where prisoners can get help and talk openly and privately with each other and the sponsor about our addiction and recovery. Now the Anonymous is out the picture when custody can see and listen when they choose to.

Medical is suppose to be between the prisoner and doctor to talk and review medical issues and problems without custody knowing your business. Visiting always had cameras but if the state choses to take out the old and put in the new, then they will be able to listen to our intimate conversations with our family, friends, wives, children etc. All in the name of what? Public safety and security? Or is this just a new and improved way for CDCR to watch & now listen to everything a prisoner does? You decide.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We’re glad to have this point brought up for consideration as most of what we’ve printed on this topic has been in favor of increased surveillance. A prime example was the campaign in North Carolina, centered around a lawsuit filed against staff for assaulting prisoners, focused on getting better camera coverage in state prisons to monitor staff. We supported this comrade in promoting eir efforts, recognizing the vulnerable situation that prisoners are in at the hands of the oppressor. Yet, for those of us outside prison, the call for more surveillance cameras gives one pause. It has come up in relation to police on the streets, but we dismissed that as not addressing the problem. The same could be said inside prisons.

The privacy struggle is one that is very relevant to us. At the same time it is mostly dominated by oppressor interests on both sides. In other words, it’s hard to campaign for civil liberties in a general way that is anti-imperialist. There are engineering solutions to privacy that can be used as tools, tactically, by revolutionaries.

There have been reports on the chilling effect of surveillance in the United $tates, showing that people are less willing to visit certain websites after the Edward Snowden leaks exposing NSA spying operations. While we disagree with the Liberals who call for a freedom of speech that allows people to promote profits over humyn needs, we also propose a program for a dictatorship of the proletariat that expands freedom of speech in many ways compared to current conditions in this country. We would ban the Orwellian “smart TVs” and other technology that is recording and collecting data on people in their homes. We would guarantee not only net neutrality, but internet access to all. Below are some planks from the MIM platform on subjects related to the First Amendment:

1. Restrictions on public postering will be eliminated except on residential buildings.

2. Large and convenient bulletin boards will be placed on every block. Boards covered over will be evidence for the need to build more.

3. There will be convenient places to leave literature along with such bulletin boards.

4. There will be no arrests in any non-residential building or premise for quiet distribution of literature. The only exception will be for high government officials meeting and who face threat of assassination–the Central Committee and government officials above a certain rank.

5. Arrests for vocal discussion will be limited to places where there is a need for meetings and orderly work. Cafeterias, outdoor sidewalks and most indoor hallways will be legally required to allow vocal discussion.

6. Meeting halls of public buildings will be made available for meetings to the public. If necessary more will be constructed.

Government bureaucrats interfering with the “free speech” of the public will be transferred to jobs where they have no such possibility.

Restrictions

1. Those advocating opposition to the dictatorship of the proletariat as defined at the top of the document will go to prison or re-education camp and thereby not enjoy all full public citizenship rights.

2. Sale of pornography will be forbidden. Distribution of nude photographs paid for by the photographer or persyn who signed a consent form to be displayed in photographs will always be legal, but government authorities may require a registration for financial bookkeeping purposes. Those publicly distributing nude photos of children 12 and under will be sent to re-education camp, whether money spent was their own or not.

3. Any non-party literature or other device for public opinion building will be paid for by individual members of the public with money from salary and no outside capitalist money or stolen sources of wealth will be used to promote any opinion of the non-party public.

Stimulation

1. MIM will not order the government to censor the INTERNET except on questions of the dictatorship of the proletariat and party rule.
2. USENET groups such as talk.rape, alt.activism.death-penalty, alt.politics.greens etc. will be permitted, partly for stimulation of the minds in imperialist countries, partly to bring to the surface bourgeois thoughts in need of professional proletarian refutation and partly because there will continue to be problems in all these areas under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The need for stimulation is especially great in the depoliticized imperialist countries. Many middle-class peoples will come under the dictatorship of the proletariat without ever knowing that the world’s majority of people suffered threats to their survival on a daily basis. (1)

MIM Platform: Against prison censorship

Prison officials claim they have security reasons to act as censors. But censorship prevents prisoners from access to legal help, education, and political organization. Political and legal mail and literature are not a direct threat to the security of prisons.

In analyzing the system of social control in the United $tates, it is imperative that we follow the correct line. The position of many today is to argue that the injustice system is based on a “Prison-Industrial Complex” [which we at MIM(Prisons) reject]. A new report, “Following the Money of Mass Incarceration” by Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy, provides additional evidence to back up our position.

Prisons are generally a complex web of concentration camps for oppressed semi-colonies, rather than an economically profitable industry. Indeed, there are some profits to be made (and capitalists/imperialists are good at finding their niches), but overall, the purpose of the injustice system today is population control.

As Wagner and Rabuy point out in their article: “In this first-of-its-kind report, we find that the system of mass incarceration costs the government and families of justice-involved people at least $182 billion every year.”(1) This $182 billion includes the $374 million in profits received by the private prison industry. The profits to these numerically few stakeholders hardly represent a systematic profit-generating enterprise. In fact, in the graph summing up their research, the authors had to make an exception to the cut off for significant portions of the U.$. prison budget in order to even include private prisons on it!

“This industry is dominated by two large publicly traded companies – CoreCivic (which until recently was called Corrections Corporation of America (CCA)) and The GEO Group — as well as one small private company, Management & Training Corp (MTC). We relied on the public annual reports of the two large companies, and estimated MTC’s figures using records from a decade-old public record request.”(1)

Private prison corporations have very little to gain in the prison business, which is why the vast majority (up to 95%) are still public prisons.(2) The Amerikkkan government (i.e. taxpayers) fronts the bill for the $182 billion. The few economic beneficiaries of the prison industry are commissary vendors, bail bond companies, and specialized telephone companies. As Wagner and Rabuy demonstrate, these are the multi-billion dollar industries. And they, of course, benefit, whether the prisons are private or not!

Why would the imperialist system be willing to spend almost $200 billion a year at the loss of widespread economic labor and consumers? For, as is shown: “Many people confined in jails don’t work, and four state prison systems don’t pay at all.”(1)

As Wagner points out in an article from 7 October 2015:

“Now, of course, the influence of private prisons will vary from state to state and they have in fact lobbied to keep mass incarceration going; but far more influential are political benefits that elected officials of both political parties harvested over the decades by being tough on crime as well as the billions of dollars earned by government-run prisons’ employees and private contractors and vendors.

“The beneficiaries of public prison largess love it when private prisons get all of the attention. The more the public stays focused on the owners of private prisons, the less the public is questioning what would happen if the government nationalized the private prisons and ran every facility itself: Either way, we’d still have the largest prison system in the world.”(3)

The capitalists don’t economically gain from the supposed “Prison-Industrial Complex”, but the politicians gain from the white Amerikkkan obsession with “crime”. Taking this into account, we find the truth hiding behind Wagner and Rabuy’s cryptic phrase: “To be sure, there are ideological as well as economic reasons for mass incarceration and over-criminalization.”(1)

We’ve already looked at the economic reasons – power groups like the bail bond companies and commissary vendors are obviously looking to make a profit. So what are the ideological reasons?

When we look at prison populations (whether private or public), we can see where mass incarceration gets its impetus. The vast majority of prisoners are New Afrikans, Chican@s, and peoples of the First Nations (even though euro-Amerikkkans are the majority of the U.$. population). The prison is not a revenue racket, but an instrument of social control. The motivating factor is domination, not exploitation.

If we’re following the money though, then we need look at how spending breaks down. Wagner and Rabuy present the division of costs as: the judicial and legal costs, policing expenditures, civil asset forfeiture, bail fees, commissary expenditures, telephone call charges, “public correction agencies” (like public employees and health care), construction costs, interest payments, and food and utility costs.

The authors outline their methodology for arriving at their statistics and admit that “[t]here are many items for which there are no national statistics available and no straightforward way to develop a national figure from the limited state and local data.”(1) Despite these obvious weaknesses in obtaining concrete reliable data, the overwhelming analysis stands.

Wagner and Rabuy discuss the private prison industry at the end of the article. Here, they write:

“To illustrate both the scale of the private prison industry and the critical fact that this industry works under contract for government agencies — rather than arresting, prosecuting, convicting and incarcerating people on its own — we displayed these companies as a subset of the public corrections system.”(1)

As was argued in “MIM(Prisons) on U.S. Prison Economy”, “[i]f prison labor was a gold mine for private profiteers, then we would see corporations of all sorts leading the drive for more prisons.”(2)

In light of this, the injustice system in the United $tates and the prisons (both private and public) are used by the government to oppress national minorities. And the government is rewarded with enthusiasm and renewed vigor by white Amerikkkans, who goose-step into formation with ecstasy when racist politicians like Donald Trump go on about being “tough on crime”.

MIM Thought stresses the focus on imperialism both inside and outside the United $nakes. The network of prisons is no exception – imperialism here functions as a method of control by Amerikkkans of oppressed nations. As the statistics presented by Wagner and Rabuy clearly demonstrate, there is no “Prison Industrial Complex.” There is a systematic attempt to destroy individuals, communities, and nations.(4)

I was recently informed of your publication Under Lock & Key and would like to receive it. I would also like to receive your Texas Pack. For the second time I am aware of TDCJ employees who have used the excuse that uniform commercial code (UCC) is contraband to confiscate prisoners trust property of all kinds. Also, they commit theft of legal notes and commercial study materials and write disciplinary charges resulting in placement into medium and closed custody. Their actions are in violation of the First Amendment and in dishonor of court decisions:

Walter Jones v. Michigan DOC Patricia Caruso et al, 2007 Dist Ct Lexus 72469 Case No. 05-CV-72817-DT

Walter Jones Plaintiff Appelle v. Patricia Caruso et al Def. Appellant 569 F 3d 258 2009 U.S. app. Lexis 13371; 2009 Fed U.S. Ct of app 6 th Circ. No. 05-72817

The following case was from TDCJ Ellis Uni, therefore they are aware of their actions: Harry Kerley v W. Stephens, Civ No H-14 Case 4:14-CV-03491, 2015

From this list of what was taken from me I think you will agree there has been a violation. Step 1 and 2 grievances are useless, just as they were in the Kerly incident and many others. I believe we need a class action law suit. Can you provide information on this or perhaps some legal specialist contacts.

Per usual in these instances of theft the TDCJ officers are acting under “color of law” by using govt forms declaring the property taken as UCC related materials however they do not provide itemized lists of what exactly they have taken.

I am writing to you to let you know how things are in Texas and their mistreatment of minorities and indigents in the criminal justice system. The right to an indictment is no longer a right anymore. If you are charged with a criminal offense and if you are indigent and a minority, you will be approached by an attorney outside the court room he will lie and say he is appointed by the court, even though statute states your right to an attorney under the 6 th amendment starts upon indictment in Texas unless waived. But these lawyers force you in trial court by producing a fabricated indictment that was not returned by any grand jury. And these judges and DA are sentencing you to their slave camps.

There is no way a person without funds can defend themselves these lawyers are paid by the court, even if you tell them you want to defend yourself the judges won’t even let you do that, they try to force you into a jury trial and the case isn’t capital, they have the jury already picked out you can’t win.

I’ve been getting messed with quite often since 12 March 2016, when an officer J. Russell let an inmate from another yard onto mine. He assaulted another prisoner, tried to assault me, the gunner shot at me but hit the other prisoner and I got drenched in pepper spray. Grivances are being arbitrarily rejected having to do with falsification of documents (the incident reports).