Out of Control: A 15-Year Battle Against Control Unit Prisons
by
Nancy Kurshan
Freedom Archives,
2013
web
book available here
“All human activity is collective - a combination of the work and
inspiration shaped by those who came before us and those who labor with
us.” - Nancy Kurshan
Nancy Kurshan does an excellent job of highlighting the significance of
a 15-year struggle of the Committee to End the Marion Lockdown (CEML)
from 1985-2000. This struggle was initiated to end the lockdown at
Marion Federal Prison, located in the state of Illinois, which morphed
into one of Amerikkka’s earliest and most notorious control units and
isolation-based torture chambers. At its core, the book illustrates
countless examples of mutual aid and cooperation, along with emphasizing
the importance of having clearly established goals and objectives that
can be reasonably achieved.
As with any struggle that is geared towards movement building, CEML
began with the idea of a few individuals; founding members Nancy
Kurshan, Jan Susler, and Steve Whitman initially just wanted to educate
the people by exposing to the public the systemic practices of social,
political, economic and racial injustices that are inherent in the
prison system, and how these contradictions impact and affect our
communities. It wasn’t long before their work took on a life of its own,
that was molded by their relentless strategical planning and organizing.
Unbeknownst to many in society, solitary confinement units were
originally modeled after the diabolical techniquest of the mad
scientist, Dr. Edgar Schein of MIT. He provided a blueprint on how to
break and brainwash the Chinese prisoners of war in his book
Coercive Persuasion. Nancy Kurshan excerpts a passage from
Schein’s article “Man Against Man”:
“In order to produce marked changes of attitude and/or behavior, it is
necessary to weaken, undermine, or remove the supports of the old
attitudes. Because most of these supports are the face-to-face
confirmation of present behavior and attitudes, which are provided by
those with whom close emotional ties exist, it is often necessary to
break these emotional ties. This can be done either by removing the
individual physically and preventing any communication with those whom
he cares about, or by proving to him that those whom he respects are not
worthy of it, and, indeed, should be actively mistrusted…
“I would like to have you think of brainwashing, not in terms of
politics, ethics, and morals, but in terms of the deliberate changing of
human behavior and attitudes by a group of men who have relatively
complete control over the environment in which the captive populace
lives.”(p. 12)
This history gives relevant context to the California Department of
Correction and Rehabilitation’s (CDCR) gang validation
policies/practices, and in particular to CDCRs newly-created step-down
program (SDP). The SDP is where we prisoners have been targeted and
persecuted with the same purpose and objectives that Schein had in mind
– to break and brainwash us! It must be noted that Pelican Bay’s
counter-intelligence unit (Institution Gang Investigators – IGI), has
successfully destroyed the only real outside support I had. They falsely
accused my beloved lil sista of promoting gang activity via a letter she
sent me to tell me that Black Panther Party members were going to be
attending and supporting a community event that was being held on my
behalf to raise awareness about my status as a political prisoner and
forthcoming parole board hearing.
Instrumental in CEML’s successful grassroots organizing were several key
factors:
- They made a point of not just jumping into activities but rather
committed fully to doing the groundwork necessary to make events
successful. This allowed them to preserve and maximize their limited
resources. For example, they would initiate plans 3, 6, or 12 months in
advance, containing specific objectives that they wanted to achieve in
their line of work.
- Their collaborative work with political prisoners such as Sundiata
Acoli, Oscar López Rivera, Alejandrina Torres, Bill Dunne, Safiya
Bukhari, Hanif Shabazz Bey, Carlos A. Torres, Silvia Baraldini, and
Susan Rosenberg, which later included the prisoners who were also being
subjected to various human rights abuses. CEML members were able to
learn first hand of the contradictions that plagued Marion Prison and
others like it, thus equipping CEML with the necessary tools to achieve
their objectives, while providing substantive support to prisoners.
Pivotal in this exchange was CEML including the prisoners in the
decision-making process when strategizing for a particular action and/or
a community event.
- CEML understood the importance of having organizational
infrastructure. They constantly distributed pamphlets, leaflets, flyers,
brochures, and other propaganda-based materials via the workshops,
seminars, and study groups they held, to educate the people about their
line of work. This ensured the basis of clearly-defined organizational
expectations being set forth, which made it easier for CEML to receive
support from the community.
- CEML did not limit the focus of their primary objective to just
ending the lockdown at Marion; they also instituted additional campaigns
that became interconnected to their pursuits. For example, the prisoners
at Marion were being forced to drink, shower, and wash themselves in
toxic, polluted water. The exposure of this contradiction brought about
outrage from the environmentalists, and allowed CEML to forge a united
front with them.
And so I close with a clenched fist salute to Nancy Kurshan and the
entire CEML staff for a job well done - but more importantly, for having
the wherewithal to share their struggle and life experiences with the
people. I urge people to read and study Nancy Kurshan’s book Out of
Control and build upon the framework that she has provided us. The
book is available online at:
www.freedomarchives.org.
<P CLASS=“no-indent”>MIM(Prisons) adds: We agree with
this writer about the value for activists in the Committee to End the
Marion Lockdown’s (CEML) summary of their 15-year history. Out of
Control provides valuable historical documents and analysis on the
development of control unit prisons in the United $tates and their use
for social control, as well as organizing lessons from fifteen years of
CEML activism dedicated to fighting the torture units. By linking to
historical documents, the online version of this book provides a
particularly useful resource and should serve as an example to other
activists about the importance of not just doing our organizing work,
but of documenting and summing up our lessons for the future.
(Quotations below will reference chapter numbers because the online book
does not have page numbers.)
In this book we learn that CEML was the original source for some of the
critical statistics we still use today about the disparity in
incarceration of New Afrikan people in the United $tates. And based on
their correct understanding of the use of prisons as a tool of social
control targeting oppressed nations, and the use of control units to
target revolutionary activists, CEML correctly predicted the dramatic
expansion of the prison population and of control unit prisons. CEML’s
analysis of the criminal injustice system in the United $tates lines up
well with our own:
“[W]e realized that there was virtually no connection between crime and
imprisonment. Rather, imprisonment was being used as a method of social
control for the most rebellious segments of society, in this case Black
people and other people of color.
“We reasoned and asserted that just as prisons were to control rebellion
in society, control unit prisons were to control other prisons, and that
the ‘holes’ or ‘boxes’ within control unit prisons were used to control
control unit prisons, etc. Just boxes stuffed in boxes.”(ch. 29)
CEML was initiated by Nancy Kurshan and others, coming out of movements
such as the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee. Kurshan summarizes their
view on organizing: “In our corner of the movement, we felt we had a
particular responsibility to organize other white people to fight racism
and injustice.”(ch. 4) MIM(Prisons) agrees with some of the theory
behind this approach, in particular the idea of focusing on the needs
and goals of oppressed nations’ struggles for self-determination within
the United $tates. Kurshan writes: “We thought it was important not to
compete with the self-organization of people of color, and everything we
did was in close consultation with activists in those communities. In
addition, we tried to support the agendas that were developed by those
activists.”(ch. 4) Kurshan goes too far into identity politics in some
of her statements, as it is critically important not to abdicate
leadership to others simply based on their nationality, but rather to
look for correct political line. However, the real problem with this
idea of organizing white people to fight racism and injustice was found
in CEML’s incorrect analysis (or lack of analysis) of classes within the
United $tates. Talking about “racism” rather than “national oppression”
is indicative of this mistake.
The United $tates is a society based on national oppression with the
white nation in power and the oppressed nations facing dramatic
disparities in education, housing, income and of course imprisonment.
Further, the United $tates is a wealthy imperialist country where the
vast majority of citizens enjoy class privilege. And so when we look at
who we want to organize we need to first understand what their class and
national interests are in the status quo. Those suffering national
oppression have an interest in changing the status quo but they still
benefit from class privilege just by virtue of their U.$. citizenship.
And those benefiting from national oppression (the predominantly white
Amerikan nation), and enjoying wealth from the exploitation of the
global proletariat, have a strong class and national interest in
upholding the status quo including the oppressive criminal injustice
system.
And so strategies like the one CEML undertook in Tamms, Illinois to
organize the community incorrectly tried to pose the opposition to the
prison in the economic interests of the community members: “When it
looked like the small southern Illinois town of Tamms might be the site
of the new control unit prison, Erica, Leila, and Joey traveled to Tamms
to speak with members of the community regarding the nefarious nature of
these control units. They distributed literature debunking the notion
that the prison would provide locals with an economic shot in the
arm.”(ch. 22) In reality prisons often provide economic help for the
communities where they are built in the form of new jobs and spending.
We should take on the nefarious nature of control units without
misrepresenting the economics of prisons and the interests of those
employed or potentially employed by the prisons. In 2013 Tamms was
closed for budget reasons and the guard’s labor union delayed the
closure with a lawsuit allegedly over safety concerns.
Kurshan explains CEML enjoyed only small victories while facing defeats
in all of their larger goals. Our understanding of national oppression
within the United $tates helps us see why we are unlikely to win big
victories for the oppressed while the imperialists are still in control.
Further, CEML put too much faith in their ability to impact Congress,
although CEML did recognize that politicians would not take action
without outside pressure:
“Our focus on Congress was never exclusive, because we realized that
only through grassroots activism – people in the streets – could we hope
to get any action from the politicians on these issues. We had to build
a movement of people to challenge the dominant ideology regarding
imprisonment.”(ch. 21)
Ultimately to win this battle against control units and the criminal
injustice system we will need to dismantle the capitalist economic
system itself. CEML did not put their work in that context and so were
not pushing forward the important work of building towards communist
revolution. Only with a dictatorship of the proletariat in power will we
be able to make fundamental changes to Amerika’s injustice system.
