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.
Mail the petition to your loved ones and comrades inside who are
experiencing issues with their grievance procedure. Send them extra
copies to share! For more info on this campaign, click
here.
Prisoners should send a copy of the signed petition to each of the
addresses listed on the petition, and below. Supporters should send
letters on behalf of prisoners.
Secretary of Corrections Landon State Office Building 900 Jackson,
4th Floor Topeka, KS 66612
United States Department of Justice - Civil Rights Division Special
Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, PHB Washington,
D.C. 20530
Office of Inspector General HOTLINE P.O. Box 9778 Arlington,
Virginia 22219
And send MIM(Prisons) copies of any responses you receive!
MIM(Prisons), USW PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140
Mail the petition to your loved ones and comrades inside who are
experiencing issues with their grievance procedure. Send them extra
copies to share! For more info on this campaign, click
here.
Prisoners should send a copy of the signed petition to each of the
addresses listed on the petition, and below. Supporters should send
letters on behalf of prisoners.
Officer of General Counsel PO Box 21787 Columbia SC 29221-1787
United States Department of Justice - Civil Rights Division Special
Litigation Section 950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, PHB Washington,
D.C. 20530
Office of Inspector General HOTLINE P.O. Box 9778 Arlington,
Virginia 22219
And send MIM(Prisons) copies of any responses you receive!
MIM(Prisons), USW PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140
Dear MIM and all my brothers and sisters bonded by the ink of our pens.
We must continue to fight for United Struggle from Within.
I have just initiated my discovery phase in my civil suit against the
Warden on this plantation and its incompetent medical staff. I’m located
at a level 5 security here in Georgia and as I read ULK I see
that we are all faced with this new and improved SHU system. Same game,
different name.
I’m on the Tier 2 program, a step down program which is a 260-day
program, and I’ve been here 13 months today because I was caught with 2
cell phones. I’ve experienced medical neglect, deliberate indifference
and cruel and unusual punishment for being caught with contraband.
I encourage the use of the grievance system but we all know it is
worthless. Every grievance is denied without due investigation. I
personally started a petition against the grievance system here for the
inmates in SHU/Tier 2 which I’ve sent to MIM(Prisons) and joined the
grievance campaign in my state.
I wrote this for exposure and to encourage all the readers here in
Georgia to petition against your grievance system.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We now have a grievance petition for the
state of Georgia, thanks to this comrade’s work. Write to MIM(Prisons)
for a copy of this petition to demand your grievances are addressed in
Georgia.
I would like to encourage any prisoner who is abused in any way that is
clearly counter to the regulations and department operational manual
(DOM) to consider that upon exhausting the administrative process or
even when it’s obstructed there is another lawful way to force the CDCR
prisoncrats to act on your complaint.
It’s not as simple as the administrative 602 process and if you lack
serious determination to force the issue don’t waste your time. But it’s
called “administrative mandate” petitions you can file in the court. Now
you can obtain basic instructions by writing the Prison Law Office and
asking for “information on filing an administrative mandate” and/or buy
the California state prisoners handbook which will explain to you how to
force prisoncrats to follow their own rules and regulations.(1)
There is always the law library, which is the most powerful resource in
the system for a prisoner who does not allow themselves to be mentally
worn down. The adversarial system is just that, and prisoncrats and the
CCPOA don’t care about you but as a means to a pay check. This is not to
belittle but encourage you to pursue lawful action if you have exhausted
administrative remedies. You can sue easily in small claims where you do
not have to have much legal knowledge (think of Judge Judy/Joe
Brown/Matis, etc.). That’s the simplest way to sue. But make sure you
line your ducks up!
More complex methods of suing are available also if you are willing to
do the work required seriously, as in “limited jurisdiction” and
“unlimited jurisdiction” in the state courts; in addition to your
ability to file in the federal jurisdiction. This is not easy, it is
time consuming and it can be costly to you.
I would also consider writing complaints to the U.S. Department of
Justice Civil Rights Division special litigation section if you are
serious. The opposition makes use of all of its resources, I suggest you
too use all of the resources you have. I am not anybody’s attorney and
this is not legal advice, I am simply stating the obvious so people do
not lose heart. In most cases the picklesuits and prisoncrats allow the
abuse of those they don’t expect to offer a real challenge.
Mail the petition to your loved ones and comrades inside who are
experiencing issues with their grievance procedure. Send them extra
copies to share! For more info on this campaign, click
here.
Prisoners should send a copy of the signed petition to each of the
addresses listed on the petition, and below. Supporters should send
letters on behalf of prisoners.
Click to download a PDF of the Oregon grievance petition
Mail the petition to your loved ones and comrades inside who are
experiencing issues with the grievance procedure. Send them extra copies
to share! For more info on this campaign, click
here.
Prisoners should send a copy of the signed petition to each of the
addresses below. Supporters should send letters on behalf of prisoners.
Director of the Oregon Department of Corrections (ODOC) 2575 Center
Street Salem, OR 97301
U.S. Department of Justice - Civil Rights Division Special Litigation
Section 950 Pennsylvania Ave, NW, PHB Washington DC 20530
Office of Inspector General HOTLINE PO Box 9778 Arlington, VA
22219
And send MIM(Prisons) copies of any responses you receive!
MIM(Prisons), USW PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140
PDF updated May 2012, July 2012, July 2014, and October 2017
I read over
the
letter from our Polunsky comrades. This is what I recommend. Often
it helps to attach an I-60 with your Step 1 grievance and ask the
Grievance Officer for the processing number of your grievance. If you
have this number you will have a direct reference to track a grievance.
This helps discourage grievances being “misplaced.” It’s also handy when
you write Administration Review & Risk Management (ARRM) about the
unit not addressing that particular grievance. For important and serious
grievances it is useful to start them like this:
I file this grievance to exhaust all administrative remedies as required
by the Prison Litigation Reform Act to bring forth action under section
1983 of Title 42 of the United States Code.
It basically says: I’m going to sue you! It’s not a guarantee but
such an intro may make the grievance officer take it more seriously.
In regards to the officers who confiscate personal property and then
destroy them, I’d like to direct our comrades to the
Texas
Grievance Guide, in particular the part concerning filing criminal
charges against officers. If an officer takes a prisoner’s property
without giving a confiscation form stating the reason for confiscation,
then that is legally theft. It is also a violation of your civil right
to due process (which is also a criminal offense). Of course you will
need some kind of proof that the item existed and was taken. Get
prisoners to write affidavits and reference any camera numbers (if there
are any). The criminal charges may not stick because pigs don’t eat
pork, but it may give them a wake up call and make them think twice.
I agree that our grievance petitions are having no effect with the
people we are currently sending them to. I feel it more beneficial to
send them to ACLU Texas or the DOJ. Our grievances and complaints are
systematically neglected and denied. It is an Orwellian system, a
labyrinth of closed loops, a facade. We need to push for the TDCJ
Independent Oversight Committee which will place our grievances before
an unaffiliated organization with the ability to monitor TDCJ to ensure
that it abides by statutory law and its own policy.
We shouldn’t hope sending the grievance petition alone to the DOJ or
ACLU is enough. We must promote and campaign this proposed bill to our
freeworld friends and family. I see no other way to break these closed
loops.
MIM(Prisons) responds: Write to us for a copy of the Texas
Grievance Guide. While we agree with this comrade that a TDCJ
Independent Oversight Committee would bring progress for Texas prisoners
in their fight against abuse and injustice, this too is not enough. We
must learn from history that reforms like this one are followed by DOJ
tricks and adjustments to work around the new policies and continue the
same old abuse and repression. While we should still fight for these
reforms, and use the battle to educate and unite people both behind the
bars and on the streets, we must do this in the context of the broader
struggle against the criminal injustice system. We should never mislead
people to think that one reform or one house bill will make the change
we need to see to create a true system of justice.
We here on Polunsky Unit are receiving the ULK and copies of
the grievance petition. We are engaged in the fight on a very small
scale. Hundreds of petitions have been sent to the central grievance
office, Administrative Review and Risk Management Division (ARRM),
Executive Director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ),
and recently TDCJ Board Chairman Oliver Bell, but to no avail.
Grievances are not submitted and grievance investigators claim to not
have received them. Those that do get processed/submitted are not
properly investigated and receive the standard response of “insufficient
evidence to substantiate your allegation.”
The KKKlantation Warden Gary Hunter is in collusion with grievance staff
to trash/destroy any grievance/appeal that may get action if we proceed
to the Step 2 level, that is if the Step 2 does not land in the hands of
Regional Director Richard Alford who has been Assistant Warden and Head
Warden on this KKKlantation within the 12 years that I’ve been here.
There is another struggle against Helen Sheffield (Sgt. of Safe
Prison/Extortion). She confiscates personal property of offenders
accused of extortion, running gambling businesses, stores, inappropriate
relationships with female guards, etc., and destroys property if the
offender refuses to snitch for her. This is all done under the watchful
eye of Senior Warden Hunter and Assistant Warden Kenneth Hutto.
If any comrades in Texas can assist us in our fight against
Sgt. Sheffield and her theft and unlawful destruction of offender
property, please feel free to engage in this struggle.
To all comrades of USW in Texas, we must come up with a new direction to
take this grievance campaign (new addresses, etc.) to send grievance
petitions to because all the former names/addresses have failed us. My
suggestion is the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) or ACLU Texas. We
comrades on the Polunsky KKKlantation have chosen to forward our
petitions to the DOJ.
“It shows that circumstances make men just as much as men make
circumstances.” - Karl Marx in the German ideology
Can we say that a new phenomenon is brewing behind these walls? We can
all see the new level of political consciousness in California prisons,
where prisoners are resisting the repressive policies of the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in a more collective
manner. Change has been slow, but progress is evident. The root of this
is us prisoners with a little political and legal education to enlighten
others and at the same time inspire others to participate in progressive
action.
The California hunger strikes weren’t spontaneous demonstrations against
injust human rights violations in the Security Housing Units (SHUs), but
rather carefully laid out plans to get outside attention and assistance.
It was years of suppression that brought a few together to gather many
in a common purpose that serves all of our interests. Some men are
mentally broken while others carry on in these SHU conditions.
This is but a simple dialectic; or two sides of a contradiction forming
a unity. On one hand we have those who deteriorate under these
conditions and seek any way out, while on the other hand we have those
prisoners who adapt and at the same time find ways to better themselves
by educating themselves in law, reading good books, or picking up
hobbies to keep themselves occupied. It is through these individuals who
know the conditions in the SHU who are capable of creating campaigns for
abolishing its policies, especially the gang validation policies that so
many prisoners fall victim to.
Exposure and propaganda play a vital role on our behalf. This is where
USW comrades come in, not just as advocates for human rights, but as
advocates of an overall anti-imperialist campaign, as everything is
connected to the imperialist system. The SHUs within CDCR are an aspect
of imperialism, utilized for social control. And the oppressive
conditions within are nothing more but to assert more social control
behind prisons. It is through current events that this new phenomenon is
manifesting a wave of politically conscious prisoners creating new
circumstances. More validated prisoners are leaving the SHUs but more
are taking their place. It is possible that one day through a collective
effort the gang validation will be dismantled entirely and a SHU cap may
be part of our future. I think it is.
The Texa$ Board of Criminal (in)Justice implemented new prisoner
Correspondence Rules on 1 October 2013 restricting indigent prisoners to
5 one-ounce domestic letters per month. The previous policy allowed 5
letters per week. This is a clear attack on prisoners’ access to the
outside world, and in particular
impacts
politically active prisoners who use the mail to expose the
brutality and abuse going on behind bars in Texas. In response to this
new policy United Struggle from Within initiated a
grievance
campaign, organizing prisoners to appeal this restriction. Below are
several new updates to the campaign:
Successful Grievance Against Limits on Legal Mail
From Hughes Unit: “I won my grievance due to interference from the
department law library which deals with offenders who are indigent. They
were saying five letters a month for everything and they were trying to
stop my legal mail from going out to the courts. There is no limit on
legal mail! They were also trying only to give us supplies like 25
sheets of paper, one pen, five envelopes a month. But an indigent
offender who is doing legal work can have this once a week, and mail out
as much legal work he or she wants.”
One prisoner from Allred wrote Step 1 and Step 2 grievances requesting
additional stamps. Because of his need to use his 5 indigent mail stamps
to pursue legal research this prisoner was unable to write to family and
friends and so requested additional stamps from the Warden. The first
request prior to the grievances stated “I need to mail 5 more letters
this month using indigent [mail]. … This unit law library is giving me
the run around having me write and ask everybody under the sun. They
don’t know about the 83rd Legislature House Bill 634 by Farias of Texas.
It’s the holidays, I need extra 5 letters this month.” The response from
the Warden: “That doesn’t meet any legal requirement and I don’t have
the authority to allow you extra postage for that.” Responses to his
grievances following up on the Warden’s denial included denying the Step
1 for “excessive attachments.” The attachments were copies of his
initial attempts to resolve the issue without filing a grievance.
Based on the victory from the prisoner in Hughes Unit, we encourage
prisoners to appeal their access to stamps for legal mail separately
from the restriction on personal mail.
Restrictions on Receipt of Stationary
A comrade in Eastham Unit reported: “Each year the big wigs running
Texas prisons decide on what to take from the prisoners next. This year
it involves indigent mail and stationary sent in from the outside.
Prisoners who have no money on their trust fund account are able to
receive supplies (paper, pen, envelopes) and send out letters through
the indigent mail. Before this March prisoners could send out five
letters a week, now it’s just five letters a month… What’s worse is that
we’re charged for indigent mail services. Whenever we get money on our
account, the cost for every letter mailed and each supply is deducted.
“Prior to March our friends and family could have stationary from an
outside store sent to us. This was eliminated, and now our only option
is purchasing stationary from commissary, and paying their prices. Like
any oppressor, TDCJ enjoys coming up with new ideas and ways to make
life more difficult for their captors. There’s strength in numbers. The
more of us who write grievances, send letters to state politicians, and
get the word out to our family and friends, the better chance we have of
telling our oppressors that we’re not going to take this lying down.”
This comrade is right on about the strength in numbers. We have a number
of prisoners across the state working on this campaign to end the
restrictions on correspondence in Texas, and we’ve come up with a few
key
steps for prisoners and supporters to take.
Some jailhouse lawyers have created guides to fighting this injustice as
well as a broader
grievance
guide for Texas, and we are seeing an influx of prisoners requesting
these resources. We look forward to the results of this growing activism
in this state with the largest prison population and one of the highest
incarceration rates in the country.
For this indigent mail campaign in particular, we have a sample step 1
grievance for prisoners to use as well as a sample step 2 grievance for
those whose step 1 is rejected. Write to us for a copy of the indigent
mail campaign guide.
