We are being pressed by relentless attacks where the California Department of Corruption and Retardation (CDCR) has set in motion to strip prisoners of every right, privilege, and/or program gained in previous struggles of hard fought battles (both in the court rooms and court yards) of the last 40 years, which include but is not limited to the following taxes, punishments and deprivations:
1. Taking family visits from lifers (CCR Title 15, 3177(2))
2. Taking weights off the yard (CCR Title 15, 3220)
3. Taking cameras off the yard (CCR Title 15) repealed
4. Taking option away from our people sending us packages from discount markets (CCR Title 15, 3091)
5. Taking option away from our people to make their choice of phone services - they must be MCI customers to receive collect calls from California prisoners (CCR Title 15, authority unknown)
6. Taking tobacco products from canteen (CCR Title 15, 3189)
7. Taking jobs, education, vocational opportunities on all Level IV 180 degree prison repealing pell grants, closing prison industry.
8. Imposing censorship (CCR Title 15, 3006 (17))
9. Imposing restitution rates at 44% deductions (CCR Title 15, 3097 (b))
10. Imposing hair grooming regulations (CCR Title 15, 3062)
11. Imposing $5 co-payment taxes for health care services (CCR Title 15, 3354)
12. Imposing restrictions on R rated movies (CCR Title 15, 3220.4)
13. Imposing taxes on prisoners transaction charges (CCR Title 15, 3240.2)
14. Imposing program failure regulations (CCR Title 15, 3062 (m))
15. Imposing cell feeding restrictions on all Level IV 180 prisons (authority unknown)
These impositions and restrictions apply to the adult prisons. Tightening a few more notches on the belt of repression lassoed around the necks of prisoners, the aforementioned taxes, impositions, and deprivations are by no means a complete body of the capricious and crippling rules and regulations being employed by prison officials which serve only to further punish prisoners, their families and friends pressing and weighing on already strained relations and limited resources, strangling us with an air of anxiety anticipating what the administration is set to take next.
It seems that since the late 1980s with the explosive expansion of the prison industrial complex, with all the quasi class wars being declared (eg war on crime/drugs/gangs, etc) devised by these scheming politicians with devious ambitions passing these fascist laws such as Prop 21, maximum-minimum sentencing laws, imposing 85% terms, 3 strikes, etc. What we have here is an intricate plot planned by unsavory characters spinning a sinister web to target and trap the masses designed to confine and cage us on these modern day plantations - please do not allow yourself to be deceived!
Though we are but simple men, we are not simpletons so let us stand and put an end to the riddles and rhetoric by keeping things in their proper perspective and remember the 13th amendment to the U.S. constitution which basically states that no person shall be subject to involuntary servitude unless convicted of a crime.
Now I point this out to clarify for the readers that slavery/involuntary servitude was never intended to be abolished, they only meant to refine and refurnish it. So just to see something on the books in black and white, does not automatically make it right, just, or fair. That is on us to determine, no! that is on us to demand that the laws on the books and/or any subsequent amendments or revisions serve the peoples/prisoners needs, interests and well being. Once those laws are found to stand contrary to then this curse must fall. So let us think clearly that we might comprehend it all, and let us watch closely so that we might see when the time comes to stand tall…where there is a war being waged, so hear the clarion call... to awaken the spirit of warriors to fight against this system of torture, as e sit to suffocate and suffer with in these dingy halls and dungeon stalls, confined and caged by way of these concrete graves behind these debilitating prison walls.
- a California prisoner, January 2006