Under Lock & Key

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 mirrored 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 qualification, 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. To my knowledge there are recidivism studies focusing on gang affiliated prison releases, there is evidence 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 effect 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 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 out number 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 and 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:

Free The Land

Crime is a child of poverty and miseducation, which are both created and perpetuated by Plutocrat Policy(s).

The real criminals are too rich and too big for jail, while the poor are incarcerated for simply living a survivalist existence, for responding and/or reacting to poverty and miseducation in reactionary, economically desperate and miseducated ways.

Prison is mainly based on inflicting punishment and resentment, rather than cultivating genuine healing via essential self-criticism that has historically proven to decrease recidivism. Prisoners’ growth will defeat the purpose of spending or investing 20-plus million dollars building each prison. Genuine rehabilitation is a bad investment to the Plutocrats.

The entire so-called criminal justice system is nothing but a replacement and extension of slavery. A job-generating industry for all government branches and departments between the slave patrollers (street PIGs; Plutocrat Imperialist Goons) and Overseers (D.O.C.; Department of Cruelty) as was the case with post-Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676.

Crime, is all founded upon, and backed up by the exception clause of the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime…”

Thus, to genuinely heal or rehabilitate prisoners is to end the new slavery; meaning, leading to the shutting down of prison, and mass lay-offs within the entire so-called criminal justice industry system, made up of slave patrollers (street PIGs), judges, state and defense attorneys, counselors, doctors, nurses, canteen vendors, civilian food service and maintenance workers and county jail and prison overseers (DOC). Millions of jobs when tallied up nationally, all off so-called crime, the new cotton, tobacco and/or sugar.

Crime, as an industry, can only end by first and foremostly ending poverty and miseducation. Even rape is a result of miseducation, or psychological defects of miseducation by the system of patriarchy. However, poverty and miseducation will not end without first and foremostly ending and replacing the CIPWS (Capitalist Imperialist Patriarchist White Supremacy) with a Proletarian Internationalist Dictatorship.

Whenever and wherever there is poverty and miseducation, material conditions are ripe for the warrant of crime or revolution. For neither takes place without the desire for and/or the aspiration of better days, or a higher standard of living.

History is proof, that revolutions do not automatically occur and succeed with the collapse of the CIPWS elite and their Plutocrat’s superstructure. Revolution can, and will only occur and succeed when and where the revolt which leads to revolution is culture. When and where the masses are revolutionary conscious and active in every aspect of human life. When and where every human embraces the power to determine the egalitarian destiny of his and/or her own community. Revolution is when and where power changes hands, in our case, from CIPWS to PID (Proletarian Internationalist Dictatorship) ensuring egalitarianism meaning All Power To The People. Revolution begins with education like crime ends with education.

In egalitarian solidarity and struggle.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This is great summary of the connection between the system of mass incarceration in the U.$. and the need to end imperialism. We agree that this criminal injustice system is a replacement for slavery in relation to controlling New Afrikan populations, and that it funds millions of jobs for Amerikans. However, this system is very different from cotton or sugar in that no value is being created, rather the potential value that the oppressed nations could be producing to benefit their people is being squandered by locking them up in unproductive conditions for years and decades.

Seven out of every ten parolees will be arrested sometime after their release. Nearly half will return to prison someday. The plague of recidivism hangs over every releasee’s future like the scythe of the grim reaper coming to cut short their potential beyond the concrete walls, iron bars, and razor-wire of the perpetually proliferating injustice system. The very dehumanizing experience of imprisonment itself plays a significant role in criminal conditioning. For many, it is the influencing factor of imprisonment that detrimentally affects them the greatest. Many learn from those mistakes of their past and some don’t. For those with the ability to endure the physical and psychological terrors of “doing time,” the lack of skills acquired leaves them with few options other than crime for economic survival after release and leaves the parole board wondering whether or not it made the right decision in granting parole in the first place.

More often than not, it is overlooked as to what may have led to someone’s imprisonment and what may be done to help them overcome the struggles or obstacles in their path and in order for them to have a successful reintegration into society. The feeling of defeat is often a temporary condition, but there is never a better measure of what a person is than when they’re absolutely free to choose. Removing the individual’s choice leads to a lack of inspiration and motivation to overcome one’s struggles, and they eventually give up hope. Giving up is what makes the temporary condition of defeat permanent. Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is; treat a man as he can and should be, and he will become as he can and should be.

In prisons the use of manual labor is considered by several states to be rehabilitative for those given the duty of performing labor that could be done by an advancement in technology through farming equipment. In all actuality, this manual labor is of no use to the prisoner and further hinders true rehabilitation. More money is put into prisons, county jails, and other state penal institutions than there is put into the actual rehabilitation of the prisoners. The addition of more educational programs throughout the state penal institutions would serve a greater good and present people with more opportunities for a successful reintegration into society. “Hoe squad” and “regional maintenance” are a hindrance to the efforts to rehabilitate criminal behavior and thinking modification efforts of the individual prisoners.

Forcing a prisoner to perform such tasks of manual farming and regional clean-up to replace that of existing farm equipment and jobs that are the responsibility of our city labor forces, and without an incentive for possible job placement upon release, serves no greater purpose to the individual prisoner and proves to be more dehumanizing than rehabilitative. It has been declared by many that we can change our circumstances by a mere change of our attitudes, but when placed under duress with no choice in the matter there becomes no room for progress. In regards to rehabilitation, it should and must be the objective of our state government and legislature to seek out better avenues by which to lower our states’ recidivism rates, and use education as an avenue by which to rehabilitate our states’ prisoners. The person everyone wants returning to their community is an educated, empowered taxpayer who has the skills to help make our society safe and healthy.

As an ex-convict, I understand the limitations placed on our states’ prison populations by the use of “hoe squad” and “regional maintenance” as a form of rehabilitation. The value of post-secondary correctional education programs prove to be very beneficial. As this article is written, I am in progress of putting together business plans for an outreach program entitled “A New Leaf Outreach Program” aka “My Brothers’ Place” that will serve as an avenue by which convicts / ex-convicts and parolees / probationers, as well as the community, may come together and organize our knowledge – not denying one another the opportunity to teach what we know and learn what we may not know – and bring about a solution to our society’s problems.

One may choose to be a part of the problem or choose to be a part of the solution. Regardless of one’s past mistakes, one always chooses to be a part of the solution. Once you are challenged, you find something in yourself. Adversity causes some men to break, others to break records. Success is based upon how one rises above his defeats.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This writer explains well the importance of education for prisoners and the uselessness of many of the “jobs” programs that currently exist. This failure of the work programs is specific to the criminal injustice system that seeks to control populations rather than educate and rehabilitate.

In communist China under Mao we have examples of prisons where people were sent for genuine rehabilitation and education. These prisons integrated work programs for the prisoners, to help them contribute productive labor to society and learn skills they might use on the outside. When prisoners were released in China it was after undergoing intensive education, which included reading many books and discussing these books with others. This process of study and criticism/self-criticism helped them see why their actions that harmed other people were wrong, and giving them a sense of purpose to their lives that did not involve harming others.

All of this occurred within the greater context of a society where everyone was given a role, and expected to participate in transforming society. We can’t expect the imperialists to implement such a progressive system because it would be counter to their use of prisons for social control and impossible in a capitalist dog-eat-dog society. But we can, as this writer says, build together to be part of the solution. We can build our own educational programs, study groups, and organizations independent of the oppressor. This is our job right now, as we build to ultimately take down this corrupt and unjust system.

In California we have 55% of any incoming money taken away, then another 45% taken out under the cloak of obligatory fees. So if your family sends $20 you get $8, minus another 45% and you are left with $5 and some change. This is ridiculous and should be challenged just like the amount of money a prisoner is paid an hour: 10-30 cents. Really if we were on the street we’d get minimum wage. A business owner would be in court if found out to be paying their employees 30 cents an hour.

The citizens have been led to believe prisoners don’t need money because the state pays for everything. To these people I say eat our meals for 4 days and tell me if you don’t want more to eat. Here’s an example: if your lips chap and skin drys and you go to the doctor for an ointment they tell you that you have to buy that at canteen. Well if you don’t have any money to go to canteen you’re shit out of luck. If you’re lactose intolerant there’s no diet for that. They say just don’t eat what you can’t eat. Well you do that and you’re shorting yourself of mandatory calories you’re supposed to receive each day. Same with allergies to fish, peanut butter, etc. The state doesn’t provide deodorant and lotion and hair grease or shampoo. So what’s one to do?

The restitution is supposed to be for the victim. Do they get a check every time the prison deducts money from money sent in? Hell no! People wake up, we need to fight this money hungry place called prison which is making a killing off our sweat and prisoner’s family sweat.

MIM(Prisons) responds: As we’ve written before, prisons across the country are paying prisoners pennies (or nothing at all). This is not just a way to keep prisoners totally dependent on their captors while locked up, but also makes it harder for released prisoners to get on their feet. No one leaves prison with money in their pockets. And we know that finding a job and housing as an ex-con is far from easy. But the prison system is counting on this as the revolving doors of incarceration help keep the prisons full and the criminal injustice system employees earning good wages.

We don’t agree that the prison is “making a killing” off the labor of prisoners and the family money. In reality prisons are a money-losing operation subsidized by the state. The only people benefiting financially are the employees with fat paychecks and the few private enterprises that get to hire prisoners to do work that other Amerikans don’t want or won’t do so cheaply. Prisons themselves don’t make a profit, but lots of individuals and other corporations are benefiting greatly from this huge subsidized humyn warehousing for social control.

I acquired my GED and then enrolled in college and studied economics; macro economics, micro economics, public speaking, business administration and small business management. This is when such were free to Tax-us inmates. Then Klinton passed the laws in 1995 to pull Pell Grants, and further punish us by implicating behavior modification level I, II, and III programs.

When I got released from TDC I was transferred to another cage called ISF, a mini-prison Inner Sanction Facility in a distant desert city in Texas. Then they placed me on a program called SIPS (Super Intense Parole Supervision) with a leg bracelet and electronic monitoring, and they imposed the rule that I couldn’t meet or talk with any [groups of men, i.e. lumpen organizations] or they’d violate me. They completely isolated me.

I became gainfully employed after 9 days of being at the ISF and I saved all monies earned. They charged me 25% of my weekly check to be harassed and fed a cold bologna sandwich. I petitioned District Parole for permission to obtain my residency. They kept me on SIPS so I had to pay for a land line so that the security company ADT could monitor my whereabouts.

I worked approximately 2.5 years as a laborer and applied for grants to attend college. I graduated with a 3.95 GPA and I went on to become a sub-contractor and parole detested that I was finally beyond minimum wage earnings. They imposed guidelines claiming that, due to being a possible terrorist, I should be kept in one location. So I had to quit jobs where I earned more than poverty level, and had to find a job in a non-relevant industry to satisfy their requests.

I was rearrested 9 times for faulty batteries in the bracelet monitor, which were not my doing or fault, but marred my record as a recidivist. I only have been arrested two times but they use the technical arrests to further discredit me to make me look like a dangerous re-offender.

I was brought back to the Texas Department of Corrections in 2009 and was immediately placed in the security housing called Expansion Cell Block High Security (ECBHS). I, like other comrades here, have been stripped of all earthly possessions and marked as a threat for what we believe. But our minds are ours to control.

MIM(Prisons) adds: As we described in an article on overcoming release challenges, there are many hurdles facing prisoners who are released from prison, even for those not faced with restrictive parole supervision. MIM(Prisons)’s Re-Lease on Life Program attempts to help prisoners prepare for life on the streets with the goal of keeping our comrades political active once they are outside of the structured environment of the prison. Get in touch with us if your release date is coming up within a year so we can start planning and preparing.

Welcome to MCI Shirley Prison where low-level drug dealers are turned into murderers. Where minor felons are instilled with such anger and resentment that they are talking mayhem as they depart through the razor wire gates. Where un-professionalism and abuse are the norm and the seeds of future killings are being sown one thousand at a whack. It is a place where it is hard to distinguish the real criminals. Do they wear gray scrubs? Do they wear paramilitary jump suits and badges, do they wear a shirt and tie, or do they wear Dolce & Gabbana skirts with Prada shoes? It is truly hard to tell.

Young men enter MCI Shirley (or “ShirleyWorld” as it is largely known) thinking they may be able to get an education through college courses or the trades. Those hopes are dashed upon the rocks of guard overtime, administrative nepotism, and complete lack of any semblance of order. The warden is deaf, the deputy is dumb, and the captain is blind. This barrel of monkeys chews upon taxpayer dollars while the young prisoner is further separated from the societal norms the rehabilitative process was meant to instill. You can see the death in their eyes. It is scary.

This vast criminal conspiracy that is the department of corruption is as much a killer as Charles Manson or Adolph Hitler were. They see with perfect vision the folly of their ways but press on with malicious intent: premeditated job security equaling death in the Mattapan Corridor. Drunken guards bring in drugs and cell phones, take out their ire on weaker prisoners and all the while talk about pay raises, time off and pension plans. They are the thieves and murderers!

The prison system spends $517,000,000 per year to diminish the safety of the streets. Criminal guards suck up $360,000,000 of that yearly budget while rehabilitative programs and education are allotted only 2% of that budget. An equation which is designed for failure. It assures repeat customers but that assurance comes at the cost of far too many lives. When will you, the taxpayer, become outraged? When will your ire replace the apathy that belays commonsense? This is a state, a country, and a land that is founded in second chances.

If you were ever afforded the tragic opportunity to tread the pathways of MCI Shirley you would witness first hand the systemic failures. There are guards everywhere – sergeants, lieutenants, captains, and multitudes of line staff – but each and every day some rehabilitative aspect of the prison is shut down due to “under-staffing.” It is a lie. The DOC has 5500 employees for about 12,000 prisoners. The guard’s union has injected so much propaganda that even Hitler would be proud of their achievements.

The time has come to reorganize the prison budget, to use these vast taxpayer dollars to actually protect the safety of the public. We must terminate the excess of secretaries, deputies, assistants, aides, clerks, etc., and invest that revenue in expansion of the college degree program. Prisoners who earn that degree in prison do not come back: they do not commit any more crimes. The recidivism rate for in-prison Boston University graduates is less than 1%. The statewide recidivism rate has hovered at about 47% for over a decade. Did you know UMass offered to come into the prisons and provide college courses for free? The DOC rejected them. Did you know that Fitchburg State had a free program at ShirleyWorld but the facility failed to support it? The reason for the folly is that there is no money in it for the DOC to have these programs.

Prisoners need real job training. Prisoners need transitional housing in lower security prisons. Such prisons cost only a fraction of what it costs to run the higher security prisons as they need less staff. This is why the guard’s union fights this at every turn. Please join forces with those who have a plan for real and effective public safety reform. the time is now for you to get involved.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade does a good job exposing the Massachusetts prison system’s lack of interest in rehabilitation and education. It is true that in Massachusetts, and across the country, prisons are providing good jobs to guards who have formed strong unions to lobby effectively for expansion of the system. It is a system whose employees have every interest in expansion and no interest in rehabilitation. The very fact that education has been proven to dramatically reduce recidivism but prisons across the country have cut or eliminated education programs is clear evidence. Further, programs such as MIM(Prisons)’s led study groups are censored as a threat to the safety and security of the prison. It’s not the criminal injustice system that cares about safety and security, they care about job security and social control. And prisons conveniently provide both: locking up the oppressed nation lumpen who might organize against imperialism and giving jobs to the labor aristocracy in the prisons.

But we disagree with this prisoner that tax payers are going to become outraged and fight this system. Both the social control and the good jobs are benefiting those tax payers. The labor aristocracy wants to protect it’s own jobs: and the prison provides a good number of these. If tax money didn’t go to prison jobs it would go to some other labor aristocracy services. And these would not be jobs benefiting the oppressed nation lumpen: that’s not something tax payers are going to get behind. On the contrary, prison guard unions successfully campaign for more pay and funding for defending white power, unlike most labor unions.

With that said, we do think there is value in exposing the lack of safety and security in the current prison system. We may gain some allies in certain battles, people who will see that the streets of Amerika are objectively less safe. But we don’t want to mislead them by appealing to their persynal interests and pretending that substantive change to the criminal injustice system is going to actually benefit them in the long run. Anti-imperialism is not in the interests of the majority of the Amerikan people, because they benefit financially from this system. And the criminal injustice system is an integral part of Amerikan imperialism.