MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
www.prisoncensorship.info is a media institution run by the Maoist Internationalist Ministry of Prisons. Here we collect and publicize reports of conditions behind the bars in U.$. prisons. Information about these incidents rarely makes it out of the prison, and when it does it is extremely rare that the reports are taken seriously and published. This historical record is important for documenting patterns of abuse, and also for informing people on the streets about what goes on behind the bars.
19 February 2022 – K.A.G.E. Universal and Hella Positive hosted an
event featuring the voices of New Afrikan elders as part of the campaign
to Liberate Our Elders from the cages of the California Department of
Corrections and rehabilitation(CDCr). As the comrades say, little “r”,
because there is no rehabilitation, and rehabilitation must come from
within.
At this event MIM(Prisons) shared copies of our new pamphlet, A
Revolutionary 12 Step Program, in the spirit of supporting
self-transformation via independent institutions of the oppressed. We
also joined K.A.G.E. Universal in promoting the United Front for Peace
in Prisons, as they work to expand the message of independent peace
building behind bars and in local schools in Oakland.
The event brought together many outside activists and organizations
and the voices of New Afrikan principal thinkers from the Pelican Bay
SHU who are now on the streets as well as some still imprisoned.
Speakers included imprisoned elder Sitawa, one of the main reps during
the historic California hunger strikes, and Paul Redd who is now
released. Louis Powell’s voice was also heard through the reading of his
new book, Chronicles of a Prison Dirty War: California Prison
Politics.
In the closing of the event, Minister King X pointed out that these
elders are “walking dictionaries,” and the state is “trying to eradicate
our history.”
Here at Lane Murray Unit we are trying to get a dorm for the 50 and
over women that reside here. There is a lot of women that are in the
“silver streaks” years and have many disabling ailments and being around
the younger “residents” has become somewhat dangerous at times. So keep
us in your thoughts and if there are any ideas as to how to get this
50’s plus dorm on the way, please let us know.
MIM(Prisons) adds: Please write to MIM(Prisons) if you
have any suggestions for this comrade. We understand gender to have a
material basis in health status. Things like old age and disability
contribute to one’s gender status, and under patriarchy can lead one
facing more gender oppression as this comrade mentions. Just as we work
to resolve the divisions between nations and lumpen orgs among the
imprisoned population, we also struggle against gender divisions. While
male and female prisoners are kept in separate prisons, we still have
gender divisions along the lines of age, disability, sexual orientation
and gender presentation that do not serve the interests of the prison
masses.
As we promote these comrades’ campaign for a seperate dorm, we call on
USW leaders to find real solutions in resolving the gender
contradictions and oppression that leads to some feeling like they need
to be separate to be safe. Some of the comrades leading the campaign
to Liberate Our Elders in California serve as great examples in
bringing that unity.
On February 13th, 2022 it was announced via PA in East Block that
there would be no yard due to holiday feeding. There was no state or
federal holiday. It was just another Super Bowl Sunday. We’re being fed
bullshit!
The deal is for second watch disrespectful sows to get an A.M. 7/11
lucky break before coming back to pass out lunch and dinner. Doing that
might take an hour and the taxpayers eat the rest (comes with
free-loading). Some of the second watch disrespectful sows will then
join third watch and the game kicks off into overtime. The TV is set up
in violation of 15CCR3394 distractions and the potluck tailgate assists
close proximity in defeating the chance of a stable cohort – a violation
of 15 CCR 3271, but no penalty?
As satirical as it may sound, this writing is an excerpt of events
which did occur on San Quentin’s death row in East Block. Similar events
as described above occurred in 2021 on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New
Year’s Day 2022. Deliberate indifference to your right to yard, your
health, or anyone’s safety in general means NOTHING to these
disrespectful sows and the court has acted more like a referee paid off
by the opposing team.
Want your rights back?
A suggestion to those warehoused on San Quentin’s death row:
Preemptively and immediately submit a 602-1 staff misconduct
grievance against AW specialized housing for denying you safe access to
appointments, visits, etc. simply because you refuse to ignore HC
guidelines to practice social distancing – NOT possible in a holding
cage/congregate waiting room AND an ultimatum in violations of 15 CCR
3271 if a valid concern exists.
If response implies no indoor close proximity concern is valid, then
demand normal outdoor daily yards program be reinstated in a 602-2
follow up grievance.
Advise your PCP/MH clinician in writing on CDCR 7362 of your
decision to follow HC guidelines to social distance and that custody
refuses to comply resulting in you being denied safe access to HC/MH
services and programs. Keep the yellow copy of that 7362 form for an
official record.
*Doing this in conjunction with grievances citing other ways your
card is being arbitrarily taken is a from of non-violent protest.
SQ/CDCR’s response (or lack of one) creates an official record for
future use.
I see a lot of complaints in ULK 76 about problems with
Grievance Officers. I’ve been having those problems too and have gotten
in the habit of undertaking the laborious task of hand-copying several
copies of my grievances and keeping one to “file”, sending one to the
“grievance box” and one to the “District Clerk”. That seemed to get a
response when I did it on Willacy and sent a §1983 along with
incorrectly screened (blocked) grievances. The wheels of justice quickly
started turning the other way. Even though I don’t really have the money
to file another §1983, I can’t afford to allow these Grievance Officers
to get away with not responding to our grievances even more.
This grievance system was certified by the District courts as you’ve
explained in the TX Pack and I’m hoping the courts will not be happy to
see TDCJ blocking and denying our access to courts.
I’m not even sure a §1983 would be necessary if I were to somehow be
trying to file for Contempt in the Cole v. Collier class action
but I think Contempt has to be filed by Class Counsel? I’m not sure but
am looking into it. It is a little confusing to know who all is a “class
member” of that suit since the class extends to all who may be housed at
the Pack Unit in the future that seems to me it covers the many
prisoners TDCJ has rapidly assigned “Heat Scores” to.
Today at Polk Correction Institution the prep-team beat a young man
in full restraints named Mr. Fox as he screamed for help during a
shake-down: video surveillance was not provided.
15 March 2021, a few weeks before the killing of Andrew Brown by
Pasquotank Sheriff’s Department, I was maced, tased, beat, and nearly
killed by almost 20 Pasquotank C.O.s. The beating occurred in 6
different locations in the building including 3 elevators. I received
several life lasting injuries to the head, face, and mouth from being
punched and kicked over a hundred times while laying flat on the ground
on my stomach and/or side. A chunk of meat was ripped out of my shoulder
from being dragged over 50 ft. I was choked while beaten til they
thought and asked one another if I was dead.
Another official cut my thumb with a switch blade and I received
several other injuries that medical refused to treat or document. The
officers said, “they’ll be back to beat me every chance they get and
that I better not eat.”
I was emergency shipped, and 3 hours later pictures were taken of my
injuries when I arrived at Polk Correctional Institution
(High-Risk-Security).
Pasquotank Prison Officials deny to have ever touched me and claim
their innocence while not even bothering to explain how my injuries were
sustained. The disciplinary officer found that the video footage of the
incident had been tampered with and cut-short.
18 October 2021, all mail for North Carolina prisoners will be
received at TextBehind
in Phoenix, MD with long time promises of iPads in the future. Should
department of public safety provide proper video surveillance for safety
before iPads for profit and entertainment? Surveillance is critical to
maintain and monitor unwanted violence.
Relief in the claim I’ve filed against Pasquotank Correctional
Institution include that the courts enforce a policy with an injunction
ordering hand-held cameras be used when escorting offenders or using
force in blind spots.
Unfortunately, body-cams in prison make it harder for guards to
smuggle contraband or have relations which would decrease the rate of
violence from drug related issues allowing more prisoners to focus on
rehabilitation and money management.
With this we would ask for higher pay rates to support our families
and conjugal visits for married couples.
Prayers out for the family of Andrew Brown and the victims of police
brutality.
MIM(Prisons) adds: In the last issue of Under Lock
& Key one of our comrades addressed the use of tablets to
pacify and surveil the oppressed in A
Strategic Objective to Disrupt and Surveil the Communication Between
Prisoners and Our Loved Ones. The article above connects this to the
many campaigns prisoners have waged to get cameras in prisons so that
there is documentation of the regular abuse and illegal happenings that
go on inside.
In 2014, comrades in North Carolina won a lawsuit to [require staff
of NCPDS to record with video cameras any use of force
incidents]((https://www.prisoncensorship.info/article/north-carolina-prisoners-preliminary-victory-on-use-of-force-lawsuit/).
This suit however, left it up to the pigs to determine when cameras need
to be used. As AK47 asks, if the state is to invest more money in
technology, shouldn’t it be on this important task of preventing
physical abuse and drug trafficking, both of which leads to the loss of
humyn lives?
Modern surveillance and communication technology can be used for good
and for bad, for the interests of the oppressed or the interests of the
oppressor. The interests of the oppressed lie in holding the state
accountable for the rampant abuse and drug dealing its employees commit
every day, while being able to maintain connections to society, engaging
in rehabilitation programs where they can speak freely and openly. The
interests of the state lie in pacifying the population with pop culture
media and surveilling the communication of those who cannot be
pacified.
Quick update on BP 03.91 – Yesterday, while at the law library, one
prisoner recently received an order of photos that had been previously
banned. This happened months after our legal group filed injunctions in
relation to BP 03.91 and how it arbitrary enforcement wasn’t congruent
with its parameters. What is even more eye opening is how staff and
administration keep taking (and breaking) property. All grievances come
back with “your allegations could not be substantiated.”
Some are fighting back small. Dragging the administration through
many small litigation claims will weaken their resolve on bigger ones.
The grievance system is a joke. While staff continue to bully prisoners
around, by throwing away their property in the shakedown, confiscating
their religious items, and cutting down their eating, showering, and
dayroom times. Texas prisons are becoming more and more run by inmates
who utilize drug connections with officers. Recently I had a sergeant
who tried to intimidate me into recanting a grievance which I wrote
about prisoners passing out mail (a new “hustle” some STG’s have turned
up on by holding certain mail “hostage”). When I didn’t relent, he sent
one of the gang members to talk to me. How do you threaten the life of a
lifer? SMH These kids don’t get get it.
MIM(Prisons) adds: As staff shortages become the excuse
to abuse and deny prisoners basic necessities, we are receiving reports
of prisoners being used in this manner to deliver mail, do counts, even
utilizing department walky-talkies to assist staff. In the short-term
this is being used to further divide the prisoner population by granting
some the role of the slave catcher and granting them benefits. But this
also indicates a crisis in the TDCJ that will create new opportunities
as the state loses control over day-to-day operations.
The police state may prove to be over-extended if they cannot get
enough Amerikans to run the machine. With pigs dying from covid-19 at
higher rates due to their bad hygiene, retiring faster, and refusing to
go to work in the biggest prison systems in the world, we will certainly
be seeing shifts in the near future in the terrain of the U.$. criminal
injustice system.
Rumors abound about the system wide banning of desserts except
for holidays. Yet, desserts are offered with every meal in the officer’s
dining room.
The offender dining room store rooms are running low due to a
disruption of the distribution pipeline due to COVID. As well as with 12
out of 18 wings (64 men pen wing) locked down here due to positive
tests. More trays are having to be made as about 15-20 men per wing
don’t go eat at any given meal usually, but on lockdowns each man on
lockdown must be given a tray (delivered to the wing – hot food). What I
don’t understand is vaccinated prisoner workers are allowed to
ingress/degress from these wings but only to help out with labor: not
for school, medical, dental, or parole.
One N-95 was distributed last year: one. Men in here wearing any
ol’ flimsy rag to meet the requirement that “all inmates must wear a
mask at all times.” One N-95 mask was distributed on 11 Jan 2022 to meet
Biden’s mandate. No effort is being made to keep inmates 6 feet apart,
crowding the chow halls (for those not on lockdown). Guards won’t wear
masks because it “messed up their make up.”
3 legal items are allowed (to order if on lock down) Monday,
Wednesday, Friday, and legal materials are allowed to be kept for two
hours. One legal item would be like one court case from Nexis-Lexis or
BP3.91 for example.
Phone pen minute is at 6 cents/min, but TDCJ is now instituting
its restrictions if found guilty of behavioral violations. Example: 30
days Comm. Restriction, 30 days recreation restriction, 30 days offender
telephone system for code 24 refusing to obey a direct order (1st
offense). No phone restrictions during COVID til now.
Our general library on LeBlanc only allows 5 minutes to a weekly
visit. No newspapers, magazines, or reference materials are allowed to
be viewed, nor are hours of operation posted for viewing by offenders as
per offender book policy. Step one grievance written on 24 October 2021
was never answered nor reviewed. Grievance Officer Pender of the LeBlanc
Unit is allowing grievances to disappear/go unanswered
sometimes.
Meat-free meals requested instead of pork are given 1oz scoop of
peanut butter mixed half and half with syrup or jelly. Policy states
scoop will be 2 oz of peanut butter or if one ounce scoop is used. 1
piece of cheese or 1 egg will also be provided. Two 4 oz scoops of beans
given either way.
K-2 use is rampant with most coming in through the mail in the
form of paper-typewriter pages.
This unit is mostly for those granted parole or small-timers or
like me – wheelchair bound. Very little activist activity being
done.
I am currently writing to you in regards to us not having a Grievance
Officer at the Stiles Unit. We have been without one for at least 9 or
10 months now that I know of, because I have been continuously writing
them with none of them being returned or even answered.
I am writing to you to receive the petitions that I need to get
started on this guest. There is no reason why we shouldn’t have a
grievance officer on this unit.
I want the state level petition, and the new follow up petition to
get started on getting some action on this process as soon as possible.
We have 4 prisons in the vicinity of this prison about 5 blocks within
each other, they can get a officer from them. Everyday for 2 or 3 months
we have been short of staff 15 to 20 officers at a time, sometimes more.
Thank you for your time and your understanding in the midst of this
horrible time we all are experiencing with this virus. God bless all for
the work you’ll are doing with the news you print for the incarcerated
ones.
Shortly after receiving this issue of Under Lock & Key,
a number of USW leaders and other supporters of our work will be
receiving the first edition of our Revolutionary 12 Step
Program. This has been in the works for over a year now and we are
excited to get it into the hands of comrades who are ready to implement
the program and provide feedback.
The Revolutionary 12 Step Program is a significant advance
for our Serve the People “Re-Lease on Life” Program, which has been in
existence in some form from the early years of MIM(Prisons)’s
existence.
Who is it for?
When most of us think of the 12 steps, we think of Alcoholics
Anonymous or a more general Narcotics Anonymous program. However, our
program takes an approach similar to a program called Criminals &
Gangmembers Anonymous to address the anti-people behavior of the lumpen
class in a more general way.
Drugs and alcohol are a big part of the problems the people face. It
is estimated that at least 65% of people incarcerated have a “Substance
Use Disorder”, while the number goes up to 85% if you include all who
were under the influence during the crime they were convicted of.(1)
That’s a lot! As recent understandings of the brain tell us, the lack of
impulse control that can lead to destructive behaviors is caused by
unhealthy social conditions during childhood.(2) Drug abuse will often
overlap with violence towards others and other behavior that is deemed
criminal by the bourgeoisie and by the people as well. In the long-term,
communism can eliminate the causes of these tendencies, but in the
meantime we need to address all forms of anti-people behavior to
transform ourselves from a lumpen state of being to a revolutionary
proletarian one.
Some people in prison are innocent. Some broke a law in a conscious
decision – sometimes even for righteous political reasons. But the vast
majority of you reading this broke laws through actions you would have
preferred to not have taken. The vast majority of people in prison could
use this program to avoid regrettable actions in the future.
All of us have rehabilitation that we must go through because we were
raised in a sick society. Ultimately, everyone born in this oppressive
system could benefit from our Revolutionary 12 Step Program,
but many of you need it if you ever want to stay out of
prison.
Why do we need it?
The state, by definition, is run by the oppressors. In our
imperialist conditions today the oppressors are the bourgeoisie, the
imperialists, the oppressor nations – Euro-Amerika. The institutions of
the state will always serve those interests. In the current system you
have law enforcement, religious organizations, private prison companies
like Geo Group, and more small-time profiteers running reentry programs
for the state. None of these serve the interests of the oppressed.
Today, we don’t have the influence to abolish these imperialist
institutions, but we do have the influence to build independent
proletarian institutions. Not only that, this is part of our central
task today as a movement, “create public opinion and the independent
institutions of the oppressed to seize power.”(3) We discussed previous
independent institutions of the oppressed in ULK 59 on
drugs.(4) Since then we’ve been working on developing our own.
One of the lessons we can take from the practice of our Re-Lease on
Life Program to date is the need to address the drive to do drugs,
engage in dangerous sexual activities, and the temptation of the thrill
of the life of crime. We must put in its place the thrill of revolution;
of fighting the real enemy; of building something new.
Before MIM(Prisons) had a Re-Lease on Life Program, we had one
comrade who was one of our top theoreticians and USW leaders while in
the SHU. Ey was released from prison and quickly slipped into alcoholism
again. Ey stayed in touch for the first year, and then we stopped
hearing from em, and ey never did any political work on the outside. At
that time MIM(Prisons) had little to offer this comrade to help em adapt
to life on the outside, and we certainly had nothing like a 12 step
program to help em with eir alcoholism.
A story that has become too common is USW members who are released
and never write us for years. When we finally do hear back from them
it’s because they ended up back in prison. One such comrade
recently explained:
“something I felt lack of was community. When I left the gates I went
straight to a sober living…. During the time there I worked and attended
A.A. meetings. I pretty much gave all my attention to my sobriety and
recovery. Simultaneously my career was getting started. At this time I
am getting myself situated and also enjoying my freedom, it was a really
good feeling getting to move around, good food, and women…”
“I got emotionally attached to a girl that did not fulfill my needs
or expectations and I became emotionally unbalanced. All it took was one
instance of drugs to get high and begin my relapse. All this was in the
lapse of a year. The last three months was just a chase for
thrills.”
“I felt loneliness because for sobriety I left everything behind,
friends, places, everything I’ve ever done, made and been. Also I felt a
need for thrills, action; that was my itch for crime. I lost track of it
all and I couldn’t find like-minded people.”
From the above testimony we see how sex and romance plays into this
as well. We all know how common “crimes of passion” are in our society.
Many of us have done time for them. This comrade wanted community and
felt lonely, and seemingly tried to find that in a womyn who maybe was
not in a good state herself, or maybe just couldn’t fill the large gap
in this comrade’s life. The original AA puts god in that gap, a higher
power. Our program puts the proletariat, the people. We will all have
important individuals in our lives who help us out and other individuals
who set us back. But we cannot rely on any one individual to save us,
nor to meet all our needs. One of our needs is a spiritual need to be a
part of something that gives us meaning. The bourgeois institutions
offer you job training and maybe the prospect of a marriage. But as we
see with this comrade’s story, you can attain those things and still be
lonely, still not be on the path to rehabilitation. That is why we need
an independent institution of the oppressed.
Another lesson we can take from this comrade, and from others, is
that success will usually mean leaving behind a lot, especially at
first. The easiest way to go back to prison is to go back to the same
people and places you were around before you got locked up. Ultimately,
our aim is not to cut you off from where you came from like a bourgeois
program might do. We must stay connected to the people, and your past
may offer some such connections. But those connections can only be good
ones if you approach them from a new way of thinking and being. There
must be a new community that you can rely on that supports your
transformation into a new socialist humyn.
Even in the best case scenarios, the bourgeoisie cannot provide the
support comrades need to rehabilitate. However, more often you do not
end up in the best case scenario in this system as one comrade
describes:
“I spent 6 years in the Drug Court program in York, PA, where a
predatory judiciary, local bar, probation department (teamsters union)
and suck ass ex-junkies prey on the weak and pile them 3 and 4 men to a
room in some old crack house and charge them $500 per month rent plus a
$500 deposit, which they would lose when they relapsed (95%) and went
back to jail.
“Life’s Beacon House means well and has the nicest of these houses
but we can do better. The”group homes” or “recovery houses” have 3-4
month waiting lists and so do the rehabs, which county dollars are 95%
of their $1000/day business. These houses are 501(c)(3) non-profits and
if you start a business to employ the guys that live in these houses, it
can operate non-profit too.”
Next Steps
As we said, the Revolutionary 12 Step Program should address
something that our Re-Lease on Life Program has been lacking for so
long. But to do so, the program must be actualized. Here are some 3-year
goals we have related to actualizing this program:
build a broader network of local contacts across the country so
comrades can get more hands-on training and support from other
communists
establish a revolutionary 12-step program, run by released
comrades, where others can stay and immerse themselves in the
program
establish satellite programs in prisons across the country that
report to the program on the street, learning from each others’
experience and feeding releasees into the street program
Clearly this will require the participation of many of you to
succeed. We need comrades on the outside to volunteer to be support
people or sponsors for our comrades who are released. Even if you can’t
administer the 12 steps, giving them someone to talk to and organize
with on a daily basis will be important.
We need comrades on the inside to begin implementing this program
locally. Ideal candidates will have successfully gone through the 12
step program themselves and MIM(Prisons) political study courses. And
finally, we need similar people on the outside to run our program for
post-release. If you think you can play any of these roles, get in touch
so we can start building.
This is your newsletter, as evidenced from the vast majority of
articles, reports, poetry and artwork coming from prisoners in every
issue. In the last year comrades inside really came together to support
our fund drive and our distribution drive as well, and we are making
steady progress on both. 2021 was a good year for us overall and we hope
to build greater things in 2022, some
of which are outlined in this issue of ULK.
Our MIM(Prisons) annual review meeting in December was focused on
re-prioritizing tasks in order to expand our outside support base,
increase subscribers inside and support the growth of a broader Maoist
movement. To increase subscribers inside we’ve been slowly increasing
our list of ULK distributors who receive extra copies of
ULK to distribute to others in their prison. We’ve reached the
point where almost 10% of the newspapers we’re sending into prisons are
going to distributors, but we want to see that number much higher in
2022. If you’d like to receive extra copies of ULK to
distribute let us know how many you can use and send us reports on your
distribution efforts each issue.
Because of the decrease in frequency of ULK and the decrease
in subscribers, we are sending less than a fifth of the number of
newspapers into prisons we were sending in some years ago. The main way
we think we can improve our numbers is by increasing ULK back
to every other month. However, we will need to recruit much more outside
support to make this happen as we are barely pulling this together every
3 months. Issue ULK 76 was almost delayed, and much work was
rushed together at the last minute because we don’t have enough steady
supporters.
In spring 2021 we announced we would be doing an annual Fourth of
You-Lie fundraiser drive among the readers of ULK. We told you
that 7 stamps would cover the cost of your 4 issues for the year. Below
we’ve graphed the contributions we received from our readers in prison
for the whole year. In Q1 and Q2 we removed the contributions of one
particularly generous comrade who contributed over $200 in Q1 because ey
was skewing our results so much. By excluding em, we see a steady growth
in contributions coming in, and more importantly a steady growth of
individuals sending contributions. While we welcome our comrades to send
in $200 that can, it is by increasing the number of donations that we
know our mass base is growing. Looking at our numbers for the last
quarter of 2021, we see about 8.5% of the people receiving ULK
75 sent a donation during that quarter. While we didn’t do the math
to track this over time, we believe this is probably one of the higher
contribution rates we’ve ever had!
Q1 and Q2 excludes large donations from one persyn
The line on the graph above represents the number of people
contributing funds over the four quarters of 2021. The bars represent
the money coming in as donations or payments. (All numbers include
prisoners only.) ‘Payments’ means people sending money for a specific
book or document. In some cases the difference is not important.
However, if we get 100 people ordering copies of the TX Pack next
quarter, that would shoot up our contributions but none of that money
would be going to ULK or other projects, it would just pay to
print and mail TX Packs. So it’s better to see the donations portion
increasing. If we look at just the donations on the graph, prisoners are
covering 18% of the cost of printing ULK! This level of support
will make it much easier for us to increase the frequency of
ULK, but we still need outside comrades to help do the
work.
We hope you will be a part of ULK’s success in the coming
year by doing any of the following: donating 7 stamps or more,
sharing/distributing ULK, sending in conditions reports,
writing articles, creating anti-imperialist artwork and promoting
MIM(Prisons) work with your contacts outside prison. Of course,
ULK exists to serve the anti-imperialist prison movement, and
anything you do to build that movement is why we are here.
TX Pack and book orders
For those of you who are sending payments (no checks/money orders)
for books or resources, please expect about 2 months between the time
you mail out your request and you receive your item. For TX Pack
requests, you must pay 7 stamps or $3.50. We do not have anyone working
on the TX Pack, so the 2020 edition is all we have.