In 2018, North Carolina prisoners answered South Carolina prisoners’
call out coordinating amongst each other in multiple states alongside
outside supporters, agitators and Anarchist Black Cross by organizing
their POW movement (prisoners of the world).
Three prisoners [names removed] staged a peaceful protest with the
support of over 300 prisoners and outside public supporters. They even
hung signs on the prison fence made out of sheets. Meanwhile nearly 100
public protesters piled out of dozens of cars, vans, and SUVs, armed
with bullhorns, signs, and drums in solidarity with the prisoners while
perimeter guards trained loaded firearms at the prisoners and the
supporters. Then prisoners submitted a list of demands:
-
Establish parole for lifers who demonstrate rehabilitation
-
End life sentences
-
End all 85% mandatory minimum sentences
-
End long-term solitary confinement
-
Abolish article 1, section 17 of the constitution of NC which permits
slavery to those convicted of crime through the 13th amendment of the
U.$. constitution
-
End $10 administrative fees for the guilty disposition of a write up or
rule violation
-
Better food with real beef
-
Better health and dental care
-
Allow prisoners to purchase JP4 players/notebooks
-
End security threat group policies that restrict contact visits with
their wives, children and fiances
-
Fair wages for our slave labor
-
End exaggerated censorship policies
-
More meaningful rehabilitation and educational opportunities
The following day, on 21 August 2018, prisoners at Fluvanna Correctional
Center for Women in Raleigh went on strike, refusing to eat our work,
followed by prisoners at Craggy Correctional Center. Then reports began
flooding mainstream media that thousands of prisoners across the U.$.
were joining the international prison strike in solidarity with the POW
movement.
The organizers were then each transferred to separate super maximum
security prisons and charged for inciting a riot with the exception of
[name removed] who was sent to Butner, NC to a prison that is so violent
and popular for 5-on-1 fascist beatings that prisoners call it “baby
Guantanamo Bay.” After 8 months of cruel and harsh treatment with
reports of fascists putting glass in food and feces in another,
prisoners [two names removed], with the help of public support,
organized their national grievance day calling on all NC prisoners and
any similarly situated prisoner in other states who are affected by this
oppressive rule to join them and file grievances against their director
in their state to end the oppressive rule that prohibits anyone in the
public from sending a prisoner money unless that person is an approved
visitor on the prisoner’s visit list.
As a result of this new restrictive discriminating policy, many
prisoners whose families are poor and of color, who don’t have
identification or transportation to visit a particular prisoner to show
em support, now cannot send the prisoner any money. This has resulted in
a scarcity of funds to go around resulting in an uptick of gang violence
and rule violations. For example, prisoners who can’t hustle for money
due to no artistic skills or other lacking reasons and whose family
can’t send them any money for hygiene, food, stamps or phone time now
are forced to have their families send money gram, western union, square
cash app or greendots to pay inside drug dealers for K-2, CBD,
marijuana, suboxone, heroine, or other drugs that they can easily sell
in order just to survive.
So in response to this intrusive rule, on 21 May 2019 both men and women
prisoners stood together in solidarity and sent in more than 15,000
administrative grievances against the NC prison director. Then on 1 June
2019 North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS) reported
receiving more than 100,000 phone calls and emails from angry families
and supporters internationally backing up email servers and phone lines
nearly causing their site to crash, urging the director to repeal his 5
February 2019 Jpay rule. One outside organizer spoke with the public
affairs office and reported that “there was an ongoing investigation and
the director will be looking into it.”
Outside activists and supporters are reporting good feedback from the
NCDPS, and folks behind bars. Also an art gallery in New York contacted
organizers from itsgoingdown.org and is asking for NC-specific art
around this extension of our POW movement and wants to get behind NC
prisoners to support them.
With the 21 May 2019 national grievance day, in addition, prisoners are
beginning to coordinate amongst each other in multiple states, and
working with outside supporters; word of the coordinated action has now
spread all over the country.
Supreme Court shut down Prisoner Organizing
For nearly 40 years, prisoners in North Carolina have avoided the
political arena surrounding prisoner rights ever since the United $tates
Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision in Jones v. NC
prisoners labor union, inc. 433 u.s. 119, 129 97 S.ct 2532, 53 L.Ed 26,
629 (1977), preventing NC prisoners from unionizing, meetings and
solicitation of membership.
The union formed in late 1974 with a stated goal of “the promotion of
charitable labor union purposes” and the formation of a “prisoners labor
union at every prison and jail in NC to seek through collective
bargaining… to improve… working… conditions…” It also proposed to work
towards the alteration or elimination of practices and policies of the
Department of Corrections (DOC) which it did not approve of and to serve
as a vehicle for the presentation and resolution of prisoner grievances.
By early 1975 the union had attracted some 2000 prisoner members in 40
different prison units throughout NC.
The state of NC, unhappy with these developments, set out to prevent
prisoners from forming or operating a union. While the state tolerated
individual “membership,” or belief, in the union, it sought to prohibit
prisoner solicitation of other prisoners, meetings between members or
the union, and bulk mailings concerning the union from outside sources.
So on 26 March 1975 the DOC (now North Carolina Department of Public
Safety - NCDPS) prohibited that activity.
Since prisoners were on notice of the proscription prior to its
enactment, they filed suit in the U.$. Federal District Court for the
Eastern District of NC. That was on 18 March 1975, approximately a week
before the date upon which the regulation was to take effect. The union
claimed that its rights of its members to engage in protected free
speech association and assembly activities were being infringed by the
no-solicitation and no-meeting rules.
The district court felt that since the defendants countenanced the bare
foot of union membership, it had to allow the solicitation activity,
whether by prisoners or by outsiders and held “we are unable to perceive
why it is necessary or essential to security and order in the prisons to
forbid solicitation of membership in a union permitted by the
authorities. This is not a case of a riot. There is not one scintilla of
evidence to suggest that the union has been utilized to disrupt the
operation of the penal institution.” The warden appealed to the fourth
circuit who also agreed with prisoners. The warden appealed to the
Supreme Court of the United States who reversed the 4th circuit’s
decision.
The court deferred to the warden’s conclusions that the presence and
objectives of a prisoners’ labor union would be detrimental to order and
security in the prisons. The court held those conclusions had not been
conclusively shown to be wrong in this view, and that when weighed
against the First Amendment rights asserted, these institutional reasons
are sufficiently weighty to prevail. In sum, the court’s decision
established that the institutional interest of the prison outweighs a
prisoner’s constitutional rights. The rulings in Jones, in
hindsight, defined prisoners’ status as “prisoners” and eliminated
prisoners’ rights to free association and essentially paved the future
for correctional czars to place iron curtains between the First
Amendment and prisoners with impunity.
Punished for writing a letter to organizers
Update: On 12 June 2019 and still claiming actual innocence as to why
ey’s in prison. Prisoner [name removed] was in eir cell writing
organizers when a sergeant and two prison guards entered eir cell for a
search. During the search one of the prison guards picked up the letter
and began reading it. The prisoner was handcuffed and charged for
inciting a riot for simply stating in his letter to outside supporters
and organizers “thank you for helping put NC prisoners on the map and
for giving prisoners a voice on May 21, 2019 and June 1, 2019 as we
continue to bring our collective struggles to the battlefront. I look
forward to the 2020 strike calling on all us prisoners to stand in
solidarity to demand an end to slavery in prisons and to restore our
freedoms.”
At this time, this prisoner was scheduled to receive eir first visit in
11 years from eir sister who has no criminal record and who had been
unapproved for no reason and was finally approved. Unfortunately, eir
sister drove over 8 hours to visit and took vacation time plus a portion
of eir husband’s disability money to cover the expenses. What’s worse is
that eir son was just accepted at university which puts an even worse
financial strain on the family. Meanwhile this prisoner remains in
administrative segregation and faces another 8 month long-term lock up.
While in lock up ey accused prison guards of putting feces in eir tea
and poisoning eir food. Ey reported having diarrhea, vomiting blood,
inability to hold down food, weakness, shakes, hallucinations, hot-cold
sweats, stomach pain and dry heaving. Ey has since recovered after two
weeks on a self-induced diet of milk.
MIM(Prisons) responds: There are some important lessons in this
report from North Carolina. First, the restriction on organizing and
even just basic free speech of prisoners is pervasive. It takes the
format of transferring or charging with crimes prisoners who initiate
protests or even complaints against conditions behind bars. But it is
also codified by the courts in rulings like the prohibition of union
organizing. These laws and actions amount to telling prisoners that they
must accept any and all oppressive conditions, that the so-called
“rights” of U.$. citizenship do not apply to them.
We can take inspiration from this oppression. While the threats and
retaliation will scare some out of taking action, revolutionaries will
understand that our actions must be effective if we have frightened the
prison and legal system into enacting rules and policies to stop our
organizing work. And so we must continue! These organizers in North
Carolina are continuing in the face of serious repression, and providing
an example of determination and perseverance for others.
Whether your work is focused on educating others, or directly taking on
repressive actions by the administration, it can all contribute to
building the United Front for Peace in Prisons. This United Front
challenges the criminal injustice system through the unity of the
oppressed behind bars. We need more stories like this one about the
battles being waged. And for those looking to get involved, write to us
for resources, educational materials, and support for your struggles.
