8/12/2008
Yo, I just want you to know that I received your letter and that I
didn’t get the MIM Theory #7. I am waiting for the grievance that I
filed on 8/5/08 and I just wrote to the superintendent of programs about
this. I got the manila envelope that they send the MIM Theory in, but
the MIM Theory was not in the envelope, instead there was a pictorial
sex book.
…I don’t know if it was on tv out there but the jail got locked down for
like 4 to 5 days and 4 C/Os got cut or stabbed, so shit’s been crazy.
8/18/2008
I just wanted to let you know that I didn’t get the MIM Theory #7. I
wrote to M. Putnode, Deputy Supt./Programs Services and they said that
they do not have it. I wrote a grievance and they didn’t write back.
- a prisoner in Clinton Correctional Facility
MIM(Prisons) comments: We can document a history of
abuse and targeting of politically conscious prisoners at Clinton
Correctional Facility going back years and naming names. Numerous
prisoners have filed complaints regarding these staff members, and
groups like the Correctional Association of New York (in 2004) have
reported on these trends. Yet the state has still not put an end to it.
This example is similar to others at Clinton, where there is no paper
trail, allowing the administration to say that nothing happened and deny
responsibility. In other words, the NYS DOCS has granted staff the
freedom to act however they see fit to repress efforts at organization
and education in Clinton.
We have written in previous issues about the gender oppression of
prisoners. This act of sexual harassment is just one more example of
that. A Black man tries to educate himself about the liberation of his
people and some cracker steals the literature we send and replaces it
with porn. He sees the Black man as having no interests outside of
smoking weed and chasing pussy, and this is how he reacts when faced
with reality.
Upstate and Five Points have recently censored mail from MIM(Prisons) as
well alleging that it promotes violence. Once more, for the record,
MIM(Prisons) does not promote violence, we promote a world free of
oppression. Only the oppressor can decide how that will come about.
Unfortunately, we do not have the power to do so ourselves. We can only
transform the world we find ourselves in by understanding its internal
nature.
Some recent censorship was justified because it was critical of prison
labor, the physical abuse of a prisoner in New York, and advertised
lawsuits that are pending against the state. The most recent prison
censorship case, Lorenzo Johnson v. Rick Raemisch, Daniel Westfield,
and Michael Thurmer, Case No. 07-C-390-C, upheld that prisons
cannot censor literature because it is critical of their department. And
attempts at stifling support for class action suits is just one more
effort to prevent prisoners access to legal protection. The recent
attacks at Clinton reported here show what happens when you don’t allow
prisoners access to legitimate grievance procedures when staff becomes
abusive, as they inevitably do in such an oppressive situation.
The policy of the NYS DOCS of supporting staff committing these abuses
for years demonstrate a clear attempt by the department to promote
violence. Even if they can’t learn from their own experience, we’ve been
telling them this for years, and we know they read our literature, so
they can’t claim ignorance. They want violence, because they use
violence as an excuse for further repression. Repression is against the
interests of the oppressed, so the oppressed (MIM(Prisons) included)
oppose this violence that is being promoted at Clinton.
see censorship
records
