Texas Prisons

Trapped in a jungle of degradation, where my worst enemy is my own people. No one standing for what is right. Stuck in this mass illusion that everything is okay. Content on what is offered by the injustice that is thrown your way. When will you realize that you are a cog on this system of injustice, and without you, it can not run.

Off of your sweat, muscle, tears and knowledge, these wheels of injustice keep turning. You are the oil that keeps it going. Without you it can not run. It would shut down like an engine full of sand. Like a person lost in darkness, reaching for something he can not see. The injustice system would be lost.

What do you fear? Better living conditions. More privileges. Getting paid for the slave labor that you do now. Think! The system in place is not for you but against you. It is for itself. You get no reward from it. It is designed to keep us divided. No unity, and we fall for it. The system is laughing at you and you don't even know it. Open your eyes. It's not us against us, but us against them.

Stop living the fantasy life. You call yourself hard, but when it comes to standing against the system, you go soft. Things can change if you want them changed. All it takes is a little sacrifice. It's not a white and black thing. It's us against them. In numbers we can be a force that can be heard. It takes sacrifices, but in the long run, it's for the best. Don't be a coward, stand up for what is right. Unite! And you can be the future to make these injustices right.

Ears on alert everyone - wherever snitches roam carelessly, claiming that this is their "get down" generation ready to put any prisoner way down.

There's no doubt that snitching has gotten out of hand in prison, but here in Texas we have found a good solution to this shameful way. If you want to be a "snitch", go ahead get down, I and other prison reformers have decided to support you all the way. You can declare victory now!

Pick up your pen and paper, if you need more, feel free to ask for more from any of us. No one will try to stop you, as long as you start snitching 24-7 to our state Senators and Representatives about our prison conditions. I truly believe that you, snitches, can get something rolling, and help us bring some kind of change for the betterment of thousands, if not millions. That's truly getting down, maybe someday others will stop calling you a snitch and honor your efforts because you finally got it right. Other prisoners are not the enemy - for sure.

What are you waiting for, become part of the solution, stop contributing to the problem. If that's what makes you a snitch, then more power to you, use your mind and your prison time for the struggles of someday fulfilling better prison reform. Go ahead, if you plan to do something, let it be done in prison style, that'll be the day, I and thousands more, maybe millions of prisoners will shake your hand tight, call you a real brother, never a snitch.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This comrade correctly points out that there is a political line behind snitching. And when it is the imperialists and their pigs committing the worst crimes, we support those who are brave enough to come forth and expose the truth.

[img="https://www.prisoncensorship.info/art/quick/singlespark.jpg" alt=A Single Spark]I'm writing from the plantation state of Texas, although I'm currently confined in Texas I've never lived here. I was sent to Texas from the Maryland Division of Corrections, under Maryland's Interstate Corrections Compact Agreement. I was transferred to Texas in part due to my prison politics, and because I wouldn't become a passive and willing participant of my own oppression. I was not alone, there were many like minded comrades who have been exiled to other states because of our dedication and loyalty to the struggle, in our pursuit of freedom, justice and equality. The revolution has never started amongst the masses, it's always been the flame of a few, to spark the righteous indignation of the many! The revolution has always been bloody, in the pursuit of freedom, justice and equality there's always going to be bloodshed because these imperialist, capitalistic pigs will never voluntarily relinquish control of the commodity of the prison industrial complex.

I quickly came to realize that the Texas correctional philosophy is deeply rooted in an overt racist sentiment that's too casually expressed. The very colors of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's officer's uniforms are a symbol of oppression and hatred, confederate blue and gray. These are the very same color uniforms of the confederacy, that the confederate soldiers wore during the civil war, when they were fighting to uphold the institution of slavery. Unfortunately the Willy Lynch theory is prevalent here in Texas. The penitentiary politics that these pigs employ are reminiscent of the gestapo tactics of the Third Reich.

I quickly found myself entrenched in the struggle here in Texas as a righteous member of the Nations of Gods and Earths, I manifest a peace mentality that's deeply rooted in a position of strength. Here in Texas, the penitentiary politics involved with the different prison organizations goes contrary to the very foundation on which they were built, which was the struggle. The devils here in Texas use our cultural differences against us, to keep us divided, employing the age old tactic of divide and conquer. Our struggles have always been intertwined, from Che Guevara fighting in Angola and Mozambique to General Toussaint of Haiti leading the revolution to free the island of Hispanola. The Black and Brown struggle has always been one and the same. Why do so many of your forsake the struggle and identify with the oppressor? Stop allowing these devils to exploit our differences to keep us divided, the more divided we stand, the more they'll continue to conquer us. It's time for us to unite.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This comrade's article about Texas is appropriately timed for our Under Lock and Key theme of United Front. The importance of oppressed nation groups coming together to fight the oppressors rather than fighting each other is no more clearly seen in Amerika than in the prisons. As this comrade points out, the criminal injustice system plays oppressed groups against each other to keep them divided. We are working to bring together lumpen organizations for peace as a part of the anti-imperialist United Front. Representatives of groups, who are authorized to speak for them, or who want to help build support within their group, should contact MIM(Prisons) for a copy of the draft statement of unity.

January 2011 will be a legislature year in Texas. A petition has been put on the internet to ask our state leaders to reform the Texas parole board system, a tyranny agency ruining thousands of lives, in prison and in our own society. For some years now, since the mysterious death of David Ruiz (a Brown brother who achieved federal action to demand prison reform in Texas) we continue to raise awareness of the new and old injustices of the "justice" system as it pertains to parole.

Texas prisoners are not granted parole, even though they have done everything possible to be eligible for parole as required by their Inmate Treatment Plan (ITP). When the judge, the lawyers for both sides, and the offender all agree to a sentence, why does the parole board have the right to deny the parole because they decide the prisoner hasn't served enough time? Doesn't make sense or seem fair, does it? Prisoners have a time calculated date which is the parole eligibility date and those having met their ITP requirements should automatically make parole on that date. As the system works now, prisoners can not know whether they can exercise their special review rights, effectively ask for a review, or even know why or if they have been turned down, because they do not have access to their files. It is impossible for anyone to know if they have been falsely or wrongly accused of a transgression while incarcerated. If information has been erroneously placed in the file that may actually belong to another prisoner, or if their parole is being thwarted by a campaign by others they won't know. They can not know if rules have been violated or if evidences that would prove their worthiness for the privilege of parole is actually in their file.

Good time is currently not calculated or used to achieve parole or financial compensation for prisoner labor. At present it is awarded but discounted as part of the parole process (ignored and not honored), meaning modern day slavery is going on. The system currently continues to vindictively punish even the "ideal" prisoners who have been rehabilitated (which supposedly is the goal of the incarceration) making them wonder why they keep trying and causing them to lose all capacity for hope as the promised parole is disregarded and becomes one setback after another. In addition it callously wrecks the lives of families and children of prisoners who suffer needlessly while trying to find some reason for the parole board's coldness and tyrannical practices acting above the laws of the land.

Taxpayers are being robbed of funds by the corrupt parole practices. Prisoners in Texas seem to be the exception to the 13th amendment of the U$ constitution abolishing slavery as a large amount of capital is raised by the prison work generated by the incarcerated people now in prison. However, in the united states of america we should not allow slavery for state and corporate profit. It is criminal in itself to keep prisoners incarcerated for financial benefit by enslaving inmates past their parole eligibility date when they prove that they have gotten rehabilitated and qualify for parole release.

If you want to help change these parole injustices, please have your families and friends go to the following website and sign the petition: www.petitiononline.com/tcb123/petition.html
Also please have them write each one of their representatives.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this prisoner that the parole system in Texas, and throughout the criminal injustice system in the U$, does not work, not even by the laws of this illegal government. We find the demands in the petition agreeable in that they would lead to a general reduction in imprisonment in Texas.

However, disagree with the common misperception that the U$ prison monstrosity is driven by a desire to exploit prison labor. Certainly the workers benefiting from their well paid jobs running the prisons have an interest in denying parole, and the politicians who want the votes of the workers and their families, share this interest. But as we explained in an article on the U.$. prison economy, prison labor can offset some of the costs of imprisonment, but prisons are not profitable. They are a tool of the government that both provide jobs for the mostly oppressor-nation labor aristocracy workers while providing social control of the mostly oppressed nation population that is incarcerated. The U$ prison system is a massive suck on superprofits extracted from the Third World to pay staff and provide basic needs for those imprisoned. This is one of the costs of operation the imperialists are willing to pay, not something they are making money off of. That an industry has developed around this massive project is only a product of this reality that helps tie labor aristocracy interests to the imperialist state.

Greetings to everyone standing up for prisoners and human rights. My red fist goes to all MIM social or prison reformers who continue to carry truth, facts and hard struggles in their hearts against a democracy that does not serve all equally but serves the few rich imperialist greedy elites. MIM(Prisons) is speaking hardcore about a reality destroying many all over Amerika, especially those in prison of Black or Brown crimes, also known as the "War on Drugs." I am not trying to justify that smuggling or selling drugs should be permitted. Yet thousands now sit in prison with long harsh prison sentences that usually don't even balance out to such drug crimes. For example, in Texas the court judge gives you a certain prison sentence for drug crimes so that when you're up for parole the parole will be denied for reasons like "excessive amount." These reasons will be used each time you go for parole, not only violating Texas parole board policies but state law and U$ Constitution Amendments like the double jeopardy clause.

The Fifth Amendment of the U$ Constitution states, "…nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb…" This clause assures three basic protections: it protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal, it protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction, and finally it protects against multiple punishments for the same offense.

Violating the double jeopardy clause qualifies as a constitutional violation in satisfaction of the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1996, Pub. L. No 104-134. 110 Stat. 1321. When evidence indicates the parole board has violated the U$ Constitution the matter may be reviewed by a Federal Court pursuant to §1983.

2011 will be a legislature year. Black, Brown and other brothers in prison in Texas should ask their family and friends to protest such failed parole policies, state laws or constitutional amendments, now broken by this war on drugs by homeland terrorists calling themselves our nation's leaders.

The War on Drugs is not only a failed war on drug dealers, but against our families and communities, especially the Brown barrios and Black ghettos which many have always called home. The war on drugs sole purpose was to be able to create a new home, called prison, now filled with prisoners for drug crimes under harsh laws of sentencing ruining thousands of lives. And even our nation seems to be under attack by a democracy that serves more the rich than the poor or needy ones. I encourage others to draft protest petitions or letters and have their loved ones send them to John Whitmore who is a Texas Senator in charge of The Sunset Commission looking into this kind of prison violation.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We condemn this practice of refusing prisoners parole based on their original sentence, but we can learn from history that elections are not the answer to the problems of the oppressed. The imperialists and their supporters will be elected, and candidates truly serving the people will never gain any real power in the United $tates through elections. However, we can exert pressure on the criminal injustice system through protest letters and actions. Sometimes we can win small gains for the people through these struggles. And there is nothing wrong with using election time to push a progressive cause, just keep in mind that many legislators get elected on a "get tough on crime" platform. All this rhetoric is bullshit that has nothing to do with the reality of crime and punishment in Amerikkka, but the publicity is important to politicians so they are probably less likely to take progressive action in an election year if it might make them look "soft on crime."

Reading the many articles in Under Lock and Key, I realize daily how hopeless our battle against injustice, inhumane conditions and the current American system itself, may seem. I continuously hear so many say we can't change it. They are wrong. They are weak and apathetic. We (prisoners and all Americans) must awake a revolution - no, not in the commonly accepted sense, not an attempt by one group to overthrow another to assume power. We need a revolution of the most profound kind, a revolution of the national soul and psyche, because if we continue to quietly submit to the injustices of this country, this system, with no opposition, then the limits of the tyrants will be absolute, acquiesced to by the very people who they oppress. Yes my brothers and sisters, it will be terrible to watch, torturous to be involved in, yet unquestionably destined to triumph if we (prisoners and Americans) will once again band together as one and rise to the call. I am certain of this because of my belief and faith in us, as prisoners, people, and Americans. William Faulkner once said, "It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe man [and Prisoners] will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance." We are that Man and Woman. Rise to the call of freedom and justice.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with this prisoner that it is important that we believe in humynity and our ability to rise above what we have accomplished (or failed at) in the past and create a society free of oppression. However, we do not just take this on faith, we base it in the history of humynity, the struggles of the oppressed always fighting to rise out of oppression. And we do not share this comrade's faith in "Americans". As a whole Amerikans are bought off with the profits of imperialism and have a material interest in maintaining this system of exploitation and oppression. It is not their humyn nature that will lead people to rise above oppression, it is their desire to fight their own oppression that will ultimately bring down imperialism. We can learn this lesson from history, and so we should not place false hope in the bought-off Amerikan population as a whole. With that said, we do work to win over the minority who will join the cause of the good of humynity, against their own material interests, and we will continue to educate and organize petit-bourgeois people to that end while working for and with the truly oppressed and exploited.

A search of the Texas constitution reveals no trace of the word slavery or any reference to the use of prisoner labor as slaves. Nevertheless, Texas has a long and unbecoming history of resisting the economic integration of Blacks into it's society and exploiting the use of prisoners as slave labor (including Mexicans) etc.

The 13th Amendment to the US constitution states in pertinent part: "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime... shall exist within the United States." The 13th Amendment was formally adopted on December 18, 1865. Texas was not among the states ratifying this amendment. In 1866, participants at a constitutional convention took the position that it was unnecessary to adopt this amendment. By taking an oath to support the united states constitution, they had indirectly abolished slavery and this was sufficient. It was not until February 18, 1870 that Texas formally adopted the 13th amendment, and this was only done grudgingly, to satisfy conditions for gaining admission back into the union.

Prisoners perform valuable services in their prisons and in a multitude of different prison industries. Without prisoner labor, these prisons and prison industries could not function. From the inception of its prison system, Texas historically refused to pay its prisoners any wages for their work, no doubt relying upon the clause carving out an exception for prisoner labor in the 13th amendment of the US constitution as their authority for doing so.

The 70th Texas legislature reversed this long standing practice and policy by creating work credits as part of its major overhaul of the parole system. Under the 1/4 as this legislation came to be called, these work credits vested when earned, and hastened a prisoner's mandatory supervision date. Since this law was enacted, prisoners have been receiving a half day of work credit for every day of calendar time served.

During the term of the 74th legislature, from 1995 to 1997, the parole board's ability to perform its statutorily delegated function of reviewing all parole candidates applying the Texas parole guidelines to their cases and issuing decisions as to their fitness for parole was clearly illusory. The parole board was vastly lacking the staff and resources to perform this task. Nevertheless, the 74th legislature increased the authority of the parole board by giving them the right to cancel a prisoner's work credit, simply upon a finding that the prisoner's release could endanger the public's safety.

A finding that a prisoner's release could endanger the public's safety is ambiguous, vague and vulnerable to abuse. Parole candidates have seen their mandatory supervision date pass as well as their good time and work credits rescinded for just this reason, with no factual basis and no reasoned decision to support this finding.

The parole board is making its prisoners serve their sentences day for day, acting above Texas law and of our US Constitution, like the 13th amendment, claiming it is giving out parole when a prisoner is within months or a year of finishing his or her entire prison sentence. Is this not illegal, and prison slavery? Indeed.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We don't like to use the word "slavery" too much in reference to the modern U$ prison system. Though in fact, slavery is legal in U$ prisons according to the 13th Amendment, which this writer seems to ignore. As we have discussed elsewhere, the prison system is not akin to the economic system of slavery in capitalist or pre-capitalist societies. It is a form of the mass lumpenization that is unique to modern imperialism, and is about managing excess populations, not acquiring populations for exploitation.

We appreciate the brief history of Texas policies provided by this writer, but would add to it the significance of the history of the 13th Amendment. As mentioned, this amendment allowed for slavery in prisons at a time when imprisonment of Blacks was even easier than it is today. This was a bone thrown to the white nation in the South who stood to loose out from the new economic realities following the Civil War. Southern whites were given a means to control Black labor on a small scale to get them through the transition. Today the 13th Amendment plays a similar role, where mostly Blacks and Latinos are forced to do much of the maintenance labor to support their own imprisonment, while predominantly white staff make fat checks as watchdogs and bureaucrats in the system.

Here in our Texas prison system, prisoners with mental health issues are being abused, mistreated, assaulted, and forced into harming, hurting, endangering themselves as well as other prisoners and officers. The unit officials are negligently using chemical agents against mentally ill prisoners by spraying pepper spray (OC) directly on us and then leaving us in our contaminated cells as a form of punishment. They leave us there to suffer as they watch with gas masks on. OC cause you to burn for days, and by the cell not being decontaminated, it's an ongoing torture. Every time you touch something in the cell it starts all over again.

Mentally ill prisoners are constantly written bogus disciplinary infractions, which we are automatically found guilty of. The mental health and medical departments are co-defendants with the administration's corrupt misuse of disciplinary policy and procedure by falsifying documents, and signing off on these cases without any sort of support on the prisoner's behalf.

This causes mentally ill prisoners to max their sentences because every major case is automatically a year set off by parole, plus the fact that it's also a year's wait before you can receive eligibility for the appropriate line class all over again. So if you are bipolar paranoid, or have another psychotic disorder, you are constantly in harm's way.

And as I've mentioned, the psych staff corroborates with the administration to keep you down and in the last place. There are not any successful programs for prisoners like myself who are provoked to act out in order to receive immediate help and relief. Our ADA rights [granted by the Americans with Disabilities Act] are being stomped on.

MIM(Prisons) adds: For more on mental health abuses, causes, and cures check out Under Lock & Key issue 15.

Before I could get this letter out, land of the weak, home of the slave day came up, "4th of July" the celebration of the day the Europeans that came to amerikkka who took this land from the Indigenous people had to in turn fight the British to keep it. I wonder where was good ole karma then? Anywow. I'm sitting here troubled because like the comrade who wrote about the hot dogs, they served us half-cooked BBQ chicken. My point in this they were also supposed to put cherry pie on the tray but since I'm in loss of privilege, for not wanting to work for free, and numerous other reasons, myself and others on the "lazy offender program" as the pigs call it, did not receive cherry pie. These grown ass men were crying about no pie, and I was saying you'll be lucky to eat the chicken with no stomach problems. These morons stress for all the wrong reasons. There is no unity here in the Texas Don't Care Jailocracy. These inmates have been led to believe that if you work and stay disciplinary free parole'll let you go. The truth is I stayed case free for 7 years on a non-aggressive 10 year sentence and they tried to give me parole after I pulled 9 years and 3 months, with all kinds of stipulations. So I told the parole board to give it to someone else. The moral of the story is, instead of riding for a cherry pie, why not ride for parole or furloughs to be reinstated in TDCJ asylums?

I know you folks are interested in illegal activity that prisons allow against prisoners. Here in Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) in the Administrative Segregation (Ad Seg) sections that I have been to and others that inmates have spoken to me about we have several things being done against prisoners.

The first is sleep deprivation. Every night, either officers or inmates who work for them will talk to you in all kinds of disrespectful ways, mostly in whispers through the venting system or they may use the PA system. It's a form of brain washing I have been keeping a log on. It's way out of control because many officers and inmates are involved.

In cases of baby rapers they force them to have different kinds of sex with other inmates. They will open cell doors to allow this to take place.

Some (most) of the inmates are weak when it comes to being threatened in Ad Seg. I am here for two murders and I am not weak. I backup against their threats. They have been trying their bullshit with me going on 4 years, at two different units. The inmates who illegally work for them help in this with mirrors and cell phone cameras. It is actually a terrorist operation they have set up to make criminals worse instead of better. This makes sure the inmates return, increases the prison population and increasing funding for their jobs.

I have been up for parole six times but due to action taken against me, it created a reaction with me and stopped parole each time. I have had several fist fights and was declared a gang member which I am not. Never have been, except boy scouts! They are threatening to move me to another pod right now for writing this letter, they are reading it as I write with their small high tech cameras that are not supposed to be used by other inmates. They are saying as I write this that no one will believe me because of my mental illness.