In Los Angeles, a George Jackson commemoration celebrates prisoner 
struggles against oppression.

California prison guards lobby to squelch an investigation into 
guard brutality.

Prisoner organizations are repressed under the cover of fighting 
"security threat groups."

Control units repress Blacks and Latinos.

An Ohio prisoner is forced to pay for it, but is denied medical 
care.

VOICE ONE

In Los Angeles, MIM and RAIL held an event on August 21st, the 
28th anniversary of the murder of revolutionary prisoner activist 
George Jackson. Jackson's death at the hands of a San Quentin 
Prison guard provided some of the impetus for the already 
organized Attica prisoners to escalate their demands on prison 
authorities by seizing control of Attica State "Correctional" 
Facility on September 9, 1971. 

A RAIL comrade opened the event by reading several letters written 
especially for this event by our comrades under lock and key. One 
prisoner wrote, "Unlike some of the higher profile cases of 
injustice we've come to know so well (like Mumia or Geronimo), 
Jackson's arrest and conviction didn't provoke initial outrage. 
But his literary work while on the inside - especially the book 
Soledad Brother - drew attention to his unflinching perspective of 
the proletariat's struggle and Black militancy; a perspective, I 
believe, which refocused the goals of political prisoners from 
coast to coast, San Quentin to Attica."

The letters were followed by a brief talk by a MIM supporter on 
the imprisonment and death of George Jackson. The speaker stressed 
the relevance of Jackson's extreme sentence -- one year-to-life 
for stealing $70 from a gas station -- to today's longer 
sentences, mandatory minimums and "third strikes." The MIM 
supporter then read excerpts from Jackson's second published book, 
Blood in My Eye, to illustrate that Jackson was both a 
revolutionary nationalist and internationalist, as well as a 
communist who upheld the Black Panther Party as the political 
vanguard of the Black colony.

In "Blood in My Eye," Jackson wrote to a friend in 1971, "We've 
gone through approximately the same changes since they separated 
us -- the confused flight to national revolutionary Africa -- 
through the riot stage of revolutionary Black America. We have 
finally arrived at scientific revolutionary socialism with the 
rest of the colonial world. ..."

Despite our criticisms of Jackson's focoism, MIM recommends his 
books as a strong case for national liberation and reminds 
activists of the link between his leadership and the Attica 
rebellion. 

At the event, MIM and RAIL showed clips of the documentary on the 
organization of the Attica prisoners, and the state's massacre as 
they ruthlessly re-took control of the prison, killing 39 people. 
A MIM supporter then spoke of the historical significance of the 
rebellion to prison organizing:

"The response of the state was a cold-blooded massacre, so vicious 
that it surprised everyone. It wouldn't have cost the state much 
to improve conditions. That wasn't the point. The point was that 
the Attica rebellion -- and the revolutionary nationalist and 
anti-war movements it was associated with -- were a crisis for the 
state."

After, some friends and associates of MIM and RAIL, including 
Foundation Kollective, contributed poetry and spoken word 
performances to the event, audience members discussed the current 
crisis of Amerikan prisons and talked about concrete actions that 
people can take on behalf of prisoners. MIM and RAIL stressed 
revolutionary education and MIM's Serve the People Free Books for 
Prisoners Program. Participants also discussed state-sponsored 
obstacles to those efforts, including literature censorship and 
political repression, especially the so-called "Secure Housing 
Units" or SHUs.

A Texas comrade wrote from under lock and key, "Here in Klan 
capital Texas we who are held captive are fighting for our very 
lives. You have trigger-happy field guards and a medical staff 
that is bent on unleashing the spreading of AIDS and hepatitis. 
Guards in Texas prisons have a long history of murdering inmates 
and getting away with it ..."

As George Jackson wrote, and the experiences of Attica and the 
present illustrate, the prison system is a tool of class and 
national warfare against oppressed peoples. Join MIM and RAIL's 
efforts to expose the extreme repression and brutality of Amerikan 
prisons. Contact us at: radio(at)m i m(dot)Org   to learn about 
events in your area, or to work with us to bring such events 
there.

VOICE 2

California prison guards lobby to squelch investigation into guard 
brutality. 

After exposure of Corcoran State Prison's murderous conditions to 
the public last year, a bill was proposed in California making the 
state Attorney General responsible for investigating prison 
brutality cases. The bill would take this power away from local 
officials. 

While we do not see such a change of hands as a real change, the 
California  Correctional Peace Officers Association evidently saw 
Attorney General Bill Lockyer as  a threat. The bill lost 6-2 in 
the Assembly's Public Safety Committee, and Government officials 
have made it clear that the bill would have passed without the 
heavy influence of the California Correctional Peace Officers 
Association.  The L.A. Times claims that this "union has emerged 
as one of the most potent political forces in California by 
contributing  millions of dollars to local and state politicians."

The union has instituted a code of silence throughout the years. 
This makes  investigation extremely difficult. The guards' union 
denied Fresno County  detectives access to question guards for 
three weeks following a shooting death  in Pleasant Valley State 
Prison. 

Politicians have continued to point fingers at each other, while 
pretending to take action. No California guards have been 
prosecuted for any of the shooting deaths or injuries in the past 
decade. We expect nothing more of politicians than their current 
washing of hands. We also do not expect armed agents of Amerika's 
oppressive system to be prosecuted for crimes against the people  
generally. Only when it is to the advantage of imperialists, will 
they prosecute a few token 'bad cops.' It is primarily the masses 
who are prosecuted - regardless of innocence. 

Last month, the California Department of Corrections reached a 
settlement with  former Corrections Officer Richard Caruso, who 
had filed complaints of  misconduct against the California 
Department of Corrections. The Department  agreed to pay Caruso 
and his lawyers an undisclosed amount so that they would  drop the 
accusations against the Department of Corrections and many 
employees  named by Caruso. 

In the Department news release, Director Terhune stated, "We  will 
take all reasonable measures to ensure that there will be no 
retaliation  for reporting illegal activities or violations of law 
or public policy."  

Prisoners have endlessly detailed the retaliation they face for 
speaking out.  It's possible that a bought-off corrections officer 
may not be retaliated  against.  Prison retaliation typically hits 
prisoners hardest. 

Prisons are an important tool in maintaining the U$ government's 
control over the internal colonies. Capitalists also reap great 
profits by taking government contracts to build and manage 
prisons. And of course the bourgeoisie shares the wealth with the 
labor aristocracy. The labor aristocracy has fought hard for jobs 
as so-called corrections officers. California brags of having the 
largest criminal justice agency and having some of the highest 
paid corrections  officers in the United $tates, who are making 
between twenty-three hundred and thirty-eight hundred dollars a 
month. 

The incidents that occur in U$ prisons daily are state-sponsored 
murder and abuse. The prison guards who abuse inmates are not 
"rogues" as described in the bourgeois press. Prison guards are an 
integral part of a system that is based on oppression. The 
corruption nurtured by capitalism gives the California 
Correctional Peace Officers Association power to pay off 
individuals who get in their way of carrying out business as usual 
in the U$ prisons. 



VOICE 3

Prisoner organizations are repressed under the cover of fighting 
"security threat groups."

The following letter was written to MIM by an Indiana prisoner:

The prison officials at Indiana State Penitentiary have begun a 
Security Threat Group (STG) campaign to target and discourage ALL 
Revolutionary Support groups, to discourage friends and family 
from communicating with Political Prisoners, Revolutionaries, and 
the progressive elements in these kages. This campaign is a clear 
attempt at repressing and limiting our communications, and putting 
a stronghold on our abilities to reach our communities. Books, 
pamphlets, letters, newsletters and newspapers are all subjected 
to confiscation under the STG policy as prisoner-to- prisoner 
correspondence, gang-related, or inflammatory.

This campaign serves to further isolate and segregate New Afrikans 
and the Latino Nations who are organizing and politicizing our 
communities about the atrocities being committed against prisoners 
around this kountry. If our bloodlines are severed from the 
communities, then the conditions of our lives are hanging in the 
balance, checked by our captors.

At another prison, the officials are waging another campaign to 
limit the list of supporters we can call to twenty people. The 
prison's phone policy claims if a supporter is not on your phone 
list, and you make an attempt to call them, the prison officials 
will cut the phone line, trace the call back and ask your 
supporters if they are willing to accept your phone call.  This is 
a clear case of harassment. The contradiction undermines the 
purpose of a phone operator, our supporters' ability to say yes or 
no to a phone call by a prisoner, and again brings into question 
the issue of harassment of our supporters. Those of us who are 
constantly informing our supporters about the conditions and 
treatment must overstand that by giving our captors a list of 
supporters, friends, and loved ones may enable a campaign to call 
our supporters and blatantly lie about conditions and treatment -- 
so be careful. We must protect our resources, and one of those 
resources is our supporters.




VOICE 6

Abuse in South Carolina

I am currently under lock and key in Evans Correctional Institute 
in South Kkkarolina, one of many torture camps. A few days ago two 
officers assaulted an elderly Black man who had to be in his 60's 
or 70's, while he was in a wheelchair. Officer Coleman and Sargent 
Childress both jacked him out of his wheelchair and slammed him 
down several times, causing cardiac arrest. A week or two later he 
died in the deathtrap infirmary. None of these pigs received any 
punishment for the murder. As far as the courts are concerned, 
it's one less  nigger to worry about I guess. 

-- a prisoner in Florida