California State Prison, Sacramento - Federal

I am writing to you because I’m currently housed in California State Prison - Sacramento B-yard (PSU). I’m writing to you on my behalf and on behalf of all the prisoners who are housed in B-7(PSU) to ask you if you can help us because we are living in a very dirty, unsanitary & cruel solitary confinement.

Where we have bird in the unit who poop all over the unit as the showers never get clean and due to that numerous prisoners caught fungus on their feet, like myself I caught bad fungus that now spread to my hand & fingers. Because the unit officers never clean the showers nor the unit & even when myself and a few other prisoners submitted 6O2 complaints about it they only send prisoners from the main line to clean a couple of times and after that it went back to the same old days being dirty and when we write complaints about staff misconduct, the sergeants and unit officers start to retaliate by not feeding us or threatened us that they would not feed us, get assaulted, sexual harassment, coming inside our cells & throwing or spitting on our food and hygiene on the floor & ripped or throw away our legal documents. Like they did to me & a few other prisoners.

And everyday at breakfast Officer G. Herrera is going around with other officers while passing breakfast not giving prisoners their breakfast food and threatening them that he’s going to go inside our cells and beat us up. It got to a point that at one time he told me and another prisoner that he was going to come inside our cell knock us out and sodomize us. We reported this and many other misconducts and the way we are living to the appeals coordinators by submitting complaint 602 appeals and also writing letters to the institution warden. Nothing was done on their part all we got was more retaliation from officers.

The appeals coordinators have been giving our complaints to sergeants from the same yard we are and those are sergeants who myself and other prisoners have filed complaints against already. And they are biased because they write us up by saying we lied on our complaint but that sergeants don’t even do the right and proper investigation all they do is issue us all write ups for supposedly lying.

Also when we go through mental breakdown & are dealing with suicidal thoughts & we notify the officers and nurses that we are experiencing suicidal thoughts to help us. The officers and nurses they just ignored us, even when we end up cutting ourselves and swallow shard metal objects in the intent of ending our lives they ignored us. All this happened to a lot of us prisoners and we are in the (PSU) because we are part of the mental health program at the E.O.P level and we are still being mistreated, discriminated against and ignored and this just triggers more our mental health and safety concerns.

So please help us as we are all begging for your help as we keep being ignored.

Sincerely, (PSU) Prisoners

Prisoners in New Folsom PSU/SHU have minimal contact to or with the outside world, other prisoners, friends or family, and receive little to no medical or mental health care but we sure do have a lot of overwhelming remarkable amount of physical contact with poor white trash guards. Much of this contact occurs during assaultive cell extractions, which are conducted if a prisoner refused to be harassed, intimidated or wear restraints which are painful, such as small cuffs squeezing on too tight or leg irons that scrape the skin off your ankles when we are forced to walk far distances or slammed by guards. Some prisoners don't want to be set up by guards who prey and pay weak (PC) prisoners to sell their soul for the life once they attack other prisoners for white trash pigs.

For the most part, if a revolutionary prisoner leaves out his cell, guards will stage a hit, mostly on young blacks form southern California. Guards will claim we are not recognized to Constitutional protections. And once one leaves his cell shanks are planted, one has no safe guard to privacy rights in his for the moment cell dwelling. Pigs secretly creep through your belongings, legal papers, your rap lyrics, tamper in food, ravish one's living quarters, etc.

Sometimes prisoners who lack self-knowledge and education coupled with mental-illness are used by pigs to clog toilets and smell up the whole unit so female clinical workers will desire not to check on their clients. I call it cowardness. Sometimes even the best of us might hold a food port open to get immediate response. Nevertheless one might refuse to return a food tray, kick the cell door or throw excrement at guards in these situations; the assaultive cell extraction retaliation is much more flagrant.

Prisoners who are ongoing targets of prejudiced and biased pigs are much more likely to be ambushed and attacked while in hand cuffs by other prisoners while volunteering to be escorted by pigs to and from medical health care appointments or group training.

It is useless to notify pigs at New Folsom if you're suicidal. Prisoners are left naked in the cold weather outside, for over four hours, shivering in outdoor cages smaller than the width of 2 crates.

Pigs are conspiring to break the spirit of young Black African Amerikans.

My only conclusion is to stand by the 122 Nelson Mandela rules and don't break under pressure. Submit to moral principle.

I've come to recognize here at California New Folsom State Prison, that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated and the condemned.

Prisoners housed at New Folsom EOP/GP mainline are being denied the right to earn good time/work time credits, and therefore can't get paroled or released. We are being denied the opportunities and support which are given to every other prisoner and at every other prison within California.

The 4th and 14th Amendment declares that "equal protection of the law" cannot and must not treat prisoners differently then others without reasonable and probable cause. People who are eligible for an earlier parole hearing under Senate Bill 260 and Senate Bill 261 pc 3051 (Youthful Parole) shall and must earn credits toward reducing time on their new parole date, not their original parole date or false reported date.

Snitches are benefiting. Lifers are getting time knocked off such as 9 to 10 years due to reasons of Prop 57. It doesn't even matter to them because they still will be labeled as lifers by the CDCR/DOC. Also those with money and/or are white have been benefiting.

Without dehumanizing or snitching or becoming SNY, we want to secure the Prop 57 rights granted us under law. We continue to struggle not to be set up and framed with charges. Many of us have caught fake cases because we've stayed silent and solid.

Please send us advice and materials so we may continue to organize.

CA USW Council Comrade Responds: The only thing I can say is that CDCr made promises that they're not living up to, once they let us all out of SHU. I can attest to the truth of the above statement. You will get privileges if you go SNY, as I met a few people while in Ad-Seg that were going SNY so the board can release them. They're not releasing anyone who has the gang label or STG label on them.

What I can say is that anyone wanting material concerning Prop 57 can write to: Initiate Justice, PO Box 4962, Oakland, CA 94605. This is the litigation team that's fighting for the changes in the regulations so that people can get parole.

First, I don't think we should waste our time organizing around these reforms because we are not a reformist org, we are a revolutionary org. Secondly, according to Prop 57 guidelines, everyone who hasn't served a SHU term is eligible for good time/work time credits, however they are not retroactive but only go towards the remainder of one's sentence. So if you've been incarcerated for 20 years and you still have 5 years left on your sentence you will only be able to be awarded good time credits towards your remaining 5 years. As soon as Prop 57 was enacted, case records began re-calculating everyones sentence who qualified. The entire process took about four or five months here.

Also, according to Prop 57 people who fall under any of the Youth Offender laws SB9, 260, 261 & 262 cannot receive earlier parole board dates than that which they already qualified for under the various State Bills. The only thing that changed is your MERD (Maximum Eligible Release Date). For example, under Prop 57 my MERD went from 2030 to 2028 but under SB261 my parole board date dropped from 2030 to 2021 at the soonest but no later than 2023.

For more information on Prop 57 people can write to the San Quentin Law Office which sends free legal materials to prisoners or they can contact Initiate Justice, Lifer Support Alliance and many other reformist orgs. By the way the final regulations on Prop 57 already came out and NOTHING CHANGED! But what else could we expect from CDC? Fuck reforming the system, smash it!

Today we Raza and Natives/others kicked off the new year by exercising unity here in C Yard by not going to work or education at work center (head quarters) of this yard. Other factions decided not to participate because they care too much about the 5-10¢ paying job they currently have (Lumpen Aristocracy?).

This campaign we currently put into motion is to stop the form of harassment these pigs use thru daily body searches, i.e. x-ray body scan, strip search, etc. before we go to school/work and before we leave. We know that we can stop at least the x-ray scan from taking place for we will continue to refuse the x-ray scan and therefore work/education. This is the recent flow here.

Persynally I believe that we should shut down all movement but still go to Yard, programs and accept our food. Just make the pigs do all the work. That is the only way to make these pigs fly. Even then, these forms of campaigns are at a beginner step and might not be fully successful. We should still engage and get a feel of the opposition. The only way we know how to deal with an opposition is thru the motion of our resistance. It is then that we'll know what we're up against and to what extent they'll go. Not only this but we learn on how to combat the beast. New views and forms of tactics come from this. It is what we call the dialectical-materialist theory of the unity of knowing and doing.

For our Agreement to End Hostilities we reach out to all colors, all genders, all ethnicities. In this struggle, if we can satisfy the interests of the other parties while meeting our own, that is best. Yet a blind following of fixed views of one's identity can undermine any assurance that either party will honor an agreement. It's hard, but we must learn to understand how to see our thoughts with thinking. Identity can prove more a liability than an asset if we drive with our eyes closed.

Internationalism is Needed to End Hostility

We must liberate the oppressed from identity politics first. We may be unaware of the political landscape, which leaves us vulnerable to being exploited. A leader may impose a narrative on us, and create feelings of division between us and others. Second we may cling to a negative identity, defining who we are as against the other side and rejecting anything they propose. In an extreme situation, we lose all semblance of our own identity, identifying ourselves only in terms of opposition to the other side. Third, we may feel excluded from the decision-making process, further dividing us from others. Finally, we may feel like a pawn trapped within an unfair political system.

Currently at New Folsom, staff are creating divisions leading to dangerous situations. When they read letters agreeing to help us, they may withhold this mail, or give it to another prisoner whom they believe will help them carry out their own personal perverted agenda. These inmates are called snitches, liars or PSU/SHU collaborators who speak against human rights. These inmates are encouraged to write to our families, women and supporters with the intent to disconnect them from us. These actions create very dangerous situations, creating the desire to punish these men for working with the administration. These games are being played throughout the state of California, targeting prisoners who have taken conscious steps to resist being casualties of this low intensity psychological warfare. Warfare that is rarely seen or recognized by the everyday citizen. We must find ways to monitor our incoming and outgoing mail. If we ever want to truly stand for the UFPP principle of Independence, we must have resources independent of the enemy.

I have a pending lawsuit against the law librarian Arno Nappi, who is only allowing me access to the law library once a month. I'm not Ad-Seg, SHU, etc. I'm confined to my cell 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for non-disciplinary reasons.

I'm not the only one. There are five of us and we are medical patients in a medical unit.

Today we had a tournament of handball here in Folsom Prison C-Yard. It was a tournament where my homies from the south and the fellas from the north played with each other. We opened our courts for them to come and just have some fun and express solidarity and unity not only to our people but to the other factions of people and tribes. It was a beautiful thing to see, for we had all the Raza from Aztlán and other comrades in the courts of handball. Two months ago we had a few baseball games where north and south Raza had a go and for a minute we thought that would probably be it. But no. Efforts are being made from both ends and others as well, to keep the peace amongst the lumpen organizations (LOs). We understand it's a small token here, but a big step for emancipation for sure. It's been a good year so far. We are constantly working to unify the lumpen, I myself struggle to spread the view of one united Aztlán. It's a slow but steady process.

I received the book, Chican@ Power and the Struggle for Aztlán. It helps me out, not only to understand more, but also to teach others. And now I can provide more info when we teach each other.

Update 18 May 2016: The next step we have taken is to mix the teams — no more north against south — We just play. So we'll see what's next. It's as if we've been waiting for this to happen but wouldn't say it. Now that it has it is embraced by the majority here. Of course, there is still those that have an Amerikanized divide and conquer mentality. But they will adapt and learn.

The biggest issue I see and hear about here is the constant racism by the white officers who are the only Monday thru Friday regulars. We have only 1 black officer who works on Saturday only. The rest of the week it is white pigs who work.

For clarification, I am a white man! I am gay! I am Jewish! an I am a self-educated, revolutionary, prisoner advocate! These facts, and the fact that I fight and advocate equality for all, makes me a target by the white racists and the one black officer.

But I refuse to be subdued.

Clothing, linen, grievances, and forms and supplies are some other issues. Clothing takes months to receive (I've been waiting 2.5 months with only 2 boxers and 2 pairs of socks in my cell). Linen gets exchanged once every 2 months (if we're lucky). Grievances unanswered or denied unjustly. And all CDCR Forms (602s, 22s, etc) and supplies (ajax, toothbrush, combs, paper, pens, etc.) are rarely, if ever, supplied and the pigs say they "don't have any" or they're out.

I've been trying to get a California Code of Regulations, Title 15 without success since 09-23-2015.

Next I would like to inform you on the business I've been conducting. I have been studying with 2 other inmates on the tier and putting together a resource directly that I wish to distribute to all inmates free of charge (though I do ask for donations if possible).

On 14 October 2015 my neighbor was suicidal and the COs didn't want to let him go, so he had to break his water sprinkler. But this is not what bothers me. What got to me was when they left em in there for 2 days and Sergeant Williams was in the tower booth laughing and turning his water sprinkler on and off for like an hour.

It was so much wasted water in our cells and on the floor in the tier, that I yelled if the tax payers see where their money is going they'll be mad, then I said if the police cared so much about the water shortage why would they do this. Just one week ago the same police got on his partner's head for watering the PSU yard grass and washing the bird shit from the ground, talking about "we're in a drought and you're gonna waste water for them to live in a clean environment?" The police rather step in bird shit themselves then to let us live in a cleaner atmosphere.

I feel that we will never be safe around them unless they wore cameras on their turtle suit and all over the institution.

Dear Warden Lewis,

I'm writing to express my concerns for the inhuman treatment being inflicted on these disciplinary-free prisoners housed at Pelican Bay State Prison's short-corridor Group D. The conditions there must change because of the nature of the situation. Please allow these people room to have phone calls, send pictures to their loved ones, etc. If we have no respect for the U.S. Constitution how shall I, as a free man one day, respect or honor the rights of others, after witnessing these wrong doings? I'm facing a real challenge when I return to society in September 2011. If we continue to strive to solve problems we must begin in our community and this is one of the largest communities I've ever been a part of and I believe that the strike on July 1, 2011 will begin the process for a collective change as one unity.

I have faith you will resolve the problem.

Sincerely,
[a prisoner in California State Prison - Sacramento]

I will strike with these men in unity.