Federal Prisons

I was assaulted at Beto Unit in Oct of 2016 and was caused serious bodily injury resulting in being shipped to UTMB in Galveston by ambulance, a four hour ride. I had multiple facial and skull fractures. It is now February and I’ve been moved around to different units and my jaw is still broken and the solution is to put me on a diet so as I don’t have to chew.

I have been written up for refusing to work due to physical discomfort and pain as a result of the assault and broken jaw. I have been placed on restrictions and placed in segregation. Not to mention loss of rec time and line class. I feel that I have a good case against the state, I just don’t know where or how to start.

The state also “lost” and “accidentally” destroyed some of my property. I have written grievances on this and I’m waiting for a response. We are not allowed to send out stamps or stamped envelopes anymore so I understand if the help you can give me is limited. Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thanks you for your time and consideration.

Conditions on Eastham are horrible. It’s very old and dirty. The pipe chases are infested with rats! They live in the hollow area of our toilets where they fight and breed all night! The black mold and dust in the pipe chase has also spawned a lot of upper-respiratory infections in prisoners here. There is absolutely NO oversight or accountability.

Frequently the Estelle living areas, recreation yards, dining rooms, etc. are inundated with a maloderous, gaseous vapor that causes a burning sensation of the throat and lungs, difficulty breathing, resulting in a persistent cough. I randomly polled 25 prisoners from the general population and it was unanimous – they all confirmed the noxious gas and resulting symptoms.

It is my intention to submit to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality a joint letter from Estelle prisoners complaining of this environmental contamination. I have had some prior dealings with the TCEQ. They’re bullshit. But it is the place to start.

TCEQ is for some inexplicable reason not listed in the legal directory found in the prison so-called law library. I submitted a request to the unit Access to Courts (ATC) Supervisor requesting TCEQ’s address. Though answering this request was well within the ATC Supervisor’s responsibilites and duties, Estelle ATC directed me to contact TDCJ ATC central. Which I did to no avail! I also requested the address from the unit mailroom supervisor. I have yet to receive a response.

I have almost died by negligence of the prison officials for my serious medical needs. One officer made the statement that “he’s just an inmate, I don’t care if he dies in front of a nurse and 59 other inmates,” which he also said it was not his problem. He did not want to call medical as the nurse told him to do, which he finally did after about 20 minutes of her yelling at him. I was took to medical unconscious and the nurse said later that she thought I was dead, when she came to medical. I woke up with a IV in my arm.

They keep our unit so cold we have to sleep in all our clothes and coat to stay warm.

Regarding the question of united front alliances with white nationalist groups, there are pros and cons to working with other groups. I have been writing to MIM(Prisons) for a few years now and enjoy reading ULK. I am pretty much my own one-man army. I do not ask others to do things I will not do myself.

I am in a Federal Penitentiary in Tuscon, Arizona. This is a sex offender, gang drop out, Protective Custody yard. I am not here by choice. I am a registered sex offender for indecent exposure in a bar. Even though charges were dropped I was forced to register and now I am still fighting that case in the state. I am in Federal prison for charges that were unrelated to the state charge. This yard does not have politics that other yards have. We still have politics, but not to the extreme. The chow hall is racially segregated but a man can sit wherever he wants. The point I’m trying to get at is I could leave this yard and go back to an active yard most likely and get killed for being a registered sex offender even though the charges were dropped. That’s politics. Now there is a lot of sex offenders and homosexuals, rats, and dropouts. Everyone is here for a reason. I have been on active yards and a lot of times, in fact most of the time, a person is putting his life on the line for someone who is just a piece of shit or a dope fiend. I no longer use dope and do not use dope in prison.

I grew up in the west from Montana to Arizona in the heart of the Aryan nation, an enforcer for the Aryan Brotherhood with the old saying if it ain’t white it ain’t right. I was a blind kid but a good soldier. At 41 years old I am now my own man. I have never left my brothers but I no longer fight that fight of hatred. There are pros and cons to working with other groups.

I have a question: are there no Maoists who are sex offenders or snitches? Do the Maoists choose to work with other groups or try to convert other groups to Maoism? It is one thing to work with a different group to achieve the same goal. I am an individual in a group and my goals as an individual are not always the same goals as the group. My goal is freedom from an oppressive corrupt government and it does not matter whether it is the USA or Russia, oppression is oppression, corruptness is corruptness and this should be stopped. We all belong to different groups, even the groups that feel the need to oppress others.

The enemy of my enemy is my ally. United Front for Peace!

This is no longer about politics or what group a person belongs to. I am an independent Aryan Brother and I support the Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons and the struggle of incarcerated people. (I do not like to use the word inmate or convict or any other word for prisoner that is used to take a person’s personal power. These words make people feel powerless, hopeless, and this is not true.) We are people, humans. We have families, friends, just like everyone else.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This is an interesting letter about united fronts because it comes from someone representing two of the groups that we are often told to never ally with, and ey raises questions from the other side. First on the question of sex offenders, this writer demonstrates why trusting the state’s label of “sex offender” is as bad as trusting the state’s label of “criminal.” We must decide for ourselves which individuals are allies and which are enemies.

On the question of white nationalists and allies, this writer still runs with eir group but apparently has significant disagreements with them if ey also supports ULK and MIM(Prisons). This is an excellent example of uniting all who can be united against the criminal injustice system. We know that the Aryan Brotherhood is fundamentally opposed to the liberation of oppressed nations. Just as the Communist Party of China knew that the Kuomindang was fundamentally opposed to communism. But in China before the revolution was successful, there was an opportunity to build an alliance against Japanese imperialism, the principal contradiction at the time. And we have a similar opportunity to build an alliance against the criminal injustice system within prisons. While certainly a smaller scale than the united front in China, our common enemy in prisons offers the opportunity for alliances with groups that will, in other battles, be our enemy. And it’s also possible we will win over some folks from these groups who, like this writer, believe that “oppression is oppression…and this should be stopped.”

This comrade mentions Russia, perhaps as a random example. But talking about Russia and oppression is becoming a hot-button topic in the United $tates today. This anti-Russia fervor is, as always, tied up with Amerikan nationalism. It is being used to attack the current Trump regime in a way that threatens the world with inter-imperialist and even nuclear war. Russia was once part of the Soviet Union, which under Lenin and Stalin was socialist. But after Stalin died in 1952 the country moved quickly to take up state capitalism. And capitalism is a system that thrives on oppression and corruption. But the anti-Russia revival in the United $tates should not be mistaken for anti-imperialism, rather it is nationalist rallying for the biggest most dangerous imperialist power in the world – the United $nakes.

The work of MIM(Prisons) through Under Lock & Key is invaluable to those of us searching for tools, methods and means for motivating the stagnant prison masses or even segments of the prison population. Because the work is informative and an avenue of outside support it is inspirational. Many of these individuals share very little mutual interests that motivate their actions except for their greed. Thus, to be able to spread a common literature throughout the cells and blocks is a basic unifying instructive instrument. The same way as prisoners are brought together to socialize by pop-culture media, I’ve seen that Under Lock & Key has the same potential.

Talking to egotistical and materialistic people is less effective than giving them material to absorb themselves without being defensive and having the need to assert themselves. But what adds to the effectiveness of the material is if it is wide spread it becomes more of a persuasive cultural influence. Because in a disorganized and dysfunctional state like Indiana basic buddy-cliques are dominant, the most effective way to stir the population as a whole is to infuse these buddy-cliques with the seeds they can use to grow. The material can be used to inject enthusiasm, but that enthusiastic fervor will subside and when it does individuals’ adolescent tendencies will re-emerge because the ideas were never owned by the individuals. However, by quietly distributing the material and leaving individuals to ponder the ideas alone, they’ll begin to own the ideas and the adolescent displays of rebelliousness for public demonstration are never given the chance to receive the reward of public attention; things will be based on substance.

Here I simply note the power of media and the need to use it to create and influence cultural ideas within cell blocks and prisons. There is a single source where the vast numbers of prisoners receive their ideas about society and what punishment should be. That source is drawn from the well of those who punish them. If we can use Under Lock & Key and MIM(Prisons) and United Struggle From Within efforts to become a source of pop-culture throughout cell blocks and create a new culture in prison that replaces the disorganization and dysfunction we’ll be on the way to influencing the larger society.

I would like to address the question if there should be a united front alliance with white nationalist groups.

I am all for aligning with other groups who face oppression and who share the same goals. When it comes to white nationalist groups first a few things must be clarified. First question is who and what is “white.” White is scientifically not a racial group. Also do whites in prison and the world face the same systematic oppression as people of color? Lastly looking at history how has interactions between whites and people of color effected the non-white groups in a positive way?

The question on “who and what is white?” has an elusive answer especially right here in the United $tates. Since 1790, the United $tates has allowed only “free white persons” to become citizens; in the twentieth century as non-European immigrants applied for citizenship it became the responsibility of the courts to set limits upon whiteness. George Dow, a Syrian immigrant, was denied eligibility for citizenship on the basis that geography defined race; to be white was to be European. Dow eventually won on appeal, showing that Syrians were indeed Europeans based on geography and thus members of the white race. In 1922, a Japanese immigrant named Takao Ozawa argued that he should be considered a white person because his skin was literally white, asserting that many Japanese people were “whiter than the average Italian, Spaniard, or Portuguese.” His case would go all the way to the Supreme Court, which rejected his claim to citizenship and the idea that race could be determined by skin tone: “To adopt the color test alone would result in a confused overlapping of races and a gradual merging of one into the other, without any practical line of separation,” claimed one judge.

Using the science of the day, the court ruled that “the words ‘white person’ are synonymous with the words ‘a person of the Caucasian race’.” Since Ozawa was not a Caucasion, he could not be white. In only a short time later, in the case of an Indian immigrant named Bhagat Singh Thind, the Supreme Court betrayed its Ozawa ruling and declared that while all whites are Caucasian, not all Caucasians were white. Even scientists classified Thind as undeniably Caucasian, but the court insisted that “White” must mean something more. “It may be true that the blond Scandinavian and the brown Hindu have a common ancestor in the dim reaches of antiquity, but the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences between them today.” To prove his purity, Thind invoked the Aryanist myth of ancient white conquerors setting up the caste system to preserve their race. “The high-class Hindu” he argued, “regards the aboriginal Indian mongoloid in the same manner as the American regards the negro.” With all that Thind was denied citizenship. Within the category of “Caucasian,” the court noted one could find a wide range of peoples including South Asians, Polynesians, and even the Hamites of Africa based upon their Caucasian cast of features, though in color they range from brown to black. For reasons not articulated the court decided Thind was not white, and therefore not granted privileges of the white empire.

That the Supreme Court could reject a white-skinned Japanese because he was not Caucasian and a brown-skinned Caucasian because he was not white reveals that white people have made race what it has always been: an unscientific and inconsistent means of enforcing social inequality that further rules the machines of global white supremacy. This machine is what gives birth to capitalism and imperialism and other oppressive factions. So basically whiteness is whatever white people say it is. So by white nationalist groups even identifying themselves as white places them in a privileged position in the global white supremacy machine. It is no secret why someone would want to identify as “white,” especially in the United $tates where there is undeniably a caste system based on skin color. With whiteness comes privilege and a sense of entitlement. Yes, I know there are white comrades who are being oppressed also but it is not solely based on their skin color or ethnic group. They are basically collateral damage of the capitalistic and imperialistic system that comes from global white supremacy. White people make up around 11% of the world’s population yet at least 82% of the world’s population is in some fashion being oppressed by the global white supremacy machine. Are white nationalist groups really ready to give up their whiteness to stand for true revolution even if that means in the process whiteness will no longer exist?

History shows that those of us who fight for revolution have aligned ourselves with white groups and white individuals who claim they seek change too. In the midst of this, problems usually occurred. Most notably is with William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison, a white man, can be labeled as a true revolutionist of his time. As an abolitionist he spoke out against slavery and demanded full racial equality even before the Civil War. He also publicly burned the U.$. constitution, calling it an “agreement with hell.” Garrison seemed like the white nationalist who wanted to join the fight but he still couldn’t escape his sense of privilege and superiority. This moment came when Frederick Douglass, Garrison’s protégé, told Garrison that he wanted to start a newspaper. Garrison, fearful that Douglass would draw black readers away from his own paper and hurt that Douglass would even think of competing against him, discouraged the plan. Another white abolitionist in Garrison’s camp, Maria Weston Chapman, even doubted Douglass could have the mental capacity for such a task. Douglass went ahead and started his newspaper which ended his friendship with Garrison. Garrison, though he wanted to help, could not see that the revolution was not about him but about the millions of people being oppressed. He still had to be a white guy about the whole situation. He took his sense of privilege and entitlement and wanted to discourage another in his attempt to add to the cause. So can white nationalist groups align themselves with the United Front without trying to make the fight solely about their ego? Can the United Front hold the fight when aligned with white nationalist groups without having fear of offending white people when truths are spoken against capitalism, imperialism and global white supremacy when it puts the collective of white people in a negative light?

Lastly how have groups who are predominately non-white benefited in the past when coming into contact with whites? Historically the relationship between non-whites and whites has been one of colonization, genocide, slavery, imperialism, and destruction. Though all non-white groups and cultures did not live in idyllic golden ages before the coming of white people, these elements weren’t consistent, nor were they typical, until the advent of white culture domination. This has been the consistent relationship of white people with the world. So history shows the consistent nature of white people when coming in contact of non-white people has been one of predatory and exploitative relationships.

Now some will say I’m being racist by stating these facts but consider the fact that people of “hue” hence humans have been the most tolerant and accepting people you’ll ever encounter (sometimes to our detriment) and this premise of exclusion came from white people themselves. It is only us who are confused about where they stand. Now yes there are those white individuals and groups who attempt to confront and resist these norms. Those who have attempted to do so in earnest have learned these lessons the hard way. White people who actively resist whiteness (and all of its norms) are out-casted, disowned, and reviled by other members of their own groups. This is what defines the community and collective identity and not the individuals who know that “treason to whiteness is loyalty to humanity.”

So can white nationalist groups abandon their whiteness and sense of privilege? If so then yes United Front can align with them in some fashion. Based on historic events it should be controlled and constantly evaluated. Also whites need not to hold hands with us and smile but reach in their own communities and take the fight to their own who actively and by default participate in the global white supremacy machine which governs capitalism and imperialism.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this comrade that to identify with whiteness is to identify with an oppressor nation, and we therefore say that Amerikans must commit nation (as well as class and gender) suicide through their actions, in order to join the side of humynity.

The example given of Garrison and Douglass is a fine anecdote, but it is just an example of a couple of people. So we would caution our readers to not draw broad conclusions from isolated examples. And there are books out there, like Settlers: The Mythology of a White Proletariat by J. Sakai and False Nationalism, False Internationalism by Sera and Tani that do broader historical analysis of the relationships between the oppressed nations in the United $tates and various groups of “revolutionary” or “progressive” whites.

Both of those books are looking at imperialism, or at least its emergence in the United $tates. Imperialism’s identity is found in the conflict between the oppressor nations and the oppressed nations that resist them. While ideas of superiority based on phenotypical characteristics (appearance) certainly did not originate with imperialism, it is with imperialism that nation becomes principal. Therefore, we would reverse the author’s premise that the “[machine of global white supremacy] is what gives birth to capitalism and imperialism and other oppressive factions.” Marx and Lenin explained the evolution of imperialism on economic terms, while the culture and ideas that came with it were a reflection of those economic changes. In other words, which came first, racism or capitalism? There were seeds of racism before imperialism, but national oppression (the material manifestation of racism) solidified as a system under the economic conditions of imperialism. The ideas of racism, so central to our society, are a product of this system of national oppression that evolved with imperialism, not the cause of it.

In the struggle against white supremacy, capitalism, and imperialism, a united front does not require agreement on every position, or even for all parties to “stand for true revolution.” In the context of the prison movement, white nationalists might be serious about the struggle against long-term isolation because their leaders are very likely to face this torture. In this case, we’d suggest we should unite with these groups to work on that campaign. In this issue of ULK we have some examples in which such temporary alliances for common interests as prisoners have succeeded.

The question of how oppressor nation and oppressed nation revolutionaries should relate in this country is a whole other question brought up by this comrade. We will only address it briefly to bring up some general points for further analysis. The urge to unite with white people in the United $tates is a recurring theme due to the fact that the white nation has been a majority population by design since the founding of this country, and it’s hard to fight battles as the minority. As we know, those numbers are projected to change in the not-so-distant future. But even when euro-Amerikans become the minority, will most oppressed nation people be anti-imperialist? In current conditions they are not, though great potential remains. As we are currently in a non-revolutionary situation, we think it is a reasonable organizing strategy to avoid white people and white organizations altogether. There are plenty of oppressed nation people yet to be organized, and single-nation organizations have proven most effective in U.$. history at building revolutionary movements.

As conditions become more revolutionary, if forces in favor of revolution remain the minority in all nations in the United $tates, those who avoided whites before may be tempted to address this issue again. The Panthers organized with euro-Amerikans from a position of strength, so that they largely avoided those euro-Amerikans harming their movement, especially in the early years. Yet, Huey Newton found New Afrikans in a position of weakness due to their minority status that led to his proposal of the theory of intercommunalism. Fred Hampton’s Rainbow Coalition and Huey Newton’s Intercommunalism demonstrate a strong tendency in the Panther leadership to approach euro-Amerikans as potential allies in the anti-imperialist united front similar to how they approached other nations.

From Malcolm X to Stokely Carmichael to the Panthers, New Afrikan revolutionaries have pushed whites to organize their own. But how do they do that? Some white organizations tried to mimic the Panthers, but this was only viable in small pockets of lumpenized whites. Other groups have provided support structures to oppressed nations, where the focus is on organizing whites to serve other nations. But we need something in between, where white people can be leaders, applying and learning from the scientific method of building a revolutionary movement, but at the same time serving other nations in ways that are against the interest of their own. We don’t think whites can organize on the same basis as the Panthers, because they are on the opposite side of the principal contradiction. But we also don’t think relegating whites to the kitchen is allowing them to develop politically, and is therefore setting back progress. This could be done on the basis of accountability and self-criticism. It could also incorporate shared self-interest in opposing environmental destruction and war. But a truly revolutionary current among euro-Amerikans will likely not gain much traction until the oppressed nations have progressed the struggle to a stage that is more advanced than it is today.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness–That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufference of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present [government] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.” (1)

Underlying the Eighth Amendment is a fundamental premise that prisoners are not to be treated as less than human beings. (2) The amendment is phrased in general terms rather than specific ones so that while the underlying principle remains constant in its essentials, the precise standards by which courts measure compliance with it do not. (3) “It follows that when confronting the question whether penal confinement in all its dimensions is consistent with constitutional rule, the courts judgment must be informed by the current and enlightened scientific opinion as to the conditions necessary to insure good physical and mental health for prisoners.” (4)

“The content of the Eighth Amendment is not static but must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society. The Eighth Amendment’s ban on inflicting cruel and unusual punishments, made applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment, proscribe[s] more than physically barbarous punishments. It prohibits penalties that are grossly disproportionate to the offense, as well as those that transgress today’s broad and idealistic concepts of dignity, civilized standards, humanity, and decency. (5)” Thus, conditions which may have been acceptable long ago may be considered unnecessarily cruel in light of our growing understanding of human needs and the changing norms of our society.” (6) “The conditions of which prisoners are housed, like the poverty line, is a function of society’s standard of living. As that standard rises, the standard of minimum decency of prison conditions, like the poverty line, rises too.” (7)

The State of Georgia’s Department of Corrections (GDC), a subdivision of the Georgia Government, has fairly recently implemented a statewide long-term segregation program officially labeled the Tier II Administrative Segregation Program (Tier II Program), initially devised and sanctioned by former GDC commissioner, Brian Owens, revised and further developed by the current GDC Commissioner, Homer Bryson, and codified under formal Departmental policy as Standard Operating Procedure II B09-0003 (Hereafter “Tier II Program Policy”). The totality of the practices characterizing confinement in the Tier II Program encroaches upon practically every civil right retained by prisoners by virtue of the state and federal constitutions, and amount to a collection of punitive procedures calculated to inflict severe physical and/or mental pain or suffering and constitutes TORTURE in violation of federal statutory law (8), as well as deliberate TORTURE perpetrated under color of official authority in violation of universally accepted norms of the international law of human rights, i.e., the law of nations.

The general restrictions of confinement conditions typifying a prisoner’s confinement in the Tier II Program include mandated solitary confinement (9) for twenty-four hours a day; the utilization of isolation cells (akin to sensory deprivation (10) tanks) intentionally stripped of their furnishings (including even the wall-mounted mirrors so that the prisoner is deprived of the sight of his own reflection); the deprivation of virtually all human contact and environmental or sensory stimuli due to not only the prisoner’s solitary confinement, but also the metal strips welded to the window on the doors of the cell in the Tier II Program housing units and metal coverings over the windows located at the back of those cells which are intended to prevent the prisoner from being able to see outside the cell itself, the limitations on phone calls and visitations (all visits for Tier II situated prisoners are non-contact), the denial of access to group religious worship services, the general and law libraries, educational and vocational programs, televisions, radios and other information dissemination medium, and the restrictions on any personal photos, books of any nature, magazines, newspapers, periodicals, religious literature, educational and legal materials, etc. Moreover, a prisoner, upon being assigned to the tier II program, is also denied all access to the prison commissary, including the ability to purchase hygiene related items, and is deprived of virtually all of his personal property. And Tier II situated prisoners are subjected to extreme, harrassive, if not absurd, security measures.

For example, prisoners in the Tier II Program are, with increasing frequencies, being made to strip completely naked whenever they’re required to leave their cells for any reason, such as for a brief trip to the in-house medical unit, or to be escorted to the shower. Once naked, they are then instructed to turn their back to instructor, bend forward at the waist “at a ninety degree angle,” reach backward–while still bent forward–and spread their buttocks apart so as to provide the instructor with a view of the inside of their rectum. Refusal usually results in a brutal assault involving various uses of force (e.g. physical, chemical agents, tasers/stun guns); it always results in the denial of some basic human necessity and right, such as showers or opportunities for out-of-cell exercise. And when such incidents occur, prisoners are afterwards denied the proper mediums through which the report these nature of abuses.

Now, to return from our digression, a prisoner’s assignment to the Tier II Program–and, therefore, his subjection to the conditions and restrictions by which his confinement in Tier II Program housing units is characterized–is of indefinite duration. We deduce this not only from personal experience, but because the Tier II Program Policy has, throughout its existence, contained a clause limiting a prisoner’s assignment to the Tier II Program to 24 months maximum. However, the latest revision–in fact, the third revision–of the Tier II Program Policy excludes this proviso. The nullification of this stipulation is, indeed, the only change in the latest “revision” of Tier II Program Policy; everything else remained the same verbatim from the second revised version.

Tier II Program Policy explicitly states that the Tier II Program “is not a punitive measure.” (11) however, this same Tier II Program Policy squarely contradicts that statement revealing that prisoners are assigned to Tier II Program “for long-term disciplinary sanctions.” (12) Therefore, although it is dubbed “administrative segregation”–which, in legal theory, isn’t supposed to be punitive in nature (13)–the Tier II Program is actually punitive isolation, or, euphemistically, disciplinary segregation. We suppose it worth mentioning here that the restrictions and conditions characterizing confinement in the Tier II Program are significantly more severe in degree than those characterizing the punitive measures defined by the GDC as “disciplinary segregation” and “high max”, and admittedly employed by it as a means to discipline or otherwise punish prisoners.

The Tier II Program is also, in word and practice, a compulsory behavior modification (14) program. (15) Upon placement of a prisoner in a Tier II Program housing unit, that prisoner is isolated, stripped all personal property, deprived of virtually all contact with other people and environmental or sensory stimuli, and not allowed any reading material, including religious materials. It is under these circumstances that positive and negative reinforcements are applied on the prisoner to recondition his “behavior” and “attitude” to be submissive and subservient towards his captors. This procedure goes on for as long as necessary until the prisoner “breaks”. Of course, the prisoner is subject for reconditioning any time the prisoner authorities may feel they are losing cognitive influence over the brainwashed “inmate”. And the language of the Tier II Program Policy clearly indicates that if a prisoner refuses to participate in this dehumanizing ordeal, he will never be considered by prison authorities for reassignment to the general prison population. (16) Additionally, in the Tier II Program, practically all privileges–most of which are available to prisoners in the general population as a matter of right–are allocated on the basis of their behavior.

With regard to the process by which prisoners are assigned to the Tier II Program, the Tier II Program Policy’s own procedural safeguards, the observance of which is mandated by the policy before a prisoner can be assigned to the Tier II Program, are, in our experience, never followed. This means that prisoners’ assignment to the Tier II Program are based on the arbitrary and capricious whim of prison officials to begin with, and are, consequently, violative of the “touchstone” of due process, which is protection of the individual against arbitrary action of government. (17) We do not hereby imply by pointing out this deficiency that, if procedural safeguards were being observed by prison officials, we would be of the opinion that the state of Georgia would then be authorized to subject its prisoners to type of treatment described herein–and indefinitely at that. It is well-settled by this country’s highest legal institution–the Supreme Court of the United States–that certain forms of punishment are considered cruel and an unusual without regard to the conduct for which they are imposed. (18) Thus, “[i]t is not enough to cite a prisoner’s history of misconduct and conclude that any measure of restraint is appropriate. Even recalcitrant prisoners are entitled to the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities. The question is whether even inspite of misconduct, the deprivation does so much harm to a prisoner that it is intolerable to the sensibilities of a civilized society no matter what the circumstances.” (19)

We have so far labored to paint for you as objective a picture as we could concerning the general restrictions and confinement conditions to which the state of Georgia subjects, at any given time, a considerable portion of its prisoner population, and to which the remainder of that populace may, at any time, be subjected based, again, on the arbitrary and capricious whim of prison authorities, restrictions and confinement conditions that, when taken together, unquestionably constitute punishment beyond the original, ordinary, incarceration of prisoners in the Georgia Prison system. We’ve said nothing of the other many and diverse cruelties and inhumanities tacitly endorsed, sponsored, and perpetrated in Tier II housing units statewide by an acquiescent state of Georgia, such as the intentional denial of adequate portions of nutritional foods to Tier II situated prisoners as a punitive measure of attempting to modify their behavior through systematic starvation; the excessive vermin infestation in already decrepit Tier II housing units and shower areas; the punitive, retaliatory, and harrassive use of “stripped cell” (20); the inadequate provision of medical care; the general degrading, demeaning, and dehumanizing day to day treatment of prisoners by prison authorities; the punitive, retaliatory, malicious, sadistic, or otherwise unjustified various uses of force (several of which are noted above) being carried out, with impunity, by rogue correctional officers acting under the aegis of both supervisory and administrative prison officials–and we could go on. But our primary intent at this point in our discussion is to reveal that, in addition to the intrinsic egregiousness of the Tier II Program practices, these conditions starkly contrast with those experienced by prisoners in the general prisoner population.

Extolled by Commissioner Bryson as the Tier II Program’s ultimate objective, the goal of “preparing [prisoners] for reentry into society.” (21) To say that it should be difficult for any rational, civilized mind to conceive of how refusing to allow prisoners to possess photos of their loved ones–and, in the instance of some prisoners, indefinitely–relates in any way to this stated objective would be an understatement, especially when considering the reality that the bulk of prisoners do not even receive visitation due to the discouraging Tier II Program visitation policies. (22) And what can be said of a system that refuses to allow prisoners to possess religious literature?

Prisoners “rehabilitation” has been identified by the Supreme court as a “legitimate” function of a correctional system. (23) It is, in our collective opinion, clear that prisoners required to live under the circumstances expounded herein stand no chance of leaving a correctional institution (24) with a more positive and constructive attitude than the one they brought in. Since the advent of prisoner civil rights litigation, courts in general have repeatedly found that conditions much less severe than the totality of those described herein not only shocks the conscience of reasonably civilized people and offends in a fundamental way contemporary standards of decency, but create an environment that not only makes it impossible for prisoners to rehabilitate themselves but makes dehabilitation inevitable, as well as contributes to their mental and physical degeneration and decreases their chances of successful reintegration upon release. And because in the Tier II Program so many basic aspects of a prisoner’s daily life are arbitrarily labeled “privileges,” the Tier II Program actually breeds disrespect for authority and fosters a malicious compliance which undermines the relational skills needed for rehabilitation. “Not only is it cruel and unusual punishment to confine a person in an institution under circumstances which increase the likelihood of future confinement, but these same conditions defeat the goal of rehabilitation which officials have set for their institutions.” (25)

In the light of the foregoing, what the Tier II Program irrefutably amounts to is a collection of procedures that effectively operate to create societal liabilities of men in a country that propagates to the rest of the world at large that its aggregate citizenry constitutes a “maturing society”.

The several definitions of “tyranny” include “cruel and oppressive government or rule; a nation under such cruel and oppressive government; [and/or] cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary use of power or control.” (26) A “tyrant” can be defined as “a cruel and oppressive ruler, [or] a person exercising power or control in a cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary way.” Some of the many definitions of “official” include “of or relating to an authority or public body and its duties, actions, and responsibilities; having the approval or authorization of such a body; [and/or] employed by such a body in a position of authority or trust.” (26)

And one of the several definitions of “public” includes “of or provided by the government….” (26) And, according to the Declaration of Independence, the government of this country derives its power from the consent of the governed. (1) Because, as noted above, the judiciary of this country–including the highest judicial authority in the land–are more or less in unanimous agreement that the confinement conditions outlined in this dissertation–singly in some instances, collectively in others–constitutes cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the United States Constitution, this same judiciary has by virtue of its authoritative, decisive holdings condemned as tyrants those public officials employed by the GDC who are perpetrating these unconstitutional conditions as a matter of regulation and practice, and the Georgia government itself as one of Tyranny–the quintessential form of government that preceded the American Revolution and, consequently, the establishment of the United States of America, for that tyranny was intolerable to the founding fathers of this country.

The question which must unavoidably be posed at this point is: Are we men, or are we property; are we men, or are we something less than animals? Even an animal, kept as a pet, must legally be afforded the “minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities.” If the owner of that animal neglects to do so, he or she stands in violation of the law of this country, and is subject to the penalties concomitant with being adjudicated a criminal, including up to imprisonment. Of how much more valuable–of how much more worth–is sentient, thinking man? And as for those who are not presently incarcerated–including those who never have been–keep in mind that, as inhabitants of this country, you all, too, by that very fact may, at any given time, potentially be susceptible to some form of the type of treatment described herein.

The supreme court said of Nineteenth Century solitary confinement that “[a] considerable number of prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others still, committed suicide; while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and those in most cases did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community.” (27) The pertinent ruling went on to reveal that as far back as the 1850s the prison discipline of solitary confinement was “found to be too severe”. (27) Even as far back as Great Britain’s George II (1683-1760), solitary confinement was statutorily considered as an additional punishment of such a severe kind that it was spoken of as “a further terror and peculiar mark of infamy” to be added to the punishment of death. (28) In Great Britain, as in other countries, public sentiment revolted against this severity, and during the reign of William IV (1830-7) the additional punishment of solitary confinement was repealed. (28)

If, during the particular period in man’s history when public lynchings were sanctioned by the state, the punishment of solitary confinement was considered intolerable to the sensibilities of the society of those days, how is it, then, we find ourselves well into the Twenty-First Century and solitary confinement is not only being rampantly promulgated across the nation as the ideal means of discipline within the correctional context, but those being thrown into these meticulously designed psychological torture chambers are being kept there indefinitely? Is it that the authoritative power of the supreme court’s gavel is waning? Or is this cancerous spread of the use of solitary confinement–and the multifarious tortuous practices associated therewith–by prison authorities nationwide are simply the natural result of a contemporary American regime that displays, by the increasing audaciousness of its day to day activities, its insolent disregard for both civil and human rights of its nationwide citizenry?

Even if we were to presume, in yet another alternative, that the living conditions and the overall treatment to which the State of Georgia is currently subjecting its prisoners confined in Tier II Program housing units do parallel with the “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society,” such a view would, for reasons already explained above, be inherently contradictory, and, therefore, wholly untenable; for how can the contemporary society of this country on the one hand embrace forms of punishment that were publicly condemned by the society of this very country as early as approximately two centuries ago, and on the other hand still be afforded the high esteem of being considered a “maturing society” marked by “evolving standards of decency”?

Our intent, in composing this letter, is simply to appeal to humanity for both a definition and appraisal of itself. For, based on our collective perspective, far too much time has elapsed since the last time in this land that age-old nemesis of man–that leviathan known as Tyranny–was sternly confronted and called to account by the people for the myriad injustices with which it is infamously known to plague the various human societies, almost incessantly. (May the courageous souls of the patriarchs of this country forever rest in peace!) It has not been our intent to attempt to cast ourselves in the light of the blameless; for we are humans with just as many shortcomings as any other human. It is true we have been adjudicated “criminals” by the Georgia government–albeit the same of which itself has been shown herein to be tyrannical–but we are humans nonetheless.

The late Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, once opined:

In conclusion, “[p]ersons convicted of crimes deserved to be punished, but this does not give the state license to make prisoners objects of unguided behavior control experiments.” (30) This is because, as noted above at the onset of our discussion concerning Georgia’s treatment of its prisoners, underlying the Eighth Amendment is a fundamental premise that prisoners are not to be treated as less than human beings. (2)

We, the undersigned, are currently contesting our confinement conditions by means of the Federal Judiciary in the cases of Nolley v. Nelson, no. 5:15-CV-75-CAR(M.D.GA, Reid v. Bryson, no. 6:16-CV-116-JRH(S.D.GA), Grazeta v. Bryson, no. 6:16-CV-141-JRH(S.D.GA), and Quintanilla v. Bryson, no. 6:17-CV-4-JRH(S.D.GA), respectively. With the exception of Mr. Reid, we are all currently confined in the Tier II Program housing unit of Smith State Prison in Glennville, Georgia. (31)

Mail the petition to your loved ones and comrades inside who are experiencing issues with the grievance procedure. Send them extra copies to share! For more info on this campaign, click here.

Prisoners should send a copy of the signed petition to each of the addresses below. Supporters should send letters on behalf of prisoners.

Commissioner, NJ Dept of Corrections, Whittlesey Road, PO Box 863, Trenton, NJ 08625-0863

Chief Ombudsman/woman, NJDOC, PO Box 855, Trenton, NJ 08625-0855

US Dept of Justice, Civil Rights Div, 950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, PHB, Washington, DC 20530

And send MIM(Prisons) copies of any responses you receive!

MIM(Prisons), USW
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

I am writing to update you on comrades’ struggles against the Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC) grievance process. I have been fighting against the inmate grievance process as employed by the NDOC for over a year now. Last week, the caseworker came to my door and informed me that all of my grievances had been rejected as improper grievances due to a new Administrative Regulation (AR740) regarding grievances, which among other things states that:

1. Inmates cannot state more than one claim per grievance,
2. Inmates may file no more than a single grievance in any 7 day period,
3. Those who violate these rules will face disciplinary action.

On this date, the case worker had over 300 grievances which were denied as improper. The NDOC has implemented this revised AR740 to circumvent inmate grievances so that they do not have to address our concerns.

I, and others, will of course, continue our struggle against the NDOC grievance process. If you or anyone else has any ideas on a path we should take to get this issue to court, I would appreciate it.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We do have a Nevada grievance petition for use by prisoners to fight the violation of First Amendment rights based on the AR740 rules. We will need someone from Nevada to volunteer to re-write this petition to cite the updated rules. But the bigger problem is that these rules were changed to essentially limit the ability of prisoners to file grievances, which of course is required if we’re going to demand these grievances be addressed. This sounds like a case that needs to be taken to court, and perhaps would interest one of the legal advocacy organizations in Nevada. Short of that we are stuck fighting within their (arbitrary) rules.

This regulation change underscores our message that we’re not going to beat the criminal injustice system at their own game. We can sometimes use their own rules and laws to gain small victories, but in the end the courts and prisons are set up to perpetuate the injustice system. We can only win by organizing independent institutions and dismantling this system.

Write to us for a copy of the old Nevada grievance petition if you can help update it based on these new regulations.