Under Lock & Key

Just as it is in all of the places that are discussed in Under Lock & Key, the system here in Maryland is a joke. Prisoners in this system who wish to air their grievances have no outlet because the same pigs who were writing them up are the same pigs that handle the administrative remedy process.

In 2008, a memo was put out to prisoners, written by the Prisoners’ Rights Information System of Maryland (PRISM). It indicated that a Federal lawsuit had been filed by a prisoner represented by PRISM and that that lawsuit resulted in the division of corrections, revising directives governing the administrative remedy process. One of the changes included the adoption of a two-piece carbon copy complaint form so prisoners can retain a copy of the ARP, thus reducing risk of loss and destruction and providing proof of exhaustion of remedies.

For a while this two-piece carbon copy complaint form was beneficial to prisoners, however, like everything else that has been put into effect to ensure that “justice” for prison inmates is upheld, officers have found a way to undermine the system. At first many officers began to refuse to sign the ARPs, but after prisoners began to complain about this injustice the cowards gave in because they did not want to be written up. Then they created a new system stating that no officers could sign an inmate’s ARP, only a Lieutenant (Lt) or a “designated officer” could do so. These Lts and designated officers pick and choose which ARPs they want to sign and which ARPs they want to scrap. We have to give our ARPs to a tier officer to take to the Lt because a Lt will never come get it himself. If the Lt is okay with what you’ve written it will be signed and the carbon copy will be returned to you. If not, you’ll never see it again.

The whole point of the carbon copy is to prevent loss or destruction. It is supposed to be signed and dated in front of you so that the carbon copy can be handed back to you right then and there so that you will have proof that you wrote the ARP if something happens to it.

In the segregation unit of Eastern Correctional Institution, Lt Galligher is one of the leaders of the good ol’ boy network. It is he and he alone who is in charge of signing ARPs and he must have worked as a magician before working for the division of corruption because he sure does know how to make a grievance disappear. Not many people write this up because this Lt and the other pigs who put this system into place will not hesitate to retaliate on anyone that attempts to expose them. I, however, am not afraid and plan to attack this joke that they call a grievance procedure from every angle possible.

I agree with the brother from Washington who stated that in ULK 19, “[t]he only way that we as prisoners will be treated fairly and with justice is if a neutral outside company or corporation dealing solely with grievances and our claims is constructed.” Otherwise we’re just complaining to the same people who are administering the many forms of injustice that we are fighting against. It’s a new era, it’s time for change, it’s time for solidarity. I’m especially speaking to those of you who are in an organization, this is what our energy should be focused on, instead of trying to destroy the many forms of injustice that we are shadowed with on an everyday basis. It’s time for change. The time is now. Power to the people!

MIM(Prisons) adds: In response to this sort of injustice around prisoner’s grievances, some United Struggle from Within (USW) comrades initiated a grievance campaign. Write us to get a copy of the grievance petition for your state if you reside in California, Missouri, Oklahoma or Texas, or a generic petition that you can customize for your state if you are anywhere else.

I am currently serving a state sentence at Florida State Prison on Close Management (24 hour lock-down). The prisoners are treated like hogs in a barn, not human beings. The clothes here are filthy and stained with blood, urine, feces, oil, and semen. They are passed out on a weekly basis. We can catch a disease this way.

And the meals are always underdone. Prisoners have gotten sick from this, a stomach virus. If you file a grievance on it, the correctional officers won’t feed you the next day.

The pigs will write prisoners bogus disciplinary reports sometimes, and if you try to file an appeal after they found you guilty of the infraction your appeal comes up missing. How can a prisoner win like that? The system is designed for us to lose even if we’re right in our argument.

The correctional officers like to jump on prisoners in handcuffs/shackles in the assigned cells, on the rec yard, anywhere where there’s not a camera to catch the injustice. How can anyone defend themselves when they’re helpless?

The COs try to discourage prisoners on a daily basis out of their institutional call-out, meaning they will bribe them with contraband like cigarettes, chewing dip, coffee, knives, etc. A lot of them will fall for it all the time because they are trying to support their bad habits. It’s sad on both parties’ behalf.

Florida prisoners have no unity whatsoever and they never will as long as they continue to be brainwashed by the COs and continue accepting contraband that is being brought in by DOC workers to prisoners. As long as this keeps going on there will always be fights between one another.

MIM(Prisons) adds: The oppressive conditions in Florida are similar to those throughout the criminal injustice system, and this comrade’s call for prisoners to unite underscores the motivation behind the United Front for Peace in Prisons. One of the 5 principles of the United Front is Independence. The oppressed need to develop institutions that meet their needs. There are plenty of examples of prisoners pooling their resources to take care of each other, rather than relying on the COs who only hope to poison the prison population with drugs, weapons, rumors and jealousy.

As mentioned in prior writings by comrades, the struggle, especially for those incarcerated, must encompass not merely a study of history but an application of those strategies that in some way benefit the cause as a whole. One aspect of such application are the legal remedies which can set precedence for many who may need such standards in proving the wrongs done by prison officials. However the opacity and cover-up culture of prison industry in some instances allows for these same freedom fighters to unknowingly sacrifice their very lives for the sake of the many. Here at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution in a rural part of Nebraska this fact remains ever alive.

We are still mourning the death of a prisoner who has on several occasions successfully challenged institutional policy, winning both injunctive and compensatory judgments. In the process he made enemies, invoking the wrath of those running this warehouse. And although this comrade was in phenomenal physical condition he somehow experienced an aneurysm and mysteriously died. Some have postulated his diet of tuna was the cause, other more conspiratorial minds say he was murdered because of his success in exposing questionable actions by those officials. I myself have chosen to accept the latter.

I mention this with regards to a legal battle I will enter very soon pertaining to a number of constitutional rights that have been violated. This struggle is real in every sense of the word and unfortunately requires its martyrs, without which one would not perceive the seriousness of our collective struggle.

The constant study, comprehension and application of the tenets of independent thinking, which will always remain applicable to our situation, must continue for substantial change to occur.

I was recently moved to the gulag of the state and it’s real tuff here. They’re shorting people on shower soap like it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Food portions done drop majorly, but not too many people write anything up or do anything about it. If you not standing on door for shower you will not shower, which is not worth going to anyway because you only get 30 seconds. When laundry comes on Mondays, if you’re not up 4-5 a.m., you will not get to change clothes. To top things off, you can’t flush your own toilet, so sometimes you sit in that stink for hours. Just to wake people they flush them in the middle of the night. This shit crazy, but people lay down to it.

MIM(Prisons) responds: In California we’re seeing years of work grieving to the administration, while writing to outside media like Under Lock & Key, leading to a growing unity among comrades in some of the roughest prison conditions. We encourage our comrades in Florida, and elsewhere, to launch a coordinated grievance campaign to unite their individual voices and become stronger.

I’m currently residing at Florida State Prison (FSP). FSP is a Close Management institution for prisoners with alleged disciplinary issues. The truth is that FLDOC intends to keep the entire population on maximum lock down! I say this because there are many changes that have taken place since 2007, when I first came to DOC. Most camps now don’t allow all prisoners to rec at the same time. Each dorm has specific days to go out. The same rule applies for canteen.

Youthful Offenders camp in Brevard is only allowed to purchase $10 a week on canteen. Supposedly this is to keep down extortion amongst the inmates, but if so then why do they continue to raise canteen prices? Ten dollars a week is not even enough to buy what you need in today’s society. This is just DOC’s way of showing who’s in control.

Here at FSP we can only have 2 pairs of blue-and-whites. We trade them once a week for supposedly clean ones. Just last Monday I received a T-shirt that was damn near brown! They gave me half a towel and half a blanket! We get toilet paper every 10 days and a little motel-size bar of soap once a week. My ceiling leaks water from all the rain, and every time someone takes a shower! I’ve filed grievances but have yet to receive a response.

The Utah crooked board of pardons and parole has supreme power over how much time a person has to serve in the Utah crooked prison system.

In the state of Utah, the way they sentence you to time is a trap and set up for the crooked board of pardons to be able to discriminate and snake a person in this crooked system.

In the state of Utah, the way this crooked system works in sentencing is called un-determinate sentencing. For example:
1. First degree felony - 5 years to life
2. Second degree felony - 1 year to 15 years
3. Third degree felony - 0 years to 5 years

The board has the power to make you do anything from the beginning of that sentence to the end of that sentence. Not only can the crooked Utah state board of pardons and parole make you do whatever amount of time they want to, but also they can make people convicted of the same crime and the same type of charge do more than others.

You can have two people on the same crime or the same type of charge, and one does 2 years and the other does 5 years, this is the case all the time, which demonstrates the discrimination and bias by the crooked Utah state board of pardons and parole.

Also when you come into the prison the prison does a criminal assessment which gives them a time matrix on how much time you should do. But the Utah crooked state board of pardons does not even follow the time matrix, and more then likely you are gonna do over your time matrix. Further, the judge can sentence your charges to run concurrently, but the board can go against the courts ruling and make that sentence run consecutive at will.

The Utah state board of crookedness as you can see has the power here in Utah to pick and choose who they want to discriminate against. Race, sexuality, religion, or even if they do not like the way you look.

They own you and have the power over your life and death. They have too much power and they need to be stopped.

MIM(Prisons) responds: This is just one example of the many ways the criminal injustice system has wide discretion to discriminate against groups of people. This is used to lock up and extend sentences of people from oppressed nations, leading to hugely disproportionate imprisonment of Blacks and Latinos compared to whites in Amerika. Further this discrimination is used against politically active prisoners to punish them for fighting for their legal rights.

In February I was taken to Captain Schwartz’s office where he confronted me about writing grievances. I was then locked up, had 5 Disciplinary Reports (DRs) falsified on me, received 210 days of confinement time and lost 150 days gain time. After having been placed in the cell with a prisoner who had written a grievance on the warden for chewing tobacco in a state building, we were illegally gassed twice, made to sleep on raw steel for three days and nights with nothing but a pair of boxer shorts on, and then placed on a loaf diet for 7 days.

This is the second time that I’ve been under attack at this institution for exercising my first amendment right to write grievances and both times they started with the same captain and both times the Warden, Colonel, and Central Office of Appeal have backed him up. I have been under attack at two other institutions in the past for writing grievances and both times Central Office knowingly and willfully allowed me to be illegally sent to Close Management (CM) [Editor: term for isolation/control units in Florida].

I have high blood pressure and I suffer from asthma and I am not supposed to be gassed. When he gassed us the first time, I tried to tell him about my medical condition and when he saw me throwing up blood and blood running out my nose, he immediately gassed us again. Out of fear for my life, I have not eaten but two selective meals to stay mentally alert since February 22, 2011.

During this time, I was placed in the cell with another prisoner and he was threatened to be gassed and have DRs falsified on him because he refused to take my tray in the cell so it would look as though I was eating to the camera. Finally, an officer just threw a meal tray in the cell and wrote down that I ate that meal. I am definitely not going to let them get away with what they have done to me and are still doing to me. I would appreciate any help you may be able to give me and I would also like to start receiving your newsletter. I just received notice that they are trying to send me back to CM.

MIM(Prisons) responds: Because of the failure of the grievance process in prisons across the country, we have initiated a grievance campaign. If you are in Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and California write to us to get copies of the petition and letter for your state, or if you are in another state write for a generic petition that you can modify for use in your state.

West Tennessee State Penitentiary (WTSP) has a lot of house policy issues. For one, their policies are not always legitimate under Tennessee Department of Correction penological justifications. On Feb 1st 2001 WTSP Warden Henry Steward and AWO Tommy Mills put out a memo to the maximum/segregated prisoners about them violating in-house policies. I am a maximum security/segregated prisoner and therefore I can speak about the mistreatment and un-professionalism of the prison officials and administrators.

Max prisoners endure a lot of foul talk and other things that are unprofessional from the correctional officers who run the units/pods. Neither the Tennessee Commissioner or Governor has been notified nor approved of the memo from February. The memo allows the administrators to take away their personal property, such as TVs, commissary, and other articles we bought over the years of our incarceration. This is in clear violation of the 8th and 14th amendments. The 14th amendment protects prisoners against the deprivation of personal property and liberty without due process of law. When state law and regulations substantively limit the discretion of confinement, the state creates an expectation, and the 8th and 14th amendments protects against the intentional, malicious or sadistic acts by prison officials towards prisoners. At the end it’s all cruel and unusual punishment.

All the maximum/segregated prisoners have filed a petition on this issue and are waiting to hear back from the commissioner. I believe these prison administrators fail to realize that we as prisoners still have rights. I again thank you for the help in the U.S. prison struggle.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We welcome the news that our comrades in Tennessee are coming together to fight repressive policies. We encourage those in other states to take up their example, and be sure to report on your work in ULK so that we can share these reports and learn from each others struggles.

Beanies/caps have been provided for all prisoners in Administrative Segregation D-yard and Z-unit here. Strip searches will be indoors only (cells and showers) when it’s 50 degrees or lower.

Due to the petitions sent to internal affairs and the ombudsman about the violations of the 602 appeal process that were taking place here in High Desert, an investigation was initiated by the main office of CDCR. All those who sent said petitions were interviewed here in Z-unit by an investigator for Internal Affairs and if my memory serves me correctly the secretary of CDCR.

These “suits” asked about the ongoing issues taking place here in Z-unit particularly, and High Desert in general. Some complaints were the need for warming wealth gear, the 602 process, TVs, cleaning supplies, access to the law library, transfers for validated inmates and those going to SHUs and mainlines, unjustified validations, and more.

The results of these interviews as well as the hard work of MIM(Prisons) and all comrades involved has bore fruit. Although we are used to these charlatans giving us better drag than an eloquent speaking pimp the following was granted: instead of having an “informal level,” the 602 form goes directly to the appeals coordinator making it harder for him/her to screen us out unjustly. Also a new “Form 22” has been provided so that our requests may be answered in a timely fashion by COs, with a receipt. Now we have a clearer paper trail to use should K9s decide to implement their underground rules. Attached with this letter are the notices the administration passed out to us here in Z-unit.

Beanies were provided but no gloves. And as I write this, shelves and necessary wiring are being installed in one of these sections/tiers here in the zoo. The K9s cleared out one whole section in order to start the renovation on February 7 2011.

Although some requests were granted we should all reflect on this whole situation and take from it an important point that a challenge to this penal system in solidarity should constantly and consistently be pressed in order to receive our rights, while at the same time keeping our sights on abolishing this human warehouse that only benefits this corrupt capitalist system and nothing else.

I entered Washington DOC less than a year ago, but in that time I’ve experienced and witnessed first hand the “Department of Corruption.” We have rights bestowed upon us by our forefathers through the constitution of the united states of america, so why is it we are belittled to such a point that we aren’t treated like men, or for that matter prisoners, but animals in a cage?

The COs and Sgts don’t care about our rights, they only come here to receive a paycheck. They cuss at us, disrespect us and use excessive force. In turn we file a grievance or grievances on said officers and actions and these “grievance coordinators” throw out our claims. Or if they do respond we get responses like “rewrite” or “not enough info,” something just to shake us up and to detour us from what happened. This works to their advantage because most prisoners are too lazy and they just throw in the towel!

Persistence, organization, education and unity as a “whole body” is the key to gaining the upper hand against these punks. We need to rise up, unite and take matters into our own hands because it’s apparent that the facilities and the states they’re in are stuck on power and control over the individual prisoner. It’s us coming together and standing for our rights, fighting the system to be recognized and treated as people and not animals.

I believe wholeheartedly that a neutral outside company or corporation dealing solely with grievances and our claims is the only way that we as prisoners will be treated fairly and with justice. Until that happens we will continue to be treated like animals and file grievances that most likely won’t be read and therefore will be forgotten and thrown out, especially if it’s in the staff member’s best interest.

Is this fair, just or even legal? No it’s not, but until we stand up to these people and put our proverbial foot down, things will continue as they are and I guarantee it will only get worse with time.

Comrades, it’s about time something was done about these injustices! Until next time, keep on fighting the good fight and one day things will change. Strive for communism!

MIM(Prisons) responds: This is an important issue to organize around. Not only is it something we can unite all prisoners around, it can also be the spark to begin developing independent power. Only a prison population that studies, struggles and works together can protect themselves from abuses by an oppressive captor.

Comrades in United Struggle from Within have already initiated a grievance campaign in many states. Join this coordinated fight to demand our grievances be addressed. Write to us for letters and petitions you can use in your own states.