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Top Let's talk about change
Many prisoners speak about change;
But there will never be any change;
until we as prisoners, combine our brains;
-- A Prisoner
Top Biased Parole Officer
...I am a parole violation. I didn't get a new charge. I got a banishment for a five county area. And the parole man wrote lots of bad things up on men, and sends me back to prison, because I was making more money legally (in the roofing industry) than he was....
-- A Georgia Prisoner, 1 March 1998
Top Who's the Real Crook?
I am writing to inform MIM of the conditions and the overly long duration of stay here at X complex Arizona state prison that are being enforced upon not only myself, but all other prisoners that get placed here, for good reason or not. That includes smoking in a building, the reason I am here, which goes to show the ridiculous application or usage of their re- classification system.
... They try to modify our behavior with placement in this facility. I'm of the opinion that being single celled without physical association with other humans tends to add to, or bring out pent up animosity. Whether directed at DOC employees or other prisoners. (From my understanding the average stay is 10 months and up.)
... The warden took hot lunches and replaced them with cold sack lunches 5 days a week; our food portions have seemed to become strictly rationed at breakfast and dinner. We no longer get hot cereal in the morning, nor cake with our dinner. He took away soda purchase from the store. He took razors from the store, which makes it extremely hard to comply with DOC policy of being clean- every day.
The warden has brought out the ire of his inmate population towards his staff with the institution of these policies. I understand that if I mess up in prison I am subject to the punishment of isolation in a super maximum facility for a term of 180 days. My objection is the unnecessarily cruel punishment for trivial SHIT!!!
-- An Arizona Prisoner, 3 February 1998
Top The real criminals run the prison
...Everyone seems to be scared of the MDOC [Michigan Department of Incorrections]. This facility I am at now is one of the worst in Michigan. The guards spit and piss in our food. Set us up. Gas us. Steel our property. Deny us legal books.
...These pigs bring weapons, drugs and so in here. They have sex with prisoners. ...
-- A Michigan Prisoner, (Undated)
Top Amerikkka's Legal Slavery
...This system of prisons throughout the US is nothing short of redeveloped legal slavery. Read the 13th Amendment in the Amerikkkan Klanstitution! Why else is it necessary to put one hundred thousand police on salary in the urban Black, Brown and lower income White neighborhoods, if their task isn't to capture fresh slaves for the prison industrial complex. And the rebel, or the educators, people who demand what small rights are due them? [They get] Punishment! Sensory deprivation, psychological trauma, drug therapy to correct the trauma and continued isolation.
You! You, must stop this. They are putting babies in prison. 10, 12, 14 year old children are being tried as adults and no one is protesting this! Unemployment in the nation is 3% but the in the Black community it is 32%, and they claim that we don't need affirmative action and racism is dead!? The police kick, beat and shoot people at will and it's alright, after all didn't we see them do it on New York Undercover? It must be coot, right?! WRONG! We are being subjected to social engineering on a massive scale. Wake up! Join the coalition for the eradication of control units. Join the fight to save your children from slavery.
In Solidarity, -- A California Prisoner, 11 March 1998
Top Amerikkkan Sensory Deprivation Chambers
I sit here and watch the proliferation of these new Control Unit Correctional Facilities across these United States.
I see a political consensus among the White Power Elite to carry out a massive program of genocide against the Black male population. It's just that instead of using bullets and poison gas, they have decided to use prisons. This is how they have decided to resolve the Black Underclass problem: To incarcerate as many young, unskilled, troubled Black males as they can, for as long as they can.
...There is another sinister component to this covert program of genocide that brings the real murderous intent of the White Power Elite to the surface. It is the insidious practice in the Correctional Facilities of segregating [prisoners, Black males in particular, for basically the duration of their prison sentence in deprivation chambers called "Segregation Units" once they arrive at the prison facility.
This segregation practice, along with poor, minimum dietary practices, woefully inadequate access to health care, mental health and exercise opportunities are having a powerfully sinister effect on the mental and physical health, life expectancy and morality rate of long term segregated inmates.
In Correctional Facilities all across these United States, Black males are falling dead in these Segregation Units. In the Segregation Unit, that I am in at the El Dorado Correctional Facility here in El Dorado, Kansas, an average of two Black males a year die from stress, or from stress-related diseases and/or complications caused by the cumulative effect of these practices and inadequate health care over time. And even more are attempting suicide, and losing their minds as a result of being segregated in these deprivation chambers (units) for extended periods of time.
On average, after about five years in segregation, an inmate starts to exhibit physiological and psychological abnormalities.
Most black males have always believed that if given the right cover/pretext, that the American White-Power-Elite would do something to make the German Nazi's look like choir boys.
Is this our fear being realized, or is it just the first step of something more ominous to come? It is time to holler loud and clear and expose what is going on behind the walls of these "Correctional Facilities" in American NOW!
Don't wait 'til they build the incinerators.
In Hope and Struggle, -- A Kansas Prisoner, 24 April 1998
Top Exposing New Gang Units in New Jersey
...On March 13, 1998, about 80 prisoners were transferred from Rahway and shipped here to Northern State Prison to a new gang unit. Here they are housing Latin Kings, Netas, 5%ers and some white hate groups. They have us all separated and want us to deny any membership before letting us out of this unit.
I as a member of the Latin Kings refuse to do such a thing. Therefore I will remain locked down in these new kages. These Pigs are only trying to break the band of Brotherhood, which will not work. And the reality is putting us all together they only make us stronger....
Our Struggle Continues -- A New Jersey Prisoner, 5 April 1998
Oppressing Latino's In Mass
Top Que Pasa Comrades?
...I'm a Prisoner in the Maximum joint. I'm Puerto Rican and have been in this toilet for fifteen years. Right now these low-lifes [guards] are hitting the Latino people hard. 90 percent of all Latinos are being accused of being a gang member, so they made four special blocks for the Latino people. You come out of your cell one hour a day, not everyday. Three showers a week. One hour a week in the yard, outside.
The racist low-life cops just harass everybody, and most dudes don't even speak English. No jobs, no nothing. Now we can't even take their so-called education program. We get two hours a week in the law library. There are no Spanish-speaking people down there to help anybody out.
This started back in April of 1995. I was there [Latino Segregated Block] for two years. Then I was transferred to DDU [Disciplinary Detention Unit]. You know the DDU is much better than those Plymouth Blocks.
I just filed a lawsuit, but I can't even get the right help. I don't have access to anything. I'll keep you posted on things. Y'all stay strong....
In the struggle! -- A Massachusetts Prisoner, 10 April 1998
Top Attacked in Manacles
Dear Under Lock and Key,
I am writing this letter to inform you that I am a prisoner who has been assaulted in full manacles, off an on for the past three and a half years. I was attacked coming back from sick call. I was brutally beaten with a baton and pushed and kicked for no reason. In asking for medical treatment I received from this beating a broken nose, two injuries to both knees, and broken hand-wrist.
Another time, I was in full manacles in my cell and an extraction team ran in on me. I received injuries to my face, nose and ankles. I had not been doing anything but accused by prison officals so they would have a reason to assault me. They are trying to scare me from filing the paperwork on a lawsuit I have pending in the court.
Just recently I was attacked while in a recreation area. Two correction officers accused me of hitting an officer. This is a lie he didn't have any injury at all. It was just an excuse to get the extraction team to run in on me. The goons intimidate me in retaliation against me for filing several lawsuits in the courts. I received another broken nose and injuries to my lower back, hand and wrist, while being in full manacles.
I can not move my neck at all. A goon put his elbow in the back of my neck, while they [the other pigs] tried to break my arm and wrist. I received a black eye an another broken nose.
They have covered it up through the Correction Department.... My main reason for writing you is to let the public know what these evil people have done to me....
-- An Indiana Prisoner, 23 March 1998
Top Delaware Brutality
...I'm in the Delaware Correction Center (DCC). This has to be the worst prison on the East Coast. I have seen things here no man should be faced with. Inmates are beaten and maced, not to mention handcuffed for hours at a time, for the mere reason the CO [Correction Officer] wanted to do so. I have been called out of my name by this face ass police many times. Yet that is only a small part of the corruption going on here at DCC.
...Not only that, men are dying in here like crazy. I got to the point, I had to call my family to come down here, so this department of corruption could see I have loved ones and they [the pigs] cannot just do anything to me.
...Surprisingly you don't have a lot of guy going to the hole for homo acts, but get caught with a sandwich you just might get your good time taken. Delaware is an alone state, meaning no one questions the things that go on here and there is nothing to help the prisoners here.
I am in the struggle because my children need a better chance at life, and I want for my brother what I want for myself. The pigs that run this system here are KKK without a doubt and the bullshit needs to cease quick fast and in a hurry.
In the Struggle for Life, -- A Delaware Prisoner, 12 March 1998
Top Pigs Spraying Chemicals in Texas
I am writing this letter in regards to the continued use, practice and unconstitutional experimentation of chemical agents and other forms of excessive force, abuse, assaults and conspiracy against persons confined in state first maximum security segregation plantation in Huntsville, Walker County, Texas and in this facility. I have witnessed, experienced and suffered from the experimental practice of chemical agents upon us (prisoner) by Texas prison plantation officials and their administrators...
On a daily basis, mostly minority prisoners are being sprayed with gases of an unidentified nature which so burns the skin for several hours and has internal side-effects (causing difficulties in breathing, thought functioning and chronic excretory functions/disfunctions).
...But despite all the knowledge given through prisoner legal assistant foundations to governmental officials, the abuse, unconstitutional practices and chemical experimentations that exist in this facility and other prison plantations in this system have not been addressed.
...Today March 15th, 1998 fourteen prisoners of the Estelle High Security Plantation in Huntsville took brief control of the food slots on the cell doors. Only after requesting to speak to supervisors, in protest to the continued denial of adequate food [the] prisoners were only given one fried egg, two flour tortillas and a container of milk.
...With no form of resolution being offered, immediate supervisors began a series of assaults upon prisoners with the use of chemical agents and a five man use of force team totaling some one thousand plus pounds of body weight. Twelve prisoners were gassed and four of that twelve were additionally attacked by the use of force team.
...There was no form of adequate medical clearance by UTMB staff nor was there a UTMB staff member present during the first two assaults. In addition there were no examinations or treatment given to any of us prisoners (with the exception of the first two whom were taken off the cell block for several hours)....After being gassed we were placed back into the same contaminated cells with no clothing, necessities or property (stationary, legal materials, etc. etc.) And each prisoner was denied yet another meal some six hours later with correctional staff stating we prisoners refused to comply with procedures.
...Institutional officials Wayne Scott (Executive director), Gary Johnson (director) and Chairman of the board Allan Polansky along with Region 1 director Ed G. Owens have been previously informed of the abusive unconstitutional conditions here and yet no one had addressed these issues...
Again the "Emergency Action Center" has been put on notice of the events that have occurred on this date by way of my pen (and others) to obtain some form of immediate resolution and for assistance in putting society on notice...
-- A Texas prisoner, 15 March 1998
Top Rules Change but Guards' Brutal Behavior Continues
The requirements I need to have is a Line 1 or an S4. These are level categories and as of right now I am at the bottom of the list at a line 3 & the highest a person can get is a S1. Yet they keep changing laws and regulations so that now an offender has to do a year with no cases before we are able to get any type of upgrade in status. Every time we get a major case, it starts over from that day. So it really ain't up to our behavior as much as it is to the officials that might decide to give you a case all because you don't want to play some kind of silly game such as indulging in name-calling or horse playing.
In some cases even when a person indulges in the officers' game and the prisoner gets the best of the officer; he may retaliate by giving the prisoner a case of some kind. There are at least 45 different offense codes to write a prisoner up for and in most cases its the its the offenders word against the officers. So in those types of situations prisoners never beat the case. SO as you can see the law was made to keep prisoners locked up...
On the issue about paying for medical ... well they have recently started charging us $3 just to get us checked out where in most cases the nurse will tell us to take some Tylenol and we'll be alright. I'll send you a little something about this. As of right now I'm in Administrative Segregation and we don't have no type of god or educational programs whatsoever. They do have a general library with reading and learning materials but only level 1s can use the library...
On the Wynne Unit they have a lot of inmate brutality where prisoners are being slammed and beaten while in handcuff restraints. Which ad seg [administrative segregation] prisoners are required to wear anytime they leave the cell. I myself have been slammed and beaten and I am seeking legal action for the official's unjustifiable acts of unnecessary use of force.
The majority of the unnecessary use of force is done on illiterate offenders who don't know how to read or write. They're sometimes jumped on for spitting on officers, cursing officers but the majority of the time it's for no reason at all. Like when prisoners file grievances on officers. Later on down the line the officer will retaliate in that way. So the treatment is very bad in most of the Texas prisons. Not to mention the use of chemical agents which in some cases has killed prisoners. And if the gas doesn't the 5-man suit up team might. For when they first make contact with the prisoner that's been sprayed with chemical agents they start punching, kicking, kneeing, twisting body parts and in a lot of times they dig into your eyes and squeeze your testicles.
There are also cases where prisoners are retaliated on in other ways. Such as the officer throwing urine into the cell. Or turn water off for the whole shift, where you have no drinking or toilet water and a lot of the times they refuse your meal, recreation or shower. Go into your cell and throw everything around and give you a case for having a milk carton in your cell or something as simple as that. Sometimes we keep our milk cartons because they only give your use a cup at mealtime and take it back when they pick up trays. And we are stuck to drink milk from our hand. Yeah that's the type of treatment we receive in some of these Texas prisons. Some worse than others like this unit has the worst racial discrimination I ever seen.
-- Texas prisoner, 5 April 1998
Top Texas plantation Conditions
In my last letter I conveyed some information to you concerning the conditions of this particular slave plantation. For some reason, I believe that the unit mailroom intercepted my missive due to its potency. Nevertheless, the sub-human treatment cannot be justified.
You may have recently seen a news segment on ABC Nightline where I had a chance to demonstrate how we had to drink water because the administration won't allow us to have our own personal drinking cups.. I also demonstrated how I have to write letters because we do not have desks in our cells to write on. These are the things that the tax payers are unaware of. They are unaware of the fact that these capitalist swine are denying us the basic necessities of life such as toothpaste, deodorant, hairbrushes and other grooming supplies under the guidelines of the A.D.03.50.
Under the A.D.03.50 we are denied the right to library privileges also which means the right to education. People in society are always reading or hearing something about recidivism. But recidivism means job security for these bakkkwoods rednekkks. So what's more important, job security or a bunch of convicted felons trying to uplift themselves in the belly of the beast? At any rate I am going to survive as well as educate these young brothers that I have influence over....
-- A Texas Prisoner (undated)
Top The Misery Department of Oppression
After throwing urine into the faces of several imperialist flunkies who destroyed personal property of mine during a "routine cell search", I was transferred to a maximum security facility. I never knew the plight of my comrades and brethren until transferring to Missouri's newest gulag.
After the uprising of the oppressed (described in MIM Note, Jan 15th Edition, "Concentration Camp in Missouri), the administration (pigs in suits) created new rules allowing only a single unit out of six to recreate on a rotating schedule. Thereby oppressing us even more and making a unified stand impossible.
I was in general population until I filed a civil complaint against superintendent head pig, Mike Kemna, and Misery Department of Oppressions Director, Dora Schriro. Now I'm in segregation (the hole) for "Organized Disobedience" for playing touch football in the snow.
Since I've been in the hole I've witnessed the continual oppression of my black, white and latin comrades. I've seen my brothers assaulted and beaten while cuffed behind their backs. I've watch comrades being maced for banging on their doors in attempt to alert the pigs that their cells were being flooded by water and feces by the cell above. Large canisters of pepper mace which are normally used for crowd control are sprayed until empty in the confines of a six by twelve foot cell, virtually suffocating those inside. These and many more human rights violations occur daily by mace-toting, jackbooted, hireling pigs.
We are denied access to legal material and sharpened pencils so often it's almost policy. (I'm writing to you with a pen smuggled in.) The pigs came and confiscated everyone's toothbrushes last week. Claiming that they may be used as weapons (against cavities and plaque, maybe.) We were then given thimbles with bristles and they expected us to brush our teeth with those. Several men have already choked on them.
While I am serving a 10-year sentence for assaulting the person who assaulted my wife, many of my comrades are here for life. The Misery Department of Oppression is billion dollar industry, through which the capitalist state regime finances itself by the warehousing and exploitation paid for by taxing the masses and by funding from the imperialist federal government.
Your Comrade in cuffs, -- A Missouri Prisoner, 6 February 1998