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.
A prisoners 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.
by a Pennsylvania prisoner February 2025 permalink
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.
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.
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.
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):
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.”
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:
TPI
PO Box 3982
Dallas, TX
75208
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.”
The Digital mail system launched by the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice (TDCJ) last year has been disastrous for prisoners and those who
communicate with them.
One comrade from Coffield Unit just wrote to say:
“In response to the TDCJ Digital Mail initiative article from ULK
84. My own postal mail has been averaging 3 months for receipt
since the implementation of the program. Even our Securus e-mail at my
unit has been taking up to 3 or 4 weeks to be received – both incoming
and outgoing.”
Meanwhile we are receiving mail from comrades in Allred Unit that is
dated from 3 months ago. While there are more delays in mail going in,
they are happening in both directions.
The Warrior In White newsletter has been investigating
delays and received the following responses:
[TDCJ Ombdusman to the nonprofit:] “There are no staff shortages and
all mail is being processed within the 3 day limit as stated in the
policy.”
[Mail System Coordinator in Huntsville:] We are currently
experiencing a staff shortage. We were not expecting the volume of mail
at the Dallas facility. All mail to you has been received at the
facility, but not yet scanned (acknowledging the USPS Informed Delivery
Service evidence showing the mail at the Dallas facility).”
[From Securus:] “There is no staff shortage. All mail is being
processed within 5 days, unless there are pictures or photos, in which
case it may take a little longer.”
Another comrade wrote in response to that suit to suggest:
“To a Texas prisoner who has filed a complaint challenging the
constitutionality of the Agency’s contracting with a private vendor
(i.e.: a for-profit company in Dallas, Texas) to digitalize all Texas
prisoners’ incoming general mail and photographs for computer-generated
posting to a prisoner’s Securus authorized tablets. I believe this Texas
prisoner needs to read Securus Technologies, LLC’s Agreement of Terms
and Conditions when challenging the Agency’s policy-related ban of
senders’ mail piece items off of prisoners physical mail. See Texas
General Arbitration Act.”
For those who cannot commit to participating in the lawsuit, we can
continue to agitate around this issue. And one way is to file
grievances. Below is an example grievance from a comrade that can help
you write your own:
In mid-February on H-pod here in the ECB [Expansion Cell Blocks]
prisoners got together and submitted 30 grievances about lack of dayroom
and outside rec which G-5, G-4 and G-2 are all experiencing here in the
ECB. The response from Warden Smith was that they are “understaffed”. I
may submit my own grievance just to see if I get the same response
though I have to be careful as the guards are using the gangs to police
the prisoners and some of these fucking “Homeboys” do the pigs’ work for
them violently. But I thought I would call your attention to an
interview of Bryan Collier in the Nov-Dec 2023 and Jan. 2024 Echo
Newspaper. In the January edition Collier admits to having
“staffing” problems. So both Collier and Smith are aware of this
understaffing but still it continues and they are not releasing anybody
or hiring enough to quell the problems.
Two weeks ago it is rumored that a prisoner was raped by his celly.
The word is this is the reason one of my classmates has been missing. I
don’t know if a FOIA can be filed and help his family to get these
motherfuckers? But being understaffed is dangerous and cruel for all of
us.
These 30 grievances from G-4’s in H-pod on ECB and the January 2024
interview of Collier show corroborated “Deliberate Indifference.” Maybe
I should also grieve this and send my copies to a supporter who can
coordinate with prisoners, legislators, and the D.O.J. I’m sure Genocide
Joe would love to get a piece of Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton for the bad
press they have given him on the border?? We should take advantage of
these asshole politicians whenever we can!!! Anyway, if you have any
extra ULKs sitting around and can afford to send me another
bulk mailing, please do so, so that I can distribute them here.
Securus advertises package pricing for movies I think that are about
$12 a month but they are not offering these packages. Instead we have to
pay from 6-12 dollars per movie rental! And they blame Hollywood Studios
for this price gouging. I wonder if Hollywood knows about how they are
exploiting us and our families? We should get Netflix for $16/month or
something but 4.99-19.99 before tax is too much to charge “slaves” who
do not get paid for their mandatory work!
MIM(Prisons) responds: It’s ironic that Abbott is
fighting to militarize the border, but can’t find enough people to run
his prisons. Though it’s our understanding that many Texas prisons are
already being staffed by Nigerian immigrants working on visas. Meanwhile
they have gangs working for the state, implementing repression and
keeping the population sedated on drugs, while the staff sit around
doing nothing. Though Biden has no qualms about supporting genocide, he
does like scoring political points on Greg Abbot. This comrade might
have a good idea here.
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.