MIM Notes 166        July 15, 1998

Under Lock and Key: News on Prisons and Prisoners

Every problem has a solution

Dear MIM,

Thank you for the MIM Notes. I will share them with 
others here. We have an excellent study group on lock 
up. Ain't nobody in the slightest is sleeping. The devil 
who runs the library said he'd consider MIM Notes, but I 
don't believe that I am going to be pushing the issue. 

I just finished reading Mao's Four Essays and that book 
answered a lot of questions I had. Most of all it 
enabled me to see that every problem has a solution and 
I can find it if I do the math. Everyday I smile 'cause 
I'm growing stronger and the fruit coming from my tree 
is the best heaven can offer. I ain't sleeping and I'm 
doing by universal duty and will continue to do so.

--A South Carolina Prisoner, 3 May 1998

Re-educating prisoners

...I received my MIM Notes recently and as usual I 
shared a few issues with some of the surrounding 
inmates. Just prior to circulating the paper [this was 
the conversation].

"Don't pass that shit over here or I'll rip that shit 
up..." one of the inmates [Prisoner Y] shouted.

"Fuck you I'm with it..." another hollered.

"That nigga don't know what an imperialist is!" still 
another.

"Yeah, I do, nigga. I live in the land of milk and honey 
don't I?" he [Prisoner Y] said.

"Brothers," I yell, "who's benefiting here in the 'land 
of milk and honey'? Are you enjoying your three hots and 
your cot? Your .24 cent an hour job? The constant 
revolving door of prison and having to beg repeatedly 
for your freedom from those who confine you, who in 
essence had no right to do so?"

I continue, "Aren't you tired of standing for count and 
being fed both an unhealthy physical and mental diet? 
Being stripped at random?"

"You don't know what you are talking about man! It ain't 
like that. I'm in jail because I did something wrong. 
I'm here for a reason..." He [Prisoner Y] came back 
with.

Now I'm angry at the system, which has indoctrinated 
this 32 year-old man so damn well, so I try another 
approach.

"Fool-ass nigger! Do you know what Billy (Bill Clinton) 
went to Afrika for?!" I scream, "He's on a hunting 
expedition for other blacks to replace us when we are 
gone. Yes, gone, out-of here, done away with. Have you 
realized what happens to people such as us, the 
prisoners, when the third world erupts? We are executed 
in accordance with the imperialist "divine" 
constitution. They don't give a damn about a proletariat 
the rejected proletariat better known as the criminals 
like me and like you! ..."

By now I have the entire floor. Except now I've got to 
cool it down because I have the attention of the inmate 
cops, guards, informers, etc. Shit hot and at times I 
know not my own tongue. Hell, I am already in the hole 
and have been since June 1997 for my political views and 
my aptness to stand firm that Rome as we know it must 
fall.... 

Sincerely we Struggle,

-- A Wisconsin Prisoner, 8 May 1998

MIM Responds: We commend you comrade, for your efforts 
in educating fellow prisoners about their daily 
oppression by Amerikkka's imperialists. We agree that 
your anger should lie with the system of oppression and 
not your fellow prisoner. The U$ media has done a good 
job of criminalizing the masses. This person may have 
committed a crime but the imperialists are the real 
criminals.

We should point out that we disagree with a few details 
of your arguments. For example Bill Clinton is on 
expedition in Africa, for resources to feed the 
imperialist machine. In addition, it is MIM line that 
World War III is on right now, the Third World is 
already erupting. It is the war between the imperialists 
and the oppressed. We must continue to expose the 
atrocities of imperialist oppression. Keep up the 
struggle to help educate the masses.

Wisconsin transfers

...In Wisconsin the prisons are full, so they have sent 
300 inmates to county jails in Texas by FORCE. Now they 
are sending 1,200 to Tennessee, private prisons 
indifferently. They are contacting any private prison 
anywhere in the united states to put more prisoners. 
They are taking them away from their families and 
friends. The inmates have no choice but to go. The 
guards are taking stun belts on the bus, which takes 
prisoners out of state. If the prisoners act up the 
belts are put on them. Two guys tried to kill 
themselves, rather than go to Tennessee. They're now in 
a mental hospital....

-- A Wisconsin Prisoner,

26 March 1998

Struggling to recover religious articles stolen by pigs

...Presently, besides pursuing the appeals of my 
wrongful convictions, I am waging a struggle to obtain 
my Medicine Bundle and religious accouterments that were 
confiscated from me at SCI-Green. 

Some of the Pennsylvania Prisons have Native services 
every two weeks or so, but for the most part the state 
contracted coordinators are not recognized by 
Traditional Elders as spiritual leaders and the services 
(ceremonies) are not authentic. For the most part, those 
prisoners who attend the services are only there to 
secure a religious exemption to wear their hair long. 
Because this [their hair] is their only real concern, 
they are not prepared to struggle for an authentic 
program coordinated by competent coordinators or 
authentic spiritual leaders.

Any action you can lend to the success of this struggle 
would be appreciated. Governor Ridge is high up on the 
list as a potential Republican candidate for Vice 
President in 2000. He has proven to be a real anti-
prisoner advocate up to this point. He needs to be made 
aware that there are people out there in the free world 
who do not approve of religious oppression of non-
christian faith groups....

In the Spirit of Resistance,

-- A Pennsylvania Prisoner, 24 April 1998 

MIM responds: MIM and RAIL work to educate people about 
the truth of the criminal injustice system while also 
putting pressure on politicians and the government in 
general to reform reactionary policies. But even if we 
succeed in making people like Governor Ridge aware of 
the people's opposition to oppression this will not 
change the fundamentally unjust nature of imperialism. 
Because of this we must always put our education and 
agitation work in the context of the need for a 
revolution to overthrow imperialism.

In hole due to religious beliefs

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

...I writing your organization in hopes of maybe helping 
me with a situation I'm going through. I am presently 
incarcerated in SCI-Green [State Correctional 
Institution-Green] in Waynesburg, PA. I have been 
constantly placed in the hole because of my religious 
belief in long hair under Rastafarianism. 

The policy of the institution of SCI-Green states that 
an inmate must have a letter, certificate or membership 
card to show proof of his beliefs in order to be exempt 
from the grooming policy. The truth is I have no 
religious advisor or a Rastafarian organization to 
contact because I've just recently been touched by the 
movement two and a half years ago. 

I write this letter from the hole to ask if there are 
any Rastafarian brothers or sisters affiliated with your 
organization who can contact me (or I can contact them)? 
Or maybe you could provide me a list of Rastafarian 
organizations that I can write to about membership in 
their church or organization.

-- A Pennsylvania Prisoner,

22 April 1998

MIM Responds: This prison's policy of punishing 
prisoners for their religious beliefs is additional 
proof that the imperialists who run prisons are the real 
criminals. We thank this prisoner for exposing this 
injustice.

[MIM sent this person an address of a Rastafarian 
organization that may be able to assist him with this 
matter by making it possible for him to play by the 
prisons rules and avoid arbitrary punishments.]

Rastafarian prisoner exposes injustice in Massachusetts

Dear MIM,

...Enclosed you will find a copy of a civil action 
complaint that I have filed against the Massachusetts 
Department of Corrections (DOC) and 28 of their 
employees for assault, denial of medical treatment, food 
& water depredation, and denial of witnesses & guidance 
at disciplinary hearing boards. These people seem to be 
able to do anything against prisoners without fear of 
any judicial answering.

I am a Rastafarian Prisoner who had to go on a hunger 
strike to get these medical administrators to implement 
a dietary supplement meal without meat because I am a 
total vegetarian. This hunger strike was from November 
13, 1998 to November 26, 1998. In which time I went from 
210 pounds to 173 pounds. After this they finally 
implemented the dietary supplemental meals.

The correctional officers began to tamper with my meal 
trays. This resulted in me being assaulted by a Move 
Team. Then another Move Team with a k-9 dog assaulted me 
the following day. Right now I'm engaged in this civil 
action in which they seem to have to the upper hand due 
to their unlimited lawyers and the aid of congressional 
staff to search (shakedown) my cell and steal legal 
documents pertaining to the civil action suit against 
them. 

Nonetheless I still strive on with my suit. All of the 
so-called prison aid programs, twelve of which I have 
written, have replied that they can't help me or do not 
have the resources to help me. As soon as a prisoner 
gets killed they come out of the woodwork to aid that 
person's family to sue for money so they can grab their 
share....

Sincerely Yours,

-- A Massachusetts Prisoner, 6 May 1998

Racist white pig attacked

Dear MIM,

I received your newspapers on March 13th. I read them 
both very carefully before sharing them with some of the 
conscious comrades here on Evans Special Management 
Control Unit. Before we came into contact with MIM, a 
lot of the literature we've been receiving was nothing 
but poison. The MIM newspapers really open up a lot of 
other comrades' eyes after reading them because now they 
see we're not the only ones struggling throughout the 
United Snakes.

I'm trying to start a study group here, but I'm not sure 
how long I can expect it to last. The comrades here at 
Evans want to learn about the revolutionary struggle but 
they are afraid of what the pigs might do to them. But 
I'm going to give it my all to reach the unconscious and 
conscious Brothers.

Recently here at Evans Control Unit, during Rec 
[recreation] one of the pigs was attacked and beaten by 
several inmates. Note the pig was a racist white male. 
Me along with eight other comrades were accused of the 
incident. None of the other pigs saw the incident with 
their eyes. They just started picking Black Brothers 
only, who they thought could have done something like 
this.

They placed every last comrade on Level 1 where you only 
wear chain and shackles. Lt. Nolan, a white racist pig, 
denied all the comrades soap, toothpaste, deodorant, 
face cloth, towels and shower shoes. We only had one 
pair of underwear, a t-shirt and on pair of socks to 
wear. These we had on -- some didn't even have that. 

In Struggle,

-- A South Carolina Prisoner, 16 March 1998

Exposing gulag hypocrisy and injustice

...This is a communication directed to expose the 
oppressive deeds that have been dealt upon me and my 
comrades/brothers, whom in the injustice system of South 
Carolina, I now call my co-defendants.

On February 6, 1998, myself along with 10 other brothers 
were moved from the Level II tier to the Level I tier of 
Evans Correctional Institution's Special Management Unit 
(SMU). The reason for this was said to be that we were 
under investigation because a white pig got beat down on 
the rec field. The pig who moved us, then supervisor of 
SMU (Lt. Nolan, promptly took all of our possessions 
including toothpaste, soap, deodorant, etc.) Then he 
left for the weekend bringing us dirty sheets and 
blankets that looked like someone had used them to clean 
the engine of a car with them. If it wasn't for the 
brothers who gave us hygiene products we would have been 
forced to live in a savage state.

On the 7th we (seven of us) were brought warrants for 
the institutional kangaroo court. Two of us were found 
not guilty for the charges of riot and striking an 
employee. I was one of them. So, you would think that 
four prisoners who weren't charged and the two who beat 
the charges were sent back to Level II, right? Of course 
not!

After another week or two of kicking out our mattresses 
at 7:00 am every morning, being chained up with a leash 
and screaming because the property they did finally 
bring down was minute compared to what they took -- they 
brought us street warrants. Now hold up, didn't I say I 
was found not guilty at the kangaroo court? The same 
hearing in which a Black pig who witnessed the entire 
incident [the beating of the other guard] but was not 
harmed told the Captain that I did not have anything to 
do with what happened!? So I get a 10,000 bond and a 
public defender. I was told to lay down until the level 
board.

Today I went before the Level board. I was told to 
remain on Level I because of the street warrant that was 
served on me. I was told that I will be on Level I until 
charges get dismissed or I go to court. Plus, I must cut 
my dreads -- the same dreads I had while on Level II....

-- A South Carolina Prisoner,

13 March 1998

Exposing harassment tactics

...About a week a go the pigs here at Evan's Special 
Management Unit in South Karolina rolled on the Level 
1's while on the rec field [recreation field]. They said 
rec was over when we had 15 to 20 minutes left. Now, 
when you're locked up 23 hours a day, you tend to want 
that hour of rec when you're supposed to get it. So we 
stayed out.

When the hour was over we asked to come in but the pigs 
wouldn't come get us. They were serving lunch. So after 
another three hours out there, they came and got us. 
When we got to our kages, there was nothing in them. No 
mattress, no toilet paper, no nothing. Plus they said 
since we wanted rec so bad, we didn't want lunch -- so 
they didn't feed us.

The next day a few of us refused to close our windows. 
So the warden cam down and said if we chill we would get 
our stuff that night. So we complied. That night the few 
that had protested didn't get anything. 

Well, we got our stuff the next day, and some nice 
colored write-ups to go with it. Treatment like this 
seems to tell me inmates are always wrong here, even 
when standing up for what's right, and officers can do 
what they want.

I know this is an example to scare Brothers to not raise 
their voice (or fist) for what they stand for. But we 
must make sacrifices in order to gain what we want.... 

Stand Strong!

-- A South Carolina Prisoner,

20 April 1998

Prisoner 0862045

Prisoner 0862045 fast asleep (That's me) in a miniature 
tomb down on the dark side at the Iowa Reformatory 
middle of October '91 Jerked out of sleep, four-thirty 
in the morning by the C/O's holler: "Mattresses and 
blankets!" forced to give up bedding for a daily dose of 
punishment. I lay back down on cold dingy cement a few 
toilet paper squares just rightly folded to cushion the 
head I hate being frozen to the bone no way to escape 
enraged at what's to come a know it all, bald headed son 
of a bitch Pig casper, AKA: "Skittlehead" Comes to 
harass me and the others in his sadistic way of taking 
absolute control My turn comes next to shower As Pig 
casper with a smirk Knowing I'll challenge his ass, 
Orders "Put the spit mask on or get maced!" I refused, 
thinking "I'll be damned if I'll wear that degrading 
mask while showering." a few minutes pass and all hell 
breaks out as a squad of dick sucking guards crowd in 
front of my cell with large canisters of pepper spray 
macho attitudes fumigate my cell until I could breathe 
no more orange stain coming down the walls "Back up to 
the bars and get cuffed!" The guards yell "Fuck off!" 
"I'm a Vietnam Vet, I can take this shit" I holler 
between gasps of irritated breath. They slam shut the 
solid door and window and ventilation fans go quiet gone 
into semi-reality my fixation to eliminate the enemy as 
I've been trained to do by the U.S. Army feeling so 
helpless again I try to sleep to no avail all the 
banging of bars and heated arguments "Who could whip 
who's as" sitting in complete darkness no water to wash 
the stuff away only four showers in ninety days! Just 
another nasty, fucked up day.

-- An Iowa Prisoner,

written 10 November 1997

submitted to MIM 26 April 1998

Rain of blows: Guards attack prisoner

...I am enthralled to know that MIM gives a damn enough 
to expose the injustice systems brutality. However, 
prior to me putting this scroll on the line I asked 
myself, "How safe is this?" I concluded, "Far more safe 
than being zapped with a stun gun while dripping with 
sweat..."

Comrades back in February 1998 I was returning to my 
cell in the Racine Correctional Institution [RCI] here 
in good-ole Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the segregation 
unit. I got to the door, where I was assigned to a box 
with a six inch high cement slab with a quarter of an 
inch grove for an eight of an inch pad-mattress. I 
notice my family photos, posters, and calendar were torn 
off the wall and lay on the floor abysmally. I stopped 
cold, a tear of anger formed in my eye. I demanded an 
inmate complaint form and asked the shift sergeant to 
witness the condition of the cell.

Yeah, he witnessed all right. With a full head of steam 
he cam running from about 15 yards away, grabbing me 
from the back with such force, that he and I both 
flipped over the toilet. Did I mention that I was cuffed 
behind my back? Well I was.

The rookie cop took a swing for my doom, reflex made me 
duck. The white shirt captain materialized with a metal 
baton in hand. Then the lady cop with the leg- irons. An 
unaccountable amount of other blue shirts accompanied a 
rain of blows and pressure holds.

I was being carried, dropped, told to walk, carried, 
dragged, dropped, choked, pulled, banged, pushed... 
carried, dropped, dragged... drug to the floor where the 
lady cop was ordered by the white shirt, "Get the 
shears. Cut off his clothes!"

She poked me in the right buttocks, pricked me in the 
left, I feel the blood running. I struggle, jerk, pull, 
spit, push, roll and rock. She went to the emergency 
room. Somehow she was allegedly kicked in the nose. 
Wrong thing to do.

The rain of blows, one right in the nuts, another right 
on the bridge of my nose. Then there was a pair of 
gloved hands putting force on my head, smashing it into 
the floor. The goddamn cement floor, as he kneels with 
his arms locked, weight pressed forward on my head.

Naked I stood, a size 14 show on the middle of a chain 
between my legs. The pressure on both ankles was 
profuse. Twice I am told kneel naked on the floor. That 
ain't going on. I don't kneel. I hurt all over but I 
don't kneel.

I'm being placed in an enclosure area. It looks 
identical to [my last cell] except for the straps. Yeah, 
they four pointed me naked for seventeen hours. I got 
the chance to spit in that captain's face, it was no 
victory though. After 45 minutes of fighting with 15 
cops, I was wet with sweat and he stun-gunned my ass. 
Right between the testicle and the thigh. Yeah, he tried 
to electrocute me.

I was subjected to a total of 210 plus [days] on the 
cement slab for a bed. Of course [there are] 
disciplinary proceedings, pending outside charges for 
the officer who got hurt (allegedly) and $1,000 dollars 
restitution for the hospital bills.

I still have reduced mobility and feeling in my left 
hand. I am being held hostage here at RCI and not 
permitted to transfer, although PRC has granted it.

Brutality or attempted murder?...

-- A Wisconsin Prisoner,

18 May 1998

One year without a shower

Good Day Comrades,

This communique is being sent in regards to the 
situation that is at hand in the boiling pot of this 
oppressive laboratory.

Right now they have a POW [Prisoner of War] locked down 
24 hours a day. They feed him bread and cabbage daily. 
It has been over a year that these pigs have denied him 
a mattress, a shower and recreation privileges. The pigs 
have been destroying his mail and depriving him of his 
legal work.

This Southport Correctional Facility is an experiment 
laboratory where these pigs take it upon themselves to 
break all the rules, codes and regulations. But when a 
real POW lays one of them on their back, they will be 
super fast to take the stand. Albany is in total 
cooperation with these pigs down here. The pigs with the 
suits and ties, let all the little pigs eat up the 
flies....

-- A New York Prisoner,

18 May 1998

Exposing harassment in Amerikkkan gulags

Comrade,

I received a copy of your publication, MIM Notes, from a 
brother who's in 23-hour confinement with me. ...He 
suggested I read MIM Notes. After reading it I realized 
that the shit that goes on in here goes on all through 
the injustice system. 

Here in Great Meadow Correctional Facility convicts are 
given bullshit tickets and found guilty by the 
administration. Pigs search people and feel all between 
their ass. When you write the pigs up then more of them 
[pigs] fuck with you. This discourages people from 
taking action....

-- A New York Prisoner,

23 March 1998