Under Lock & Key

Oakland, CA – Organizations came together on March 29 for a caravan from East Oakland to City Hall promoting the AEH street program, aka Artivists Ending Hostilities. Initiators included a number of former prisoners who participated it in the 2011 and 2013 hunger strikes in California, as well as the organization of currently incarcerated people P.E.P. Talk - Pre-Entry Platform. Former prisoners of CDCr spoke at the rally on the need to bring the message of peace from the original AEH (Agreement to End Hostilities) to the streets. Organizers distributed and read the text of original AEH and a recent message from Cellblock 2 Cityblock.

Kat Brooks of the Anti Police Terror Project was one of the speakers who really got to the heart of things:

“The state creates the conditions in our communities that they know creates violence.”

Ey went on to condemn Amerikan koncentration kamps as a form of violence, saying the carceral state is the most violent institution in the world. Another comrade read from/paraphrased the intro of the Communist Party of Aztlán’s essay on homelessness, making the connection that homelessness is also a form of violence that we must come together to end.

Of course, it is up to the oppressed to change our conditions. Youth from Lulu’s House participated in the event, speaking on their own recent transformations from petty criminals to active community members. One said:

“We gotta push the movement too, it starts with us.”

While another pointed out:

“If you’re scared of the youth you’ll never understand them.”

One of the adults present who wasn’t scared to help these youth change was a BART cop (Bay Area Rapid Transit). This “officer friendly” approach is a well-known counter-insurgency strategy of the occupying forces. They hire cops to do community work, who aren’t involved in the violent repression work, but do intelligence gathering for the state while helping to divide the occupied community.

Independence is one of the principles of the United Front for Peace in Prisons for this very reason. There is no progress towards liberation in the united front if it is working with the very imperialist state that is oppressing us.

Minister King X echoed this principle of independence when speaking about learning from the elders released from prison while the U.$. government is smashing the Department of Education. We must learn from the struggles of oppressed people.

Minister King X was one of the MC’s and organizers of the event, representing the Artivist Kadre trying to engage the youth and the oppressed in the movement through artistic expression. Ras Kass was also there representing the Artivist Kadre from Los Angeles. They were sporting patches promoting the New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalist (N.A.R.N.) ideology and the AEH. The Artivist Kadre are working with P.E.P. Talk, BOSS (another release support program) and others to address racism, fascism, sex trafficking and more in California.

MIM(Prisons) preface: Below a comrade in United States Penitentiary - Tucson tells a story about how prison staff institute arbitrary mass punishment. Often such mass punishment comes in the form of lockdowns, which have seemingly become more common in recent years. All level IV prisoners in California are currently on lockdown, and had access to their tablets and phones taken away. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced this on 8 March 2025, calling it “modified programming” as it applies only to level IV prisoners.(1) They have ordered the lockdown in response to an alleged surge in violence, yet we know that these forms of group punishment, and the new form of punishment of taking tablets away, only leads to more violence. As always, this isn’t about safety, but about control. In addition, the Ashker settlement, which followed the biggest hunger strikes to ever occur in U.$. prisons, supposedly prohibits collective punishment. So this “modified programming” is a violation of the CDCR’s own rules and court orders. But no significant organization currently exists inside to hold the pigs to their words. And with communications locked down the CDCR will control the narrative through its agents in the prisons.

A comrade in Allred Unit in Texas reports how lazy staff use collective punishment:

“TDCJ has started something new where if anyone get caught smoking or think they were smoking they locking the whole pod down for 15 days and they take away phones, e-messages, music, law library, Pando app, visits, commissary and school. I am about to write my step 1 grievance. If you can please point me to an attorney on this issue because they are putting other inmates lives in jeopardy and then telling all prisoners to start snitching, when the laws are the ones bringing the drugs inside the unit. It’s a way for them not to run day room.”

And a comrade in St. Brides CC in the Virginia DOC reports that rec has been very limited due to “Deuce” or K2 since last summer. Eir pod was on sanctions for months last summer with limited JPAY kiosk, no rec, no chow hall, and no programming. When someone “fell out” on K2 that persyn would be removed from the pod, yet the people remaining would be punished! Most recently,

“they still have not brought rec back to normal hours and they hardly offer many programs – especially when you consider all the days classes are canceled. I dream of the day when they bring back some type of normalcy.”

Recently comrades in the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections launched a campaign to combat the system of labeling prisoners Security Risk Group (SRG). We’ve begun to receive grievances from people held in conditions similar to those temporary measures by CDCR above, but for years or decades, as CDCR has also done historically; all because of who these prisoners allegedly associate with, not because they have committed any crime or broken any rule. These forms of group punishment date back centuries in this country in the form of national oppression, but today they are legalized in the form of gang injunctions and security threat group designations.

The oppressed nation of Palestine knows well the wrath of collective punishment it has faced for decades by the U.$. outpost known as “Israel.” While U.$. prisoners face torture, Palestinians are currently facing starvation as I$rael has cut off aid to Gaza for over a week, starting 2 March. This came in response to Hamas demanding that I$rael continue to meet the terms of the ceasefire agreement from 19 January. This has turned the month of Ramadan into more suffering and worrying rather than generosity and worship for Palestinians. Then on 9 March I$rael cut off electricity to Gaza, which will also prevent desalinization plants from providing the water which the people depend on. With Gaza’s official death toll at over 60,000 since the recent invasion by I$rael began, the genocide continues through the illegal denial of basic needs to the people.

As the comrade below says, such collective punishment is an international war crime. It is used to crush whole populations to the will of those in power. And just as it breeds resistance in U.$. prisons, it breeds resistance in the Palestinians suffering at the hands of I$rael, as well as millions of supporters watching the genocide unfold. The future of the oppressed nations around the world lies in uniting in a common struggle against imperialism.

Notes: CDCR High‑Security Areas Placed on Modified Movement

A Federal prisoner: The administration (Warden, Associate Warden, Captain) use frivolous excuses to apply mass punishment on prisoners. Officers abuse their authority and use excuses to “justify” punishment. It may sound better if I explain the situation:

18 December 2024 – I was in the Education building, doing some research. About 8:30 AM, there was an incident call, or what we call the “deuces”. This is when there is a situation, like a fight, happening somewhere on the compound. At the time, we were all outside or about the compound. It was outdoor rec for many, some were on the yard, some were indoors at the chapel, or indoor rec, or library.

But when the “deuces” are hit, everything stops temporarily. In this case, the officers all ran towards E Unit. We all looked to see if there was a fight; you’d hate to see a fight so close to Christmas, because the Warden and staff will use any excuse to lock us down over the holidays and claim “safety and security”.

As it turns out, the incident wasn’t an incident at all. Several guys heard on the hand units that they said, “Stand down, false alarm”. What that meant was that there was nothing to really worry about.

But, less than five minutes later, they called for everyone to leave the programs building. This was very frustrating to those trying to work. Many were in classes, some working on legal work. It is very frustrating when USP Tucson finds reasons to shut everything down. They have a very malicious history of doing this and are too incompetent to hold staff accountable for preventing us from programming.

So, I walk out, with everyone else, and heard that they will do a “Yard Recall.” That means everyone has to go back to their dorms. When I got outside, I asked a few guys that were on the yard: “so, what do we know?” They told me that it was a false alarm, but somebody may have said something to one of the female officers, and she felt “offended”, so she told the Lieutenant, who called for an entire recall.

I was frustrated. What did ANYBODY in the programs area have to do with ONE person on the yard with bad behavior? If what the guys on the yard said was true, then there was no reason to use mass punishment. I came out of the building and looked back and saw how many guys were coming out. They may have been over 100 people affected by this cowardly move by the staff. Guys in the chapel, who had nothing to do with the incident. Guys in indoor recreation that had nothing to do with what happened outside. Guys in GED classes and those in the library, who were nowhere near the incident. All being punished because staff “got in their feelings.”

What a cowardly act.

We were on the yard until 9 AM when they opened the gates and everyone went back to their units. I noticed there was no official “Yard Recall” as they should have done. While we were out there, I saw guys talking to one of the Lieutenants, asking why the severe action. I didn’t hear what he said, but I saw the extreme disappointment in the prisoners, as if the answer didn’t make sense.

Why shut EVERYTHING down for what one person did? This again is called Mass Punishment, and it is strongly frowned upon by most nations. The United Nations has what is called the Nelson Mandela Rules, and one of the elements is that they forbid mass punishment in prisons. Most nations signed on to this, but the United States never ratified it… explains why they still do it.

In 2024, there have been about 102 lockdowns on the compound at USP Tucson, compared to 118 in 2023. In 2024, there have only been SIX instances where the “deuces” were hit for altercations. In 2023, there were 25. This is a significant decrease in violence on the compound.

Since 23 May 2024 to the current date (December 18th), there has only been ONE incident regarding a fight. That was on September 22nd, and staff wrongly used that excuse to change to a “staff assault” so that they could punish the entire facility for at least 30 days on lockdown. They then punished us by decreasing the phone calls from 10 minutes with an hour wait to a five minute call with a 90 minute wait, making it extremely difficult to communicate with families.

Since we came off the lockdown of September 22nd, coming off in late October, there have been about 18 lockdowns… NONE of them were because of physical altercations. They were all “administrative”.

What I am showing is that, even though this is a prison and a penitentiary, the people here have done as much as they could possibly do to reduce the violent incidents in the prison. When a prison can go from 25 lockdowns because of fights to currently six, it shows that, for the most part, we know how to behave.

But, if we are going to be punished every time ONE person does something wrong, then staff has created a standard that nobody can hope to attain. The Warden is either a fool to think that every single day on a penitentiary should be hassle and violent free, or he is maliciously bent on punishment for the prisoners.

If the Associate Warden ignores the fact that the prisoners here have done all they could to stay out of trouble and creates excuses as to why we are being punished, it is clear that she has no interest in rehabilitation.

In all this, no prisoner was able to rehabilitate, because USP Tucson was so busy looking for another screw to put in the population. There was no security issue. It was a false alarm, but they found a reason to disrupt every single angle for rehabilitation. This is the perfect picture of mass punishment in prisons, yet staff all consent to it while hiding behind made-up policies that don’t exist.

I’ve often said, “sometimes the worst people in prisons aren’t the ones behind the steel doors, it’s the ones coming out the parking lots of those prisons.” We simply cannot live with the program in USP Tucson. The Warden, Associate Warden, Captain and all the departments refuse to let us reform.

A prisoner in Wasco State Prison reported 20 January 2025: The living conditions here are deplorable/inhumane to say the least. Appalling and disgusting. In all my time of doing time I’ve never encountered such squalor. When it comes to living conditions this place compares to my time in C.Y.A. Preston which was the worst living conditions I had encountered.

All five of our toilets were completely clogged for days with only a couple semi-working. Currently all four urinals are completely clogged and sporadically overflow spilling urine on the floor for up to 30+ minutes at a time.

The heater doesn’t work and the bunk I was assigned to happens to be the coldest area of the dorms as the cooler blows the air straight on my bunk!

Per state issue most all CDC usually passes out one bar of soap a week for each prisoner. We have been getting one bar every two weeks which is not enough to shower/wash and as a result many don’t wash hands after defecating. Some only take “water showers” because of the lack of soap. At times the one roll of toilet paper is not issued as well on a weekly basis.

We have a rat/mouse infestation with rodents not only ravaging prisoners’ lockers but eating stored food and leaving feces. Some report rodents climbing on them in their sleep as well. The kitchen is also infested.

The roof of this dorm has approximately 10 leaks in it so when it rains it leaves puddles. The water heater is rusted and deteriorated and obviously hasn’t been replaced in the 30+ years this concentration kamp has been operating. Shower water is cold and drinking water is gray, chalky and has a bad taste/smell. The water fountains have not had filters replaced in what seems like 30 years. A form was circulated stating the water was causing cancer so drink at your own risk.

We haven’t had hair clippers or nail clippers in about a month. We are told it will take more months even though ingrown toenails are rampant.

The floor is damaged with potholes where stagnant water full of bacteria gathers.

We have a laundry call but we turn in laundry only to never receive it back and the one bar of soap every two weeks means we must wear dirty clothes and sleep in dirty sheets.

Many prisoners here are doing less than a year so many fear to speak up or submit grievances for mistreatment or disrespectful talk from C.O.’s thus we get these deplorable conditions.

Phone calls are often cut off mid conversations by C.O.’s in what can only be described as group punishment.

I erroneously assumed, like many others, that “dorm living” in prison was easier. How I was wrong. I have never seen this type of inhumane treatment in a cell living environment. A hint of progress has been that a meeting was set up between prisoners and the sergeant where issues were addressed. Some things were resolved, i.e. some power struggles were won but many are still in motion. 602’s have also been submitted on some issues so some progress has been made. It would be helpful to find contacts of “civil rights” orgs that may help highlight things but as always the main thought for progress in obtaining humyn rights will come in prisoners ourselves. The positive thing is there is peace and unity within the prisoners which allows for progress to flourish in the realm of civil rights or humyn rights.

The living conditions here are worse than any level three or four prison, worse than the holes and dare I say it… worse than the SHU’s. I’m really surprised this dorm is not condemned by the health department, perhaps they’ve never had anyone housed here with the determination to carry that struggle out.

7 February 2025 update: One of my grievances was successful on the urinals, toilets and sinks that were clogged, inoperable and leaking. Everyone is sick. i was very ill, cough, sinuses, flu-like conditions. I along with four other MAC reps have spoken to the Sgt Hernandez on five occasions on all the issues here noted above. He promises to fix things and we have received hair clippers and nail clippers, but many other things still are deplorable. The dust broom here is 8 months old and is a t-shirt tied on to what was a dust broom. It saddens me that so many have no idea how to tackle these issues or have no will to do so. The conditions in Pelican Bay SHU were more humane if that helps illustrate the conditions here.

16 February 2025 update: Wasco State Prison has fixed the toilets and urinals in response to complaints. Other conditions remain.

Everyone has been watching the atrocities happening on the news and the genocide going down in the Middle East. Israel seems to think that Palestinian lives mean nothing. Many are shocked at how the news describes the situation as if Palestine is in conflict when it’s clear that Israel has reduced Palestine to rubble.

Not one persyn here has felt Israel is in the right. It is clear as day that a genocide is happening and that U.$. tax payers are complicit as the U.$. sends billions of dollars to Israel every year.

Every time the news comes on talking about Israel, one of the prisoners here yells, “Yo Israel, get the fuck out of Palestine!” Everyone claps in agreement. Some are bewildered as to why the U.$. is enabling genocide and the more conscious are explaining the history of Amerika and what it has done to this continent and beyond for the dollar. Humyn lives are worth more than profit and the courageous students in their encampments are proving that! To be arrested in a time of genocide is an honorable thing to do.

In 2018 the California Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigated the grievance process at Salinas Valley State Prison. This resulted in a new process in 2020, where any grievances alleging staff misconduct in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) would go to an Allegation Inquiry Management Section (AIMS) in Sacramento, rather than being handled by staff at the prison.(1) As we report on in almost every issue of Under Lock & Key, grievances in U.$. prisons are often ignored, denied, or covered up by staff.

One problem with this small reform is the staff at the prison was still deciding what grievances would be forwarded to AIMS. Following OIG recommendations in 2021, the CDCR changed its system for handling grievances in 2022 so that staff misconduct could be reported directly to AIMS. In March 2023, AIMS was replaced with the Allegation Investigation Unit (AIU), within the Office of Internal Affairs.

In 2010, United Struggle from Within (USW) in California initiated the “We Demand Our Grievances Are Addressed!” campaign, which has since spread across the country. We just released a petition for Indiana this year, see the report on initial campaign successes in this issue. And we just updated our petition for Texas. Since 2010, hundreds of prisoners in California have sent petitions to the California OIG and others outlining the failures of the existing grievance system and demanding proper handling of grievances. This campaign contributed, likely greatly, to the recent changes in California.

It also happens that February 2023 was the last report we have of staff in CDCR retaliating against prisoners for filing grievances (in this case for freezing temperatures).(2) So we are interested to hear from our readers how the grievance process has been working over the last year. However, the OIG’s recent report has already exposed staff misconduct since the new program was implemented.

The OIG found that in 2023 the department sent 595 cases back to prison staff to handle that had originally been sent to the AIU to investigate as staff misconduct. This was reportedly done to handle a backlog of grievances. The OIG also stressed the waste of resources in duplicating work, given that the department had been given $34 million to restructure the grievance process. In 127 of these cases the statute of limitations had expired so that staff could no longer be disciplined for any misconduct. Eight of these could have resulted in dismissal and 12 could have resulted in suspensions or salary reductions. Many other grievances were close to expiring.

Unsurprisingly, when the OIG looked into grievances that had been sent back to the prisons, many issues were not addressed, many were reviewed by untrained staff, investigations were not conducted in a timely manner (39% taking more than a year), and grievances were improperly rejected. All of these are common complaints on the grievance petitions prisoners have filed over the years.

The OIG states in their concluding response to the CDCR claims around these 595 grievances:

“The purpose of this report was not to provide an assessment of the department’s overall process for reviewing allegations of staff misconduct that incarcerated people file; that is an assessment we provide in our annual staff misconduct monitoring reports. This report highlighted the department’s poor decision-making when determining how to address a backlog of grievances that the department believed it was not adequately staffed to handle.”

<sup>Notes:
1. California Office of the Inspector General, 29 January 2024, The Department Violated Its Regulations by Redirecting Backlogged Allegations of Staff Misconduct to Be Processed as Routine Grievances.
2. AV Brown Berets, February 2023, CDCR Freezes Elderly Inmates in Retaliation of Grievance Campaigns, Under Lock & Key 81.</sup>

MIM Distributors published my article ‘Programming/Mental Health Denied as Drug Cartel Runs CA Prison’ in ULK 82, to highlight correctional officers’ (C/Os) direct involvement in the constant infestation of drugs in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility (RJDCF). In April 2023, I went a step further by bypassing CDCR’s inmate grievance process in order to catch a C/O in the act of distribution.

You see, CDCR’s departmental operations manual (DOM) at Section 31140.6.2, regards felonious conduct like drug smuggling in a state correctional facility as ‘Category II’ serious employee misconduct investigated by the Office of Internal Affairs (OIA).

I figured undisputed evidence directly to OIA would not only prevent a coverup inside the prison, but also save lives of those addicted to using while confined based on accessibility, and maybe even a citizen faced with some newly released parolee on the prowl to maintain a drug high fostered therein.

I used my influence and social status with their prisoners as an investigative tool to uncover one C/O’s method of smuggling. Once I monitored and confirmed the C/O’s pattern practice, including specific inmates receiving drug shipments, I recorded the exact date, time, and location consistent with audio video security surveillance (AVSS) and body worn camera (BWC) footage installed thanks to the current Armstrong v. Newsom N.D. (94-CV-02307 CW) injunction.

Late April 2023, I completed and mailed my findings on the attached CDCR approved DOM Section 31140.6.2 Category II OIA form, directly to the OIA, emphasizing concern over my safety, requesting therefore to remain anonymous. However, on about 28 June 2023, OIA Senior Special Agent Michael Newman forwarded my reported findings and identity back to RJDCF Warden James Hill in the attached correspondence “For Appropriate Handling” which commence first with the involved C/O immediate cease of all drug shipments in my specific housing unit.

Then came direct scowls and open unwillingness to address housing needs or issues followed by rumors within the prison population of me being a “snitch on C/O’s”.

And finally, as drug withdrawal riled up many addicts’ moods from days and weeks without fix, one mustered the boldness to confront me on behalf of the involved C/O, on a rant like some four legged creature foaming from fangs, blaming me for his forced clean and sober reality.

While I no longer advocate or impose violence, I am no stranger to such since I could fuck and fight before I could read and write. I’d like to think that not sensing fear sent the man beast on his way, disappointing the gazing C/O who not only stood watching the entire antic, but set the whole play in motion.

Meanwhile, my DOM section 31140.6.2 reported findings was converted into an inmate grievance, log #459686, then intentionally delayed until all AVSS and BWC footage evidence was purged. Once so, RJDCF reviewing authority M. Palmer issued the attached grievance response discrediting me as some liar or one who simply made up this whole event.

Initially, I found it courageous and heroic to risk my own personal safety, maybe even my life, to rid the prison environment of drugs by exposing not merely the problem, but more so, the reason this problem exists and persists. I always thought with the right facts and evidence I could make a huge difference, but now I realize that stopping drugs in prison is as futile as Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs campaign.

That’s because, many officials I turned to turned out to be those who want drugs inside prison, and rather than utilize resources and power to target C/O’s who introduce drugs into prison, these officials opt to use their resources and power to target the very individual bringing detailed facts to their attentions.

To me, a sacrifice is only grand should it effect change in better for those who follow. With the extent of CDCR’s decay, this type of exposure is pure suicide, or positions one to be forced to homicide, and whether the former or latter, when it’s all said and done, drugs will continue to be made available to those in prison who want them until and unless these prisons are closed down.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree that the actions this comrade took to fight state-sponsored drug trafficking was brave. It is also brave for the comrade to look at the effects of these actions, draw lessons from them, and be self-critical in front of the movement as a whole. This is a good example of learning through practice, and by sharing these stories we can all learn from each others’ practice.

We can also see how the campaign to combat drug addiction in prisons is tied to the campaign to “Stop Collaborating” among prisoners. These state-employed drug dealers are using other prisoners to attack those who speak up. These collaborators, accusing others of “snitching” on pigs, are enemies of the people. The pigs are professional snitches. To use the state to stop abuses within the state as this comrade attempted to do, is an honorable, if sometimes futile, thing to do.

As futile as this comrade’s risks taken were in the immediate term, we are not quite so pessimistic on the prospect of ending drugs in prison. As we’ve discussed many times, it is by building a community in righteous struggle for justice that we can best provide the antidote to addiction. While prisoners across the country are writing to us about the dire conditions currently, we can look to the history of socialist China, which was ravaged with widespread opium addiction across the population just decades before liberating themselves from imperialism establishing a socialist state, and ending addiction in the country for decades to come. No small task for sure, but not impossible.

While those fighting addiction feel isolated now, through the pages of Under Lock & Key we can see that there are more of you then you realize, and we can continue to share these lessons and build successful strategies to help the masses overcome drug addiction.

A LOT of these guys here are on Suboxone (synthetic heroin). I was offered some, by a medical staffer. I assured her that I’ve never had a drug abuse problem, but I do like Peppermint Schnapps, German beer and the occasional magic mushroom. She insisted that the Suboxone would be good for me. That creeped me out. That stuff, along with the bath salts and the bug killer these guys widely use in this facility seems to affect them like a chemical lobotomy. They have super short attention spans, and fiend for more of that shit all day, every day.

MIM(Prisons) adds: In ULK 76, we printed a report on the government-sanctioned spreading of Suboxone throughout California prisons that began in 2020. While some have found Suboxone helpful in an injustice system that offers no real solutions to the oppressed’s problems, the overall net effect has been a continued numbing and division of the imprisoned population. This comrade’s experience speaks to how the state is acting as a drug pusher on the oppressed, using drugs as weapons against us.

Introduction: Current Existing Ideas Around Snitching

As Marxist-Leninist-Maoists it is important to apply the dialectical materialist method when it comes to handling the contradictions among the masses. In the prison context where most of our organizing revolves around, the contradictions between various prisoner individuals, national groups, and lumpen organizations can become antagonistic and it is our job to transform this antagonistic contradiction into a non-antagonistic one and resolve it from there out.

One example of idealism is around the “stop snitching” slogan and campaign. Is “stop snitching” a correct slogan? Only an idealist could answer this question without more information. The materialist method of finding out what would constitute “snitching” would be to analyze the material conditions of how this “stop snitching” idea came about, the purposes it was for, which classes were promoting it, and going from there. What we must not do is treat it like a general platitude where it can be abused for anti-people purposes and exploited by the pigs to get the masses to fight amongst themselves.

To assume the most righteous origins of the “stop snitching” slogan, we can think of various lumpen organizations, who might be in competition and rivalry with each other at times. Yet these organizations all come to agree that they have a common interest in not sending the oppressor’s cops against each other. Perhaps there is a consciousness as oppressed people uniting these L.O.s to come to this conclusion. But certainly there is a material interest in staying alive and out of prison by reducing the amount of police involvement in their lives.

The “stop snitching” campaign was a success. So much so that today, in many prisons, it has been taken up as an idealistic and dogmatic truth rather than a materialist principle to apply in differing conditions. To many this slogan is true for all times and all places. In fact, it is so absolutely true that they apply it to the police themselves! We’ve received reports from many parts of the country that comrades can’t get others to file grievances against abuse and inhumane conditions against the system because fellow prisoners don’t want to “snitch”.

Now in reality, those fellow prisoners are probably just scared of what prison staff will do to them, so they use the “stop snitching” slogan as an excuse to do nothing and live quietly under the boot of oppression which the stop snitching principle was brought up to fight against in the first place.

However, those who stand up for themselves recognize the role of grievances. We live in a bourgeois democracy. The image of the rule of law is important to the enemy even if things become lawless in the corners of society, like in prisons. There is a grievance system and the bourgeois/imperialist state says they will follow that system. That means this is a tool that can and should be used to improve conditions for comrades organizing within the belly of the beast and fight for the political rights to build independent institutions. To call that snitching is to say that something is true because it’s true; not because of any actual evidence or material basis. To call this snitching is to lack any analysis of class, nation, gender or who are our friends and who are our enemies.

And as we discussed in the last issue of ULK, we must learn to think in percentages to build the United Front for Peace in Prisons. Thinking in absolutes, allows the enemy to keep us divided.

Case Scenario: Inmate Collaborators and Pigs Using Anti-Snitching Sentiment to Repress Prisoners in CDCR

In one of many reports like this, a comrade in California recently wrote us:

Dear MIM Distributors,

I am a disabled person under the Armstrong v. Newsom injunction where I continue to be targeted by officers who specialize in pitting prisoners against each other to discourage and deter use of the grievance process at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility (RJD), and in retaliation for the same.

On the morning of 25 August 2023, while exiting my cell quarters to be issued my breakfast and lunch Kosher meal, one of the inmate porter workers (infamous for not only disruptions, violence, and fighting other prisoners on the unit; but also carrying out retaliatory terrorism for officers against prisoners who use the RJD grievance process to report misconduct) began to ridicule me without provocation.

Subsequent to returning to my cell and at commencement of A.M. medication, officer G. Sellano supervised pill line near my cell as the same prisoner porter worker came to my cell door and began hostile provocation calling me a “snitch” for pending grievances (Attached as Exhibit A). Both of which involve this very same inmate porter worker and officer G. Sellano.

This inmate porter worker then stood outside my cell door on a rant to provoke me by yelling “snitch, you a bitch, you wrote a buz on me and Sellano.” The whole time officer G. Sellano stood listening, watching as the inmate porter worker then openly blasted how he is able to “do what I want all around here, I can fight anybody I want and nothing will happen. I won’t even get a 115.” Challenging me to fight as officer G. Sellano stood listening and watching while supervising the A.M. medication line next to my assigned cell.

Said inmate porter worker then began yelling to the tower officer to open my cell door in order to attack me while officer G. Sellano continued to fail to intervene, act, or quell the growing disorder.

The inmate porter worker in question is allowed to volunteer work for officer G. Sellano where the inmate receives detailed information on pending grievances filed against officer G. Sellano – then uses that personal knowledge of grievance information to confront, intimidate, and provoke some violent incident with the grievant: all while officers on the unit watch.

Facility Captain Lewis has turned a blind eye to not only this particular inmate porter worker’s ongoing propensity for violence and daily disruptions on the housing unit, but also the fact that this particular inmate porter worker is and has been for months now, used as a torpedo for housing officers like G. Sellano to be programmed to target prisoners like me who use the grievance process here at RJD while Warden James Hill has been unable to prevent officers like G. Sellano from using working knowledge of department operations to gather information for the purposes of endangering the safety and the welfare of those confined therein.

Inmates vs Prisoners

Inmates are the categorical definition used by the U.$. law to white wash their crimes. It is no different politically than to call the torture of Iraqi POWs “enhanced interrogation.” Inmate also implies a more collaborative relationship between captive and captor, which is an appropriate term to use for the inmate porter described above. A politically appropriate term for the vast majority of the imprisoned lumpen in this country would be prisoners or captives. We do not live in a time where wars are officially declared or sanctioned by governments through formalized documents. Wars are declared through invasions (such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine), bombings (such as Al-Qaeda’s destruction of the twin towers), etc. The U$A has waged war against the oppressed nations inside their borders through mass imprisonment and police occupation – thinly disguised as “war on crime” or “war on drugs.” During this mass imprisonment and lumpenization of the oppressed nation masses through the criminal inju$tice system, inmates are those who collaborate with the pigs behind bars – a consciousness of a lumpen class in itself. A lumpen class for itself, as Marx used the term, would recognize the political importance of the two distinctions.

As stated earlier, the stop snitching slogan can be utilized as principled solidarity as fellow oppressed nationals within the constant anti-people activities of the lumpen class. Through popular support, such as hip-hop culture, this stop snitching principle would even extend beyond street life into the youth where telling on adults or school teachers would even be considered snitching. The principle of a specific lumpen life now become a general platitude and empty virtue. We ask our imprisoned lumpen readers, can snitching really be stopped without independent power from the oppressor? What would it mean to be loyal to “your people” or “your folks”? Can the principle of anti-snitching be applied to the enemy who it is designed to protect fellow oppressed nations or lumpen from in the first place?

We hope to move the discussion a step forward for our readers who seek to transform the anti-people gangster mentality to the pro-people revolutionary path. Using the few rights that the oppressed are given against the oppressor to build power among the masses is not snitching. Perhaps this over-emphasis on snitching on fellow criminals (as the government are criminals oftentimes in lawless corners of society such as prisons) shows the class in itself level consciousness that many of our readers might be susceptible to.

Stop Snitching!

Stop Collaborating!

Yesterday, National Public Radio (NPR) aired an interview with a former prisoner in Iran to discuss the recent release of 5 Amerikan citizens from an Iranian prison. The focus was on the horrible effects of solitary confinement and how to adapt to being back in society.

In our 2008 survey of long-term solitary confinement in the United $tates, we found that there were over 90,000 people suffering in those conditions. It is strange for the NPR story to not have mentioned this problem at home as well, or how the oppressed people in this country fair after years in torture cells. The NPR report spoke of “death chambers” in the Iranian prison, yet the United $tates has electric and now injection chairs with viewing areas and what they call “death row” in prisons across this country (though only about a dozen states are actively murdering prisoners in recent years).

The United $tates has long had the highest imprisonment rate across the world. They even boasted a higher imprisonment rate of Black people than the internationally condemned apartheid regime in South Africa.

The one-sided depiction of prisons and solitary confinement in Iran on NPR revealed a strong bias in their reporting. Yet what was most shocking to learn was that these people coming out of Iranian prisons were being offered what sounded like a fully immersive program through the U.$. military for dealing with the mental anguish of being in long-term solitary confinement.

Really? Yet every year we have comrades who are released from the same conditions in this country with nothing but a parole officer watching over them, often sabotaging their efforts to maintain a job and build a new life. Tens of thousands of people every year are released from long-term solitary in the United $tates, either into general population prisons or to the streets, with no concern for their mental well-being from the state. Who the U.$. imperialists offer mental health services to is a political decision, and it is our politics that guide us to offer help to those the imperialists will not.

As of last week, the California Mandela Act (AB 280) passed a supermajority in the state house and senate, heading next to the desk of Governor Newsom. Newsom vetoed the Mandela Act just one year ago. An aspiring presidential candidate, Newsom is likely to reject the calls from the state legislator to stop this torture again. This is over a decade after the historic California hunger strikes that called for an end to long-term solitary confinement, leading to the 2015 Ashker vs. CDCR settlement where those sacrifices led only to individuals being released from the SHU, leaving the institution in place. [UPDATE: The bill has been stalled to negotiate with the Governor and will not be passed in 2023.]

For comrades currently suffering in torture cells in U.$. prisons, you can write to us for back issues of Under Lock & Key on solitary and materials from the American Friends Service Committee on dealing with isolation. For comrades who are getting out, who have spent long periods in solitary, our Re-Lease on Life Program attempts to offer mentoring, guidance and political engagement to ease the transition back into society. Meanwhile, we encourage everyone to get involved in the struggle to abolish long-term solitary confinement in this country completely.

Because over 100,000 people face torture in solitary in the United $tates every year with no imperialist Army programs for rehabilitation offered afterwards, we must develop independent institutions of the oppressed to address this material need among the oppressed masses in this country.

It’s uncanny how books fall into your hands at times. Recently my circle has been discussing the subject of prisoners of war (POW’s) in the United $nakes and, what do you know, a comrade slides me this book on a POW who died imprisoned, the Chiricahua Apache Chief Geronimo.

Going into the book I treaded lightly as biography type books are quite biased. Many of the tomes written on leaders of the oppressed within the empire tend to be heavily biased slander that amounts to imperialist propaganda. This book was written as an “Interview” by Barret while Geronimo was a POW at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I went into the book bracing myself for a book that would attempt to tell Geronimo’s story while promoting Amerikkkan ideals if even unconsciously. I was not wrong.

The subtitle of the book itself is an error: “The True Story of America’s Most Ferocious Warrior.” Geronimo was a First Nations warrior. America is the name of the white nation who stole the land it now occupies. The subtitle thus describes Geronimo as a member of this white settler nation which is ridiculous, as he fought against Amerikkka.

The first part of the book focuses on general Apache life with an emphasis on the mythology of the Apache creation story of origin. Steeped in the metaphysical ideas of a “God” and how a talking dragon would visit early ancestors. Sadly many of the world’s societies have such creation myths that are passed down. It highlights the need for a materialist approach to all we do and gives a glimpse of how the world would think if we were without dialectical materialism.

Part two, “The Mexicans”, answered a lot of questions I had. Here it describes how at one point Geronimo and his tribe traveled into “old Mexico” – as he calls it – and while the warrior went to trade in the town they returned to a massacre where it was reported that Mexican troops had killed everyone including Geronimo’s aging mother, wife, and three children.

I had often heard of Geronimo’s anti-Mexican sentiment, now I know why. Contradictions among the people continue today where oppressed nations fight for crumbs and leave devastation on either side. It’s disappointing to hear, knowing Geronimo’s passion for fighting Amerika it would have been beneficial for the oppressed to join forces and fight Amerika as this was in 1858, ten years after the U.$. war on Mexico and the birth of the Chican@ nation. Surely there was much resistance sparking and embers of resistance still burning.

I can’t stop to wonder had a united front of oppressed nations come together and resisted the U.$. how it would have resulted, add Black folks in the mix and it would be even better.

The first half of the book seemed to exalt Geronimo’s raids and murder of Mexican people. The first half has almost no mention of his war on the white nation, on which much of his reputation is built on.

Part three titled “The White Men” depicts various attacks and treachery when U.$. troops would call “peace” only to meet up and murder the Apache forces. At one point the Apache Chief Manigus-Colorado was called by the U.$. military for peace talks and assassinated. Geronimo seemed to be the only one who did not trust the U.$. troops or “white men” and thus never attended peace talks during that time period and lived through the treachery.

Chapter 16 titled “In Prison And On The War Path” was chilling to read. Here Geronimo contemplates war on Amerikkka and death. This portion of the book struck me more than any other of the passages. I feel his words and taste them internally. To me it’s as raw as it gets for those of us who are prisoners of war.

He states:

"In the summer of 1883 a rumor was current that the officers were again planning to imprison our leaders. This rumor served to revive the memory of all our past wrongs, the massacre in the tent at Apache Pass the fate of Mangus-Colorado, and my own unjust imprisonment, which might easily have been death to me.

“We thought it more manly to die on the war path than to be killed in prison.”

So much to unpack here. The mention of the leaders being imprisoned brought back memories of Pelican Bay SHU. The SHU was where leaders of the imprisoned oppressed nations in Califas were kidnapped and “imprisoned”. Taking leaders is a common practice of the oppressor nation. For Geronimo it triggered the Apache when they heard that their leaders would be kidnapped again. That’s a very traumatizing experience. I feel it. For those who have never been captured, tortured or kidnapped I can only say that the closest example I can give of Geronimo’s words here is that of a child who was kidnapped by a stranger, taken from their family and returned as an adult and then one day this persyn was either snatched again or told that another person would be kidnapped. Imagine the trauma this persyn would feel: the memories of being taken. The trauma likely became unbearable to the point that resistance, even resulting in death, must have seemed welcoming.

It seemed that every few pages Geronimo or his tribe would sign another treaty with Amerikkka. A lack of political investigation resulted in decisions based on subjectivity. As materialists we know that the oppressor will not relinquish power willingly, hystory has taught us that. Had Geronimo been a dialectical materialist he would have come to that realization much sooner.

Reading how the U.$. Army General Miles told Geronimo he would build Geronimo a house and give him access to cattle and provisions if he would simply stay in his place on the reservation was really revealing. Geronimo was a prisoner of war and knew it. Today many Chican@s and other oppressed don’t even know that we too are prisoners of war, for the U.$. war on Aztlan continues. We too are in a reservation called the United Snakes.

A low intensity war continues on the Chican@ nation. The U.$. government has always maintained an offensive on the colonies since the invasion was first launched, the offensive simply changes names, vehicle, and nationality, but its vision and operation remains fully intact. On April 20th, 1886 U.$. troops stationed in Arizona and New Mexico were issued this order by the U.$. War Department:

“The Chief object of the troops will be to capture or destroy any band of hostile Apache Indians found in this section of country and to this end the most vigorous and persistent efforts will be required of all officers and soldiers until the object is accomplished.”

If one were to substitute the word “Chican@s” instead of “Apache Indians” this statement could have been written last night. Insert the dreaded “gang member” which the colonizers love to use to vilify oppressed nations youth survival groups and the statement may be even more authentic to today’s mission. The pigs are tasked with accomplishing this mission in their war on the poor. Political groups or parties claiming to work in the interest of the oppressed here in the Snakes who do not move in ways that acknowledge this program of protracted soft war on the oppressed while conducting their work in the field in the so called interest of the colonized reduce their efforts to crass concerns of proletarian morality.

Today the state is resuming its offensive to “capture or destroy” hostile indigenous people (Chican@s, not First Nations in this context) and as the statement says they are obligated to do so “until the object is accomplished.” “Their vigorous and persistent” efforts today amount to the KKKourts, three strikes, “gang” enhancements, hyper-policing, and of course murder and assassination to none but a few.

It is not that Chican@ people are dimwitted and without comprehension to grasp that we are being attacked and targeted. What muddies the water is to see Chican@ or Black pigs carry out this program of “capture or destroy.” This works in the state’s interest to disguise the ONGOING onslaught on our people, that has not stopped since 1848 and before. As one long chain of oppression the state may employ Chican@ Toms and Black Uncle Toms as actors, but it is a state operation, that is: a program of white supremacy to maintain white power.

At the end of this book it’s a shame to read about Geronimo converting to Christianity to which he describes associating with Christians will “improve my character”. A warrior reduced to surrendering to the oppressor. Metaphysical thought like Christianity has not “improved” the character of the oppressed, rather, it has worked to subdue and pacify even one of the “ferocious” warriors like Geronimo. There’s even a picture of Geronimo in his Sunday best with the caption “ready for church” at the end of this book.

This was an interesting book that teaches one of the injustices committed by Amerikkka against indigenous peoples; but there are also lessons of how a warrior can (through the brute heel of the oppressor) become broken and surrender, and in doing so lead much of eir people into the abyss of plantation-minded Amerikan apologia. I needed to read this book at a time of extreme repression in my own life to re-energize and I think you need to read it as well. To die on the war-path for liberation . . .