Under Lock & Key

The idea of organizing, as we all know, is much harder than theorizing about organizing. I raised the idea of expanding the organized coordinated apparatus of MIM(Prisons) to states in a sub-chapter context. This would weaponize the public protest to influence policy changes, and pressure entrenched power positions to give way.

Yet, regardless of “how” this is supposed to work, the “who,” as related to the public, is supposed to work this machinery is absent. There is an extraordinary lack in many quarters of the prison population, regarding outside support, who are engaged enough to work this machinery even with direction. Within the prison, prisoners are isolated and their access to outside sources of support or even an audience is hampered by a truly oppressive design geared toward just this work.

I cannot and do not expect MIM(Prisons) to produce what may not be possible and completely outside of any of our individual control, i.e. the interest, motivation and will of potential cadres to engage in this work. Yet, there should be a focused effort to attract, organize and mobilize people who have been on the web and who will deem the cause of this work noble enough to apply effort.

Finally, there is an extraordinary need to take the hidden means of repression used by this society and expose all its manifestations to the public. There are two reasons for this: 1. It de-fangs, embarrasses and exposes its naked shame by putting on blast the unlawful and inhumane abuses of those people who use the shelter of the institution to act as tyrants. 2. It raises conscious awareness in the public by removing the edicts, and cuts of media which claim to be fair and balanced, and demonstrates consistently from a human standpoint the hardships unnecessarily inflicted on a vulnerable population, often to put on a public show of toughness. The result of which is the identification needed on a human/personal level to raise outrage.

It’s obvious the stagnant and retributive American prison system exists as it is today because it was a social means of controlling people who were deemed not to belong to this society, those who were not “All-American.”

1. Names of abusive staff who either assault or terrorize prisoners or implement abusive policies and tactics.
2. Abusive tactics and policies specifically implemented, listed and explained for their effect in each state and institution.

1. Coordinate state campaigns between the community and prisoners, targeted at the state lawmakers and DOC commissioners in regards to complaints and protest relating to incidents in prisons, policies implemented and needing to be changed, and laws implemented, needing to be implemented or changed, within a state.
   
2. Educate the public across states about prison conditions, with their social and class ramifications.

1. Coordinate community and state campaigns between prisoners/prisons and communities statewide, through State Directors, targeted at state lawmakers, DOC commissioners and local prison wardens and superintendents in regards to complaints and protest relating to incidents in prisons, policies implemented and needing to be changed, and laws implemented, needing to be implemented or changed, within prisons.
2. Educate the public in those communities about prison conditions, with their social and class ramifications.

1. Research tactics, strategies, and proposed policies to be approved by state directors, city-community coordinators and prison bases; and researching data and statistics that identify positive information which support proposed laws and prison policies.
2. Political workers to inform and agitate within the state by promoting and organizing protest, phone calls and correspondence to state law makers, DOC commissioners and prison wardens and superintendents about complaints, proposed laws and policies to be adopted by state officials.
3. Propagandists to coordinate media campaigns to inform the public about events and negative trends; measure the effectiveness and growth of information dissemination within communities across the state, with a targeted effort to inform local community members within small towns and rural areas specifically about inhumane treatment and cruelties which have inflicted demographic groups which are the same as the area being targeted.

Selected members from each of the above project departments will set the overall direction with state directors and all of the above shall provide support and statewide work that advances the vision. Thus what has been hidden inside prison walls for a century and a half will be exposed to the public. Webpage and popular social media campaigns can be interchangeable.

United Struggle from Within bases should be encouraged on a continuation of current MIM(Prisons) work and programs, but with an expansion of coordinating information-sharing and campaigns in regards to protest within the prison with community and state activities.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This writer is laying the groundwork for an organizational system that could both expand and coordinate our organizing work beyond the prisons. Setting up good structures within which people can get involved is an important part of our work as leaders. We want to help people make the best use of their time, and become productive revolutionaries by taking up the struggle where it makes the most sense for them. So this idea of setting up organizing structure with clear roles and responsibilities and tasks could be an important contribution to our work. And this writer is correct that what we are missing now is the “who,” i.e. the people who will step up and take on these roles of leadership and help build this structure for the outside struggle.

We hope to hear from others, both behind bars and on the streets, about ideas for a better structure to our work on the streets, and even more importantly from volunteers who can step up and implement these ideas.

There are likely many different structures that could be successful for our organizing, and each cell and group will need to figure out what works best for them. But what we should all have in common in the goal of putting an end to imperialism and the criminal injustice system that it uses for social control. Conducting educational and propaganda work is an important part of that battle for us today. MIM(Prisons) doesn’t see targeting law makers and others in charge to lobby for new laws as a particularly effective strategy, especially while we have so little power relative to the imperialists. But that work can be useful when paired with education about why these laws won’t ultimately take down imperialism. In the end we must attack the system from many sides, and we should all work to our strengths to put in the best anti-imperialist work we can.

I’m writing you this letter in regards to trying to build peace and unity between the prisoners here at Gulf Annex. Same thing the guards don’t want to happen here because there is power in numbers. I represent Growth & Development and recently one of my brothers had gotten into a fight with a Muslim over a petty issue. As we met up to find out what was the problem and try to work things out peacefully the guards broke up our little circle making comments like “you pick them I spray them.” Sad to say we all laid down and went to our dorms.

Luckily we came to agreement to peace treaty, but if the pigs had it their way they’d be happy if we just killed each other. Sorry to say Florida prisons are probably the worst in the country when it comes to unity. Prisoners are quick to jump on each other over nothing, but won’t stand up when they witness fellow prisoners being beaten, messed up, while in handcuffs.

ULK and have been passing them around. I have been trying to pass them to those who want to educate others, but I can only reach so many with issues I have. So I'm urging prisoners around the compound to subscribe to ULK so we can reach more prisoners in other dorms. Over the next couple of weeks you will be hearing from those wishing to have their own subscription. It's time for a change in Florida prisons and educating ourselves through MIM(Prisons) and ULK could be the start of something that will unite us. Now a couple of my brothers say they've wrote MIM but yet to receive a subscription. It can't be the pigs because I've received everything y'all ever sent me. So if anybody writes please send them a subscription.

Informal Complaint Resolution
Submitted to Warden: Mr. Hooks
January 1st, 2017

Complaint regarding: Appropriate Supervision/discrimination, to wit: A.R. 5120-9-04.

On November 17, 2016 the Ross County Correctional Institution mail room received twenty-five (25) embossed envelopes from a Mrs. [name omitted] that was addressed to be delivered to myself. However, on this occasion the aforementioned embossed envelopes were confiscated as contraband and were never returned to my wife or forwarded to me. A new policy, (75-MAL-01), has purportedly been instituted that bans all incoming embossed envelopes sent from the family and friends of those incarcerated at the Ross County Corr. Inst. As it stands, I [name omitted] am legally indigent, as I’ve been held to the monthly stipend of $10 for the past fifteen years, under the banner of court cost, fines and restitution and I can’t afford to purchase embossed envelopes along with hygiene and miscelaneous laundry products. This new policy (75-AL-01) discriminates against every indigent prisoner on this compound and ultimately affects the quality of a relationship already deprived of hand-to-hand contact with friends and loved ones in free society, and the quality of tenure of incarceration.

Listed below are a variety of prisoners adversely affected by this new policy (75-HAL-01), who have no alternative means of purchasing embossed envelopes. Accordingly, we respectfully request the above mentioned new policy, be rendered moot and that the original policy, that allowed prisoners to receive embossed envelopes from family and friends be re-instated.

Please assist us in any way you deem appropriate.

Cc: Special Litigation Section
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20530

MIM(Prisons) responds: Our job as revolutionaries is to organize people and bring them together. The primary task of U.$. prisons is to control oppressed-nation people, and to prevent them from organizing to change their conditions within this capitalist society. The above policy in Ohio serves no purpose except to exacerbate the already difficult situation of oppressed people to not only organize but also stay mentally and relationally healthy when locked up. This policy is one tiny piece of a much larger battle.

A mí no me gusta meter la cuchara porque la mayoría de mi tiempo me la paso peleando el sistema, es lo que hago. No me gustan estos cerdos y no me gusta la forma en que estos aspirantes a presos les gusta hablar mierda pero en cuanto estos cerdos sacan su pluma y el reporte de mala conducta ¡se van a esconder bajo sus camas!

Soy una mujer transexual y ¡no le tengo miedo a estos cerdos! Estuve trabajando en la cocina y el cerdo más temido me tuvo en la mira y cuando puse una queja contra él, todos esos aspirantes a presos me dijeron que no me meta con él porque podría tomar represalias. Yo dije, “que se vaya al carajo!, Yo seguiré siendo yo misma.” Y sí, tomó represalias pero yo también. En el manual de empleados del estado de Nueva York en la sección 2.12, dice que ellos no pueden usar lenguaje abusivo, agresivo o vulgar, así que cuando lo escuchaba quebrar esa regla, escribía una queja contra su culo. Tomó represalias al escribirme una papeleta falsa. Me dio 7 días encerrado y luego regresé a trabajar. Dos días después me corrieron del trabajo y me amenazaron con nuevos cargos si seguía escribiendo quejas. Dejé de quejarme contra su culo y escribí a la oficina del Inspector General. (¡sí, sí!)

Pero mi pregunta es esto: ¿Por qué chingados tienen miedo estos presos que tienen 15, 20, 25 años y más, a darle gas a estos cerdos? Pero cuando un camarada les debe $3.24 ¡están listos para acuchillarlo en la espalda! ¿Por qué cuando un cerdo te falta respeto te fajas la cotila como perro y le corres, pero cuando un camarada te falta respeto, de repente sí tienes huevos?

Te voy a decir porque es así. Porque ellos saben que un cerdo les va arrastrar al hoyo a puros putasos. Pero si te peleas con un camarada, esa madre nomás va a durar a lo mucho un minuto. Y luego te dicen, “Trate al piso o te volamos los sesos.”

Yo me ha peleado con estos cerdos más de 5 veces en los últimos 3 años y !me han dado 2 cargos nuevos sobre eso! El año pasado ya estuviera en mi casa, pero hay una línea que si se cruza, van a ver consecuencias. Convertí mis 10 años en 20. No estoy orgulloso por eso para nada. Y no voy hay diciéndole a todos. Pero a veces te tienes que defenderte a ti mismo. Si no defiendes algo, ¡caerás por lo que sea!

Así que, para todos mis camaradas, defiéndanse contra estos cerdos. No te estoy diciendo que les llegues a putasos, pero no les dejes que te hagan lo que quieran. Atácalos con pluma, huelgas, protestas, putasos o ¡como sea!

En las palabras de Malcolm X “De cualquier forma que sea necesaria.”

Me voy con paz camaradas!

P.S. “Con los años he aprendido que cuando la mente ya está decidida, el miedo desaparece.” - Rosa Parks

MIM(Prisiones) responde:

I am hearing (deaf) / speech (mute from past strokes) / vision (blind in one eye and impaired in other eye) and W/C [bathroom] restricted/disabled. Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) was refusing to turn the closed captioning on the televisions for me and other offenders who are deaf, hearing impaired, disabled, or hard of hearing.

Also, being given disciplinary case knowing I was deaf, violating my due process rights by not passing a note. No written communication of what was going on during the disciplinary process so-called “investigations.”

Now, thanks to Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), Mr. Brian R. McViverin and Ms. Barke Butler and three others, TDCJ is to have closed captioning feature on these dorm dayroom TVs from the time they are turned on to rack time. And any disciplinary cases I’m (or others of my type of hearing disabilities in accordance of the ADA) given, TDCJ must use special forms for me to read, answer, and sign/initial during the whole process. And anything spoken must be written down. If I see any lip movement and it is not written down, this becomes a violation of my Civil Action suit.

So, if you can, read this Civil Action No. 4:12-cv-02241 compromise and settlement agreement. Please let others know of this. I know I can not have been the only one that has had these problems with TDCJ.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This contributor shouldn’t have had to go through the trouble of filing a Civil Action Suit in order to be afforded what is already guaranteed to em from the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). We here at MIM(Prisons) are disgusted by the behavior of TDCJ, which we see reflected all across the country in various forms. In a society that isn’t run by profit and pigs, the courtesy of inclusion wouldn’t require all the runaround and paperwork.

Revolutionary Greetings,

This is my report about how the Prisoners’ Legal Clinic here in the Corcoran Ad-seg/SHU is going. As a Clinic Coordinator, I’ve been responsible for showing inmates how to read and study the Title 15, which allows you to know what rights you have as a prisoner, and learn how to file a box. You’d be surprised to know, a lot of inmates don’t understand the basics, but we’ve had minimal success. The accomplishments have resulted in (1) inmates getting their property in an orderly fashion, (2) getting allowable items that were granted from the hunger strikes, (3) receiving our program of yard & showers that we’re being denied for lack of staff, (4) and being assigned a regular counselor to come by once a week to see if we need any assistance and making sure we get our NDS privileges (phone calls weekly or monthly & canteen draw of $165.00 instead of $55.00).

I’ve also filed a few written letters that have helped a few people get back to court, and allowed them to also be able to go to the law library once a week without having a case pending, which was the only way before. At this time we do not need any legal materials as we have enough at our disposal. This is a positive endeavor here, and this concluded my report.

MIM(Prisons) adds: The Prisoners’ Legal Clinic is a serve the people program, made up of prisoners in the United $tates who are fighting injustice in the anti-imperialist movement. Through the PLC legally-savvy comrades offer legal assistance to others in their prison in exchange for some political work. And behind the scenes MIM(Prisons) provides the resources and support needed by our Clinic Coordinators. This program helps support necessary legal struggles of prisoners while also making the connection between these struggles and our broader political organizing. Write to us for more information if you want to coordinate a Clinic where you are at.

There is no genuine or legal justification for still using strip searches in prisons today, except to breed homosexuality and cause aggressive sexual assaults, using it as a punishment to humiliate someone. I can prove without a doubt that times have changed/evolved and this strip naked prison rule is outdated. Modernized technology has invented what is called x-ray machines, which are used to search/see the body without forcing nude search. Prisoncrats provided prisons with sufficient funds to purchase and provide such x-ray machines. Prison staff, in their sadistic practices and policies to punish captives, refuse to use the x-ray machines for body searches.

Metal detectors are stationed throughout the prison, checkpoints forcing captives to walk through them, in their policy to confiscate any and all illegal metal objects. Captives are never asked if they are allergic to the radiation of the metal detectors or x-ray machines, which explains the prison staff’s complete disregard for the physical or psychological effects on the captives.

We captives of the Pennsylvania state prisons ask for legal advice in our desires to sue the Department of Corrections for forcing the strip search policies. We live during advanced technologies and modernized minds, which dictates, strip searches are outdated, violates religious rights, breeds sexual predators, and are methods used to harass, humiliate and harm captives. Not to mention strip searchings are methods used identical to the times of slavery.

If for no other humane reasons, prison strip searches needs to be abolished, eliminated, minimized, because state prisons have been provided with the necessary machinery and manpower to secure prison grounds and facilities. The time is here. We the state captives in Pennsylvania prisons ask any and all judicial scholars and students of civil law, for legal advice, and to petition the courts to abolish all prison strip search policies.

There is the questions raised about prison security being vulnerable, and breached, if the strip search policy is eliminated. Such positions, beliefs or arguments are simply said to continue this long practice of psychological slavery in prisons. When in fact, x-ray machines detect any metal or foreign objects and contraband. Therefore, since state prisons have x-ray machines and metal detectors on facility grounds, it shows any need to search a subject can be done without the need of such said subjects being forced to disrobe, strip naked. Which means, if the metal detectors and x-ray machines they have are not successful to secure the prison facilities, then their machines are obsolete and obtained falsely.

However, if such machines and technologies are vital and essential to the security orders of running the prisons, then strip searchings are deemed obsolete and performed falsely. It is our contention, challenge, calling, that because x-ray and metal detector machines are used, that shows strip searches are no longer needed or necessary. Which proves strip searching are being used simply as a form of the prison’s psychological punishments.

The Pennsylvania Department of Corrections state prisons has implemented a new policy against sexual assaults/harassments, called the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). This PREA policy exposes its own ineffectiveness and prejudicial punishment, under the disguise of prosecuting sexual harassment and/or predators. To prove that this new PREA policy has been designed to minimize and eliminate sexual assaults in all of its manifestations on prison grounds, strip searching would also be minimized or eliminated as a means to sexual assaults and sexual harassments on state prison grounds.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This writer makes an important point: guards use strip searches as a form of gendered power that humiliates and degrades prisoners. But we don’t agree that this abuse of power causes guards (or prisoners) to become homosexual. And even if that was possible, it’s patriarchal society that teaches people to use gender for power and abuse which is the problem. There is no evidence that any sexual orientation is more predatory than any other. We need to focus on the real enemy here: the patriarchy which trains people to enjoy the abuse of gender power.

Prisoners are in a unique position in that they face gender oppression as a part of their imprisonment. This is true of both male and female prisoners. Strip searches are a good example of this gender oppression. This writer raises a good point about the abuse of power, and specifically gender power, that happens every time there is a strip search. This degrading practice is not for security, as this writer clearly demonstrates.

Identifying this form of oppression and calling it out for people to see is the first step in fighting back. The idea of using PREA to fight strip searches is an interesting approach. We’d like to hear from others who are fighting strip searches about what tactics are and are not working. Ultimately gender oppression in prisons isn’t going away while we have a criminal injustice system serving imperialism. The patriarchy is an integral part of this system. But we can sometimes win smaller battles against these forms of humiliation and degradation.

The May 2017 issue of the Family Fun magazine (owned by the media conglomerate Meredith Corporation) has produced and distributed an advertisement that meets the federal definition of child pornography. The ad shows a boy duck-taping a prepubescent girl to a garage wall. The image does not depict any nudity or sexual activity, but this does not matter under the law, which defines “sexually explicit conduct” to include “sadistic or masochistic abuse.”

[One prisoner] found out the hard way. He is serving a 97-month federal prison sentence, to be followed by a lifetime of “supervised release” and registration as a dangerous “sex offender” for having received a similar but less explicit image. “All I remember about getting it was that it was in some ZIP file,” said [the prisoner]. “I didn’t think anything of it, as there was no nudity or anything sexual about it. But the government has destroyed my life.”

“Then a friend of mine in prison saw this ad for Capri Sun,” [the prisoner] said. “It is worse than the image I was sentenced for in every possible way. It shows clear and unambiguous active bondage; the girl is younger; her legs are spread; and there is a masochistic smile on her face.” [The prisoner] wrote Kraft Heinz, the President, congress and as many civil rights and legal assistance organizations as he could. [The prisoner] continued, “Although the Capri Sun ad is tasteless, sexist, and more than a little disturbing, I don’t think anybody should go to prison over it. Yet I am in prison and the rest of my life is destroyed for receiving an image that is mild by comparison.”

MIM(Prisons) responds: Although we couldn’t find a copy of this magazine ad, we don’t doubt that this and many other magazines and so many other capitalist advertisements include pornographic images. Even billboards feature girls who look like they are 10 modeling skimpy clothing with a sexy pout on their faces. It is this patriarchal culture that puts pornography out in everything we see. And it is this culture that teaches people to enjoy pornography, coercion and sexual assault. Essentially capitalism is creating rapists while pretending to be shocked and offended by them.

People who get locked up for sex offenses are right to claim a double standard. That doesn’t make what the sex offenders did right, it just makes society so very wrong. And as a result we’re left with a criminal injustice system that gets to pick and choose who they want to prosecute. No surprise we end up with a disproportionate number of New Afrikan and Chican@ men locked up for these crimes.

It will take a revolutionary culture, and many years of fighting to eliminate the patriarchy, before we can truly eliminate pornography and sexual assault from humyn society. We will need to not only revolutionize our culture, but also re-educate everyone who has been inundated with patriarchy from birth. And those who internalized it to the extent of acting out violent sexual assaults and other crimes against the people will need even further re-education and rehabilitation before they can safely re-integrate into society.

For now, whether you are locked up justly or unjustly we urge you to take a hard look at your views about gender, how you treat people and how you view people, and consider how this is conditioned by patriarchal culture. We welcome all revolutionary activists to take up the struggle, regardless of your past, but we all need to be conscious of the effects of the patriarchy on our actions and beliefs.

Another pretrial detainee and I were rolled up and put into punitive segregation for the grievances, appeals and letters that we wrote to the Alaska DOC commissioner and our state’s Lieutenant Governor, in standing up for our rights here at Anchorage correctional Complex (ACC). Detainees here are afraid of the retaliation brought upon those that stand up for their rights.

Superintendent Jesse Self, Assistant Superintendent Sondra Thomas, Lieutenant Jason Hamilton, Segregation Sergeant Tania Enyard, and Standards Sergeant G. Helms have all participated in violating pretrial detainees’ rights at ACC. Grievances take four-plus months to be processed, if they even get processed. Many request for interview (RFI) forms never see an answer either. Requests through proper channels like RFIs, grievances and appeals go to the ears and eyes of the deaf and blind officials that condone these atrocities of injustice to happen. If one makes too many, or too loud, complaints against the officials in charge about the conditions here at ACC, they are relieved of all legal and personal property and put into punitive segregation for up to three months, without due process.

I have been in punitive segregation for only three days and I had to practically beg to get law library access once, for an hour. Under Alaska law we are to be allowed law library access at least seven hours a week. I may end up writing more grievances and appeals from punitive segregation than I have written total in the last two years. Of course, that depends on how long they keep me here in punitive segregation.

On your grievance campaign, I rewrote the copy that you sent me and I will try to get a version of it sent your way. I have not heard back from any of the officials that I sent it to. I sent, on my behalf, copies to Alaska DOC Commissioner Dean Williams, Alaska Lieutenant Governor Byron Mallott, and the Department of Justice in Washington DC.

So many Alaskan pretrial detainees and prisoners do not know that their rights are being violated under both the U.S. Constitution and the Alaska Constitution. The guards run over them and their rights, stomping them into the ground. I am not legal knowledgeable, although I’m learning more all the time. I am trying to put together a lawsuit on my own behalf against officials of Alaska DOC. I have read enough to know that administrative remedies must be exhausted, and the lawsuit must be written correctly to be kept from being screened out of court. I have the grievance and appeal process down fairly good, it’s the court filing that I was working on before being put into punitive segregation. I’m not beat, they have only slowed me down.

I share your publications with anyone and everyone that I can. I can’t keep much in my possession anyway, so I write down what I’m interested in and pass on your publications. Thank you for the informative publication.

To whom it may concern, this is a plea for help from all prisoners housed in David Wade Correctional Center (DWCC) located in Homer, Louisiana.

Warden Goodwin is locking us inside these torture chambers for years with no educational activities, no corrective-rehabilitative programs, and no counseling for mental health. The lawmakers’ and courts’ intentions were to send those convicted of a crime to prison as a punishment, not to be oppressed, tortured in a cell 24-7 with nothing to do for years with nothing to better themselves, also with no TV or radio to have contact with the outside world. The lawmakers’ intent was that prisoners receive correction and rehabilitation so as to return to society as productive, tax-paying, law-abiding members. By prisoners not being able to better themselves behind these walls, that is what makes us the highest incarceration state of the U.S.

Warden Goodwin is forcing mentally ill prisoners in a cell together 24-7, only coming out for a shower, and in turn these prisoners are hurting each other and raping each other. The policy #035 stated no maximum ext-lockdown inmate should be housed together but they are at DWCC where if you do not go in the cell you will be pepper sprayed. And not knowing what to expect or having any idea as to the length of confinement is added stress and particularly traumatizing, compounded by simplistic practices. The courts have also held that housing mentally ill prisoners under conditions of extreme isolation is unconstitutional, see Wilkerson v. Goodwin 12-17-14 [This case addressed long-term/indefinite solitary confinement, not specifically for the mentally ill - ULK Editor]. There has been much research that demonstrated that prolonged solitary confinement is most dangerous to the mentally ill. Thus, we become disturbed with mental anguish that compels us to grab and adopt to other means and channel our pain, many are cutting themselves and going on hunger strikes. These are only a few experiences of prisoners. We need help, we need change, expose this torture!

Help us today, make a call or fax our governor and head of DOC. Ask them to close the torture chamber confinement unit at DWCC:

MIM(Prisons) adds: As we have discussed elsewhere, isolation in prisons and mental illness reinforce each other under the current imperialist prison model. Too often people in these institutions are seen as lacking as individuals, when it is a system that creates this crisis in mental health. That is one reason we have continued to focus on the campaign to end the torture that is solitary confinement in the U.$. injustice system.

This issue of Under Lock & Key is focused on disabilities in prison. The use of control units to torture people, leading to physical and mental health problems is very much related to this topic. Long-term isolation is creating more and more disabled prisoners, by destroying their health. And then prisons are perpetuating this problem by failing to provide adequate care for the problems they created.