... I am going to end this short note by informing you of yet another one of SCDC's [South Carolina's Department of Corruptions] schemes to hoard more and more capital. As of January 20, 1998, if you are in lock-up or unemployed, you will not be paid for the rest of your sentence. Any new prisoner entering the South Carolina Department of Corruptions after January 19, 1998 will not be paid. If you are found guilty of a major disciplinary or criminal offense within SCDC, you will lose all of your pay for the remainder of your sentence. Even though it costs more money to keep someone incarcerated than to send them to Harvard University, still yet they find it necessary to cut costs by cutting our pay. Business as usual! I guess the privatization of South Carolina's prisons is next (like in Texas).
-- A South Carolina Prisoner, 18 November 1997
EXPOSING THE WAR ON URBAN COMMITTEES
I am a Black revolutionary being held political prisoner in a concentration camp called Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown, Conn. I've been placed in what they call close monitoring (gang units). I was taken out of population and placed in this gang unit. Not for fighting, not for stabbing another prisoner, or taking of other prisoners' property. But for pictures; pictures I took in another state, not Conn. And because my pictures have a very expressive body language, that makes me a gang member [in the eyes of the state]. The only hand sign in my pictures is the peace sign. That's right! The peace sign. When white people used it at Woodstock, it meant "peace and love." But when young African-Americans use it, it means gangs. Many of my young comrades are also here for the same thing.
The state of Connecticut's law enforcement along with correctional institutions have declared war on all of Connecticut's urban communities and have said that these low income areas are to be considered gang territories. Let me explain this skillfully designed, corrupt Security Risk Group (SRG) system. SRGs are considered to be gang members who pose a so-called threat to the Connecticut Department of Corrections. Information will be gathered on an individual, whether it's true or not. Most information is provided by institutional snitches and is not accurate. An individual will be given a hearing to inform him that he will be removed from general population and placed in a Close Custody Unit where this individual will be locked up 23 hours a day, whereas in population, he's out most of the day working or in school, learning a vocational skill, taking college classes, or trying to better himself by going to Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings.
It should be mentioned that once this individual is placed in these concentration camps called Close Custody, none of the above-mentioned programs are available to said individual. However, he is forced into these group gang programs, and maneuvered into spilling out his feelings as to why he would join an organization (which they call a gang). They are using us; dissecting our minds in these experimental, psychological, genocidal labs; having us give them more information they can use against us. This information is then turned over to the office of the Governor of Connecticut, John Rowland, who will address concerned taxpayers as to why the state needs more money to build high- security prisons. You see, there's big money at stake for local police and correctional departments that target gangs. Law enforcement along with prison systems are using gangs as a means of keeping their financial stability. Connecticut's prison system has become industrial business. Prisons with 1,158 beds are worth $25 million a year and 350 jobs to the community.
Some officials sent out for color brochures promoting prison economics. And these gang units are one of their most brilliant. I've been in these units for two years. I have not yet eaten a hot meal. All the meals here at Garner are as cold as the outside. We are served very small portions of food. And this is only to bring the commissary sales up. They overcharge us for generic products. Officers in these units are constantly showing aggressive behavior towards my comrades and me in these units. We are not receiving proper medical attention. Some of the brothers go weeks sick.
Brothers like myself who speak out about this corruption are sent to segregation (the hole) on bogus prison charges. In these units, we are not allowed to talk with one another. We go to recreation with only eight brothers for one hour a day. The program is supposedly for one year. But if a prisoner receives an infraction, he must begin all over. The conditions here at Garner are at times intolerable. My brothers and sisters of MIM, I write to you in the faith that you will support your brothers who are being held political prisoner in these concentration camps called gang units.... Power to the people!
Your brother, -- A Connecticut Prisoner, 27 October 1997
NEW CONCENTRATION CAMP IN MISSOURI
... This library is poorly equipped. This is a new concentration camp that has only been open for only seven months and the book selection is extremely week and watered down. These modern day slave ships called correctional facilities will never make available the literature that is needed to open ones eyes to the injustices that are committed everyday against the oppressed nations of the world.
That is why it is so imperative that MIM and other organizations of liberation like it, continue to pour the waters of revolution over the walls, gates, and electric fences of the slave labor camps. Camps that have been set up by this very wicked government to subdue and brake those who cannot and will not adapt to America's racist, sexist and oppressive rules that govern this illegally founded country. As of now, I am in the administrative segregation unit for an assault on an inmate. Although I am for the people and I believe in uniting together in struggle against the pigs, sometimes there are situations where one has to defend themselves by going on the offensive.
Under these savage conditions prisoners are constantly exposed to the old divide and conquer scheme of the settler nation. One group of prisoners is pitted against the other. Inmate informants are constantly observing the militant minded soldiers and reporting everything that they see and hear to the pigs. The pigs spread false propaganda to disorient and stagnate political and religious groups in the institutions. Anyone who stands up and speaks out against the wrongful treatment of the inmate body is instantly locked up in the ad-seg unit.
For instance there was a minor rebellion that took place three months ago, where two pigs were hospitalized in critical condition. After the camp was locked down the pigs locked up an estimated ninety prisoners and transferred an estimated forty inmates to other concentration camps. These inmates who were locked up and transferred had nothing to do with the rebellion. In fact most of them were in their housing units when the rebellion happened.
The institution was locked down for the mandatory count. After the count, housing unit four was released for mainline and that is when the rebellion sparked. All of the inmates involved in the rebellion were from housing unit four and none of the other housing units had been released for mainline yet. So why did the pigs kidnap inmates from housing units three, five and six, if they were not even on the yard when the rebellion kicked off? I believe it is because any and all individuals who are perceived as a threat to the pigs and this uncivilized government are marked and targeted for termination or ostracization.
As long as we have radical free thinkers who believe in the empowerment of the people we will have federal and state establishment whose sole purpose of existence is to destroy, persecute and imprison those who dare to challenge this monster called the system.
The administration's lame excuse for locking up the inmates who were in their housing units during the uprising was because they had so-called aggressive institutional records. The inmates who had the so- called aggressive institutional records ... had committed no infraction to warrant their lockup for the rebellion. They did not even participate in the uprising. This only show that whether active or non-active all revolutionaries will meet the same dreadful fate if we do not stand together in solidarity and overthrow this terroristic regime that we are under in this beast of a country.
In Revolutionary Love, -- A Missouri Prisoner, 21 November 1997
TIGHTENING THE CHAINS IN WISCONSIN
I am writing to you regarding the corruption of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections system. I have sent tickets for which I have been falsely accused, and Inmate Complaints in which I have been mistreated -- all go unresolved. I am referring to the Jackson Correctional Institution in particular. The Institution is a breeding ground for a riot. I am a white man who associates with the Black people for the most part. I am called racial things as well as others by a group that calls themselves the Aryan Nation. The group's leaders were beaten up for calling my cellmate a "nigger-lover". The leaders were released into General Population status but my cellmate was given an eight-day adjustment and 360 program segregation.
The guards themselves are liars and racists. I have seen swastikas on their arms and I have heard them direct racist comments at my friends. Something needs to be done. We are also Tommy Thompson's political prisoners. He is trying to ban any nudity from the prisons. I do not look at pornography. However, it is our right and it soothes the prisoners. I am a Christian and that is why I do not look at pornography, but I am not the one to judge, God is. If Tommy Thompson takes our pornography, what's next? Our electronics, clothing, our only real contacts with life? He only wants to be re- elected, not help us. I agree that people that have any sex crimes should be banned from pornography and segregated to a different prison, but to take it away from everyone is wrong.
The man needs to be stopped. He has already overcrowded the Wisconsin prison system and wants to start a "truth in sentencing" law which would cost taxpayers $14 billion more. That much money could be used to house the homeless population and create jobs for people, but no, Tommy Thompson wants to stick the inmates in prison and build more prisons. What's going to happen when roads and schools, etc., need replacement ten years from now? Obviously, the state will lie, but the truth is they spent all their money on prisons. I want to put a stop to Thompson's charade.
I am rated medium security and am in a maximum security institution which is against Wisconsin DOC policy, but they don't care. Inmates need to help one another before it's too late. Tommy needs to be put on a leash....
-- A Wisconsin Prisoner, 17 August 1997
MIM ADDS: We agree with your assessment that Tommy Thompson is not banning pornography to improve the morals of prisoners, but to further punish them. We like you do not condone pornography. Pornography is a tool of patriarchy in which wimmin are viewed as sexual objects and not equal human beings. Porn distracts potential revolutionaries from the important anti-imperialist work at hand. As Maoist revolutionaries we work towards the destruction imperialist patriarchy. Instead of just banning porn a revolutionary society through struggle and thought reform would demonstrate the harm and destruction of pornography.
We disagree that people convicted of sex offenses should be banned from viewing pornography and segregated in a different facility. The state is not capable of judging who is a sex offender. This nation has a history of lynching Black men for just looking at a white womyn. So one cannot assume that a person convicted of sex crimes is any different from any other prisoner. It is the imperialists who are the real criminals here.
EXPOSING BRUTALITY IN TEXAS
... The James V. Allred Unit opened up back in 1995 at which time the guards under Warden L. W. Woods saw fit to use verbally abusive language to create physical altercations by several guards' aggressiveness to use force on inmates while they were still handcuffed on the floor.
The current excessive force rate is usually 200 to 400 cases a year throughout the Texas prison system. Guards' family members and friends working at the TDCJ-ID Medical Departments cover up most of these incidents.
There are prison guards who come to work with an authority problem. These guards take their job overboard when they yell or spit in an inmate's face. In thanks, these inmates will not lose control to zero- tolerance by physical force.
We as prisoners seek to return to our family and friends and do our time. We didn't come here to be abused like animals, but to be rehabilitated and not relapse into recidivism.
The Texas prison system needs to be given an independent investigation by the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union.
On May 22, 1995, Lieutenant James McCormick assaulted me with major excessive force while on the Eastham Unit. This Lieutenant has a history of excessive force, but the state prison Internal Affairs Department says that it was an accident.
I am one of many prisoners who fight the system for change in a struggle for humane conditions, a struggle to be free from force, spit, and yelling and abusive name-calling by TDCJ-ID guards. I will name a few that has total immunity from policy disciplinary by General Rules of Conduct PD-21.
The guards listed below have a history of excessive force or verbal assault toward prisoners when they are handcuffed by security guards before the yelling assault takes place. These assaults are mostly done on minority prisoners who don't have legal or family support. These guards will maliciously, sadistically, and wantonly violate contemporary standards of decency with verbal or physical force to cause harm:
Captain Clyde Hargrove; Major Cary A. Cook; Belinda Gentry, Admin Tech; Wade King, Lt.; Brenda Wilkinson, Law Librarian; Ronald Stephens, Correctional Officer; Carl Spencer, Correctional Officer; James Sutton, Sgt.; Marty D. Carlock, Correctional Officer; Johnny Mabe, Correctional Officer; Sandra Campos, Correctional Officer; Keith Surney, Correctional official; Terry Torbert, Correctional Officer; A. Kalmanov, M.D.; Kent Fullerton, Correctional Officer; James Anthony, Correctional Officer; and Sgt. Douglas McCaffery.
There are more of them, but they cover up their nametags with tape to hide their names from inmates so they won't be filed on through the grievance system, which doesn't work for any inmates.
I ask people of Houston, Texas and all other cities and counties to write letters to Warden Leslie W. Woods at James V. Allred Unit, P.O. Box 1860, Iowa Park, TX 76367-6568 and let him know that you have knowledge of the incidents that are occurring in this prison unit. I truly appreciate all the support the people of Houston have given to the care, custody, and control of the human condition of prisoners rehabilitated support.
-- A Texas Prisoner, 10 October, 1997
REVOLUTIONARY POLITICIZATION
Greetings from within the belly of the beast. After years and years of studies and consideration, I've come to the point in my life where I want to jump 100% into the struggle/movement to some great benefit for myself and my people/comrades. I'm an ex-gang member. For years, I have committed my life and my efforts towards uplifting and representing the set I am from. Suddenly, it has become apparent to me that I am wasting my valuable ideas, work, and life for something that leads to the grave or to being locked-down forever. The gang I am from represents no political stand and has no positive future goals besides harming and self-destructing my own people.
I have arrived at the point where I have been made conscious of what is more important than drive-bys, dope trafficking and gang-banging. I have always had a militant, revolutionary, rebellious side to me, and I've always wanted to represent something big, powerful and strong, something to help my people, something right and something needed. I've spent ten years here, ... I've read Black Panther material, Revolutionary Workers, MIM Notes, The Militant, books by and on Lenin, Marx, Stalin, Mao, etc. And I always felt a strong relation and identity with this material in some way or another, as if finding my cue. I am in Texas prison. Texas has no truly significant prison organization that represents 100% and gonna bring all prisoners together to stop this prison brutality and undercover genocide, racism, and extreme discrimination. There are gangs here, groups, etc.: Texas Syndicate, Mandingo Warriors, Crips, Bloods, Pirus, Latin Kings, 5%ers, Mexican Mafia, Aryan Nations, Aryan Circle, TAB, Texas Bad Boys, Pistoleros, Raza Unida, Self Defense Family, African Nation. And the list goes on. The only problem is it seems that we fight prisoner against prisoner and no one has come up with the idea to fight the system that has us fighting and killing each other. Fight the system legally, collectively and fearlessly like we do one another. This Texas system seems to be full of snitches, perpetrators and phonies. But this is one thing that I have seen here and Texas, and this is my main reason for writing: There are thousands of comrades here in prison with a true heart of warriors for a cause, but because there is nothing real here, they like myself are hooking up with things that serve no real political stand and are no benefit to our people in the way we need. And until we get something, we're never going to be able to conquer this system. I've been studying the history and platform of the Black Panthers hard, so hard that I've been dreaming of it. Now I've been hearing that there are some BPP groups about, but none of them true to the party's Maoist roots. Here in Texas prisons, we have none. No BPP. But we want it. Me and some of my comrades want to start a Black Panther Party true to the original Maoist principles, for us here inside, because you have an army of brothers here just waiting to have a chance to represent something true, real and no-nonsense. I personally am putting forth the initiative to found this program's start, for which I will commit my life and every effort. I want to offer my comrades something stronger and deeper and more meaningful than having to join a gang and gangbang against one another. There is something far better that you can represent. And I want to make it available to every comrade in Texas prisons ASAP. Can you hook me up with someone who can give me the permission, the guidelines, the material and whatever it takes to set up our own Texas internal Black Panther Party? I have some comrades that will be working with me on this. We want to make it official and correct, because it's time for some real leaders to step up and lead with something that's gonna be respected by these people as no joke. So I would appreciate your response to this letter, and if any outside comrades would, please contact me in reference to this letter and what we're seeking. We just want to legally set it up, so we can set it off.
Unity, love, honor, respect,
-- A Texas prisoner, 16 October 1997
MIM RESPONDS: We commend your call to unify Texas prisoners in a progressive and political way. The Maoist vanguard of the late 1960s, the Black Panther Party is certainly one of the best sources for building revolution in an imperialist nation. Though there are some groups claiming the name of the BPP, MIM knows of none which have continued the Maoist revolutionary legacy of the original Panthers to put you in touch with. We suggest that you work with us to form a Maoist Revolutionary group in Texas prisons. We would be more than happy to help you create an organization true to the legacy of the Black Panther Party.
HIGH SECURITY HELL
... The pigs here are also out of control. I'm on a High Security Unit ... and that is the name of this unit -- no bullshit. They have cameras on the outside of the cells so I can't pass nothing to the other brothers, including the reading materials I got from you all, but I'll keep trying. This unit just open up, so later on there will be ways to overcome the pigs.
Also did you know that the state of Texas is now going to start charging us for every time we go and see the medical staff (Doctor, dentist, nurse, etc.). Man, on the first of January 1998, they are going to start charging $3.00 for each visit. We gotta go to work for free and now pay for the doctor too. Man, they are out of control. Can they do this?
Also this unit is brand new and we don't have no heat. They have the A.C. [air conditioning] on all day. Right now I'm wrapped up in my blanket as I write this. I'm telling you. ...
-- A Texas Prisoner, 17 November 1997