Under Lock & Key

A local news station went viral when they started a live mass interview with prisoners held in State Correctional Institution - Huntingdon in Pennsylvania as part of their coverage of Luigi Mangione’s imprisonment. The innovative reporter asked questions on live TV and had prisoners respond by yelling answers and flashing lights to their local correspondent on the ground. What follows are a couple of on the ground reports to verify that event and the conditions exposed in that video.

$prayer wrote on 3 January 2025: The area where our brother Luigi was/is held is called: D-Max, D-Rear, D-Obs. It is where they (Huntingdon) puts people when they want to grind them up. It is atrocious back there, dirty and disgusting. You probably seen the pictures from the news of it.

The media was camped out here for a couple of weeks after Luigi was caught here in Blair County. This jail is the worst jail in the state of Pennsylvania as for living conditions. Light/night lights in the cells in the RHU are constantly on 24/7/365. In D-Max, you might as well be sleeping outside.

Back here in the RHU if you don’t cover up your air vent you get freezing cold because it’s all cold air coming out, no heat even in the winter.

Just the other day multiple C/Os (Correctional Officers) and a Sergeant took a prisoner to the property room in the Restricted Housing Unit (RHU) where there are no cameras and beat the comrade because he wrote a nurse that works here a letter and sent it to her at her place of residence.

I’ve also enclosed documents of an assault I received here. [The grievance response confirms the comrade’s report that CO1 N. Metzgar assaulted em with OC spray in September for no reason at all.]

A Pennsylvania prisoner wrote on 14 January 2025: The part of the prison that was featured on NewsNation (The Bandfield Show); providing the “Lights Show” that went viral, is an old add-on to the “Older” prison structure that extends beyond the original structure. Whereas, there are 2 extended Blocks: E-Block, which is the Block that went viral with the light show, and F-Block, which is the so-called “honor block”. Both E and F-Blocks assume perks. However, the perks are minuscule in that such entails being in a cell with a window and radiator. The rest of the prison is Shawshank Redemption style with cells stacked by tiers and its steel bars and levelers to latch close and to release cell gates. The cells are the size of a small bathroom at best, and they are mostly occupied by 2 persons. However, the top 3 and 4 tiers (depending on the Blocks) are single cells only to relieve some of the weight as a solution to the structural damages. Prisoners are essentially housed on Blocks that should have been condemned decades ago. The Blocks that are indicated as condemned online are in fact fully occupied. Thus, prisoners are essentially threatened by structurally hazardous living conditions. Although SCI-Huntingdon isn’t up to code or PREA compliance, its cost efficiency to operate due to its outdated mechanics rather offsets payment for fines.

The compound is not only structurally hazardous, but black mold continues to persist due to an old leaky plumbing system and mold breeding conditions such as constant moisture, lack of ventilation and inadequate lighting. There is no central air conditioning units on any of the cell blocks. For the exception of the aforementioned E and F Blocks, there are radiators situated on the ground floor of the prison Blocks, and it’s only the few that works that provide the only source of heating. And since there is no air conditioning, summers are insufferable, and attributable to many heat-related illnesses, along with many bouts of psychotic episodes. The brick cells hold heat like an oven, which consequently exacerbates the health conditions of our geriatric population. To add insult to injury, SCI-Huntingdon has a rat and pest infestation. Currently, there are cell blocks riddled with bedbugs, while enduring spider bites is common.

The showers contemporarily violate PREA standards, in that the showers consist of an open area without privacy stalls, and therefore, the only means of privacy while showering is wearing boxers or shorts. Since the pandemic ravished Huntingdon’s prison population the justification to close the dining hall and relegate food trays which are barely room temperature to be eating in our cells is the new norm. Meanwhile, recreation is limited due to implementations of said “new norm” policies. These conditions are agitated by an administration that has a culture that’s attitudinally antagonistic, indifferent, incompetent, and explicitly racist. The majority of SCI-Huntingdon’s prison population are people serving extraordinary lengths or death by incarceration sentences. And this population is situated in a small rural district that’s otherwise economically depleted due to the industrialization of its farming and agricultural economy.

Thus, Huntingdon’s prison population essentially compensates for its depressed economy by counting its prison population in the census to meet requirements for federal funding and political representation for its district. As an additional point of reference, SCI-Huntingdon makes up for a bulk of the production for PA Corrections Industries. Wherefore, there’s no wonder that in spite of the conditions, which warrants its closing and demolition, the corporate/private socioeconomic interest politically outweighs the civil rights and fundamental safety of its prisoners. This dynamic is not far removed from what the Mangione case represents. Although his alleged act represents a revolt against the exploitations of corporate healthcare insurance industries, there’s a message that’s also fitting to a corporate America that’s allowed to exploit the people’s labor and basic needs on every level of society. Indeed we live in a society where corporate America is the pimp, the Government is the whore, the people are the tricks and the police enforce, protect and serve this dynamic.

While the Magione case is made specific to the basic need and right to adequate health care, such should represent to the people the primary contradiction of capitalism, which exposes a common enemy vested in a political system that panders and facilitates the corporate exploitations attributed to mass death, mass incarceration, mass inflation, and the mass affect of imperialism. However, individual acts of revolution which can serve as effective propaganda are often hijacked and trivialized by reactionaries, which are undermined by the corporate media apparatus. Although, it’s my hope that such a message would galvanize the common sense of the people, and assume a superstructure concentrated on power to the people, rather than a cult of individualism where our grief is isolated and our passions to transform the world is reduced to alienation.

MIM(Prisons) responds: The class dynamics around health care are described in the article we put out on the Mangione case. While people in this country suffer from the health care system, the wealth exploitation is happening in the Third World and bringing wealth to the whole population in the United $tates and other imperialist countries.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As a person who has been the target of long-standing censorship campaigns, i would like to give my voice to the discussion around censorship in this time of organizing against this tool of counter-insurgency.

Recently, in Texas’ prison system, an anthology that speaks to the torture of solitary confinement was censored. The reason given is that it purportedly contains content that threatens the security of the prison by encouraging prisoners to engage in disruptive behavior such as strikes, etc. i took part in this anthology and to be clear there is not any language speaking to the disruption of the prison system. There is language that speaks to the dismantling of long-term/indefinite solitary confinement, which is illegal in many places, is considered torture internationally, and which the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) itself admits may cause harm or damage to the mental health of the affected person. So the thinking of the thought police is that it is a threat to security to speak out against torture, but it is not a threat to security to maintain torturous conditions. What sense does that make?

This censorship is of the second volume of this anthology series called Texas Letters (see: texasletters.org). Volume one, which contains the same sort of content from many of the same writers, is approved. So what happened between the time of January 2023 and May of 2024, the respective release of each volume? A one word answer: Success. The first volume was released at the beginning of the last state legislature session. A session where a coalition of people were behind House Bill 812 (HB812), a bill intended to end indefinite solitary confinement. As a way to increase the popularity of the bill the book was distributed to all the law makers. Ultimately the bill didn’t pass, however the promotion of the direct letters and experiences of those incarcerated in solitary confinement in Texas grew. The prolific female writer Kwaneta Harris, who has been in solitary confinement for years, was featured in various high profile publications including The New York Times, speaking to the experience of solitary confinement in Texas, particularly how it is in prisons designated for women. Al-Jazeera and NPR featured interviews on the book and the experiences of Texas solitary confinement. Advocates continue to build momentum and public opinion against the use of solitary Confinement, and it is upon this back drop that when Texas Letters Volume 2 appeared, it was censored throughout the state prison system.

This is a move tyrants use to quell social discourse; to control the narrative and therefore evolution of the system never comes. This is a move to quell any form of resistance. Even that which is peaceful becomes a “threat to the security of the institution”, those who take part in such actions become “threats to the security of the institution” people known for “organizing and influencing other inmates” and therefore are confined in solitary confinement or held in said confinement if already there.

This process of events is no surprise. It is a reflection of the practices coming out of the highest level of government in the state, directly a representation of the tyrannical regime Greg Abbott desires and runs himself.

See, in Texas, the Governor appoints the Executive Director of TDCJ, the Texas Board of Criminal Justice, and the parole and pardons board. The Director’s Review Committee (DRC) is the body that governs censorship inside the prisons. This committee is appointed by the Director. So what We end up with is a DRC of political appointees, appointed by a political appointee, a gang of political careerists, all kissing the ring of the top man, the governor of Texas, all falling in line with his neo-confederate agenda. As such We have a prison system that is over saturated with Christian fundamentalism, stale reforms, faith-based programs, and because any volunteer program has to go through the chaplaincy department there is no secular, dissident voices, programs or activities. All because TDCJ is in the business of cultivating ZOMBIES, those who talk when and how they’re told, walk when and how they’re told, think when and how they’re told. This is considered reform and anything outside of that is a threat to security worthy of censorship.

This type of tyranny should be important to everyone because We should want to stop this sort of government over-reach before it becomes too extreme. Tyranny only becomes emboldened with time and a lack of resistance of its subjects.

Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona as a private prison is being run illegally by these authorities: WARDEN - Sean Wead, Assistant WARDEN - Jody Bradley, HAWAII CONTRACT MONITOR - Jennifer Bechler and others.

Here, disciplinary segregation is run against CoreCivic policy and by law from the above, because they are segregating only the Hawai’i prisoners for over one (1) year in a segregated unit. And no matter how you look at it, there is no way out, not even if you take them to court, because the courts here in Arizona for SCC all work together to just get free money off the Hawai’ian prisoners when we file a lawsuit.

Help Our Hawai’ian Population

They have this thing that they call SHIP. No policies pursuant to any law authorizes SHIP. SHIP is identified as Special Housing Incentive Program.

CoreCivic does not provide “intensive program” within SHIP:

• Does not provide substance abuse treatment
• Does not provide education
• Does not provide comprehensive programs
• Does not provide vocational opportunities to prepare prisoners for a successful re-entry into society or the general population

SHIP does not support academic development through Adult Basic Education (ABE) or General Equivalency Diploma (GED). Therefore SHIP lacks any penological goal or correctional interest.

Why does Hawai’i support SHIP when it does not help our Hawai’ian population? Our people deserve better. SHIP is fraud. CoreCivic is degrading our Hawai’ian people.

Halawa Correctional Facility (the state prison in Honolulu, Hawaii) does not recognize SHIP, so how does CoreCivic get away with it here?

The First Amendment authorizes anyone to grieve the government. Due Process requires at the minimum some type of hearing to be held. The Eighth Amendment, which is “cruel and unusual punishment” as well as “retaliation” is heavy in this private prison of Saguaro Correctional Center. And these authorities just get away with it. It is wrong for the law to do that to innocent prisoners that are only trying to go home to their family and learn from the mistakes that led them to prison.

MIM(Prisons) adds:In 1995, 300 Hawai’ian prisoners were shipped from occupied Hawai’i to the occupied Sonoran Desert, where CoreCivic (at the time the Corrections Corporation of America) runs the Saguaro Correctional Center. This was billed as a “temporary measure” to deal with extreme overcrowding in prisons on the Hawaiian islands. But it was not temporary. Today there are about 1000 Hawaiians there, and at the peak there were about 1,500.

Just over a year ago, Hawaii News Now got rare video access to Saguaro CC for an apparent fluff piece to appease growing concerns among Hawai’ians for the people being shipped there. The story praises the program for giving access to cleaner, less crowded prisons where there are more programs for rehabilitation preparing people for their release back to Hawai’i.(1) According to the author above, it seems everything took a sharp change after Hawaii News Now left, or someone was lying.

While only 10% of the population of the state of Hawai’i today, Native Hawai’ians and Pacific Islanders make up 44% of the prison population.(2) In 2010, Pacific Islanders were 1.5% of the prison population in Arizona, despite being 0.2% of the state population. This is due primarily to the shipping of Hawaii’s prisoners to Saguaro CC.

Hawai’i is one of the internal semi-colonies of the United $tates. We report regularly on the disproportionate targeting of the internal semi-colonies for imprisonment, and once in prison, for isolation. So it is no surprise that Hawai’ians are facing similar repression by Amerikans. We support this comrade’s call, and hope we can play a role in the campaign to bring Hawaiian prisoners home.

<sup>Notes:
1. Lynn Kawano, 15 December 2022, These prisoners have access to better facilities. The price? They’re 3,000 miles from home, Hawaii News Now.
2. Prison Policy Initiative profile on Hawaii, using data from 2021.</sup>

Comrades, I know most of you are aware of the fact that we are a study specimen for experimental purposes but let me give you some details about one of these experiments that most of you are familiar with.

“Behavior Control & Human Experimentation”

These are two names with the same meaning: Behavior Modification & Special Holding Units.

SHU -> These are units that have been specifically designed to control behavior. Here is where human experimentation is legal. The purpose of these experiments is to control rebellious and revolutionary attitudes in the prison system and in society at large. In several instances the control units have been used to “Silence Prison Movement Criticism”. In 1964 at a meeting in Washington between social scientists and prison wardens addressing the topics of “man against man”, brainwashing was said to produce marked changes of behavior in attitudes necessary to weaken, undermine & remove the supports of the old patterns of behavior and old ideologies attitudes. It’s often necessary to break these emotional ties. This can be done by either removing the individual physically, preventing communication with those whom the prisoner cares about, or by proving to him that those whom he respects aren’t worthy of it and should indeed be actively mistrusted.

I will share a few specific examples:

1. Physical removal of prisoners from those they respect to positively break and seriously weaken close emotional ties

2. Segregation of natural leaders

3. Use of cooperative prisoners as “leaders”

4. Prohibition of group activities not in line with brainwashing objectives

5. Spying on prisoners & reporting back private material

6. Tricking prisoners to write statements which are then shown to others

7. Exploitation of opportunists & informers

8. Convincing prisoners they can trust no one

9. Treating those who are willing to collaborate in more lenient ways than those who are not

10. Punishing those who show an uncooperative attitudes

11. Systemic withholding of mail

12. Preventing contact with anyone unsympathetic to the method of treatment & regimen of captive populace

13. Building a group conviction among the prisoners that they have been abandoned by and totally isolated from their social order

14. Undermining all emotional supports

15. Preventing prisoners from writing regarding the conditions of their confinement

16. Making available and permitting access to only those publications which are neutral or supportive of the desired attitudes

17. Placing individuals into new and ambiguous situations from which the standards are kept deliberately unclear and then pressuring them to conform to what is desired to win favor and some respite from the pressure

18. Placing individuals whose willpower has been severely weakened or eroded into a living situation with several others who are more advanced in their thought-reform, whose job it is to further undermine the individual’s emotional support

19. Using techniques of character invalidation; i.e. humiliations, revilement, and shouting to induce feelings of guilt, fear & suggestibility coupled with sleeplessness, an exacting prison regimen & periodic interrogation-interviews.

20. Meeting with renewed hostility all the insincere attempts to comply with prisoners’ pressures

21. Repeatedly pointing out to the prisoner and their cellmates where he has in the past not lived up to his own standards or values

22. Rewarding of submission and subservience by lifting of the pressures

23. Providing social & emotional support that reinforces new attitudes

Comrade, if any of these points were used on you then you have been part of the experiment.

U.$. Imperialists have tried to manipulate our environment and culture, in particular those who belong to oppressed minority groups. Reader, you might question “What they mean by Revolutionary attitudes??”

In this experiment it evidently refers to anyone who thinks and behaves as an individual, who they feel must be made to become part of their subservient system. The point is to make people less human and “subject entirely to their will!”

Comrades, we should be truly aware and on guard that the above techniques to condition people are now general practice in most if not all prisons, state and federal throughout the United $tates as well as in workplaces, schools, and other government organizations.

The author of this article has have been in the SHU-EM at a prison in Florida State and I’m a true witness that all this has been in effect for almost forty years, and what is worse is… its working!!

Don’t be part of the experiment, don’t let the system work on you – be strong minded and of impeccable heart as well as relentless spirit. Imperialism might be able to kill a Revolutionary but never the internal Revolution of the soul!

“[A]ll over the world now the institution of the prison serves as a place to warehouse people who represent major social problems.” - Angela Y. Davis

Looking at the incarcerated world around us, it is no wonder the numbers of New Afrikan and other darker hued people who are captive is so high. It is no wonder why the level of illiteracy is most highly concentrated among the incarcerated. It is no wonder the level of schooling is low among the captive population. It is no wonder why there is more money invested in mental health services behind bars than in free world facilities.(1)

All this means that when we imagine our resistance against prison systems we must see prison as being more than just the place where people who commit crimes are sent. We have to begin to analyze the interconnected and multi-layered oppression within prison.

A key feature in warfare is physical violence. In prison, “official” physical violence is documented as use of force. The most use of force and most excessive use of force in Texas takes place at Bill Clements, specifically amongst its PAMIO program participants. PAMIO, for those who do not know, is a psychiatric program designed for those in Ad-Seg.

If you follow the logic, Texas residents with psychiatric illness are more likely to be held captive by the state, while in captivity they have a greater chance to be held in Administrative segregation (Ad-Seg). While in Ad-Seg their psychiatric state is likely to deteriorate and they are likely to face “official” physical violence at the hands of their captors at greater numbers than those without documented psychiatric history.

Conditions At Clements

Our situation at Bill Clements Unit Ad-Seg or ECB, Extended Cell Block they call it, has not improved. Although less deaths we are seeing a rise in starvation, torture, neglect, and unsupervised migrant workers running the prison as they see fit with little to no training. Regardless of what administration says. These Africans on this unit have not been taught day rules, standard operating procedures, and have zero regard for this so called rule book. And why shouldn’t they when there is no enforcement and or reprimand on the side of TDCJ.

During the last shakedown, a state-wide attempt to catch contraband, they had me in a cage outdoors for 2 hours while they tossed my cell. Guards and inmates watched me in handcuffs while Major Pacheo instructed Field Boss Shrader to steal all my electronics and commissary food items – over 200 dollars worth. All this I believe is because my toilet hasn’t worked for months and I keep requesting maintenance but it never comes. Same with the broken shower and the water leak resulting in a wet floor. I have receipts for all the electronics and commissary items they stole, and I listed all this and the witnesses on grievance – they put the witnesses on chain! Nobody goes on chain unless it’s to Montford Psych or hospital.

The second week of December we were allowed to shop commissary, the second time in 4 months. Breakfast chow consisted of two tablespoons of scrambled eggs with a quarter inch of grits and applesauce. In total it was 4 spoons of food. For lunch and dinner we had a cheese sandwich. They back-doored commissary with a shakedown and stole what we purchased.

I was allowed 1 hour out of my cell twice this year. The “weekly” library ran 9 times. Average time to see a mental health professional is 9-12 months. Delivered mail can sit in the mail room for over 6 months. They are understaffed and don’t have enough people to properly run the facility. Once they tried to put some beef on dough and call it pizza, it was not cooked and the meat was bad. Raw dough and spoiled meat. No shit. No exaggeration.

Not feeding us is not only to starve us but to keep us from relaxing. We are constantly fasting involuntarily. The hunger keeps us anxious and irritable, to put it mildly. In my pod of 60 I have seen 12 people lifted out on stretchers this year, nobody checking for a pulse or performing CPR. That’s 1 per month on average. This cell is worse than the third world POW camps I visited during my time in the USMC. The corruption is so bad with so many hands in the cookie jar that one cannot even get a judge to hear them out about violations. TDCJ just ignores our requests and cites their lack of staff as to why they have nobody to process the documents.

War in Ferguson

On November 16th all the interconnected elements of prison war worked together on the Ferguson unit as five officers, unprovoked and without cause, entered the cell of two men demanding they submit to a complete strip search and handcuffs. When one of the captives asked why, he was immediately hit in his face with closed fist by CIT Gates while SGT Vasquez grabbed the captive’s head and slammed it against the concrete wall, causing injury. The captive fell to the ground and was kicked, his head was banged against the floor repeatedly. Afterwards he was dragged to the run, outside of the cell, where he was continuously kicked in his face and was even stood on. The entire time other captives were yelling in protest for the guards to stop, but they refused. While on another row, but hearing what was happening, I began launching projectiles from my cell. Eventually this caused the guards to cease their beating. They escorted the beaten man away, then returned minutes later to handcuff and escort me.

I was housed in solitary two cells down from the victim. I had the opportunity to speak with him for the first time, find out first hand what took place. He also shared with me his history of intellectual disabilities, and mild history of psychiatric illness. He had been adopted at a young age and raised in the foster care system. Our time near each other came to a close after the pressures of solitary confinement pushed this brother to attempt suicide. Days later as a result of this incident I was notified by the Ferguson Unit Warden Wheat that I would be reassigned to Administrative Segregation, under trumped up charges of assault on staff with a weapon.

Attempts to appeal the reassignment to Ad-Seg have been hampered by Unit Grievance Officer D. Turner not allowing my appeal of classification to go through.

I have personally reported the unprovoked excessive assaults these same clique of guards have taken part in in the five months I’ve been on Ferguson. There is a culture of unmitigated brutality here and the slightest show of counter-force is excessively punished. Warden Wheat has been made aware of this clique of pigs constantly assaulting people without cause, he has ignored or punished reporters.

Prison is War. Prison is Violence. Administrative Segregation is the highest form of it, where prisoncrats are allowed to hide you and abuse you away from any and all scrutiny. A tool that is used to throw away resisters in the prison battlefield. End RHU!

^{Sources: (1) Angela Y. Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle, pp. 23-24.}

Yesterday, National Public Radio (NPR) aired an interview with a former prisoner in Iran to discuss the recent release of 5 Amerikan citizens from an Iranian prison. The focus was on the horrible effects of solitary confinement and how to adapt to being back in society.

In our 2008 survey of long-term solitary confinement in the United $tates, we found that there were over 90,000 people suffering in those conditions. It is strange for the NPR story to not have mentioned this problem at home as well, or how the oppressed people in this country fair after years in torture cells. The NPR report spoke of “death chambers” in the Iranian prison, yet the United $tates has electric and now injection chairs with viewing areas and what they call “death row” in prisons across this country (though only about a dozen states are actively murdering prisoners in recent years).

The United $tates has long had the highest imprisonment rate across the world. They even boasted a higher imprisonment rate of Black people than the internationally condemned apartheid regime in South Africa.

The one-sided depiction of prisons and solitary confinement in Iran on NPR revealed a strong bias in their reporting. Yet what was most shocking to learn was that these people coming out of Iranian prisons were being offered what sounded like a fully immersive program through the U.$. military for dealing with the mental anguish of being in long-term solitary confinement.

Really? Yet every year we have comrades who are released from the same conditions in this country with nothing but a parole officer watching over them, often sabotaging their efforts to maintain a job and build a new life. Tens of thousands of people every year are released from long-term solitary in the United $tates, either into general population prisons or to the streets, with no concern for their mental well-being from the state. Who the U.$. imperialists offer mental health services to is a political decision, and it is our politics that guide us to offer help to those the imperialists will not.

As of last week, the California Mandela Act (AB 280) passed a supermajority in the state house and senate, heading next to the desk of Governor Newsom. Newsom vetoed the Mandela Act just one year ago. An aspiring presidential candidate, Newsom is likely to reject the calls from the state legislator to stop this torture again. This is over a decade after the historic California hunger strikes that called for an end to long-term solitary confinement, leading to the 2015 Ashker vs. CDCR settlement where those sacrifices led only to individuals being released from the SHU, leaving the institution in place. [UPDATE: The bill has been stalled to negotiate with the Governor and will not be passed in 2023.]

For comrades currently suffering in torture cells in U.$. prisons, you can write to us for back issues of Under Lock & Key on solitary and materials from the American Friends Service Committee on dealing with isolation. For comrades who are getting out, who have spent long periods in solitary, our Re-Lease on Life Program attempts to offer mentoring, guidance and political engagement to ease the transition back into society. Meanwhile, we encourage everyone to get involved in the struggle to abolish long-term solitary confinement in this country completely.

Because over 100,000 people face torture in solitary in the United $tates every year with no imperialist Army programs for rehabilitation offered afterwards, we must develop independent institutions of the oppressed to address this material need among the oppressed masses in this country.

I am continuing the fight in the struggle. I am recently lied on by the oppressors’ corrupt gang unit here saying I was organizing an unauthorized group activity and that I’m a leader of the White Panther Movement. They also said that I was trying to organize a riot and take over the prison from the guards because I try to unite and educate. They don’t like it. So I am in solitary awaiting to be placed in SHU here in the corrupt Ohio Concentration Camps.

I am filing grievances against the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Corrections, because while in SHU we cannot order no books – not even legal books. Then last time I was placed in solitary they lost my legal book “self help litigation manual” and now they won’t allow me to re-order it at my own cost.

So the inspector has put fake tickets saying I threatened him, false. So know I am truly at war here.

Now in solitary they won’t allow no porter to my door to pass me a reading book or nothing. The library lady won’t bring me nothing either. So I’m in it.

Since Our last update regarding the J.F.I., and its three phase plan to magnify the genocidal practices, policies and procedures ever present within the Amerikan criminal justice system, there has been slight progress in our phase two, or the national phase of this campaign.

Namely, the U.$. DOJ has begun to respond to the hundreds of grievance petitions and testimonials sent to them last year. U.$. DOJ has shown interest in further investigating incidents of excessive use of force, and lack of staff. This is only what has been reported from Texas comrades, and We hope to hear more from others around the country as responses pour in.

Along these same lines, We have recently begun corresponding with a legal aid organization who has reached out to us, interested in representing prisoner’s litigation efforts which are socio-politically motivated in nature. They’ve expressed interest in assisting us in the J.F.I. campaign going forward, as this partnership develops We’ll keep you all informed.

An Update on Legislation Efforts in Texas

Through the last 180 days a lot of time and energy has been refocused in support efforts regarding legislation beneficial to the Texas prisoner class.

We have been focused on the following bills and resolutions:

1. HB 2834, relating to minimum wage for inmates in certain work programs.
2. HB 782, gives authority to trial court to modify a defendants sentence.
3. HB 812, regarding limitation on use of Administrative segregation.
4. HB 1362, relating to the use of the death penalty and life without parole in capital crimes for people younger than 21 years old.
5. HB 1736, relating to conspiracy and law of parties and criminal responsibility in capital cases.
6. House Joint Resolution 63, regarding the explicit outlawing of slavery and servitude.

In Our efforts to abolish Ad-Seg, there was a book released and passed around to current legislators at the beginning of the session in January. The book, Texas Letters Volume 1, is an anthology consisting of prisoners first hand accounts of their experiences in long term solitary confinement in Texas. Despite these and other efforts it seems as though HB 812 will not pass this session.

In Our efforts to magnify HB 1362 and HB 1736, there is a current publication in the works specifically dedicated to telling the stories of those affected by the Law of Parties and the death penalty and life w/o parole at the ages below 21. Surprisingly, this is a bi-partisan effort. Despite this it has not yet been passed. People on the ground are developing different ways to get the information about this issue disseminated more widely to the public.

On Other Efforts in Texas

Seeing that Our efforts in the legislation campaign have not been fruitful, We’ve channeled Our energy toward more cadre building through establishing Authentic In Manhood, Masculinity and Maturity (A.I.M) and its sub section Political Education 101, a series of seminars giving insight into the basic essentials of revolutionary political and social theory. We hope these efforts bear more fruit in the near future.

An Update on the Forever Protecting Our Community Organization

Since the introductory article presenting FPC to the ULK audience, i would like to inform you that the FPC organization has established a local community garden, promoting food sovereignty, and has begun to launch a program designed to combat open air sex and human trafficking in the local area. FPC has also taken part with other organizations in a memorial for people who’ve lost their lives to police terrorism and gang violence, members of the FPC have been active in mentoring youth in anti-drug and anti-gang counseling providing school supplies, and feeding the people. The organization’s political line continues to mature, and we continue to observe this movement closely.

Dare to Invent the Future