Federal Prisons

A few years ago, former Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (PA DOC) Director Jeffrey Beard relocated to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). Director Beard was known for his tyrannical style of utilizing confinement and isolation for more sadistic than safety purposes, by increasing constantly the number of prisoners placed on the restricted release list (RRL). Once on this list, the only persyn who can finalize your release back to general population is the Governor of Pennsylvania. Beard, after seeing the practice of the California STG program, informed current PA DOC Director, John Wetzel, of these tactics of oppression, suppression and repression. In the summer of 2012 the Pennsylvania security threat group (STG) unit was started.

In Pennsylvania, a security threat group is any group of persyns who continuously ignore the department’s administrative rules, i.e. any unauthorized group activity. The word “group” is the concealing factor of the oppressive practices in place in the PA DOC. Members of religious “groups” such as Muslims, Jews, Moors, Nation of Islam, Nation of Gods & Earths, etc., are placed on the list of documented STGs violating the First Amendment right to freedom of religion and freedom of association. Members of political “groups” such as the New Afrikan Communists, New Afrikan Independence Movement, Black Liberation Army, etc. are placed on the list of documented STGs, violating the first amendment right to freedom of political identification and freedom of association.

Of approximately 175 captives brought to the Pennsylvania STG program, 95% (166) are of oppressed nation heritage. Out of this percentage, about 20 were actually told why they were abducted for the program, i.e. why they were labeled STG members, although the reasons were mostly untruthful and unjustifiable. There is no appeal process in place to combat placement in the program. There is no validation/assessment hearing or procedure in place to present your side of the alleged claims or bring forth any evidence or witnesses on your behalf. Those who do attempt to refuse this assignment are placed on RRL. In order to be released from there you have to agree to do the STG program (the same program you refused in the first place!).

The tactics employed here are quite surely the same as any other STG unit. Obstruction of correspondence (incoming and outgoing), no visits (unless earned through advancing in the program), no phone privileges (unless earned through advancing in the program), inadequate legal services and materials (unless earned through advancing in the program), thought police/Orwellian indoctrination and debriefing systems disguised as cognitive restructuring. Those who hold firm the belief this is an injustice are labeled as “in denial and unwilling to give up participation in group activity.” Those who express their opinions are titled as “thinking criminally” or using a “gang mentality.” The guidelines, procedures and policies governing the programs are restricted to the public. Instead a prisoner supplement handbook is issued to each captive which quite surely differentiates from the restricted policy.

Exercise, food, commissary and restraints are used as an enticement method as well as punishment. For example, you may hear a pig say “if you program, you won’t have to wear handcuffs.” Or “if you don’t complete the assignments you won’t be able to order commissary.” To increase the allure of these “privileges” they make contrasting practices as hard and uncomfortable as possible. They feed you next to nothing to increase hunger and craving for commissary. They make all movements restrained to add to the uncomfortability. This is all done in hopes of breaking your spirit or to make you “give in to the inevitable,” to quote a pig.

These are only a few of the ever-changing, ever-occurring issues here for myself and the komrades. There is a resistance to struggle not only for our liberties but for those who would come after us as an example of unity, komradery and solidarity in struggle.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We are seeing this STG classification used to target activists in Colorado, Maryland, North Carolina, Michigan, as well as California and no doubt many more states. While the development of STG programs is a sign of the strength of the oppressed nation organizations and political activists, it is also a dangerous tool of repression that we must expose and fight. Targetting prisoners for “group” or “gang” activity has long been an excuse to bring down oppression on those with the greatest interest and organization in fighting the criminal injustice system.

“The mission of the Institutional Division is to provide safe and appropriate confinement, supervision, rehabilitation, and reintegration of adult felons, and to effectively manage or administer correctional facilities based on constitutional and statutory standards” - Texas Government Code 494.001

For those of us housed within the prisons operated by the Texas Department of Criminal inJustice (TDCJ) we know this statement is nothing more than well-worded lies!

Recently the University of Texas - Human Rights Clinic came out with a report “Deadly Heat in Texas Prisons.” The report pretty much proves what many of the lumpen already know: conditions inside Texas prisons in the summer violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. TDCJ keeps telling the public they have policies in place to combat the heat. However, Brian McGiverin, a lawyer with the Texas Civil Rights Project, said during a news conference on the topic, “Fourteen inmate deaths are strong evidence the prison agency’s measures don’t do enough to beat the heat’s health risks.” He continued, “The response that their policies are adequate today is ridiculous.”

Senator John Whitmire, the chairman of the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee, had this to say on the topic: “But I can tell you, the people of Texas don’t want air-conditioned prisons, and there’s a lot of other things on my list above the heat.” The “other things” were education, health care, and rehabilitation programs, but never has this racist pontificator said he was committed to ceasing the senseless murder of Texas prisoners by TDCJ employees! Whitmire, who has been in the Texas senate over 30 years, continues to turn a blind eye to the systemic abuse and discrimination of prisoners housed in TDCJ facilities. We suffer from racial discrimination, religious discrimination, sexual assaults, vicious beatings and abuse, and Whitmire continues to play good ol’ boy politics.

For complaints on specific prison issues I found a strategy that’s been working. I’ve been having family members file Ombudsman complaints via email. They can file formal public complaints on a wide range of issues and these complaints must be placed online for the public to view. We have been experiencing a lot of success! All that PO Box 99 shit to Huntsville is a waste of paper and time. Do it online and put these assholes on Front Street.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This is just one example of the rampant abuse of prisoners in Texas and across the country, that is well documented and exposed in ULK and on our prisoncensorship.org website. But we aim to do more than just expose the brutality of the Amerikan criminal injustice system. Our goal is to organize and educate to make meaningful change. In the short term we fight battles like the campaign to have prisoners’ grievances addressed so that we can create better conditions for our comrades behind bars. But in the long term we know that no Amerikan politician is ever going to fundamentally change the system of injustice. It will take the oppressed joining together to demand change to put an end to imperialism before we can hope to end the criminal injustice system. Get involved in this long-term fight today!

The Brown vs. Beto consent decree was put in effect in 1977 and it provided a wide array of rules and policies geared toward destroying any obstacles to Texas prisoners’ right to practice Islam if they hoose. In 2012 under the auspices of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, TDCJ and the state of Texas petitioned the court in an effort to terminate Brown claiming they had policies in place which provided ample opportunities for Muslim prisoners to practice their faith. This was a lie and a ruse concocted by the racist oppressors to show onlookers an illusion of freedom. In reality, TDCJ has established rules and policies which infringe grossly upon Muslim prisoners’ right to practice. We are monitored as if we all are potential terrorists; our visitors and volunteers are harassed and overly scrutinized; TDCJ Correctional Officers regularly disrespect the Muslims and bait them in physical and verbal confrontations. This is the reality on the ground!

However, the main point Judge Hoyt made in his ruling was that TDCJ has purposely constructed rules which made it impossible for Muslims in Texas prisons to practice. Moreover, he stated the agency has established a practice throughout the system where they show preferential treatment to Christian prisoners while marginalizing, ridiculing, and obstructing Muslims from practicing their religion. All this amounts to a blatant violation of the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment in the U.S. Constitution. Judge Hoyt ruled that Brown will remain intact and told them to make the necessary changes ASAP.

Instead of rectifying the problems in Texas state Attorney General Gregg Abbott is ordering an appeal of the judge’s ruling. So there is an overt collusive effort by the Attorney General and the Executive Directory of TDCJ to violate Muslims’ U.S. constitutional rights. This is the type of violation the Department of Justice - Civil Rights Division is supposed to protect U.$. citizens from suffering, yet they have hesitated to get involved! It reminds me of that young Black man who got beat in the face with a hammer by Georgia prison guards. We must come to the understanding that these imperialists, whether they be white or Black, Democrat or Republican, do not have a vested interest in the lumpen underclass who are trapped in Amerikkka’s Gulags.

I can not tell you how many grievances I have written citing Religious Discrimination and they have come back with that same old bullshit reply: no policy violated, no further action warranted! And the entire time these racist oppressors were violating my constitutional rights! This once again highlights the corruption and hypocrisy of TDCJ! This grievance program in Texas is a sham and a farce.

I urge all of you reading this piece to join United Struggle from Within, and fight these racists! Expose the abuse, murders, and violation of civil and humyn rights. We must make a collective push to call for an all-out investigation of TDCJ and the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee as they too are culpable in the rampant, systemic, and pervasive abuse of Texas prisoners.Comrades, I want you to understand that racism is a byproduct of capitalism/imperialism. Unifying in order to smash imperialism provides a serious blow to racism. Texas as a whole is an imperialist stronghold and the overt racism that exists throughout the state is a testimony to that!

We are being subject to excessive rectal searches just to take a shower. Our food is cold, spoiled and inadequately prepared. We don’t receive beverages and staff talk over, sweat on, and handle our trays with no gloves, hair nets, or face masks.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. Me and my fellow lumpen comrades are definitely determined to sink this “titanic” along with other negligent and corrupt entities within the state. Always remember a closed mouth doesn’t get fed. It’s time to fight back with our minds, pens and comradery! Believe me that there’s only so much that we are going to take laying down! Free all my like-minded brothers of the same struggle.

MIM(Prisons) adds: There is a growing movement of prisoners and lumpen organizations in Georgia standing up to the abuse and unjust conditions in the prisons in that state. Part of this work requires educating and organizing, and for this we need leaders like this comrade. Leaders are willing to put in the work exposing the conditions, and educating fellow prisoners about the need for unity and building for legal and non-violent actions that will further the anti-imperialist movement. United Struggle from Within (USW), the MIM(Prisons)-led prisoner organization, needs more comrades to step up and take on leadership roles behind bars. Get in touch with us for more information on working with USW.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We add these comrades in Ohio to the country-wide movement to shut down control units. Whatever they are called, this long term isolation is a form of torture, primarily targetting politically active and oppressed nation prisoners. We also encourage LTO, and any other prisoner organizations out there, to consider joining the United Front for Peace in Prisons, and work to build unity on an even broader scale. As the second organizing principle of this United Front states: “We strive to unite with those facing the same struggles as us for our common interests. To maintain unity we have to keep an open line of networking and communication, and ensure we address any situation with true facts. This is needed because of how the pigs utilize tactics such as rumors, snitches and fake communications to divide and keep division among the oppressed. The pigs see the end of their control within our unity.”

They say that da left side is da true side
But I bang da right side with much pride
I don’t knock your struggle, walk it like a real C
Blood or Crip, I respect the life that you live as a real G
I live in da struggle so I recognize da real from da fake
Dat Blood vs. Crip don’t determine our fate
This kind of overstanding produces real niggas
who think like I thought…
A pointless war dat we all fought!
With fragments of unrelated feelings and no logical patterns
Trappin’ in a concrete jungle dat preys
on da mind frames of young savages
I bleed Crip from my bloody heart
You Crip walk blood from a gangsters walk
Stuck in psychological confusion, created by poverty’s conditions
Black pride and New Afrikan revolution destroyed from da impact
of pointless missions
I keep it poppin’ for all niggas drippin’ red and staying true
You keep it crackin’ for all souljahs
Cripp’n Loc and bangin’ blue
So stay true to yourself
cause you’re a real nigga even though
you’re reppin’ dat strange color blue

There’s something I’d like to bring to your attention in hopes that you can possibly provide help in stopping and exposing Oregon’s long term isolation scheme. In late 2010 Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC) started a program called “Long Term” (LT) that has 24 beds/cells. Administration can place someone in LT upon completion of a Disciplinary Segregation sanction and Intensive Management program. LT is permanent lockdown. There are no special criteria that get us placed there, nor any time limit to how long we can be kept on that status. Administration does what they want. Annual evaluations are done with no guarantee we’ll be released back to mainline.

From its implementation until the summer of 2013, the 24 LT cells were never completely filled up with LT status prisoners. I was placed there in May 2013 and only about half that section were on LT status. The rest were Intensive Management Unit (IMU) overflows transitioning back to mainline. From May until about January 2014 the Inmate Program Committee (IPC) were long-terming a group of prisoners for their first IMU shot for a fist fight. They had no misconduct while in IMU and they “successfully” completed their LT. It’s an admission that they know their IMU program doesn’t work, and by failing to release those prisoners back to mainline they never gave it a chance to work. One vato there is paroling within months and IPC didn’t want him to parole from mainline. There was no other reason for that decision.

By March 2014 every cell was filled up with LT status prisoners plus about 7 LT overflows who sat in a regular IMU cell, waiting for an LT cell to become available. Well, with annual evaluations only happening in October, the only way an LT cell will become available is if someone gets kicked out and sent back to an IMU unit for disciplinary reasons. In the last annual only 3 people were released back to mainline. So it raises the question: why are they all of a sudden long-terming so many people if there’s no room?

By May 2014 they were up to 14 LT overflows. Well, one of the counselors admitted what we were already suspecting: It’s all a scam they’re pulling with their head honchos in the Dome Building to expand the LT isolation housing. Their intent was to fill up every cell so they can go to their bosses demanding more cells and funds. But they got denied. However, people are still getting assigned to LT. Maybe they feel that as long as they keep the numbers up the Dome will eventually have to relent, which explains a lot of the trips the counselors here have been taking to Salem to push their manipulative agenda. Oregon is turning into a permanent lockdown state. And all this is at the expense of simple decent humanity and civil rights. Many prisoners in LT right now are victims of these pigs’ schemes and do not belong there.

Three codes of ethics all DOC employees are supposed to abide by are honor, respect, and dignity. This scheme contradicts all three. I would like to get activist and civil rights groups involved to hopefully shut the program down, or at least to prevent it from being expanded as part of some game these pigs are playing.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This program is similar to what we see in the criminal injustice system across Amerika, where prisoners are put in long term isolation cells for no particular reason, and given no opportunity to appeal this placement. In many places it is used as punishment for political organizing. This isolation is a form of torture, and counter to every supposed aim of rehabilitation. We look forward to working with comrades in Oregon to expose and fight this program.

There are many instances of postal fraud/institutional strong arm robbery occurring here. In the canteen , when purchasing a large sized envelope (6x9 or larger) the facility requires the purchase of two first class U.S. postage stamps or three first class U.S. postage stamps, two for 6x9, three for larger.

In the event that someone desires to mail fewer than the two or three ounces permissible with the two or three stamps and removes a stamp in order to not overpay for postage, he receives a misconduct report from the mailroom and often the mail is returned to the brotha’s cell. The envelope is usually sealed and then cut open rendering it unfit to be utilized again.

Essentially, they’re forcing us to overpay for postage under the auspices of Title 68 of the Nebraska Administrative Code. Specifically, Title 68 Chapter 5 Section(2) III (N) and III (C) “violation of regulations” and “possessing or receiving unauthorized articles.” Of course they write the misconduct report so that removing the extra stamp is considered alteration of a canteen item and thus becoming an “unauthorized article.” The “violation of regulations” is a result of the dubious unauthorized article.

What, if any, information or experience do you all have with this type of institutional criminality? Postage stamps are highly regulated. How can a state institution, or anybody for that matter, force an individual or collective to overpay for postage? And, how far reaching is this practice? How high does it go? How can we stop this?

MIM(Prisons) responds: This is a good example of prisons denying prisoners’ freedom of speech. It is difficult for prisoners to pay for stamps, and by forcing them to overpay, the prison denies valuable opportunities to send out mail. It is censorship before the mail is even sent out. We encourage Nebraska prisoners to get together to fight this policy. Send in your thoughts on how to best take this up as a campaign.

During the night of darkness, between da midst of a storm, there stood a warrior, thus a gangster in rare form. Black as soot, skin such a beautiful hue, he lived by da five, da almightly Damu. Constructed by struggles, created in poverty, da soul of realness with my komrades behind me. Standing firm for da cause, fighting through da oppression, 2 hearts, 1 soul. Liberation’s my mission. Understand my position, don’t judge me by my structure, comprehend my motives, it’s filled with more than corruption. I live for my brothers and I’ll die for my family, never slow to take a stand, for my love is my loyalty. To conquer all that’s in my way, to rebuild my broken destiny, too far from reality, my ambition ran empty, such strength that’s unbreakable. I’ll fight to the end, I was born against da odds, da undisputed champion.

I am fighting this Washington Department of Corrections policy “c) Publications in a foreign language will not be allowed with the exception of religious publications.” They let letters come in in a foreign language, up to 10 pages. Before 2010 they used to let me get books and magazines in Spanish, but then they changed the policy.

I’m familiar with the censorship pack from MIM(Prisons), but there is nothing that applies to this issue. I exhausted the grievances. Their last response was that they had security interests and that it was a threat to the security of the institutions.

I’ve heard that there are states that let foreign language literature come in, also I heard that the federal system does too. These clowns told me that there is no state, federal or constitutional law that supports me to get books or magazines in a foreign language. I’m asking for the help of ULK readers around the country to advise me with a case or law that I could use in an argument or lawsuit. I don’t know how to file one but I have to learn somehow. I wrote the ACLU and other organizations, but they never gave me a response.

If you do have some advice please sent it to MIM(Prisons). And finally to all those in Washington state, it would be good if we can come together in this and many other issues.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This is an important battle because it is clear denial of access to educational materials for all Raza, and is particularly important for those Spanish-speaking prisoners who are not fluent in English. This blatant national oppression must be fought. We look forward to hearing from our readers with suggestions for how to best approach this campaign.