Under Lock & Key

I would like to share a story with you about a recent experience I had here at Iron County Jail in Utah. I was recently moved, very much against my will, from the housing unit where I have spent most of my time at in Iron County Jail. In that unit, I had a good routine going and good friends who were a positive influence on me. Well the pigs, unable to stand the sight of a happy prisoner, took a wrecking ball to it.

This caused me to have a severe anxiety attack, which then caused me to make statements that got me put on suicide watch. As bad as this place is in general, the suicide watch protocols are absolutely draconian. On suicide watch we are given only a “turtle suit” to wear, are fed special sack meals that fall well short of nutrition and calorie requirements and are left to sleep on the cement floor in a cell almost as cold as a walk-in refrigerator. While I was down there, there was a girl who was brought up on warrants who was so distraught that she was also put on suicide watch. While she was in her cell bawling her eyes out, one of the pigs, a fat punk named Smith, walked up to her window, stood there for about 15 seconds staring at her, then walked away with a smug smirk on his fat face. How can someone enjoy that?

These pigs are truly evil, twisted, sadistic, sick fucks! They belong in here, not us! After she had calmed down some, I explained to her briefly the steps she must go through to file a lawsuit. Boy did that piss the pigs off! :) The next day the mental health therapist came to interview the people on suicide watch to determine if they could be cleared or not. The therapist was permitted to see the girl and another guy who had gone on the watch later. But when he asked about me, the medical pig Mitchell told him, “we’re letting him chill for a while,” and sent the therapist away.

I then told Sgt. McNeil that I was being denied access to mental health care and they were illegally using the suicide watch as a disciplinary tool and that I wanted a grievance form. Sgt. McNeil immediately began lying, saying that the therapist didn’t have time to see me! Horse feathers! The therapist asked to see me! This was not the first time McNeil has lied to me. One time he tried to tell me I’m not entitled to legal calls, another time he tried to tell me there is “tons of case law” that says he can open and read my privileged legal mail! This happened on Friday and the therapist didn’t return to see me until Tuesday. I spent a total of six days on suicide watch when I should have spent less than two.

Six days in the turtle suit in a freezing cold cell with no bed, no hygiene supplies, no shower, and very little food, all because the pigs want to retaliate against me because I stick up for myself and encourage others to do the same. Best believe when I got back to my cell, I filed that grievance with a quickness! I haven’t gotten a response yet, but what I did get was two retaliatory disciplinary write ups! One for “manipulation of housing and threats of self mutilation” for simply saying that I was feeling suicidal during an anxiety attack and another for “refusing or failing to follow a direct order and unauthorized communication with inmates outside your housing unit” because I asked prisoners in booking to tell my wife I love her and telling that girl how to sue these pigs.

I will write you again to let you know how the grievance pans out. These two frivolous and blatantly retaliatory write ups will likely land me on punitive isolation for 30-60 days each, so I’ll have plenty of time to pursue it. Please keep Under Lock & Key coming and I will continue to share it with anyone who is interested. Thank you for all that you do for us!

[This story came to us on 5 postcards because prisoners at Iron County Jail cannot send or receive any envelopes other than privileged legal mail. Letters that don’t qualify as legal mail must be written on plain postcards like this comrade sent us.]

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has officially converted the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility (RJDCF) into the Department of Crime, Corruption, and Racketeering (DCCR) where newly appointed Warden James Hills is at the helm.

On 27 March 2023, the RJDCF DCCR head wrote:

“Effective March 27, 2023, due to increase in levels of violence (2 attempted murders) with significant contraband finds (37 weapons, 27 on person and 10 uncontrolled). There have been 3 deaths on Facility C inmates due to illicit drug activity and 37 documented administrations of narcan. Institutional program shall be modified pending completion of essential searches”

This was used to implement an institutional lockdown masked behind modified program.

Behind this arbitrary contention, however, is an attempt to protect the overall image of CDCR and to continue to hide facts from the public that, the illicit drug activity in question is, and has been for many years now, actually an illicit drug operation orchestrated and maintained by those employed to work here inside RJDCF.

Despite clearly identifying inmates imposing violence, possessing weapons, and requiring the administration of narcan due to repeated drug overdose, no effective methods have been able to control or even minimize the illicit drug usage and operation because it is all by careful design. The extent of such design is now so widespread that it directly impacts those like me who don’t use, sell, or otherwise have no interest in such. It gives the illicit drug trade here, and it’s many members, direct control over not just me, but more so, my access to mental health and rehabilitative programs, services, and treatments.

To divert attention away from the fact that CDCR headquarter’s officials have put those like me at risk by willful blindness, in allowing employees they hired to work inside RJDCF, to infiltrate the institution, flooding all five of its facilities with an array of fentanyl-laced drugs, prisoners and our families who sacrifice to maintain visiting with us, are the patsies.

We are locked down for search by some of the very employees responsible for this illicit drug operation, restricted in movement to suffer the harmful effects from prolonged confinement in isolated, vexed and annoyed from constant exploitation, and hindered in our mental, emotional, and rehabilitative prosperity because of a debauch penal institution which causes more harm than help.

Instead of pumping millions of tax dollars into RJDCF to continue to enable this illicit drug ring, consider efforts to close down this cesspool. Or infiltrate the infiltration with federal undercover agents in disguise as CDCR employees, or even inmates for that matter. Otherwise these illicit drug operators will continue to be allowed by CDCR to profit from criminal enterprise while holding us all under siege, while hide behind the color of state law, and prove to all the world that crime does pay, but only if you’re a CDCR employee.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We must build independent institutions of the oppressed to meet the oppressed masses needs of rehabilitation. Programs like our political correspondence study program, Revolutionary 12 Steps program and Re-Lease on Life program are some examples of such institutions that we need your help to build. This comrade is correct that more action is needed to counter the state-sponsored drug trade plaguing prison systems across the United $tates as well.

Mental Health Infirmary (MHI) is a joke. As far as I’ve seen, it doesn’t work and has never worked. It’s basically a psychological torture chamber, with minimal physical torture, where we have to “earn” back all of our property privileges, rights, etc. through their unconstitutional “incentive” program. In sum, they’re punishing us for being mentally ill and they think that their punishment is what we need to cure us, even though these “punishments” are what made me crazy to begin with.

Most of these other prisoners are too far gone to be able to take any worthwhile actions against all the abuse they endure (and none of them have legal knowledge into shit like this, which places legal burden on me). I must add that the conditions here in MHI are still not quite as bad as the unconstitutional conditions that I endured in another state, but the conditions are very similar. At least the Oregon Department of Corrections (ODC) has some type of program in place to make some kind of effort to try to help people with mental illnesses, because most southern prisons don’t. I doubt that all the ODC administration here has any deliberate intentions to “torture” us (as we are being slightly tortured in MHI. After all, solitary confinement, in itself, is a form of torture, especially, when applied to the mentally ill). I think it’s mostly unintentional and that they ultimately have good intentions behind runnin’ MHI. And I say this because I know what it looks like for prison staff to deliberately torture prisoners and that’s not exactly what’s goin’ on in MHI. I just think that the ODC Administration isn’t as smart as us Maoists, when it comes to psychological treatment, criminal justice, etc. And I also don’t think they’ve been sued in federal court by somebody who knows what’s illegal in prison and what’s not. I’m gonna try to talk to their higher ups first before I go through with the lawsuits, to see if we can compromise towards a solution.

Another thing that I’ve concluded is that a lot of these prison psychologists wasted a lot of time and money on Amerikan college degrees, due to the fact that in spite of their presence in the lives of the mentally ill, they haven’t even put a dent in reducing mental illnesses amongst the masses. And now they’re wasting our time and money (money that lines their pockets) by subjecting us (sometimes by force) to their care and services, which obviously don’t work. They don’t understand the fact that only by ending oppression through socialism / communism, can we reduce mental illnesses at a significant rate and in a qualitative way (communism being the end of oppression). Oppression, and all of the traumas that come with it, causes and fuels mental illness. It’s the imperialist/capitalist society itself that is causing mass plagues of mental illness. The problem is more political then psychological. Their society is to blame for my personal mental illnesses – so I’m living proof of these facts. And their society has yet to cure me of my mental illnesses. Raising my political consciousness has had much more of a positive impact upon my mental stability. I learned this thanks to MIM Theory #9.

[The following complaint was served to the Department of Justice.] RE: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCr) and Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility (RJDCF) Systemic Scheme of Fraud to Misappropriate Federal Funds

I am requesting an investigative audit of all Federal Funds received by CDCR specifically for mental health programs, services, and activities here at RJDCF because it is clear that those funds are not being used for intended purposes. As a participant in CDCR’s Mental Health Services Delivery System (MHSDS) at the Enhanced Out Patient (EOP) level of care under the Coleman v. Newsom, 2:90-cv-00520-KJM-DB(E.D.Cal) injunction, MHSDS EOP participants are required to receive 10 hours a week of ‘structured therapy’, and receive federal funds to provide such to prisoner participants.

Here at RJDCF EOP there are no specialty, or core, therapy groups which treat or target the diagnosis and symptoms of MHSDS EOP participants because mental health care providers continue to tell us that they’re short of staff and resources.

To create the illusion of providing the 10 hours a week of required ‘structural therapy’ as so CDCR may continue to receive federal funds for RJDCF EOP program, prisoners regular exercise yard time is being documented as recreational therapy,(or R.T. yard), where recreational therapist’s (R.T.’s) assigned to supervise R.T. yards are being explicitly instructed by CDCR Mental Health Program overseers and supervisors to embellish R.T. yard notes to give any reader the impression that the R.T. yard activity itself was/is therapeutic, when fact is, aside from walking around to record which MHSDS EOP prisoners attend regular exercise yards, the R.T.’s have no contact with any of us, yet a significant amount of such fraudulent hours are and have been used to report compliance.

There are many MHSDS EOP participants who report receiving a regular schedule to attend particular mental health therapy groups which does not even exist, as there is no facilitator to provide treatment.

Then, the gist of the described systemic scheme involves CDCR’s use of a ruse to misappropriate federal funds intended for MHSDS EOP programs, services, and activities, thereby using such funds to pay the salaries of its subordinates who directly supervise the EOP, subordinates who are correctional officers (C.O.s) providing security.

With the aid of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), CDCR and RJDCF has manufactured a need for more C.O.s in the MHSDS EOP Psychiatric Services Unit (PSU), and divert federal funds intended for mental health programs, services, and activities, to custody, while these same custody C.O.s then convert the PSU into a ‘lounge area’ where surveillance cameras throughout the PSU, initiated by the Armstrong v. Newsom, no. 94-cv 02307-CW, injunction, regularly record C.O.s blatant inefficiency, hosting fiesta’s and other celebratory gatherings, and constant use of big screen televisions intended for MHSDS EOP groups, to watch sporting events and other shows. All this occurs in the PSU while on duty in direct violation of well established CDCR policy at California Code of Regulations, CCR. Title 15, sections 3394, and 3395.

With this described systemic scheme, C.O.s may continue to exploit the MHSDS EOP, profit from such, while CDCR continues to orchestrate the diminishing of mental health programs, services, and activities, blaming the failure on any and everything else except the truth, which is, despite being member of a protected class requiring mental health services and treatment, to CDCR and it’s employees we are only a financial asset. A prisoner’s mental health challenges are nothing more than a bargaining chip to use to extort more money from the federal government, to fund and fuel an already debauch state system.

Please Help Us!

MIM(Prisons) adds: Over 1.1 million people have died from the COVID-19 pandemic in the United $tates (more than from drug overdoses). This hit hardest among the elderly, those with pre-existing health conditions, and since the advent of vaccines, the unvaccinated. Strong resistance to vaccines among law enforcement has led to disproportionate deaths. Meanwhile many who could retired early. Like many industries, the state has struggled to replace the prison staff it has lost due to the pandemic.

This situation has allowed for extra leverage, from the already powerful CCPOA in California, meaning many are doing their jobs even less than before. People are sitting in their cells, people aren’t receiving care, people are eating sack lunches, and people aren’t getting access to grievances. And like so many capitalists have done during the last few years, the CDCR has cashed in on state funds that they do not deserve.

These are signs of a struggling system. The criminal injustice system is functioning worse and with less credibility than it has in decades. Meanwhile, greedy kleptocrats are stealing from the state, weakening it further. We must study these cracks in the system and find ways to operate that push the agenda of the oppressed through independent institutions.

For 2 years now they have been short of staff or so they claim. For 18 months they operated at 20% staff and for the last 6 months they claim to be at 30% staff yet I’m certain an audit of certified payroll would differ, especially salary or ranking positions.

Absolutely zero SOP (standard operating procedures) are adhered to. Each rotation and every shift on every line is a freestyle depending on how that officer chooses to conduct his/her daily routine. Count is the only exception as all are constantly counting, especially when this interferes/conflicts with prisoner movement and/or distributing meals that regularly sit out for a long time (on occasion 4+ hours till next shift has to deal with it) resulting in all meals served cold .

I spent the last 6 days under a blanket blowing my breath into the space to try and keep warm. When I say cold I mean ice with the so called temperature controlled (without any thermostat) Air conditioner blowing.

Mental Health requests, telepsyche, 2nd day mental health related issues take 9 months minimum if you ever see the telepsyche or for psych meds while the self mutilation, smoke inhalation, and suicides are at an all time high. The number of Ad-Seg prisoners going or gone crazy is astounding. No, sad actually. Disturbing when witnessed first hand but that is a problem. We are isolated from any and all civilization.

The weekly library actually drops off/ picks up books once every 6-8 weeks while we receive late notice disciplinaries for late books we cannot return if they don’t pick up.

They do not run recreation or allow us our 1 hour out of cell ever. On occasion, they will fill the 6 rec cages maybe once every 6 weeks but there are over 60 prisoners for 6 cages and when they only run 1 shut, they document they ran rec and we get fucked.

50% of all meals are Jonny Sacks. Always an excuse but never do we get the diet as budgeted or as advertised. They steal all desserts so we never get our once a week dessert. Jonny Sacks are a spoon of peanut butter in a corner of two pieces of bread and 2 boiled eggs. We do not get the drink called vitamin c drink (juice) but half the time and we never get coffee + milk with breakfast like General Population.

When it comes time to review for getting out of Ad-Seg or program eligible they write us bogus disciplinary charges and run fictitious hearings resulting in automatic guilty verdict and restrictions ineligible to get out of Ad-Seg or go to programs.

No phone calls no video visits, no tablets as advertised by TDCJ- no effort or progress related to the tablets that are stored on site . Nor do we get official word. No media access. No radio as they have faulty wiring. No local papers. No echo TDCJ papers. No clue what’s happening outside these walls just as they have no clue what’s happening inside. They report they installed televisions. They mounted two TV’s where they cannot be seen and the faulty cable wires mean no reception.

In protest fires burn daily on each of the Ad-Seg lines. Prisoners burn any and all items that will burn. So many so often they don’t even react or bother to put them out, consequently we have no mattresses. Waiting list over 18 months to get a mattress. We sleep on steel and concrete. There are no radios for sale on commissary. They send us books then collect them as contraband. No cell cleaning disinfectant or bleach.

We starve and eat crap. Spoiled rotten crap. Many actually eat their own bodily waste and drink urine. Both hungry and mentally ill. Constant screams. No crisis, suicide prevention, Chaplain, medical response etc. For those in pain there is no medical relief. Suicides happen as threats, and early warning signs are ignored. One must cut themselves badly to be removed from cell. And we all do.

No windows, fresh air or sunshine, makes for a gaseous vapor in the air that means pain. Scream all you want its music to their ears. Ad-Seg B housing for confirmed family members labeled STG (security threat group). I estimate nearly a quarter of the prisoners in Ad-Seg now have empty cells with no personal property as it is constantly taken without any due process at all. Often for standing up for one’s self or trying to protect one’s rights or get what ones entitled to result in loss of property with no formal procedure or due process. Regardless of religion or affiliation they force christian music and preaching for 10 minutes every Saturday. No other religious material is available for any religion.

No barber in Ad-Seg no haircut for over 18 months now. We either shave our heads with razors or grow long hair and beards. They put us on bogus restrictions and limit how often we can buy stamps papers pen envelopes etc to write out. Much of our outgoing and incoming mail mysteriously does not reach its intended destination. Can’t prove who is at fault.

They took away and banned any pics of women that may cause arousal. Religious medals and items have been out of stock in commissary for the last 2 years. Chaplain offers no addresses or info for any but christian. The law library here offers no help, only issues exactly what document you request if you know exactly what to request. Grievances 100% denied with responses completely bogus and irrelevant to the issue attached. Completely useless when the board works for TDCJ and they review and devise on complaints against them.

We are not receiving the items budget for and paid for with tax dollars. We do not get the beef we raise on the fields. We do not get the pork we raise. We do not get the chickens we raise. We do not get fresh vegetables from field squad. We do get eggs, where does the rest go? I’ll tell you. They sell the choice cuts of meat for money and the lesser gristle and refuse in return.

The conditions within these walls are far worse than I witnessed in military POW camps. they call for nothing less than military action to get inside and expose what is occurring and begin a healing process. Its fucked.

There hasn’t been any light bulbs for 18 months. I only recently received one light bulb. Sit in a dark cell with no light.

Roaches and mice are an infestation. ORK Pest control in Amarillo Springs regularly comes but none die. I owned a pest management company and can tell you its not copacetic.

What I’m running into is a denial of all grievances, refusing all due process rights, and one-sided administration that makes rules they hold us accountable for and completely ignore those punishing them. Lawsuits are difficult with no assistance and I’m running into a cost issue of not being able to produce documents necessary for TDCJ to prove pro se or indigent.

Shake downs every 90 days and regular cell search result in losing much of what they sell us as they just take it period and destroy our cells in disarray tearing books etc.

Of the 20 to 30% staff, many are foreign working on indentured servitude program receiving less or no wages. Purchased into slavery from an African country and housed on site and bused around. Nigerian/African prisoners, debts owed, criminals, and outcasts purchased under flag of indentured servitude.

Majority have sold out and crossed over to become a part of the problem as they were too weak or chose not to fight a battle they couldn’t win alone and divided we are. The few of us who resist are overwhelmingly outnumbered and now fight the administration less as we first have to fight the layer of those who were once us and crossed over. Fighting amongst ourselves and trying to interpret rules all by design a smokescreen to hide the underlying more predominant fights. The criminals who take us prisoner, abused and torture and neglect us, and steal all the funding allocated for the “solution to the problem” the failure of democracy, justice and Law in this entity.

I stand up for what I believe and will resist or fight ’til my last dying breath; I call for help and assistance. I Need the methods I use to help change things from what they currently are to closer to the original intent which is reform and discipline and department of “corrections” is necessary.

North Texas AIPS Adds: We assume many similar reports have been censored by the state of Texa$ through direct or indirect methods as this writer describes above in regards to materials being taken away through cell searches and terrorism from the staff. The few that do come through highlight the extensive problems regarding any accountability the guards have to the Texa$ prisoner population and continuing neglect and abuse. While reform can be a useful tool to facilitate organizing and education, the original intent versus practice for prisons in amerikkka has always been to further suppress organizing among the oppressed masses. Fighting the conditions of Ad-Seg in this state must be for the purpose of revolutionary organizing and education if your goal is to end this long list of abuses.

I have done it again. I have earned myself a mental health referral from a C.O. for the 2nd time in 1 year. Both times for simply speaking the truth. Apparently, C.O.s are so blinded by lies that they interpret the truth as some sort of mental illness.

So last week I was being escorted to medical by a C.O. and do not remember the topic of conversation but I remember the statement I made that earned me a mental health referral. I said to the C.O., “Out of all the 1000s of inmates at this prison, not one of them has ever kidnapped a person and held them in a cage for a whole lifetime. That is real evil and only the government is guilty of that kind of evil.”

Of course, he had no reply. One week passes and I get a ducket yesterday for mental health(M.H.). My first thought is, “what is this, I have not submitted any request?” But then I look at the date of referral on the ducket (last Wednesday) and I remember the only thing that happened last Wednesday is my statement of blame to said C.O. and now it is clear why I have this mental health referral.

This is the 2nd time I have earned a M.H. referral under this circumstance. Earlier this year there was a campaign to remove me from 5 Block. Some of the C.O.s there were bringing drugs in for 1 of the inmates. This inmate did not trust me because he knew I do not agree with that lifestyle, and so he was asking the C.O.s to kick me out of the Block. I did not snitch; really I couldn’t care less about what corrupt C.O.s and gangbangers do, but they were afraid of my honest lifestyle choice, and so they tried their hardest to remove me, and they failed in that.

Well, one day as I was entering the Block the tower cop stopped me and asked me why some of the C.O.s had such a problem with me. I simply told him the truth. I said, “No, I am not doing anything wrong but if some C.O.s are collaborating with gangsters then that is something that should be looked at, so stop looking at me as though I am the problem.” The following week I received a ducket for mental health. The truth was interpreted as a mental illness, so I have discovered that when C.O.s are confronted with truth, they tend to attack it. I think this phenomenon is because they feel the guilt of their own actions. They are taught from a young age to have blind faith in someone else’s interpretation of what is right and wrong; so completely blinded by lies that when I remove the blindfold, and reveal the simple truth, it is interpreted as mental illness.

There was a 3rd time I hit a C.O. with the truth, but I did not get a M.H. referral that time. Again, as I was entering 5 Block, a tower cop stopped me and asked me why I was having such conflict with the C.O. that is bringing the drugs in. I replied that “I don’t like (greensuits) because I am doing a life sentence for a crime I did not do.” She was taken aback momentarily by this, but she recovered quickly and shot back that, “It is not my fault, it is the court that did that to you.” A classic little Eichmann.

I did not continue to argue with that C.O. because I have a lil respect for her straight forward approach as evidenced by the fact she did not give me a M.H. referral. Rather, I gave her all the time she needs for the truth to sink in that she is the one that pushes the button to either open or close the door on my cage.

Her own greensuit makes her directly responsible for my imprisonment. It is irrelevant that she has good looks or that she has qualities that I admire such as an honest straight forward approach, or that she is blinded by lies of what is right or wrong. All that matters is that tower cop is directly responsible for depriving an innocent man of his freedom. She is directly responsible for holding guilty men in a cage far longer than anyone should be detained.

MLK said that “when confronted with truth, we have an obligation to stand up for what is right.” The only thing greensuits stand up for is a dirty paycheck. We all must remove the blindfold of faith and see ourselves, truth!!

There’s been a substantial amount of reports on increases in depression and mental health disorders in the United $tates due to the shelter-in-place orders. In September, Time Magazine cited a study that showed severe depression being reported by 5.1% of people, up from 0.7% before the pandemic. The common explanation for this increase is social isolation combined with uncertainty and fear. Yet we have a prison system that regularly uses more extreme forms of social isolation (for example no internet, and being locked down in a literal cage), uncertainty and fear and people often look at the people in these prisons as being mentally ill. In reality, we are seeing a massive experiment on the larger society that shows this is how most people react in the conditions we face in prison. So what does it mean to be mentally ill, if this is socially induced?

It means this place will drive you crazy. If not by having hardly any contact with the opposite sex, then by isolation in a small cell (including being allowed 3 showers a week and an hour of recreation outside your cell 5 days a week). This is not normal and causes abnormal effects.

As you sit in your dwelling long enough you become a different person. You may find yourself venting or doing things you normally wouldn’t do, like burning down your cell or town.

A person may go a period of time without speaking. An elderly self-disciplined person may stay quiet, longing, but when one does break their silence they will talk for an hour or two until they burn themselves out. This will usually occur once a day in conditions where there’s only one person to talk to, as it is an HCON (high) Control Purpose.

Others began to talk to spirits and demons. In some cases, this is stimulated by them making up stuff in their mind, but there are also diagnosed paranoid prisoners who scream every time the light cuts on and they open their eyes. They also fight demons.

Solitary confinement can also lead to suicide, as an escape. There have been people committing reactionary suicide, like Biscuit from the movie Life, when he ran across the gun line because he “couldn’t go on living.” Psychologists don’t even bother to get to know who you are or talk you through your problems. They either give you some drugs to experiment with or decline to help you altogether. They are unconcerned that abused children are liable to grow up with an attachment disorder which doesn’t necessarily require medication but does require TLC, which a half-dozen psychiatrists can’t provide for the 1200 prisoners here.

On Segregation we receive even less communication with our families who can provide that loving sanctuary and keep us sane, because we have no phone and only one non-contact visit a month (we should be able to receive more TV visits).

Our families mail is sometimes held for a month after it arrives at the prison. This creates depression by worrying about our families and why they haven’t written over the holidays, to later find out devastating news from our loved ones. Talk about fear and uncertainty.

Some people become anti-social in solitary confinement for different reasons. One reason may be that after so much chaos and falling out with people around them in distress, they began to fall back from everyone.

Others find themselves through self-discipline and block out all other worldly distractions to work on their goals.

Some stressed adolescents in solitary confinement turn towards music as escape and begin to sing lyrics at the top of their lungs, others find refuge and entertainment in woofing. With all this racket going on in Restrictive Housing, it will drive a perfectly sane person insane and into an insomniac.

At Polk Correctional Institution in North Carolina on supermax (or HCON, High Risk Security) we don’t go outside because the officials will trash your cell, steal your property, fully restrain you with your hands behind your back connected to chains around your waist, and leave you in a recreation cage with giant brown recluse spiders, all to deter you from going outside again. Similar tactics are practices here at Central Prison.

The air in the building is insufficient for a human being to breathe at times and I’ve experienced shortness of breath. Compare that to wearing a mask that you can easily remove if you choose.

Comrades at that camp have developed bone marrow cancer, and there is probably cause to expect that this cancer may have been caused by the contaminated water they were working in. There was also strong gasoline type chemicals in the food that was being served at the time.

Right now at Central Prison our lunch consists of one bologna and cheese sandwich, 2 crackers and a 2oz (1/4 cup) of fruit with a juice packet every day. Dinner’s no better, and staff will fight and curse you if you speak out, because they have PTSD and other disorders themselves from war, childhood and other experiences. In this way, mental health patients (the staff) are responsibly for the well-being of other mental health patients.

There’s a mental health program called T.D.U. for patients on RHCP (Restrictive Housing Control Purposes) that they can send you to where you can slowly earn privileges like television, canteen, phone, being allowed to come out of your cell, but they never send any New Afrikans to the programs.

By contrast, RHCP pods have 16 cells each, and I have never seen more than 5 non-color people at a time in any pod. At HCON there are four blocks each with two tiers that hold 12 cells each. I have never witnessed more than 2 non-color people on any tier at a time during the 2 years I spent there.

If a non-colored comrade gets in a scuffle on the yard at Central Prison, they may receive a week or two in segregation, but a negro will receive 12-18 months on RHCP. Right now, we are receiving more time at Central Prison on RHCP than prisoners at Polk CI on HCON who spend only 10 months on HCON, but after they do their HCON at Polk CI, Polk may hold them for 6-12 months on RHCP.

Some people haven’t been guilty of any charges to be placed on RHCP or HCON, so Classification will lie and forge paperwork (no due process). They are con artists who don’t follow their own laws.

The ill-treatment we receive from the institution only creates more PTSD and brings unnecessary bad energy towards people. Workers should be focused on taking care of their families and not risking their lives to oppress others for no gain, but of their master’s amusement.

This room becomes our life. At Polk CI on HCON our cells have showers with food being delivered to their doors, and some guys never want to leave. Some people aren’t going home and to some poor men on the street, incarceration provides 3 meals a day. In the County jail I’ve seen people live in the hole and refuse to leave on numerous occasions.

Solitary confinement is the only place I’ve seen a man smear shit everywhere including his face, and eat shit sandwiches. Tell me this is normal and something you see people do. Thankfully they finally sent this particular prisoner to the mental hospital where he may get some help (and not get thrown in a cage for sleeping in some bushes on public property because he’s a poor New Afrikan man who was stripped of his assets).

Comrades, we are not ourselves behind the door, so I’ll leave you with the words a knowledgeable man left with me:

No 2 men get along without respect.

We mourn the hundreds of thousands of people who have died due to the incompentancy of the U.$. government from the federal to the local levels during this pandemic. Deaths in prisons from COVID-19 are at 2,173 as of 19 January 2021.(1) We know of one comrade in California who died who was working with a local USW cell.

In California, Governor Newsom put prisoners at the forefront of their vaccination roll out plan. However, things have not gone so smooth. All over the state vaccines are sitting unused, while they have opened up access to more than 10 times the number of people than they have vaccines for. According to the COVID Prison Project, which is tracking the vaccination of prisoners across the country, almost all of the 19,000 vaccinations administered through the California Department of Corrections and “rehabilitation” so far have gone to prison staff. Though California is one of a handful of states that have confirmed data of vaccinations having begun (currently at 65 prisoners).(1)

As infections and deaths reach record-breaking numbers every day, prisoners continue to be much more likely to be infected with SARS-COV-2 virus and they are more likely to die from COVID-19, despite the fact that the population in prisons is younger than those outside prisons. Old age is a very strong risk factor with COVID-19. This demonstrates that being in prison in the U.$. has a significant negative effect on your health status and the health care that you receive. It is very ironic. One would think that prisons are the most effective way to “stay inside” and get a population safe from a viral plague. The fact that prisons are rampant with this disease shows that “natural” disasters such as plagues, earthquakes, and floods are in fact bound with social relations just like all other things.

As you see in this issue of ULK, we continue to receive reports of lack of masks, staff not wearing masks, and infected prisoners being moved around and spreading the virus. With such lack of care demonstrated by those in charge, the higher death rates in prisons are no longer surprising.

On top of that, prisoners are suffering disproportionately from the conditions of shelter-in-place, nominally to stop the spread of the virus. The rest of the country gets to decide for themselves whether they want to follow best practices and stay at home and where a mask. As one might have predicted, this model failed horribly and is leading to hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. But for prison staff, lockdowns are a routine affair. In many rural, white communities, sheriffs have refused to enforce state ordinances to promote public safety by sheltering in place. In prisons, correctional officers are happy to lock oppressed people in their cells for months with little access to the outside. This hypocrisy exposes the pigs true intentions.

Being in prison is about controlling all your time; the labor time you could have spent building up wealth and the leisure time you could have spent building your relationships and community. As mentioned above, being locked in a prison in the United $tates has a strong negative affect on your health status. It seems that many who don’t die from COVID-19, will have long-term effects. This will affect people’s ability to be productive and enjoy leisure time after being released from prison. U.$. prisons have long-term affects on peoples’ class and gender outcomes throughout their lives, especially for the oppressed nations which have less resources and support to overcome these setbacks.

Meanwhile, there is some pleasure involved on behalf of staff instituting lockdowns to make their jobs easier and refusing to wear masks because they “don’t feel like it.” Pleasure that would not exist for people who actually cared about others.

While there are economic reasons at the heart of why the oppressed always bear the brunt of “natural” disasters, there are cultural reasons as well. So much death and suffering could have been prevented in U.$. prisons without any affect on capitalist profits. And arguably, the U.$. economy would be doing better right now if the government had implemented better, clearer practices in society in general.

The struggle for basic health, including mental health and social connection, are struggles for basic humynity. Struggles we see falling more in the realm of gender than class, because it is not about economics and production. It is about transforming the relationships between people in a cultural way. A way that works to eliminate the possibility of one group finding pleasure in the oppression and suffering of another. We see the examples of the oppressed coming together in these conditions to struggle for basic humynity, and to build it between each other, as the early steps of a revolutionary transformation of national and gender relations in our society.

1. https://covidprisonproject.com/covid-vaccine-doses/

Sisters and Brothers, i raise my clenched fist and salute all of you striving to stay strong through these adverse times. i am a New Afrikan man currently incarcerated at Maryland’s E.C.I. koncentration kamp. Due to COVID-19, there have been a lot of changes here.

Lockdown

We are supposed to be locked in 23 hours a day and out one hour, but the actual scheduling is 35 hours in, and one out, meaning we go out once every other day.

The scheduling causes brothers to come out at nine in the morning to shower, call loved ones etc, then sit in the cell until nine the next night. Some brothers have nothing – no T.V. or radio. All they have is the mental voice and that isn’t always kind to brothers behind the wall with no information about the future. We are given yard time two times a week, if suitable for our korrectional oppressors. Our yard time length is fifteen to twenty minutes, and we can’t use weights or any other yard equipment. They claim they are giving us 30 minutes, but brothers with timers on their watches have disproven this. When we show the korrectional oppressors our timers, we are told ‘it is what it is’ while they make a show of having their hand on the Mace canister.

We get visitation once a week, where we can Skype approved loved ones. We are brought a sheet weekly where we sign up for a time slot during which we wish the conversation to take place. They try one email choice two times, if no one responds you are sent back to your designated building. This causes issues – not for the korrectional oppressors, but for us. Most brothers strategically choose their times when loved ones won’t be working, and children won’t be online doing schooling, etc., but at times they call you for your call two hours ahead of your scheduled time and no one is there to pick up. Brothers have raised grievances about this and given political responses. Even if you do get through on Skype, the connection is poor, and noise in the visitation room can cause mics to cancel each other out – sometimes when your loved ones speak Skype mutes them, thinking that the noise in the room is you speaking.

Our food is now brought to our cells. For breakfast we get one cereal and two slices of bread. For lunch and dinner we are brought takeout containers that have sat in the foyer until they are cold. Often everything is mixed together and not fully cooked.

Most brothers now sit idle with no school or self-help programs/groups. As i watch my brothers, it grips my heart to see how this pandemic and the uncertainty of the future is causing brothers to slide back from the growth they were making. i have been doing my part by creating community building topics and self-reflective exercises, though i can only reach so many.

Inside Maryland Correctional Enterprises

One big change at this kamp has been at M.C.E. (Maryland Correctional Enterprises) Plant #106, where I work doing furniture restoration and refurbishment for the MTA, schools, colleges, prisons and other state institutions. During the pandemic, in addition to our other tasks, we make face shields and masks which go firstly to for ‘essential’ workers – $tate workers, korrectional oppressors, and secondly to our sisters and brothers behind the wall. Brothers were acknowledged by the $tate’s Governor ‘Lyin’ Larry Hogan in multiple newspapers for our hard work with a picture of him wearing a mask made by us. Within two weeks after the article praising us, brothers were given a memo stating that there would be layoffs from the plant, and that those who weren’t laid off would not receive base pay when they are not scheduled to work. The managers at plant #106 laid off 25 workers that week. As of the 6th of November, they laid off 29 more brothers, leaving them high and dry after working hard for relief on their sentence and pay.

Plant #106 is the lowest paid plant in the $tate. Our base pay is 35 cents an hour. Other plants around the $tate’s kamps clear $100 checks on the regular (i should say, i am truly happy for my brothers and sisters behind the wall making money to support their family and themselves). Our low pay is due to the Plant #106 manager Dan McGarity and regional plant manager/supervisor Matt Hall setting the pay we receive per job, which has gotten lower and lower. For example, we used to receive four dollars per bus seat. Now, we receive one dollar for the same work, even though the job estimate given and accepted by the MTA is the same. So why are brothers now receiving three dollars less in our incentive pay (incentive pay is a flat daily pay added to out base pay if we worked, if you don’t work you used to just receive base pay)? Brothers who work nearest to Dan McGarity as office clerks say that when McGarity is speaking with his peers, he has stated that he doesn’t want to be audited or have anyone look too deeply at the books. i find it no coincidence that brother’s base pay was taken away due to ‘lack of work,’ which was not true. On the east side kompound, here at E.C.I., their plant is still receiving base pay. When brothers inquired as to why east side plant was receiving base pay and we were not, we were given the runaround. Brothers were told our regional manager/supervisor is different (which makes no sense, we are one kompound split by a wire). Brothers were told we were not considered essential, after Governor ‘Lyin’ Larry Hogan told multiple newspapers that we were.

Korruption and Resistance

E.C.I. is known amongst the brothers for its korruption. In 2015, former warden Kathleen Green was let go from her job for pocketing grant money meant for programs in the prison. We are frequently punished for the negligence of those paid to do their jobs. This has caused a divide among the population. This koncentration kamp gets more restrictive and oppressive every couple of months, with constant rank changes and rule changes. We’ve had to coordinate multiple peaceful protests, just to receive our basic rights.

For example, in 2018 the brothers had decided we had enough of being locked down weekly for random, unjust reasons, losing yard access because the guards didn’t feel like allowing it, food being uncooked, verbal and physical abuse, and other issues. We had planned a mass sit-in at east and west side kompound, brothers were not to go to school, work groups, or to chow. Kapitalist industries hate when money is wasted and not made. Unfortunately, due to korrectional pets/sympathizers, our plan was sent into a state of confusion. The korrectional oppressors used one of their pets to spread word that the day of the protest had changed (which was false information). At this time i was housed on a different tier in the same building. The confusion tactic, sadly, worked. Brothers on the east side kompound had a major sit-in, refusing to go back in their cells. Some of the brothers who worked for M.C.E. Plant #106 at that time didn’t go to work. The protest caught the korrectional oppressors attention, though due to the coordination being disrupted, the effect was not powerful enough.

The east and west side kompound was put on complete lockdown for four months that summer. Brothers were given sweaty lunch meat brown bags for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. No showers, visits, phone, just straight twenty-four hour lockdown until we entered step down phase. The local media had caught wind of the lockdown, through an unknown brother that had his people inform them on the injustices taking place in the prison (this was before the protest was to take place). The first newscast on the kamp’s lockdown spoke on the injustices that brothers were exposed to, and how it was a peaceful protest. The next newscast later that evening flipped and spoke on the “plight” of korrectional oppressors, showed images of oppressor’s family members out front the kamp holding signs. The signs claimed korrectional oppressors were overworked, etc. In most simple terms, we were forgot about and villainized for the rest of the news coverage, which went on for months. That 2018 situation seemed to be what broke some brother’s mindset, causing them to become submissive and just look out for self. Even though some brothers became more cooperative with injustice, it only gave fuel to the korrectional oppressors to become more oppressive and the line of division among brothers continued to widen. For the brothers who refused to go to work at Plant #106 on the day of ‘protest’ were fired. Plant #106 oppressors used this to their advantage to help the koncentration kamp by offering jobs back in exchange for information. Brothers at this kamp have an extreme lack of unity.

The ACLU came out here about two years ago and told the prison to double our food ration. The prison followed orders for a week, then went right back to the portion they been serving. When brothers were asked to raise their voice, most were afraid of having their cell tore up and going to lockup for whatever reason korrectional oppressors chose. During audit time here at the kamp, the korrectional officers turn into masters of deception. They do a mass clean, plant flowers (that come up right after the auditors leave) – in simple terms, the put on their ‘Sunday best.’ They only send oppressor’s pet to talk to auditors. Once auditors leave, it is oppression as usual. Any advice?

Some of these brothers that work at Plant #106 slave to get jobs done, only to be taken off the schedule while the oppressor’s pets are left on the schedule to collect incentive pay they just watched others generate. The brothers who deserve that money, need that money to get by in prison. The injustice at this kamp is real.

Update: as of November 3rd our kompound was put on lockdown due to a spreading of COVID-19. We are out our cell individually for fiteen minutes a day. This outbreak was due to the kapitalist mentality. While COVID-19 cases were down amongst Maryland’s koncentration kamps, brothers who were supposed to go to the minimum kamp were finally shipped out, taking the population way down. This, in turn, meant that this kamp would not receive as much money, so this kamp made moves to get a busload of brothers from another kamp. These brothers were not tested or given quarantine time. They were just placed in cells. Then began the COVID-19 outbreak. On my tier they let out one of their pets to do laundry and pass out meals, only to find out the brother has been infected by the virus and told no one! Brother had to put him on blast to get him to admit he had symptoms. This is crazy – our safety depends on those in charge. Sisters and brothers lives are in the korrectional oppressors hand’s and they could care less about us. Their concern is ca$h. My sisters and brothers outside and behind the wall, i urge you to do your part in the fight against the machine. We all have a part to play in Vita Wa Watu. If we don’t care for each other, then who will care for us? Keep up the good fight comrades – and much love to those who work hard at M.I.M. to educate our brothers and sisters in the struggle. Any advice or resources welcome.

On 26 October 2017, U.$. President Trump declared the opioid epidemic a public health emergency. The declaration should lead to more federal funding for grants to combat opioid abuse.(1) As we explain below, this epidemic disproportionately affects euro-Amerikans. Trump linked his campaign to build a wall along the current Mexican border to the battle against this epidemic, despite the fact that prescription painkillers are at the root of it. This is consistent with the Amerikan government’s solution for drug problems created by imperialism. For the crack epidemic of the 1980s Amerika responded with mass incarceration of New Afrikan men as the solution. As opioid addiction continues a steady rise, Trump offers further militarization of the border.

Opioids have been used by humyns for thousands of years both medicinally and recreationally, with many periods of epidemic addiction. Use began with opium from poppies. Morphine was isolated in 1806. By the early 1900s heroin was promoted as a cure for morphine addiction in the United $tates, before being made illegal in 1924. There was a lull in heroin use during the 1980s, when cocaine and crack overshadowed it. Various prescription pain killers began to come back into vogue in the 1990s after the “Just Say No!” mentality was wearing off. Since then, use and abuse has been on a steady rise, feeding a new surge in the use of heroin as a cheaper alternative. This rise, in the economic centers of both the United $tates and China, is directly linked to capitalism.

The Danger

While K2 is one dangerous substance plaguing U.$. prisons these days, partly due to its undetectability, opioids are by far the biggest killer in the United $tates, and we expect that is true in prisons as well. Drug overdoses surpassed car accidents as the number one cause of accidental deaths in the United $tates in 2007 and has continued a steady rise ever since. The majority of these overdoses have been from opioids.(2)

While the increase in deaths from opioids has been strong across the United $tates, rates are significantly higher among whites, and even higher among First Nations. One reason that use rates are lower among New Afrikans and Latin@s is that it has been shown that doctors are more reluctant to prescribe opioids to them because they are viewed as more likely to become addicted, and Amerikan doctors see them as having a greater pain threshold.(3)

We did see some evidence of this trend in the results of our survey on the effects of drugs in U.$. prisons. The most popular answer to our question of whether certain groups did more drugs in prison than others was no, it affects everyone. But many clarified that there was a strong racial divide where New Afrikans preferred weed and K2, while whites and usually Latin@s went for heroin and/or meth. Some of these respondents said that New Afrikans did less drugs.(4) A couple said that New Afrikans used to do less drugs but now that’s changing as addiction is spreading. In states where K2 has not hit yet (CA, GA, CO) it was common to hear that whites and “hispanics” (or in California, “southern” Mexicans) did more drugs. The pattern of New Afrikans preferring weed and K2 seemed common across the country, and could have implications for strategies combating drug use among New Afrikans compared to other groups. In particular, stressing that K2 is completely different and more dangerous than weed could be part of a harm reduction strategy focused on New Afrikans.

If prison staff were doing their jobs, then we would expect rates of both overdoses and use in general to be lower in prisons. But we know, and our survey confirmed, that this is not the case (78% of respondents mentioned staff being responsible for bringing in at least some of the drugs in their prison). In hindsight, it may have been useful to ask our readers what percentage of prisoners are users and addicts. Some of the estimates that were offered of the numbers using drugs in general were 20-30%, 90%, 75%, and many saying it had its grips on the whole population.

Deaths from opioids in the general U.$. population in 2015 was 10.5 per 100,000, double the rate in 2005.(5) This is higher than the rates in many state prison systems for overdoses from any drug, including Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania that all reported average rates of 1 per 100,000 from 2001-2012. California was closer at 8 per 100,000 and Maryland exceeded the general population at 17 deaths from overdoses per 100,000 prisoners.(6) At the same time, prison staff have been known to cover up deaths from overdoses, so those 1 per 100,000 rates may be falsified.

In our survey of ULK readers, we learned that Suboxone, a drug used to treat opioid addiction, is quite popular in prisons (particularly in the northeast/midwestern states). Survey respondents mentioned it as often as weed as one of the most popular drugs, and more than heroin. Suboxone is actually used to treat heroin addiction. And while it is not supposed to be active like other opioids, it can lead to a high and be addictive. It is relatively safe, and will not generally lead to overdose until you combine it with other substances, which can lead to death.

Prescription drugs are not as common as other drugs in most prisons, according to our survey. Though in some cases they are available. We received a few responses from prisons where prescription drugs prescribed by the medical staff seemed to be the only thing going on the black market. Clearly there is variability by facility.

Two Paths to Recovery

The increases in opioid abuse in the United $tates has been staggering, and they cause a disproportionate amount of the deaths from drug overdoses. About 10% of opioid addicts worldwide are in the United $tates, despite only being less than 5% of the world’s population.(7) At the same time, only about 1% of people in the United $tates are abusing opioids.(8) This is not the worst episode in U.$. history, and certainly not in world history.

Around 1914 there were 200,000 heroin addicts in the United $tates, or 2% of the population. In contrast, some numbers for opium addicts in China prior to liberation put the addiction rate as high as 20% of the population around 1900, and 10% by the 1930s. That’s not to dismiss the seriousness of the problem in the United $tates, but to highlight the power of proletarian dictatorship, which eliminated drug addiction about 3 years after liberation.

Richard Fortmann did a direct comparison of the United $tates in 1952 (which had 60,000 opioid addicts) and revolutionary China (which started with millions in 1949).(9) Despite being the richest country in the world, unscathed by the war, with an unparalleled health-care system, addicts in the United $tates increased over the following two decades. Whereas China, a horribly poor country coming out of decades of civil war, with 100s of years of opium abuse plaguing its people, had eliminated the problem by 1953.(9) Fortmann pointed to the politics behind the Chinese success:

“If the average drug addiction expert in the United States were shown a description of the treatment modalities used by the Chinese after 1949 in their anti-opium campaign, his/her probable response would be to say that we are already doing these things in the United States, plus much more. And s/he would be right.”(9)

About one third of addicts went cold turkey after the revolution, with the more standard detox treatment taking 12 days to complete. How could they be so successful so fast? What the above comparison is missing is what happened in China in the greater social context. The Chinese were a people in the process of liberating themselves, and becoming a new, socialist people. The struggle to give up opium was just one aspect of a nationwide movement to destroy remnants of the oppressive past. Meanwhile the people were being called on and challenged in all sorts of new ways to engage in building the new society. There was so much that was more stimulating than opium to be doing with their time. Wimmin, who took up opium addiction in large numbers after being forced into prostitution in opium dens, were quickly gaining opportunities to engage at all levels of society. The poor, isolated peasants were now organized in collectives, working together to solve all kinds of problems related to food production, biology and social organization. The successful struggle against drug addiction in China was merely one impressive side effect of the revolutionizing of the whole society.

In contrast, in the capitalist countries, despair lurks behind every corner as someone struggles to stay clean. The approach has ranged from criminalization to medicalization of drug addiction as a disease. “Once an addict, always an addict”, as they say. Always an individualist approach, ignoring the most important, social causes of the problem. That drug addiction is primarily a social disease was proven by the practice of the Chinese in the early 1950s, but Western “science” largely does not acknowledge the unquestionable results from that massive experiment.

It is also worth pointing out the correlation between drug abuse and addiction, and capitalist economics specifically. Whether it was colonial powers forcing opium on the Chinese masses who had nothing, in order to enslave them to their economic will, or it is modern Amerikan society indulging its alienation in the over-production of prescription pills from big pharmaceutical companies marketing medicine for a profit.

China Today

And now, opioid addiction is on the rise again in capitalist China after decades. A steady rise in drug-related arrests in China since 1990 are one indicator of the growing problem.(10) As more profits flowed into the country, so have more drugs, especially since the 1990s. We recently published a review of Is China an Imperialist Country?, where we lamented the loses suffered by the Chinese people since the counter-revolution in 1976. It goes to show that when you imitate the imperialists, and put advancing the productive forces and profits over serving the people, you invite in all the social ills of imperialism.

In China drug addiction has now become something that people fear. Like it did with its economy, China has followed in the imperialists’ footsteps in how it handles drug addiction. Chinese policy has begun treating addicts as patients that need to be cured to protect society. Rather than seeing those who give up drugs as having defeated the oppressor’s ways, they are monitored by the state, lose social credibility, and have a hard time getting a job.(11) Under socialism, everyone had a job and no one needed recreational drugs to maintain themselves mentally. The path to combating drug addiction and abuse is well-established. Attempts under imperialism that don’t involve liberatory politics of the oppressed have little to no effect.