Wisconsin Prisons

At this place there are 1050 prisoners. There are 2 dorms. Dorm B holds 55 prisoners and Dorm A holds 110. There are 2 cell halls, North and South, about 300 prisoners each. The hole holds 150 and stays packed to capacity. Intake holds about 100 and a medical unit about 40.

Approximately 300 have jobs at maintenance, yard crew, bath house, rec, school hallway janitor, rotunda janitor, dorm janitor, canteen, library, tutors, cell hall swampers, paint crew, wardens clerk, treatment center janitor, health service clerk, visiting room janitor, picture project photographers, the kitchen, and Badger $tate Industries, in which they are paid between 12 cents to 42 cents an hour plus 2 cents extra on weekends and holidays, and they work up to higher positions in wages.

Prisoners who go to school get 15 cents an hour - yea they pay them, if you can call it that, to go to school. And those who don’t go to school or have a job get 5 cents an hour to sit in a cell, which adds up to about $4 every 2 weeks, not nearly enough to get a stick of deodorant and soap, especially once they take out 50% for child support or other court obligations one might have. Yes, I still have to pay child support while in prison, 50% of any earnings.

The pay ranges are: 12 cents ($9.60 every 2 weeks), 19 cents ($15.20), 24 cents ($19.20), 35 cents ($28) and 42 cents ($33.60). And Badger $tate Industries is separate from institutional jobs. 18 prisoners have those jobs and get from 79 cents to a dollar an hour. They make clothing for outside vendors and to sell to prisoners around the state. They also make the pillows and mattresses. People on the streets want this closed because BSI could provide them with jobs. Prisoners at BSI used to get minimum wage and up.

I see brothers I rotate with work around here to get basic necessities because they have no income or family support on the outs. And if I give a brother a bar of soap or something to eat it is viewed as an infraction and I will be written up for “unauthorized transfer of property” and the soap confiscated. We aren’t allowed to do what is right here and help our fellow man. Divide and conquer. Just like they do with the jobs. Brothers will cut each others’ throat for a higher paying job around here.

On the other hand, I hate the idea of working in a prison (or on a plantation) because it helps to fuel it. If we all protested by not working, the staff would have to cook, clean, etc. It happened during lockdowns before and staff hated it. But there are not enough brothers willing to sacrifice their only income for change. The wages have continuously gone down in the 10+ years I’ve been down and canteen prices have continuously gone up.

I know of brothers who made this little money to send it to their kids, etc, or pay for phone bills. So some work for their families. But if the 100 kitchen workers all stopped working that would cause a lockdown and the warden would want to know why they won’t work. In 2002 I was sent from here to Supermax for inciting a riot against staff and the old warden here asked prisoners what it is that they wanted and these suckas said more rec, shoes with air bubbles, porn and cigarettes. But when they took the cigarettes in 2000 they didn’t riot. They only got more rec and the staff took 1 pair of shoes (we used to be allowed 2 pair) but that 1 pair could have air bubbles if they could afford them. I got back here in 2006, 4.5 years later and realized that brothers sold us out.

So I don’t put my head on the chopblock any more because I know that most won’t ride for a real cause for improvement such as more law library time (we only get 30-40 minutes a week, if lucky), better wages, better medical care. If the workers did stop working they have another prisoner that will fill that spot before the day has ended. Capitalism taught them individualism so most are for self and quick to say “I came in by myself, I’m go do me.”

MIM(Prisons) responds: We get a lot of letters like this one from comrades behind bars who are down for the struggle but frustrated with the lack of support from their fellow prisoners. It is true that capitalism has taught prisoners individualism well. And the reality of Amerika is that citizens in this country have a material interest in preserving the system that is benefiting them. While prisoners are in a unique position because the very system that used to benefit them is now locking them up, it will not be an overnight transformation for people to see the connections with the capitalist system and move beyond individualist thinking. We know that most prisoners are not down for the anti-imperialist struggle. But we also know that their conditions leave many prisoners with open minds hungry for education. And so it is our job, both on the streets and behind bars, to provide educational material and food for thought to as many prisoners as we can reach. This is the purpose of Under Lock and Key. And we rely on conscious brothers and sisters behind bars to circulate it and spread the word.

In addition to many letters like this one, we also get many letters from prisoners who talk about how they pursued an individualist and selfish mentality for many years before having their eyes opened by something they read or by someone on the yard talking to them.

I am writing about this unfair Wisconsin DOC racist system and how they are confining prisoners to “Super Max” solitary but dressing it up, saying it’s a maximum security prison. See, the oppressor has found a way to use this maximum security prison, which was really supermax, by changed the name when people started protesting about the conditions of the people who they were holding.

Supermax was supposed to be for the worst of the worst, but by this system not having enough so-called “worst of the worst” prisoners to fill 600 and something beds, they had to do something to keep this prison running and generating revenue for their community. So they started sending any prisoner who receives 180 days in segregation or more to Supermax. They did that for a little while until the outside got wind of it, then the head people tried to change it up, by changing the name and making half of it a maximum prison and the other half a program prison, but all of it is still run like a supermax prison.

When supermax was running, a person had to be screened by the psychologist to see if they are stable enough to be placed there, and now they are using the same methods for the people they are sending to that same prison which is supposed to be a maximum prison now.

My question is, why are people being screened to see if they are fit to be placed in another maximum prison? Whereas, when a prisoner is being transferred to any other max prison they are not being screened, it’s just when one is being transferred to this prison that they are screened.

This institution does not have all of the same privileges as the other maximum prisons in Wisconsin, which shows this institution is not run like other max’s. Therefore, prisoners are being held there illegally because there are stipulations that a prisoner being confined in administrative confinement should only be held up to 7 years. No, by this not really being a max, but being run like a supermax, prisoners are not really in general population, but are in administrative confinement with a few more privileges.

In September, more than 18,000 people from four states attended
tours at an open house for Boscobel, Wisconsin’s new SuperMax
prison. Just as the torture techniques of the Illinois Tamms C-Max
prison (see MIM Notes 196) were modeled closely after other U.$.
dungeons, this and other newer Super Maximum security prisons are
replicating and expanding on the Tamms model.

This inhumane project of torture is popular in the small town of
Boscobel. The contract to build the 509-cell prison brought a $44
million boon to the region’s budget.(1) Reactionary white Amerika
supports the proliferation of such prisons because they
simultaneously lock up the oppressed and provide jobs for rural
whites.

Amerika justifies the proliferation of SuperMaxes within the
booming prison system as a way to allegedly control the worst
criminals. MIM disagrees. The worst criminals in Amerika are the
imperialists because of their crimes against the peoples of
oppressed nations throughout the world. SuperMaxes are certainly
used as a method of control. Many politically active prisoners are
housed in SuperMaxes as a means to deter prisoners from fighting
for basic necessities and organizing against oppression. MIM does
not see that all prisoners in SuperMaxes (or prisons in general)
should be automatically freed, but we see that the current system
is doing nothing to lead prisoners that have committed crimes to
rehabilitate and contribute productively to society.

Amerika’s high-tech torture chambers

The Pelican Bay State Prison Secure Housing Unit (SHU) in far-
Northern California is a model among SuperMax builders; Tamms C-
Max in Illinois was built after planning visits to Pelican Bay.
All SuperMax prisons pursue sensory deprivation tactics, though
each puts on localized touches. A prisoner wrote in the Journal of
Prisoners on Prisons: “colors when used, are muted, mostly just
white, off-white and grey. … Even though the region surrounding
the prison uses local cable television or satellite broadcast,
this prison points its dish at (of all places) Denver, Colorado.
… I suggest that the reason is to isolate us from local
events.”(2)

Thirty-six u.$. states now have similar facilities and offer no
pleasantries to cover the fact that “we don’t try to rehabilitate
these guys,” as an assistant to the warden at the Florence Federal
Administrative Maximum prison (ADX) put it.(3)

The prison is designed to enforce conditions including complete
isolation from other prisoners and from sunlight, a minimum of 23
hours per day in the cell, all concrete and steel furniture, and
great distance from the state’s population center (which means
difficult visiting with families, friends and attorneys).(4)

In MIM Notes 83 we reported: “strip status in 50 degree cells,
limited access to reading and writing materials, rare visitor
privileges are normal torture tactics for the pigs.”(5)

Who are the real criminals?

According to the State of Wisconsin’s public relations department,
“the SuperMax Prison will house the state’s most violent inmates
in the state’s most secure facility.”

If this were true, it would make Wisconsin the only revolutionary
authority in the united $nakes. The most violent prisoners in
Wisconsin would have to be the governor and deputies running the
prisons and police departments. Then, maybe we could also count on
Wisconsin to seize and incarcerate chiefs of Amerikan military and
political affairs when they traipse through on their campaign
trails.

In MIM Notes Under Lock & Key in September, a Wisconsin prisoner
reported on the preparations for the new SuperMax: “They are using
all kinds of tricks to put us Africans and Hispanics on what they
call ‘Administrative Confinement.’ The catch is that they say the
ones on Administrative Confinement have a 75 to 90% chance of
going to this super max. … I believe the reason for this is to
fill up the super max as soon as it opens. If it is filled
immediately, they can justify to those fools in society the
building of more prisons.”(6)

Tourists hail torture as advance

Visitors on the six-day “state fair” style tour of the prison
believe these prisoners are getting more “privilege” than they
deserve in the lower security facilities.(4). The tourists
included more than 3,000 schoolchildren – Amerika’s newest
inductees into the reactionary nation accustomed to dehumanization
of oppressed nation members.

The majority who spoke to newspapers about the prison approved
either SuperMax repression or worse brutality against prisoners. A
Milwaukee newspaper reported visitors saying of the SuperMax “it’s
a step in the right direction,” and “they left their rights when
they committed these crimes.” A womyn said that executing the
prisons prospective inmates would be a better use of tax money.(4)

In the land of failure to do simple math and understand the
function of prisons, many visitors to the SuperMax were shocked by
the $32,000 it will cost to house a captive there for one year.(4)
MIM calls this a contradictory stance – a failure to put two and
two together: the University of Wisconsin at Madison estimates
cost of a full year of college at $11,000 per year, including
living expenses.(7)

MIM has long criticized the prison-building craze as part of a
wild jobs-creation program for rural Amerikan labor aristocrats.
In formerly farming or industrial towns, prisons bring
construction and guard jobs – turning a company town into a
prison town.

So what can you do to help stop the vicious spread of SuperMax
prisons and to join in education and activism to End the Amerikan
Lockdown in general? Contact MIM for information on organizing
rallies; educational films, lectures or panel discussions. Contact
us to organize benefit concerts and other fundraisers for MIM’s
Serve the People Free Books for Prisoners Program. If more behind-
the-scenes activism is what you’re looking for, you can help out
with the Under Lock & Key section of MIM Notes; the Serve the
People Prisoners’ Legal Clinic; or MIM’s website. MIM leads
projects in these and many other areas along with the work of the
United Struggle from Within prisoner organization and the
Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League. All these things are part
of MIM’s work to End the Amerikan Lockdown.

MC12 contributed research and editing to this article.

Notes:
1. Wisconsin SuperMax Prison
http://supermax.jobsight.net/public/index.stm
2. Journal of Prisoners on Prisons, Volume 3, Numbers 1 and 2
Autumn 1990/Spring 1991 http://www.jpp.org/fulltext-v3/v3n12-
e.html “It’s a Form of Warfare: A Description of Pelican Bay State
Prison” John H. Morris, III
3. The Houston Chronicle 20 June, 1999.
4. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 12 September, 1999)
5. Fight the Spread of Supermax MN83 December 1983
6. A prisoner in Wisconsin, July 1999 from MIM Notes 194
7. U. Wisconsin website. Note: this assumes Wisconsin resident
status; prisoners of the Wisconsin prisons are Wisconsin
residents.