MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
In Jacksboro, Texas, Correctional Corporation of America unit offenders
with disabilities are discriminated against per 42 U.S.C. § 12132. The
use of solitary confinement on prisoners with serious mental illnesses
at this jail does not meet state legal standards. Offenders rights under
the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as well as the Eighth
Amendment are in dire straits. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice
(TDCJ) fails to follow policy and laws. Offenders are in their cells 24
hours a day. I was placed in a psychiatric unit in Lubbock, Texas
(Montford Unit) from February to September 2013, locked in a cell all
the time. Then I moved to state jail and all my medications that I was
given by TDCJ doctors were taken away and they told TDCJ they don’t
allow that medication on this unit.
I am being given the run around fighting this because courts have ruled
that private prison corporations are not a public entity merely because
they have entered into a contract with a public entity to provide
services. An instrument of the state is only a government unit or unit
created by a government unit; as such, no title II ADA claims are
applicable. The ADA does not apply to private prisons.
MIM(Prisons) adds: We have written extensively about the
health
effects of solitary confinement which is cruel and unusual
punishment even for healthy prisoners. Those with mental health problems
are even more dramatically harmed by this long-term isolation. Texas has
a history of
“treating”
prisoners with mental illness with torture. We know that this
isolation is a tool of social control in a criminal injustice system
that does not care about the health of prisoners. Further,
prisons
use mental illness and labels, treatment and the withholding of
treatment, as another tool of social control. We must fight this with
our own institutions of mental health: education, persynal healthy
practices, mental engagement and social interaction where possible. In
addition to our educational programs and work connecting prisoners with
the struggle on the streets, we distribute portions of the American
Friends Service Committee’s
Survivors Manual for people in control units. Write to us for a copy
and for more information on how you can plug in to the anti-imperialist
prison movement.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) picked up my pending case
challenging inadequate medical services and unconstitutional conditions
of confinement in 2011. We’re expecting a trial date in 2015. We are
attempting to force Arizona Department of Corrections (ADC) to change
its policy and practice of housing the mentally ill in isolation for
extended periods of time. State prison is extremely poor, prisons are
understaffed and riddled with security flaws. I am an adamant critic and
am vocal about its policies and practices, therefore the administration
has made my life here in prison severely difficult.
I am also working on my criminal convictions. I’ve navigated myself
through multiple tiers of appeals. I really had a hard time exhausting
all my state remedies in the Arizona State Courts. It took me almost
eleven years to figure out, but most recently I filed my first federal
habeas corpus petition in Arizona Federal District Court. I am
requesting that the federal court appoint me a lawyer to investigate the
possibility of state judicial corruption against the Tucson Police
Department and the Pima County Attorneys Office. Last week I filed a
Writ of Certiorari. This is a petition to the United States’s
highest court; they only address issues involving “Constitutional
magnitude.” I’m asking them to resolve the Constitutional question that
was left open in Martinez V. Ryan, 623 F.3d 731,
132S.CT1309(1023) of:
“Whether a defendant in a state criminal case has a federal
Constitutional Right to effective Assistance of Counsel at
initial-review-collateral-proceedings specifically with respect to his
ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel-claim.”
Because state law does not mandate Effective Assistance of Counsel
during a convicted criminal’s Initial-Review Collateral Proceedings
(Ariz. R. Crim. P. Rule 32), I’m able to believe that prisoners
in Arizona are being discriminated against because they’re indigent and
cannot afford effective counsel during their Initial-Review Collateral
Proceedings. The United States Supreme Court only takes 3% of the cases
filed each term, so the odds of them taking my case is nil, but imagine
if they did. WOW, this would mean that a pro se litigant would
have molded the law to conform to the needs of the oppressed here at the
very bottom of society’s heap. A person is only as big as his dreams.
Fortunately, it does not end there. A Section 1983 Civil Rights Action
prohibits a state from discriminating pursuant to the Fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides that:
“No state shall… deprive any person of life, liberty, or property
without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the Law.”
The clause is “a direction that all persons similarly situated should be
treated alike.”(City of Cleburne V. Cleburne Living ctr, 4730 U.S.
432,439 (1985))
I am determined to build a strong campaign to gain Injunctive Relief in
a class action seeking to remedy the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment
violations caused by Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 32’s past
and continuing operations. Our actions, even if successful, will not
demonstrate the invalidity of our conviction or sentence, therefore
Section 1983 Class Action is the proper vehicle.(Wilkinson v.
Dotson, 544 U.S. 74,82 (2005).)
If you feel you were denied Effective Assistance of trial council, and a
Fourteenth Amendment right to effective assistance of Appeals Counsel
for your Initial-Review Collateral Proceedings because either you did
not have an attorney during your first Rule 32, or your Arizona R. Crim.
P Rule 32 Lawyer was ineffective for failing to investigate Trial
Counsel claims and/or other substantial right claims during trial, it
would be important to draft out a notarized affidavit outlining the
facts in your specific case and send them to the addresses below. If
we’re able to gain enough affidavits, then we could proceed to present
these facts to a federal district court asking them to appoint class
counsel and certify our case as a class action. All we can do is try! In
Strength and Solidarity, Revolution!
Send your notarized affidavits to:
Arizona Prison Watch P.O. Box 20494 PHX, AZ 85036
Middle Ground Prison Reform 139 E Encanto Drive Tempe, AZ 85281
Arizona Justice Project P.O. Box 875920 Tempe, AZ 85287-5930
MIM(Prisons) adds: Please note to not send your affidavits to
MIM(Prisons). We do not have the resources to copy and mail your
affidavits to the addresses listed above.
We commend this comrade on discovering loopholes in the legal system and
attempting to remedy them to the advantage of the most oppressed in this
country. We encourage comrades in Arizona to participate in this effort
to provide more legal support to prisoners in the state (at least on
paper).
And we must remember that our struggle cannot stop there. While a
successful habeas corpus case may help a prisoner to be
released, a release is only as valuable as what you do with your time
when you’ve made it outside. A recently released comrade
wrote
of the challenges s/he will face after h parole, and the difficultes
s/he will have in carrying out political work, even though s/he is
supposedly now “free.” The trend toward individualism of general legal
counsel is one reason why the MIM(Prisons)-led Prisoners’ Legal Clinic
only works on issues directly related to expanding our ability to
organize, educate, and build toward an end to illegitimate imprisonment
altogether (i.e. communist society). We believe people should fight for
their release, but that they also should struggle for the release of the
world’s majority from the chains of imperialism.
Related to the topic of carefully selecting our battles, we have written
extensively on the limitations of focusing on fighting housing mentally
ill prisoners in long-term isolation.(1) Some shortcomings of this
strategy are legitimization of long-term isolation for
not-yet-mentally-ill prisoners, and the fact that long-term isolation
leads to mental illness in prisoners even if they entered isolation with
sound mind and body. Of course we agree with the principle that mentally
ill prisoners should not be housed in long-term isolation. But we take
it further to say that no prisoners should be housed in
long-term isolation, and we see no value in selling out some comrades on
this issue in order to save others; eventually everyone held in
long-term isolation will suffer mental illness. Abolish the SHU!
Understanding the historical foundations that imperialism rests upon,
it’s not surprising that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has moved to censor
MIM material at United States Prison (High-SMU) Florence, Colorado.
As a New Afrikan, and a native indigenous warrior, I strove to show a
qualitative form of unity by creating a social-political educational
study class with MIM material. However, in a classic predictable
anti-social way the BOP censored our materials. By the will to outlast
our captors we remain committed and courageous as we strive to expand
our political awareness and sharpen our mental tools.
As we study European expansionism, conquest and imperialism we find that
their art of politics easily turns into their art of war. By tracking
the footprints of history we find the first thing to be seized,
controlled and destroyed by European settlers and conquerors is the
cultural, political and educational facilities and institutions of those
conquered.
By studying the mechanics of imperialistic conquest, we find that to
effectively colonize a people the colonial system must thoroughly
entrench itself inside the minds of that subjected people. Thus, the
educational system of that people must be replaced, and repressed with
an anti-social educational system that reinforces a system of
slavocracy.
The masters of the means of production fear a people armed with the
social weapon of political education, because true liberation education
is the well of hope and power that directs and harnesses the humanism of
humanity. Education for the colonized is not static nor does it exist on
a one dimensional level that’s academic in nature. Political, social and
cultural education is forever in motion working in a dialectical
relationship with materialism. Education is the catalyst for the process
of decolonization.
Our brother Frantz Fanon noted: “Decolonization is the veritable
creation of new men. But this creation owes nothing of its legitimacy to
any supernatural power, the ‘thing’ which has been colonized becomes
‘man’ during the same process it frees itself…” Thru correct political
and social education the “things” (i.e. the nigga, the pimp, the social
parasite, the whore, the agent of fratricide and natural genocide, the
gangster, the dope fiend, dope pusha, and every other reactionary
element in our community) become true healers of humanity by finding a
new sense of humanity within themselves. This is the powerful potential
of education.
In Amerikkka it was a crime in the 1700s and 1800s for a slave to be
able to read. We hung like strange fruit from trees for just picking up
a book. This pervasive ignorance was a sturdy bolt in maintaining the
system of chattel slavery, and we find the same system and pervasive
ignorance in place today. So for a system that is bent on maintaining
the present order of things it becomes a criminal act to possess and
process any material that would induce a neo-colonial slave to bend
these bars back, break these chains, challenge our minds, find our
humanism and take our freedom. The class enemy understands that in the
right hands, in the right minds, education would be a dangerous tool. It
would become an anti-imperialist weapon of mass destruction and mass
liberation at the same time. It would compel the “thing” to become
“man”, break the chains and rise up and slit the throat of those who
presently pull the levers of control.
Our captors work overtime to repress any tendency of the birth of new
age Malcolm Xs and George Jacksons. They understand that these jails and
prisons are our universities and finishing schools. They know and
understand there is a living contradiction between the ruling class and
those of us who wear the chains of neo-colonialism. And the imperialists
also know and understand there is a scientific development of opposites
that’s inherent in everything. Thus the material conditions will force
the masses to bear the responsibility of solving the economic, political
and social contradictions one day. So they can burn all the books,
destroy all the libraries, kill all the wisemen, censor all the material
they want, but they can’t stop liberation.
Reading
MIM
Theory #7: Proletarian Feminist Nationalism I couldn’t help but
notice that to date there has been a strong trend of oppressed nationals
becoming more and more molded and fitted to U.$. culture and its
parasitic ways.
A quote by Malcolm X found in MT7 struck me hard: “I’m not going to sit
at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call
myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn’t make you a diner, unless
you eat some of what’s on that plate. Being here in America doesn’t make
you an American. Being born here in America doesn’t make you an
American.”…“No, I am not an American, I’m one of the 22 million black
people who are the victims of Americanism. I don’t see any American
dream, I see an American nightmare.”(1)
I’m hard pressed to find an organization that’s “Latino” nationalist and
agitating for the emancipation of what is currently the south western
portion of the United $tates to become a nation itself.
These days you hear Latinos all throughout the United $tates clamoring
for comprehensive immigration reform. Enough of this assimilation, and
how about a call for what was once Mexico to return to its people.
Whether this emancipated state will become part of modern day Mexico or
form its own nation is for the people to decide for themselves. Those
same people clamoring for immigration reform, who fail to realize that
they are an oppressed nation within an oppressor nation, can’t help but
feel as if they constitute a part of this oppressor class (white
chauvinism). The policies that will be enacted due to their protesting
and petitions will only hurt and destroy the Latino communities. As a
people who are already stigmatized and oppressed, the crumbs of the
white nation are counter to the ultimate interests of Latino people.
It’s no secret how the INS and ICE deport huge numbers of Latino people
who only come here to make and earn a living. Some might ask: if Amerika
is so fucked up why do you want Latinos here? Well if numbers are power
then the more people we have the better we are able to form a
revolutionary nationalistic party and arouse national sentiment in face
of brutality. Moreover as burdensome jobs will go to those immigrants
the better it’ll be to swell the ranks of the proletariat.
Most people these days are so jingoistic with Amerikanism that at the
same time they wave the U.$. flag they wave their country of origin flag
too, not grasping how NAFTA and trade relations with “south Amerika” are
one sided and are to the advantage of the white U.$. middle class. Even
within prison you hear prisoners clamoring of how great the United
$tates is.
Oppressed nations must take notice that you are not what the U.$.
constitution meant to defend, you never will be and it’s futile to think
cheering and asking for reforms will free your nation. H. Ford Douglas
put it nicely: “There is as much force in a black [Brown, red, etc]
man’s standing up and exclaiming after the manner of the ‘old Roman’ -
‘I am an American citizen,’ as there was in the Irish man who swore he
was a loaf of bread, because he happened to be born in a bake oven… I
can hate this government without being disloyal, because it has stricken
down my manhood and treated me as a saleable commodity. I can join a
foreign enemy and fight against it, without being a traitor, because it
treats me as an ALIEN and a STRANGER, and I am free to avow that should
such a contingency arise I should not hesitate to take any advantage in
order to procure indemnity for the future. I can feel no pride in the
glory, growth, greatness or grandeur of this nation.”(2)
Much hype and media attention has been brought by the murder of the
runner up of the Miss Universe, Miss Venezuela. News pundits like to
point out that Venezuela had over 25,000 murders last year and is the
world’s murder capital. The killing of any person through murder and
greed is sad and tragic, but what the media fails to talk about is
Amerika’s own murder rate.
Statistics for 2010-2011 from the FBI’s Crime in the U.S.
report has murder and negligent manslaughter at 14,612. This is below
the 24,000 murders in Venezuela, but it doesn’t account for murders
committed by the U.$. armed forces around the globe. In the United
States the number of forcible rapes for 2010-2011 was 85,593. This does
not account for non-reported rapes as well as rapes in the military.
The government-mouthpiece media in the U.$. viciously portrays other
country’s problems and flaws in order to keep the prying eyes of the
world off the United $tates.
People the world over should strive to end crime in their communities.
But most importantly people should understand that the grandfather of
all criminals is the imperialist system here in Amerika.
by a North Carolina prisoner January 2014 permalink
They say “America is the land of the free” But what about the
millions of people who are just like me Locked in a cage for petty
crimes Don’t you see in this so called land of the free a dead
president’s face on a piece of paper is worth more than you or
me And they say the U.S.A. is home of the brave What’s so
brave about locking a man in a cage with nothing other than time
to bottle up his rage There is some who are addicts others who
are mentally ill And the answer to the problem when society no
longer wants us around send us to a court so a judge can lay us
down But that judge is no better than you or me He’s just as
crooked as any other politician you see If you have the money
he’ll let you go free But if you’re indigent the outcome is the
millions of people who are just like me
On 21 May 2013 I filed a Section 1983 Civil Suit against Illinois
Department of Corrections employees S. Rhone-Plaskett (Counselor), A.
Winemiller (Correctional Officer), Jackie Miller (Administrative Review
Board Representative), and Grievance Officer (John Doe) for the
unconstitutional banning of the November/December 2012 No. 29 issue of
Under Lock & Key (ULK).
This lawsuit is the second one that I have filed concerning the bogus
banning of ULK and I expect to file many more in the future.
This lawsuit is based on the grounds that the Defendants cannot
substantiate the banning of ULK and that the banning of
ULK violates my Constitutional Rights to:
Receive and own reading material;
Have freedom of speech; and
Have freedom of political expression.
Any material or support you can offer that would aid me in my battle
against censorship in Illinois would be greatly appreciated.
Specifically, I would count it a blessing if you would comb through your
archives and send me anything you have regarding censorship of
ULK in Illinois, especially the November/December 2012 No. 29
issue of ULK.
Filing lawsuits does work! Because of the pressure I have been applying
by filing Section 1983s, I was allowed to have the March/April 2013
No. 31 issue of ULK, the first issue of ULK that I
have received since November 2011. So keep your heads high and your
hearts strong as we continue to fight the phenomenon of censorship. It
is just another contradiction facilitated by the proletariat/bourgeois
contradiction.
MIM(Prisons) responds: Some comrades in Illinois have been
permitted to receive ULK without censorship, after much work on
their end to defend their rights. In other facilities, it is still
banned. Specifically, at Sheridan, Menard, Stateville, and Lawrence
Correctional Centers, ULK is being censorsed for any reason
from “banned in facility” (Stateville) to “promotes unauthorized
organization activity” (Menard). Still, we are being banned without
notice to publisher or prisoner (Lawrence) and mailroom employees at
Sheridan inconsistently enforce a policy that labels are not permitted
on mail pieces; we have yet to see this policy in writing in any
official format.
Several prisoners in Illinois have stepped up to help out with the
censorship battle in their state. We recently began engaging with these
volunteers on an organized basis to help push this battle to a head. We
need prisoners who are facing censorship to fight out their persynal
censorship battles, like the author of this article has done.
MIM(Prisons) and the Prisoners’ Legal Clinic volunteers can assist, but
we can’t fight the battle for you.
The author of this article is correct that occasionally we will make
gains, and expand space, for revolutionary organizing. We can use the
legal system to make small reforms that make our job easier; for
example, defending the right to receive revolutionary newsletters. But
we don’t expect to be free of all censorship, as it is a manifestation
of the battle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; it is a
manifestation of the battle between the Amerikan oppressor nation, and
the oppressed internal semi-colonies. We use the administrative
procedures and courts when we can, but ultimately we know we can’t rid
ourselves of censorship, or any other social ill, unless we resolve the
root problem: oppression of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, and
oppression of the internal semi-colonies by the Amerikan nation. We can
only make this sweeping change by throwing out the entire capitalist
imperialist system itself.
by a South Carolina prisoner January 2014 permalink
It’s cold outside, yesterday we had ice on the ground, and lots of rain,
and for a month now I have been without shoes. We are given clogs, which
you know are not made for inclement weather. They have holes in the
bottoms. I wear compression hose due to edema in my legs. The cement
sidewalk eats a hole in them and medical won’t replace them for a month,
the clogs I’m told have to be worn one year before they can be
exchanged. The service life is one year, which does not take into
account the weight of a person or his walking habits.
The medical department at Evans Correctional Institution is
dysfunctional. South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) hired a
racist physician’s assistant as a necessary component to reduce prison
medical expenditures. Finally after letters to the medical board,
Senators, filing grievances, talking to other prisoners who experienced
problems with this same physician’s assistant, prompting them to engage
this fight against intolerance, he finally moved on. SCDC only hires
those with less than perfect records, the last doctor was barred from
practice in 3 states (Dr. Paul Drago #9700531). Now the nurses are
taking up where they left off, we’ve had three deaths that I know of and
it’s not getting any better.
The food is mostly a mystery meat that is supposed to be turkey, which
used to come in a box that read “not for human consumption.” Now we have
the same meat, in a different box. More often than not the food is cold
(not serving temperature), prisoners are given the wrong size portions,
some more, others less. Food supervisors just come for the pay check,
and we get 6 minutes to eat. Some prisoners say they are going to bed
hungry. The others that can afford it go to the canteen where most of
the food is high in price and salt.
MIM(Prisons) adds: We looked up Dr. Drago and found that he was a
plastic surgeon before working at the prison, not exactly the specialty
needed there. But after having his license revoked in multiple states,
this was likely the only job he could get. This is how little we value
the health of prisoners: subjecting them to the “care” of doctors who
are deemed unfit to practice medicine outside of prison.
Health and
health
care are generally available in direct proportion to people’s wealth
and status under imperialism. Those at the bottom are lucky to have
access to any medical care, and live in conditions that lead to greatly
reduced life expectancy. The life expectancy in many African countries
is less than 60, and those doing well are in their 60s, while
imperialist countries of the world enjoy a life expectancy in the 80s.
This discrepancy is killing people, lives that could be saved with a
more equitable distribution of resources and education. Prisoners in the
United $tates share the interests of the oppressed in the Third World in
the fight for access to health care and safe and sanitary living
conditions.
by a North Carolina prisoner January 2014 permalink
I would like to update
my
article in ULK 33. Our lawsuit against guard assaults on prisoners
has gained attention and helped us win some protections. The pigs in
Raleigh were ordered to install eleven new cameras and extra equipment
to double storage capacity, set up a new policy to investigate assaults,
and the court hired an expert to go into the prison to inspect it to see
if blind spots are covered and other areas have been corrected. They
have also replaced the entire unit staff.
We are now in discovery since the judge refused to throw out the
prisoner beatings lawsuit. This case is getting some press, and the
Herald Sun reported: “The judge made a not so veiled reference
to the practice of punishing inmates by locking them up in dim solitary
units.” The judge said “your case is about sunlight where you claim
there were systematic violations” to the lawyers for the prisoners.
“What we need to do with this lawsuit is not bury it in a deep, dark
hole and proceed with discovery.”(1)
So one damn thing for sure we got a judge on our side. The same way they
have taken from us (a little at a time) we all can do the same to them.
It’s just a matter of team work.
MIM(Prisons) adds: This is a good example of a winnable court
battle that will result in some improvements in safety for prisoners.
But it will not stop the inhumane abuse that continues throughout
prisons in North Carolina. This is an ongoing contradiction of our fight
against the criminal injustice system at this stage: we take on
reformist battles to try to improve the conditions under which our
comrades suffer, but we know that these reforms offer no more than minor
adjustments to a system that is based on the oppression and suffering of
those locked within.
It is ironic that the prisoners in North Carolina have to go to court to
fight for their own safety within prison, while the state’s
justification for every repressive act is “safety” (including North
Carolina’s excuse for censoring Under Lock & Key for over
three years straight). This exposes the reality of the criminal
injustice system: a brutal tool of social control that endangers the
safety of all who are captured in its broad nets. We need to take
advantage of reform battles like this one, both to gain some breathing
room for our comrades and to educate others and build unity. We can’t
end the abuse until we eliminate the criminal injustice system, but
these reformist battles are important steps along the way in our
ultimate fight against imperialism as a whole.
No. I do not believe in your government never have never
will No. I do not support your wars for your greed i will not
kill No. I will not sit back and shut up nor play deaf, dumb and
blind No. I will not hear what you say you can’t corrupt my
mind No. I will not teach my children your hate nor will i teach
them your lies I can see your true colors through your red, white,
and blue disguise No. I will not go to your church nor will i read
your bible No. I will not worship your god fake prophets, a book
or an idol
