MIM(Prisons) is a cell of revolutionaries serving the oppressed masses inside U.$. prisons, guided by the communist ideology of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Under Lock & Key is a news service written by and for prisoners with a focus on what is going on behind bars throughout the United States. Under Lock & Key is available to U.S. prisoners for free through MIM(Prisons)'s Free Political Literature to Prisoners Program, by writing:
MIM(Prisons) PO Box 40799 San Francisco, CA 94140.
I, Nino G, vow to promote unity in an organized fashion to secure the
rights of all inmates in the state of Georgia, and to find solutions of
our daily problems of peace and identifying the real oppressors, and
exercise our power through grievances and lawsuits instead of brute
force or intimidation tactics.
MIM(Prisons) adds: Comrade Nino G. Leads the group
Loyalty Ov3r Royalty (L$R) in a Georgia prison to build the United Front
for Peace in Prisons. The UFPP is a project created in 2011 by a council
of anti-imperialists in prisons faciliated by MIM(Prisons). The project
is an effort to unite all those who can be united around the common
interests of the U.$. prison masses. The project is a culmination of
various formations of prisoners primarily lumpen organizations (aka
“gangs” or “sets” or “crews”) who seek to abandon the gangster mentality
for a revolutionary anti-imperialist outlook.
Revolutionary greetings to u all! We hope everyone is prepping for
the upcoming action(s) of Juneteenth, and otherwise doing well. Comrade
FireWater posed a question, “How can i help Tx TeamOne with a class
action suit to have Our grievances heard or to get independent oversight
of the grievance system?” i’ve decided to share Our answer with all of
you as it may be helpful to the Tx lumpen populace at large.
In the past few months, Tx TeamOne’s founding committee has been
forming working relations with a few liberal and petty bourgeois groups
for progressive improvements within the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice (TDCJ). These groups include some elected officials, christian
sympathizers, lawyers, radio personalities, and policy groups.
One such group is Tx Prison Reform (TPR), with whom one of Our
founding committee members was able to conduct an extensive interview,
establishing the basis of Our and the prison masses possible working
relationship with this group. The interview will be published in their
monthly newsletter and We hope to share it with u all as well. TPR is
focused on the destruction of Restricted Housing Units (RHU), but is
also collecting grievances and other forms of documentation to showcase
the foul nature of TDCJ.
Many of u may be familiar with Tx CURE. If so you’ll know the Tx
branch has been M.I.A. for awhile, but now has been reorganized by a
recently released TDCJ ex-prisoner. This persyn was a leading figure
behind the RACK II air conditioning lawsuit. Ey hasn’t established an
actual mailing address but we have the help of a family law attorney
who’ll send mailings to the head of Tx CURE. Right now, We’re looking
for documented complaints regarding major issues in TDCJ. These
grievances will be read in front of and by the Tx legislator at the next
session. The persyn from Tx CURE will be persynally speaking on behalf
of Tx inmates.
The issue of the grievance process is not a new one to us nor the
state officials. The grievance system in Tx and in fact many prison
systems around the country were the direct result of the Ruiz Litigation
(Ruiz v. Johnson, 37 F. Supp. 2d 855 (S.D. Tex. 1999)), and
since it was instated the same issues have been present. Accompanied
with your grievances you should write an official statement which may
also be read for/by the legislators and others. This statement should
articulate the need for independent oversight of TDCJ grievance
system, and make specific reference to Representative Jarvis Johnson’s
2019 House Bill which called for said oversight but has never been heard
by the House. We want the 2019 House Bill 363 heard and approved by the
Texas House of Representatives.
Other key points of emphasis are the excessive censorship and mail
tampering and its socio-political nature. With the recent escape &
man hunt We’ve found that censorship due to supposed security threats
has picked up. MIM
materials have been the target of much excessive censorship.
For those who don’t know the demographics are slowly but surely
shifting. Due to national gentrification, the thriving industries in the
state, and no state income tax, among other things, Texas is becoming
younger, darker, richer, and slightly more progressive, particularly
among youthful citizens. An essential contradiction in Tx is that of the
rural vs. urban population and the culture wars, and fight for resources
this intensifies. Urban populations tend to be darker, more
liberal/progressive (not revolutionary though) and lean left of center
on prison issues among others. Bernie Sanders’ organization “Our
Revolution” has been pushing campaigns by petty bourgeois, Democratic
Socialist elements around the country for the last several years and now
this present election cycle they have several candidates who’re
challenging the districts of the old guard Democratic Party
establishment. These districts are in both rural and urban areas but
mostly rural, which if successful will shift state electoral bourgeois
politics for the next decade or so.
A key point of emphasis for these so-called New Left Democrats is
Prison Reform. This will open organizing doors for revolutionaries
within the walls and those who support us.
i share all this because elements from the New Left Democrats and
some from a more moderate approach have championed and made possible a
new committee to ‘Study Tx Criminal Justice Issues.’ They’re excepting
documentary information from now until October on a wide range of issues
covering initial interaction with police, to jail policies &
conditions, Grand Jury issues, sentencing, and finally prison
conditions. Below i will include their addresses along with those of the
lawyer, and the groups i mentioned have been establishing working
relationships with.
p.s. We’re also happy to announce the present development of a Tx
TEAMONE committee in Smith Unit.
Jerney Coe Law Office/423 S. Spring Ave/ Tyler,
TX 75702
Tx Prison Reform/ Box #671/ Kaukana, WI 54130
Fairchanges/2407 S. Congress Ave, Ste E-434/ Austin, TX 78704 (send
reports on current conditions, at least 3 recommendations for change,
deadline 7/4/2022)
RealLife Ministries/ Box #328/ Forney, TX 75126 (also does RealLife
Radio, write to find out where you can tune in)
Dist. 141 - Senfronia Thompson/ 10527 Homestead Rd/ Houston, TX 77016
(Interim Study Committee on Criminal Justice reform ahead of
legislation)
i hope this information is useful.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree with Triumphant that
a shift in demographics and elected officials could create more space
for prison organizing. In theory an independent review board
could create space for organizing as well. However, there is no
historical example of such in the United $tates. Police review boards
have never been effective nor independent. How could they be? The point
of the criminal injustice system is to leverage the force of the state
against those that pose a threat to the bourgeoisie’s and the state’s
interests. This is a bourgeois dictatorship afterall, just like the rest
of the world today.
Revolutionaries should campaign on the issues. If petty bourgeois
reformers are willing to do the work to set up review boards and
oversight and change rules, good for them. We should support them in
doing so by campaigning on the issues that matter to us. As Triumphant
mentioned, censorship and torture units (RHU) are among these issues. If
we can campaign on these issues in ways that align with and support the
bourgeois reformers that is a good thing. If revolutionaries take up the
mantle of electoral politics and bourgeois reform, that is a very bad
thing that leads to a never-ending cycle of oppression.
I began a Juneteenth protest in April on the 23rd. I went on hunger
strike on the 28th, but broke it 2 days later to get my strength up
after being threatened by Sergeant Couper.
19 May 2022 – I began a second hunger-strike for 8 days. On the 3rd
day of the strike, I was taken to a dirty holding cell in receiving –
with ants, no bunk, and poop caked up inside a broken toilet. I was only
allowed a bible, one sheet, and one blanket. They placed the old raggy
mattress on the floor where I was to sleep for the next 5 days.
No incoming or outgoing mail; no human contact; no offer of food; and
no vital-signs, weight, or sugar was checked (nurses documented false
reports). May 23rd, in medical, when the nurse asked why I wasn’t
eating, I told them, “because it’s ‘George Floyd Day’, Get Your Knees
Off Our Necks.”
26 May 2022 – I went on S.I.B. [self injury behavior watch] and was
given an even worse mattress that smelled of feces. No one checked on
me.
27 May 2022 – I was shipped to the Emergency Room at Central Prison.
A level-one bone-marrow cancer had intensified the damage to my body.
Some negotiations were made and I broke the fast. However, while I was
on the IV a nurse came in at shift change and snatched the IV out of my
arm and told me and my officers to get out.
One Month Earlier
April 23rd, I was attacked by Sgt Couper because I had asked for a
roll of tissue (I had been asking for 24 hours). Sergeant Couper said he
needed to search my room for tissues then pulled out his mace and tried
to find an excuse to mace me. When I cuffed up he resorted to violence
by snatching my arms all the way out the trap, then opened the door and
threw me head-first into the back wall, then applied torture techniques,
such as bending my fingers & choke holds, while tightening the
restraints.
I was eventually taken to receiving and left on the floor with the
restraints for 4 hours. I had lost feeling in my arms, wrists, and
shoulders.
Sergeant Couper continues to harass and retaliate against us;
intercepting grievance appeals and managing investigations for
disciplinary reports that he has officers fabricate against us. But “We
Reap What We Sow”. On 9 June 2022, he got served!
“Power to the People”
By the United Front “T.R.U.C.E.” of the People’s Army
T.R.U.C.E. (Teams of Revolutionaries Uniting to Combat the Enemy)
MIM(Prisons) adds: On 30 June 2022 there was a phone/email
zap to Granville Correctional Institution to support the strikers
and to call for an end to the physical abuse by Sergeant Couper. Staff
responded by saying that Warden Roach was not in that day to take calls
and that there was no physical abuse going on there. Emails to the
Warden and Director of Operations were not responded to.
Your last three mailings were denied by the mail room. The Last one,
received on 5/25/22 stated “Denied: one letter. Content inciting a
disturbance. DRC – non appealable list (offender cannot appeal).” The
next two denials arrived on the same day (6/6/22): “One newsletter and
one packet. Contains content inciting a disturbance.” I did appeal these
last two decisions.
Apparently, when a prisoner attempts to assert his rights, the mail
room calls it “inciting a disturbance!?” These are the same racist dogs
who can get away with denying me a photograph of my ten-year old nephew
who was innocently posing while making some silly hand signs, calling
that “gang related.” The kids are being kids and their hand signs have
absolutely nothing to do with gangs! Had it been white kids posing in
similar fashion, instead of calling it “gang-related,” these racist mail
room employees would’ve called the photograph “cute.”
These are the same racist muthafuckers who loved it – and applauded –
when that comic figure (D. Trump) was separating all the kids from their
parents at the border, you know, that as long as it is not their kids
who are being treated so inhumanely, they obviously do not care about
our kids, right!? And what’s so fucked up is that when the white ‘lady’
who delivers the denial papers arrives to our cell, she pretends like
she’s really upset that I would even want to receive these MIM
publications. She practically turns her back on me as if I were being so
un-American, or something!
But I have news for her, and anyone else of her ilk. I don’t want
part of anysystem that snatches babies out of the
arms of their mothers, or a system that allows their police forces to
murder people of color with impunity, while these same fuckin’ cowards
refuse to enter a school where kids are being massacred! And while the
trigger-happy cowards are quick to murder unarmed civilians,
none of the recent sick and deranged school shooters (or other
mass murderers) have been killed by police! Why not? Because the
cowardly police officers were “too scared” and chickenshit to engage the
“active shooters.” Plain and simple. And each time these police officers
take the stand at someone’s trial, where they will lie and perjure
themselves (as they are wont to do), they will recite their “highly
trained” credentials, but where are all these “highly trained”
credentials when the little kids in a school are being massacred and
need help?
And their “exceptional training,” without fail, goes out the window
when these same police officers take the stand, not only do they
(conveniently) “forget” vital details during vital parts of their trial
testimony, they lie about who handled what piece of evidence, whether or
not they used gloves to handle the evidence un-dated and un-sworn
“supplemental reports” appear out of nowhere to “assist” these liars and
“refreshen their memories” etc. And as the famous attorney Gerry Spence
once remarked (an attorney who has practiced law for over 50 years), he
has never been involved in a case where police did not lie or
plant evidence, or engage in some other illegalities, in other words,
like me, he has never met an honest cop! And like me, he’s not saying
they’re not out there, I just haven’t ever met one.
MIM(Prisons) adds: Outside supporters, please join our
campaign to protest censorship in Allred RHU. This censorship has ramped
up in response to prisoner organizing. This is politically-motivated
repression and it is illegal. You can call,
write a letter, or better yet print out our postcards and get others
to sign them to let them know what’s going on in Texas prisons!
The North Carolina United Front for Peace in Prisons (NCUFPP) is
not a gang – it’s a variety of lumpen organizations united in peace in
prisons. No one is over or under anyone in the NCUFPP and we respect and
recognize everyone’s credentials/status.
Dear brothers and sisters,
Why do we oppress one another as we are being oppressed by the fox
tactics of the divider and conqueror?
They’ve programmed many of our fore-fathers to accommodate in the
destruction of our people (the oppressed nations). If we do not band
together we will never win. The lone wolf may become timid, but together
the pack has courage and we are strong.
Without the United Front the ocean will eventually swallow the land.
Give the Man an inch and he’ll take a mile. First our recreation; then
our picture-mail; batteries; and now tissues – what next? Everything
else like visitation, rations, haircuts, supplies, and property – they
take and give back when they feel like it.
When the “Man” (or should we say “children”) don’t get their way,
they’ll throw a temper tantrum and turn to violence and criminal
behavior. Well according to Huey P. Newton (and the U.$. constitution)
we have the right to defend ourselves, don’t we?
We must never encourage their violence among any prisoner because
it’ll encourage the man to continue their violent ways among other
prisoners (comrades) and citizens of society in the outside world in our
homes. If he’ll assault the other prisoner/prisoner group he’ll do it to
you too. The man shouldn’t be consulted to; spoken to; nor indirectly
lead to assume anything about another prisoner. And we all know that
woofing in front of the police is dry-snitching.
We’ve noticed that these children are spraying/gassing comrades for
knocking on the window for necessities such as tissues and then attack
them and placing them on sanctions (taking their property). While there
is no call buttons here for prisoners to use when they need necessities,
this shit is out of order. But don’t let it get you down. Take a break;
enjoy yourself; set back; and relax. Save your energy for Juneteenth.
The last day of our oppression. Listen for the Juneteenth memo on the
yard/seg!
With just a month remaining before the first series of actions around
the Juneteenth Freedom Initiative, we have received reports of
repression of activists by the Texas Department of Criminal
Justice(TDCJ).
One of the hearts of this campaign comes out of the brutal Allred
Restrictive Housing Unit(RHU) where people have spent decades in
isolation. We’ve recently learned that one organizer at Allred hasn’t
received half a dozen letters we’ve sent em over the last few months.
Eir outgoing mail is also delayed or gone missing. This mail tampering
is illegal. We wrote the
warden of Allred to stop this censorship.. If he doesn’t stop it, we
know this political repression is intentional from the top of the TDCJ
to suppress our boycotting of Juneteenth.
We are asking others to join our letter writing and postcard campaign
in support of the rights of MIM Distributors and these activists in
Allred to freely communicate. The pdf below can be downloaded, printed
on card stock and cut into four postcards. Then you can ask people to
sign them, put a postcard stamp ($0.40) on them, and drop them in a mail
box. Over the next couple months we want to show TDCJ that people
outside are paying attention and supporting the Juneteenth Freedom
Initiative. This is one way to do that. You can also call Warden Jimmy
Smith @ (940) 855-7477 (**069).
“Page(s) 4 contains information advocating prison disruption.”
Prisoners are very limited in what they can do when their grievances
are ignored. Most actions will lead to repression. A boycott is the most
passive action. There are no calls to violence nor do the plans threaten
security in any way. Just a peaceful demonstration of solidarity,
demanding some basic humyn rights be applied in Texas prisons. Yet this
is being outlawed by the state.
Even worse, in eir most recent update, one comrade in Stevenson
reported that:
“last night I was placed in handcuffs and marched off to solitary
confinement, the place from where I currently write. I woke this morning
to find I’m being charged with 2 new rules violations: 1) Attempt/threat
to assault a correctional officer and 2) Assault of a correctional
officer.”
There was no assault. In fact this comrade is not even supposed to be
housed on the second floor because of eir health conditions. Ey believes
this is retaliation for the appeals ey filed against the censorship of
literature sent by MIM Distributors. Meanwhile, MIM Distributors was not
given the opportunity to appeal, and only received the final decision
from TDCJ.
As our comrade in Stevenson Unit so eloquently concluded,
“They will never succeed in snuffing out my flame and their attempts
to silence the truth only causes it to roar even louder! They cloak
themselves in legitimacy and the trappings of power because deep down
they know they are weak and the system is crumbling – to be swept aside
along with all the silly liberal reformers and we build a better world
over their ruins, a new society based on equality and respect and
compassion and truth and justice and”love” – a human society fit for
fully involved and determined human beings at peace with themselves,
each other, and the world around us.”
A comrade in Stevenson Unit wrote to say that there are only 12
restrictive housing cells there and they are only used very short-term.
But ey is sharing the motion and other campaign materials with contacts
inside and outside to support those in RHU fighting for their humyn
rights.
Shutting down long-term solitary confinement is one of the key
campaign demands of the Juneteenth
Freedom Initiative, calling for a boycott of Juneteenth until real
freedom is attained in this country. The lawsuit points to the
irreparable harm on mental health caused by long-term solitary.
Anyone who is in a Restricted Housing Unit in Texas can use the
linked example motion to join this
lawsuit. The motion should be sent to all three addresses listed at
the end of the attached PDF. Please download and distribute to those you
know in Texas torture chambers!
28 May 2022 UPDATE from Tx TEAM ONE member - Telford
Unit: I have submitted my interest in becoming a co-plaintiff
to all inhumane conditions in all Ad-Seg/RHU buildings, especially on
this unit, and the inhumane/treatment and living conditions endured by
all alleged STG prisoners. Because for almost forty (40) years, those of
Us that are considered STG’s have been in these living conditions.
I have already written to the Eastern and Northern Districts, United
States District Courts. And I have also written to the United States
Department of Justice.
There’s been a shortage of staff on super-max. One reason being too
many prisoners are in S.I.B. (self injury behavior) watch and must be
monitored. Once observation and receiving cells are filled to capacity
then guards must (individually) sit outside the housing cells of any
other prisoner on S.I.B.
Phone Zap
From experience in what may have been S. White’s 1st successful
protest in 2019 Oct, outside support via phone zap was effective. All
morning this tied up the prison’s phone line until the prison took the
phone off the hook. The outside supporters then phone zapped Raleigh. So
Raleigh called the prison asking why the phones were off the hook.
There was 9 to 16 comrades in the prison on hunger strike and
multiple people on S.I.B. By lunch 5 comrades were called by Captain
Henderson to receiving and asked what they wanted. All of us already had
grievances being processed about other things. S. White also sent copies
of an anonymous missive to the administration with the policies that
were being breached.
Juneteenth
For the memorial celebration of the Juneteenth we are participating
in the traditional fast (meal refusal) for breakfast and lunch; and
10-20 S.I.B.s.
At North Carolina’s HCAU we want phone calls (iPad), TV news (iPad),
spider-free outside recreation cages built large enough for more than
one person, more food, real hygiene, heater fixed for winter, sally-port
swept and mopped at least once a month, lights off in the day time, and
case workers and fee recommendations for release from HCON on or after
the second 6 month term (infraction free). Feel free to add to the list
(every grievance will differ reflecting the demands of each
comrade).
We’ll like to have outside support phone zap at this institution.
Write MIM to stay updated. We do not expect any assistance from any
boot-licking reactionaries satisfied with the man and any conditions of
solitary confinement. Shall your days be numbered.
17 January 2022 – I am contacting you to update you on the BP-3.91
sexually explicit photos etc.
Here on the C.T. Terrell Unit (AKA Ramsey 3) several prisoners just
recently received photos in the mail – bikini shots. However, several
people have had theirs confiscated by correctional officers. Not many
people got rid of theirs. This new law really sucked to say the least.
Two lawsuits
have been filed by offenders here on this level I. I have read it
too.
Here’s the thing, TDCJ currently pays for hormone treatment
injections for gender dysphoric offenders. We still shower 50 or more
deep in the shower. Transgender prisoners are allowed their breasts,
tight pants, etc. However, we are told we can’t receive photos of our
own girlfriends wearing thongs. What kind of sense does this make?
Placing restrictions on prisoners’ mail, photos, newspapers,
magazines, is a significant interference with prisoners’ rights. This is
a blunt response to a problem that is much more nuanced than K2,
cellphones, etc. Common sense should dictate that the TDCJ should focus
on the bigger problem that they are creating introduction of contraband
through the front door.
MIM(Prisons) responds: We agree that BP-3.91 is a
blunt tool, and like mail policies across the country, it is being used
arbitrarily and to censor political materials and much-needed social
interaction with friends and family on the outside. Our line is that we
are against porn being used as an opiate of the prison masses;
tactics-wise we’re against TDCJ (and bourgeois prisons in general)
exploiting the reformist demands of friends/families of prisoners to
further censorship and control what gets into the hands of
prisoners.
A point this prisoner brings up is the fact that transgender wimmin
are allowed to wear tight clothes and even shower with the men in the
men’s prisons, despite the reason for this new censorship rule being to
take away sources of arousal. The same argument has been made regarding
female staff and how they dress and by the comrade who posed some strategic
guidance for next steps in this campaign. The point is, that the
TDCJ’s stated goal is asinine and unachievable. As another
comrade points out, there seem to be some assumptions about only
female bodies being able to sexually arouse.
Maoists understand that eliminating rape in our society doesn’t start
with the individual: the material conditions that give rise to rape in
the first place must first be gotten rid of and then the chance for a
mass campaign against anti-people sex crimes will be possible. While
individuals will certainly reform under patriarchy, the problem will
continue until patriarchy is overthrown.
The TDCJ and the state of Texas claims that this law is promoted to
give an environment for sex offenders to rehabilitate, yet they fully
know that the rape culture of Amerikan prisons won’t disappear. We see
that in this case the role of the TDCJ and the state of Texas is to
govern the said material conditions for rape with security for the
bourgeois dictatorship as priority; and that there will be no
rehabilitation of anti-people sex offenders but more risk and danger for
the already vulnerable group of transgender prisoners and LGBTQ+
prisoner in general. For this contradiction among the masses, we tell
our prisoner comrades to build unity and solidarity with LGBTQ+
prisoners and promote independent power against the bourgeois state’s
arbitrary use of reformist demands from the outside as a tool of
censorship.