Wisconsin Prisons

The state is tightening its control on free communication and association in prisons across the country by imposing digital monitoring systems, and in some cases banning hard copies of mail.

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety has begun using a company called TextBehind to handle their mail and push people towards their digital communications platform. This allows the company to extort people to pay whatever prices they want just to send their loved ones a message, while the state gets to monitor every word.

MIM Distributors began sending mail to TextBehind last month only to have it returned unopened. It turns out TextBehind does not process letters from organizations, only from individuals. As an organization we would be required to set up a corporate account with non-public pricing schemes. In other words, as a member of MIM(Prisons) I cannot just put a stamp on an envelope and drop it in the mail for a comrade in NCDPS custody anymore. This is a blatant violation of our First Amendment rights to speech and association. At this time it appears that newsletters and books are still allowed through the prisons, but we will not be able to correspond with you directly, send you study guides or other information persynalized to you if you are being held by NCPDS.

UPDATE: We just had a package of ULKs returned to us from Roanoke River Correctional Institution saying, “This facility DOES NOT accept friend and family mail directly” and that we must send mail to TextBehind. But TextBehind does not accept publications, only letters that can be scanned. So it seems mail to NCDPS is being blocked on all fronts.

Pigs Bring in Drugs, While Prisoners Mail Suffers

First thing first, I am still in Wisconsin. They are making all of us have our families and comrades send personal letters and photos to the Phoenix, Maryland PO Box (189) to inspect them for drugs such as K2, even though drugs, cell phones and other contraband items come from the fascist pigs that work in these imperialist gulags. Newspapers, books, publications are still to be sent here.

I tried sending this by email, but staff rejected the message, declaring it a “threat to the institution.” They are obviously trying to keep the truth from getting out.

Jackson Correctional Institution has multiple prisoner cases of Covid-19, and at least one unit is in lockdown. We’ve heard that it started when two staff members came to work despite being symptomatic. At least one infected CO had been wearing vented masks that have been banned from Gunderson Hospital because the unfiltered vent means it only protects the wearer from infection, but not from spreading to others. When officials found out about the exposure, they moved a bunch of prisoners around instead of sheltering them in place, putting healthy people in the contaminated cells without cleaning in between, and leaving the exposed prisoners standing in the middle of the dayroom for hours, exposing everyone else.

Officials aren’t telling us anything, not even the number of positive cases. We have to get our people on the outside to find out from the DOC website. We don’t have access to the law library.

The warden had invoked an emergency regulation way back on July 1st, so staff and officers aren’t bound by any departmental rules, and the DOC Secretary has not investigated that power grab. If we’ve been in an “emergency” for the past 3 months, it’s hard to imagine what this is.

I, Prisoner X, a state prisoner in Wisconsin hereby declare out of my own free will my intent to initiate a sole-man Hunger Strike starting Sept. 23, 2019 aimed at petitioning Governor Tony Evers to:

1. Order an independent investigation against the state’s Dept. of Corrections for the allegations the starting 2014 the WI DOC began secretly operating a compartmentalized version of the 1960’s mind-control “Asklepieion Program” and using it to target very selective mentally-ill cutters housed in the state’s prisons maximum security solitary confinement units in a desperate attempt at suppressing changes to Wisconsin’s long-term solitary confinement practice. see https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/1asklepieion.pdf

2. Order the immediate release into the prison’s general population of all Wisconsin state prisoners who have been in solitary confinement for over five years.

3. Issue an “executive order” reforming Wisconsin state prisons’ solitary confinement practice reflecting the following suggestions:

1. Place a six month cap on the use of Administrative Confinement. “AC is an involuntary non-punitive status for the segregated confinement of a prisoner whose continued presence in general population pose a serious threat to life, property, self, staff, and other prisoners, or to the security and orderly operation of a facility.” A prisoner can be kept on AC status, in solitary confinement, indefinitely! See CH.DOC 308 and DOC/DAI 308.00.01.

2. Modify the policies to give prisoners time-served for any time spent on Temporary Lock-Up for disciplinary penalty purposes. “TLU is a status that permits officials to confine a prisoner in solitary confinement or general population as part an active investigation or; among other things, until a prisoner receives a Disciplinary Hearing.” TLU can last up to three twenty-one day terms, and any time confined on TLU status is not considered time-served for disciplinary penalty purposes. See CH.DOC 303.10 sue 1-7.

HUNGER STRIKE DECLARATION

I, Prisoner X, of sound mind, hereby state the following:

1. I am not suffering from insanity, nor will I be refusing to eat and drink to facilitate suicide as described in case Freeman v. Berge, 441 F.3d 543, at 546-47 (7th cir. 2006).

2. My reasons and aim for hunger striking this Sept. 23rd are for political and legal objectives to express the injustice of my continuous solitary confinement, the inhumane conditions of prolonged confinement and arbitrary policies relative to it.

3. I have been in solitary confinement since Oct. 2014 for assaulting a prison employee who directly participated in subjecting me through a criminal compartmentalized mind-control program (original called Asklepieion) the WI DOC secretly sanctioned starting June 2014 to suppress charges to the state’s long-term solitary confinement practice. See: https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/1asklepieion.pdf

4. Although I was criminally charged with Attempted First Degree Intentional Homicide, as the court hearings went on, and the DOC realized I was going to use evidence that substantiated by allegations of being subjected to a mind-control program by DOC officials as a legal defense against the criminal charges, the employee I assaulted–with the financial assistance of the DOC–hired an independent attorney to persuade the district attorney prosecuting the case to dismiss the criminal charges and sweep everything under the rug.

5. Even though the criminal charges against me were dismissed WI DOC officials decided to keep me indefinitely in solitary confinement where I continue to be for the past five years, as a human experiment gone terribly opposite to its original objective.

6. It’s these reasons and those from the flier Prisoner X’s Prison Hunger Strike Campaign that I have now taken a vow of hunger striking to expose to the public and government officials of my cruel, degrading, and inhumane treatment.

7. This aim is not to facilitate death, but to demand human dignity and accountability.

How You Can Help

1. Email and phone zapping the governor’s office several times a day for the rest of the month of September, asking Governor Tony Evers to pay close attention to the “Prisoner X’s Prison Hunger Strike Campaign”, and to act on his own campaign promise of reforming the state’s solitary confinement practice. Call the governor’s office at (608) 266-1212; and email at governor@wisconsin.gov

2. Contact your local media asking them to cover this Hunger Strike and provide updates

In late May, prisoners in several Wisconsin prisons renewed the hunger strike against torture in that state’s prisons. In addition to arbitrarily long terms in solitary confinement, the prisons are not following their own rules about things like required time out of cell.(1) We are awaiting more news of the action from our comrades in Wisconsin.

In 2016 Wisconsin prisoners staged a hunger strike protesting long-term solitary confinement practices in that state. This strike started June 10 and went for several months and involved force feeding of some participants. You can read the history here and here. The administration punished the protesters but did nothing to modify their solitary confinement policies which included arbitrarily and poorly defined offenses leading to long sentences in isolation.

The 2016 petition from striking prisoners at Waupun is printed below:

Dying to Live

Human rights fight at Waupun Correctional Institution starting June 10, 2016. Prisoners in Waupun’s solitary confinement will start No Food & Water humanitarian demand from Wisconsin Department of Corrections officials.

The why: In the state of Wisconsin hundreds of prisoners are in the long term solitary confinement units a.k.a. Administrative Confinement (AC). Some been in this status from 18 to 20 years.

The Problem: The United Nations, several states, and even President Obama have come out against this kind of confinement citing the torturous effect it has on prisoners.

The Objective: Stop the torturous use long-term solitary confinement (AC) by:

1. Placing a legislative cap on the use of long term solitary confinement (AC)
2. DOC and Wisconsin legislators adoption/compliance of the UN Mandela rules on the use of solitary confinement(5)
3. Oversight board/committee independent of DOC to stop abuse and overclassification of prisoners to “short” and “long” term solitary confinement.
4. Immediate transition and release to a less restrictive housing of prisoners who been on the long term solitary confinement units for more than a year in the Wisconsin DOC
5. Proper mental health facilities and treatment of “short” and “long” term solitary confinement prisoners
6. An immediate FBI investigation to the secret Asklepieion* program the DOC is currently operating at Columbia Correctional Institution (CCI) to break any prisoner who the DOC considers a threat to their regimen

How you can help

1. Call Governor Scott Walker’s office and tell him to reform the long-term solitary confinement units in the Wisconsin DOC and to stop the secret Asklepieion program at once. The number to call is 608-266-1212.
2. Call the DOC central office and demand that all 6 humanitarian demands for this hunger strike be met and demand an explanation as to why they are operating a torture program. The number to call is 608-240-5000.
3. Call the media and demand that they do an independent investigation on the secret Asklepieion program operating at Columbia Correctional Institution, and cover this hunger strike.
4. Call the FBI building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and demand that they investigate the secret Asklepieion torture program being run at CCI. The phone number to call is 414-276-4684.
5. Call Columbia Correctional Institution and tell them you are aware of their secret torture program. Harass them! 608-742-9100.
6. Join in on the hunger strike and post it on the net. Convince others to join as well.

   
   

Every night we go to sleep feeling hungry and wake every morning disappointed because the breakfast is so minute; still feeling hungry after breakfast.

To all concerned, we submit this Human Rights (HR) call of investigation of abuse and possible embezzlement by Columbia Correctional Institution (CCI) and the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC). Sometime back in 2010 or 2011 Wisconsin law makers planned, with serious malice, of reducing meals to twice daily or even once a day. These ideas were scrapped, due in significant a way, because even jail and prison officials felt it will cause unrest. So what they have done and are doing is slowly, and not so subtly any more, reducing and cutting the portions down on all three meals to where it has the same or even more quantitative effect as if they took one to two meals depending on the weeks in play.

We are calling upon Human Rights and journalistic investigators to study these allegations. We call upon the collective community of concerned citizens to be alarmed at the allegations and tactics. We believe but cannot prove. But confirmed by DOC line staff who will not go on record that this is true and part of policy now. We know that here at CCI they are doing tactics such as measuring the portions like this: One measurement portion is scooped or ladled out, weighed on a scale or eyeballed, then multiplied times the number of prisoners on the unit. While this seems like ALL business/hotels etc measure and cook food. But the portions are designed to say eight oz., yet the actual amount is four or five oz. Not only is you skimming, but, as shown everyday, food is skimmed down more by the server as they try to extend those four oz. Stuff like juice, soup, oatmeal is watered down or substitute additives incorporated so that the quality of the oatmeal is damaged and it becomes merely fiber powder with hot water with no taste. But they may be writing the expenditure off as real oatmeal.

The sadists among those permitting this, like CCI Warden Michael Dittman, will say, well, this is prison. You get what you get. This is not the Hilton or Marriot etc (not actual quote, but analogizing his and others state of mind). These reductions, additives, and cuts are not only barbarous, but violations of human rights, cruel and inhuman treatment and malicious punishment (CIDTS). It causes daily discomforts, anxiety, frustrations, stress, anger and hatred of those administering it all. And all of these are counterintuitive to what corrections goals and aims claim to be.

Still more, it’s being done secretively (well started off that way). Not as a public policy, but skullduggery to embezzle more funds for stuff that benefits Wardens/guards etc. For overtime more “workdays”, pensions, sick days, vacation days etc. Hiring family members, etc.

This is not an issue of prisoners whining about mere discomfort. We are losing weight. We are not exercising normally and regularly due to lack of energy and for some, the brain registering hunger creates lethargic states so that very little exercise can be done. You no longer have the drive that one needs to exercise properly and consistently and regularly. And your metabolism go into a stop-loss mode to save fats and energy because the quantity of food is so small.

Add more to this two additional facts that innocuously contribute – the hard mats we are forced to sleep on don’t let you sleep at all. Another design to punish and cultivate dependency on sleep/drugs/meds so they can control. A very large percentage of prisoners who have been held in long-term segregation start taking sleep meds for various reasons. The hard mat is one. People like me who have convictions against meds/sleeping drugs must suffer with the lack of energy and sleep until the body gets so tired it shuts down and collects its overdue.

[Wisconsin prisoners have been on hunger strike since June 10 protesting long-term solitary confinement practices. Read previous updates from July and April and learn how you can support this struggle.- Editor]

Update on the food strike in Wisconsin Department of Corrections: We are still on it and still receiving support across the country from outside parts. Us at Columbia Correctional Institution (CCI) are eating just enough to prevent them from force feeding until I can get a supervisory writ filed in WI Court of Appeals (WI. Ct. App.) The circuit court in collusion with DOC did not address and/or acknowledge filings. Those at Waupun Correctional Institution (WCI) last I heard were still being force fed and the court made the order permanent fluid.

One WCI striker had to go to the hospital as result of abuse, got an infection and could have died. Broke his nose too.

United States East District court refused class classification. Comrade previously vowed to appeal that but it’s supposed to be new 7th Circuit precedent, stating prisoners gotta have a layer for class certification for class action (I’m not sure of this legality. I have yet to see the order and new case).

Both republican and democrat state officials are supposed to be “interested” in new solitary confinement legislation. One official met with a comrade at WCI. They only let two people visit. The official was the second. While that visit occurred, other officials walked through the oppressive confines.

This struggle is not over. The DOC is still making oppressive plays. On August 8 they continued my AC (Administrative Confinement) going on 19 years. The reasons are simple and concise: my release to GP will be a danger because I’ll influence the younger prisoners based on my conduct history. And they noted, my lack of participation (code for kiss ass) showing my disinterest in AC process. (AC process: letting them degrade me, demonize me and sit there begging them and demeaning myself, saying I’m not all that bad mas’er.)

DOC and CCI are still making oppressive moves. Our food portions get smaller every week. And they are cutting movement/activities while telling the public they are studying ways to provide the same in more form.

They are frustrating my access to court, not letting me go to law library, or access the computer to type up my motions. Forcing me to send nerve-damage-penned documents into the court. Knowing courts look down on and don’t read chicken scratch. We need you all out there reading this to continue the letter writing campaign that was printed in ULK 51. Write Gov. Walker, State officials, wardens at WCI, CCI and DOC secretary.

I write you to yall to thank you for your letters of support on our” ”hunger strike” to protest long term “solidarity confinement”. Thank you!

I’m still on strike but now I’m being force fed. This is (ex)tremely humiliating, painful, and unnecessary… But it is what it is. I’ll continue to refuse food and water until they place a one year cap on the use of Administrative Confinement….under this status the D.O.C. can currently keep you in solitary confinement indefinitely.

MIM(Prisons) responds: MIM(Prisons) responds: Read this article for a more detailed update on the Wisconsin prisoners’ hunger strike to fight long term isolation and other abuse.

Prisoners in Wisconsin have been on hunger strike since 10 June 2016 to protest long-term confinement in control units in that state. As we reported in April, the Wisconsin DOC has been playing games with their policies that determine the length of solitary confinement sentences, but no real change has been enacted and prisoners in Wisconsin continue to be locked away for months and even years in isolation conditions that amount to torture.(1) The protesters are demanding changes to the segregation policies of the WI DOC.

Reports suggest that the administration came down hard on suspected participants in the hunger strike, prior to June 10. In spite of this repression a number of protesters remained strong and undertook the strike. After seven days the prison began force feeding the activists, a clear attempt to torture them out of their resolve, because a seven day fast is not enough to seriously endanger most humyns. Further, force feeding comes with some serious health risks and we know the DOC medical services are already not working in the interests of the prisoners. As of June 29 six people were still refusing food.

A USW comrade reported June 27:

“As of now they started force feeding us and using it as an instrument of torture and punishment. However, because I refuse to let them abuse me and torture me like that without fighting back, I’ve suspended mine until I can get a restraining order to prevent such. I let them do it one time and they forced it up my nose so hard that when the membrane of the nasal seal popped it sent a bubble through my head and my head still hurts. I can’t let the pigs beat me for free like that, but the comrades in Waupun are enduring it and a few plan to join next month.”

We continue to stand with the protesters risking their lives to force the WI DOC to end their long-term solitary confinement system. These courageous activists are fighting against a system that has nothing to do with security and is only used for social control. People who peacefully protest, such as these hunger strikers, are the most likely to end up spending years in isolation, conditions that are known to cause serious physical and mental health problems. The use of control units in so many Amerikkkan prisons across the country is just further demonstration that the criminal injustice system is not designed for rehabilitation; its purpose is to control society.

The strikers have asked people on the outside for help:

1. Call Governor Scott Walker’s office and tell em to reform the long-term solitary confinement units in the Wisconsin DOC and to stop the secret Asklepieion program at once. The number to call is 608-266-1212.
2. Call the WI DOC central office and demand that all 6 humanitarian demands for this hunger strike be met and demand an explanation as to why they are operating a torture program. The number to call is 608-240-5000.
3. Call any media outlets and demand that they do an independent investigation on the secret Asklepieion program operating at Columbia Correctional Institution (CCI), and report on the hunger strike.
4. Call the FBI building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and demand that they investigate the secret Asklepieion torture program being run at CCI. The phone number to call is 414-276-4684.
5. Call Columbia Correctional Institution and tell them you are aware of their secret torture program. Harass them! 608-742-9100.
6. Join in on the hunger strike and post it on the net. Convince others to join as well.

I write you to yall to thank you for your letters of support on our” ”hunger strike” to protest long term “solidarity confinement”. Thank you!

I’m still on strike but now I’m being force fed. This is (ex)tremely humiliating, painful, and unnecessary… But it is what it is. I’ll continue to refuse food and water until they place a one year cap on the use of Administrative Confinement….under this status the D.O.C. can currently keep you in solitary confinement indefinitely.

MIM(Prisons) responds: MIM(Prisons) responds: Read this article for a more detailed update on the Wisconsin prisoners’ hunger strike to fight long term isolation and other abuse.

Wisconsin prisoners at Waupun Correctional Institution are planning a hunger strike to begin on 10 June 2016 to demand an end to the torture of long-term confinement in control units in Wisconsin.

In 2015, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (WI DOC) made some policy changes to their use of long-term solitary confinement. According to the DOC, the number of prisoners in “restrictive status housing” was reduced by about 200 by reducing the maximum time prisoners can be put in control units (which varies depending on the justification given for this isolation). The WI DOC refused to release any information about these changes until compelled by records requests, and the total number of prisoners in control units reported by the DOC is highly suspicious as it is far lower than information gathered from surveys.(1) In addition, Waupun prisoners were not notified of the change to this policy, and months later were still being held for longer than the new regulations allowed.(2) It’s unclear if the new policy is being applied uniformly across Wisconsin prisons at this point, but small reductions in the length of solitary confinement sentences will not solve the fundamental problem of this system of torture.

The actual policies are available on the Wisconsin DOC website and include a table listing maximum time in “disciplinary separation” for various offenses. This includes 180 days for “lying” and 360 days for “lying about an employee,” 180 days for “disrespect” and 180 days for “misuse of state or federal property.” These are all easily abused accusations that prisoners are powerless to dispute. Furthermore, a Wisconsin prisoner can be put in a control unit for up to 180 days for “punctuality and attendance” issues and “loitering,” and up to 90 days for “poor personal hygiene,” “dirty assigned living area,” and “improper storage.”(3) The policy also states “More than one minor or major disposition may be imposed for a single offense and both a major and minor disposition may be imposed for a major offense” which sounds like they can just pile on lots of offenses and sum up the total max days in isolation so that prisoners are held there for years.

The demands of this protest include the release of prisoners who have been in solitary confinement for over a year, a length of isolation far exceeding what is commonly considered torture by international human rights organizations.

As one prisoner reported to Under Lock & Key a few years ago:

“I have reasons to believe that these people have no plans of removing me off A.C. … They have me in the worst conditions in the Wisconsin DOC. … It is fly infested. I have black worms coming out of the sink. We can’t have publications.

“I have been in seg for over 13 years. and I haven’t given these people any trouble in a long time, and what I’m in seg for is solely political. I am being punished for organizing for Black Unity and against institutional racism. I simply created organizations that advocated the advancement of Black people and that fought against Black on Black crime, poverty, ignorance, etc. It wasn’t created to terrorize white people, as the totalitarian state would have you believe.

“As a result of being in seg I have developed a long range of psychological issues, issues that have left me scarred permanently. These issues have caused some professionals to label me psychotic and delusional among other things. I was diagnosed with Delusional Disorder and am being treated for it.”(4)

It is well documented that long-term isolation causes mental health problems including hallucinations and delusions. This technique is used in prisons like Guantanamo Bay to torture military prisoners into making confessions (or making up confessions for the many innocents who suffer this torture). But in the Amerikan prison system this torture primarily serves to slowly erode the health of prisoners who are either confined to waste away for the rest of their life, or released back to the streets unable to care for themselves.

The petition put together by prisoners at Waupun is printed in full below:

Dying to Live

Human rights fight at Waupun Correctional Institution starting June 10, 2016. Prisoners in Waupun’s solitary confinement will start No Food & Water humanitarian demand from Wisconsin Department of Corrections officials.

The why: In the state of Wisconsin hundreds of prisoners are in the long term solitary confinement units a.k.a. Administrative Confinement (AC). Some been in this status from 18 to 20 years.

The Problem: The United Nations, several states, and even President Obama have come out against this kind of confinement citing the torturous effect it has on prisoners.

The Objective: Stop the torturous use long-term solitary confinement (AC) by:

1. Placing a legislative cap on the use of long term solitary confinement (AC)
2. DOC and Wisconsin legislators adoption/compliance of the UN Mandela rules on the use of solitary confinement(5)
3. Oversight board/committee independent of DOC to stop abuse and overclassification of prisoners to “short” and “long” term solitary confinement.
4. Immediate transition and release to a less restrictive housing of prisoners who been on the long term solitary confinement units for more than a year in the Wisconsin DOC
5. Proper mental health facilities and treatment of “short” and “long” term solitary confinement prisoners
6. An immediate FBI investigation to the secret Asklepieion* program the DOC is currently operating at Columbia Correctional Institution (CCI) to break any prisoner who the DOC considers a threat to their regimen

How you can help

1. Call Governor Scott Walker’s office and tell him to reform the long-term solitary confinement units in the Wisconsin DOC and to stop the secret Asklepieion program at once. The number to call is 608-266-1212.
2. Call the DOC central office and demand that all 6 humanitarian demands for this hunger strike be met and demand an explanation as to why they are operating a torture program. The number to call is 608-240-5000.
3. Call the media and demand that they do an independent investigation on the secret Asklepieion program operating at Columbia Correctional Institution, and cover this hunger strike.
4. Call the FBI building in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and demand that they investigate the secret Asklepieion torture program being run at CCI. The phone number to call is 414-276-4684.
5. Call Columbia Correctional Institution and tell them you are aware of their secret torture program. Harass them! 608-742-9100.
6. Join in on the hunger strike and post it on the net. Convince others to join as well.
   
   * Asklepieion is a secret DOC torture program based upon Dr. Edgar H. Schein’s brainwashing methodology that in the 1960s was disguised and turned into a Behavior Therapy Treatment program that deals with the literal brainwashing and enslavement of an individual’s mind. It retrogresses the individual to the character role of a child and reinforces the need for paternal authority. To achieve such effect the prison authorities, with the help of collaborating inmates, must first break the individual’s mind through sleep deprivation and character invalidation techniques, and then, recondition it with Stockholm Syndrom. To see more go to https://iwoc.noblogs.org/post/2016/02/16/personal-experience-with-behavior-control-in-a-wisconsin-prison/