Under Lock & Key

It seems that change in our society is only brought about by those of our populace who are considered to be radicals, so this piece is written for those radicals who are compassionate enough to care and who will take the necessary efforts to make a lasting difference for those of us who are held and tortured in Security Housing Units (SHUs), which are specifically dedicated for those prisoners who are supposed to be under the care of an institution’s mental health system. These american gulags are also known as “Psychiatric Services Units” (PSUs).

These specially dedicated SHUs are rarely, if ever, visited by outside prisoner rights organizations, to my knowledge; and the prisoners housed therein are simply forgotten. These prisoners have no representatives and no means to voice their concerns and so the atrocities accumulate unchecked.

Aggressive and sadistic prison guards have been known to pepper spray an individual until they cannot breathe due to the accumulation of micronized capsicum (pepper essence) absorbed into their lungs after the guard empties onto the individual several canisters of the corrosive irritant chemical weapon. This is not third party hearsay, I know of it personally, for it has happened to me. Of course nothing is done about it when you have the foxes guarding the henhouse.

Think a prisoner can obtain justice through the prison’s administrative grievance systems? You had better think about it again, no way. And the courts, including the federal courts, will not entertain themselves of the issues of complaint where the completion of the administrative appeals process has been denied by a corrupt prison administration; it has been made law, a statutory prerequisite otherwise known in litigation circles as a “procedural bar.” It creates gross injustice and perpetrates unchecked human abuse which is tolerated by our society, it is a blatant indication of how cruel and vicious we have become as a people.

Even more sinister is the presence of food pantries created within each of the blocks of SHU/PSU units, which are independent from the main kitchens where mainstream prisoners receive their meals. These food pantries are not under the control of licensed food service employees and are in fact totally controlled by the guards assigned to that block. Those prisoners who are targeted by the “system” quite often find themselves physically sickened by the meals they are served, meals which stink with rotten foodstuffs. Milk cartons are served bloated with full-blown contamination.

The milk is a favored vehicle to get an inmate victim to ingest a “knock-out” drug and get raped while he is unconscious. This is a fact; it has happened to me twice. Also milk is utilized in these modernized dungeons as a tool to get unsuspecting targeted prisoner victims to consume psychotropic substances which has the effect of a “truth serum” and is used as an aid in covert interrogation of all prisoners suspected by debriefer informants and snitches. And, for the same purpose targeted prisoners are placed in cells with low pressure or dysfunctional ventilation systems which are used to force irritant gasses, pepper spray or other toxic obnoxious chemical weapons through to be inhaled by the occupant of that particular cell. In addition to the above abuses, the usual torture routine includes the air cooling system on full blast in mid-winter, and the heating system turned full up in mid-summer.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We appreciate the risk that our comrades take to get reports of such horrible abuses to Under Lock & Key. Information like this is important to get out because, as this writer points out, very few people are looking at these prisons or monitoring the treatment there. But Under Lock & Key is more than a tool of exposure, it is a rallying point for activists and leaders to bring together others and work out strategies and tactics in our fight against the criminal injustice system. We should read reports like this one and be outraged. And then we should turn that outrage into action, working to educate others and build support for our fight to put an end to this system of injustice.

I want to give you some updates on some new developments around here. In the last couple of months here in the PBSP SHU we are now being given more privileges. We are now allowed 3 hour visits and the items/property that we may buy and possess was expanded so that we can now have 40 pictures, up from the previous allowed 15 pictures, we can have a bowl and cup, slippers/houseshoes, jalapeños, hot sauce, 2 pairs of sweats and thermals and two appliances, and others have already received a CD player/tape player for the radio. So it just goes to show that there was no reason to deny us such things in the first place.

Also, on 11 February 2014 Assembly Member Tom Ammiano introduced Assembly Bill No. 1652, which if passed and signed into law would limit the time validated inmates would spend in the SHU solely based on validation status to 36 months. It would also allow validated prisoners to earn and receive good time credits again. Write to: Legislative Bill Room, State Capitol, Room B22, Sacramento, CA 95814, and request a copy of the bill, or have someone on the outside go to www.leginfo.ca.gov.

Lastly, a new favorable validation case came out last year: In RE Cabrera, 216 CAL. APP. 4th 1522 C CAL. APP. 5th Dist. 2013. There’s some good news but let’s not get comfortable as we have a long way to go to abolish solitary confinement. Getting Assembly Bill No. 1652 passed would be a big step in the right direction, so get involved in any way you can and spread the word.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We’ve said before that you can’t reform torture. California Assembly Bill No. 1652 would certainly improve individuals’ lives by shortening the length of torture they face. But the state will still be terrorizing prisoners with the threat of 3 years in isolation for talking to people the state doesn’t like or sporting a tattoo they find offensive or being a member of an organization they are opposed to.

The In RE Cabrera on Habeas Corpus case may make it a little harder for the CDCR to torture people for just a tattoo as it requires that one piece of evidence used to label a prisoner a Security Threat Group member must prove a two-way relationship between the prisoner and the group. Still, the process of “validation” using secret evidence remains in place making it hard for SHU prisoners to even know if this case applies to them.

As this comrade says, we still have a long way to go to abolish solitary confinement. But the progress in terms of organizing and building an opposition to this blatant torture and social control shows that the oppressed will not put up with this forever. Once a symbol of the state’s strength over the oppressed, the torture kkkamps across the United $tates are becoming a point of weakness that exposes its oppressive nature while rallying resistance to its repression.

I’ve been confined in Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg) 23/1 lockdown for a mysterious dangerous weapon which was claimed to be found in my cell. I am considered to be a leader of a Security Threat Group (STG) and my political views and my choice to pursue activism, and communism, has unlawfully become an institutional justification to deny my access to you, to educational reading material, and more importantly I’ve been buried alive in a seg unit.

I’m escorted with full body restraints and a dog leash as if I am an animal. The administration claims that MIM(Prisons) is a threat to the order of the facility, yet no hearing officer has ever been able to point out or identify any indirect or direct word or words that encourages, promotes, or glorifies violence. On the contrary, oppression and injustice of any kind is not accepted or welcomed in the MIM(Prisons) publications. Anyone or any organization that fights for justice, fights for fair treatment in and out of the prison system, and anyone that opposes a system built on oppression and slavery will be considered an enemy of the state. I will not abandon MIM(Prisons), nor my constitutional rights to pursue education, equality, justice and freedom as a human being.

The conditions of my people are a direct reflection of the bigotry and intentional misuse of authority by the government of the United States of Amerika. The prison system in Michigan took college courses out of the prison while claiming not to have money.

By classifying someone (as an STG) the state receives more money from the government. Once a prisoner has been given the label of a “gang member” the prisoner has to remain in maximum security (level 5) where the prisoner has to go 3 years misconduct-free before the STG Coordinator will interview the prisoner and determine if s/he will be let off of STG. The problem is 85% of prisoners classified as STG aren’t gang members, and have been classified STG because the system uses it as a disciplinary scare tactic to flip prisoners against each other, and as a way to justify “selective treatment” towards prisoners who refuse to accept oppression, corruption, injustice, racism, etc.

MIM(Prisons)’s publications stand as a lifeline for freedom fighters in prison and therefore MIM(Prisons)’s publication has been placed on the prison’s restricted list. I can not find the words that will truly capture the magnitude of my appreciation for you and the supporters of MIM(Prisons). But please understand that I will never surrender to these legalized criminals clothed in the fabric of the department of corrections.

After nearly 2 years in the 23 hour lockdown setting of Ad-Seg in Texas I have recently been released to General Population - medium custody status. My experience in Ad-Seg taught me some harsh truths about the reality of the Texas criminal injustice system. I witnessed numerous beatings of the lumpen, and I watched in astonishment as Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) employees lied in order to cover up and minimize heinous acts of violence aimed at prisoners.

There isn’t any oversight. A major use of force resulting in deaths is used in exchange for calling it like it is: cold-blooded murder! On 22 October 2013 a white male prisoner housed on the Bill Clements High Security unit in Amarillo, TX was gassed to death. The prisoner was known to suffer from asthma! TDCJ employees regularly murder the lumpen with no consequences what-so-ever.

The prison conditions in Texas’ many Ad-Seg control units are deplorable. Last year the Bill SB1003 was passed during the Texas 83rd state legislative session. This bill, authored by State Senator John Carona, proposed a study be conducted by an independent committee in order to assess the policies and procedures of TDCJ in regards to how they handle prisoners housed in Ad-Seg. The goals of the committee were:

1. Reduce Ad-Seg population in Texas
   
2. Divert adults with mental illness to alternative programs instead of housing them in the torturous conditions of Ad-Seg.
   
3. Decrease the length of time adults and juveniles are housed in Ad-Seg in Texas.

Many comrades criticize MIM(Prisons) for exposing the blatant and overt racism that still exists in states such as Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Florida and California. I supported 100% the release of “The Peoples’ Lawyer” Lynne Stewart but what about Albert “Shaka” Woodfox? What about Sekou Odinga, Sundiata Acoli, Herman Bell, Jamil Al-Amin, Lorenzo Johnson, and Mumia Abu-Jamal?

Renisha McBride was shot in the face seeking help after a car accident in Dearborn, Michigan and Andy Lopez was simply playing in the street [and murdered by the pigs the same day as the prisoner with asthma mentioned above]! We cannot ignore the race issue but I believe the BLA best summed up our stance on this issue: “…Black revolution is socialist revolution, aimed at the monopoly capitalist class, its lackeys and agents, and not indiscriminately at white people. We must seek, if at all possible, to isolate the monopoly class from its white worker base of support and bring about a cleavage in amerikan society such as occurred during the Vietnam war. This must be a conscious part of our strategy…” -BLA Study Guide.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This article clearly demonstrates that prisons are not about saving (even less, making) money, they are about social control. Reducing the size of prison control units would threaten the criminal injustice system’s use of these as a tool of social control. And it would also encroach on the jobs of the many people receiving exploiter wages to run these high security units. So we’re not surprised that Texas is failing to implement a law aimed at reducing their Ad-Seg population.

We would go further than this writer in calling out not just the symptom of racism, but the cause which is national oppression. The unity of the white nation with the monopoly capitalists comes from a system that elevates the white nation and oppresses the New Afrikan, Chican@ and Indigenous nations within U.$. borders, and Third World peoples around the world. The principle contradiction in the world today is between oppressed and oppressor nations. That same contradiction is principle within U.$. borders as well, which means that while we should always strive to split off the members of the oppressor nation for the cause of anti-imperialism, their national and class interests tie them very strongly to the imperialists. It is when wars with the Third World start to impact the white nation at home, such as during the Vietnam war, that we might see conditions more favorable for splitting off a section of the white nation.

I’m a “person” on Calincarceration’s death row who is currently warehoused on the first tier of this secret torture unit at San Quentin (SQ) State Prison called the AC. Per order of the oligarchy overlords who comprise the “Institutional Classification Committee” (ICC) my appeal submitted 2 December 2013, which provides documented evidence that their decision to continue to warehouse me here is based on false disciplinary history and a capricious misapplication of local operational procedures, is being ignored. Even the CDCR 22 requests making status inquiries to Appeals Coordinators M.L. Davis and R. Baxter, and the former LIEutenant S. Fowler, now a counselor and ICC lackey (full member), return nothing except their deliberate indifference.

That excerpt of my individual situation is only one example of how California’s most dangerous Security Threat Group (STG) gets down and dirty. Mine is not an isolated incident either. It’s only one of many weapons of mass corruption the CDCR Pilot Program has utilized to minimize, obscure, and censor the fact that they really are torturing prisoners in a way that’s no different than what Phillip Garrido did to Jaycee Dugard – minus the sex crime factor. CDCR’s goal is to take more hostages, build more torture units in back yards across the state, and their hideous Pilot Program is a bait and switch attempt. CDCR’s main STG Pilot Program objective continues to be to crush, kill and destroy their hostages’ ability to organize in a peaceful protest against no touch torture and other inhumane conditions of confinement.

Expanding the definition of “disruptive groups” by adopting several new terms is really the bastard children produced by CDCR unions. It’s the sick minded schemes of bourgeois pigs behind the scenes of the Calincarceration Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA), the Amerikkkan Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCRME) and others affiliated with the CDCR who would in fact reap a profit as the additional lackeys get hired to guard the torture units popping up like 7-Elevens everywhere! Yes, that’s right. All in the name of PEACE officers AND job SECURITY (which is paid for by your taxed income).

What makes the CDCR STG “the most dangerous” is the fact that they all know what’s really going on, and know that they’re torturing prisoners. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture has clarified that only 15 days in solitary confinement constitutes torture. I’m going on two years and some here have more than 10 times that. Here, in the secret torture unit at SQ, the STG Pilot Program is still being cooked up – and with “specialized” ingredients for an even fouler taste. The AC is a sort of ground zero for testing policies, a variety of no touch torture methods, and a twist on the death penalty experiment only depraved criminal minds could have concocted. SQ death row SHU prisoners shouldn’t have to be the disposable human guinea pigs getting tortured to death in the CDCR STG Pilot Program. If the state is allowed to continue its medieval oligarchical practices resulting in another word game amounting to “de mock racy” then the public must not have realized California’s most dangerous STG is the CDCR!

send your comments to:
CDCR
Regulation and Policy Management Branch
PO Box 942883
Sacramento, CA 94283

First we should keep in mind that many folks captured in these SHUs are not guilty of what they are accused of. So long as information is extracted via torture, i.e. years of solitary confinement, then false information will be provided to the torturers. It is a fact that some humyn beings will say or do anything to stop the torture, and as a result many prisoners will be subjected to torture for false accusations.

We happened to get our hands on one of the journals that are used in the step down program. A guard slid one of them into our pod by “accident” and as you could imagine it was heavily scrutinized.

This brainwash manual has quotes of nameless supposed prisoners sprinkled throughout saying things to the effect that the supposed prisoner once blamed the system or other elements but has now realized it was her/his own fault. Each page has the following words on the bottom, “It is illegal to duplicate this page in any manner.”

The supposed purpose of this program is for prisoners to work their way out of the SHU. This will supposedly be done to allow prisoners a way, outside of informing on people, to get back to the general population. What they don’t tell you is that you will have to now go through their brainwash course. Even then they can deny you if they feel you are not sincere. But my question is, why do I have to undergo a deprogramming when I am the torture survivor? Why shouldn’t my torturer have to take classes on why it’s wrong to torture?

In the “journal,” each page asks questions, such as for the reader to list wrongdoings you have done and then asks what caused you to make these choices. Examples are given of different crimes the supposed prisoner committed. They then ask for pros and cons of crimes one committed and one is even asked if you feel sly or manipulative when you deceive people.

All these questions are asked in a way that implicates you and attempts to blame you for not just being in prison but in SHU as well. At no time is the possibilty even hinted of someone being in SHU for false allegations. There are lists of good habits and “criminal” behavior. But good habits like “caring” or “responsibility” are what we already showed in the strikes, and “criminal” behavior listed like “dishonesty” or “irresponsibility” is exactly what the state has done. Yet this brainwash journal wants us to say we are criminal if we want to advance in this de-programming or de-revolutionizing program. There is no way I will even act or role play with my torturers just to go to general population. What they are doing is wrong and rather than take them off the hook by falsely admitting to criminal behavior I will refuse their brainwash program and continue to publicize this torture and agitate for resistance in these death kamps!

MIM(Prisons) adds: This comrade asks a good question as to why it is not the torturer who has to take classes to help them understand that what they did was wrong. Of course there is a class character to every justice system, and in the United $tates we have a bourgeois state. When there was a proletarian-led state in China it was the torturers, landlords and spies for the imperialists that underwent re-education in what might be called a brainwashing program by the imperialists. The difference in the class character of the Chinese prison system and the Amerikan one is that those deemed criminals were put in communal living situations, where they had to learn to live and work together with others, where they were given reading materials, and required to study. So while the ultimate goal of getting the criminals to recognize that what they did was wrong was similar, this was done through group study and struggle, rather than long-term isolation and torture as is common for the oppressed languishing in U.$. prisons.

We do not oppose re-education as we are all products of our environment. Even in U.$. prisons, many of the oppressed locked up have committed (relatively minor) crimes as they emulate the values of the bourgeoisie. What we do oppose is torture, wasting of humyn lives, and a justice system that prioritizes profits over humyn life.

In Jacksboro, Texas, Correctional Corporation of America unit offenders with disabilities are discriminated against per 42 U.S.C. § 12132. The use of solitary confinement on prisoners with serious mental illnesses at this jail does not meet state legal standards. Offenders rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as well as the Eighth Amendment are in dire straits. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) fails to follow policy and laws. Offenders are in their cells 24 hours a day. I was placed in a psychiatric unit in Lubbock, Texas (Montford Unit) from February to September 2013, locked in a cell all the time. Then I moved to state jail and all my medications that I was given by TDCJ doctors were taken away and they told TDCJ they don’t allow that medication on this unit.

I am being given the run around fighting this because courts have ruled that private prison corporations are not a public entity merely because they have entered into a contract with a public entity to provide services. An instrument of the state is only a government unit or unit created by a government unit; as such, no title II ADA claims are applicable. The ADA does not apply to private prisons.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We have written extensively about the health effects of solitary confinement which is cruel and unusual punishment even for healthy prisoners. Those with mental health problems are even more dramatically harmed by this long-term isolation. Texas has a history of “treating” prisoners with mental illness with torture. We know that this isolation is a tool of social control in a criminal injustice system that does not care about the health of prisoners. Further, prisons use mental illness and labels, treatment and the withholding of treatment, as another tool of social control. We must fight this with our own institutions of mental health: education, persynal healthy practices, mental engagement and social interaction where possible. In addition to our educational programs and work connecting prisoners with the struggle on the streets, we distribute portions of the American Friends Service Committee’s Survivors Manual for people in control units. Write to us for a copy and for more information on how you can plug in to the anti-imperialist prison movement.

I am also working on my criminal convictions. I’ve navigated myself through multiple tiers of appeals. I really had a hard time exhausting all my state remedies in the Arizona State Courts. It took me almost eleven years to figure out, but most recently I filed my first federal habeas corpus petition in Arizona Federal District Court. I am requesting that the federal court appoint me a lawyer to investigate the possibility of state judicial corruption against the Tucson Police Department and the Pima County Attorneys Office. Last week I filed a Writ of Certiorari. This is a petition to the United States’s highest court; they only address issues involving “Constitutional magnitude.” I’m asking them to resolve the Constitutional question that was left open in Martinez V. Ryan, 623 F.3d 731, 132S.CT1309(1023) of:

“Whether a defendant in a state criminal case has a federal Constitutional Right to effective Assistance of Counsel at initial-review-collateral-proceedings specifically with respect to his ineffective-assistance-of-trial-counsel-claim.”

Because state law does not mandate Effective Assistance of Counsel during a convicted criminal’s Initial-Review Collateral Proceedings (Ariz. R. Crim. P. Rule 32), I’m able to believe that prisoners in Arizona are being discriminated against because they’re indigent and cannot afford effective counsel during their Initial-Review Collateral Proceedings. The United States Supreme Court only takes 3% of the cases filed each term, so the odds of them taking my case is nil, but imagine if they did. WOW, this would mean that a pro se litigant would have molded the law to conform to the needs of the oppressed here at the very bottom of society’s heap. A person is only as big as his dreams.

Fortunately, it does not end there. A Section 1983 Civil Rights Action prohibits a state from discriminating pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which provides that:

“No state shall… deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the Law.”

The clause is “a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike.”(City of Cleburne V. Cleburne Living ctr, 4730 U.S. 432,439 (1985))

I am determined to build a strong campaign to gain Injunctive Relief in a class action seeking to remedy the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment violations caused by Arizona Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 32’s past and continuing operations. Our actions, even if successful, will not demonstrate the invalidity of our conviction or sentence, therefore Section 1983 Class Action is the proper vehicle.(Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74,82 (2005).)

If you feel you were denied Effective Assistance of trial council, and a Fourteenth Amendment right to effective assistance of Appeals Counsel for your Initial-Review Collateral Proceedings because either you did not have an attorney during your first Rule 32, or your Arizona R. Crim. P Rule 32 Lawyer was ineffective for failing to investigate Trial Counsel claims and/or other substantial right claims during trial, it would be important to draft out a notarized affidavit outlining the facts in your specific case and send them to the addresses below. If we’re able to gain enough affidavits, then we could proceed to present these facts to a federal district court asking them to appoint class counsel and certify our case as a class action. All we can do is try! In Strength and Solidarity, Revolution!

Send your notarized affidavits to:

Arizona Prison Watch
P.O. Box 20494
PHX, AZ 85036

Middle Ground Prison Reform
139 E Encanto Drive
Tempe, AZ 85281

Arizona Justice Project
P.O. Box 875920
Tempe, AZ 85287-5930

MIM(Prisons) adds: Please note to not send your affidavits to MIM(Prisons). We do not have the resources to copy and mail your affidavits to the addresses listed above.

We commend this comrade on discovering loopholes in the legal system and attempting to remedy them to the advantage of the most oppressed in this country. We encourage comrades in Arizona to participate in this effort to provide more legal support to prisoners in the state (at least on paper).

And we must remember that our struggle cannot stop there. While a successful habeas corpus case may help a prisoner to be released, a release is only as valuable as what you do with your time when you’ve made it outside. A recently released comrade wrote of the challenges s/he will face after h parole, and the difficultes s/he will have in carrying out political work, even though s/he is supposedly now “free.” The trend toward individualism of general legal counsel is one reason why the MIM(Prisons)-led Prisoners’ Legal Clinic only works on issues directly related to expanding our ability to organize, educate, and build toward an end to illegitimate imprisonment altogether (i.e. communist society). We believe people should fight for their release, but that they also should struggle for the release of the world’s majority from the chains of imperialism.

Related to the topic of carefully selecting our battles, we have written extensively on the limitations of focusing on fighting housing mentally ill prisoners in long-term isolation.(1) Some shortcomings of this strategy are legitimization of long-term isolation for not-yet-mentally-ill prisoners, and the fact that long-term isolation leads to mental illness in prisoners even if they entered isolation with sound mind and body. Of course we agree with the principle that mentally ill prisoners should not be housed in long-term isolation. But we take it further to say that no prisoners should be housed in long-term isolation, and we see no value in selling out some comrades on this issue in order to save others; eventually everyone held in long-term isolation will suffer mental illness. Abolish the SHU!

The wardens in the California prisons that have SHUs are to meet with the prisoners to address the human rights violations that go on here and make the necessary changes to put a stop to these abuses. But here in Tehachapi they are so corrupt and unethical that they will not meet with us. Instead they took it upon themselves to intentionally not process our 602s [grievance forms]. Every 602 we file to address the ongoing neglect and abuse of authority by California Correctional Institution (CCI) officials either gets lost or rejected under made-up policies. Their reasons for rejecting them are nowhere in the Title 15 or Department Operations Manual. When we prove them wrong is when our 602s go missing.

I have brought this abuse of authority to the warden, captain, and lieutenant’s attention with no results. To my surprise I was informed that it was these high ranking officials who instructed the appeals coordinators to not process our 602s. These officials here would rather cover up and falsify state documentation instead of addressing and following their own policies. We have the documents to prove this, but if we can’t get our 602s processed then it’s pointless. These officials behave like they are above the law. They lie and openly admit that they don’t have to follow their own policies regardless of who is negatively affected.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This is a good illustration of what we mean when we call a system a bourgeois democracy. In such a system, certain freedoms are very important, especially those related to trade and exploitation. But for the oppressed peoples there is no democracy in this system. These state officials, who are bound by the laws of the state, regularly break those laws with impunity when it comes to the oppressed. That is why we say the rule of the bourgeoisie must be replaced by a rule by the proletarian class, whose interests would respect the rights of all to be free of the abuses prisoners face in the United $tates.

We believe this requirement that wardens meet with prisoners is an outcome of the recent prisoner strike in California that targeted the inhumyn conditions of isolation specifically. But it is no surprise that at CCI the high-ranking officials are denying prisoners’ access to the legal appeals system through which they are required to file. In fact, this is not specific to CCI; we hear regularly about grievances being “lost” in many prisons. And this is why the campaign to demand grievances be addressed was initiated in California in 2010. This campaign won’t solve the larger problem of torture in the SHU, or overall corruption in the criminal injustice system, but it gives prisoners a systematic way to fight for their limited legal rights to appeal wrongdoing by the prison staff. Write to us today for a copy of the grievance petition for your state. Organizing around this campaign is one way to organize the oppressed nations and classes to eventually replace those in power now.

I am a Georgia prisoner of war at Hancock State Plantation and just recently on 13 November 2013 I was locked down with numerous others on a Tier II program of “gang control” for long-term lock down. The administration says we are a threat to the security and welfare of the institution. We were stripped of all our property, including hygiene, and given state issue everything.

They tell us that the program is for behavior modification, which is crazy considering most of us haven’t been to Ad-Seg in years. But they tell us the qualification for this program runs 5 years prior sanctions. We are not allowed to receive mail, literature, or be involved in programs for any type of reform even though certain inmates are required by courts to take classes in order to be released.

We only get one 15-minute phone call a month on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which are working days to the employed across the United $tates. The phones turn on at 8am and are cut off at 4:30pm. On top of all this, our visitations are on the same days as our phone calls and we are allowed to have only 2 hours of non-contact visits with a 2-person max of visitors. Most of our families travel more than 2 hours just to see us.

Due to the lack of professionalism, or to the abundance of corruption, we do not receive our 5 hours of outside recreation, nor do we receive cell clean up, which is a violation of our prisoner rights per Georgia Department of Corrections Standard Operating Procedures. We are forced, by coercion of disciplinary reports and gas accompanied by a strip cell, to have a cellmate even though this is a long-term lock down unit and we are considered a threat to the security of the institution and other persons. I heard the warden tell the captain pig “to let us kill each other.”

Nine months is the minimum time you can be held in this Tier II program, but if you receive a Disciplinary Report (D.R.) 90 more days are added to your stay. There are seven close security plantations in Georgia that have this Tier II program and they can hold us up to 2 years in each one, which is 14 years in isolation all together if they choose to hold you that long.

The pigs tend to aggravate and irritate us to react out of frustration so we can receive a D.R. They do everything intentionally in order to trick us into longer stay in Ad-Seg. They know that if everyone was to complete this program in 9 months they wouldn’t have any program.

What’s so fishy about this sudden occurrence of a Tier II program in Georgia is that earlier this year the Crips, Bloods, and GDs came to a peace treaty in order for us to unite against the pigs’ oppression. We are not organized to the point of a name, but we are upholding the principles of the United Front. We are trying to educate our comrades in a more revolutionary mentality. As of now, most of the leaders and the more influential participants are locked down in Ad-Seg and I don’t find this a coincidence. The pigs hate the idea of us uniting in peace and not killing each other.