MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
I was impressed with the research behind the articles about Suboxone
in ULK 75 and 76. I first heard of this substance four years
ago when individuals showed up on the yard (at Richard J. Donovan) that
were using it. Someone I associated with informed me that it was like
methadone and that it was highly addictive. I know that guys here at
California Medical Facility are using Suboxone whether it’s prescribed
to them or not. In fact, illicit drugs of all types are available here,
even during the quarantine lockdown when there were no contact visits
allowed!
Also, this facility is holding a food sale to “raise money for the
Special Olympics.” The offering of a chicken sandwich, potato chips and
a cookie for $22.00 doesn’t seem like a good deal to me. Especially
considering that only a small percentage would go to the Special
Olympics and that 10% goes to the “Inmate Welfare Fund”. Is this a scam
or what!?
An article in San Quentin News on a similar fund raiser
reads:
“Prisoners spent $63,000 with 10% of the profits going to a
charity.”
I see these sales as another scheme to extract money from prisoners
and their families and friends and that the real benefactors for these
“charities” are the CDCR.
There is another article in the same newspaper on the GTL tablets
that are being pushed on us. I’ve read some of the specifications for
these tablets and they are of course cheap pieces of crap. They are
entirely dedicated to make GTL money pure and simple. How do companies
like GTL get away with it? Here is some key points from the article:
“GTL is the phone service provider for all CDCR prisons…. According
to Prison Legal News (PLN), GTL has had to pay out millions of
dollars to settle lawsuits over the years for alleged violations of the
Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (TCPA).
“In October 2020 a New Jersey judge approved a $25 million settlement
agreement between GTL and New Jersey prisoners who paid up to 100 times
the actual phone rate between 2006 and 2016, according to
PLN.
“The company has also been sued for charging unlawfully inflated
prices for collect calls made by incarcerated people throughout the
U.S.”
MIM(Prisons) adds: We whole-heartedly agree with this
comrade’s assessment of these money-making schemes. We call this
extortion, prisoners are forced to pay higher prices for things because
there is no other option for them.
The Chik-Fil-A sandwich with waffle chips and a cookie that CDCR was
charging $22 for is about $8 on the street. They’re charging prisoners
almost 3 times the normal price! If $2.20 is going to charity, where’s
the other $12 going?
For more on the topic of tablets, see “A
Strategic Objective to Disrupt and Surveil the Communication Between
Prisoners and Our Loved Ones” in ULK 76. The article on GTL
tablets claims they offer “secure email”, which is a joke because we
know GTL and CDCR staff can read anything you send on those things. In
other cases, companies have charged prisoners for things like ebooks
that are free in the public domain. GTL loves it because they charge
prisoners extortion-level subscription fees for very restricted content,
and CDCR loves it because it increases the ease of surveillance. The
article also promotes the tablets as pacifiers, like suboxone, to keep
the prison population docile.
I’m just writing to say hi and thank you. I got my latest issue of
Under Lock & Key no.76. I love your newspaper even though I
don’t agree with a lot of the stuff you say about Suboxone. I’m on it
myself and there’s nothing to do in prison, so a lot of people use
drugs.
I had overdosed 3 or 4 times, but always had a celly who brought me
back. Then, I had a celly I stabbed so I no longer could have a cell
mate. If I were to overdose again I’d probably die. They started giving
us Suboxone and I stopped using heroin – I no longer want or need heroin
or meth or anything else. My suboxone is perfect.
Over my 10-plus years in prison, most drugs enter the prisons through
the cops, C.O.s, nurses, and other free staff, not visiting. I always
had and sold drugs, then when I got a couple pen pals and my family came
back into my life I stopped. Even the Prison Legal News noticed
during the pandemic a
lot of drugs were still entering jails and prisons even though there
were NO in-person visiting in a lot of states. But anyways, I love
your newspaper: keep up the great work.(1)
I’m sending you 7 more stamps – I’ll send them whenever I can. I know
you guys are a non-profit and can use all the help you can get.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We thank this reader for this
perspective. In past
articles, and again in this
issue, we address the spreading use and abuse of Suboxone in
prisons, both state-authorized and not. This occurs despite Suboxone
being marketed as a tool to help with addiction. Our point is not to say
that people who have found Suboxone helpful are wrong to use it or wrong
that it can help. But like so many drugs under capitalism it is
overly-prescribed, and abused widely without prescriptions in the black
market. This serves a couple interests: the pharmaceutical companies
profit interests, and the oppressors’ interest in social control.
We promote bigger solutions to the problem of drug addiction. Whether
Suboxone is a tool some people need in today’s world we have not taken a
position on. But we can say that through revolutionary organizing and
liberation from imperialism we can overcome, and virtually eliminate
drug addiction without the use of drugs like Suboxone.(2) As this
comrade says, many people do drugs in prison because there is nothing to
do. And things that people might be engaged in that would keep them off
drugs are often discouraged or punished, such as political organizing.
The comrade also found that being able to have basic social interactions
with people that cared about em also got em to stop using drugs. This
supports our position that long-term isolation is torture.
Another thanks to this reader for sending 7 additional stamps. July
4th is our annual Fourth of You-Lie fundraising campaign, where we ask
all of our subscribers that are able, to send us 7 stamps for their
annual subscription to Under Lock & Key. To say we are a
“non-profit” is a bit misleading as non-profits generally have grant
money and paid staff and such. We have none of that. Our “staff” is our
comrades who also fund all our work from our pockets. So yes, we can use
the help. And small contributions from lots of supporters is the kind of
mass base we need to make our work sustainable.
Texas has been overtly operating a slave trade for decades. You may
be surprised to know that people still wrestle with distinguishing the
difference between being incarcerated and being enslaved. This is why
after the countrywide prison demonstrations of 9 September 2016, Bennu
Hannibal Ra Sun of the FREE ALABAMA MOVEMENT said that he noticed a
dragnet pattern after 15 to 20 interviews where they kept asking why we
refer to incarceration as slavery. From that point on he required media
to read the 13th Amendment before he would allow an interview.
Incarcerated, Imprisoned or
Enslaved?
To be clear, incarceration is the act or process of confining
someone; imprisonment. To imprison simply means to confine (a person) in
prison. So far, we haven’t delved into treatment that would call for the
loss of the right to vote, bear arms, live in certain communities, adopt
a child or be forced to provide free labor.
Both incarceration and imprisonment utilize confinement as a form of
punishment. Slavery, on the other hand, is 1) A situation in which one
person has absolute power over life, fortune and liberty of another; and
2) The practice of keeping individuals in such a state of bondage or
servitude.
Here, the word servitude comes into play and involuntary servitude
is: The condition of one forced into labor – for pay or not – for
another by coercion or imprisonment. This is where you see that the
imprisonment is a means to the labor.
Under the first definition of slavery provided above was the usage of
a word that most only know to refer to a human being. However, according
to Black’s Law Dictionary, an entity (such as a corporation) that is
recognized by law as having the rights and duties of a human being is
the second definition of person.
We now know that slavery can be a scenario in which one corporation
has absolute power over life, fortune and liberty of a human.
The word corporation would usually bring to mind Amazon or Walmart
but those are small fish in a bigger pond. A corporation is sort of a
person and a government is a sort of corporation. The city/county you
are from was incorporated into your state which was incorporated into
the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA through its Articles Of Incorporation. This
is why the corporation, which is the U.S. of A. has an office for the
president, vice president, secretaries and staff members etc., who are
members of the EXECUTIVE branch of our governments which are
corporations that have absolute power over life, fortune and liberty of
others via their institutions of slavery.
Felons Are The New Niggers
As the author and educator Claud Anderson, Ed. D. stated on page 66
of his book Black Labor, White Wealth:
“Black enslavement must be a constant reminder of the ramifications
of a lack of collective unity, strength and self-determination.
It is incumbent that you come to discern that those who are
economically challenged are subjected to prosecutions at a far higher
rate than the upper class, imperative for us to acknowledge that though
those subjects are predominantly Black, as a class, they are
multi-ethnic and as such, convicted felons of all backgrounds have
become the new Blacks; ones relegated to niggerdom.
For example, in Texas in the year 2000, Latinos were nearly twice as
likely as whites to be incarcerated,(1) but shocking is the fact that in
2002 Latinos were a larger portion of new prison arrivals than either
Blacks or whites (33.9% Latinos, 32.8% Blacks, 32.2% whites)(2) yet
sadly, a smaller portion of the releases. They were going in at a higher
rate but coming out at a lower one.
These numbers for Latinos are alarming in light of how bad Blacks
were treated during the period from 1986 to 2000 where spending only
increased 47% for Texas Higher Education but a whopping 346% for Texas
Corrections.(3) This maneuver caused Blacks to be sent to prison 7 times
more than whites for drug offenses, making Blacks 81% of the whole
state’s prison growth for drugs.(4)
Additionally, the number of Black youth imprisoned for drugs during
roughly the same period rose by 360%, however, for young whites
imprisonment for drug offenses declined by 9%.(5) With that knowledge it
becomes apparent that the 360% increase in Black bodies was the Return
On Investment for the 346% accretion in correctional spending.
The result was that in 2003, Black Texans were incarcerated 5 times
as much as whites.(6) Texas had managed to have 66,300 Black males in
prison and only 40,800 in the Texas Higher Education system.(7) This,
regardless of the fact that in 2002 whites and Blacks, according to the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, reported to
be dependent on a substance at similar rates. (9.5% of Blacks and 9.3%
of whites).
I say that this is a result because the increase in Black bodies to
the plantations ensured a decrease in their eligibility to become any
part of the legislature that makes laws or police officers, prosecutors,
grand jurors, trial jurors, parole or probation officers, judges or
justices.
On the flipside of that, and just as significant, is that if the
Black man and the law collide, the institution has created a system to
where as he interacts within the criminal justice machination there is a
lesser likelihood that the police he may come into contact with is
Black. Or the prosecutor who decides to charge him or the grand juror
who decides to indict him or the judge who calls the shots in the
courtroom or the trial jurors who convict him or the appellate justices
or the parole/probation officers; the last three who are in the business
of ”keeping individuals in a state of bondage or servitude”.
We went from being either a free (white) or enslaved (Black) man in
the slave era to being either an upstanding citizen or a convicted
felon, ethnicity be damned. The poor white and Latino populations, who
are more likely to be convicted than their upper-to-middle-classes, are
subjected to the same societal pitfalls and social stratification.
Niggerdom.
This is what Claud Anderson meant in his warning about not forgetting
about the lack of unity and strength during Black enslavement, if we
don’t bind together to stop this institution, the system will chain us
together to feed it.
Monopoly Money (All Around
The Board)
For all the prison stockyards that overpopulated Texas in the 1990’s
there were mainly two styles: a maximum security template that holds
three to four thousand prisoners and a medium security template that
holds around two thousand. So, whereas these prisoners couldn’t vote,
they became a part of the hosting county’s population, a sure
gerrymandering and census incentive for when the federal government
doles out X amount of dollars to districts based on population.
These prisoners are paid nothing though they produce many goods that
are sold. They are paid nothing but they spend millions of their
families’ dollars on commissary. There is only one place for prisoners
to purchase hygiene, food, correspondence materials and a few articles
of clothing, all of which are produced by prison labor, like shorts,
shirts, thermals, socks and shower shoes and then sold back to them at
exorbitant prices.
Prisoners who want to make a phone call are not afforded the luxury
of choosing a carrier. They provide free labor and their family spends
millions accepting overpriced phone calls contracted with a corporation
called Securus.
These prisoners can also receive emails and funds from their families
who Spend millions to send both through a company called Jpay
who is owned behind the same corporate veil as Securus.
Imagine if Walmart could lock its customers in the store. To hell
with a discount, they could price gouge and be certain that those
suckers would fight each other to get on the phone to have their
families send millions for them to buy every item in the store. They
wouldn’t be able to keep anything on the shelves, no matter that most is
of poor quality.
There simply isn’t a more loyal consumer base or promising commodity
where the institution has created for itself a way to circumvent the
free market to monopolize on the misery of the involuntary but free
labor force.
We, the Texas Liberation Collective, are not lost on the fact that
Texas has the expense of feeding and housing its prisoners because all
slave owners have had to do the same. All livestock has to be alive to
produce, be sold or traded. we are more focused on the fact that the
prison population of Texas exists by design. As stated in Part One of
this series, there was not a crime wave in the decade of the state’s
prison boom to account for the expansion of the slave state itself.
What we endured was a bull market in the stock exchange and guess who
orchestrated it? We could say that politicians and corporations were
responsible but it would be saying the same thing as the two are
mutually inclusive. State Senator Ted Cruz (R) works to advance the
interests of the corporation he works for, it’s called Texas and its
enslaved Latino population is of no concern to him.
The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has a subsidiary of
sorts called Texas Correctional Industries (TCI) which the Lone Star
State created in 1963 during the Civil Rights era. TCI is governed by
the Texas Board Of Criminal Justice (TBCJ) and has nine members who are
appointed by the governor, five of whom are currently lawyers.
Based on the legislative language that created the TCI, the board is
endowed with the authority to determine prisoners’ pay for their labor,
though to date they have opted for NO PAY and involuntary servitude:
“The board may develop by rule and the department may administer an
incentive pay scale for work program participants…Prison industries may
be financed through contributions donated for this purpose by private
businesses contracting with the department. The department shall
apportion pay earned by a work program participant in the same manner as
is required by rules adopted by the board under section 497.0581.”
If you’ve been told that some prisoners do earn wages if they work
for private companies through the Prison Industry Enhancement
Certification Program(PIECP) please be aware that the conversation isn’t
held without an exaggerated depiction. Truthfully, in 2017 though TDCJ
had over 145,000 prisoners, according to Jason Clark, TDCJ’s Chief of
Staff in 2019, there were only about 80 prisoners who were allowed to
partake in the PIECP, a number that was well below a waning one percent
of the Texas prison population.
The TCI sweatshops are dispersed throughout 37 prison plantations and
its free labor force – or free labor by force, shall we say? –
manufactures a plethora of goods from wooden state signs, license
plates, police utility vests and bedding, steel kitchenware, up-to-date
ergonomically designed office furniture, park equipment, security
fixtures, food service equipment and they also refurbish school buses
and computers, grow crops and tend to over ten thousand head of
cattle.
In the spirit of Texas, TCI’s total sales for fiscal year 2014 were
valued at $88.9 million, FY 2017 it was $84 million. Outside of the
minute headcount of laborers in the PIECP, the state makes these
hundreds of millions from the blood, sweat and tears of a
forced-into-labor labor force who is subjected to some form of penal
castigation should they refuse to relinquish their labor upon
demand.
The punishment may be a combination of the following
restrictions:
No access to the phones, no access to the recreation yard, commissary
restriction, cell restriction, personal property restriction, loss of
good time and/or work time credit, loss of visitation privileges, loss
of custody level which can result in being removed from general
population and placed in 21 or 23 hour lock down housing. Receiving any
of this retribution could result in being denied educational programs
and most significantly, parole.
Juneteenth and Dale
Wainwright
How ironic, yet not surprising, that Texas is shamelessly known as
the last state to free the slaves —— a disgraceful fact that spawned the
celebration called Juneteenth, its own holiday - yet they still haven’t
freed the slaves, thus deeming Juneteenth and its celebrators a
farce.
Texas and its misled sympathizers have no justifiable reason in
acknowledging Juneteenth today in the same spirit that the slave negroes
of the Frederick Doug- lass era had no justifiable reason in
acknowledging Independence Day.
Here, we dare raise other ironies but how ironic is it that just as
millions of slaves parted Africa from a slave port called Goree Island,
many of us enslaved here after inception and diagnostics were shipped to
and through a slave port called Goree Unit? But even more.sickening and
insane is that just as some Africans sold their own into slavery, the
TBCJ at one point was chaired by (Wait! I refuse to call this man Black,
but he is definitely…) an African-American!
That’s right, you eased on down the red bricked road to peek behind
the corporate veil to see who whitey was that refused to pay the slaves
and when you raised the curtain there stood Dale Wainwright celebrating
Juneteenth with a fat slave- raised burger. He made Texas history by
becoming the first African-American elected to the Texas Supreme Court,
but he will go down in history for being the Supreme House Negro of the
twenty-first century.
He was managing partner in the Austin office of Bracewell &
Giuliani, the firm where former NYC mayor and Trump prop-man Rudy
Giuliani is a partner.
Another former member, Eric Gambrell, contributed to the campaign of
and was appointed by Governor Rick Perry. He’s a corporate lawyer and
partner at Akin Gump, a large lobbying and law firm whose clientele has
included big dogs like Amazon, Pfizer and even the slimy privatized
prison giant formally-known as Corrections Corporation of America.
Whether you make them or break them, law is big business in the Texas
organizational construct and some of the biggest
capitalists.are…lawyers.
In Part One of Exposing The Lone Star Chamber (Of
Enslavement) we detailed how district attorneys bypass and usurp
the authority of Texas grand juries to rubber-stamp what is purported to
be an indictment but fails to constitutionally vest a district trial
court with subject-matter jurisdiction. Thus, the lives that filled the
stockyards were kidnapped under the watchful eyes of congress and
company.
Here, we have hopefully assisted in helping you know slavery when you
see slavery in the same way that you would know that a pig with lipstick
on is still a pig.
In Part Three of this series, we will examine some intricate details
of the Texas slave trade and question how in the age of Black Lives
Matter, the age of Prison Lives Matter, and with all the professed
social and criminal justice warriors and reformists, the Lone Star
Chamber continues to broker these bodies shamelessly and
unchallenged.
Until now!
MIM(Prisons) responds: We welcome comrade Ice
Immortal Askari to the pages of Under Lock & Key. This
well-researched piece touches on some recurring themes in our
newsletter. The first is the interplay of class and nation in the U.$.
prison context. As our comrade points out the disproportionate
targetting of New Afrikans and Raza, as well as First Nations, by the
injustice system, ey sees prisoners of all nationalities in the same
boat. This is generally our line as well, we must unite the imprisoned
lumpen class across boundaries. But we also must recognize the
particularities of different nationalities in this country, and
recognize the importances of national liberation struggles in the
dismantling of U.$. imperialism.
The author defines slavery as:
“1) A situation in which one person has absolute power over life,
fortune and liberty of another; and 2) The practice of keeping
individuals in such a state of bondage or servitude.”
The author attempts to distinguish slavery from imprisonment. But we
find this distinction not useful as the expressed purpose of
imprisonment is to impose state control over the lives of individuals
deemed to have committed a crime. The American Heritage Dictionary
provides one definition of slavery as, “A mode of production in which
slaves constitute the principal work force.” This is a simple summation
of the Marxist definition. We’ve written extensively on this question of
prison slavery in the past. And a new summary of our research on prison
labor and economics will be available in the next edition of The
Fundamental Political Line of the Maoist Internationalist Ministry of
Prisons. In short, the motivation for imprisonment is not profiting
off of prison labor as was the motivation for slavery in this country or
any other country in the world.
The realm of prison labor is a realm where tactical action and
organizing can occur. We agree that it is important to the running of
these institutions and as such can be used as a means of exerting
political pressure.
Telling people they must cook or clean to help maintain the facility
they are living in is not an injustice. Having people do productive
labor as part of the punishment for a crime against the people is not an
injustice. The injustice is who is being put in prison, and for what
reasons, and how they are being treated in there.
Amerikans oppose prison labor for the same reason they oppose
migration, they don’t want to dilute their inflated wages. So we caution
those in the prison movement who try to unite with the labor aristocracy
on this issue, when they have consistently stood with the cops and the
prison unions throughout history. As we unite along common class
interests in prison, we must recognize that our support base on the
streets is in the national liberation struggles of the oppressed.
Notes: 1. Coyle, Michael J. Latinos and_the Texas
Criminal Justice System: NCLR Research Brief. (2003) Washington, D.C. :
National Council of La Raza 2. Findings Of The National Council Of
La Raza – (NCLR) 2003: Racial And Ethnic Minorities Over-represented in
the Criminal Justice System 3. Cellblocks or Classrooms, The Justice
Policy Institute (2002) 4. Findings Of The Justice Policy Institute
– Analysis of the National Corrections Reporting Program on Race and
Drug Admissions in Texas (2003) 5. Findings of the Steward Research
Groups – Commissioned by the NAACP Texas State Conference and NAACP
voter Fund 6. Findings of the Justice Policy Institute – Analysis of
the National Corrections Reporting Program on Race and Drug Admissions
in Texas. 7. ibid
17 January 2022 – I am contacting you to update you on the BP-3.91
sexually explicit photos etc.
Here on the C.T. Terrell Unit (AKA Ramsey 3) several prisoners just
recently received photos in the mail – bikini shots. However, several
people have had theirs confiscated by correctional officers. Not many
people got rid of theirs. This new law really sucked to say the least.
Two lawsuits
have been filed by offenders here on this level I. I have read it
too.
Here’s the thing, TDCJ currently pays for hormone treatment
injections for gender dysphoric offenders. We still shower 50 or more
deep in the shower. Transgender prisoners are allowed their breasts,
tight pants, etc. However, we are told we can’t receive photos of our
own girlfriends wearing thongs. What kind of sense does this make?
Placing restrictions on prisoners’ mail, photos, newspapers,
magazines, is a significant interference with prisoners’ rights. This is
a blunt response to a problem that is much more nuanced than K2,
cellphones, etc. Common sense should dictate that the TDCJ should focus
on the bigger problem that they are creating introduction of contraband
through the front door.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree that BP-3.91 is a
blunt tool, and like mail policies across the country, it is being used
arbitrarily and to censor political materials and much-needed social
interaction with friends and family on the outside. Our line is that we
are against porn being used as an opiate of the prison masses;
tactics-wise we’re against TDCJ (and bourgeois prisons in general)
exploiting the reformist demands of friends/families of prisoners to
further censorship and control what gets into the hands of
prisoners.
A point this prisoner brings up is the fact that transgender wimmin
are allowed to wear tight clothes and even shower with the men in the
men’s prisons, despite the reason for this new censorship rule being to
take away sources of arousal. The same argument has been made regarding
female staff and how they dress and by the comrade who posed some strategic
guidance for next steps in this campaign. The point is, that the
TDCJ’s stated goal is asinine and unachievable. As another
comrade points out, there seem to be some assumptions about only
female bodies being able to sexually arouse.
Maoists understand that eliminating rape in our society doesn’t start
with the individual: the material conditions that give rise to rape in
the first place must first be gotten rid of and then the chance for a
mass campaign against anti-people sex crimes will be possible. While
individuals will certainly reform under patriarchy, the problem will
continue until patriarchy is overthrown.
The TDCJ and the state of Texas claims that this law is promoted to
give an environment for sex offenders to rehabilitate, yet they fully
know that the rape culture of Amerikan prisons won’t disappear. We see
that in this case the role of the TDCJ and the state of Texas is to
govern the said material conditions for rape with security for the
bourgeois dictatorship as priority; and that there will be no
rehabilitation of anti-people sex offenders but more risk and danger for
the already vulnerable group of transgender prisoners and LGBTQ+
prisoner in general. For this contradiction among the masses, we tell
our prisoner comrades to build unity and solidarity with LGBTQ+
prisoners and promote independent power against the bourgeois state’s
arbitrary use of reformist demands from the outside as a tool of
censorship.
As revolutionary class-conscious partisans within the epicenter of
global capitalist-imperialism, our daily struggles consist of a
multitude of factors, such as a societal inundation of bourgeois
ideology that is close to total. This means that every time your
television is turned on or your radio is playing the chances of some
reactionary foolishness reaching your senses is greater than the
likelihood of a white male becoming the next amerikan president.
Before most people turn-in for the night they tune in for another
dose of the corporate state’s media misinformation (most begin their day
like this as well!). The talking points are simple and easy to follow
and the repetition of the message increases the likelihood of
remembrance. Under these conditions what becomes of the formation of
independent thought development?
Marx taught us to subject everything in existence to relentless
criticism, our sources of information gathering down to the way we
choose to utilize technology controlled by multi-national (corporations)
we must assess and re-assess our own patterns and those of others among
us to conform to the material conditions of our struggle as to devise
methods which will allow us to intensify our efforts hence moving closer
and closer to ultimately overthrowing this reactionary order.
As Maoists, we cannot differentiate between the working-class masses
of Russia and Ukraine. Not only do they share a common culture and
historical background, but the fact that we as laboring masses have no
country proves true in the current context. The so-called “socialist”
international chose nationalism over socialism, reform over revolution,
and we walk that same path by choosing sides in a conflict where the
people are regarded as bystanders. In the world of Clausewitz this may
make sense, but as Marxist-Leninist-Maoists (or Maoists) we understand
that the people make their own history.
MIM(Prisons) adds: We saw anti-Russian propaganda ramp
up quickly in the last couple months. As the mainstream media continues
to villianize Russian imperialism for the same atrocities the Amerikans
have committed much more regularly, we aim to serve the majority of the
world who has no allegiance to imperialism. Unfortunately, most in this
country recognize that they benefit from the imperialist exploitation
and ally with the militarist rhetoric.
Dear Comrades, I have read updates, in the ULK winter 2021,
No. 75, and feel the need to clarify things. The nomenclature used
in BP-03.91, and the definitions provided within it, are being bent and
ambiguously used by both prisoner and TDCJ staff alike. The policy
itself is so ambiguous, one would have to guess at how to
uniformally enforce it.
The only difference made in the new policy is how ‘sexually explicit’
is defined. I am enclosing a verbatim copy of BP 03.91 as it is
currently worded on this date. I witnessed an arbitrary enforcement of
this policy on the Michael Unit and have even heard improper incorrect
references, by mail staff on the Coffield Unit of what was ‘sexually
explicit’. This shows me that even TDCJ staff are ill-informed about
what the policy is and its purpose. I had written the Texas
Board of Criminal Justice a few months back and they referred my letter
to the, now in-house, Ombudsman office. I would encourage all ‘brothers
in white’ to familiarize themselves with the policy by reading it
themselves in the unit Law Library. (as well as reading ALL of the
policies that are currently in place. Simply request the ‘Index of
current TDJC policies’).
The injunctions that I have knowledge of, filed against the BP-03.91,
argued on the ambiguous nature and verbage of the policy. Images that
cause ‘sexual arousal’ are inherently broad. (Hell, I had caught a
girlfriend of mine, masturbating to Metalacolypse!)
While arguing the ambiguity of the policy is one undeniable argument,
I suggested to a team of litigants to also attack the apparent objective
of the policy. To curb anything that ‘sexually arouses’, well, anyone!
Banning officers from ‘outrageous’ or ‘extreme’ hairdos, make-up,
jewelry, etc. tight pants, or even suggesting that female officers not
work in male prisons (no male officers in the female prisons) but even
then you would not be able to curb even same sex arousal. It is in
applying this argument that we see just how illogical it is to curb
‘sexual arousal’. Exacerbating the ridiculousness of the argument will
force them to define and refine the definition of the policy and there
is no way that you would be able to legally define ‘cleavage’ as
censorable under the First Amendment.
While these are my own thoughts and opinions, I do hope to help as
many comrades in their legal efforts. This isn’t something that a phone
call will fix but we can change things with well-thought-out litigation.
It takes time, but most of us have nothing but time. Intellectuals fight
with their words. Learn to use them and wield them with effective
effort.
At the current moment i am not involved in any active litigation as
my time and energy is currently invested in criminal matters, however, I
try to keep up with what is going on to know our environment. I want to
thank ALL of you who keep us connected through organization,
correspondence, etc. Without you we would most likely be more lost to
the cause than anyone could imagine. The support you provide is
priceless.
Nothing worth fighting for is ever easily won. Policies are a
fraction of the fight. Laws are another. But the biggest fight we face
is ignorance. Our own and of the population. This is readily apparent in
the policies and laws we find ourselves fighting against. It is a reason
for the mission of MIM.
This month we seen police in Minneapolis break into Amir Locke’s home
and murder him. This came after the public was placated by the
conviction of former pig Derek Chauvin for killing George Floyd.
Most of the protest we seen for ‘defund the police’ ended after the
George Floyd incident. It is uncertain if the reason for that is that
the public think they won a victory just because the injustice system
sacrificed one of their own in convicting Derek Chauvin or if the arrest
of John Johnson, the leader of NFAC, played its part in the end of
protests.
What is certain is that police can not be reformed because police are
the problem in america. More likely than not the evil injustice system
will release Derek Chauvin on appeal when everyone has forgot and the
spotlight is off. We seen Kim Potter get sentenced for 2 years this week
because some of the public pressure is off against the police. While the
Kim Potter incident seemed accidental and she showed some remorse for
her murder two things were never mentioned.
1st that police murder would have never happened if the pigs were not
stopping someone and harassing him in the first place, therefore the
police were the problem that led to Kim Potter killing an innocent
man.
2nd if anyone of us did this accidental shooting and showed real
remorse we would get life in prison and denied any chance of justice in
appeals court no matter how competent a defense we receive in trial from
our public defender (pretender).
Now the protest in the streets are silent and the evil police are
back to their same old tricks. Falsifying crime statistics to scare the
public into giving them more money. Money that should be going to
schools, and infrastructure, housing, community building rather than to
evil pigs that only scare people with false crime needs and incarcerate
our fathers, our kids. Police are a plague on society and the ONLY way
to fix what is wrong in this country is to defund the police and close
our prisons. Such a radical reversal is hard to comprehend, it takes
actual work and sacrifice.
We all know disgusting people that we do not want around. It is easy
to use police to get rid of disgusting people, thus creating the monster
of incarceration that we have now. To build community and healing takes
work and sacrifice. To really create lasting change requires independent
institutions of, by, and for the proletariat. We must unite together
against disgusting people who have lost their way and show them a better
way. At all cost the police can not be used as a remedy. The trail
blazers of community building most likely will have to operate at a
deficit initially until results can be proven, but rest assured any
result is better than the ineffectual prisons we have now.
We need to form real community based volunteer groups to patrol our
streets and intervene with ill behavior. Punishment is never the answer.
We can appropriate public spaces as necessary because public property
does NOT belong to the government, it rightfully belongs to the People.
To truly fix America we have to defund the police at all cost. Stop
being afraid of crime. Solutions to problems will arise naturally. One
thing is clear, the government we have now is not for the people, By the
people, or of the people. Police have become an elite ruling class they
do whatever, whenever they want. That is why reform will never work.
In Solidarity
MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this comrades
conclusion that reform will not work. And echo the need for a strategy
of building proletarian-led institutions of the oppressed instead. The
“defund” rhetoric seems very closely aligned to this mission, yet in
practice seems to have led to more discussions about budgets,
i.e. reformism. And of course, President Biden, has just taken it to
call for more funding for police.
Thank you for your recent communication regarding the Juneteenth
Freedom Initiative. In the third paragraph you’ll note that it
alludes to Our organization, the Texas Liberation
Collective(TLC) as joining the campaign. As the founder of the TLC
Movement and a Black man, since my captivity and certainly the inception
of the TLC Movement, it has been a priority to bring to the forefront of
the socio-politically conscious circles the understanding that
Juneteenth is NOT celebratory.
We will continue to embark upon that trajectory by informing and
educating the masses of all the classes In the Spirit of
Frederick Douglass about The Juneteenth
Situation.
I have enclosed a document released much earlier by TLC, which
actually laid the groundwork for the exertion of Our public showing of
disapproval of being wronged by the State and Federal Constitutions’
penile tolerance for slavery. This document, Exposing the Lone Star
(Chamber of Enslavement!) is also available on my website:
www.justiceforjeromedevonniwilson.org/rubber-stamped-indictments
MIM(Prisons) responds: Greetings to the Texas
Liberation Collective. We’re glad to have another leading organization
of the Juneteenth Freedom Initiative(JFI) featured in Under Lock
& Key as we approach the launch of the campaign. MIM(Prisons)
is joining these organizations to build connections inside and out to
make the upcoming campaign a significant blow to the imperialist torture
camps.
The Juneteenth Freedom Initiative calls for an end to solitary
confinement and mass incarceration as well as unpaid labor. Long-term
isolation is torture. Disproportionately locking up masses of males
disproportionately from oppressed nations, at scales never seen at any
other time in history, for the productive years of their lives is
genocide. These are crimes and injustices that must be stopped!
We send our solidarity to all the orgs and rads on the ground
organizing for the JFI over the next couple months. We will be
communicating with USW/TX Team One/TLC and other leaders leading up to
the events. And we want to hear from everyone participating in this
campaign before our next issue comes out in early August to sum up the
lessons, the successes, and a plan for next steps to this ongoing
campaign.
‘Department of Corrections’. A place in which nothing is correct. Nor
does it correct, but corrupts absolutely. Missouri DOC and its
Corruption Officers (C.O.’s) hold in clear disdain the lives of the
human beings in its corrupting facilities. An example of this: the
‘South-Eastern Correctional Center’ (herein after referred to as the
“South-Eastern Plantation” or “SECC”) located in Charleston, MO.
The South-Eastern Plantation has taken two new modes of torture
within its Ad-Seg units. On top of being overly eager to unleash
chemical weapons known as MK-9 or “pepper spray” on offenders even in
non-violent, non-hostile, non-threatening or unsafe instances; the
South-Eastern Plantation has taken to starvation tactics and
food-poisoning. By providing inmates with week-old food or in cases of
those on “Certified Religious Diets”, stale and black-molded crackers,
peanut butters, etc. It is bad enough that COII Pig Sites puts it, “This
is our house boy, we own you.” COII Pig Sites and COI Pig Dobbs alike
make it their business to “break offenders in” by beating them in
handcuffs upon arrival to their single-cell confinement building 1
house. They say such beatings bring “safety and security” to the
facility, and that “If you don’t like it, then don’t make mistakes and
obey our commands”.
In January of this year 2022, prisoners held in the two-man cell
Ad-Seg unit (herein after referred to as Z House) all began to check out
of their cells and refuse to enter into cells for being deprived of
hair-cuts, proper food rations, clothing and unsatisfactory living
conditions. Instead of accommodating offenders to what is theirs by
‘right’, the institution instead attempted to pull the bus up to
transfer these individuals. As FUM (Facility Unit Manager) Cosby put it,
“We don’t want people like you all here, we need good boys that do what
they’re told and accept what we give them. The likes of you will only
mess up what we’ve got going on.” As to what they have going on we may
never know…$$$.
SECC’s nurses formerly employed by ‘CORIZON’ are helping the corrupt
facility by submitting fake test results for COVID-19. They just
recently filled up a wing in General Population twice under the pretense
of “testing positive” for COVID-19. 64 individuals, only 24 of which had
actually been tested and 12 of them actually positive. The only option
being, go to quarantine or go to the hole. These offenders with full
privileges now only allowed one 45 minute cell rotation. This was used
as a way to scheme money as well as punish/target individuals whom they
had a certain disliking for. The games never stop.
The comrades here at SECC fight for a world free of oppression, and
to bring awareness to Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Even in the midst of
ongoing battles we will continue to shed light to the MIM and its
readers. We wish you all the best of luck as well, because our fight is
one. For a quick overview of what
else has been going on here see ULK NO.76 Winter 2022.
I am writing you today in regards to several issues. First, let me
begin by thanking you in your support of those of us who fight. I
learned of your existence through your “Texas pack”. It is old and
outdated, but filled with information that I was grateful to see
distributed to the population.
I am currently on the Hughes Unit and my time is filled with Step-1,
Step-2, §1983, Withdrawal of guilty pleas, PDR’s, 11.07’s, and 2254’s. I
am currently working on 2 Capital “Law of parties” cases, but grievances
and withdrawals take up most of my time.
It literally destroys my heart to see so many with no knowledge of
the system that enslaves them, abuses them, and ruins their futures.
Please, continue to spread that knowledge. Grievances work! But
you have to write them correctly, not as in format, but in
substance! It is very unlikely you will get satisfaction on a
Step-1, these people are cousins, friends, lovers, they will not punish
themselves but a Step-2 will get you action. And always write
Emergency Grievance: on the very top, and first line, this will
negate the denial “screening” process, and you can submit as many as you
need. But do not clog the system with “ridiculously frivolous”
issues, these are what the authorities point to as examples to pass or
uphold restrictive policies.
Yes, file a grievance, no do not lose heart when your Step-1 is
denied, Yes issue a Step-2 on every violation, deprivation or abuse.
That is how we fight. That gives “Another clear example of the
dangerous, culpable, cultural attitude of abusive, negligent, deliberate
indifference to not only the lives, rights, health, and safety of the
offenders assigned under their care and supervision, but also to the
duties and obligations as prescribed by employment by the state and
TDCJ.” The cumulative reports are what WE must point to to bring to
light the gross violations, and deprivations we suffer to get righteous
policies and laws passed and abusive guards and administration fired.
Don’t stop. Never stop. They enslave us with paper, only paper will free
us. If not, then there’s a lot more of us than them. But that is off the
subject. I am signing off.
