Under Lock & Key

I am doing time and slave labor on the Wynne Unit in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). This is an industry unit. Millions of dollars worth of commodities are mass produced by prisoners who receive no type of worthwhile compensation. These items consist of vehicle registration stickers, license plates, mattresses that range from Sealy Posturepedic to college dorm and prisoner beds. Signs are produced for a wide range of functions, and there’s a computer recovery warehouse that refurbishes used and discarded units to be sent to high schools and hospitals.

It goes without saying that if everyone decided to lay it down the powers that be would have a serious problem. Yet sadly enough out of the 2,200 prisoners housed here, the number would more than likely be in the double digits only. You have those who don’t want to lose their clerk job where they might get a few perks every now and then. Some in the craft shop would put the craft shop first. I do understand why people want to protect their “jobs,” but how much longer are we going to stand by and be forced to witness the constant abuse of power?

I have been locked up in segregation unjustly. I’ve seen my brothers lose their lives which may have been prevented if the COs acted as if they gave a damn. Although we all know they don’t. So, we rise early every morning, we are told to work “or else”, and god forbid you try to utilize the option to go to school because you are expected to be at work before sunrise even if you are trying to educate your mind and work on your attitude.

It’s no secret that the TDCJ’s main concern all the way around is money. Ironically our “great state’s” prison system is in the negative on funds but will not hesitate to lock someone up over a bullshit parole violation or something nonviolent like theft. And we are being punished daily by the COs and administration who use their position as an opportunity to abuse other human beings and get away with it. Our so-called grievance system is a laugh-out-loud joke, just like TDCJ’s good time and work time fiascos.

The reality is that if just one third of our prison population would spend some of those phone minutes on educating our outside support rather than crying about more money for holiday packs and new shoes every 6 months, we might see some difference. Let people know how they can help, without making TDCJ’s commissary richer. I like candy and sodas as much as the next guy. What I don’t like is getting treated like dog shit just because I’m trying to resolve a problem. The indigent mail issue, the medical copay, the good time, work time and assaults on inmates by guards are but a few of our long list of issues that are not just going to disappear. We will not go quietly into that good night, and we will not back down without a fight.

I thought I’d share how it works up here in Ad-Seg. I trip on how I’ve been going at it since the end of September. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, from request forms, to 22 [inmate request] forms, to 602 [inmate appeal] and no good results. The appeals here are quick to catch a mistake and return it. First off, I am not a lawyer, second I’m a CCCMS mental health prisoner. But that does not mean anything here.

Anyhow, I wrote Sacramento, letting them know that I never wanted to do a 602 but it concerns my back brace and prescription glasses. And they’re in my property at the property room. I had to pay for those 2 items in state and I needed them so I was OK with that. Now I’m just asking for what’s mine and it’s a need. I use a cane and have a vest. I bought some glasses from another prisoner who wanted hygiene, but I’m not supposed to do that.

Nobody listens here and the 602 process is meaningless. I don’t know what else to do.

MIM(Prisons) responds: California was where the demand for grievances to be addressed began five years ago. It has since been taken up by comrades in a dozen other states. The focus is on petitioning state and federal officials responsible for the care of prisoners. In doing so, comrades are attempting to rally prisoners together as a group to defend their basic rights, like the ones the writer above describes; basic medical care and property rights.

But there are reasons why the arms of the injustice system are so unaccountable. Their central task is to control certain populations, and they must be given leeway to achieve that task. If their task was about justice, then obviously injustices like the ones above would not be tolerated. So we must rally together to ensure the rights of all are respected. Yet, ultimately, we must build a system that serves the interests of those who are oppressed and exploited by the current imperialist system that dominates our world. Petitions will not prevent these ongoing abuses.

I was in building B2 and saw officers Lawson and Gibson starve a prisoner for 3 days straight because the prisoner wrote them up for messing with him.

We were in the hole in B2, in segregation. When we get fed we have a box on our door. The officer puts the food in and then slides this piece of metal to the side so we can reach in to get the tray and put it back. All trays have tops on, and this is how they get away with it on camera. The tray is empty when they get to the cell, but with the top on the camera just shows them placing the tray in the box. If someone writes them up the officer will claim he delivered the food, but the whole time there was never anything on the tray.

To punish prisoners who expose them, the officers do things like plant knives in their cells to do a staged cell search, or put the person in segregation to have better control over them.

The main two people who call all the hits here at Red Onion Prison are Walter Sweeney, the Unit Manager for B building, and Yonce, Unit Manager for A building. They both use the word “nigger” here frequently with prisoners. The warden does nothing; he lets the unit managers run this place however they want.

MIM(Prisons) adds: There is no justification for torture of prisoners, yet it happens all the time in the Amerikan prison system. This description of deliberate starvation in Virginia in retaliation for prisoners exercising their legal rights fits in with the overall goal of the criminal injustice system as a tool of social control. There is nothing rehabilitative or corrective about these actions. This is why we call for a complete dismantling of the system. We are not just writing about a few bad apples perpetrating evil deeds, while the rest of the system is otherwise working well. Prisons help control oppressed populations within the United $tates for the imperialists. We won’t be able to end this through the legal system that is part of the overall criminal injustice system. That doesn’t stop us from taking on legal battles when they are winnable, but at the same time we must build a movement that can take down the entire system.

The rehabilitation program for abused dogs at Perry Correctional Institution (PCI) is commendable. Prisoners have the primary responsibility to care for and rehabilitate abused animals. Selected prisoners have dogs assigned to them and they literally spend all of their time with these dogs; they even have to share a 6 by 10 foot cell with them. This is a remarkable program wherein prisoners are allowed to show love, compassion, and empathy for their fellow creatures.

Being that these dogs have been abused, it is expected that it will take some time for them to be fully rehabilitated. It is also expected that these animals remember their former abuse and at times may become scared, agitated, and even dangerous. Example in point: At least two of the K-9s in the program here at PCI (Shep and Pippin) have bitten people. Nevertheless, instead of these dogs being euthanized, they are allowed to remain in the rehabilitation program and even to be sent to live with families out in society. The program organizers and the prisoners themselves realize that real rehabilitation takes time, patience, compassion, love, and understanding. In contrast, there are many prisoners here (including myself) who have been given Life Without Parole (LWOP) under South Carolina’s two-strikes law, who may never see their families again.

It is no secret that a large number of imprisoned people come from families and homes where abuse has been rampant. Why is there no rehabilitation program for them? Do we not afford human beings equal rights with dogs? The truthful and troubling answer is no.

Here at PCI prisoners see staff members hugging and kissing the dogs, but they themselves are not given common or even professional courtesy. And in fact, we are disrespected on a daily basis, from the warden all the way down to new officers who haven’t even been certified yet.

The dogs are fed with expensive dog food such as Purina, while the South Carolina Department of Corruptions (SCDC) brags about feeding prisoners for less than a dollar a day. The dogs are given brand new mattresses stacked up to sleep on, but a prisoner has to damn near go through an act of congress to get anything new around here. The dogs have new stainless steel bowls to eat out of, while we have plastic trays that are peeling so bad that each time someone eats in the mess hall, they are assured a healthy diet of plastic.

I’ve complained continuously about the peeling trays to several staff members (Lt. Church, Lt. Wilson, Cpt. Williams, food service employees J. Husband and B. Olsen) and even filed a grievance. But we are still eating plastic.

I believe that animals are a source of therapy for human beings, especially those human beings who are denied the basic rights of humanity itself. We love these abused animals, because we know their plight and can feel their pain. And as these dogs are being rehabilitated so that they can be placed in loving homes, we are being treated worse than dogs.

How is it that people can rationalize and believe the rehabilitation of a dog, but not a man? It is a shame and a travesty that there is a genuine rehabilitation program here at PCI for dogs, but not for humans.

The dogs have People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Why don’t prisoners have People for the Ethical Treatment of Humans (PETH)? The simple truth of the matter is that the landlords of these gated communities don’t believe in rehabilitation for the human residents.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This comrade’s off-the-cuff proposal for a People for the Ethical Treatment of Humyns (PETH) organization underscores an important point about capitalism: it is based on treating humyns as nothing more than labor to create profit, or worse, as an obstacle to stealing resources. There are many compassionate people in the First World who devote much time and money to bettering the treatment of animals while ignoring the plight of people around the world suffering in truly unlivable conditions, without clean water, access to medical care, sufficient food, and often all this while in danger from a war initiated by the imperialists to gain greater control of strategic resources.

MIM(Prisons) is a part of this PETH battle, in the broader context of opposing the imperialist system that is fundamentally inhumyn. We are fighting for a world where no people have power to oppress other people. In these conditions we will be able to create a society where people do not die unnecessarily, and do not suffer so that others can profit. This will only be possible when we overthrow imperialism, the imperialists won’t make these changes out of the kindness of their hearts because the exploitation and oppression of humyns is an integral part of the profit system.

These concentration camps are using chemicals that are carried on the pigs’ hips along with their billy clubs and handcuffs. They call these chemicals mace, but I’ve been pondering on something for years now: what are the ingredients inside these cans that are being used on us? Do these chemicals have a long-term effect on a person’s health? Riot cans are being used on us while we are locked down, and how does this make sense? We are lab rats being experimented on by these oppressors. The new trend is chemical warfare, and these oppressors are using different “toys” to instill fear to control us. They have mace ball guns where, instead of paint balls, the balls are filled with dry mace powder so that when a person is hit the powder gets all over their body causing a painful burning sensation. They have large fire extinguishers filled with foam mace and it’s attached to battling rams. At least three to four days a week we are woken up choking from the aroma of these chemicals because the pigs have sprayed a prisoner.

The pigs walk around with riot cans prepared to spray prisoners at any time, and in most cases for no good reason at all, just because they can. I’ve witnessed numerous times these riot cans being put into a prisoner’s mouth, prisoners being sprayed in their faces at point-blank range, or in their private regions while handcuffed. Personally I have been sprayed so many times that I have received chemical burns. I recall one night while resisting an injustice that was being done by these oppressors, they didn’t want to assemble an extraction team so instead the pigs got about 10 riot cans and sat them on a table in front of the pod. These pigs’ intentions were to spray from 1 a.m. all the way to 6 a.m. when another shift arrived.

Right now I am at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, aka Looneyville, and these pigs spray these chemicals on a daily basis. I’ve witnessed them spray prisoners numerous times under false pretense. I call this the “jump back.” This is when the pigs walk around intimidating prisoners with their chemicals and if we don’t comply with the pigs’ demands then the pigs walk down the range to stand in front of a prisoner’s bars and yells some gibberish and then “jumps back” pulling out their mace and spraying.

The Captain or Lieutenant comes and takes this prisoner to the hole, putting him in a slammer cell. The administrator accuses him of spitting or throwing something on a pig, which is is clearly a setup. When placed on the slammer side, the prisoner is put around the same pig that set them up and us further harassed. The pigs play with our food, cut off our water, and give us the bare minimum of our property.

If you write an informal complaint, eventually you’ll get sprayed in retaliation, receiving a ticket and getting placed on phone and commissary restriction to try to limit your communication with society. If you present the issues to the Warden and administration, they’ll pass it along to the pigs and they’ll spray and jump you when they get the right opportunity.

These prisons remind me so much of Nazi concentration camps where hoards of humans were experimented on with different kinds of chemicals until they found the perfect ingredients to eliminate them. We don’t know what long-lasting effects these chemicals have. These chemicals enter our bodies and we are being released back to society, making babies and don’t even know what we are passing along. Got to watch these oppressors’ every move because genocide is their long-term objective.

I just received a recent update that these oppressors are about to bring stun guns in! I sit here with fire in my eyes immune to their tactics because I know their true motives. I resist by any means necessary, organizing, networking, and educating until we become one mind, one body for one cause. All power to the people.

Last month on a housing unit called 7A at Ross Correctional Institution (RCI), a prisoner was said to have a cell phone in his possession. The pigs entered his cell while he was in there, which is not allowed unless a “white shirt” is present (Lieutenant, Captain, etc.). While the pigs were in his cell they maced him, handcuffed him and beat him. As they were bringing this prisoner out of his cell, other prisoners watched as the pigs used unnecessary and brutal force by banging his head into the stair rail, hand rail and wall.

Fortunately this prisoner had three family members on the unit who stood up in his defense, which created an altercation that the pigs agitated. After macing and brutally beating these four prisoners plus thirty or forty more innocent bystanders, they shut the unit down on 24-hour lockdown with no showers, no recreation, and bag lunches with no hot food (which is also prohibited) for five days. They also put around fifty prisoners in solitary confinement.

The pigs here abuse their authority time and time again with no reprimands from their superior officers. They’re in clear violation of excessive force, racial discrimination and bias, they deny us basic civil and human rights daily and have no regard for prisoners’ lives, especially New Afrikans.

After the February fight, the RCI plantation held a press conference with the local news and lied to the public making it look like the prisoners were the cause of the February fight and that the RCI prison needs more security measures implemented here to safeguard, not us but them.

I come to you asking that you rally up the people and support our prison struggle by calling to inquire about the February fight and ensure the beaten prisoner and every other prisoner involved was given proper medical aid and assistance. Demand that no harassment or retaliation is being executed against any prisoner who uses the informal complaint process and/or has family and friends calling on their behalf. We need the people to demand an investigation be initiated and that more New Afrikans be hired here as staff and guards because I’ve been here for six months and have only seen five.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This writer is doing an important service to the anti-imperialist prison movement by exposing the brutality in RCI, and going further to suggest some actions people on the outside can take to help the struggle there. However, we disagree with this comrade that a solution is to hire more New Afrikan staff and guards. Just as with cops, or judges, or the President of the United $tates, putting more dark faces in positions of power will not change the fundamental nature of the system. These people only serve to make the system look more equal and fair, and perpetuate the national oppression that is an inherent part of Amerikan imperialism. We need to see this oppression for what it is: not just a lack of representation in some positions of power, but a systematic oppression of certain nations (New Afrikan, Chican@, First Nations) by the nation in power (the white nation). The only way to put an end to national oppression is to fight the imperialist system that perpetuates it.

Spontaneous uprisings in response to abuses can help to bring prisoners together over their common enemy, the prison guards. But spontaneous uprisings without proper organization are limited in their scope and easily crushed. And organized action without thorough political education is usually limited to reformism. Reformism leaves the institutions of national oppression intact on a global scale, pushing for benefits for the oppressed internal semi-colonies in the United $tates, gained on the backs of the international proletariat. We encourage our comrades at RCI to use incidents of abuse such as this one as opportunities to educate their fellow prisoners on how this incident fits in with the systemic oppression they face, and organize them to come together to combat these abuses. And we push them to organize in the context of an anti-imperialist struggle, so that their actions have an international impact. If you need organizing or educational materials, get in touch!

On Christmas morning upon entering lockdown for 8 a.m. count, Sergeant Samuel approached a cell near mine and radioed the officer station to open the cell door. When the cell door slid open, Sgt. Samuel who is always playing and joking with the two prisoners in that cell, was then putting on his latex gloves so he and an officer in training could search the cell.

One of the prisoners walked out of the cell and refused to cuff up for the search in a playful manner. Refusing to cuff up in the presence of the trainee officer made Sgt. Samuel look bad and playful, so he whipped out his chemical agent saying, “get on the floor or I’ll spray you.” The prisoner walked away with Sgt. Samuel following; they ended up downstairs and backup arrived. The backup was Sgt. Harris and Corrections Officer Sanders. The prisoner agreed to cuff up as long as they would not gas him. Sgt. Harris agreed and the prisoner laid on the floor face down with his hands behind his back.

Once the cuffs were on the trainee officer and C/O Sanders went into action. The trainee tried to cross the prisoner’s legs across each other while pressing them into his back. At the same time C/O Sanders started pressing his right knee into the prone man’s neck area. The prisoners locked behind their cell doors started screaming while Sgts. Samuel and Harris looked on. Then they picked the man up from the floor and took him into the sally port.

Outside of the dormitory, as soon they got the prisoner out on the sidewalk, C/O Sanders punched him in the back of the head and he fell to the ground. I saw the whole thing from my back window and started screaming “they’re jumping on that man out there!” loud as hell so everyone including the pro-imperialist goons (pigs) could hear me. Corrections Officer Daluco was on his radio commanding all pigs to get the prisoners off their back windows; no witnesses allowed. But they quickly picked the beaten man up from off the floor as Captain Coleman showed up, while the pig Sanders explained that he had to drop the prisoner because “he was talking too much shit.” Just like that, Sgt. Harris and Cpt. Coleman walked the beaten prisoner off for pre-confinement where he now sits pending fake “Battery on an Officer” charges even though he was in cuffs and he was battered by C/O Sanders who violated Florida Statute 944.35 (3)(a)(1). C/Os Sanders and Daluco walked off together talking like it was just another day on the plantation, being members of the slave patrol conscripted with all the impunity in the world.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This article was sent to us by both the persyn who was beaten up and another comrade who witnessed the event, exposing an example of brutality in prison that is all too common. And by writing about this brutality, both authors set a good example for others, that there are many ways to take up the battle against the criminal injustice system. We call on our readers to document abuse by prison employees as it happens, and help us to establish patterns that can be used to expose the system and educate people on the streets.

We also need to make the connections between this brutality by prison staff and the criminal injustice system in general. The problem is not a few bad guards, or even the free reign and positions of power they are given in their jobs. It is the entirety of the system that dehumanizes prisoners and places them in a system that has nothing to do with rehabilitation. By classifying so many people, disproportionately from oppressed nations, as fundamentally criminal and forcing them outside of the social and economic system, the criminal injustice system plays a key role in social control of the lumpen class. Keeping prisoners in a constant state of fear of violence and loss of privileges further helps to reduce resistance and silence the voices of those who might otherwise speak out.

It is an act of courage to write about the brutality that is happening, and even greater courage to organize others to study the system and seek greater understanding of its connections to Amerikan imperialism. This study and education helps build comrades who can work together to fight the imperialist system itself.

I’m presently in the hole (Administrative Segregation) for fighting for my rights. My rights were violated when a CO pig cut my pay from $0.18 an hour to $0.13 an hour unjustly with no explanation. So I appealed this issue via the 602 inmate appeal and I also put a citizen’s complaint 832.5 on this pig. Before I went to the 602 hearing, another pig, Anguianos’ partner, Martinez, tried to bribe me with my pay to sign off on the 602. I refused and documented these encounters and put in a 602 on Martinez for reprisal/retribution just to have this documented in case something happened and sure enough after I refused to sign off on this the Sgt. pig threw his pen on the table and asked me why I would not sign off. He said, “you got what you want, your pay is back at $0.18.” I told him my rights were violated and I want it to be known I want my voice heard!

After this, about a month later I was being harassed by two pigs due to this issue, DeFranco and Vasquez. Long story short, they threw me on the fence to put me down. Nice and calm I let them put me down without incident, which made them more mad! The next thing I knew the pig DeFranco put me in cuffs. I asked calmly why I was being put in cuffs. He smiled in my face and told me I would find out.

They put me in a cage and shipped me down. Come to find out the dirty pig planted a weapon on me resulting with me being put in the hole pending DA referal and a SHU term. I put an 832.5 on both these pigs as well for retaliation and I’m pushing for criminal charges to be brought up on said pigs. I’m going to file a lawsuit on all three pigs once I’m done going through the pigs’ appeal process, which we all know the outocme of that! I make sure to make a paper trail to back up anything I do so I have proof.

MIM(Prisons) adds: We commend this comrade’s tenacity for fighting for justice. We do remind everyone that filing paperwork is just one tactic, as the comrade says, we all know the outcome of that. Without organizing prisoners as a group, even individual legal victories do not lead to building any real change.

Psychiatric prisons, gulags and dungeons are the worst of the worst when compared to the standard human warehouses. These foul dinosaurs are established under the guise of compassionate medical intervention (yes, they actually expect you to believe such garbage). Mental health treatment in psychiatric prisons can be and is torture.

Currently in California, the prisoners are rounded up daily, drugged and forced through the cattle stockades of court cells and into the courts where they are dragged before those of black robe who arbitrarily and capriciously commit them to a virtual (if not actual) life in prisons now designated for those thought to be mentally ill from the viewpoint of imperialism’s labor aristocracy. However, one need not be actually suffering from mental illness at all. I was not, and am not, yet this fact had no effect. I myself and many others have been railroaded into psychiatric imprisonment with doctor approved authorization to be at all times heavily sedated. In my case it was only for the use of body building steroids with no prior mental health history requiring medical intervention of any kind.

And, while being held within these psychiatric prisons and jails I have been, and many others are, tortured and abused, starved and injured, sometimes on a daily basis. I have observed young guys whose faces are now a mass of scarring due to them being drugged to the point of unconsciousness and where massive enforcer brutes are purposefully let into their cells to beat those who are drugged, and the victims of such beatings are left to suffer within their cells with no medical attention at all.

These designated prison and jails have cells with feces on the walls and floors. Desk-type tables caked with old dried foods and grime combined to form an un-cleanable cemented solid. And they are usually air conditioned in winter and heated in summer, especially where these cell occupants are given no mattress and sometimes for days no blankets as well. I currently have prison guards who pass my cell door, which is all steel, every fifteen minutes, 24 hours a day, and bang on it loudly with a steel baton like device. Try attaining a deep restorative pattern of sleep under those conditions. This is the current living environment of Amerikkka’s psychiatric prisons and the pitiful inhabitants of its populations.

I am not under the illusion that these facts are not already known by our professionals of community, politics and prisons. Yet, according to a recent news publication, “[in the state of California] the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) funnels hundreds of millions of dollars to construct prisons and jails - and many have been pitched as ‘mental health treatment facilities’.”… “It should come as no surprise that the BSCC is mostly composed of cops: Jeffery Beard, Secretary of the California Department of Corrections, Sheriffs, probation officers, and chiefs of police.”… “It is not shocking when that group of people thinks that the best way to invest in mental health treatment is to build shiny new jails.”(1)

What is termed pathological and rooted in psychosis in Amerikka’s systems of injustice and unjust forensic psychology are in fact political offenses in nature. Such people incriminated and imprisoned should not be civilly nor criminally committed at all. “Mental health treatment… [should be provided and] funded in the community”(1); preferably by a community of communists. “We need to stop pretending that prisons solve the violence in our communities, or we will never actually end that harm or end mass incarceration.”(2)

Onward! in psychiatric prison abolition efforts, and even more so the world-wide abolition of the parasite imperialism.

MIM(Prisons) adds: This writer correctly identifies a problem with Amerikan prisons that is actually pervasive throughout imperialist society: the use of psychiatry to label people as mentally ill because they do not conform to capitalist behaviors and values. As we explained in the ULK article Mental Health: A Maoist Perspective:

“In imperialist prisons, the ambiguity of diagnosing people as mentally ill becomes very pronounced. Part of the problem is that imprisonment causes mental health problems, so people who may not have had symptoms that would lead to a diagnosis often develop them. Yet it is not in the oppressor’s interests to recognize this problem, so staff feel that they must draw a line between the truly ill and the”fakers.” Rather than seeing the prisons as causing mental illness, they see people acting out for attention in contrast to those who were born with “real” mental illness. Such silly exercises allow them to keep some prisoners sedated while pushing others to suicide.”

Ultimately the purpose of prisons is social control, and the purpose of mental health facilities is the same. They are another tool of this social control which targets oppressed nations within U.$. borders. We must expose these facilities and fight against the torture that this comrade describes.

Mail the petition to your loved ones inside who are experiencing issues with the grievance procedure. Send them extra copies to share! For more info on this campaign, click here.

Prisoners should send a copy of the signed petition to each of the addresses below, which are also on the petition itself. Supporters should send letters of support on behalf of prisoners.

Warden
(specific to your facility)

Office of Inspector General
HOTLINE
P.O. Box 9778
Arlington, Virginia 22219

ADC Office of Inspector General
Mail Code 930
801 South 16th Street
Phoenix, AZ 85034

United States Department of Justice - Civil Rights Division
Special Litigation Section
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, PHB
Washington, D.C. 20530

Senator John McCain
4703 S. Lakeshore Drive, Suite 1
Tempe, AZ 80282

Representative Raul Grijalva
810 E. 22nd Street, Suite 102
Tucson, AZ 85713

And send MIM(Prisons) copies of any responses you receive!

MIM(Prisons), USW
PO Box 40799
San Francisco, CA 94140

Petition updated January 2012, July 2012, December 2014, October 2017, and April 2019