Greetings,
I'm writing to inform you that your 1/95 issue of MIM Notes is being returned due to its being deemed "a threat to legitimate penological interest" by prison authorities.
Even after literally a lifetime of constant surprises by the California Department of "Corrections," they still continue to amaze me with their rhetoric. But, believe it or not, this censorship isn't half as amazing as their claim that there is an actual legitimate penological interest here at Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP). PBSP is designed for the sole purpose of breaking the minds and spirits of those literally buried alive here, but who are not (yet) "the worst of the worst" as they proudly boast to the public.
As I wrote last month when requesting your publication, I'm not totally familiar with your principles, but I do agree that we are all world citizens who are inherently equal with a say.
So I'm not sure what's these people's problem, but I'll be appealing this issue and will keep you informed because it's an important issue and can and does affect a lot of people. I would appreciate if you could notify me of the return of your publication for my records. I've even enclosed a SASE for your convenience. I'm far from discouraged, because every time such barriers are placed before me - which is almost daily - I realize that I must be on the right path to enlighten and even though I can be physically caged, my mind and spirit have no bounds.
In struggle,
- a California prisoner, 2/12/95
INDIANA'S RULING ELITE WAGES GENOCIDE
The colonial criminals of the state of Indiana have waged a mass scale of colonial oppression on and against the people throughout the Department of Corrections who have declared themselves revolutionary teachers and New Afrikan cadres. 1995 will bring a lot of successful struggles for the people and the fascist colonial forces will turn up its fire under our feet. On December 8, one of our New Afrikan revolutionary comrades lost his life at the hands of the racist, most diabolical system of murder - the Indiana State prison's electric chair. The innocence of our brother was evident. These colonial murderers killed the brother because he was a strong Afrikan man.
Now comes yet another trick by the colonial/repressive state. On December 13, the criminals lost one of their agents of repression due to the conditions/contradictions existing throughout D-cellhouse. Justice the people's way hit home.
That night, the author of this letter was escorted from his cell location to the oppressors' colonial guards' hall. It took ten officers to handcuff one man, once I was made to remove all my clothes, shoes, jacket, etc. They wanted to beat me down, but I kept my composure. For about two and a half hours, they kept me naked in a holding cell.
I was given a red jumpsuit and escorted to their racist investigators' offices. They attempted to interrogate a brother, but the code of New Afrikan/revolutionary silence was victorious. Due to my no-rap policy, they took me to a blue van, shackled me up with chains and transferred me to the Indiana Maximum Control Complex at Westville.
No advisement of being on investigation was issued, yet on January 31, I was charged with the murder of a pig at the Indiana State Prison. They have taken the liberty to say I killed this man due to the death of our comrade. Revolutionary justice stands without fault; justice must prevail at all cost. The death of that pig and all those to follow could never be paralleled to one of our comrades.
It happened because it was destiny to get what they got coming. It is clear that anybody oppressed and repressed by a colonial system shall rise up. We as the new men and women of the oppressed nation must begin to define our reality.
Dialectically, the power must change hands sooner or later. When they turn up the volume of genocide and oppression, we turn up the resistance and political and ideological struggle. Objective reality, that's what we are dealing with. We are dialectical materialists; we deal with what really is, whether we like it or not.
I write this notice to ask you all out there who acknowledge our oppression and are willing to aid and assist in its demise to wake up and rise up. I need your help, all of you who can help me in waging this struggle for my life against genocidal extinction. I don't have a chance going up against these parasites alone. I seek the support and assistance of Afrikan oppressed nations.
Allah is Great.
Uhuru Sasa (Freedom Now).
- an Indiana prisoner, 2/7/95
USE YOUR HEAD
The story in the January 1995 Under Lock & Key, "Guards get a taste of their own medicine," was righteous by me, because a brother like that will not accept anything. But MC49's reply was correct to my belief in using your head! I close this letter till next time.
Stay strong and sweet,
- a Texas prisoner, 2/8/95
INDIANA LAWMAKERS VS. PRISONERS
Uhuru SaSa! [Freedom Now!] Comrades, here in the state of Indiana, the lawmakers are trying to pass a law where no prisoners get any good time. (If we get 20 years, we do the 20 years). If the law passes, if we the prisoners have good time, we will lose that good time, too. Uhuru SaSa!
- a New Afrikan revolutionary on a Disciplinary Segregation unit in Indiana, 1/23/95
PRISONER DESCRIBES WESTVILLE'S MAXIMUM CONTROL COMPLEX
I have received the 1/95 issue of your newspaper. I love the way it's written. I enjoyed reading the letters the prisoners wrote and sent in plus your answers. I hope to keep reading your paper and hope you keep sending them to me. I probably will be out of prison by September 1995. I've been locked up since October 1992.
This is a Maximum or SuperMax prison. We're only allowed an hour or half hour out of our cell or closet cellbox a day. Plus they have the goon squad or the extraction team. They come in your cell and beat you up and strap you down to your bed if you act like the man you are or don't want to make your bed up or kick on the door - little things like that. You can't get out of your cell unless they let you out. Everything here works by electricity.
If a person caught a heart attack or something serious, he can hang it up because you have to be handcuffed behind your back before you can leave the cell. Plus leg shackles. And they're so scared of you that they get all suited up before they come get you.
That is just a bit of what's going on at this concentration camp. If you ever truly want to know what's going on down here, let me know.
- an Indiana prisoner, 2/9/95
1994 EXECUTIONS - IN MEMORIAM
31 people were executed by state governments in the U.S. in 1994. 257 people have been executed since the U.S. moratorium on state murders ended in 1976.
1/6 Keith Eugene Wells, ID 2/2 Harold Barnard, TX 3/3 Johnny Watkins, Jr., VA 3/31 Freddie Lee Webb, TX 3/31 William Henry Hance, GA 4/4 Richard Beavers, TX 4/22 Roy Allen Stewart, FL 4/26 Larry Norman Anderson, TX 4/27 Timothy Spencer, VA 5/3 Paul Rougeau, TX 5/10 John Wayne Gacy, IL 5/11 Jonas Whitmore, AR 5/11 Edward Charles Pickens, AR 5/17 John F. Thanos, MD 5/27 Stephen R. Nethery, TX 5/27 Charles R. Campbell, WA 6/14 Denton Alan Crank, TX 6/15 David Lawson, NC 6/23 Andre Deputy, DE 8/2 Robert Drew, TX 8/3 Hoyt Clines, AR 8/3 Darryl Richley, AR 8/3 James Holmes, AR 9/2 Harold Lamont Otey, NE 9/16 Jessie Gutierrez, TX 9/20 George Lott, TX 10/5 Walter Williams, TX 11/22 Warren Bridge, TX 12/6 Herman Clark, TX 12/8 Gregory Resnover, IN 12/11 Raymond Carl Kinnamon, TX
- reprinted from the 2/95 issue of the Coalition for Prisoners' Rights Newsletter (CPRN). CPRN can be reached at P.O. Box 1911, Santa Fe, NM 87504-1911.
PETITION FOR SUPPORT
I am a prisoner at the Maximum Control Complex (MCC) in Westville, Indiana. I have been confined since June 13, 1991. I write this petition with deep gravity to call upon aid and support from concerned and loving people, churches and organizations of Indiana and this country to assist in stopping the atrocities that are being inflicted upon prisoners daily at this control unit.
The Maximum Control Complex (MCC) in Westville, Indiana is a supermaximum prison which was first opened in May of 1991. The MCC was claimed by the Indiana Department of Corrections to be designed especially for extremely dangerous prisoners, but the real truth behind this lie is most prisoners being permanently placed in the MCC are jailhouse lawyers, politically active, or believers of the Islamic or Hebrew-Israelite religions.
85% of these permanent-status prisoners are of African descent, which is also the majority of MCC population. It is obvious that racism is the key factor as to why Black males are heavily concentrated within this control unit. MCC is a deliberately designed facility which subjects its prisoners to punitive isolation, violence and terror. These conditions of confinement cause prisoners to:
# endure two 37-day hunger strikes - the longest hunger strikes in U.S. history # self-mutilate themselves, and # consume their own feces.
MCC prisoners are confined to a single-man cell that has a solid steel door with a small plexiglass window for 23 to 24 hours a day, unless they have an attorney or family visit that day, which is non-contact. A prisoner at MCC never gets natural sunlight inside his cell or on the outdoor recreation yard. No fresh air is ever circulated through the central air system.
Each MCC prisoner eats, recreates, showers and sleeps alone. No prisoner at MCC is ever removed from his cell without handcuffs and leg-irons. MCC prisoners who are confined to disciplinary isolation (AKA segregation) are not allowed to enroll in educational courses, can't listen to a radio, are prohibited from calling their families, friends, girlfriends, etc., on the telephone. MCC prisoners are not allowed to purchase food items from the prison commissary, are being denied physical access to the satellite law library to do their legal work, and are being denied legal materials to work on their legal matters by Paralegal Sharon Hawks.
The sensory-deprivation and punitive isolation being imposed upon the small number of prisoners who are currently housed in disciplinary isolation (AKA segregation) is affecting and threatening their mental health.
I am presently suffering from vision deterioration. I believe this is caused by the contaminated water supply at MCC which was declared by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management in February of this year to have high levels of lead. Lead contaminants, if consumed for a period of years, cause brain, kidney and red blood cell damage. The MCC water supply is also suspected of having a toxic chemical in it called polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs). I have been trying to get eyeglasses for almost two years now, but the notorious Warden Charles E. Wright is giving orders to the medical staff not to treat my serious medical needs. I have even been prohibited from taking a blood test for the detection of lead contaminants and PCBs by Warden Wright himself.
I have been a primary target of Warden Wright's sadistic mistreatment from the day I entered MCC. For the last six months I have been forced to wear a mask over my face each time I am removed from my cell, because a racist white guard falsely accused me of spitting. This facial masking has been a common practice by Warden Wright and his prison lackeys. Their intent is to inflict severe psychological torture upon prisoners. I have been the subject of Warden Wright's retributive attitude. The people must not stand by and continue to allow such indignities to occur, and must demand that they cease immediately!
Another prisoner is being subjected to extreme human rights violation. He is mentally unstable. He is on strip-cell status, virtually naked - he is allowed only a pair of boxer shorts. His plumbing is shut off and is only cut on once a day to flush his toilet. Most of the time, he is forced to lay dormant in his cell and smell the vile stench of his feces settled in his toilet.
Each day at 7:00 a.m., this prisoner's bedding is removed from his cell, and he is forced to lay on cold steel until 9:30 p.m. When his bedding is given back to him, numerous prisoners have inquired about why his bedding is being deprived each day. Some guards claim he won't make his bed or he tore a mattress, which is ludicrous. This is just another excuse that Warden Wright and his lackeys are attempting to use to justify their actions.
The prisoner is without shoes, and is forced to take showers and recreate barefooted. He has no hygiene items. It's also documented that he has consumed his own feces. He is mentally ill and shouldn't be at MCC. Something must be done to see that he is transferred out of MCC to a place where he will get the proper help he needs.
The Indiana Department of Corrections [sic] (DOC) is under a court order to implement condition changes at the MCC. A settlement in a class action suit, Taifa, et. al. vs. Bayh, et. al., #3:92-Cv- 429, was reached and was approved by Chief Judge Allen Sharp of the United States District Court in South Bend, Indiana on 2/15/94. The settlement between the Indiana Civil Liberties Union (ICLU) and the state is only ten months old and the conditions at MCC have done nothing but retrogressed.
It is clear that the reason for the ICLU and the Indiana DOC engaging in a settlement was to put the concerned taxpayers under the illusion that the courts and attorneys were going to improve the conditions at the MCC; so they could relieve public pressure. This document entitled "Agreed Entry" is hype and is nothing but a disguise to hide the hidden terrors that are daily occurring in this control unit. The "Agreed Entry" is the settlement contract reached by the ICLU and the Indiana state's attorneys. The people must demand that Warden Wright and his lackeys and the Indiana DOC cease the human rights violations.
I am presently on disciplinary isolation along with nine others. It's obvious my placement on this status is out of retribution. The small number of prisoners on this status is amazing, especially when MCC currently has a population of over 100 prisoners, it's clear that Warden Wright is using this disciplinary isolation measure in an arbitrary and insidious manner. He is picking and choosing who he wants to give privileges and who he wants to mistreat.
We must not allow Warden Wright to continue using me and the nine other prisoners on the disciplinary isolation unit at the MCC as guinea pigs. The ten of us are the only prisoners not allowed to call our families, friends, girlfriends, etc. We are not allowed to listen to radios, order food from commissary, enroll in educational courses or gain access to the law library. This is in fact discrimination and must be stopped immediately!
- an Indiana prisoner, 12/28/94
TOO COLD FOR RECREATION, BUT NOT FOR PUNISHMENT?
Revolutionary greetings. This letter is not going to be long. Just to let you know that I am still receiving MIM Notes, and I thank you very much for your time. Nothing new is going on in this SuperMax. Just the same old shit.
The pigs here will not let us go outside for our one hour walk. We have not been outside for over five months now. When we have it, the outside one hour looks like you are in a dog lock-up. The pigs are telling us that we cannot go out for our one hour walk because it is too cold. Bull. The pigs still put us in the hold or the pink room, where it is ice cold. But all is well; life goes on, right? I am going to end this letter for now. But I will write again real soon. So you all keep up the good work.
Yours in revolution, I remain,
- a Maryland prisoner, 2/9/95
PRISONERS' TESTICLES IRRADIATED IN 1960S AND 1970S
A decade-long research project was done on prisoners in the 1960s and into the 1970s in Oregon and Washington State Prisons. It was funded by the Atomic Energy Commission (now the Department of Energy) and NASA, and was supposedly designed to help determine how much radiation U.S. astronauts could bear during spaceflights.
One hundred thirty-one inmates "voluntarily" participated in the experiments in which they lay down in a coffin-like box and had their testicles lowered into water. Then the "researchers" exposed their testicles to a dose of radiation stronger than 20 modern diagnostic X-rays. Many inmates went through the experiment many times. Some of the prisoners were exposed to as much as 640 rads, an amount that is potentially fatal if spread over the whole body.
For participating in the experiments, the prisoners received a $5-a-month stipend. They were told that they were performing a patriotic duty for their country.
Today more than half of the 131 participants have died. Many complain of major groin pains, persistent rashes and painful lumps on their testicles. One participant reported one of his testicles became attached to his scrotum as a result of the biopsies after the experiment.
The experiments were to aid the space program, in the U.S.'s attempts to colonize outer space before the Soviet Union. But the actual effect of the experiments on the prisoners was to make them sterile or unable to reproduce - in effect, genocide. In fact, the prisoners who participated in the experiment were "encouraged" to get vasectomies afterward.
These experiments of the 60s and 70s show that historically prisoners are seen as less-than-human by the U.S. government, and are fair game for "medical experimentation" as cruel as that performed by the outright fascist states in the 1930s. These types of experiments are always performed on groups of people that are seen as "expendable" by the government, and in the U.S. that has typically been prisoners, racial minorities, and people with disabilities.
While some rules passed by the NIH in 1978 bar use of prisoners "in any medical experiments that do not benefit them," the state continues to treat prisoners as less-than-human, and continues to find new and more devious ways to commit murder of genocidal proportions against people in prison.
SOURCE: Washington Post, 11/20/94
- reprinted from Claustrophobia-Anarchist Black Cross' Claustrophobia #4, Winter 94/95. Claustrophobia-ABC can be reached at P.O. Box 77432, Washington, DC 20013.
New Michigan KKKoncentration KKKamps since 1985:
1985:
Western Wayne "Correctional" Facility (Plymouth) Ionia Temporary Facility (Ionia) Lakeland Correctional Facility (Coldwater) G. Robert Cotton Regional Corr. Facility (Jackson)
1986:
Scotts Regional Corr. Facility (Plymouth)
1987:
Thumb Corr. Facility (Lapeer) Muskegon Temporary Facility (Muskegon) Ionia [Super] Maximum Facility (Ionia) Carson City Temporary Facility (Carson City)
1988:
Chippewa Temporary Corr. Facility (Kincheloe) Charles E. Egeler Corr. Facility (Jackson)
1989:
Hiawatha Temporary Corr. Facility (Kincheloe) Adrian Temporary Corr. Facility (Adrian) E.C. Brooks Regional Facility (Muskegon) Carson City Regional Facility (Carson City) Chippewa Regional Facility (Kincheloe)
1990:
Standish Maximum Facility (Standish) Mid-Michigan Temporary Corr. Facility (St. Louis) Alger Maximum Corr. Facility (Munising)
1991:
Ryan Regional Corr. Facility (Detroit) Gus Harrison Regional Facility (Adrian)
1992:
Oaks Maximum Facility
1993:
Baraga Maximum Facility (Baraga) Macomb Corr. Facility
1994:
Mound Regional Corr. Facility (Detroit) Saginaw Regional Corr. Facility (Freeland)
- from The Freedom Network's Afrikan Prisoner
Bulletin, 1/95. The Freedom Network can be reached c/o
MCM 17365 Annott St., Detroit, MI 48205-3103.