Under Lock & Key

Here in Arkansas state prisons we have a terrible grievance procedure. The administration and pigs call it an “informal resolution” and it is a joke. I have enclosed the front page so you can check it out.

In Arkansas we receive no pay for the jobs we perform, but at Christmas time the state places a big $6 on our books, averaging out to about 1 1/2 cents per day. In the mid to late 90s I ran one of the unit’s cabinet shops and would often work 12 hour days, 7 days a week for that $6. Purely slave labor in my opinion.

Here they shut out our lights at 10:30pm and turn them on again as early as 3am, leaving them off only 4 1/2 hour, and this is usually done 7 days a week.

The food we get us usually not fit for human consumption. Very often the hamburger meat and chicken are spoiled, but most of us can’t afford to go to the commissary store and must eat it.

Our grievances often get “lost” or “misplaced” if they have factual info about a staff member, especially if a few individuals write them.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This problem with grievances is not unique to Arkansas. For this reason United Struggle from Within initiated a grievance campaign this year. If you are filing grievances about any issue and they aren’t being handled properly by staff, consider becoming a part of this campaign and spread it to your people inside.

Twice now in two years, the pigs at Kkklinton have allegedly restrained a convict and murdered him. In the early morning hours of 3 October 2010, Leonard Strickland, a 44-year-old Black male in general population was killed. Of course these cowards will be fighting each other, cutting, stabbing and yet there’s no resistance to these corrupt corrections staff.

Just last night, while returning from the SHU shower Sergeant Marcil and CO Stuart told me that the prisoner died of an overdose or bad heroin brought into the prison that weekend. Officer Decoteau told me that it was the plastic bag treatment, meaning that once again they’ve placed a bag over a prisoner’s head. I have spoken to another prisoner who had this done to him.

MIM(Prisons) adds: The NYS DOCS has accused Mr. Strickland of assaulting staff and admit that he died shortly after being subdued by staff. The autopsy results are expected in a couple weeks. We hope our comrades in New York will help us investigate what really went down and start developing means to ensure better protection of the imprisoned population as a whole. This protection starts with the mobilization of a conscious prison population who are watching for abuse and will unite in protest of these acts of brutality.

I have been in disciplinary segregation since August 2004 and I am currently at Western Correctional Prison, Maximum Security. On 26 January 2008, I wrote an Administrative Remedy Complaint (ARCs) on six officers who attacked me while coming from the showers on the 4 - 12 shift. This was due to me writing grievances (ARCs) on them for not abiding to DOC policy and procedures. The ARC has stayed its course through the process and it is now in the Court of Special Appeals where it has been since February 2009.

On 13 March 2009, I was assaulted by officer Broadwater, which precluded the above ARC. All these officers at the time were working SHU #4 Disciplinary Segregated Isolation tiers.

On 25 March 2008, I was assaulted by officers Rice, Brambles, and McKenzie. I was sprayed with chemical pepper spray all over my front body, from my waist to my head. This chemical was literally dripping off my body. The officer said in his report that he gave me a one second burst! This ARC went through the process and is in the Court of Special Appeals as of February 2009.

To relieve themselves of an injunction that I won, they transferred me to Eastern Correctional Prison, which is classified as medium security. I am classified as Maximum #2 level, so I made out really good from the injunctions.

I’ve lodged numerous ARPs:
1. Concerning the wearing of hair nets while serving our food to us. I won this ARP and the Gestapo hates it.
2. Serving us cold food all the time. This ARP is at the Inmate Grievance Office (IGO) now, which is the last step before going to court.
3. ARP about tiers having food and trash on them, which the guards encourage. This ARP was addressed at the IGO level in December 2009, and now they have to come around to each individual cell and collect unwanted food and trash. Gestapo hates it because they have to do a little work.
4. ARP concerning filthy showers and the tier floor not being mopped regularly as stated in the DOC policy and procedures, “It is imperative that good sanitation be maintained at all time!”

I also have two cases in local courts. As you can see, I am very adamant about these Gestapo security guards doing their job correctly. Whatever you can think of that these Gestapos can do to me, they’ve done it over the years. So whatever they do to me, they’re not getting a cherry. Been there and done that!

As far as the grievances go towards censorship of incoming books, magazines, and literature such as Under Lock & Key, I fought the censorship of incoming literature from Book ‘Em and Books to Prisoners. Basically I wrote an ARP because when the books came in they sent them back without notifying me that the books were even here. I found out via Books to Prisoners writing me and telling me about it. So the prison violated not only mine, but Books to Prisoners’ due process rights.

Plus the prison had a list of 34 companies where you could order books from. This list is called a “blackball” list and it is illegal. I charged them with a restraint of trade and discrimination. Once the ARP got to the second level of the process, Commissioner’s Office, they withdrew the list of 34 companies.

I have a very good track record for winning ARP cases, and my first two books were from Books to Prisoners.

I want to put Maryland on the map, so to speak! There are numerous upon numerous violations that are at fault in this Gestapo Security Guard Concentration Camp. I’d like to see more prisoners in this state get involved in any movement that stands against this Draconian style suffering towards those who are imprisoned.

Nothing and no one will stop me from exercising my absolute right to litigate from anyone refusing to adhere to giving me those few basic rights that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights of the United States of Amerikkka says that I have!

MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade domonstrates that following through on appeals and filing court cases can actually lead to winning cases and that building your experience fighting such legal battles can pay off.

Though prisons are one of the most fascist elements of U$ society we don’t use the term “Gestapo” to describe the pigs. The Gestapo was the official secret police of the Nazi government, and to call U.$. prison guards a Gestapo tends to let imperialism off the hook. The petty bourgeoisie likes to believe that bourgeois democracy is a more humane system than fascism. But part of the importance of exposing what is going on in U$ prisons is demonstrating that imperialism can be just as oppressive when it needs to be. Fascism happens when the imperialists decide they need to be that oppressive all the time.

I am currently on I-Con [lockdown] for assault on staff, but the write up was false. In December 2009 an officer was told to write me up for assault because I refused to sit down in the day room. She called me out by name and then told me to go to my bunk. As I was going to pass her she stood in my way so that she was blocking my path, and she said I pushed her. Prisoners later told me that while I was in segregation she stated I never touched her, and that she wrote me up because she had the authority to do so.

In June 2010 my room got searched while I was still on I-Con for the assault charge, and I got written up for another assault on staff charge as well as destruction of state property and disrespect. They charged me with assault because the officer told me to drop my socks outside of my trap door. So I dropped them out my door because I was following a direct order. Now it’s four officers standing outside my door and this particular officer is standing right in front of my door when the sock falls on his foot. So he says that I threw a sock at him. Officers claim I “assaulted” him but one of them told me that you can’t assault anybody with a sock and she never saw me assault anyone but she wrote a statement claiming I did.

Even if I did what they claim, the charge A-3 assault on staff is for “throwing objects that are likely to produce injury or by any other means hitting, kicking and pushing.” A sock doesn’t produce injury and they claimed it hit him in the leg. I’ve never known a sock to injure anyone. The only reason I was found guilty is because it was the word of two officers and a sergeant and I had no witness. But the evidence that I asked to be submitted was never submitted in my case. I’m currently appealing the charge.

On January 1 after an altercation with another patient I was escorted out the day area to the sideroom. After being placed inside the sideroom, someone came to the sideroom and asked me do I want to take psychotropic drugs oral or by needle? I told him I would take the drugs by mouth. A lot of other TAs began grouping up outside of the sideroom. They ran in the room and started punching and kicking me while they were pulling me out into the hallway. One of them kicked me in the groin and one of them punched me in the mouth. Out in the hallway they forcefully injected me with the medication. They then put me in the restraint bed and put me back in the sideroom. After that three TAs wheeled me over to the sideroom on ward 402. While being wheeled over there and still fully restrained in the bed a TA named Frank Wench assaulted me by punching me in the backside of my head about 4 times and started grabbing me by my shirt and choking me with it and said “you fucked with the wrong person”.

It’s after midnight and I am exhausted but the racing thoughts in my head will not allow my body to sleep. My anxiety is at its absolute worst and therefore my insomnia is at its worst.

As a result of having to try to cope with these almost crippling conditions without medication, my depression is also quite severe. Most days I have to force myself to get out of bed. (Keep in mind that when I’m “in bed”, I’m not there because I’m sleeping but rather because I cannot find a reason to get up.) When I finally do get up I’m in a constant state of anxiety and panic. I’ve lived every day of the last year and a half on the verge of a complete nervous and emotional breakdown due to my untreated insomnia and anxiety/panic disorder.

Because of “DOC policy” the medications that were successfully treating these conditions prior to me coming to prison in 2009 were taken from me. The only medication I’m allowed is Cymbalta, which treats my depression.

I have complained to psychology staff and my doctor here that I need these medications back as my mental health is extremely unstable due to not having them. I mentioned to them that it is not unusual for me - since not having these meds - to only get 1-2 hours of sleep a night. I also told them about the panic attacks I’ve been having. (Anyone who’s ever suffered from one of these can tell you just how terrifying they can be.) I’ve told them all of this and they still refuse to provide me with adequate medications to treat my mental illnesses. Prisoners here do not receive any type of individual therapy to help them cope with such illnesses either.

As a result of IDOC’s negligence to my mental health I have suffered immensely. I was forced to drop out of a potentially beneficial academic program as a result of my untreated anxiety and the fact that I could not attend some days because I was not getting enough sleep at night due to my untreated insomnia. When my conditions got so bad that I was contemplating suicide they locked me in a tiny cell with no clothes and no blankets or a bed to sleep on and they left me there for about 2 weeks - the first time. They required me to eat with my hands and would not allow any tangible items in the cell with me, not even a soft covered Bible. Now lets be reasonable here, how am I going to harm myself with a soft covered Bible - or any soft covered book for that matter? They also forced me to let them examine my anus and genital area 3 times per day because they thought I may have had something hidden up there even though I never once left the cell and the door never opened once. It was closed and I never had any type of contact with anyone. Keep in mind someone was outside the cell monitoring me through a fairly large window 24/7.

I believe they secretly thought that keeping me in there for so long under such harsh and inhumane conditions would discourage me from bothering them with my mental health problems anymore as I heard one of the pigs say to the prisoner they appointed to monitor me that “if he wants to keep plain’ these fuckin’ games he can just stay in there awhile.” When he used the word “games” he was referring to me becoming suicidal as a result of their negligence to my mental health needs.

I was recently told by a psychology staff that they could not afford to give me the medications I need because of the recent budget cuts here in this state. I write this letter because I figured people should know that Governor Culver, who claims to so concerned about the safety of Iowa’s children, is also the one responsible for the budget cuts that put a barrier between prisoners and adequate mental health treatment which would help all mentally ill prisoners, including pedophiles and other sex offenders, be better rehabilitated and prepared to live as responsible citizens upon release.

So I’ll close this letter by posing a few questions. What is more threatening, pedophiles or mentally unstable pedophiles? A domestic abuser or a mentally unstable domestic abuser? A drug dealer who sells drugs to kids or a mentally unstable drug dealer who has a history of selling drugs to kids? I think I’ve made my point.

MIM(Prisons) responds: As we’ve written in previous articles about mental health, we look primarily to the environment as a cause for mental health problems like this prisoner describes. It is no wonder that s/he is suffering problems, as s/he is subjected to the torture of isolation that has a documented history of bringing mental health issues. Under imperialism we are forced to accept band-aids for mental health problems, and so many people end up using drugs to bring symptoms under control. As we explained in ULK 13, “As with most problems we face, we can find answers to mental health problems through dialectical materialism and in having the correct political line. In the 1950s the Chinese eliminated the more backwards psychological practices in their society and replaced them with ones focused on getting individuals to connect with and help shape the material world through applying dialectical materialism. Mental health care, like much of Chinese society under Mao, emphasized the importance of both self-reliance and collective help, with the understanding that patients can fight their diseases and lead productive lives in the new society.”

Here in our Texas prison system, prisoners with mental health issues are being abused, mistreated, assaulted, and forced into harming, hurting, endangering themselves as well as other prisoners and officers. The unit officials are negligently using chemical agents against mentally ill prisoners by spraying pepper spray (OC) directly on us and then leaving us in our contaminated cells as a form of punishment. They leave us there to suffer as they watch with gas masks on. OC cause you to burn for days, and by the cell not being decontaminated, it’s an ongoing torture. Every time you touch something in the cell it starts all over again.

Mentally ill prisoners are constantly written bogus disciplinary infractions, which we are automatically found guilty of. The mental health and medical departments are co-defendants with the administration’s corrupt misuse of disciplinary policy and procedure by falsifying documents, and signing off on these cases without any sort of support on the prisoner’s behalf.

This causes mentally ill prisoners to max their sentences because every major case is automatically a year set off by parole, plus the fact that it’s also a year’s wait before you can receive eligibility for the appropriate line class all over again. So if you are bipolar paranoid, or have another psychotic disorder, you are constantly in harm’s way.

And as I’ve mentioned, the psych staff corroborates with the administration to keep you down and in the last place. There are not any successful programs for prisoners like myself who are provoked to act out in order to receive immediate help and relief. Our ADA rights [granted by the Americans with Disabilities Act] are being stomped on.

MIM(Prisons) adds: For more on mental health abuses, causes, and cures check out Under Lock & Key issue 15.

In 2006 I stated that the state of Maryland was conceivably the most corrupt DOC in the nation. But the state of Connecticut now holds that distinction. With layer after lay of indecent filth and moral decay, wicked dishonesty and corruption. Prisoners are fair game to be brutalized and tortured, and to have our property stolen or destroyed with impunity. then they act shocked or surprised when one of their captives strikes back. And instead of learning, they intensify the torture, and the cycle starts over again. I am aware of the systematic efforts to stop and delay any mail that is critical of staff or policy. And none of the draconian policies or tactics being used are accidental, and in fact they are a part of larger illegal psychological experiment, disguised under the code name ‘behavior modification.’ Because there is no outcry by the sheeple as we are stripped of our human and civil rights it will only be a matter of time before the same tactics will be used to control those in the larger society. Prisoners are the most vulnerable in society and if our most basic rights are ignored and denied then none are safe. Prisons always mirror and reflect society.

Prisons across amerikkka are charging astronomical fees for phone calls, victimizing our wives and children so that the millionaires and billionaires can continue to reap untold profits, and a profit is all they care about. Confining you to only your immediate family who can come and visit. Leaving your girlfriends and other important interpersonal relationships out in the cold. They subject your family to all kinds of degrading mistreatment, as if to try to dissuade them from future visits. Once they cut you off from your phone calls and visits then they withhold your mail. Creating a state of total isolation from any community support you may have had. Furthering your dependency upon your captors, they deprive you of any meaningful reading material.

The program of isolation is being run by persons from the mental health field so I know they are aware of the damage and negative effects that are caused by this extreme isolation and sensory deprivation upon its victim’s psyche. They are very much aware that by reducing the sensory feedback, which is essential to a person’s well being, cracks can appear in their mental defense system. They take those of us who they consider troublesome, militant agitators, writ writers and even jailhouse lawyers, severing all your community ties, depriving you of all human contact, while making every effort to weaken your internal defenses and heighten your susceptibility to the influence and control of the prison authority. If you abandon your individuality and independence as a man, then and only then are you granted so called privileges, i.e. phone calls, commissary or the use of your radio. Personally I see this as the modern equivalent of the old slave breaking technique. If you do not conform your psychological torture continues indefinitely.

In 2009 I was attacked vigilante style by a hoard of guards in retaliation for an assault on a guard that they alleged I did. There were 13 to 17 on top of me, all of them out of control. Without any resistance from me, they sprayed a powerful mace substance point blank up my nostrils, shook the can and sprayed my entire face. This sadistic act was done only to inflict gratuitous pain and suffering. The chemical agent burns upon contact and takes your breath away at 10 feet, so you can imagine the effects of it being sprayed up my nose at point blank range. I believe the chemical burnt the membrane of my nasal passage. Because I was never properly decontaminated, the chemical remained on my skin and in my hair for days, continuously burning me. Contrary to the instruction, they forced my upper torso under hot water, knowing that such action would cause me excruciating pain because the hot water caused the pores to open up and allowed the chemical to go directly to my nerve endings. It felt like someone was striking a red hot poker to my face and skin. The powerful chemical totally took my breath away. While I was unable to breath, a full mask covering my entire head, like those worn by prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, effectively preventing me from breathing. My heart was under excessive strain and I had over 1200 pounds on top of me. One guard was punching me repeatedly in my jaw while another one was standing and dropping his knee with all of his weight onto my body. Someone else was trying to break my legs while someone else tried to break my fingers.

Finally they put leg irons and cuffs on me. The leg irons were so tight that I was unable to walk so they dragged me down this quarter mile long hallway. I was put in a dirty filthy cell, and in all my years of doing time I had never been in a more foul place. It smelled like the den of wild animal. There was dried blood, urine and spit on the floor and walls. The toilet had crud caked on it. They 4 pointed (chained feet and hands) to the bed. Three months later I still suffer pain from that night. I was four pointed over night, the longest night of my life. My clothes were ripped off me, leaving me totally naked and the cell was freezing cold.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This prisoner has faced brutal repression at the hands of the criminal injustice system, an unfortunately common story, which exposes the oppressive system. This testimony argues that the conditions in prison will eventually be applied to the rest of Amerikan society “it will only be a matter of time before the same tactics will be used to control those in the larger society”, but it would be both difficult and unlikely for the imperialists to turn on the oppressor nation in such a strong way. Prisons are a means of social control, used against those who pose a threat to the system. Since Amerikan citizens benefit greatly from imperialism, such measures will not be needed any time soon.

We also need to point out that prisons are not reaping profits, that is not their reason for existence and in fact they require significant subsidies from the government to exist. As we explained in ULK8, prisons are primarily for social control, not profit. They also provide some good labor aristocracy jobs for Amerikan citizens who earn high wages at the expense of the international proletariat. But that is not a profit, that is just imperialist superprofits being redistributed to the labor aristocracy via a job that furthers the imperialist government’s goal of social control.

I just got a letter from you a couple days ago and I think that y’all movement is really what I am into and what I stand for and that is putting an end to all oppression. I am locked in prison at this moment and I am also a part of a gang that Tookie Williams put together, which is the real reason why he got the death penalty.

I’m in a Security Housing Unit (SHU) right now for watching a fight between two prisoners. Just because I’m in the system as a Crip they took me to SHU where I have been going on two years. A couple of days ago I was maced for not letting the CO throw a Rasta Crown away. I asked them to let me send it home if I could not have it but they told me that sending it home was not an option. So I told them to go get the higher rank. The assistant unit manager told me that I have no rights to be requesting to talk to anyone, so they left my cell door and came back a few minutes later with 8 or 9 COs threatening to come in my cell to beat me up and spray me with mace if I did not give up my Rasta Crown. So I told them that if they were going to throw it away then I was not giving it to anyone and they popped the trap on my cell door open and shot mace in my cell and left me in there where I couldn’t breath. Then after six minutes in a cell with a lot of mace everywhere they took me out and stripped my cell to the point that I had not even a roll of restroom paper. They left me like this for 72 hours; no socks on my feet, nothing to keep me from being cold. It got to the point where I was throwing up blood so I put in a sick call. When the time came for me to see the doctor they would not let me go.

I will not stand and let these COs think that they are getting the best of me. These people who say they are here to stop the crimes or violence behind the wall are really the ones who are beating on people and doing anything to oppress. And they are the justice system, prison system. They hate to see a Muslim, Rasta, gang banger sticking together to overcome this oppression that these people are coming at us with. They hate to see a Black man reading a book about Huey Newton and the Black Panther Party or anything to learn about your Black history. They are willing to do whatever to make you dumb so that you will never know about where you came from.

The only people in SHU are Black and Latino; no white people are in SHU here.

MIM(Prisons) responds: As we wrote in a response in ULK 16, Tookie was murdered because he was a Crip and he truly reformed himself to serve his people.

In reading the May/June 2010 newsletter Under Lock & Key I have come to grips with the fact that we prisoners in Florida are not the only one subjected to and victimized by this oppression, corruption, and systematic abuse in the US prison system. As a new subscriber to ULK, and a fellow comrade, I have also come to grips with the fact that in order to change this oppressive prison system we must use litigation and the creation and maintenance of a prisoners’ rights movement both inside and outside of the prison walls. At the same time we can’t lose focus of the bigger picture of imperialism and must be carrying out our work as a part of a larger anti-imperialist strategy.

On March 26, 2010 I filed a 1983 Civil Rights complaint in the United States District Court of Florida’s Northern District for cruel and unusual punishment against officials of Florida’s Department of Organized Crimiaals (DOC). These law abiding criminals (Correction Officers) are taking advantage of a systematic “torture procedure” that was implemented as a tool of intimidation and torture to keep prisoners in check and from rebelling against this abusive and oppressive prison system. This “torture procedure” is a use of force procedure that allows prison officials to administer chemical agents into the cells of prisoners at the slightest infraction or if a prisoner does something or says something an officer does not like. You may get gassed out of retaliation or even if the officer doesn’t like you.

It usually goes down with an officer coming to your cell role playing like he is counseling with you about your behavior. This role playing is continued with a sergeant and lieutenant or captain to make it appear for the cameras as if they are counseling with you about some alleged behavior that was “disruptive” or “a threat” to staff. Once the role playing is done the oppressors role your door with a chain on it and unload big cans of mace into your cell to torture and abuse you. The spraying or gassing (as the oppressors call it) usually goes on for three rounds. During each round you are left in the cell at least five minutes or longer to suffer from the effects of the mace (coughing, sneezing, difficulty breathing and severe burning of the skin and eyes). Once the gassing is over you are pulled out of your cell and placed in an empty cell for 72 hours in only your boxers with no clothes, property, mattress, sheets or blanket. If you refuse to come out your cell to be subjected to this additional punishment after you have just been victimized then the oppressor (usually a captain) will assemble a good squad (extraction team) to come in to get you.

This article is written to expose the corruption and systematic abuse within Florida’s Department of Organized Criminals. If we are going to abolish oppression and systematic abuse systems such as this one in Florida, it’s going to have to come through litigation and a unified effort on our part and our fellow comrades on the outside to establish a prisoners’ rights movement. Meanwhile, our motto should be: resistance! resistance! resistance!

MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this prisoner’s call for resistance in the legal system and building a strong resistance movement. However, we have no illusions that we can abolish oppression through litigation. This comrade does mention that we can’t lose sight of the larger struggle against imperialism, and it is this struggle that leads to our understanding that fighting legal battles is a strategy for this stage of the struggle but not a solution to end oppression.