Federal Prisons

Dear Friends,

Howdy from Texas! I have just read the Winter 2024 issue of Under Lock & Key provided to me by a friend. I’d like to be added to your mailing list.

Several articles caught my eye, most especially those focused on conditions within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). One Texas prisoner wrote the bulk of your article on the ULK 83 Correction regarding drugs, murder, and the statewide lockdown imposed by TDCJ. His statements were quite accurate. At the H. H. Coffield unit, we also saw prisoner-on-prisoner murder. Two of them were very close to my housing. We were locked down in totality for 40 days in our 5x9 cells and fed a starvation diet of sack meals.

The TDCJ Digital Mail initiative article was quite good as well. My own postal mail has been averaging 3 months for receipt since the implementation of the program. Even our Securus e-mail at my unit has been taking up to 3 or 4 weeks to be received – both incoming and outgoing.

But at least we are now drug-free, right? Not hardly! Those who choose to use have seen no shortage of supply. Personally I believe the only way to supply that volume of drugs to this 4000 man unit is via the officer and staff.

The K-2 epidemic is alive and well in Texas as well as Nevada and inmates are choosing to be brain-dead as their primary coping mechanism. Inmates under the influence are generally ignored by officers and officials and the issue is very divisive among the prison population. After all, no one in their right mind wants a cellie or a neighbor who is a strung-out deadbeat who would rob their mama to get another stick.

Anyway, I could go on for days about TDCJ incompetency, prison conditions, housing, food, etc. but I’ve said enough for now. I’ll be looking forward to receiving your publication.

Usually we would be writing you via JPay tablet, but here at Suwannee Correctional Institution, the content of our emails regarding prison conditions would get us censored, deleted, and bring retaliation against us in one way or another.

We are writing with the intent of informing you of prison conditions here:

1. Overseer abuse and brutality of prisoners; for example:

22 November 2023, there was the death, possible murder of prisoner Germaine French in confinement, P-dorm. Overseers are saying that he hung himself from the cell water sprinkler, but such is impossible, whereas, the cell water sprinklers do not extend out of the wall enough to tie anything, especially not the hanging of a body.

12 December 2023, Sgt. Finney gassed (pepper sprayed) a prisoner, with an expired canister, then beat em outside of N-dorm. This prisoner was informed that Sgt. Finney had been terminated, however, on 1 January 2024, Sgt. Finney pepper sprayed a mentally ill prisoner in the chow hall in the middle of dinner meals. Sgt. Finney pepper sprayed this prisoner to impress Female Sgt. Aldridge, who stood by laughing while prisoners coughed and gagged trying to hurry out of the chow hall leaving our food untouched. Sgt. Finney is still here threatening to gas and beat prisoners and using profanity and abusive language toward prisoners.

2. Food Service

All the trays are caked up with brown and black scum and mold from not being properly washed or scrubbed.

Prisoners working in food service are being threatened with confinement if caught putting too much food on the trays.

Food portions are so exiguous, prisoners are risking confinement and brutality doubling back, sneaking back in line trying to avoid hunger.

3. WiFi:

Overseers are controlling the WiFi, cutting WiFi on and off, high and low, preventing prisoners from listening to or watching podcast and/or movies.

4. Deleting outgoing emails:

STG (Security Threat Group) and mail room personnel are unconstitutionally censoring, withholding/delaying and/or deleting outgoing emails in retaliation where emails are about prison conditions, overseer abuse, brutality and even murder of prisoners in handcuffs or in secure cells, not being a threat to anyone.

5. Collective punishment

The entire O-dormitory was placed on lockdown (28 December 2023) from after dinner till breakfast, due to one or a few prisoners not walking in single file line to and/or from dinner, creating and perpetuating a hostile environment, leading to prisoner-on-prisoner conflicts, arguments, fighting and/or stabbings, based on the orders of Captain Demouro.

On 16 November 2023, Captain Demouro conducted a shake down (mass search) in O-I dormitory in retaliation, all due to one prisoner checking in. Captain Demouro entered the wing and had his overseers toss every prisoner’s personal property all over the cell. Again, all in the means of creating and perpetuating a hostile environment, resulting in prisoner-on-prisoner violence. Divide and rule, while referring to prisoners as “fuck boy” and “fuck face”, etc.

6. Medical

Sick call being submitted via drop box rather than in person wherein which prisoners can obtain signed carbon copy for record keeping. By conducting sick call request via drop box, prisoners sick call request come up missing, no matter how sick they may be, they may not be seen.

7. Body Cams

Majority of overseers here are wearing body cams, which only get turned on when convenient for overseers and FDOC. Society will never see or hear the reality and brutality. Body cams are only for show, they’re not continually recording.

8. Surveillance Video

No surveillance videos on dormitory sally ports, a blind spot where overseers abuse and brutalize handcuffed prisoners, rendering the sally ports the most dangerous spaces at Suwannee C.I.

9. Captain Demouro leads the way in use of abusive and threatening language and profanity. Threatening to gas and beat prisoners who write him up.

10. O-dormitory overseers keeping prisoners on lockdown way after count clears. O-dormitory prisoners are still on lockdown while every other dorm is out attending callouts (prison appointments), recreation, etc. O-dormitory prisoners are being treated as if in confinement. Same apply to legal mail access.

11. One overseer, Linblade, has been working in O-dorm since 2012, despite policy that overseers can only work the same post for 18 months.

12. Trashing submitted grievances

Grievances placed in drop box by prisoners are not being processed, logged, or returned. Grievance Coordinator is throwing grievances in the trash, denying prisoners First Amendment rights, with no video surveillance at drop box and no carbon copies on grievance forms, prisoners cannot prove they submitted grievances, or obtain copies for record keeping. Discouraging and hindering the grievance process, which makes prisoners feel hopeless and in fear of intimidation and retaliation.

We bring these issues to your attention, whereas, it is a known fact that public opinion is the most effective tool and means of bringing any kind of relief or betterment on the inside. We are voiceless without you on the outside and we ask that you speak for us. The rules apply only to and against us, prisoners.

13. Air Circulation

Please note that as of current, the entire O-dormitory at Suwannee C.I. has no exhaust fan, no air circulation in all 4 quads, prisoners (myself included) are sick, sniffing, coughing, sneezing. Upon entering any of the wings, you can smell nothing but human bodies and sweat, as if in the belly of a slave ship.

The exhaust fans has been broken over a year now, prior to my arriving here. In November 2023, several prisoners and I submitted grievances, those grievances never returned. They were thrown in the trash by the grievance coordinator. We have also complained verbally to dormitory inspectors, white shirts, warden, etc, all to no avail. There are no windows in this building, O-dormitory.

This document is being sent out to any and all outside support people and organizations, we are trying to get as many people outside to at least call or send as many emails as possible (and spread the word) to FDOC Secretary, Ricky Dixon, Region II regional director, John Palmer, and Suwannee C.I. warden, Michael Lane, regarding the issues mentioned above. We need all the outside support we can possibly get.

Please and thank you, in egalitarian solidarity and struggle.

Within the New Afrikan Independence Movement (NAIM), when We think of Hinds County Mississippi, We often think of El-Malik, or many of Our movement elders building independence for Our people in the heart of dixie. On December 18th, NBC News published the identities of 215 buried bodies that had been secretly hidden behind the Hinds County Penal Colony in a ‘paupers’ graveyard. These 215 people were all buried there between 2016 and December 2023. In total 672 people were buried at this location. Although each of the 215 graves were marked by a metal pole with a number attached indicating unclaimed or unidentified remains, in truth each one of these 215 people were identified by the Hinds County officials and were only unclaimed because officials did not attempt to notify kin of the deceased.

The Wade Family

Of the hundreds of the affected families one of the most striking stories is that of the Wade family, whose matriarch Bettersten Wade was instrumental in bringing the existence of the secret graveyard, next to the jail, to public attention.

In 2019, Jackson pigs pulled over Bettersten’s brother, pulled em out of eir car and slammed em to the ground in such a way that it caused eir death. Eir sister, Bettersten Wade, became a recognizable figure in the local Jackson community as ey waged a relentless public battle to advocate for prosecution of the pigs who were responsible. One of the pigs was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to a mere five years. Subsequently, Bettersten Wade filed a wrongful death suit against the Jackson Police Department, this lawsuit is ongoing and has been highly publicized in the local news.

On 5 March 2023, Bettersten Wade’s 37 year-old son, Dexter Wade, left home with a friend but never returned. Bettersten Wade filed a missing person’s report and continuously contacted Jackson and Hinds County officials for months but never got a reply. Then, five months after the fact, an investigator came to eir home to inform em of Dexter’s death.

The story coming from the pigs is that an hour after leaving home, Dexter was hit by a police vehicle driven by an off-duty pig. The illegitimate authorities claim they’ve been unable to reach Ms. Bettersten Wade for months, despite finding Dexter’s wallet with eir I.D. and Ms. Wade’s address, and with Ms. Wade being a known local figure due to eir struggle against police murder of eir brother. Nevertheless, Dexter’s body was buried behind the jail with the number 672 stuck to the pole. To make matters worse, once Ms. Wade found the burial plot ey was told ey would have to pay $250 to the county to have eir son’s remains retrieved, as eir body was considered property of the state of Mississippi!

Ms. Wade and eir lawyer requested to be present when the body was examined, and ey was denied even that dignity and eir humyn courtesy. Dexter’s remains were not embalmed, nor put in a casket, but were stuck in a bag causing rapid decomposing in a shallow grave. When Ms. Wade and eir lawyer arrived the remains of Dexter had already been dug up, “breaking the chains of custody” necessary to determine Dexter’s actual cause of death.

From the results of a later independent autopsy, Dexter Wade’s body was in an advance state of decomposition, showed multiple blunt force injuries to the skull, ribs, and pelvis; in addition eir left leg was completely amputated from eir body. Eir body had been completely ran over by a police vehicle. By secretly burying the body without notifying the family, it makes it unlikely that the official findings of “accidental death” could later be questioned. Number 672 was never meant to be uncovered. But ey was. And the hidden horrors connected to Dexter’s death and burial would subsequently lead to many more families coming forward, finding missing loved ones secretly buried in Pauper’s graveyard behind the prison.

The striking similarities between the Emmett Till murder and attempted cover-up among county and state officials, and this contemporary tragedy highlight the ever present need for programs for decolonization in Jackson and the National Territory more generally. Each tragedy and struggle the people experience in which the inadequacy and/or corruption of the U.$. colonial government can be implicated is an issue We can organize around to intensify the class struggle for national unity.

Intensify the class struggle for national unity

Our lives depend on it!

Re-Build to win!

“What makes you think you DESERVE to celebrate Black History Month”- SIS Officer at USP Tucson

These were the words that were spoken to me a few years ago, here at United States Penitentiary - Tucson, shortly before I was illegally put in the SHU (Special Housing Unit) for 40 days.

Before this incident, i was the Secretary of the Black History Month Committee here for three consecutive years, and had more experience in the committee than anyone else over the last five years. But on this particular year, as I reflect back on this, the Education Department did absolutely nothing for us in preparing for Black History Month. We were promised the resources, but as we worked from November of the previous year to February of that next year, we found that when it was time to promote Black History Month, there was nothing set aside for us to carry out any of the activities promised.

We had nothing.

I am writing this now, in February 2024, and I am again at the realization that USP Tucson, from the Warden on down, refuses to allow us to celebrate our history. Not one memo, not one event, nothing is scheduled to celebrate our history, and I can’t help but reflect back to that day where a Caucasian SIS officer (Special Investigative Services) had the audacity to tell me, to my face, “What makes you think you DESERVE to celebrate Black History Month”?

What we are seeing is a stripping not only of Black History, but of identity as well. Prisons are mandated to help rehabilitate people, and one way to do that is to reinforce their identity. There is a certain level of pride that each individual gets when he or she knows that they are part of a greater group of people. I speak as an African American, but this also applies to every other nationality, from Native Americans to Mexican Americans to even Caucasians. When prisons strip us of an identity, it makes them similar to how slaves were treated in our American history.

The slaves brought to America came with nothing, and were systematically stripped of everything they once were, and degraded to a level of inhumanity that surely is an abomination to God. Has much changed in 2024, when prisons continue to practice slave tactics?

In that year we didn’t have Black History Month, I was upset at this, and began to do what I always do… write. I wrote essays about how staff deliberately sabotaged Black History Month, and intended to mail them to the outside world.

But a Caucasian staff member in Education read my works, and refused to allow me to have them back, after I had printed them. She called them “inappropriate.” I questioned her as to why I cannot have my works, which actually I have a right to have.

Her first answer was, “Well, I was with (the staff member), and you don’t know what you’re talking about”-

Wait! I am the SECRETARY of the Black History Month Committee!! I keep ALL the notes! How is this Caucasian woman going to tell me that I don’t know what I’m talking about?? At this point, I was already getting angry at how I am being challenged of my First Amendment right about MY history.

Her second excuse was that I can’t have it back because I made multiple copies. This too, was bogus, because even though the general body of the letter was the same, it was very clear at the top of each copy who I was sending it to. Her argument was based on that you could not make exact, identical copies at the same time – I had every right to make three copies if they are going to three different entities.

Her third argument was, “If you want to write a grievance, you can get a BP”. This also was a lie, and what she now was doing was curbing my right to the First Amendment, shifting me to use a VERY flawed grievance procedure. What she was doing was quite illegal.

So, upset, I went back and wrote a new essay, “Is (staff member) Breaking The Law?”. I used Federal Bureau of Prisons policies, legal cases and other resources to prove, without a doubt, that this Caucasian officer was intentionally blocking me from sending these letters out.

When she read my essay, she called for backup, and the SIS officer came, took me out to the hallway and threatened to put me in the SHU (Special Housing Unit). He said, “I know how to play this game”, and then, as I tried to make my case, he said the quote I started this essay with.

My answer to this Caucasian man… “I don’t think a white man can tell a Black man, who has been the Secretary of the Black History Month Committee the last three years anything about his history”.

To this man, and to many Caucasian officers here at USP Tucson, we don’t “deserve” to celebrate our history; we don’t “deserve” to have an identity. Yet, they are quick to take vacation on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s Birthday.

The last several years here at USP Tucson, the Warden has blocked attempts for us to celebrate our history. Even now, as we came off a malicious and retaliatory 36-day lockdown, after refusing to give us stamps to mail our loved ones, after filthy showers, after feeding us spoiled peanut butter, after limiting our phone calls to a single five minute call a day, after at least three deaths due to medical neglect, and as many homicides – staff here at USP Tucson will not relent in their treatment of human beings in this prison.

It’s not just Black History they are stripping from us . . . it’s humanity they are stripping from everyone. When prisons refuse to acknowledge the captives as human beings, when they ignore the simple basics of human kindness, when they condone illegal acts done by staff, and do nothing about it, they have transported the entire environment backwards two hundred years.

It’s funny, that incident with the Caucasian officer in Education and the SIS officer happened, as I write this, about 5 years ago… those officers still work here. They were never punished in any shape or form for their prejudiced views. I however, was put in the SHU for 40 days, then found guilty of a bogus charge. It took me at least six months to appeal to eventually have that charge expunged, based off simple information that, if the Caucasian Disciplinary Officer had read, she would have thrown the charge out. But after my appeal to her during my hearing, she said to me:

“I just don’t believe she would lie to me”.

So, because I’m Black, and a prisoner, I lose the argument simply because my opponent is a Caucasian female that is a staff member. My level of equality as a human being is stripped, because my status as an prisoner is inferior.

We won’t celebrate Black History Month here at USP Tucson, because staff apparently don’t believe we “deserve” it. So, I’ll celebrate it for everyone here, and refuse to let this prison strip me of my humanity. That makes them less of a human than me.

MIM(Prisons) responds:Understanding history is about understanding where we came from and where we are going. This is the real power of history that the oppressor has tried to keep from the oppressed for hundreds of years. The system is happy to promote an identity for prisoners – one of people who are not deserving, of people with less rights, of people who are less intelligent. There are many identities we can take on, positive and negative. We do not promote a “white identity” because that is the identity of an oppressor. As communists we identify with the Third World proletariat – that is the revolutionary class of people under imperialism that offers solutions and a path from oppression.

In ULK 84, we announced the addition of Indiana to our list of states with a campaign and petition to get prisoner grievances heard and addressed. The comrade who wrote the petition immediately put it to work, sending copies of the petition to all the official addresses listed on the bottom.

This comrade had mail confiscated in June 2023 that ey has been trying to get ever since.

“The indorm counselor asked me to sign the paper which said I had to either send it home or have it destroyed and they violated/broke my due process rights as well as my 1st Amendment rights. I told her I ain’t signing shit.”

“Then a day later I.A. here at Putnamville Correctional Facility called me over to give my publication to me after they had them for well over 6 months, which is a victory, and we will see more I believe.”

The comrade sent us a copy of the letter from the Deputy Chief of Investigations granting that the publications sent in early June were permissible – 7 months later!

While we agree there will be more victories, we’ve also seen setbacks following censorship battles in Indiana over the last couple years. MIM(Prisons) believes there are no rights, only power struggles. The grievance campaign being waged in over a dozen states across the country is geared towards getting prisoners organized to advocate for themselves because the system is always there to maintain the status quo.

Today the Deputy Chief of Investigations helped a comrade out, tomorrow ey might not be so generous. Recently the FBI arrested rapists running FCI-Dublin, yet at other times they’ve imprisoned and assassinated those who fight for the liberation of the oppressed. The agents of the state act in the interest of the state. So we cannot rest on our laurels after a couple censorship victories.

In my opinion, ULK 84 was the best issue I have ever seen in my years of getting the newsletter. In response to “On Tennessee Bans Slavery - So What?”: While I agree voting has poor success it is a start on the process and can help create awareness among the sheeple.

Corruptaradans(as we call the sheeple of this corrupt state) changed the Colorado constitution to ban all slavery. But the Dept of Corruption ignored the will of the people (I am shocked!) and said it did not apply to prisoner slaves.

However, two law firms joined forces and filed an action in Denver Dist Court to demand minimum wage for prisoners’ work (case no: 2022CV30421). The firms are:

Around the country more than 65 groups have joined the fight to take prisoner slavery is just peachy out of the U.$. Constitution. For a list of these, contact:

I have been doing time in Alaska off and on since 2004. I’ve seen all the dirty tricks the crooked C.O.’s use to violate our constitutional rights. I’ve seen one generation of crooked cops hand down their dirty tricks to the next. I see them violate our rights to the point prisoners don’t know their rights are being violated. As Hitler said, “if you tell a big enough lie often enough people will believe it…” It’s time we stand up and take our rights back. The two biggest Due Process violations are the failure to have witnesses physically present at the disciplinary hearing and the failure to permit requested evidence in the accused favor.

It is the law in the 9th circuit that witnesses must appear at a prisoners disciplinary hearing, (Bartholomew v. Watson, 665 F.2d 915, 917-18 (9^th Cir. 1982)). And that they may not use interviews to substitute for live witnesses (Mitchell v. Dupnik, 75 F.3d 517, 525-26 (9^th Cir. 1996). The blanket denial of live witnesses is impermissible, exclusions must be justified individually (Serrano v. Francis, 345 F.3d 1071, 1079-80 (9^th Cir. 2003)).

However, in the past 20 years the Alaska Department of Corrections (AKDOC) has denied all live/physically present witnesses other than the crooked cops themselves! In the face of clearly established Constitutional law the crooked cops only permit written interviews of our witnesses. The answer we get most often is, “that’s just not how we do things.” When or if we appeal, our appeal on this point is denied without reason.

Instead of throwing our hands up in hopeless despair, I encourage you to file your administrative appeal with the court after you exhaust your appeals with the AKDOC. There was an attorney who retired about 7 years ago, Jon Buckholtt, who would do administrative appeals for prisoners, about 100 per year. Cases have been reversed and then expunged on this point alone.

I also would encourage you to contact your local ACLU and/or file a §1983 civil rights claim. Take back your rights!

Revolutionary Greetings! I want to add on to ‘The Stoopid Epidemic of K2 in Nevada Prisons’ article from the ULK winter 2024 issue. Yes K2 has taken over the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC). What’s more, the K2 that these brothers are smoking is sprayed on paper. SMH. Before I was released from segregation K2 was banned. Now the pigs have taken over and instead of allowing tobacco or weed in their prisons they are allowing K2 in. K2 is deadly and the brothers that smoke it are losing their minds. I just wanted to add on and let people know that the K2 epidemic has taken over SCDC. Peace.