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.
Greetings, I am writing in hopes you may be able to help and/or
advise me. It is my intention to file suit against the Texas Department
of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) director and employees concerning TDCJ
failure to address grievance issues such as:
Denial of insulin to insulin dependent diabetic
Transport Officer Mr. Ballew stated in the court hearing on 30
January 2019 that I must provide my own insulin during transport. I
filed grievance #9019034096 on 6 February 2019 concerning this issue and
unit grievance office claims to have closed this grievance on 1 January
2019. I must pay for a copy if I want to see the response given. (How is
it possible to close grievance before it’s filed?)
When I was released from the UTMB hospital and transferred to this
(the Terrell Unit) I requested my property from the Carole Young
infirmary unit be sent to me. I was told it was sent to the Byrd Unit
and to date I have not received any property from the Byrd or Carole
Young Units and my grievances step two, dated 12 April 2019, has been
completely forged including the signing of my name to the document as if
I wrote it.
It is my intentions to bring suit under violation of government code
S.504 rehabilitation act for the following reasons:
I am denied to participate in TDCJ and UTMB programs and services or
the benefit of those services provided to all other prisoners.
UTMB Galveston hospital orders that I take insulin three times a day.
Note: I am not a type one or type two diabetic. I do not have a pancreas
after it was surgically removed leaving me a severe diabetic with an
auto-immune deficiency. My life depends on insulin and when I am not
receiving insulin as ordered I am denied the right to complain through
the TDCJ grievance program.
I request you send me the additional resource application to the
federal courts and a copy of TDCJ grievance codes manual and any
additional advice or information you may provide will be helpful. Also
know that I talked with the Terrell Unit Assistant Warden Mr. Antony
Patrict about these issues and he said “Sue me!” And the grievance
office refused to allow me to complain about the forged grievance from
12 April 2019.
Can you please send me a Texas Pack 2019? I am at Hobby Unit and things
here are in very bad shape. Guards doing what they want to inmates.
Pulling our property to the day room and letting other offenders have
what they want. Officer hitting inmates for no reason. Our grievances
not getting answered.No water, no in and outs for water.
This place is not run by TDCJ rules. Please help me with sending me the
Texas Pack so I can write someone for help. Thank you.
More than 200 detainees began a hunger strike on October 18 at the ICE
Northwest Detention Center (NWDC) in Tacoma, Washington. The NWDC is a
private prison run by the Geo Group. The facility can hold over 1500
people and houses those swept up in immigration raids, transfers from
the U.$-Mexico border, and other migrants caught in the Amerikkan
system. This is one of the largest immigration prisons in the country.
Since 2014 detainees have launched 19 hunger strikes to protest their
detention and conditions behind bars. This latest protest is demanding
edible food and humane treatment, with many also demanding a complete
shut down of NWDC. Prisoners find maggots, blood, hair and other things
in the food. Kitchen workers report rats running around the food prep
area. Guards abuse the prisoners. And Geo group ignores these
complaints.(1)
U.$. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers mirror
conditions in other prisons in the United $tates. In fact, prisoners at
Clallam Bay Correctional Facility in Washington also went on food and
work strike earlier in October to demand better conditions, focusing on
food quality.
ICE officials issued a statement denying the existence of a hunger
strike: “Failure to eat the facility provided meal is not a stand-alone
factor in the determination of a detainee’s suspected or announced
hunger strike action. Commissary food items remain available for
purchase by detainees.” They followed up this statement with a press
tour of the NWDC, featuring spotless conditions, a well stocked urgent
care room, and nice library. It appears that no prisoners were
interviewed or even filmed up close in the tour.(2)
A majority of the 54,000 ICE detainees in the United $tates are held in
privately run prisons. And migrant detention makes up the majority of
the private prison population in this country. But this isn’t about the
difference in conditions between private and state or federally run
prisons. Conditions across the criminal injustice system are abusive,
dangerous, and inhumane. We’re not fighting for a different face on the
abuse.(3)
While federal arrests overall have gone up over the past 20 years,
between 1998 and 2018 federal arrests rose 10% for U.$. citizens and
234% for non-citizens. The most dramatic increase was between 2017 and
2018, a 71% rise in arrests of non-citizens. In 1998 63% of all federal
arrests were U.$. citizens while in 2018 that number flipped and 64% of
all federal arrests were of non-U.$. citizens. The portion of federal
arrests increasingly focused along the U.$-Mexico border increased from
33% in 1998 to 65% in 2018. 95% of this increase was due to immigration
detainees.(4)
The ICE detention centers make clear the purpose of prisons in the
United $tates. This is national oppression. These non-citizen detainees
are mostly being prosecuted for the “crime” of being in the United
$tates without permission of the imperialists. This “crime” represents
78% of the cases.(4)
Closed borders are a requirement of imperialism. The wealth is kept
within these borders for the lucky few who are born to this privilege.
That wealth is stolen from outside the borders; exploitation of labor
and theft of natural resources brings great profit to the imperialists.
And the imperialists share that profit with the citizens of their
countries to keep them passive and supportive. This wealth differential
is obvious, even between the poorest within U.$. borders and average
people living in the Third World. Those living outside those borders are
desperate to get in to access this wealth stolen from their homeland.
The role of ICE and the Department of Homeland Security is clear: keep
this wealth within u.$. borders exclusively for Amerikan citizens.
We support the just demands of prisoners in NWDC and throughout the
criminal injustice system. This system has sunk so low that people are
forced to starve themselves to fight the dangerous and inhuman
conditions. It will not be fixed by improving the condition in one
prison, or even by shutting down one facility. But these demands fit in
with the anti-imperialist struggle as we fight for open borders and an
end to a system where one nation has the power to lock up others just
for the crime of crossing an invisible line.
Fire is this time in solitary. Outside my window – darkness.
Gaining strength at a fiery pace, this knowledge I must
harness.
Fire is this time in solitary, burning me like a thousand
suns. But the swords are forged in the hottest fires, so I
sharpen my faith so it’s compared to none.
Outside my window – darkness; freedom can seem afar. But we
must always remember, it takes a certain darkness to see the stars.
“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its
prison.” - Fyodor Dostoevsky
A lot of people get confused when they think about prison. They get the
false impression that it’s a system of correction. If you do something
that merits your incarceration, you do your time, go home and put your
life back together. Oh, if it were only that easy.
Think about this: the United States as a country is only 5% of the
world’s population. Yet, we have the highest prison population. There
are other countries larger than us by far, just as Texas and New York
are larger than Rhode Island or Connecticut.
One of two things are usually the most common assumptions. Either the
United States has the worst people in the world or something is
drastically wrong. You can’t have it both ways, can you?
But what if it isn’t? What if we don’t have the worst people in the
world. Well then something has to be drastically wrong there. Nope, try
again.
Nothing is wrong because it is designed the way it was supposed to be.
It works just as it was designed. It’s a business run off of cheap labor
and institutionalized workers. It’s not designed for corrections. That
is a vastly mis-believed fabrication!
Inside, they get paid for every body that fills a bed. Every person who
signs an attendance sheet for a class or a program. Being locked down is
not an issue because they will bring the sheet around anyway and always
get the mindless to sign regardless of actual attendance. Forget
teaching you anything, and everyone gets paid.
The arms and the legs of the system are not designed for you to succeed.
They want you to come back to this concrete hotel to work in their
kitchens and so forth. They’re set up for failure to keep these
turnstiles moving and rotating the mindless drones back through this
system of so-called corrections. All for the almighty dollar, the very
root of evil.
Now that’s not to say it’s impossible to finally escape its treacherous
tentacles but rare enough that it’s dreamt about more than it’s
accomplished. Why is that? One may desire it but working for it is a
whole different story. The only thing that is ever going to break you
from this business that’s not designed to let you escape it’s grasp is
you. Educate yourselves. Be fully aware of all the why’s, the
how’s, the when’s and the inevitable who’s.
MIM(Prisons) responds: It is true that many people are profiting
off of the existence of prisons. Most importantly all the people who get
paid to work in and around the criminal injustice system. States are
subsidizing a huge welfare program for prison workers who can torture
and abuse people at work and earn a good salary for it. But we can’t
ignore the primary intent of the Amerikan criminal injustice system:
social control. If not for this goal, it should be easy to convince
politicians that the subsidy given to the vast prison system would be
better spent on infrastructure work (which would also employ lots of
people) or schools (again lots of employees). But prisons are essential
to keep the oppressed nations in check.
The disproportionate rate of incarceration of Chican@s and New Afrikans
demonstrates the social control function of prisons. We can also see it
in the historic rise in imprisonment rate as the Amerikan government
attacked the Black Panther Party in the late 1960s and tried to figure
out how to stop this growing revolutionary movement. This is why we
can’t take down the criminal injustice system with economic arguments
alone.
I am writing this letter in hopes that you can provide me with
information on how to combat a unjust prison’s grievance process. As of
the moment the grievance process at MCCX is broken and I and other
inmates really have no way to have our complaints heard and addressed.
The grievances go unanswered most of the time and/or the process is
purposely delayed to let the time-frame expire after which the grievance
is denied. The grievance chairperson is supposed to pick up the
grievances daily but if and when she does pick them up and process them,
she uses this as a reason to throw the grievance out. If I knew any
better, I’d say this is illegal, but I’m really not sure. I have brought
this issue up to the warden but it seems he is in cahoots as well. Can
you please send me some info about how to combat this issue and
hopefully fix it?
America, you exposed the line Back in my younger days your judges
had their axes to grind You promised us that justice was really
blind But that is not what we would find You just saw me as
someone who was born to do time Yeah, I’m from Florida, the sunshine
state, But you’ve sent me to prisons more times than I’ve made it
across the sunshine gate Unless i’m riding on the prison bus
Your green dollars all say “in God we trust” But to you I’m worth
about a hundred grand a year And all the people that I know have all
passed through here It’s just how you keep the spirit cause it’s so
strong-willed So I turn on my TV and stare at the screen and
it’s a habitual liar named Trump And he has big plans to buy a
wall But unfortunately that’s not all He also wants to split the
families apart And stop the Black & Brown people from a better
life and a fresh start So I guess that the rumor is true That
the Black & Brown are not red, white or blue But I guess that’s
just america’s plan The rise of the Ku Klux Klan That’s spread
all the way from the back woods And the secret meetings wearing
white hoods And elevating them to become the police Then the
local judge, and even the mayor of the big city And then a
department of corrections union member Funneling a percentage of
their pay To keep the disadvantaged people locked up all day By
paying politicians and telling them what to say Like “we’re tough on
crime” And then they pass a thousand laws at a time And have no
respect for our civil rights So we are doing lifetimes of wasted
days and wasted nights But now I can clearly see through your
soulless eyes And your great american white lies But I vow to
stop you from suppressing my kind Because yes america, you exposed
the line.
I’m writing this that I need help. I’m at a Geo Inc / TDCJ contract
facility. They are violating my freedom for I made parole and can’t get
my SSDI (Social Security Disability Insurance) while I’m here at this
halfway house / prison. Forcing us to do labor and not paying us, while
we are on parole. Plesae help me, to see what I can do. Thank you.
Being able to politicize this generation is one of the major problems
I’m currently facing. To get one to become conscious of the real enemy
is a struggle. Seemingly because battling within our own circles are
somehow being rationalized and not frowned upon.
Within this last year my political consciousness has been awoken, and I
now feel obliged to share this knowledge with all oppressed peoples. But
getting them to really receive the messages I attempt to convey is hard
as hell. And the fact that I now recognize that my people have become so
complacent with being oppressed that its become the “norm” is extremely
troubling. Being a gang member myself, one would think that my solid
reputation would make my advancements credible enough to persuade those
who know and respect me to at least be open-minded enough to hear the
message first and conclude later. But my attempts oftentimes reveal the
divisiveness in the oppressed and the true power of capitalist tactics.
Being able to continue to reach out and inform through all adversity and
frustration is a necessity in the struggle to achieve communism.
Understanding that being cast aside as “crazy,” “tripping.” etc. is a
part of it all. The ignorant always criticize the unknown and
misunderstood. It is up to us as revolutionaries to continue the fight
against the current foundations of capitalism.
I am attempting to form several study groups and beginning to organize
here in Alaska which seems to be uncharted territory. I need all of the
help and guidance I can get. I am open to all forms of education for
myself and others. For without knowledge we can never learn how to
defeat oppression. I have and always will be a front line soldier. I’ve
learned from first-hand experience that unorganized violence/force used
against the police only achieves negative consequences. The most solid
form of action for a single soldier is litigation. Every other action
consists of numbers. That’s why organization is so important. United we
stand, divided we fall. All power to the people!
MIM(Prisons) responds: Much credit to this comrade for standing
strong in the face of criticism and hardship in educating and organizing
others. Study groups are a great way to get people talking about new
concepts and educating about revolutionary politics. We will be sending
some lit and other materials to help with that work. Anyone interested
in starting a study group where you’re at can contact us to get our
guide to forming a study group, and also literature for your group to
study.
This writer says litigation is the most solid form of action for a
single soldier. And litigation is certainly one avenue for folks in
isolation or otherwise unable to work with others.
If individuals can connect with MIM(Prisons), there are additional
options. For instance, solo comrades can help with agitation and theory
development, by writing articles and poetry, producing art, reviewing
books, and creating study guides. These are all things that, when done
through an organization like MIM(Prisons), can help to educate others,
even if you can’t directly reach those folks yourself. Get in touch for
guides to help you get started in any of these areas.
A modern-day example of New Afrikans building independent institutions
and public opinion for socialism is the groups carrying out the
Jackson-Kush Plan in Jackson, Mississippi and the surrounding area.
There are a number of different organizations involved in, and evolved
out of, this Plan, and its roots go back to the Provisional Government
of the Republic of New Afrika (PGRNA) in the 1960s. It is directly built
on the long history of New Afrikan organizing for independence, going on
since people were brought to the United $nakes from Africa as slaves.
The Plan itself was formulated by the New Afrikan People’s Organization
and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement between 2004 – 2010. (1, p. 3)
The project has gone through many different phases, all focusing on
attaining self-determination for people of African descent in
Mississippi and the surrounding region. Sometimes the organizing has
been more heavily focused on electoral politics,(2, 3) sometimes more on
purchasing land, and currently the Cooperation Jackson project appears
to be at the forefront of pushing the Plan forward.
Cooperation Jackson’s mission is to develop an intimate network of
worker-owned cooperatives, covering all basic humyn needs, and more:
food production and distribution, recycling and waste management, energy
production, commodity production, housing, etc. The main goals of
Cooperation Jackson (C.J.) are to provide sustainable livelihoods for
its organizing base, which includes control over land, resources, means
of production, and means of distribution. Currently C.J. has a handful
of cooperatives in operation, and is building the Community Land Trust
to have greater control over its target geography in Jackson. This is
just a snapshot of the work of Cooperation Jackson, which is explained
in much more detail in the book Jackson Rising.(1)
The Jackson-Kush Plan is being carried out despite big setbacks,
repression, harassment, and roadblocks from the government and racist
citizens alike, for decades. This is the nature of struggle and the
folks working with the Plan are facing it head-on. C.J. and the other
organizations involved are doing amazing work to establish what could be
dual power in the state of Mississippi.
While the MIM has congruent goals with the Jackson-Kush Plan (at least
including the self-determination of New Afrikan people; control over
land, economy, and resources; environmental sustainability; an end of
capitalism and imperialism), there are some notable differences.(4)
We’re holding out hope that the Plan is being intentionally discrete in
order to build dual power, but the ideological foundations of some of
its structure point instead to revisionism of Marxism.
Cooperation Jackson’s plan includes working with the government in some
capacity. It needs to change laws in order to operate freely and
legally. This itself isn’t wrong – MIM(Prisons) also works on and
supports some reforms that would make our work of building revolution
much easier. But because of its relationship to the state, C.J.’s voice
is muffled. MIM(Prisons) doesn’t have this problem, so we can say what
needs to be said and we hope the folks organizing for New Afrikan
independence will hear it.
Cooperation Jackson’s structural documents paint a picture of a peaceful
transition to a socialist society, or a socialist microcosm, built on
worker-owned cooperatives and the use of advanced technology. Where it
aims to transform the New Afrikan “working class” (more on this below)
to become actors in their own lives and struggle for self-determination
of their nation, we are for it. So often we hear from ULK readers
that people just don’t think revolution is possible. Working in a
collective and actually having an impact in the world can help people
understand their own inherent power as humyn beings. Yet it seems C.J.
sees this democratic transformation of the New Afrikan “working class”
as an end in itself, which it believes will eventually lead to an end of
capitalism.
“In the Jackson context, it is only through the mass self-organization
of the working class, the construction of a new democratic culture, and
the development of a movement from below to transform the social
structures that shape and define our relations, particularly the state
(i.e. government), that we can conceive of serving as a
counter-hegemonic force with the capacity to democratically transform
the economy.”(1, p. 7)
This quote also alludes to C.J.’s apparent opposition to the
universality of armed struggle in its struggle to transform the economy.
In all the attempts that have been made to take power from the
bourgeoisie, only people who have acknowledged the need to take that
power by force (i.e. armed struggle) have been even remotely successful.
We just need to look to the governments in the last century all across
the world who have attempted to nationalize resources to see how hard
the bourgeois class will fight when it really feels its interests are
threatened.
Where C.J. is clearly against Black capitalism and a
bourgeois-nationalist revolution that stays in the capitalist economy,
we are in agreement. Yet C.J. apparently also rejects the need for a
vanguard party, and the need for a party and military to protect the
interests and gains of the very people it is organizing.
“As students of history, we have done our best to try and assimilate the
hard lessons from the 19th and 20th century national liberation and
socialist movements. We are clear that self-determination expressed as
national sovereignty is a trap if the nation-state does not dislodge
itself from the dictates of the capitalist system. Remaining within the
capitalist world-system means that you have to submit to the domination
and rule of capital, which will only empower the national bourgeoisie
against the rest of the population contained within the nation-state
edifice. We are just as clear that trying to impose economic democracy
or socialism from above is not only very problematic as an
anti-democratic endeavor, but it doesn’t dislodge capitalist social
relations, it only shifts the issues of labor control and capital
accumulation away from the bourgeoisie and places it in the hands of the
state or party bureaucrats.”(1, p. 8)
As students of history, we assert that C.J. is putting the carriage
before the horse here. National liberation struggles have shown the most
success toward delinking populations from imperialism and capitalism.
Yes, we agree with C.J. that these national liberation struggles also
need to contain anti-capitalism, and revolutionary ecology, if they plan
to get anywhere close to communism. But C.J. seems to be saying it can
dislodge from capitalism before having national independence from
imperialism.
The end of this quote also raises valid concerns about who holds the
means of production, and the development of a new bourgeoisie among the
party bureaucrats. This is one of the huge distinctions between the
Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin, and China under Mao. In China, the
masses of the population participated in the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution, which attacked bureaucrats and revisionists in the party and
positions of power. These criticisms were led from the bottom up, and
the Cultural Revolution was a huge positive lesson on how we can build a
society that is continually moving toward communism, and not getting
stuck in state-capitalism.
Another significant difference between the line of the MIM and of
Cooperation Jackson is our class analysis. Cooperation Jackson is
organizing the “working class” in Jackson, Mississippi, which it defines
as “unionized and non-unionized workers, cooperators, and the under and
unemployed.”(1, p. 30) So far in our exposure to C.J., we haven’t yet
come across an internationalist class analysis. Some pan-Africanism,
yes, but nothing that says a living wage of $11 is more than double what
the average wage would be if we had an equal global distribution of
wealth.(5, 6) And so far nothing that says New Afrika benefits from its
relationship to the United $tates over those who Amerikkka oppresses in
the Third World.
We can’t say what the next steps for the Jackson-Kush Plan should be.
There’s still opportunity for people within the project to clarify its
line on the labor aristocracy/working class, the necessity of armed
struggle to take power from the bourgeoisie, and the significance of the
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. MIM(Prisons)’s Free Books for
Prisoners Program distributes many materials on these topics. Some
titles we definitely recommend studying are On Trotskyism by
Kostas Mavrakis, The Chinese Road to Socialism by E.L.
Wheelwright and Bruce McFarlane, and Imperialism and its Class
Structure in 1997 by MIM.