Under Lock & Key

I’m sitting here on the Connally Unit in ad seg for assaulting an officer. I honestly have to say I did. Why? Because he threatened me. He said “when I put these handcuffs on you, and you go to 12-building, it’s not going to stop. That’s where it will all begin.” Then he said “Besides, I used to work on 12-building.” No one would let someone place cuffs on him after he made such a statement. I asked him to get his supervisor and he didn’t. So I tried to go around him. He cut me off.

This female officer was standing right there listening to him threaten me. I knew this was getting out of hand so I asked Mrs. C, can you get your supervisor. That’s when the officer pushed me up against the wall and he started twisting my left arm. That’s when it all went down. I was only defending myself against his assaults. I never did anything aggressive to him.

The female officer didn’t want anything to do with it because she knew this officer was in the wrong. She just walked away. The unit wrote her up for not helping out this officer. I guess that she didn’t want to get in to wrong doing. That’s what made her quit working on this Unit.

Another incident like this happened while I was here in ad seg. A prisoner was in his cell when they shot gas in his cell, one canister after another. Then they ran in on him as he was choking and they beat him up. They busted his head.

When you try to do the right thing by writing a grievance they retaliate on you. And sometimes they won’t feed you. As soon as the grievance gets back to you it says something like “officer denies the allegation, grievance denied.” Or it might say “no further action taken.” This grievance thing is a joke to them. That’s why officers do as they want, because the unit wardens will go right along with them.

de MIM(Prisons)
Abril, 2008

La clase y la nación triunfa sobre la ideología auto-descrita.

Así como la gente nos ha demostrado bastantemente sobre estos últimos años, la ideología de uno es mucho más que sólo un nombre. Mientras aquellos que reclaman el método científico del materialismo dialéctico en el nombre de Marx, Lenin, y Mao han hecho llamadas de la bienvenida a las fuerzas imperialistas en sus países (sea de las Naciones Unidas o de los propios Estados Unidos), los musulmanes han puesto un límite en la arena y han dicho que ¡NO! al imperialismo estadounidense en África, el sureste asiático y especialmente en el Oriente Medio donde la ocupación imperialista es más pronunciada.

Mientras los maoístas supuestos han dado la bienvenida a las imperialistas estadounidenses como socios en la construcción de la “Nueva Democracia,” el clérigo Iraqui Moqtada al-Sadr reprendió los intentos del Secretario de defensa estadounidense Gates de invitarle al procedimiento político dirigido imperialisticamente esta semana. Se le cita declarando:

“Yo estaré siempre tu enemigo porque estás ocupando a Iraq.”
…
“Escuché la declaración del ministro de defensa americano terrorista y me siento obligado a dar una repuesta decente a tal terrorista. No tengo ningún enemigo sino tu, tu eres el ocupante. Siempre has sido mi enemigo y siempre serás mi enemigo hasta que derrame la última gota de mi sangre.” (1)

Esto estaba en un discurso en lo cual al-Sadr defendía a los miembros del militar Iraqui apoyado por imperialista por no atacar a otros Iraquis durante varias incursiones ordenados por los Estados Unidos (U$), exigiéndole al estado que le devuelva los trabajos a esos mismos. En relación a esto comentó:

“No levanten armas contra otros Iraquis mientras que ellos no le ayuden al ocupante. También le llamo a acción al gobierno Iraqui que apoye a su gente para librar la nación del ocupante.” (1)

Esto es lo que revolucionarios científicos llaman reconocer la contradicción principal y unir a todos quien pueden ser unidos para impulsar esa contradicción a su resolución. Así es como la historia llega a ser. Estas declaraciones por al-Sadr están en el contexto de un Iraq con varias facciones establecidas y listas a pelear entre sí mismos siendo aún estando dispuestos a luchar por las imperialistas para cumplirlo.

En otras partes de la region, reportes del grupo Hezbullah fortalecido y atrincherado en el sur de Líbano declaran que han aprovechado y exitosamente han reclutado comunidades tras líneas religiosas que frecuentemente han dividido la nación en el pasado. (2) La necesidad es una gran maestra, y la ocupación Israelí y estadounidense han introducido la necesidad de la defensa unida hacia la vanguardia en naciones como Líbano é Iraq. Similarmente, es llegándole a la meta de las necesidades de la lucha revolucionaria que ofrece el camino más acelerado hacia la liberación de la mujer, sin quien la resistencia seguramente fracasará. Como un sistema de clases que perpetua sus inherentes desigualidades, la intervención imperialista no puede unir a los opresos, librar a las mujeres, ni tampoco proveer constantemente a las masas con sus necesidades materiales como Hezbullah y los “Sadristas” deben hacer en sus regiones.

Data desde la época de Lenin y el principio del primer experimento socialista en Rusia, los comunistas han demostrado que mientras la religión es el opio de las masas, las masas no son enemigos porque aun todavía abrazan la religión. Podemos tener una gran confianza que el método científico triunfará mientras la gente lucha por la supervivencia y la liberación. Los musulmanes en Iraq y Líbano han demostrado esta verdad en la práctica.

notas:
(1) Flashpoints April 14, 2008. http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index/php?arch=25805
(2) Christian Science Monitor. April 15, 2008.

Governor Edward Rendell brought casinos and slot machines to Pennsylvania and now wants to turn PA into a prison state. He wants to add 8,000 more beds to PA plantations by the year 2013. Even with the fact that three different police districts falsified reports to get warrants, planted evidence, and paid informants to set up and testify against people, some of whom had no criminal records. Rendell noted that of the 31,000 people on parole in Pennsylvania in 2007, 95% did not commit new crimes, yet he suspended parole.

The governor has eliminated 20 educational programs including the Scranton State School for the Deaf, the Scotland School for Veteran’s Children in Franklin County, and the Schools of Excellence. The Library subsidy was cut by $1.75 million dollars. The governor cut $205 million from the education budget. The Justice Department’s budget is currently $23.9 billion dollars and that’s not including the salaries for 50,000 more police officers, the salaries for 2000 more border patrol agents, and not including the $1.4 billion for deporting illegal aliens who are convicted of crimes, and minus the $75 million dollars for job training for ex-cons released from prison.

There are 63 positions that convicted felons can not have. Once an individual serves their time, there shouldn’t be any chains upon them. These uninsured Americans have to start over. Many have no savings accounts, homes, or any other property to fall back on. Now labeled as dangerous criminals who can’t find work, they end up in homeless shelters or back in prison.

The prison business is booming in PA. Three new prisons are currently under construction and a fourth prison will break ground in 2010. That is on top of plans to add 860 beds to four operational institutions, plus an additional 1,600 beds at 10 more prisons before 2010. The Governor wants 8,000 more beds by 2013 because the prison industry has proven to be so very lucrative in PA. In January 2009, the prison population was at 49,215. It will surpass 50,000 before 2010 because the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole aren’t releasing prisoners when they reach their minimums.

Why are fewer prisoners being released on parole? It’s a conspiracy! Population control! Whose population does PA legislators want to control? The Pennsylvania Legislature has burned through $5.8 million dollars of tax payer money so far on legal fees and other expenses stemming from an investigation into staff bonuses and the misappropriation of public resources. House Democrats spent $2.6 million. Senate Republicans spent $1.4 million, and House Republicans spent $1.8 million. We have a $1.75 trillion dollar federal deficit because of all our wasteful spending.

The disparity in prison sentences between white people convicted of crimes and Black people convicted of the same crimes would suggest that Africans in America are under attack. In the past their birthright was stolen via the slave trade. Today, this modern day slavery is accredited to unjust laws. Just as slavery was once legal in this country, you can buy stock in the prison industry on Wall Street. The price tag for all this construction is $862 million dollars and the bidding for the jobs this prison will create is effective immediately.

The quickest way to create jobs is to build a prison. The state prison population increased by 10,783 in 2008. Two-thirds of them were nonviolent offenders. At this rate the prison population will be at 60,000 within five years. Tougher sentencing laws are sending younger people to prison with longer sentences. Take a look at who is running the prisons and who are being put in the prisons and how long they’re confined. The slave traders plan for their children to work alongside of them and they also plan for prisoners to be confined with their children. With the substantial amount of time prisoners are forced to serve, the prisoners who will be released are those who were forced to max out. Their ages range from 40 to 60 years old when they get out.

I’m currently an acting lieutenant of the Hoover Crips in NC state prisons. I’ve been working towards building better relationships with rival Crip sets in prisons in hopes of bringing solidarity within my nation. I’m working towards a new concept within the Crips and I have gained a following. I’d like to overcome the stereotypes and propaganda so we as an organization with publicity utilize our image to show that liberation is gained from education. The search for truth is often unsettling and if acquiring knowledge was easy we would all have it. I’d like to see my organization help with overthrowing racism, classism, sexism, and oppression. Instead of us damaging our standing as a minority-based group we need to vow to never again serve a system content to exploit us as commodities. I’d like to see us in the struggle for civil rights and humanitarianism. It’s no easy task to bring stability from chaos but I’ve gained a following with a lot of inspiration from the Maoist Internationalist Movement to overstand the struggle is bigger than my personal issues - bigger than one particular race, creed or gender.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We applaud this comrade’s work to bring rival groups together and encourage him and others to work towards unity across any and all organizations willing to work for real peace for the people. This means not only rival Crip groups, but also other oppressed nation organizations. Any oppressed people fighting other oppressed people is a waste of energy and essentially work for the imperialists. As this comrade points out, the struggle is bigger than persynal issues.

How many prisoners (slaves) at this facility: 500, it’s a so-called transfer facility. More like a large holding cell or big shoe box where you stay for up to 2 years.

How many of them work?: All except the medically unassigned, seg and medium custody.

What do they work for?: To avoid negative retaliation by TDCJ (example, I am currently in seg becaues I refused to work in TDCJ forced labor.)

What work do they do?: Kitchen workers, SSI, Broom squad, laundry, over half of them work in the “hoe squad”. Field work is all forced labor.

How much do they get paid? What is that question, some kind of joke? Sorry. Nothing. No one gets any type of compensation other than to please parole (like a rabitt with a carrot typed to the end of a stick) or to avoid catching a case and being placed on discipline.

All TDCJ offenders are forced to perform labor under one type of direct threat or another. How they are able to keep the lid on this I don’t know.

My upbringing was a lot like others before me and those who share the same living conditions as I do now: poverty, boys home, foster homes. My mother was a junkie and my father was a junkie/womanizer. So I grew to know the “system” well before I could understand it. Well as time moved on I became more rebellious by the minute. But I did not know why I was so rebellious to begin with. My crimes landed me in the belly of the beast.

Before I go any further I must explain my past affiliation. I used to be a Crip. As most young men with no family no structure at home, I was infatuated with the bling, money, females, drugs, guns and colors. But doesn’t Crip stand for Community Revolution In Progress? But here we are shootin’ things and people up, robbing and selling drugs. All within the confines of our community. Crips are without question the most numerous group in Texas state prison. How can this be so? Well I continued my affiliation until 3 years ago due to the fact that this and similar questions kept nagging at me.

Well now I am currently a member of our prison chapter of the BPP. I believe myself to be a realist. So I understand the reality of the 6 years that I face. So in essence it’s not about me anymore. It’s about the people. That is why a LK comrade directed me to you.

MIM(Prisons) responds: As we work to push the Peace Issue of Under Lock & Key, this letter is useful as an example of what we are trying to enable. This prisoner is at a transitional stage that is common among our comrades who have gone thru the process of developing political consciousness that begins with asking the simple questions of ‘What am I doing?’. The system pushes the rebellious attitude he talks about in his youth into certain outlets that involve self-destruction of oppressed communities. Prison is the typical end of that path.

Now some will point out that if this comrade was never sent to prison he would have never turned around. In fact, we often hear from prisoners themselves that prison gave them the time to think and ask questions. And it is true, that struggle forces people to overcome adversity, and in the process they will grow. But that does not make u$ prisons a positive force on the lives of the oppressed. It is a negative force that the oppressed succeed in spite of, not because of. Programs run by MIM(Prisons) would be examples of positive forces that help people take this path. Because if we are real, there are more people who come out of the system mentally damaged, hooked on drugs, full of hatred and rage, physically handicapped, etc. We must organize the few who make it out stronger now, so that we can all become stronger, more productive members of society in the future.

It is no secret why youth join street organizations. What’s a little less well known is the government’s role in getting these organizations involved in the international drug trade and other serious criminal activities. They need these orgs to act as agents of the state to keep the oppressed communities in place because the oppressors themselves can only do so much to occupy these communities as outsiders. To the extent that the state has been successful in this strategy, conscious comrades will find it necessary to leave these organizations for ones that serve the community.

So the lesson to take from letters like this is that the oppressed want liberation and purposeful lives, not that the prison system can kick some people into shape. The current system wastes humyn lives and potential. It is up to the oppressed to build institutions to counter that trend. Work with MIM(Prisons) to take up this important work.

Here is a copy of my timesheet. This is one of the topics I feel should be looked into. See a prisoner filed a lawsuit to get the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to either pay the prisoners for working or give them good time for working to help the prisoner be released early for good conduct. Well that was a Federal ruling and he won the case and agreed to good time for working instead of pay for the slave labor they make us do.

Well a few years later the state of Texas changed its policy to that ruling so that it overrode the federal ruling and made it discretionary to the release of a prisoner. So here in simple terms is what that means. The federal courts say when a prisoner’s flat time, good time and work time equals his/her full sentence you have to release that person to mandatory supervision. Well by Texas making it discretionary they have overridden this federal order and made it where they can deny the release and it’s wrong as you can see. I have 203% of my time done.

I am writing to report the dehumanizing situations that we face here every day in this legalized injustice slave camp. Every day the food gets smaller. Now they are feeding the same food 3 and 4 days in a row. They lock us down for no reason at all, make us get on our knees just to receive our food and then they throw it on the floor and kick it in our cells.

I had officers daily threaten my life on multiple times and still been denied my amendment rights. They have given me empty pens so I can’t write out, denied me access of my 1st amendment when I tried to mail my cousin and her kids a handkerchief for valentines day, and had officers call me a racist to my face because I stand up for myself and refuse to allow them to call me all kind fo derogatory names and animals. I had officers blackmail me on cases so they can make my record look worse than what it is.

I have been denied parole three times because of crimes that were dropped when they found me guilty of my conviction. They are using my childhood mistakes and refusing to talk to me face to face and see if I have changed.

They have a Texas workforce commission which is supposed to help you get aquainted with finding a job but they deny you entry because you are somewhere, where they dislike, period, or a certain person they dislike.

I have been given no chance at getting in school. They have refused me my rights to attend my own religious services (Islam) and been denied adequate protection of the law. They even have certain prisoners who work for them to undermine the ones who are fighting to making corrective change with in america. They water down or deny you and opportunity to have access at legal or other knowledgeable information. It is a hard and long fought battle to just earn a little respect for our race and the ones that want to see equal injustice.

At this prison, a prisoner who is on full program who works one of their job or education or vocation schemes is classified as A1A. For an A1A prisoner the CDCR gets $45,000 a year. A prisoner who is programming and is eligible for a work or education position but none are available are classified as A2B. For an A2B prisoner the CDCR gets $35,000 a year. A prisoner who refuses to program or is in ad-seg or the SHU is classified as C-Status or D1D status. For a prisoner of C-status or D1D status the CDCR only gets $22,000 a year.

There are 37+ CDCR prisons. Each prison has 4 prison yards. Each yard has 5 buildings plus a gym full of captives. Each building has 100 cells (doubled up - two prisoners per cell). That’s 200 prisoners in the cells per building. Each building also has 40 dayroom bunks and each gym has 220 bunks. All total per prison yard that is 1,420 prisoners. And multiplied by 4 yards that is 5,680 prisoners per prison. With 37 prisons that would be 210,160 prisoner captives.

Now here’s where everything gets very ambiguous. The CDCR won’t give a clear number of prisons. They always say 37 (plus) prisons. It’s the “(plus)” that is so ambiguous. It’s what ex-pres Bush called fuzzy math that only a politician could understand.

My mail is being illegally withheld. I have to hold on to my mail and mail it out whenever I go by the mailbox myself. This is only when I’m taken out to the mail hall for reasons that suit the corrupt administration. The mailroom supervisor, Glenda F. Vandiver, gives my mail to the titular officers. The unit OID Jeffery W. Armstrong also works along with the administration and has told me this.

I’ve been beaten up four times since I sent those grievances out [to MIM last month]. I was beaten up on 11/17/08 by 2 titular officers, Hicks and Hopkins. I sustained a blackened left eye, swollen shut; swollen left cheekbone; knots and bruises all over my face; and cuts on my left upper chin. RN Mary Gribble saw all my invoices and refused to report it. OIG Armstrong sat face-to-face with me as I filled out a witness statement about the violent attack and beating. He told me the titular officers who attacked me are his true friends and that he’s going to protect them, and not report what he saw. Sgt. Betty J. Myers, “Safe Prisons ACA Coordinator,” refused to take photos of my face, but took photos of my back while I was fully dressed. They are conspiring and covering up a criminal assault. They’re all working together to hide and conceal the criminal activity, and the cruel and unusual punishment they subject me to daily.

My food is being contaminated with a noxious chemical. An officer told me that every one of my food trays is being laced with windex or ammonia. The officer no longer works here; he told me this before he quit. The chemicals in this windex cause me to lose consciousness, pass out. I have excessive vehement vomiting, dizzy spells, migraine headaches, blurred vision, starvation. I am deprived of showers and recreation.

I have reported all of this to the following staff countless times, and these ranking officials call me “cry baby” or “nigger bitch” to name a few: Wardens Dawn E. Grounds, Devery W. Mooneyham, and Kenneth L. Dean; Capt. Richard Pillot, Lt. Donna S. Jennings, “Compliance Sgt.” William E. Lyon, Sgt. Dan Griffin, Lt. Kurtis Pharr, Lt. Robert M. Presto, Lt. Oriando Flecha, Lt. Steven W. Schumacher, Stg. Steven L. Harris, Sgt. Morrison, Sgt. Michael Kluck, Sgt. William A. Burroughs, and Sgt. Brian Pollock. More over, they are the orchestrators and authors of all my problems: the death threats, beatings, starvation, deprivation of recreation, medical. The aforementioned employees are the very crooks who make it possible for the non-ranking staff to do all these terrible, inhumane, evil, unconstitutional things to me daily.

When anyone calls this unit, they all claim to “look into it” or “investigate.” They’re not going to “investigate” themselves; no one will. The Director of OIG, John Moriarty, and Executive Director Brad Livingston, and Chairperson of TDCJ Christina Melton Crain, and [TDCJ Administrative Review] Ombudsman Kathy Cleere can have me transferred if the right pressure is applied. I have a huge stack of grievances to prove that I’ve contacted every office in TDCJ all the way to the Executive Directors. I’m not being protected in any way, shape, form or fashion and therefore need transfer to a completely different prison unit in this system because this is cruel and unusual punishment.