Under Lock & Key

Florida DOC Tablet Saga

When tablets came out in 2017 the very first tablets were sold to the prisoners. I had a loved one to buy me one. Then FDOC decided to change the mail to digital mail, so FDOC picked up all tablets that the prisoners paid for and came back around and passed out free tablets for every one. Since then all tablets have been updated no less than three times.

This comrade just got released from a Close Management Unit and was transferred to Hamilton C.I. Since I got here I found out that for the past year the Property Room Sergeant has been confiscating tablets, most of the time giving prisoners a disciplinary report for tablet tampering in which prisoners are found guilty 99% of the time and are suspended indefinitely from having another tablet. On top of this, most now have a loan on their inmate trust fund account of $130 restitution. FDOC gave a little for a period of time, then turned around and took everything. They gave the tablets, tablets belong to the state, and now they have an excuse to take them.

The Prisoner Population

I’ve been in prison for 28 years and this whole thing changed. This is not a prison anymore, this is a child care center for these fools to hang out. Everybody wants to belong to a gang but let me remind you that before you take that oath, you need to find out why that nation, group, or gang was born. It was born by the oppressed to fight in unity as a group against oppression. Who is the oppressor? Pigs that work here, the administration, the system, the state, the government. I know my history, do you know yours?

FDOC have a total of no more than 30 officers per shift (with 1/4 of them pushing overtime) and that is counting the front controls operators. It is embarrassing how that a small group of pigs can control, oppress, and abuse no less than 1250 to 1500 prisoners, thugs, gangsters, criminals, and gang-members. FDOC prisoners have no unity and no self-respect. I said self-respect because I might have a debt of a 78 cent soup and you ready to kill me, but the pigs call you and the whole dorm a “bunch of bitches” and you put your head down.

FDOC prisoners, mostly gang members, would rather have the pigs as a friend than anybody else with the same uniform color. They respect the pigs more than their fellow prisoners. Ali-al haf from Georgia, I read your article in the ULK Winter 2025 issue – you are not alone! I think it is a virus that is spreading. Now prisoners do the pigs’ jobs. They check and make sure that your cell door is secure, they pass mail, they make sure you don’t eat twice in the chow-hall, they even stand next to some of the pigs like bodyguards. All this ass kissing and at the end of the night your ass is just like mine: locked down behind a door. It doesn’t matter how down you might think the pigs will be, at the end of the day they will not put their paychecks on the line because of you. Coño Preso – look at the fucking color of your uniform. Ain’t have you noticed that has a different color!

Learn the difference between a right and a privilege. Use the grievance process, you must leave a written historical track in case issues need to be handled at another level. Written proof is all there is that shows a peaceful avenue was tried before going all the way out. All those comrades that in the past sacrificed their prison sentences, release dates, family, and some of them even their lives for this new generation to throw their hands up and surrender. Really? That is how we’re doing time in 2025?? Where are your cojones??

Let’s get together in the same line of thought. Before you complain about not having a tablet or not being able to watch the game on TV, we need to think about how high canteen prices are, receive more gain time, bring parole to lifers like me, get better food. Sorry, but prison is not a place that you come to to hang out with your homies and have a good time. This is the cemetery of the walking living dead, where your whole future could change in 15 seconds. Don’t forget where you are, your culture, where you came from. Do not submit to do the pigs’ work. I won’t be surprised if in a few more years visitation is done solely via video and they stop all contact visits. If we don’t get together and stand up and work as a group, as a family, we are going to keep losing. Remember that before you became a gang member you were a man, a human being – not a beast. And I refuse to be trapped like one. No quiero abrazos con la vida hasta que mi pueblo sea libre

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.

We have the First Step Act (FSA) here and if on wait list or just in programs/classes our phone minutes are supposed to be free! They were charging me again since COVID is gone, but I filed. They now give me six calls free so they know I was right. But they are actually supposed to give all sentenced prisoners 570 minutes so I filed further just today. This has to go to region, which here is in Kansas. So if they deny it I’ll take it to DC! I gave some guys here my info and they said they’ll file so maybe there is some hope here after all! If we don’t fight together they’ll bully us and do whatever the hell they want! And I will do my best to not allow that to go down.

Here they keep coming up with what they call Institutional Supplements and for the FSA it states those aren’t required, so I’m fighting that part right now. I’ll keep you posted. Let your federal readers know that if you’re in a lock up situation such as teh ADX, SMU or CMU or lock down they are still allowed FSA incentives, even if you’re just on a wait list for programming. And if you aren’t getting it, then file.

Last summer, around June, I ordered several copies of the North Carolina Grievance petition from MIM, then had copies made and sent out. Then I announced to the block how to use the petition forms as a solution to our grievances not being answered. The forms were then distributed in the block, door-to-door in our segregated dorm. Sadly some papers were heard being ripped up as soon as they entered the cell. I challenged the chicken-shits to reveal themselves, to no avail. The remaining forms were distributed in other blocks. It wasn’t long before I realized hardly anyone would use the forms.

A couple weeks later my neighbor mentions the petition during a conversation with someone else and was telling the guy, “the police gave it to him, he saving it to the day he need to file a grievance so he could attach it to the grievance.” Translation: he has no idea how to use the petition.

Other than some people being lazy and others just don’t care, this is what I learned:

• I can’t assume we are all convicts
• Gather participants first and speak to each of them to confirm their ambitions
• Write directions on top of the form, where to send it, such as “send to address on last page or which ever office/dept you’re trying to target”
• Sometimes an orchestrator may need to influence members to participate

Close fist, Panther struggle

Comrades in SCI-Muncy came together to draft a petition for people imprisoned by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. The petition demands that the state ensure that grievances be addressed by PADOC staff in a timely manner, and that people do not face retaliation for filing a grievance. The comrades ask for additional contacts to add to the list to send the petition to, and any other edits from others in Pennsylvania.

Welcome to the revolution! This is Alien tappin in with a response to ULK 87 article “How To Get Grievances Heard In Arkansas.”

I actually did many years in the Arizona Department of Corrections. The last six of those years was spent in the max (Brickeys/Cummins), cuz I ‘bucked’ on em repeatedly. I’ve personally been through years of what this Arkansas prisoner is describing. I filed hundreds of grievances and they always responded with a denial of allegations and found the grievance without merit, as this Arkansas prisoner said. I’ve also had similar experiences with the disciplining hearings, with disciplinary hearing officers, like ‘no-socks’, cutting the hearing camera off on me mid hearing and automatically finding me guilty, etc. For the longest time I held yards/showers down, barricaded cells with spears, stabbed people, flooded toilets, busted sprinklers, slipped cuff and attacked pigs to get justice, but I learned several things towards the end of my set that helped a lot.

So when you – this Arkansas prisoner – ask what to do I decided to give you a few answers in the long/short term; it’s inspiring to see fellow Arkansas comrades goin’ down the same path as me, while “fighting and spreading the word” in chains.

Okay, so in the short-term, request the prisoner’s self-help litigation manual (4th edition) from the law library, they usually keep several torn-up copies of them on hand, go to the exhaustion of remedies section and pull up the case law at the bottom of the pages to “shepherdize”. In 2016, while I was at Brickeys, Prison Legal News sent me a free copy of their magazine and it had a case in there from the Supreme Court that says that when a remedy (grievance) is unavailable, then it is a “dead-end” process and doesn’t have to be exhausted.

What I’m getting at is that there are certain circumstances (such as when you’re being retaliated against as a result of exhausting your remedies) that enable you to file the 42 U.S.C. §1983 lawsuit, without completing the grievance process. You just gotta explain to the courts in the §1983 complaint package why you had “no available remedy to exhaust”, which sucks, cuz then you gotta survive a “summary judgement motion” – it’s not easy either – once you file the lawsuit. The Arkansas pigs are aware of this, which is why they don’t mind not signing grievances or doin’ anything about your grievances once signed. Plus they’re aware that the chances of them gettin’ sued are low. Successfully sue them a couple times and watch their attitude adjust. I personally went through this and didn’t get to finish the lawsuits cuz the pigs where I am now trashed all my files.

Don’t just take my word for it though. Study into the case law on grievance exhaustion and go from there (there’s no way to cover all the case law inside of one article). If you don’t know how to shepherdize cases, the book I told you about will instruct you on all that. On the bright side it’ll give you something to do in the max. Get in the law library, cuz while grievances don’t work in Arkansas, lawsuits do.

In the long term, I plan on collaborating with MIM(Prisons) to get a campaign going against the PLRA (Prison Litigation Reform Act §1997) – we’ll call it the “PLRA campaign”. The PLRA is what demands that prisoners exhaust all available remedies, prior to filing any Bivens/42 U.S.C. §1983 lawsuits (Bivens are filed against the federal government, while §1983 is for the state/local level). According to the 1st Amendment of the U.$. Constitution we have the right to “petition the government for redress of grievances.” And according to the 14th Amendment of the U.$. Constitution we have a right to equal protection. The PLRA violates both the 1st and 14th Amendments and I intend to organize a class action challenging the constitutionality of the PLRA, through the PLRA campaign.

1. In theory, our ability to “petition the government for redress of grievances” is life-threatening and often injurious, cuz we’re forced to exhaust dangerous grievances, prior to filing §1983’s. The fact is that prisoners can and do get killed and fucked off – injured – for filing grievances nation-wide. Filing grievances is dangerous in an infinite amount of ways. They can’t legally force us to participate in a grievance process that’s going to get us stabbed in the neck or jumped on by fuck-boys, who are often in collaboration with the pigs. We are unable to petition the government if doin’ so is going to get us hurt in any kind of way. We can prove in a trial that it’s common knowledge that guards, nation-wide, are capable of silencing and do silence prisoner litigants’ petitions through retaliation which intimidates many prisoners from initiating grievances or lawsuits. The feds spent decades tryin’ to take down the five Italian mafia families, in part for silencing litigants, so why not help us take down the pigs’ PLRA, which is essentially a technical loophole that they use to evade justice or trials and silence litigants with mafia-like tactics.

The whole “deliberate indifference” standard that applies to 8th Amendment (cruel and unusual punishment) lawsuits wouldn’t apply in a 1st Amendment claim. We’d be arguing that the PLRA exhaustion requirement is “abridgement”, which doesn’t necessarily have to be deliberately indifferent.

2. The PLRA violates the 14th Amendment cuz the prison class can’t seek redress for mental injuries without there being a physical injury, and the non-prisoner class can seek redress for mental injuries even if there isn’t any physical injuries involved, which is unequal protection. Shutting the doors of the courts in prisoners’ faces so that we can’t seek redress for mental injuries doesn’t allow us equal access to the courts, which also violates the 1st Amendment. An injury is an injury. Take it from me, a severely mentally ill prisoner, when I say that many mental injuries are just as bad, if not worse than, physical injuries. Suffering from mental injuries is also a “grievance” that we should be able to “petition the government for redress” for, under the 1st Amendment. We have to ask ourselves what the aim of the PLRA is when it comes to barring us from the courts for redress of mental or psychological grievances? I think that the answer to the question is obvious and speaks volumes.

How would the prison system look without the PLRA? The PLRA is an obstacle standing in our way of combating the number one form of psychological torture of the Amerikan nation’s prison system – control units. And this is due to the fact that we can’t sue anyone for the mental injuries involved with doing hole time if it doesn’t cause physical injuries, and doing hole time, by itself, doesn’t cause physical injuries. If we can successfully take down the PLRA, then we can sue to receive compensation when we suffer mental injuries as a result of doing long-term hole or max time, without there being any physical injuries. If they have to compensate prisoners every time somebody suffers a mental injury as a result of living long-term in control units, they may lean more towards changing living conditions in the hole (such as giving one access to books, radios, phones, jobs, fixing temperature issues, etc.), flat out abolishing the control units, or reducing length of control unit sentences.

Anything mentally injurious going on inside of the prison that is simply for revenge-based punishments and not for security purposes could then lead to mass amounts of compensation. The compensation will deter psychological torture and amplify mental-health treatments.

The last aspect of taking down the PLRA is that prisoners would no longer have to exhaust remedies in order to file Bivens/§1983s. If we can end the PLRA in the long term, then this would end the grievance campaign altogether.

With that I’ll close. I hope my response was helpful.

My intentions here isn’t to give a dialectical and historical context of the relationship between today’s Lumpen Organizations (gangs) and past revolutionary movements, although there is an inextricable link between the two. The origins of today’s Lumpen Organizations (L.O.s) were strongly influenced by the original Black Panther Party (BPP) and other similar organizations. They were formed to uplift and protect their communities from outside threats, threats that were typically imposed by law enforcement and the U.S. government.

With the destruction of the BPP, combined with the influx of drugs and firearms within their already oppressed communities, members of these organizations were lured into “gang-bangin’” against each other and a fratricidal and suicidal criminal lifestyle that resulted in the abandonment of the ideals and principles that were brought forth and established by the organizations’ founders. Ideals and principles that were often influenced by those of the BPP and the Black Liberation Army (BLA). Today there are a limited few who diligently impress upon their “homies” the importance of espousing the organizations founding ideals and principles. Overall, a majority have been derailed from the organizations initial revolutionary path, which has been detrimental to the youth who romanticize today’s “gang” culture and their communities. Moreover, the absence of these ideals and principles has engendered a culture of disunity, violent competition, and the romanticizing of the “gang-banging” mentality, which renders us incapable of redressing the conditions we find ourselves subjected to within these razor-wire plantations.

There is no silver bullet or magic wand that can be used to magically expedite the transformation that must be made. Transforming the criminal mentality into a revolutionary mentality is a protracted process that demands accountability and rigorous educating.

i am dedicated to assisting with this transformation any way that i can. One way is to shed some light on the draconian policies and procedures that governs those of us who have been labeled “gang members,” labels known as Security Risk Group (SRG) or Security Threat Group (STG), so we can begin to seek redress to said policies and procedures.

Gang Validation Process

Those of us who have been validated as SRG/STG often suffer significant unfair prejudices due to the officers who are responsible for the validating opinions often basing these opinions on sweeping generalizations and stereotypes about “gang members” generally, unreliable methodology, and/or the officer’s racial bias.

Here in North Carolina the Department of Adult Corrections (DAC) has “certified” twenty-one alleged prison gangs as Security Risk Groups. Prisoners are validated as members of SRG’s by Prison Intelligence Officers (PIO) who are usually white, whose discretion reigns supreme in determining who is validated as SRG members and who isn’t. These subjective decisions lead to disproportionate validations of New Afrikan prisoners and those from other oppressed nations. A stark example of the racially uneven application of SRG validations is evident in the percentage of “white” prisoners who have been validated compared to New Afrikan prisoners. White prisoners make up 1.9% of the prisoners validated in NC prisons.

Around the world gangs are studied by those with specialized training in areas such as ethnography, anthropology, and psychology. In these fields, researchers are often subjected to ethical standards that warn against manipulating data to advance their personal objectives and required to employ social science field research best practices in relation to data collection, analysis, and interpretation. The officers responsible for validating prisoners are not held to any such ethical standards and lack the fundamental knowledge to determine if a prisoner is actually a SRG member or not.

The degree of specialized knowledge for these officers to be qualified as “gang-experts” is particularly lacking. An officer can be qualified as a “gang-expert” after having only a couple months on the job, as long as they have some formalized training. You would think these “gang officers” would be required to demonstrate a basic overstanding of the complicated dynamics at issue where gang membership and behavior are concerned beyond stereotypes and prototypes, being that these validations subject prisoners to indefinite sanctions and restrictions that not only affect the lives of the prisoners but also the lives of the prisoners’ families.

These “gang officers” employ a worksheet which lists seventeen criteria for determining gang involvement, each of which is assigned a point value. Prisoners may be labeled as “suspects/associates” or “members”. A qualifying score is not difficult to achieve: prisoners bearing tattoos “thought” to signify gang affiliation and who socialize with “confirmed” gang-members may be regarded as members themselves.

False positives are likely to arise under this criteria, because while they may indicate a correlation with gang membership, they do not establish causation. Because gang membership cannot be reliably inferred from the factors aforementioned, these “gang officers” should not be allowed to opine about gang membership based on these factors alone.

Completed validation worksheets are forwarded to the NCDAC’s Chief of Special Operations, Daryll Vann, who reviews the worksheet, confirms that “relevant” documentation is attached, and validates the identifications. Prisoners who wish to contest the validation are not afforded the opportunity to do so. Prisoners receive no notice of their validation, no procedural due process, nor a periodic review that would enable the prisoner to have the validation removed. Therefore, prisoners who have been validated, remain validated for the duration of their incarceration and irrevocably are subject to SRG policy deprivations.

There are only two ways to have the SRG validation removed. There is a SRG program that’s accessible to a limited number of prisoners. It is a 9-month program at Foothills Correctional, a prison located in the rural mountainous region of Western NC. The staff employed there are exclusively white, live in race segregated communities and are out of touch with the cultures of the prisoners they oversee.

When these “gang officers” walk through the doors of the prison, many of them, knowingly or unknowingly, hold negative biases towards those who have been validated and those who don’t look like them.

The media perpetuates inaccurate narratives of violence, criminality, and dishonesty among racial minorities that many of these “gang officers” unknowingly internalize. It shows in how they interact and deal with the prisoners.

The DAC describes this program as being a program that “targets those beliefs (cognitions) that support criminal behavior ….” and seeks to shift the thinking that supports these beliefs. Prisoners who complete this program must undergo a debriefing and renounce their affiliation, if any, before the validation is removed. This program is not available to prisoners who have been labeled problematic.

The other way to have the validation removed is to complete your prison sentence and be discharged from NCDAC custody. Of the 1,343 prisoners released from NCDAC’s custody last year, 564 were alleged SRG members.

Draconian Gang Policies & Procedures

The ostensible purpose of the DAC’s SRG policies and procedures is to avoid prison disturbances supposedly fomented by gangs. Nonetheless it is obvious these policies and procedures have the effect of incapacitating significant numbers of prisoners and has cultivated an environment opposite from what prison officials claim to be “safer”.

Those who have been validated find themselves subjected to draconian sanctions and restrictions, such as being prohibited from receiving visits from anyone beyond immediate family. This excludes aunts, uncles, cousins, and the mother of your child(ren). If you have no immediate family members to accompany your child(ren) to visitation you will not be allowed to visit with them. Our childrens’ interests are not, as a matter of right, factored into SRG validation determinations. The fact that parent-child visitation can help children overcome the challenges of parental separation and reduce recidivism rates is well-documented. However, prison officials find it plausible to implement such a policy that prevents parent-child visits.

As with the prisoners who have been validated, New Afrikan children are the ones greatly affected by this policy. NCDAC has implemented this policy without any cognizance that such a restriction may implicate the parent-child relationship, which is typically subject to extraordinary protection by the courts. But yet this policy goes unchecked.

During my incarceration i’ve been unable to visit with my daughter due to me having no immediate family willing to accompany her. This has prevented her and i from developing a meaningful relationship. This is something that a majority of us are experiencing.

Moreover, this policy has an outsized impact on New Afrikan families and other members of marginalized communities who bear the brunt of mass incarceration.

Limiting a prisoner’s visitors to immediate family only effectively cuts a prisoner off from family members who may have raised them. As we know in marginalized communities there are an overwhelming amount of fractured families, where grandparents and others play the mother-father role.

Then there are the prisoners who were raised in foster care, who have never had the opportunity to meet their immediate family. There is no exception for foster care parents.

Although these restrictions are sometimes justified, they are being used indiscriminately without individual analysis.

On 19 February 2019, a policy was implemented that prohibited validated prisoners from receiving monetary support from anyone who wasn’t an approved visitor.

Prison officials claimed that this was done to curtail “Black Market” activities and strong arming. It’s not difficult to see how such a policy would increase said activities and, moreover, would create an environment where those who do have means of receiving financial support become victims of strong arming and other acts of violence.

This policy was implemented 8 months prior to now-retired Director of Prisons Kenneth Lassiter requesting more funding for security and control weapons. During these 8 months, violence amongst prisoners drastically increased, i know because a majority of the close-custody facilities were placed on lockdown due to the increased violence.

Validated prisoners are prohibited from attending all educational/vocational programs, compelled to serve idle prison sentences. They are locked in their cells virtually all of the time and otherwise maintained in extremely harsh conditions. Unable to have their custody level reduced to medium or minimum security. And job opportunities are non-existent. Common sense would tell prison officials that there are many reasons to believe that these policies and restrictions will produce unfortunate results both inside and outside of prison.

The Ramifications of these Policies

Motivated by an inaccurate conception of gangs and how they operate, the NCDAC has adopted policies that have enhanced group cohesiveness and the identities of gang-affiliated prisoners. These policies have promoted new gang connections for prisoners who, due to the difficulties inherent in gang identification, inadequate procedures and racial stereotyping, are misidentified. The validated prisoner tells emself “they think i’m a gang member, i might as well be one”. Of course these policies raise obvious moral and ethical questions. However, i would like to focus on how these policies make no sense from a correctional perspective. Even if these “gang officers” are creating or enhancing gang identities, why does it matter? Validated prisoners maintained in these locked down blocks, after all, are effectively disabled from committing acts of misconduct when locked in their cells.

Validated prisoners are denied access to visitation, financial support, transfers to medium or minimum custody, as well as parole. They have nothing more to lose so they are not deterred by any threat of punishment, what else can be taken from them? They have no incentive to refrain from gang involvement?

Aside from prison concerns, the impact of these policies’ ramifications will be felt most profoundly on the streets and communities to which these prisoners will return. As i pointed out, 564 of the 1,343 prisoners released from NCDAC’s custody last year were alleged gang members. In general, 96% of all prisoners return to society. There are recidivism studies focusing on gang affiliated prison releases, that show that gang members may retain their gang identity upon their release. (see: Salvador Buentello et. al, “Prison Gang Development: A Theoretical Model”, The Prison Journal, Fall-Winter 1991, at 3.8.) Thus, these policies not only fail to enhance prison security, they also undermine public safety.

We Have A Responsibility

All across the United $tates, prisoners themselves are subjected to similar sanctions and restrictions under the guide of enhancing prison security. i’ve revealed how these policies target New Afrikan prisoners and others of the oppressed nations and how they affect not only the prison but their families and communities as well. We have the numbers, we have the capability and we have the know how to bring about change. But as Komrade George Jackson expressed:

“We all seem to be in the grip of some terrible quandary. Our enemies have so confused us that we seem to have been rendered incapable of the smallest responsibility. I see this irresponsibility, or mediocrity at best[, as] disloyalty, self-hatred, cowardice, competition between themselves, resentment of any who may have excelled in anything….”

Because of the inexorable nature of our overseers, nationwide demonstrations on the outside and within these walls is presently necessary if we are to correct the correctors.

We have united fronts such as the United Front For Peace in Prisons, the United Struggle Within (USW) and Prison Lives Matter (PLM). PLM is a united front for political prisoners, prisoners of war, politicized individuals behind the walls of these razor-wire plantations and their organizations, as well as any outside formations in union with the struggles of prisoners, that has made it possible for us to address and redress the inhumane living conditions we find ourselves subjected to. It’s on us to initiate the process, it’s on us to communicate and network with one another, to get on the same page, so we can unite a page in the history books.

A Call to Action

As we grapple with an expanding and increasingly repressive prison system here in North Carolina, any hope for change lays in perfecting ourselves – our physical care, intellectual acumen, and cultural proficiency – while simultaneously confronting our overseers. And as i aforesaid, “There is no silver bullet or magic wand that can be used to expedite the transformation that must be made.” We have a personal responsibility to contribute to the confronting that must be done.

Some of us don’t seem to know what side we’re on. We’re obsessed with near-sighted disputes based on race, gang affiliation and so on. We expend our energies despising and distrusting each other. All of this is helping the NCDAC. We permit them to keep us at each others throats. i am calling for unity. We outnumber them. Wake up!!! Put your prejudices, biases, and gang affiliation aside for the purpose of OUR fight with the NCDAC. i’m asking we start by submitting a grievance concerning NCDAC’s SRG policies and procedures (an example has been provided below).

Of course i’m not expecting any redress from submitting grievances. NCDAC’s Administrative Remedy Procedure process is ineffective and honestly a waste of time if you are seeking redress. However, i’ve not asked you to submit said grievance with hopes that NCDAC officials will correct their wrongs.

i’m currently in the middle of litigating a civil suit against NCDAC on behalf of all prisoners who have been validated as a SRG member. By submitting a grievance you will be supporting the claims i have made. Thusly i entrust you take the time and submit the following grievance (and send a copy to MIM(Prisons) if you can):

Free The Land

Readers of Under Lock & Key, may this kite find you in the best of health and spirits. In the last issue, Spring 2024, No. 85, there was a request for prisoners to sign up for a petition and issues about no dayroom and yards. I have been down now 18 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections (I-DOC) and I want to help everyone who is seeking more out-of-cell time.

I filed a §1983 Civil Action about this topic, Patrick Bakaturski V. Director et al, 3:23-cv-03609-SPM, which is currently pending merit review in the Southern District of Illinois.

The basis grounds of the civil suit is that under all of the Covid-19 lockdowns, the endless cell restriction violated my 8th amendment rights. Wexford Health Care signed an affidavit in Patrick Bakaturski v. Rob Jeffreys, 21-cv-00014-GCS, which stated that Wexford Health Care did not approve any of the Covid lock downs. Yet in every grievance I-DOC said I was on quarantine.

So How Do I Get out of the Cell More? What should be the Legal Argument?

First Look up Ashoor Rasho et al., v. Director John R. Baldwin, NO: 1:07-cv-1298-MMM-JEH, Mental Health Settlement agreement. If you go to page 20 you will see that I-DOC agreed that all prisoners under segregation statutes should get 20 hours per week of out of cell time. That means if you are being kept in the cell and not being given 10 hours of Day room and 10 hours of yard this violates your 8th Amendment rights. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act for general mental health every prisoner must get 10 hours of yard per week and at least 10 of day room or programs per week in maximum security prison. I am not in max anymore, but my prison is being ran as an unclassified max in violation of state and federal law. So under the same standard of a basic human right, I requested my 20 hours per week, 10 hours of day room and 10 of yard.

The legal argument is clear, 23 and 1 is unconstitutional. ALL max prisoners could fight to make their max a 21 and 3 by invoking the wording in the Mental Health Settlement. The Federal Government has already agreed in part that 23 and 1 is unconstitutional. You need to use page 20 of the settlement to support your grievances and legal arguments.

If anyone has any questions of how to file the grievance or would like to see the format on what might work in Federal Court, key cite Bakaturski in Federal Court. If you can get a copy of the petitions I have filed pro-se.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We are not lawyers and do not offer legal advice. When we print tips like this it is up to the reader to determine how this information applies to your situation. The settlement above applies to the Illinois DOC, though strategies in those cases may be relevant elsewhere. We have long worked to shut down long-term solitary in all its forms. The settlement is one small tool to help prevent de facto long-term isolation from occurring in Illinois.

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>

Back in September we printed an article from a comrade in Virginia about PREA audits and why they do not work. This article did not appear in ULK, but touched on the abuses faced by wimmin in Federal Correctional Institution - Dublin (FCI-Dublin). On the ineffectiveness of PREA audits in Virginia, the comrade wrote about how the audits were pre-announced, communications with the auditors were done in front of staff, and once the auditors left, staff retaliated against prisoners who talked. Comrades in Pennsylvania and Texas have also reported on retaliation for filing PREA complaints, as is common for filing any kind of grievance against staff. The failure of PREA is just a subset of the failure of any accountability of prison staff across the country for abusing prisoners.

After the incidents at FCI-Dublin that were largely reported in 2022, nothing changed. This led to over 63 lawsuits being filed. On Monday, 11 March 2024, the FBI raided FCI-Dublin and arrested the acting Warden, Associate Warden, a Captain and an Executive Assistant who all lost their jobs. They were all members of the infamous “rape club” at FCI-Dublin, which continued on after previous firings in recent years.

“Federal law classifies any sexual contact between staff and incarcerated people as a felony punishable with up to 15 years in prison. But, as one incarcerated survivor testified during the trial of former Warden Ray Garcia, the Prison Rape Elimination Act “really doesn’t exist at Dublin.”(1)

PREA doesn’t really exist in most of this country, where grievances are routinely thrown in the trash and retaliation for filing PREA complaints is the norm. And this is not the first time the FBI has been involved in investigating and arresting FCI-Dublin staff for rape.

Trans Pride Initiative (TPI) is working to hold PREA auditors accountable in Texas. However, they report:

“Under PREA § 115.401(o), auditors “shall attempt to communicate with community-based or victim advocates who may have insight into relevant conditions in the facility.” TPI has seldom been contacted concerning information we have about Texas prisons, and the National PREA Resource Center, which oversees the audit process, has failed to hold auditors accountable to this requirement. TPI has developed a simple auditor tool for auditors to see current information about any unit that we have in our system, so they do not have to even contact us. They are required to list if they tried to contact others about prison information and who they contacted. We are seeing many auditors list no contacts, or contacts that are perfunctory and likely provided no information.”(3)

TPI has an impressive database of incidents of violence and retaliation against prisoners on their website. They want the details of dates, who did what, what happened, what was said, where it happened, witnesses, etc., which you can send to:

Before publishing this article, an investigation into suits filed under the Adult Survivors Act in New York City’s state supreme courts revealed that 719 of 1,256 cases came from Riker’s Island Jail.(2) That is, more than half of the suits filed in the whole city of New York for sexual assaults that had occurred in the past were filed against city correctional officers. Almost all of them came from the wimmin’s jail. Like the rest of the country, wimmin make up a small minority of prisoners at Rikers. While male-bodied prisoners face very high rates of sexual assault compared to the general U.$. population, it is clear that being in a wimmin’s prison puts you in one of the highest-risk groups to be sexually assaulted.(4) And within men’s prisons, being trans, gay, queer, intersex, smaller or weaker will all put you at greater risk as the reports below suggest.

Gender oppression is built in to the U.$. prison system. Despite laws, lawsuits and FBI raids, it is not going away on its own. It is only by organizing the oppressed to stand together that we can put an end to these abuses.

Below are a couple recent reports from Polunsky Unit in Texas on how PREA incidents are handled. TPI’s data shows they have received many more PREA reports from other Texas prisons, including: Allred, Hughes, Connally, Telford and Stiles Units.(5)

A Trans Prisoner at Polunsky Unit in Texas Reported in March 2024: I put a Step 1 Grievance against one officer and wrote to the Ombudsman in Huntsville and he denied any allegations and got other officers to start to do stuff to me. I wrote to the Warden Mr. Anderson and I was placed around other gang members who keep threatening to harm me and call me punk, snitch, hoe and all that and use officers against me. Last month another officer name Suniga started threatening to harm me and sexually harassed me.

…Later Suniga got mad at me and threatened to take my booty shorts and other clothes. He told all those other inmates that I’m snitching on them with the I.G. who coming to investigate me for the incident with the other officer I mention before. And they took my jail housing manual charter #30 for the LGBTQ inmates with all the PREA standards, rules and regulations for jailers and inmates.

He took it and threw it away, so I put a step 1 grievances and sent a letter to the PREA offices in Huntsville, who are doing an investigation, and the PREA officer respond back and said they did an investigation but can’t go forward because Mr. Suniga resigned from his job. Now no body want to do anything or restore my papers which I don’t get for free. …even if Suniga quit his job, the TDCJ should be responsible for what he did while he were employed at the TDCJ.

A female officer who worked with Suniga before and knows that I put a Step 1 against Suniga, works here named Ms. Smith. When she came to my cell door she tell me that I got her friend in trouble and she refused to feed me my lunch. She said that she was going to write me up for not being dressed appropriately because I was wearing my shorts and she said that she don’t care if I were punk, transgender, or whatever.

They stop our physical mail claiming that too much drugs are coming into the TDCJ units. She worry about me wearing booty shorts, but drugs still get here every day. And not only K2, they get methamphetamine, ice, weed, all kind. I know because I seen who bring into the C pod. And I got notes in my cell right now, on 8 March 2024, on people who ask me if I want to buy K2 and ice, but I can’t say shit because if I do or report it to the I.G. or STG they going to let these gang members know that I told on them and more retaliations going to occur.

I am the only transgender or gay at C. Pod. All other inmates here are gang members or part of some groups. I filed I-60 requests and send letters to classification in Huntsville asking to move me to a pod or unit where most LGBTQ prisoners are and never get a reply or get moved. It is so cruel what they doing to us. About a month ago, someone killed himself on C. pod. And two others try to cut they self too… Now, one more time, I ask please help me with legal assistance to put a stop to all this abuse. Thank you and hope I can hear from y’all or someone who want to help me.

Another Polunsky Unit prisoner wrote us in March 2024: I was called out by Captain Cerda concerning a PREA Safe Prison for sexual harassment and sexual assault…. he began asking me what’s up with this letter to PREA Ombudsman. I began to explain and he said, “aw hell, we got to do this whole PREA thing.” He then hands me a statement sheet. I ask for the dates for the PREA letter and times, but he said “don’t worry about it, just leave ’em out.” I told him I needed them cause this inmate was suppose to be out of his assigned work area and in safe keeping, and I’ve written PREA Ombudsman about this repeatedly. He stated, “If we weren’t so short handed all this shit wouldn’t be happening and if TDCJ had housing, safe keeping wouldn’t be on my fucking unit cause I damn sure don’t want yall here!”

I felt badgered and like I was wrong for filing the complaint with only half the info. And with Captain Cerda’s demeanor and Lt. Rodriguez throwing questions in… and her standing over me I felt pressured and I wrote as little as possible. I just wanted to be away from them.

…TDCJ Executive Directive PD22 #4 Tampering with a witness violation level 1: states “An employee shall not attempt to hinder or influence in any manner the testimony or information or any witness or potential witness in an investigation or administrative proceeding.”

<sup>Notes: 1. Victoria Law, 14 March 2024, FBI Raids California Prison Facing 63 Lawsuits Over Systemic Sexual Abuse, Truthout.
2. Jessy Edwards and Samantha Max, 26 March 2024, Late-night sex assaults. Invasive searches. The 700+ women alleging abuse at Rikers, The Gothamist.
3. Trans Pride Initiative PREA website
4. MIM(Prisons), September 2007, Gender Oppression in Prisons, Under Lock & Key No. 1.
5. TPI Prison Data Explorer</sup>