MIM NOTES 195	October 1, 1999

Under Lock & Key

Michigan prisoners protest conditions & organize 'Day of 
Solidarity'

We print this information both to expose the conditions within 
Amerika's dungeons and to promote the growth of (legal) 
organization against oppression by prisoners and outside 
supporters. Following the peaceful protest, MIM learned that 
certain leaders have been transferred because of their legal 
political activities.

MIM provides support and leadership to prisoners, in part, by 
providing material for political education study groups. These 
study groups are essential aspects of the struggle to improve 
conditions and to end this system built upon slavery, repression 
and exploitation. We urge allies on the outside to step up their 
support for MIM's Serve the People Free Books for Prisoners 
Program. This program provides material necessary for prisoners to 
educate one another and to prepare themselves against attacks by 
the state -- such as the separation of leaders from the general 
population of the prison or their comrades.

The announcement of the prisoners' Day of Solidarity was delayed 
in arriving in MIM's hands. Since then, an outside supporter 
informed MIM that the Day of Solidarity consisted primarily of 
prisoners peaceably educating one another, walking in the yard and 
refusing some activities as they demonstrated their unity. 

We, prisoners at Mound Correctional Facility, 17601 Mound Road, 
Detroit, Michigan, will be demonstrating a peaceful protest on 
August 3, 1999. This protest is against the administration and its 
failure to operate this institution in the standard and efficient 
manner that it is supposed to. ...

The imprisoning rate is at al all-time high and steadily 
increasing, it is not hard at this particular time to find many 
members in the community who have family, friends and loved ones 
in prison. Issues affecting the prison population are issues 
affecting the community as well. Anytime you have money being 
stolen from prisoners accounts, it is more than likely money sent 
from a family member, friend or loved one, all of which, are 
members of the community. When you have prisons where there's an 
absence of rehabilitation programs, social development programs, 
and job marketable skills programs, you are looking at a community 
problem because it is prisoners who are going to be returning to 
the communities from which they came. Prisoners unable to find 
decent employment to sustain themselves and provide their basic 
necessities (food, clothing and shelter) will be forced to find 
other means that are probably illegal. This is definitely a 
community issue because prisoners can either return as viable 
assets or dangerous liabilities.

In any event, we thank you for taking the time to review this 
missive and our outline of issues that we are demonstrating 
against.

Prisoners' Day of Solidarity

Prisoners' Day of Solidarity is a day that all prisoners in the 
Mound Correctional Facility will use to show and demonstrate unity 
amongst ourselves. And it is a collective stand against the 
repressive conditions, ineffective administration (programs, 
accounting and health care), and the overall failure to operate in 
a functional capacity to which an institution of this nature is 
supposed to.

There are a number of issues affecting the prison population at 
large, listed below are a few that have had a catastrophic affect, 
yet, as serious as these issues are, they can be rectified with 
little time and energy.

1. Health Care/Services:

Medical care at this facility is obsolete. Prisoners are denied 
pain relief medications for injuries whether internal or external 
and we are denied simple medications for seasonal cold and allergy 
symptoms. For examples, since the opening of this facility, the 
health care unity has distributed the same red and yellow 
pills/tablets (Pseudophedrine HCI 30mg and Chlorpheniramind 
Maleate 4mg) to inmates and officers regardless of the symptoms 
and we're told that these pills are multipurpose as if they're 
vitamins. Whenever someone has a cold, allergy, fever, sinus/nasal 
problem, sore throat, upset stomach, ear infection, hay fever, or 
swollen red eyes, the health care unit distributes these same 
pills! This is ignorant, inhumane and unacceptable and must stop 
immediately.

Any health care system should be adequately stocked with symptom 
curing medications and not just two pseudo/generic forms.

We are denied thorough and adequate examinations for medical 
concerns. We are denied efficient emergency medical response when 
there is an emergency. We are denied the professional conduct they 
are supposed/required to give. Instead of diagnosing prisoners on 
an individual basis, the nurses erroneously assume that every 
prisoner that comes to health care is 'crying wolf', and make no 
attempt to hide this belief while they belittle and attack 
patients who wreak with pain.

2. Business Office/Accounting:

Here at the Mound Correctional Facility, money has been stolen or 
misappropriated by way or poor management on more than one 
occasion which has resulted in the Prisoners's Benefit Fund (PBF) 
being in debt of tens of thousands of dollars. Because of this 
unchecked robbery and mismanagement, the PBF was and is expected 
to be corrected at the prisoners' expense. This is done by the 
raising of store prices that are already too high to begin with 
and forces us, because there is no other option, to buy into our 
own exploitation. The prisoner store prices are too high and many 
of the products are useless, the pens for example, are unable to 
spit enough ink out to write a one page letter and the televisions 
are lucky to last six months.

There are also a number of cases in which money has come up 
missing from prisoners' accounts. Upon making orders with outside 
vendors, the business office is entirely too leisure with the 
process. There is never any certainty that when making orders that 
the money has actually been taken out of the accounts and has been 
sent to the intended vender or other desired destination. In fact, 
this is the only facility in the Michigan Department of 
Corrections (MDOC) that takes at least three months to receive 
ordered items.

This also happens to be the only facility in the MDOC where the 
PBF doesn't have the necessary finances to purchase microphones, 
speakers and other necessary instruments for programs whether put 
on by prisoners or done by outside volunteers and guests.

3. Food Service:

Recently there has been a change in the serving software, the 
bowls and plates have been exchange with a serving tray that has 
served the purpose of cutting the rations of food down 
considerably. ...

Sanitation is another factor here. On most occasions, because of 
the shape of the trays, they are difficult to clean properly. At 
any other facility where these particular trays are used, they are 
used with inserts just to secure sanitation. There must be an end 
to the usage of these trays or at very least, slot inserts must be 
provided for trays.

Over the last couple of months, there have been major 
inconsistencies in the running of the chow lines. Either the units 
are called too close to one another or the units are called too 
far apart. [When the units are called too close together, we get 
overcrowded and have to wait outside.] [When units are called too 
far apart,] it cuts into the prisoners yard time. This too has to 
be rectified.

4. Programs:

It is estimated that 72% of all prisoners that are released from 
prison will return to prison within three years as a result of a 
new charge or parole violation. When looking at the Mound 
Correctional Facility, you can see exactly why the recidivism rate 
is so high. Here, there are no rehabilitation/habilitation 
programs, there are no social development programs, and there are 
no job marketable skilled programs. On a number of occasions, 
there have been attempts to have male responsibility programs and 
all were denied using the excuse of not having a qualified teacher 
(someone with a teachers certificate, yet, they don't provide us 
with the means of attaining a teachers certificate.) Outside 
volunteers have attempted to do alternative ministries and non-
Islamic or Christian centered ones are turned away. Volunteers 
have attempted to come in and teach drug [rehab] and other 
programs and were denied.

There are no job marketable skilled programs here that will state 
certify (not MDOC certify) a prisoner, enabling him to 
successfully enter into the job market in society with the skills 
necessary to meet whatever the requirements are in common labor 
markets. Without these skills that are necessary to secure decent 
jobs, there is no doubt that released prisoners who are super-
exploited, will more than likely return to crime or extra-legal 
means to not only support themselves, but in many cases, support 
their family who depend on them.

We must have some real and concrete programs unlike the quasi ones 
provided in the past that will better our development 
rehabilitation and increase our changes in a successful power 
release era.

What we want

1. We want the negligence at the health care unit to end. We want 
thorough examinations and appropriate medications for the many 
different illnesses and sicknesses that we encounter during our 
incarceration. We also want for the health care unit personnel to 
carry and conduct themselves in a professional manner regardless 
of how they feel or what they think, this isn't personal and 
shouldn't be taken as such.

2. We want the business office to run more efficiently and to be 
held accountable when it's not. The failure to manage the PBF and 
prisoners accounts has to stop. We want for the prisoners' orders 
(vendors, publications etc) to be processed in a much more timely 
manner.

The store prices must come down to a reasonable marker. The old 
products can no longer be sold to prisoners and must be discarded. 
[And the visits to the store] must work on a rotating schedule to 
ensure fairness. ...

3. We want for the food service lines to run more effectively, 
there is no reason why prisoners who be lined up outside of the 
chow hall waiting for their meals, nor should meals run into yard 
time and yard activities. We want for the serving trays to be 
discarded and the standard bowls and plates to go back into usage 
or, at very least, implement the usage of inserts in the serving 
trays.

4. We want social development programs, programs that are designed 
to empower individuals with healthy values and views that are 
essential in productive human beings; programs that will instill a 
sense of responsibility while providing the impetus to make a 
positive change and betterment of our lives.

We want one or more job marketable skilled programs that will 
prepare prisoners for employment... We must have something that 
will prepare us for employment.

This is a protest against the above stated issues. We have tried 
to deal with these issues by way of the Warden's Forum, only to no 
avail. This WF is no longer effective in representing us on this 
matter, this is a demonstration of the collective will of the 
entire prison population. This is a peaceful protest, however, if 
what we want is ruled out as being unacceptable, then the 
collective will of the entire prison population will see to it 
that these above stated objectives are reached.

-- A Michigan prisoner, July 1999.

MIM adds:  We encourage prisoners to continue writing to MIM and 
work with us to expose prison conditions. Getting your words out 
to educate and convince more people to become internationalist is 
essential. The gains of previous prisoner rebellions are often 
lost over time. This will continue as long as Amerika is the 
imperialist war-mongering country that it is. The system of 
imperialism, national oppression and prisons for profit and social 
control must be abolished. We can achieve some improvements by 
standing up and putting forward demands, but the imperialist pigs 
will continue to reinstate their means of control at the next 
opportunity. Our work must be toward ending imperialism entire.

New York prisoners organize

I received the letter and literature you sent. ... I most 
definitely felt your statements concerning what we 
prisoners/comrades can/must do to contribute to the progress of 
our collective struggle within the walls of imperialist 
oppression! As more and more of us oppressed nation peoples become 
awaken and not only cry-out for revolution but put in work for 
revolution the better our advantages become to secure the 
overthrowing of the evil-exploiters imperialist actions!

It's not hard to see that our overall objective is a difficult 
feat. Too many of us have been duped, brainwashed, and violently 
subjected in to this hell-bent plight we so miserably dwell in, 
for far too long. Consequently the first step is for each one to 
teach one. Organizations such as MIM, RAIL and USW are blessings 
in disguise.

In contrast there's a disease that exists within our masses: FEAR. 
Fear is the age-old disease that allowed heinous slavery to dwell 
within the annals of European history in this kountry. With this 
fear follows neglected responsibility. It is the responsibility of 
every member of an oppressed nation (whom are capable) to lend an 
armful of support. ...

A few other comrades and myself have attempted to start a food 
strike to protest the inhumane treatment administered by DOC 
soldiers. Unfortunately we have failed on both occasions due 
largely in part to lack of organizing and will of the majority. A 
few of us then attempted a porter-strike, but also failed. Inmates 
actually preferred to be worked as slaves and exploited then to 
protest for minimum standards!

Unity is a slow process...and some are actually pointing fingers 
for the slave-master exploiter and oppressor. The more I learn, 
the more I see. Before I advocate, I scrutinize, then teach. I 
educate the youth to secure the future. This kountry was built at 
the expense of the blood, sweat and tears of oppressed peoples. 
Therefore, its going to take blood sweat and tears for a 
progressive, successful revolution! All power to the people!

-- a New York prisoner, 22 June 1999.

Police brutality: the growing plague

Even though crime statistics show a decrease in violent crime, the 
amount of police brutality being inflicted upon people of color is 
on the rise. "From 1991 to 1997, the illegal murder rate dropped 
from 9.8 to 6.8 per 100,000 people. In some cities the drop in 
illegal murders in 1998 was drastic in the last year alone. New 
York had a 20% drop in murder in 1998, and Los Angeles had 27% 
fewer murders last year. (1) In cities with a population of a 
million or more, the murder rate fell from 35.5 per 100,000 people 
in 1991 to 20.3 per 100,000 in 1997.(1) The homicide "closure" 
rate -- the amount of homicides they arrest or summarily execute 
someone for -- has fallen from 54% in 1991 to 39% in 1998.(1) In 
the country overall the F.B.I. says there is a 66% closure rate on 
homicide."

Abuses such as unjustified shootings, severe beatings, fatal 
choking, and other forms of brutal physical treatment by police 
have been reported in cities throughout the United States."(2) On 
October 1, 1998 Philadelphia police shot 18 year old Donta Dawson 
to death while he sat unarmed in a car. In January 1999, 4 
Riverside California Police officers -- 3 being white and one 
Latino, brutally fired 12 rounds of ammunition into the body of 19 
year old Tyisha Miller killing her while she sat in a car having a 
seizure.

In December 1998, a white Millford, Connecticut police officer by 
the name of Scott B. Smith shot and killed Franklyn Reid -- a 
blackman in his late 20's in his back while he sat hand cuffed on 
his knees. And more recently just last month in February, 
undercover New York police officers fired 41 rounds at Ahmed 
Diallo, a 22 year old West African man striking him 19 times. 
Diallo who died on the scene happened to be unarmed. Police say 
they were looking for a rapist, however Diallo was not the suspect 
they sought.

The list goes on and on there is just too many "reported" 
incidents to put them all on paper. The growing wave of police 
brutality is not something new that sprung up over night. For 
nearly a century the police have been systematically murdering 
minorities here in the United Snakes of Amerikkka. Some may argue 
and say these are just isolated incidents committed by rogue 
police officers, but how can these incidents be isolated when 
reports show that "the majority of victims of police brutality and 
excessive force are young, unarmed, not criminal suspects, and are 
from ethnic minorities."

Police officers are none other than hired hitmen of the 
bourgeoisie, whose interest they're hired to serve and protect, 
not the people in our communities. Police officer are hired to 
keep people of color right where they've been placed by the rich 
ruling class -- in the ghettos and low income neighborhoods of 
Amerikkka. This was the motto behind lynchings in the south after 
the abolishment of chattel slavery, "to keep then nigger in his 
place." Whenever that line is crossed that divide the suburbs from 
the ghetto the police are there to make sure the property and 
material possessions of bourgeoisie are protected. This is why so 
many blackmen are harassed when driving through upper-class 
neighborhoods. This growing wave of police lynchings all over the 
country is a means of social control.

Let's not forget the way black people were constantly harassed, 
beaten, hosed down and killed by police officers during the civil 
rights era. Where was the motto to serve and protect them? We are 
dealing with a para-military force of sickminded, brutal savages 
who would turn a non-violent demonstration violent. It's no 
coincidence that all throughout the country police stations are 
turning towards military methods of control and equipment. "The 
national defense authorization act enables law enforcement 
agencies around the country too receive expensive, but used 
military equipment for free -- from rifles and helicopters, to 
bullet proof helmets and vest. Despite the drop in the national 
crime rate, police stations are gearing up like never before."(3)

"In 1997 approximately 1.2 million items worth an estimated (248.6 
million) were transferred from the armed forces to state and 
federal officials on a first-come first-served basis. Jasper, 
Florida (population 2,000, homicide rate:0) employs only seven 
police officers but has just as many helicopters and several more 
machine guns. They got the equipment by logging on to the publicly 
accessible Pentagon website which list what's available and 
dispatches equipment to whatever agency wants it. That's how the 
Los Angeles Police Department picket up 600 M16 rifles last 
year."(3)

Amerikkka has become a police state under the dictatorship of the 
bourgeoisie, which is nothing short of fascism. This is why the 
police force is becoming militarized. What many of us fail to 
realize is that the police are not there to serve and protect the 
people. They are there to suppress, repress and maintain social 
control over people so that the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie is 
not threatened with takeover. It is a fact that people who live in 
low income communities have a high amount of revolutionary 
potential. And this is one of the reasons why both state and 
federal government has begun to militarize the police force. The 
growing prison industrial complex also plays a significant role in 
controlling the population and social order of a rebellious youth.

The media which is used as a tool to deceive and scare the masses 
through propaganda, into believing that violent crime poses a 
threat to the safety and security of society, and that more police 
and more prisons are needed to maintain order. This is very 
detrimental to people of color here in the united snakes, because 
not only do we have to worry about some scared racist white person 
trumping up charges against us, we also have to worry about our 
own elders turning us over or delivering us into the hands of this 
lynch mob called the police force. Our elders turn to these 
cowboys for protection from their own children while these very 
same cowboys are killing their children almost everyday in the 
streets.

Do the police really care about the protection and rights of 
people of color? Are they truly sympathetic to the every day 
struggles minorities have to face in this country? How can they be 
when most police either live in the suburbs or grew up there not 
having to face the every day hardships of today's society. And 
then they're going to come into the ghetto and protect its people. 
I find this to be full of irony, and a front to obscure the real 
and true objective "which is part of a global economic and 
political trend towards the undemocratic concentration of power 
and reliance on repression to maintain social control in a period 
of intensifying economic exploitation."(4)

"They want social control of a rebellious youth, they want slave 
labor, and they want to keep the white nations politically united 
in opposition to nations it oppresses. The crack boom was great 
for the police state because it helped all these purposes."(1) A 
police force is needed. I'm not an anarchist nor do I uphold 
anarchist ideology but we need a police force that truly works for 
the proletariat and the lumpenproletariat, so that we can really 
protect our communities and people from the real threat -- the 
government and racist white cops. The onlly way to establish this 
is b uniting with people of all colors and building a National 
United Front and demanding that the present police force stay out 
of our neighborhoods and provide safety and security for 
ourselves.

United we rise above!!

Notes: 1. MIM Notes Feb 1, 1999, n179. 2. The Final Call July 21, 
1998, vol 17, no38 3. The source Sept 1998, Tools of the Trade by 
Susan Carpenter. 4. Turning the Tide Vol 11 No 2.

--a Connecticut prisoner, 30 July 1999.