MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
In 2018 the California Office of the Inspector General (OIG)
investigated the grievance process at Salinas Valley State Prison. This
resulted in a new process in 2020, where any grievances alleging staff
misconduct in the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation (CDCR) would go to an Allegation Inquiry Management
Section (AIMS) in Sacramento, rather than being handled by staff at the
prison.(1) As we report on in almost every issue of Under Lock &
Key, grievances in U.$. 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.”
In ULK 84 we reported on a sharp
drop in donations from prisoners in 2023, and a gradual decline in
subscribers in recent years. We asked our readers to answer some survey
questions to help explore the reasons for these declines and to begin a
more active campaign to expand ULK in 2024. Below is some
discussion with comrades who have responded to the survey so far about
drugs, gangs, COVID-19, generational differences and more. If you want
to participate in this conversation, please respond to the questions at
the end.
Problems We’ve Always Had
A North Carolina prisoner on censorship: i pass my
copies around when i’m able, what i always hear is “Bro i wrote to them
but never received the paper.” Then there is a couple guys who were on
the mailing list who say they’re not receiving the paper no more.
MIM(Prisons) responds: The obvious answer to this is
the newsletter is being censored. Any prisoner of the United $tates who
writes us for ULK will be sent at least 2 issues, and if you
write every 6 months we will keep sending it. Censorship has always been
a primary barrier to reaching people inside, but we have no reason to
believe that has increased in the last couple years. Relaunching regular
censorship reports could help us assess that more clearly in the future.
A Pennsylvania prisoner on the younger generation: I
think it is these younger generation people who are coming into the
prison system or people who have been pretty much raised by the judicial
system, and the guards become mommy and daddy to them… They do not want
to or are possibly afraid to change the only life they have ever known.
I know some of these younger guys here who have gotten too comfortable
and think: “Oh, I am doing so good, I have a certain level of say-so
here, the guards are my buddies, they get me, et cetera.” When on the
outside they did not have that.
Also, on my block, many people are illiterate and cannot read. I know
this because I am the Peer Literacy Tutor.
MIM(Prisons) responds: Most of this doesn’t sound new.
Older prisoners have been talking about the lacking of the younger
forever. Illiteracy is also not new in prisons. There is some indication
that the COVID pandemic has impacted literacy in children, but that
would not be affecting our readership (yet).
A California prisoner: I think a lot of prisoners do
not want to hear negativity or incendiary language, we get enough of
that in here and I notice a lot of unity around positivity in here. I
suggest less dividing language and more unifying language. In
particular, the “who are our friends and who are our enemies” line could
certainly drop the “who are our enemies” part. Prisoners don’t want
someone telling them who to be enemies with, prisoners want to be told
who to be friends with.
I have trouble passing on ULK, natural leaders won’t even
accept it (I try to revolutionize the strong). As soon as I say “it’s a
communist paper”, the typical response is “I’m not a commie.” Any
suggestions??
MIM(Prisons) responds: Not sure if you’re leading with
the fact that it’s a communist newspaper. But when doing outreach, the
fact that we’re a communist organization will not come up until we’ve
gotten into an in-depth conversation with someone. We want to reach
people with agitational campaign slogans, hopefully ones that will
resonate with them. What in this issue of ULK do you think the
persyn might be interested in? Lead with that.
As far as who are our friends and who are our enemies goes – this is
actually a key point we must understand before we begin building a
united front (see MIM Theory 14: United Front where a prisoner
asks this same question back in 2001). We must unite all who can be
united around anti-imperialist campaigns. Our goal is not to have the
most popular newsletter in U.$. prisons; that might be the goal of a
profit-driven newsletter. Our goal is to support anti-imperialist
organizing within prisons. As we’ve been stressing in recent months,
prisons are war, and they are part of a larger war on the oppressed. If
we do not recognize who is behind that war, and who supports that war
and who opposes it, we cannot stop that war. If you see a group of
people that wants to carpet bomb another group of people as a friend,
then you are probably not part of the anti-imperialist camp yourself.
Prisoners who are mostly focused on self-improvement, parole, or just
getting home to their families may be willing to be friends with anyone
who might help them do so. But we must also recognize the duality
of the imprisoned oppressed people as explained by comrade Joku Jeupe
Mkali.
Problems That May Be Getting
worse
A Washington prisoner on the drug trade: Drugs and
gangs are the biggest threat to radical inclination in the system. Drugs
keep the addicted dazed and unable to focus on insurgency. Whereas the
self-proclaimed activist gang member who actually has the mental fitness
to actually avoid such nonsense has become so entrenched in a culture
aimed at feeding on the profit he gains in the process has forgotten his
true goal and would rather stand in the way of change to maintain
profit.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This is perhaps the biggest
shift we’ve seen in reports on conditions on the inside in recent years.
Of course, these are not new issues. But there are new drugs that seem
to be more easily brought in by guards and have more detrimental effects
on peoples’ minds. Meanwhile, the economics of these drugs may have
shifted alliances between the state-employed gangs and the lumpen gangs
that work together to profit off these drugs.
When we launched the United
Front for Peace in Prisons over a decade ago, it was in response to
comrades reporting that the principal contradiction was lack of unity
due to lumpen organizations fighting each other. In recent years, most
of what we hear about is lumpen organizations working for the pigs to
suppress activism and traffic restricted items. While Texas is the
biggest prison state and much of those reports come from Texas, this
seems to be a common complaint in much of the country as regular readers
will know.
Related to drugs is the new policy spreading like wildfire, that
hiring private companies to digitize prisoners’ mail will reduce drugs
coming into prisons and jails. Above we mentioned no known increase in
censorship, but what has increased is these digital mail processing
centers; and with them more mail returned and delayed. In Texas, we’ve
been dealing with mail delayed by as much as 3 months for years now. As
more and more prisons and jails go digital, communications become more
and more limited. Privatized communications make it harder to hold
government accountable to mail policies or First Amendment claims. There
is no doubt this is a contributor to a decrease in subscribers.
A Pennsylvania Prisoner reports a change in the prison system
due to COVID-19: The four-zoned-movement system has been
implemented here at SCI-Greene because of COVID. Before COVID,
everything was totally opened up. Now everyone is divided from one
another and it makes it that much harder for someone like me who is
constantly surrounded by an entire block full of people with extreme
mental health or age-related issues.
MIM(Prisons) responds: This is an interesting
explanation that we had not yet thought of. While we don’t have a lot of
reports of this type of dividing of the population in prisons into pods
since COVID, we know that many prisons have continued to be on lockdown
since then. An updated survey of prisoners on how many people are in
long-term isolation may be warranted. But even with the limited
information we have, we think this is likely impacting our slow decline
in subscribers.
This does not explain why donations went up from 2020 to 2022, but
then dropped sharply in 2023. However, we think this could have been a
boom from stimulus check money, similar to what the overall economy saw.
In prisons this was more pronounced, where many people received a couple
thousand dollars, who are used to earning a couple hundred dollars a
year. While we would have expected a more gradual drop off in donations,
this is likely related. In 2023, prisoners were paying for a greater
percentage of ULK costs than ever before. We had also greatly
reduced our costs in various ways in recent years though, so this is not
just a sign of more donations from prisoners but also a reflection of
decreased costs. We’d like to hear from others: how did stimulus checks
affect the prisoner population?
Like many things, our subscribership and donations were likely
impacted greatly by the COVID-19 pandemic and the state’s response to
it. Another interesting connection that warrants more investigation is
how the stimulus money may have contributed to the boon in drug
trafficking by state and non-state gangs in prisons. And what does it
mean that the stimulus money has dried up? So far there is no indication
of a decline in the drug market.
A California prisoner on “rehabilitation” and parole:
The new rehabilitation programs in CDCR are designed to assign personal
blame (accept responsibility). A lot of prisoners are on that trip.
“It’s not the state’s fault, it’s my fault cause I’m fucked up.” That’s
the message CDCR wants prisoners to recognize and once again parole is
the incentive, “take the classes, get brainwashed, and we might release
you.” I call it flogging oneself. But a lot of prisoners are in these
“rehabilitation” classes. It’s the future. MIM needs to start thinking
how to properly combat that.
MIM(Prisons) responds: The Step Down program in
California in response to the mass
movement to shut down the SHU was the beginning of this concerted
effort to pacify and bribe prisoners to go along with the state’s
plan.(1) As we discussed at the time, this is part of a
counterinsurgency program to isolate revolutionary leaders from the
rebellious masses in prison.
Our Revolutionary 12 Step Program is one answer to the
state’s “rehabilitation.” Our program also includes accepting
responsibility, but doing so in the context of an understanding of the
system that creates these problems and behaviors in the first place. Yes
we can change individuals, but the system must change to stop the cycle.
The Revolutionary 12 Steps is one of our most widely
distributed publications these days, but we need more feedback from
comrades putting it into practice to expand that program. And while it
is written primarily for substance abuse, it can be applied by anyone
who wants to reform themselves from bourgeois ways to revolutionary
proletarian ways.
In other states, like Georgia and Alabama,
parole is almost unheard of. The counterinsurgency programs there
are less advanced, creating more revolutionary situations than exist in
California prisons today. In the years leading up to the massive hunger
strikes in CDCR, MIM mail was completely (illegally) banned from
California prisons. Today, it is rare for California prisoners to have
trouble receiving our mail, yet subscribership is down.
Solutions
A California prisoner: Personally I would like to see
play-by-play instructions for unity. I saw something like that in the
last Abolitionist paper from Critical Resistance. A lot of us
want unity but don’t know how to form groups or get it done. I know
MIM’s line on psychology, however it has its uses. The government
consults psychologists when they want to know how to control people or
encourage unity among their employees. I suggest MIM consult a psych for
a plan on how to unify people, then print the play-by-play instructions
in ULK. It’s a positive message prisoners want to hear.
MIM(Prisons) responds: As mentioned above, building the
United Front for Peace in Prisons was a top topic in ULK for a
long time, so you might want to reference back issues of ULK on
that topic and MIM Theory 14. Psychology is a pseudo-science
because it attempts to predict individuals and diagnose them with
made-up disorders that have no scientific criteria. Social engineering,
however, is a scientific approach based in practice. By interacting with
people you can share experiences and draw conclusions that increase your
chances of success in inter-persynal interactions. This is applying
concepts to culture at the group level, not to biology of the
individual.
Again, the key point here is practice. To be honest, the engagement
with the United Front for Peace in Prisons has decreased over the years,
so we have had less reports. Coming back to the question of how to
approach people in a way that they don’t get turned off by “commie”
stuff, a solution to this should come from USW leaders attempting
different approaches, sharing that info with each other, and summing up
what agitational tactics seemed to work best. Comrades on the outside
could participate as well, but tactics in prison may differ from tactics
that work on college campuses vs. anti-war rallies vs. transit
centers.
A North Carolina prisoner: i look forward to receiving
the paper and i love to contribute to the paper. ULK is not
just a newspaper in the traditional sense of the word it’s more than
that. It’s something to be studied and grasped, and saved for future
educational purposes. In my opinion its the only publication that hasn’t
been compromised.
i think ya’ll should publish more content on New Afrikan
Revolutionary Nationalism (NARN) then ya’ll do. To be honest, the
ULK is probably the only publication that provides content that
elucidates NARN. Nonetheless, ya’ll keep doing what ya’ll doing.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We’ll never turn away a
well-done NARN article, so keep them coming. This is a newsletter by and
for prisoners of the United $nakes.
A Pennsylvania prisoner: As with everything,
“education” is a key factor. A lot of people really have a lack of
comprehension of the Maoist, Socialism, Communism agenda or actual
belief system is about. I have a general idea, but not the whole
picture. Many people are ignorant to what it is all about. … I was a bit
of a skeptic when I first began writing MIM(Prisons), but I no longer am
3 years later.
As I have continued to write and read all your ULKs I have
begun to realize what you stand for, and that is the common people who
are struggling to survive in a world full of powerful people, who do not
play by the rules. … Those powerful and wealthy who have forgotten what
it is like to be human. … When I get released from prison later this
year and get back on my feet I do plan to donate to MIM(Prisons) because
I strongly support what you stand for.
…It was word of mouth that got me interested in ULK, and
that is what we should use to spread the word. Sooner or later someone,
somewhere is gonna get interested.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We appreciate this comrade’s
continued engagement and struggling with the ideas in ULK. Eir
description of what we do is accurate. Though, the same could be said
for many prisoner newsletters. We recommend comrades check out “What is
MIM(Prisons)?” on page 2 to get an idea of what differentiates us from
the others; and to ask questions and study more than ULK to
better understand those differences.
A Washington prisoner: I believe there has not been
enough exposure of ULK in the prison system. I only happened on
it by chance. I sought out communist education on my own after not being
able to shake an urge that there was something incredibly wrong with the
political and economic structures in my surroundings. I believe we
should launch a campaign of exposure and agitation. Create and pass out
pamphlets and newsletters geared to helping people see the relevance of
communism and their current situation. For a start, I would like to
receive copies of the Revolutionary 12 Step Program pamphlets
to strategically place in my facility so prisoners can have access to
them.
MIM(Prisons) concludes: Expanding ULK just for
the sake of it would be what we call a sectarian error. Sectarianism is
putting one’s organization (one’s own “sect”) above the movement to end
oppression. The reason we are promoting the campaign to expand
ULK is that we see it as a surrogate for measuring the interest
in and influence of anti-imperialist organizing in U.$. prisons. As
comrades above have touched on, there is always a limitation in access
and numbers do matter. Most prisoners have never heard of ULK.
The more we can change that, the more popular we can expect
anti-imperialism to be within U.$. prisons and the more organized we’d
expect people to get there.
We are working on expanding our work with and organizing of prisoner
art. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words. More art that
captures the ideas of our movement can help us reach more people more
quickly. So send in your art that reflects the concepts discussed in
ULK. We also offer outside support for making fliers and small
pamphlets. What types of fliers and small pamphlets, besides the
Revolutionary 12 Steps, would be helpful for reaching more
prisoners with our ideas and perhaps getting them to subscribe to
ULK?
Another way to reach people in prison is through radio and podcasts.
We are looking for information on what types of platforms and podcasts
prisoners have access to that we might tap into.
We only received 4 responses to our survey in ULK 84 in time
to print in this issue. This is another data point that indicates the
low level of engagement with ULK compared to the past. Another
possible explanation for lack of responses is that this survey was more
difficult to answer than previous surveys we’ve done because it is
asking for explanations more than hard facts. Either way, in our attempt
to always improve our understanding of the conditions we are working in,
we are printing the survey questions one more time (also see questions
above). Even if your answer to all the questions below are “no”, we’d
appreciate your response in your next letter to us.
Have you noticed changes in the prison system that have made it
harder for people to subscribe to ULK or less interested in
subscribing?
Have you noticed changes in the prisoner population that have
made people less interested in subscribing?
Have you noticed/heard of people losing interest in ULK because
of the content, or because of the practices of MIM(Prisons)?
What methods have you seen be successful in getting people
interested in or to subscribe to ULK?
Do you have ideas for how we can increase interest in ULK in
prisons?
This comrade had mail confiscated in June 2023 that ey has been
trying to get ever since.
“The indorm counselor asked me to sign the paper which said I had to
either send it home or have it destroyed and they violated/broke my due
process rights as well as my 1st Amendment rights. I told her I ain’t
signing shit.”
“Then a day later I.A. here at Putnamville Correctional Facility
called me over to give my publication to me after they had them for well
over 6 months, which is a victory, and we will see more I believe.”
The comrade sent us a copy of the letter from the Deputy Chief of
Investigations granting that the publications sent in early June were
permissible – 7 months later!
While we agree there will be more victories, we’ve also seen setbacks
following censorship battles in Indiana over the last couple years.
MIM(Prisons) believes there are no rights, only power struggles. The
grievance campaign being waged in over a dozen states across the country
is geared towards getting prisoners organized to advocate for themselves
because the system is always there to maintain the status quo.
Today the Deputy Chief of Investigations helped a comrade out,
tomorrow ey might not be so generous. Recently the FBI arrested rapists
running FCI-Dublin, yet at other times they’ve imprisoned and
assassinated those who fight for the liberation of the oppressed. The
agents of the state act in the interest of the state. So we cannot rest
on our laurels after a couple censorship victories.
A guy walked into special housing on HCON [High Security Maximum
Control Unit] in 2022 with a head swollen to the size of a bowling ball,
with skin hanging off deep face wounds above his eyebrow. He could
barely walk. After the shield team beat him in the cell, then in the
hallway on camera, they took him to medical and chained him to a table
before beating him in front of the doctor and nurse.
Then they took him to the dry-cell and put his head against a
concrete bench (like a chopping block) in a kneeling position and began
beating and kicking him in the head. One officer beat him on the ass
with a night-stick. Then they stomped him out of consciousness. When he
awoke they were still beating him. They left him there for about two
hours til shift-change.
Right before shift-change they walked him back down the hall, past
the nurse station where a second-shift nurse spotted the offender and
asked what happened to him because he didn’t look like that when he went
into the dry-cell. The Sergeant Wilson tried to make excuses but
nevertheless the nurse had another assessment report done.
The guy was put in a special-housing cell next to mine. At
shift-change the replacing sergeant who happened to be at competition
with Sergeant Wilson for a lieutenant position reported the prisoner’s
conditions to the Administration and Operating Lieutenant.
When the Lieutenant arrived the prisoner refused to take pictures –
until I told him to take the pictures and go to medical. The prisoner
was later taken to outside medical and diagnosed with a concussion and
broken temple bone in his skull.
I myself and many other captives coached this prisoner with legal
advice but he refused to appeal the grievance to step 3 in an attempt to
arrange a deal with administration to be released from HCON status. He
was not released.
In the process the Sergeant Wilson was transferred along with several
other officers and one was fired. Shortly after being placed to work in
the gate-house away from prisoners Sergeant Wilson quit. Only one of the
officers is still here which is one too many.
This prisoner basically saved the officers by refusing to speak with
the Warden about the incident or write statements. The prisoner later
stated that writing a grievance or statement is snitching, but as I
mentioned above he wrote both a grievance and statement, only to turn
around and sell himself short, copping pleas and leaving everyone else
hanging; while he turns his back and blind eye to fellow comrades who
will suffer the same fate from these officers, he sold us out and left
us to the wolves for false promises and that’s not what brothers do.
Real brothers wouldn’t let any abuser anywhere near their brothers or
sisters. Those were cynical decisions without revolutionary
consciousness for the betterment of the people, the same people who
helped him to medical treatment when he was lying on his deathbed.
Why settle to copping deals with the same foes who watched orders
being carried out to kick your head in? I’m not taking anything from
this prisoner’s will to self-sacrifice for others, but on an overall
standpoint collectively concerning the prison population, the message
here is,
“Don’t knock others for their foresight in advancing the people by
any means necessary, including pen and paper.” -The Ballot or the
Bullet, Malcolm X
Snitching:
As long as what you say does not include someone else it is not
snitching.
Giving a hint that someone did something is dry snitching.
Collaborating: 1. Siding with, taking up for, or
covering up for the police.
The generations before us put in decades of paperwork to get where we
are today. They wrote newspaper publishers and fought for things we take
for granted like bail, trials, showers and recreation etc. Nothing is
final until it’s on paper. Any legal case won becomes precedent
(law).
Last, police yourselves (nations, neighborhoods, etc). The reason
overall Brothers in Islam are more righteous is because we police
ourselves to keep each other in-line. If the brothers’ gambling and
breaking bread on our watch then we are just as guilty.
Comrades in MIM(Prisons) and Anti-Imperialist Prisoner Support (AIPS)
have been looking at our last year of practice and planning for 2024. We
want to bring United Struggle from Within (USW) comrades into this
process as we have in the past. So we encourage thoughts and feedback on
the below from our imprisoned readers, especially the questions at the
end.
Starting with the basics, we collectively kept our key operations
running for another year, which is a success in itself. We put out 4
issues of Under Lock & Key on schedule and with positive
responses, processed our prisoner mail in a timely manner, kept our
intro study courses for prisoners running, and sent out monthly
literature orders to prisoners across the country.
Some other accomplishments for 2023 were:
released Second Edition of The Fundamental Political Line of
the Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons
started new level 1 study program based on FPL 2nd
edition
transcribed and edited MIM articles on the Revolutionary
Communist Party(USA) from MIM Theory journals and developed our
own summary analysis of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement
(RIM) related to the RCP=U$A for a book we plan to release in
2024
relaunched our level 2 study group for prisoners after a few
years of hiatus
expanded our pamphlet on the Great Proletarian Cultural
Revolution in China and began distributing it to prisoners
upgraded and rebuilt our servers
we maintained a weekly study program for more advanced comrades
working with MIM(Prisons) on the outside
While we did not meet our goal of financial contributions from AIPS
comrades, we did see a continued increase in those contributions, so
thanks to those comrades for the vital funding support. However, as we
hinted at in previous issues, we saw a steep drop off in the number and
amount of contributions coming from prisoners in 2023 as seen below.
We are asking for our readers help in investigating this drop. Our
first guess would be that less people are receiving ULK. There
was a corresponding decline in incoming letters over 2023, which meant
less outgoing letters. Though we still mailed out more ULKs
than in 2022, we mailed out less other literature. All of these numbers
seem to indicate a decrease in engagement with prisoners overall. We did
not see a significant decrease in study group participation.
One of our failures for 2023 was to follow through with support for
Texas prisoners, such as: compiling reports for ULK, building
and supporting campaigns, and updating our Texas Campaign Pack. None of
that happened due to one comrade leaving who was leading AIPS efforts in
Texas. Their efforts in 2022 led to an increase in outgoing letters, and
we saw an increase in incoming letters that year seemingly as a result
of the Juneteenth
Freedom Initiative. Then in July 2023, Texas implemented their
digital mail system, which has led to massive delays in prisoners
receiving letters, and much of our literature being rejected because
mailroom staff don’t understand the new system or are using it as an
excuse to censor us. While the decrease in incoming letters from Texas
has continued since that happened, it began well before July. So the
digital mail system certainly doesn’t explain it all.
Another failure for 2023 was our Revolutionary 12 Step Training
course. We want to apologize to the comrades who were keeping up with
their responses to the course. Unfortunately, again, this is a case
where the persyn leading this initiative was not able to follow through.
For now we are considering the training course in that form as done. But
we aspire to relaunch it in the future as we continue to focus on
combating addiction. The Revolutionary 12 Step Program pamphlet
was one of our most distributed items in 2023. And we are encouraging
recipients to report on their efforts at implementing it so we can find
ways to build it.
In 2023 we’ve seen a surge in requests for us to message people
inside electronically through companies the states’ are hiring to run
their digital mail via tablets. Years ago we used to be able to do this.
The early prison email systems were free and accessible. Now they
require credit card information and often for you to install software to
use them. This is not something we are set up to do at this time. So do
not expect us to respond to requests from these state-sponsored
messaging systems in the near future. One comrade in Texas asked why we
don’t have ULK on the tablets. Well, the point of the tablets
is so they can further control and monitor what you read and write. So
we assume that’s never gonna happen, but if you have a way for us to get
on there let us know.
Every recent issue of ULK has listed Spreading ULK as a
campaign to support. In 2024, we need to get serious about that campaign
if we want to keep ULK sustainable and useful. This could be
done by increasing distribution outside of prisons as well. But as the
prison ministry’s primary task is organizing prisoners, we’re asking for
your help in both analyzing what is going on with subscriber numbers and
transforming those numbers. Please take the time to send us your
thoughts on the following questions:
Have you noticed changes in the prison system that have made it
harder for people to subscribe to ULK or less interested in
subscribing?
Have you noticed changes in the prisoner population that have
made people less interested in subscribing?
Have you noticed/heard of people losing interest in ULK
because of the content, or because of the practices of
MIM(Prisons)?
What methods have you seen be successful in getting people
interested in or to subscribe to ULK?
Do you have ideas for how we can increase interest in
ULK in prisons?
A comrade in Indiana has drafted the attached petition to address
relevant state officials listed at the end regarding failures in the
grievance system in the Indiana Department of Corrections. Outside
supporters are encouraged to share the petition with contacts inside and
to write the contacts in support of the issues faced by their friends,
comrades and family. Prisoners in Indiana can write us to get copies of
this petition as well as our Federal appeal petition in the case that
the state petition is not effective.
It will please your readers to know that approximately two weeks ago
four Virginia prisons were ordered shut down for good!
Augusta, Sussex 2, Haynesville, and Stafford Correctional Center.
Augusta continues its industry and small cadre to support it. Nottoway
and a sixth prison, so far unnamed, are also on the chopping block as
the VA DOC is now, quietly, downsizing due to its lack of sustainability
($1.1 billion/year, approximately 26% of the entire state budget).
As is always the case, we’ll see how things develop.
MIM(Prisons) adds: The closures are scheduled to
complete by 30 June 2024 according to the VADOC. It is notable that
Augusta Correctional Facility is one of the prisons
comrades were campaigning to shut down for lack of air conditioning.
At this time we have no reason to believe the decision was connected to
that campaign. However Nottoway was also targeted by the campaign, along
with a third prison Buckingham.
I have written and spoken extensively over the last couple years about the impact that recent heat waves have had on incarcerated people housed in non-air-conditioned prisons in Virginia and in the Criminal Injustice System in general. I even drafted and disseminated a proposal for the creation of a state-wide, coalition-based movement to shut these prisons down. As of the date of this writing, none of the so-called prison justice and prison abolitionist organizations I sent it to in Virginia responded or expressed interest in it.
A comrade of mine then created an online petition in 2022 to raise public awareness about this issue and build momentum for shutting these prisons (i.e., death traps) down. Last checked, the petition had 560 signatures. Buckingham Correctional Center alone houses 1,091 people, so there should be more signatures on this petition.
Since I began writing/speaking about this issue, the dissemination of my proposal and the creation of the online petition, historic heat waves have increased exponentially, both in frequency and in record high temperatures. And with these increases must be increased pressure and organizing to shut these non-air-conditioned prisons down.
Since the beginning of summer, the U.$. and most of the rest of the world have been gripped by deadly and historic heat waves. Science and medical experts the world over have warned that deaths caused by extreme heat will only increase each summer without some sort of action to mitigate climate change. They say that elderly people, obese people, and those with diabetes, heart disease and other serious health related issues are the ones most at risk. Time and time again, people confined to prisons, jails and detention centers with poor ventilation, substandard medical care and partial or no air conditioning are left out of the category of those most at risk during these record heat waves.
I just read that in Texas, which incarcerates more people than any other state in the country, the temperature inside its prisons regularly exceeds 120 degrees during the summer and as result, hundreds of incarcerated people have died there from extreme heat exposure in the last few years. Predictably, Texas prison officials have denied the number of deaths and the deaths they have acknowledged they falsely claimed were not caused by extreme heat but by other causes. So, on July 8, loved ones of incarcerated people and other community members attended a rally inside the Texas state capital demanding an emergency session be held to address the issue and for funding to be allocated to install AC units inside all Texas’ prisons. We need similar rallies to take place here in Virginia every summer when it is the hottest and not later in the year or the beginning of the year when the temperature and the issue of extreme heat inside non-air-conditioned prisons both starts to cool down.
SOME ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE NOW:
Sign and share the following petition to close three main non-air-conditioned prisons in Virginia at: https://chng.it/T5hzhPsJXM
Call/email Virginia’s Governor, Secretary of Public Safety, and Director of the Department of Correction at the contact information below demanding these prisons be shut down due to the extreme heat suffered by the people incarcerated there and that housing people at the named facilities under those conditions constitutes torture and cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Glenn Youngkin, Governor of Virginia Tel: 804-786-2211 Email: governor.virginia.gov/constituent-services/communicating-with-the-governors-office
Robert “Bob” Mosie, Secretary of Public Safety of Virginia Tel: 804-786-5351 Email: public.safety@governor.virginia.gov
Harold Clarke, Director of Virginia Department of Corrections Tel: 804-674-3000 Email: director.clarke@vadoc.virginia.gov
Help build a statewide, coalition-based movement specifically to shut these non-air-conditioned prisons down. The proposal for the creation of such a movement can be found on my blog at https://consciousprisoner.wordpress.com/2022/10/01/preliminary-proposal-for-a-statewide-campaign-to-close-shut-down-non-air-conditioned-prisons-in-virginia/.
Please reach out, get involved and help build this movement before incarcerated people in Virginia start dying on a level like they are in prisons in Texas.
Since Our last update regarding the J.F.I., and its three phase plan to magnify the genocidal practices, policies and procedures ever present within the Amerikan criminal justice system, there has been slight progress in our phase two, or the national phase of this campaign.
Namely, the U.$. DOJ has begun to respond to the hundreds of grievance petitions and testimonials sent to them last year. U.$. DOJ has shown interest in further investigating incidents of excessive use of force, and lack of staff. This is only what has been reported from Texas comrades, and We hope to hear more from others around the country as responses pour in.
Along these same lines, We have recently begun corresponding with a legal aid organization who has reached out to us, interested in representing prisoner’s litigation efforts which are socio-politically motivated in nature. They’ve expressed interest in assisting us in the J.F.I. campaign going forward, as this partnership develops We’ll keep you all informed.
An Update on Legislation Efforts in Texas
Through the last 180 days a lot of time and energy has been refocused in support efforts regarding legislation beneficial to the Texas prisoner class.
We have been focused on the following bills and resolutions:
HB 2834, relating to minimum wage for inmates in certain work programs.
HB 782, gives authority to trial court to modify a defendants sentence.
HB 812, regarding limitation on use of Administrative segregation.
HB 1362, relating to the use of the death penalty and life without parole in capital crimes for people younger than 21 years old.
HB 1736, relating to conspiracy and law of parties and criminal responsibility in capital cases.
House Joint Resolution 63, regarding the explicit outlawing of slavery and servitude.
In Our efforts to abolish Ad-Seg, there was a book released and passed around to current legislators at the beginning of the session in January. The book, Texas Letters Volume 1, is an anthology consisting of prisoners first hand accounts of their experiences in long term solitary confinement in Texas. Despite these and other efforts it seems as though HB 812 will not pass this session.
In Our efforts to magnify HB 1362 and HB 1736, there is a current publication in the works specifically dedicated to telling the stories of those affected by the Law of Parties and the death penalty and life w/o parole at the ages below 21. Surprisingly, this is a bi-partisan effort. Despite this it has not yet been passed. People on the ground are developing different ways to get the information about this issue disseminated more widely to the public.
On Other Efforts in Texas
Seeing that Our efforts in the legislation campaign have not been fruitful, We’ve channeled Our energy toward more cadre building through establishing Authentic In Manhood, Masculinity and Maturity (A.I.M) and its sub section Political Education 101, a series of seminars giving insight into the basic essentials of revolutionary political and social theory. We hope these efforts bear more fruit in the near future.
An Update on the Forever Protecting Our Community Organization
Since the introductory article presenting FPC to the ULK audience, i would like to inform you that the FPC organization has established a local community garden, promoting food sovereignty, and has begun to launch a program designed to combat open air sex and human trafficking in the local area. FPC has also taken part with other organizations in a memorial for people who’ve lost their lives to police terrorism and gang violence, members of the FPC have been active in mentoring youth in anti-drug and anti-gang counseling providing school supplies, and feeding the people. The organization’s political line continues to mature, and we continue to observe this movement closely.
I appreciate all the comrades who assisted us with our struggle for change here at Eastern Correctional Institution (E.C.I.) We have begun to gain traction. Delegate Charles Otto has responded with a response from Maryland Department of Public Safety. Once I make copies I will send them to you all so that you can see the crap they’re saying. None the less the prison is beginning to change. Our visiting time has increased and so has our outside rec. They are even talking about allowing us to take pictures. We are not stupid though we understand that this is all to pacify us. But there has been something major that we have recognized. The system has now exposed their hand and now they are open for the guerrillas to attack – in one of the buildings here they are renovating due to the pressure from the people and as such they have to move people out of the building. So they must find space for these men. They are scrambling for spaces to put them. Now understanding this I have come up with an idea which is now under way. The plan goes as follows:
Mission #1 Fire Starter
Primary Objective: Exposure. We must expose the prison’s conditions to the outside world. We must present these conditions to our local politicians. We must network through our channels and use our families and friends to agitate those in position.
Weapon of Choice: Media
Mission #2 Fire Spreader
Primary Objective: Spread what you have done in your prison to the other prisons in your state. This must be done simultaneously.
Weapon of Choice: Letters, Phones, Social Media
After these missions are complete it will unleash a fire storm that will burn these prison systems from the inside out. Once comrades are released they are then to assist the cells from the outside.
It must be understood that every prison in Amerikkka has its issues and for them to be exposed in the manner we are seeking will force the people in position to react. They will then have to renovate these prisons and to do so they will have to decarcerate, releasing our brothers and sisters on to the streets because they will have no where to put them once they are forced to clean up the prisons. This is the beginning of a prison abolition movement I believe that will deliver a major blow to the system. The comrades here at E.C.I. have completed Mission #1 Fire Starter and we are now underway with Mission #2. It must be understood that it may not work every where but I do encourage all to try it.
It is time for the dragon to be released. Long live George Jackson.