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.
A handful of comrades in different cities on the outside have pledged
to fast, study and do prisoner support work on 9 September 2025 in honor
of the Attica uprising, and in solidarity with comrades organizing
inside on this same day. This is the annual Day of Peace &
Solidarity initiated by the United Front for Peace in Prisons over a
decade ago. As we go to print, Palestinians just recognized Palestinian
Prisoners’ Day on April 17. September 9th is like our Prisoners of
Amerikkka Day. And this year we aim to carry the torch outside and hope
to inspire others to participate.
The act of fasting forces us to slow down, be more reflective and
think of others across the country doing the same thing, for the same
cause. A larger group of outside comrades will also be coming together
the day before to continue ongoing discussions about the Maoist-led
united front here on Occupied Turtle Island. We will discuss how to best
build this movement to be resilient in the long-term task of ending
imperialism. We may also organize events on September 9th.
Comrades inside prison should also hold local discussions about
Attica, about the anti-imperialist prison movement, and about the United
Front for Peace in Prisons. Comrades can join us by abstaining from
food, drugs, television, video games and other pleasure-driven
activities that day, and engaging in study, discussion, outreach and
reflection instead. Get our September 9th study pack, start planning
now. We’ll print an updated list of plans in the next ULK.
Oakland, CA – Organizations came together on March 29
for a caravan from East Oakland to City Hall promoting the Artivists
Ending Hostilities (AEH) street program. Initiators included a number of
former prisoners who participated in the 2011 and 2013 hunger strikes in
California, as well as the organization of currently incarcerated people
P.E.P. Talk - Pre-Entry Platform. Former prisoners of CDCr spoke at the
rally on the need to bring the message of peace from the original AEH
(Agreement to End Hostilities) to the streets. Organizers distributed
and read the text of original AEH and a recent message from Cellblock 2
Cityblock.
Kat Brooks of the Anti Police Terror Project was one of the speakers
who really got to the heart of things:
“The state creates the conditions in our communities that they know
creates violence.”
Ey went on to condemn Amerikan koncentration kamps as a form of
violence, saying the carceral state is the most violent institution in
the world. Another comrade read from/paraphrased the intro of the Communist
Party of Aztlán’s essay on homelessness, making the connection that
homelessness is also a form of violence that we must come together to
end.
Of course, it is up to the oppressed to change our conditions. Youth
from Lulu’s House participated in the event, speaking on their own
recent transformations from petty criminals to active community members.
One said:
“We gotta push the movement too, it starts with us.”
While another pointed out:
“If you’re scared of the youth you’ll never understand them.”
One of the adults present who wasn’t scared to help these youth
change was a BART cop (Bay Area Rapid Transit). This “officer friendly”
approach is a well-known counter-insurgency strategy of the occupying
forces. They hire cops to do community work, who aren’t involved in the
violent repression work, but do intelligence gathering for the state
while helping to divide the occupied community.
Independence is one of the principles of the United
Front for Peace in Prisons for this very reason. There is no progress
towards liberation in the united front if it is working with the very
imperialist state that is oppressing us.
Minister King X echoed this principle of independence when speaking
about learning from the elders released from prison while the U.$.
government is smashing the Department of Education. We must learn from
the struggles of oppressed people.
Minister King
X was one of the MC’s and organizers of the event, representing the
Artivist Kadre trying to engage the youth and the oppressed in the
movement through artistic expression. Ras Kass was also there
representing the Artivist Kadre from Los Angeles. They were sporting
patches promoting the New Afrikan Revolutionary Nationalist (N.A.R.N.)
ideology and the AEH. The Artivist Kadre are working with P.E.P. Talk,
BOSS (another release support program) and others to address racism,
fascism, sex trafficking and more in California.
Last summer, around June, I ordered several copies of the North
Carolina Grievance petition from MIM, then had copies made and sent out.
Then I announced to the block how to use the petition forms as a
solution to our grievances not being answered. The forms were then
distributed in the block, door-to-door in our segregated dorm. Sadly
some papers were heard being ripped up as soon as they entered the cell.
I challenged the chicken-shits to reveal themselves, to no avail. The
remaining forms were distributed in other blocks. It wasn’t long before
I realized hardly anyone would use the forms.
A couple weeks later my neighbor mentions the petition during a
conversation with someone else and was telling the guy, “the police gave
it to him, he saving it to the day he need to file a grievance so he
could attach it to the grievance.” Translation: he has no idea how to
use the petition.
Other than some people being lazy and others who just don’t care,
this is what I learned:
I can’t assume we are all convicts
Gather participants first and speak to each of them to confirm their
ambitions
Write directions on top of the form, where to send it, such as “send
to address on last page or which ever office/dept you’re trying to
target”
Sometimes an orchestrator may need to influence members to
participate
At the end of every year, MIM(Prisons) does an assessment of our work
and finances and we plan for the new year. We also solicit reports,
criticisms and self-criticisms from USW comrades. We were a little late
on that this year, so perhaps we will have more for next issue of
ULK.
While most are finding it hard to predict what the next Trump regime
will bring, it is clear from this choice that imperialism is in crisis.
The uncertainty and threat of instability from things like tariffs,
deportations and defunding important social programs do not bode well
for the future of U.$. imperialism or stability of the current world
order of U.$. domination. There are clear cracks in the latter, despite
2024 being a series of short-term victories for the U.$. empire in the
Levant.
The coming upheaval of the current system requires preparation and
organization. Since the dissolution of the original MIM in 2008, we
cannot say that the MIM has seen significant growth. The prison ministry
did accomplish a lot in the decade from 2008 to 2018, reaching new
heights in MIM’s prisoner support work. In U.$. prisons we saw
significant growth and some amazing actions of mass solidarity. As
long-time readers know, MIM(Prisons) took some major setbacks in 2020
and we’ve been regrouping since. In that period we’ve successfully
expanded our online recruitment. We’ve also seen a significant growth in
MIM line in online communities that MIM(Prisons) has never or no longer
participates in (meaning promotion of MIM’s 3 cardinal principles). This
has come along with a general growth in “Maoist” groups popping up,
evolving and dissolving, though most of these groups do not uphold the 3
cardinals. All of this indicates change in favor of the growth of our
forces here on occupied Turtle Island.
Assessing 2024
In the last few years we have revamped and relaunched all of our
educational programs for prisoners, which were all non-operational by
2020. We’ve also begun running them online. In 2024, we saw another
significant expansion of our educational engagement with prisoners with
the relaunching of our study group for USW leaders through the
University of Maoist Thought (UMT). Meanwhile, every year, comrades
inside and outside continue to complete our intro study courses. These
education programs are the first step to building the leaders we need to
grow our movement.
Beyond just education, 2024 marked the beginning of the intentional
building of the MIM-led united front. By MIM-led we mean ideologically,
not a centralized organization. While still in its early stages, these
discussions have been fruitful, involving people in cadre orgs and mass
orgs that are doing real work in the anti-imperialist movement outside
of prisons.
To be prepared for the changes to come, we must continue on these
fronts. We must educate more allies into leaders, through both study
groups and pushing them to engage in practical work. And we must
continue to develop our networks and infrastructure to support real
fighting forces in the future.
In 2024, our readership in prisons has continued its steady decline
dating back to 2016 now. We didn’t receive a lot of feedback last year
on the possible causes of this, but some factors include: drugs,
tablets, digital mail, more long-term isolation, and a general decline
in the prison movement.
We had less prisoners write us in 2024 than any other year in our
existence. This translated to another decrease in donations. A few years
ago we accomplished our longstanding goal of having prisoners fund 10%
of ULK costs. This seemed to be a result of Covid money. Since
then donations have returned to the more normal rate, but with less
people writing us that’s an overall decrease in donations. The percent
of ULK costs covered by prisoner donations dropped to about
4.2% in 2024, down from 11.5% in 2022.
On the other hand, this summer we distributed far more copies of
ULK on the streets than ever before as part of our effort to
link the prison movement to the student movement for Palestine. We got
close to our goal of matching distribution inside prisons. And our
donations from outside supporters (outside of MIM(Prisons)) reached an
all time high as well to help pay for those papers.
Overall, our budget was very stable between 2023 and 2024, and much
of the small increase was due to us expanding our operations in other
locations.
Other than continuing our regular publication of ULK each
season, we also put the finishing touches on our paper “Why the
International Communist Movement (ICM) Must Break with the Legacy of the
Revolutionary Internationalist Movement (RIM)”. This paper is an
important summary of the MIM struggle against the Revolutionary
Communist Party(U$A) in the realm of the ICM, pointing out key
differences between us and the various revisionists claiming Maoism to
this day.
New for 2025
We have a number of things planned for this year already.
As whitehouse.gov removes all Spanish-language content, we are
excited to announce the relaunch of our Spanish page (or section) that
will start in ULK 89. We already have a Spanish version of our
current letter introducing United Struggle from Within and MIM(Prisons),
and will have a Spanish version of the intro study course level 1 soon.
So if you know people who are interested in studying with us in Spanish
have them write in for that. We are also looking for incarcerated
translators to help contribute to this important project.
We are already making progress in 2025 towards our unachieved goal of
establishing local AIPS chapters with local outreach, regular meetings,
educational events, and campaign support for comrades inside. This
should continue to expand our ability to correspond with prisoners and
attempt to rebuild interest in U.$. prisons around our work.
We will be pushing the September 9th Day of Peace and Solidarity, on
the anniversary of Attica, on the streets in the forms of fasting,
political work and study, and possibly larger events as we have promoted
inside prisons for a decade now. We have not seen much activity around
this inside prisons in recent years, so we hope this will inspire that
again and that we can reinforce each others’ efforts around 9/9.
The relaunch of our study group for USW leaders has been very
successful overall. Specifically, it has brought together some of our
most enthusiastic and advanced thinkers within the New Afrikan
Independence Movement, creating momentum around more proactive work in
that realm. We will be continuing this study and looking to produce work
from it for the broader movement.
Join Us
Imperialism will keep providing opportunities for resistance as its
internal contradictions only continue to heighten. It has been some time
since we’ve seen real opportunities within the United $tates, and it
remains one of the most stable places in the world. Yet, now is the time
to build. Opportunities are close enough that people are getting
interested in real change, but we must build before real crisis ensues
and the existing dominant forces sweep away our efforts because we were
not prepared.
Since 2020 we’ve seen a persistent slow and steady growth. We need
your help to sustain that growth into the future.
In all ways but name Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP) is a
prison where we’re all serving indeterminate (de facto life)
sentences as preventative detention for future crimes we will never
commit. After we completed our DOC prison sentences, they transferred us
to this “secure treatment facility” run by DHS instead of DOC. About the
only difference from DOC is that, despite calling us “clients,” we are
actually patients and thus have some additional legal protections under
the Minnesota Patient Bill of Rights (§ 144.651). The biggest is our
right to organize and run a “Resident Advisory Family Council” (RAFC)
that allows our elected patient council to participate in weekly video
meetings with outside support. Our outside support has grown from family
members to also include attorneys, therapists, ministers and even a
retired legislator. Once a month we meet for an hour with the facility
director, clinical director and Ombudsman to present our proposals for
policy changes.
Some policy changes we’ve helped bring about include the ability for
patients to call toll-free numbers, allowing patients to seek
post-secondary educational opportunities, promoting voter registration
and the in-person voting process recently signed into law.
This year our RAFC also sponsored a very successful “freedom” themed
4th of July Writing Contest that resulted in 45 patients submitting 111
poems, stories and essays.
Realizing that incorrect data in our records was being used against
us when applying for transfers to less restrictive alternatives, the
RAFC wrote an educational how-to brochure entitled “How To Do a Data
Challenge” that we distributed to fellow patients. MSOP retaliated by
giving me a disciplinary violation notice for handing this brochure to
another patient before group instead of mailing it to him.
But the brochures worked and the Executive Director was overwhelmed
with data challenges and started extending the deadline to respond. I
finally filed a request for an advisory opinion from the commissioner of
administration on this issue, and a 15 July 2024 advisory opinion
#24-001 was issued (https://mn.gov/admin/data-practices). This four page
report cites the executive director’s violation of the 30-day statutory
deadline in responding to data challenges and noted that she didn’t have
the authority to change the law.
On 10 September 2024 my first data challenge appeal went to a formal
contested case hearing in front of an administrative law judge. During
the four hour hearing, a fellow patient and two therapists were called
as witnesses and MSOP was represented by the Attorney General’s office.
Thankfully my 87-year-old father is still a licensed attorney, so he
stepped in and hit a home run. We won the data challenge appeal and on 3
January 2025 my (now former) therapist received the judge’s court order
to add a single sentence to my quarterly report. That’s coincidentally
the same day the facility decided I should be moved to another treatment
team on another living unit… exactly what I had been requesting for the
last year!
So it’s a great start to a new year, with lots more victories in
store. Remember, the secret is don’t ever, ever give up!
by a North Carolina prisoner January 2025 permalink
Revolutionary Greetings,
Things here are intense!! There’s a struggle among the prisoners
beginning to form. With us being in solitary confinement it’s nearly
impossible for us to physically correct the enemy so it’s been decided
that guerrilla warfare tactics will be used (sour milk/feces are being
thrown on them). Two have been “gassed” within the past week. This may
sound like nothing, however komrade you must overstand prior to me
arriving here the overall group of prisoners on RHCP here were docile.
As soon as I got situated here a couple prisoners sent kites my way
expressing how we need to put down a demonstration to get things changed
back here. It’s been a slow process, I was recently able to get our list
of demands to someone out of all 8 blocks back here. We’re waiting to
see if everyone is in unity with the demands:
Have maintenance fix the hot water – we’ve had no hot water in
the shower or in our cells for over a month now
Have maintenance fix the heat – they have the AC blasting in the
middle of winter. Komrade it’s so cold that we have to wear three to
four layers of clothes when out from under the blankets
Give us inside rec – they are using the excuse that it’s too cold
to go outside, or they will offer us rec but it’s way too cold to be
outside. There are inside rec cages but the unit manager refuses to
allow us to use them even though I showed him the policy that supports
our grievance.
Provide us with adequate food – due to their laziness we are
given small styrofoam trays instead of the regular seg trays, so they
won’t have to come back and pick the trays up. The styrofoam trays only
have three slots for food to go in. Pursuant to policy we’re supposed to
get a certain amount of food. We’re only getting half of the required
calories.
Provide adequate mental and physical healthcare – this is by far
the worst medical staff I’ve seen. Sick calls go unanswered, self meds
are frequently lost or are given to the wrong prisoners. There are guys
back here that obviously need some mental healthcare, but yet they are
left to battle their disorders alone.
Allow the gay and transgender to be housed together on the same
tier and given their own shower – I’m catching flak behind this demand.
The hierarchical structure of the lumpen orgs preclude any form of
socialization or respect with or towards these groups of prisoners. The
L.O.’s forbid their homies from aiding any such person. But like I’ve
been telling them how can we say we’re fighting oppression when we’re
oppressing!
Some of the problems I have run into organizing are being targeted by
administration for conducting a study group. Some times there’s too many
people interested for the space available, then when you’ve got 15-20
people huddled up and no violence is occurring, it scared the C.O.’s
They are not used to that type of unity and they don’t encourage
anything that has to do with building a collective consciousness. I try
to do study groups in smaller circles and more discreetly because some
dudes are eyes and ears for the oppressor. Repression is not a good
thing at all and I must say that before I continue. However, when they
do crack down, that’s when I pay close attention because certain
responses help me inventory the caliber of men I’m studying with. The
ones who know and understand the full magnitude of what the consequences
can be for orchestrating a study group but are still willing to carry on
are my type of comrades. In other words, the targeting helps me see
who’s who.
As far as the question of being surrounded by enemies, we can list
the various forces inside prisons similar to classes/nations outside
because there are different types of people and not everybody is on the
same page. For example, if in the prison I am housed at I did a united
front for Palestine solidarity, certain people would not even consider
it because that’s not the level of struggle they are interested in. But
if I did one for, let’s say, advocating for more quality programming
inside the institution, you will see a different crowd. Even in this
crowd, you will have some who fully identify with capitalist principles
(even fascism) and their oppressor.
Different initiatives will attract different people. I feel like it’s
important to dichotomize because not everybody is qualified for
revolutionary work. You’ve got some people who are so broken and
battered they will utilize this as an opportunity to gain favor with the
oppressor. United fronts can be formed that resolve around us
understanding our personal experiences within the criminal injustice
system and putting it in a larger context of abolishing the prison
system and all other oppressive, capitalist-imperial systems. By us
connecting this link to the outside world, we will see how these systems
overlap and the need for a united front for all the oppressed. The fight
continues.
MIM(Prisons) responds: Last issue we asked for feedback
on what it was like to build support for Palestine in prisons. As this
comrade indicates, it can be a hard sell. Focusing on quality
programming can be a better place to start, but it is not inherently
going to build the movement. More programming can lead to more state
control over what prisoners are doing with their time, more
brainwashing. So such a campaign would need to have a component where
you were also building programs, or just space for discussion, that
serves the movement for it to be a progressive campaign. That is, a
campaign that serves the international proletariat rather than something
that just helps a small group of people get jobs when they’re released
or whatever. Campaigning for Palestine is much more inherently
internationalist in its content, and it does not present these
challenges – it presents the challenge of being harder to mobilize
people around instead as comrades in Texas and Florida have also
reported.
I have been a member of USW since 2017. Since then I have contributed
zealously, especially the move away from publishing the revisionist
ideal of prisoners complaining about prison conditions and their
grievances, which served no purpose to the movement other than to teach
comrades revisionist methods of resolution to make prisons ideally more
comfortable and less punitive.
As I attempt a corrective analysis, I ask is writing grievances and
filing lawsuits against prison adminsistrators a revisionist ideal or
revolutionary? and if it is revolutionary, how?
I know no revolution that was won through writing grievances or use
of the courts! Read Dr. Burton’s book Tip
of the Spear and see how that ideal worked for the comrades in
the Attica Liberation Faction (ie. BPP, BLA, W.U. and all). It gets
minimum results that require the exhaustion of much energy, study of law
and money. Tip of the Spear calls for deep analysis of
revolution and how it looks when applied in multiple states and
facilities.
Wiawimawo of MIM(Prisons) responds: I don’t know of any
USW leaders that don’t write grievances or file lawsuits. Grievances are
tactics. So we agree that no revolution has been won by grievances, just
as none is won by maintaining a website. But that doesn’t mean we
shouldn’t do these things.
“They go crazy becuz, Mu, they really believe in the System, and this
System always betray those that believe in it! That’s what drive them
out they minds, they cain’t handle that.”
As i said, we look at these things as tactics, as opposed to
strategy. Though strategically we do believe we are in a stage of legal
struggle in this country, we mean that in the broad sense. Legal
struggle in the courts is just one form of legal struggle, and not one
that we focus on.
So why engage in grievance battles and the grievance campaigns USW
has going in various states?
To win battles that are more strategic, especially around First
Amendment rights to communicate, affiliate and just read. Fighting
censorship has always been a struggle we have put effort into because it
is a direct threat to our organizing efforts. It’s not just about making
conditions more comfortable. The most recently added grievance
petition was in Indiana, where it has already been used to help get
6-month-old mail delivered. When we distribute the petitions to
prisoners we include a cover letter where we state:
“MIM(Prisons) sees these petitions as a good use of our resources
because our ability to fairly have our grievances handled is directly
related to preventing arbitrary repression for people who stand up for
their rights or attempt to do something positive. We support this
petition in light of our anti-censorship work and anti-repression work
in general.”
An outside supporter recently expressed concerns echoing Orko’s:
“but if what it ends up being is just MIM(Prisons) helping prisoners
get their immediate personal grievances addressed, i don’t see how that
differs from the work being done by hundreds of other
reformist/bourgeois prison advocacy groups, other than that you also
offer them Maoist resources”
It is true that people use the grievance petitions for various
issues. And an individual using the petition to get some persynal issue
addressed is not contributing to the prison struggle, nor to the
anti-imperialist struggle. It is up to the comrades on the ground to use
the petitions to build an organizing base. In either case, it is a tiny
amount of time and resources that we are putting into getting petitions
into peoples’ hands. When we put in the effort to assemble articles and
conduct support campaigns, it will be around issues like censorship,
solitary confinement and political repression.
To mobilize the masses of prisoners. The grievance campaigns have
been utilized by many to mobilize those around them for a common cause.
Mobilizing the masses to organize against state oppression is a central
task to any revolutionary movement. However, both of the critics above
pointed out that just filing grievances and petitions is only teaching
people to beg the oppressor for resolutions. It is up to USW organizers
to ensure that multiple tactics are employed in any campaign, including
tactics that contribute to building independent struggle. As we always
say, there are no rights only power struggles.
A longer debate between USW leaders over how to do this has already
appeared in a series of articles in ULK.(1) As the comrade
concluded in that first article, when the masses see the smallest
victory as a miracle and are easily pacified by it, leaders are easily
isolated by the state, so security precautions are of utmost importance
for any sustained effort. The other USW leader in that article argues
that without a strong cadre organization to frame such struggles, they
will only set the revolutionary struggle back.
There have been many cases where USW comrades report that with a lot
of struggle they barely get people to sign a petition or grievance if
the leader does all the work to write them up and make copies. In such
cases, where the masses must have their hands held to express the
slightest bit of discontent, we must conclude that we are not succeeding
in mobilizing the masses to take their destinies in their own hands.
To appeal to the masses where they are at. In 2022, our Texas
campaign pack was one of the top referrals for new subscribers after
word of mouth and ULK. The grievance petitions are also a tool
for recruiting new comrades from the masses. Some will never be
interested in anything beyond getting their local grievances heard,
others will see the futility in relying on the system and join USW.
[We are currently out of copies of Jailhouse Lawyers by
Mumia but would happily distribute more to prisoners across the country
if anyone wants do donate copies to our Free Political Books to
Prisoners Program.]
This past summer, we gathered commentary from our readers on the
student uprising against the genocide in Gaza, which is now expanding
across the region. These articles were used in a
pamphlet that many USW comrades received, and were all printed in Under Lock & Key
86.
Comrades on the streets distributed the pamphlet and ULK 86
to students (and non-students) in a number of regions across the
country. We attended rallies and speaking events, visited the remnants
of encampments and shared publications at conferences.
In general, the response was enthusiastic to the articles written by
prisoners, especially regarding solidarity with Palestine.
Anti-Imperialist Prisoner Support (AIPS) maintained a presence at
Socialism Conference 2024 which took place in Chicago during the end of
August. Over 100 copies of ULK were handed out at the
conference, while also agitating against prisoner repression.
At a New York hacker conference, audience members eagerly grabbed
copies of the Palestine pamphlet at a talk on prison surveillance. The
speaker exposed most of the issues we discuss in our Prison
Banned Books Week articles. Ey also exposed how Securus has a patent
to use the phone numbers of prisoner contacts to track their spending
data. And Securus already provides location data to Correctional
Officers by phone number! We hope comrades can understand why we’re
sticking to snail mail. This also happened to be the only talk at the
conference where the speaker shouted “Free Palestine!”
At a southern California Palestine solidarity event comrades were
able to give out ULK 86 to a large group of students and
noticed that others would grab a copy on their way out. Reactions were
mostly positive with one criticism being that it may have been too tough
on the students. This was presumably referring to the critique
written by an outside comrade involved in the student movement.
Comrades have communicated with a number of student groups to solicit
responses or statements for this issue of Under Lock & Key.
While at least one group expressed interest, we did not get any reports
from students on the ongoing legal struggles and political repression
they are facing for this issue. It is clear more work is needed to
strengthen a connection between the prison movement and the student
movement. But progress is being made.
Decades ago, Under Lock & Key was a section in the newspaper
MIM Notes put out by the original Maoist Internationalist
Movement and its party in the United $tates. For a time, MIM distributed
newspapers on the streets at 20-30 times the amount they sent to
prisoners, and their paper came out every 2 weeks. Since MIM(Prisons)
launched Under Lock & Key in 2007, it has always been a
primarily prisoner newsletter. Though in the past we’ve estimated our
online readership to be bigger. A couple years ago we set the goal of
distributing as many newspapers on the streets as we do in prisons.
While not quite there, ULK 86 was by far the closest we’ve
gotten to reaching that goal.
If you want to help expand ULK distribution on the street,
send us $55 in cash or postage stamps with a return address and we’ll
send you 100 copies of the next ULK we print. ULK
currently comes out at the beginning of November, February, May, and
August.
Sergeants here are not doing rounds and when they do they’re
not signing grievances, so my grievances don’t get signed and
they expire. We have to hold the shower or yard down just to get someone
down to sign something. Even that doesn’t always work.
The Lieutenants and Captains feel they’re too high in rank to sign
grievances, and they don’t make their Sergeants do anything. My question
to you is what do I do? I’ve wrote it up and all they do is deny my
allegation and find it without merit. I have a paper trail on the same
issue though.
Also, our due process is being violated at Disciplinary Court. 1) The
Serving Officer is refusing our court appearances because she doesn’t
like us or is trying to get done early; 2) The Disciplinary Hearing
Officers are not even trying to see if the prisoner is not guilty. You
can’t use the camera as a witness but they can to find you guilty.
They’re putting “staff eyewitness is accepted” but policy states they
cannot just put that, they have to list all “evidence relied upon.”
Finally, policy states you have to sign a waiver if you refuse court,
but they’re getting away without that.
We can’t get a notary here, no problem solver, so most guys end up
“bucking” and ultimately they lose. I know Arkansas is a little better
than other prisons, but it’s not all green down here. We’re one of the
few states that still do “hoe squad” for free, prisoners don’t
get paid to work in Arkansas. I’m here to fight and spread the word!
MIM(Prisons) responds: It sounds like the people held
at Tucker Max Unit have tried a number of different tactics to get
grievances heard and have begun to assess which ones work when and how
they might be improved. In that sense, you are in a better situation to
answer your question of “what do I do?” than we are.
We can offer some advice for how to approach this problem. All of the
tactics you mention above should be on the table. Tactics are things
that we must choose day-to-day based on specific situations, and there
will not always be a “right” answer. Strategy however, is our overall
approach, and this can decide whether we succeed or fail. Strategically,
we must rely on the masses to win. In other words, your real strength
comes from collective struggle, whether that’s holding down the yard or
filing 100s of simultaneous grievance petitions to state officials.
As this comrade recognized in their letter to us, there are often no
quick solutions. The grievance petitions that prisoners have developed
and that we distribute cannot solve the problem of oppression in
prisons. They can be a tool in getting state officials to support your
ongoing collective struggle.
As we recently reiterated, freedom
from oppression can’t be won through the courts. The law is a tool
of the oppressor. Keeping paper trails is part of the struggle to hold
them to their word, which can sometimes be done, and should be done to
advance the struggle of the oppressed.
Please continue to send us updates on the struggle there. We will
print them on our website and maybe in ULK. This is one more
tactic to expose what is going on and to share lessons with others
struggling in similar situations.