We prisoners in Missouri and at Crossroads Correctional Center in particular are experiencing a vast disregard for most of our constitutionally protected rights. Administration and classification staff here in the Administrative Segregation units are denying prisoners IRR and grievance forms as a means to keep our complaints from being processed in the system. Caseworkers here are unlawfully protecting corrections officers who prisoners file complaints on. If a prisoner is lucky enough to obtain an IRR or grievance, it may wind up in the trash or otherwise disposed of once the prisoner hands it over to a caseworker.
The U.S. District Courts require that to bring a 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 civil action, a prisoner must first attempt to resolve his/her issue by exhausting the grievance system. So when caseworkers refuse to give prisoners IRR and grievance forms, or destroy these forms once prisoners fill them out, they are denying us the "access to the courts" afforded us by the U.S. Constitution.
The uphill battle of the oppressed only inclines more steeply. Those of us here at CRCC who turn to outside organizations like the ACLU or NAACP about the wrongdoings of staff come face to face with the obstacle of our mail being obstructed. Staff interfere with our mail to keep the numerous incidents of abuse, criminal circumvention, denial of court access and other reprisals under wraps. We are forced to give our mail to correctional officers who throw our outgoing mail in the trash or otherwise make sure it does not get out.
In the very few instances where a prisoner's IRR/grievance is processed, he usually faces retaliation for complaining. Prisoners may be subjected to reprisals such as macing without provocation, beatings in violation of policies against "offender abuse" (see RSMO217.410), being kept off the sick call list, doctor's list and dental list. Guards show "deliberate indifference to necessary medical/dental treatment."
So you see, "in an ocean of obstruction, being hounded by the waves of injustice," we have yet to be provided a raft, much less see the coast guard or rescue ship! We are glad for such allies as MIM Notes in a struggle that never ends. We wage appeals for "total vindication" or no remedy at all.
-- a Missouri prisoner, December 2003