MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
www.prisoncensorship.info is a media institution run by the Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons. Here we collect and publicize reports of conditions behind the bars in U.$. prisons. Information about these incidents rarely makes it out of the prison, and when it does it is extremely rare that the reports are taken seriously and published. This historical record is important for documenting patterns of abuse, and also for informing people on the streets about what goes on behind the bars.
We are the ones who verbally say the least Comrades who march from
the east Challenging what southerners accept as the norm We rain
on their parade, like an unsuspecting storm
Beyond colors, a nation of one Time is short, so much to be
done Blood and bullets worked in the past Knowledge and education
are meant to last
We are comrades who possess the plan to overthrow and change this
capitalist land The politicians are dangerous to our own Devious
acts we don’t condone
Bogus laws, misled justice If we don’t unite now, they’ll imprison
all of us We fondly believe it’s a tragic fate Unite now, before
it’s too late
Real criminals go free, while we rot in jail In capitalism, even
freedoms are for sale Pen and paper are the weapons to use If we
pull together, we definitely won’t lose
Remove crime and corruption from your sight Standing in solidarity,
it’s our right Each of us harbors a leader deep within Improve
ourselves, but they’ll never permit us to win
To comrades in the state of Tax-us, it’s a wake up plea Even locked
down, we can seek to be free This is national oppression induced by
the man Masking themselves as the Kool Kolored Klan
Grievances are one of the only administrative remedies we have against
unjust treatment and staff misconduct. In Oregon we also have
discrimination complaints, the right to attempt petition, a department
of corrections ombudsman and (any prisoner in any state or federal
facility can also do this next step) the ability to file with no fee a
Department of Justice (DOJ) civil rights complaint.
In Oregon, grievances come with two appeals. Then you have exhausted the
process and can go to further discrimination complaint with one appeal
and then that process is exhausted. Using either/or you can lay the
groundwork for a federal civil suit and meet the requirements of the
1997 Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) providing you exhaust all
administrative remedies available to you. So, you must either exhaust
all of your grievance appeals or discrimination complaint appeals to
file suit. You may not file a grievance and a discrimination complaint
on the same issue. I always advise that you exhaust every grievance and
discrimination complaint so you retain your ability to file suit.
You can file a DOJ civil rights complaint at any time with or without
exhausting either administrative remedy. However, showing you have tried
to address the issue with no satisfaction will help your DOJ complaint.
Always create a paperwork trail. Always!
If you are having ongoing issues of some type, but can A) document a new
incident of the same type has occurred and B) have new information about
the issue, you may file another grievance under OAR 291-019-0140 (6) or
another discrimination complaint under OAR 291-006-0015 (6). However,
expect the grievance coordinator will try and stop you claiming you have
already filed a grievance/discrimination complaint on the same issue
previously. This is one of their tactics to keep you from proving an
issue is persistent and is ongoing. This is currently happening to me at
Two Rivers Correctional Institution. Ms. Reynolds, the grievance
coordinator is stopping valid grievances and discrimination complaints
when I can clearly prove the Oregon administrative rules are being
properly followed.
Always know the rules and laws you are evoking. I suggest you read up on
them and copy them so you can cite them in your grievance/discrimination
complaint process.
If your process is blocked you can take it to the Oregon DOC ombudsman
or internal affairs - or both, to keep the issue alive. Make copies of
everything you do and make sure you have followed all processes to the
letter of rule before you go to this level. As a last resort per OAR
291-107, you can attempt a petition process as well.
You may face uphill battles but if you are going to use the
grievance/discrimination complaint process, so do it right the first
time and be persistent. You may not win but you can keep the struggle
alive.
MIM(Prisons) adds: Information like this is key to push forward
our battle
demanding
our grievances be addressed. We don’t yet have a petition for
Oregon, but for many other states we have petitions prisoners can
request to push this grievance battle on the political front while
filing administrative appeals and working your way into court. For those
states that don’t yet have a petition, request the generic version and
help us customize it to your state.
In the course of my imprisonment at this facility we’ve been on a
perpetual lockdown induced by the administration to conserve the limited
resources and money appropriated to operate the facility. We’re
currently in our cells 24/7 and are only afforded escorted showers every
few days. We have been denied yard, dayroom, phone calls, visits, law
library access, adequate and nutritious food, education, and work.
I recently came in contact with a camarada who referred me to your
organization and I would like to contribute any way I can to unify peace
in prisons. Over the last few months, I’ve organized a campaign to bring
change to our conditions and have been utilizing the administrative
process to seek relief, which has been otherwise unsuccessful and only
brought about the “privilege” of purchasing items from their canteen and
the order of items through package companies who extort our family
members by making them purchase luxury items at a 500%-1000% mark up, so
that their private industry of capitalist pigs can profit from our poor
families. I’m moving for a boycott on such items and to not put any more
money in their fat pockets.
I’ve also been educating those who wish to learn and build up their
minds. Since coming in contact with your
newsletter, I’ve
taken the liberty to expand your mailing list by assisting a few
comrades in contacting you and have shared ULK with comrades
who have been interested.
Greetings from the graveyard! We salute MIM(Prisons) as our foundation
of awareness and revolutionary consciousness from the teachings of the
greatest revolutionist in our century, comrade Mao Tse-Tung and his
principles of applying the science of Marxism-Leninism. Every day
prisoners tell me how this literature has helped to make them free even
though they may be shackled and entombed physically in these
concentration camps. It has awakened their minds. We are studying and
upholding the five principles from the
United Front
for Peace. History is our guide for a new future. The oppressors
have all the weapons of mass intimidation, these include fear,
ignorance, and apathy which creates inactivity which fosters despair and
self-hatred. But we’ve got heart and life and I believe that now is a
time for the kind of quality self-leadership, vision, and sacrifice that
inspires those around us to really begin thinking in a new way.
Sun Tzu, in the Art of War, mentioned “put them on dying ground and they
will live.” The Ninth Ground, a term derived from the ancient military
text The Art of War, refers to the last of the nine grounds being the
dying ground. If someone were trying to kill you, would you use every
means at your disposal to defend yourself? And if someone took
everything you owned would you start the process of rebuilding? Well,
your response to being sentenced to a long prison term, life, or even
death, should be the same as your response to defending yourself from
attack or great loss. You should fight comrade!
We view the prison environment as dying ground and “fighting” as a
metaphor for self-determination. One of the biggest mistakes many
prisoners make when coming to prison is that they don’t initially
comprehend the extremity of their circumstances. Instead we jump into
the flow of the environment and fail to productively utilize those first
crucial three to five years in prison for acquiring knowledge and
building the necessary foundation that will sustain us for years to
come.
Self-determination should never be relegated to “just getting by.” From
the moment we step into the prison system we need to begin a program
that organizes our energy toward productive goals. We have to kick start
the growth process. In prison our back is even more up against the wall
than ever, so it’s important to immediately see the place for what it is
- Dying Ground. Since prison culture is a gross extension of the street
culture most of us come from, there’s a tendency to merge with it even
though the pitfalls are so obvious. We have to begin to think
strategically as if we are always on the battlefield. When we take this
type of approach to our situation we stop wasting time and move with a
profound sense of mission. Our life in prison doesn’t have to rotate
around waking up and hanging out. It should involve the total employment
of all of our faculties geared toward enriching our lives. It doesn’t
matter where we find ourselves be it in prison or free, we should engage
life, not retreat from it, we should become even more committed to
learning, taking the initiative, building resources, and never giving
up.
A life without purpose and direction is the life of a walking corpse.
Comrade
Mao Zedong said “The correctness or otherwise of the ideological and
political line decides everything. When the party’s line is correct,
then everything will come it’s way, if it has no followers, then it can
have followers, if it has no guns, then it can have guns, if it has no
political power, then it can have political power.”
Liberation & Freedom. Long live MIM. The Black Mass Army will help
build Maoist revolutionary nationalists and people’s army!
MIM(Prisons) responds: Those looking to expand their educational
opportunities in prison should work with MIM(Prisons). We offer
political literature in exchange for political work or stamps/money, and
we run study groups through the mail. These are tools you can use to
form your own local study group and help spread knowledge while also
advancing your own education.
Currently I’m on a level 5/5 maximum security yard in Florence AZ called
central unit, and here we only receive two meals a day, a sack breakfast
with 6 slices of bread and 2 or 3 slices of some processed meat, maybe
peanut butter, 2 slices of cheese and a state tea, salad dressing and
mustard pack around 6:45 a.m. Then we get a hot dinner with small
portions around 8 p.m. at night. That’s 10-14 hours almost between
meals.
We get recreation in single man recreation cages for two hours every
Monday, Wednesday and Saturday and receive showers on the same day. The
rec cages are filthy. Some filled with bird (pigeon) feces and have been
swept out only once my entire year at this facility. We can only take
one water bottle to rec with us, and we never see another correction
officer until rec is over; which sometimes lasts 3-4 hours in the heat
due to shift change or count movement.
We don’t get any chemicals to clean and sanitize our cells (which are
one man) or toilet and usually have to use our own store bought or
indigent soap to do so, and for those of us without money that’s a
costly procedure. I’ve been sitting in this cell for a minute and this
yard is fucked up. My ceiling is cracked and falling apart, my paints
peeling and these pigs always say “I’ll put in a work order” and we
never hear from them again unless we stay on their asses. These pigs got
many convicts scared to act in any way (unless it’s a racial offense)
and scared to lose their good time or eligibility to go up in phases, or
get STGd.
MIM(Prisons) responds: These conditions, which amount to nothing
short of torture, in prison control units are common across the country
and a driving force behind our
campaign to
shut them down.
I am writing to ULK to keep readers informed about what is
going on inside the federal prison system. After receiving the last
issue, I was enlightened to the status of a movement that is going on in
South
Carolina state prison system. I have spent a long time in the lock
units of the SC state prisons and know them very well.
I have firsthand knowledge about the very beginning of the
United
Gangster movement that is growing in the prison system of that
state. I am glad to hear that it’s becoming more organized because I
didn’t have good expectations that it would make it this far.
I know how fearful the administration was about a movement taking place
inside the prison, and how the SHU was used to stop prisoners who were
supposed to be involved in this movement. I will continue to fight
censorship of everything associated with anti-imperialism and the prison
industry.
MIM(Prisons) responds: There are many lumpen organizations with
origins in the streets and prisons focused on getting what they can for
their members, often at the expense of the people. But these
organizations can refocus and develop correct political leadership. We
look to unite with all LOs who can get behind
the
five points of the United Front for Peace in Prisons. This does not
require organizations to take up Maoism, but the points are a minimum
basis for anti-imperialist unity in our prisons organizing.
Recently there was a victory for Oklahoma’s prisoner population, with
respect to the difficulty of having grievances heard and adequately
addressed. On February 29 2012, a magistrate judge held that Director
Justin Jones “wrongfully established, maintained and enforced the
grievance policy and authorized punishment for inmates who show
disrespect to staff.” The magistrate further held that Director Justin
Jones had: “failed to establish an available administrative remedy on
the claim involving the policy on grievance restrictions and disregarded
the claim against Mr. Jones for the disciplinary policy involving
disrespect to staff.”
On February 2 2011, the Plaintiff in this case filed a grievance
challenging his placement on a grievance restriction. Five days later,
the grievance coordinator returned the grievance and checked the box for
“Not an issue grievable to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections
(Private Prisons property, misconduct, see OP-090124, Section 11.B.1.),
litigation pending, not within/under.”
In response to a complaint made by the Plaintiff, Director Jones argued
that the he had “failed to exhaust his administrative remedies.”
Director Jones’s argument consisted of the following sentence: “Here the
prison’s administrative records demonstrate that Plaintiff has not filed
any grievance/grievance appeal regarding his being placed on ‘Grievance
Restriction.’”
Director Jones relied on an affidavit by Debbie Morton, which stated
that the Plaintiff had not appealed the February 7 grievance decision to
her office. Presumably, the Plaintiff did not appeal the decision
because the grievance coordinator has told him that the complaint was
not grievable.(1) Even at the time of the magistrate’s report and
recommendation, Director Jones still did not submit any evidence to
suggest that the complaint would have been grievable.
“The plain language of the [Prison Litigation Reform Act] requires that
prisoners exhaust only available remedies.” Tuckel v. Grover,
660 F. 3d 1249, 1252 (10th Cir. 2011) (quoting 42 U.S.C. 1997e(a)). The
Oklahoma Department of Corrections’s (ODOC’s) special report includes
excerpts from the grievance policy, but those portions do not identify
the matters that are grievable. The magistrate held “thus, Mr. Jones has
failed to satisfy his burden of demonstrating an available
administrative remedy to contest imposition of a grievance restriction
or punishment for disrespect to staff.”
In his conclusion, the magistrate stated as follows: “When the
Defendant’s evidence is reviewed favorably to [the Plaintiff] as
required, one can reasonably infer that there was no available
administrative remedy to contest his placement on a grievance
restriction or the punishment for disrespect to staff. As a result, the
court should reject Mr. Jones’ argument for dismissal or summary
judgement on the basis of exhaustion.”
As stated and shown above, my fellow comrades in Oklahoma prisons have
no available administrative remedy to contest a grievance restriction or
punishment for “disrespect to staff,” due to an erroneous establishment
of a grievance policy or disciplinary policy. The above outlined lawsuit
was filed on March 17 2011 against the Directory of the Oklahoma
Department of Corrections. If comrades in Oklahoma have been placed on
grievance restriction, follow the policy while on that restriction and
see to it that the oppressor is dealt with justly.
Further, if comrades are housed at private prisons, know that the ODOC
and private companies are in cahoots with each other in an effort to
deny you a Constitutional right permitting you to petition the
government for a redress of grievances.
Corcoran prison officials have been retaliating and harassing the
prisoners. They started feeding us on small paper trays, leaving us in
our cells for days without exercise yard, and openly telling us it’s
because of people going on hunger strike.
Institution Gang Investigations (IGI) has been harassing everybody, even
me. They came and took everything out of my living cell claiming that I
am a suspected BGF member. That’s crazy! I’m not from any gang at all.
Corcoran prison officials got me going back to court facing 10 years to
life. They wrote up several false reports on me stating I assaulted
staff and the Hanford County DA picked up all the cases.
They are retaliating and punishing everybody. And get this: the
prisoners are running scared. They stopped filing complaints against the
police, saying: “I don’t want IGI fucking with me.” Man! It hurts bad to
see my own comrades laying down and giving up.
I have been really pushing hard to shut down the Security Housing Units.
I have been telling everybody to stop taking a cellmate. Can you imagine
the panic that will come over head officials if everybody with a
cellmate said no, I’m not taking a cellie. Imagine that. Then ask
yourselves should we push for another hunger strike and hurt our health
and become too weak to fight these pigs? Or should we push for a big
movement to stop all comrades from taking a cellmate? I’ll give these
pigs 30 days and they will shit on themselves and give up whatever we
demand.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We know that the California prisons have
been retaliating against prisoners who participated in the recent hunger
strikes, and this comrade raises a good point in pushing forward the
discussion about best tactics for next steps.
I recently returned from a trip to federal court in Harrisburg
Pennsylvania. As I re-entered these battered walls of this prison I
cringed and rejoiced because the conditions of the temp prison I was at
are far worse than Huntingdon. SCI Camp Hill “AKA White Hill” is known
for beating, starving, humiliating, and much more. I was housed in the
SMU portion of the jail. It’s a long-term disciplinary unit. I was
banged off every door from booking to the unit, which was no surprise.
There we got three cold meals a day, no yard, no shower. That place is
crazy. I passed your address along and let the brothers know that there
are people who care about these conditions of the PA prison system.
These pigs, all ex-military, are overweight, out of shape, and
relentless.
As I entered back to the RHU part of Huntingdon I was greeted with
“there he is!” “That’s the Rat!” I was puzzled, I’ve never told on
anyone in my life. I did a little research and learned that while I was
away a couple pigs were telling other prisoners I was ratting on them
for passing stuff. We came to the conclusion that my letter to the
Department of Justice made these pigs mad. I wrote a letter to the
Department of Justice in Washington naming several COs chewing snuff and
spitting it in our food, the mice that run this place, the lack of heat,
and the neglect of a young Spanish boy who hung himself. The boy
survived only because we were kicking our doors and yelling for help. He
was in a camera cell with 24 hours live feed to a screen in the RHU
bubble, but the pigs were watching TV and playing on the computer while
this young man was trying to end his life. So I’m a rat for helping my
fellow man. We straightened that all out, and now the pigs are our
target once again.
I try to stress to these young brothers, we can’t oppress each other. We
are already being oppressed by the PA DOC. I tell them if you feel like
oppressing another prisoner, take it out on the pigs. I’m spreading
copies of all you send me, I’d like to know about how to start a study
group here. I want to push your theory it seems to be positive growth
material.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We commend this comrade for taking on the
“Rat” label head on and clearing his name with his fellow prisoners so
that he could continue his organizing work. As
point
2 of the United Front principles states, “To maintain unity we have
to keep an open line of networking and communication, and ensure we
address any situation with true facts.” To help prisoners like this one,
we run a study group through the mail that provides basic political
education, and we also have a guide to forming study groups in prison,
so that people can take what they learn and share it with others and
have discussions in the yard or wherever else it is possible to gather
and talk. Write to us for more information.
The conditions under which we prisoners suffer must not go unchallenged
by the public. I am targeted by prison staff with cold food, half
portions of food, many times 1/4 portions of food, false incident
reports written against me, and kept bound under the strict and harsh
maximum security classification. I am a revolutionary, I study different
methods and test theory from different schools of thought.
I was an activist in society (revolutionary) and I’ve helped to organize
many communities. I now teach and organize the prisoners here, those who
have a will to struggle against our current conditions. The organizing I
teach is to serve our daily needs/human rights. The air conditioner is
blowing full force half the winter, keeping it a cold and icy season. I
openly work with all prisoners around our daily needs including
protection from beatings by prison officials.
I use mostly methods from revolutionary books by mostly the
Black
Panther Party and Black Liberation Army, Angela Davis, Assata
Shakur, Elaine Brown, David Hillard, Bobby Seale. These people gave
their lives for the struggle. The text from this material has the power
to transform minds. Education is a must.
Prison high ranking officials force prisoners to have sex in exchange
for fair/humane treatment. I challenge all my fellow prisoners to stand
against this oppression to join me in legally fighting it. Once again
the prison officials increase the level of abuse, retaliation and
torture against me to isolate and discourage others.
MIM(Prisons) replies: Retaliation against prisoners organizing
for their rights is a common practice in the criminal injustice system.
The best way to fight this is by building our movement. This comrade is
right that we must educate and organize because the larger our forces
the more difficult it will be to single out organizers for retaliation.
The
Black
Panther Party literature provides important historical material that
has relevance today. We encourage our comrades behind bars to also use
MIM(Prisons) literature as an organizing tool.
Under Lock &
Key contains news and analysis to help educate and inspire prisoner
organizing. Form study groups with others, share the newsletter, and
contribute articles to help build this important resource.