Police, prison and abolition

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:55 pm

PSA:

Image

(Edit)

Image
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 04, 2018 5:01 pm

Inmates allege ‘hate crimes’ by staff at SCI Phoenix, Pennsylvania’s newest prison
by Samantha Melamed, Updated: 1 hour ago

Image

In July, 2,637 inmates and 175 truckloads of property were moved from the nearly century-old Graterford prison to the most modern and expensive facility the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections has to offer: the $400 million State Correctional Institution Phoenix in Montgomery County.

According to the DOC, it went smoothly. "The number one thing the inmates are saying when they walk into Phoenix on an 87-degree day was, 'Wow, air-conditioning,'" spokesperson Amy Worden noted in one email.

Since then, though, inmates have said a lot more. In letters and phone calls to family and reporters, and in official grievances, they've reported a raft of complaints about the conditions in the new prison and, especially, about the loss, vandalism, or destruction of their personal property during the move. Several described racial slurs and graphic imagery drawn on photographs of their loved ones — acts the inmates describe as "hate crimes."

One man, Malik Gilmore, provided copies of photographs he said were defaced by the DOC's specially trained Corrections Emergency Response Team, which managed the move: one with a swastika inked on his brother's forehead, another with a penis drawn over his son's mouth. Another, Eugene Myrick, found "squeeze cheese" poured into a box containing the legal documents for his case, which is still active in the Philadelphia courts. And Carmen Calvanese said that during the move he had inconsistent access to the insulin needed to regulate his type-one diabetes, and that he ended up in a hospital intensive-care unit as a result.


More than two dozen men described in letters shared with The Inquirer and Daily News a range of incidents including spice packets, canned sardines, pickles and peanut butter emptied into their clothing; paint dumped on their personal effects; and religious objects, legal documents and personal photographs missing or shredded.

"We were dehumanized. Our property was … treated as trash," inmate Steven Reph wrote. "One elderly gentleman had his dentures taken or misplaced. How is this man supposed to eat now?"

Now, many inmates say they are being reimbursed with taxpayer dollars, though how much they'll get is unclear. One man reported getting $40 for three towels, sweatpants and a jar of mayonnaise; others said they'd rejected offers so they could pursue legal action against the department.

http://www2.philly.com/philly/news/penn ... 3Dsharebar
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Wed Sep 05, 2018 1:53 pm

End slave labor in prison: The prisoner strike should open our eyes to an abhorrent practice
By ERROL LOUIS
SEP 04, 2018 | 5:00 AM

End slave labor in prison: The prisoner strike should open our eyes to an abhorrent practice


Image
An inmate firefighter pauses during a firing operation as the Carr fire continues to burn in Redding, California on July 27, 2018. (Josh Edelson / AFP/Getty Images)

This week marks the scheduled end of a nationwide prisoner strike that spotlights America’s senselessly brutal treatment of men and women behind bars.

New Yorkers should take special note of the issues raised by the strike: The end date, Sept. 9, is the anniversary of the 1971 riots at Attica prison in upstate New York that left 43 dead.

Last month, seven inmates were killed and 22 injured during riots at the Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina. Photos and credible reports from inside the facility document problems that include putrid, inedible food — served only twice a day on weekends — and no rehabilitative programs.

Prisoners in 17 states announced a nationwide strike; at least one prison in Canada has joined in solidarity. Some inmates are on hunger strikes, others are refusing to report to work assignments, and some are boycotting the in-prison commissary stores that sell food and toiletries to inmates.

A good source for updates on the strike is www.sawarimi.org, run by a spokesman for a group called Jailhouse Lawyers Speak. The Marshall Project is also running regular updates.

A leading demand of the strikers is for “an immediate end to prison slavery.” Recent news reports of prison inmates fighting forest fires in the west for a dollar a day serve as a reminder of the widespread practice of paying what are literally slave wages to prisoners.

According to the Prison Policy Initiative, people in prison get paid between 14 cents and $1.14 an hour, and in many states get nothing at all.

“The average of the minimum daily wages paid to incarcerated workers for non-industry prison jobs is now 86 cents, down from 93 cents reported in 2001,” PPI reported in 2017. “At least seven states appear to have lowered their maximum wages, and South Carolina no longer pays wages for most regular prison jobs — assignments that paid up to $4.80 per day in 2001. With a few rare exceptions, regular prison jobs are still unpaid in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and Texas.”

This is, literally, slave labor: The 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”

For decades, prison labor was used for state products, like license plates. But that changed after 2011, when an odious law, called the Prison Industries Act, put the federal government in the business of selling the labor of 17,000 inmates to brand-name corporations.

It’s all out in the open: Businesses can go to unicor.gov and see what they can buy, dirt-cheap, from America’s pool of slave labor.

All of this needs to change. Rehabilitative programs, including job-training programs and opportunities to earn free a college degree, are desperately needed in prisons. Crushing punitive sentences — which often amount to death sentences — need to be dialed back.

And realistic opportunities for parole should recognize what every trained criminologist knows: After age 50, even the most violent offenders have usually “aged out” of being a threat to public safety — meaning the main goal of sending them away has been accomplished.

The nonviolent prison strike hasn’t received half the media attention it would if inmates rioted. But we should hope for their success all the same.

Most Americans would be horrified if they knew how often the goods they buy or the customer service calls they receive were the result of men and women being paid slave wages. As an act of moral decency — and to shore up wage rates in the free market — America’s slave-labor market needs to be shut down immediately.

Louis is political anchor of NY1 News.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-o ... story.html#

Daily News is proof of traction.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Wed Sep 05, 2018 7:28 pm

‘THERE’S AN ALL-OUT MANHUNT’: A STRIKE ORGANIZER SPEAKS FROM PRISON

Raven Rakia Sep 05, 2018

An imprisoned organizer with Jailhouse Lawyers Speak said prison officials are trying to identify those leading the strike.
Since the nationwide prison strike began on Aug. 21, prison officials have retaliated against those involved, monitoring correspondence and putting some prisoners accused of organizing in solitary confinement. It has been hard for those on the outside to get information about what’s going on.

The Appeal recently spoke with an incarcerated man in South Carolina who helped organize the strike. He said officials in his prison have made it clear they want to root out and punish those behind the action.

“Right now, we know there’s an all-out manhunt for Jailhouse Lawyers Speak leaders,” Eddie (not his real name), a member of Jailhouse Lawyers Speak (JLS), which organizes for prisoners’ rights, said in a call with The Appeal and other journalists. “They want to take our heads off. We’re not going to give them our heads. We’re not gonna let them destroy our movement. It’s not going to happen.”

The South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) said there was no strike in its prisons, and disputed the notion that it was looking for organizers. “We have not seen any evidence of the prison strike,” said Dexter Lee, interim communications director for the department.

In April, Jailhouse Lawyers Speak called for a national prison strike from Aug. 21 until Sept. 9, an action sparked by a riot at Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina that left seven prisoners dead and injured at least 22 others. “The seven didn’t just die, they bled out,” Eddie said, a fact confirmed by the Lee County coroner. “We want everyone to remember the horrific conditions that brought these deaths about.”

Since the beginning of the strike, the Industrial Workers of the World’s Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee has reported strike activity in at least 10 states. In Ohio, two prisoners have reported that they are on hunger strike. In Indiana, prisoners in a solitary confinement unit initiated a hunger strike to protest inadequate food. In North Carolina, prisoners hung banners from their recreation yard.

Like many prison housing units in South Carolina, Eddie has been on lockdown since the riot in April. Eddie said prisoners in most units at his prison have been locked in their cells for 24 hours a day, only coming out to shower twice a week, with no outside recreation or sunlight. “We have steel plates over the windows so there’s definitely [been] no sunlight coming into the rooms [since April],” he said.

Jailhouse Lawyers Speak members communicate to prisoners nationwide through publications, newsletters, and unauthorized cell phones, and with the help of their supporters. This was how prisoners learned about the national strike, and also how JLS knows which prisons have participated. To halt the strike, Eddie said, prison officials are trying to interrupt these communications. In South Carolina after the riot, prison officials began testing cell-phone blocking technology.

“I think that some of these prisons have been very effective with some of these measures they’ve been taking out as it relates to our communications,” Eddie said. “I’ve seen a drastic increase in confiscation of cell phones and stopping publication[s]. The way we usually communicate.”

Dexter Lee of the South Carolina Department of Corrections did not respond to a question by press time regarding the confiscation of cell phones. He said that 8 out of 21 facilities under SCDC’s control have “various housing units” on lockdown “for the safety of staff and inmates.” Regarding how many hours per day prisoners were kept in their cells, he said, “The exact amount time during a 24 hour period will vary depending on services such as mail, visitation, telephone calls, showers, medical care or other services.” He acknowledged that there were plates over the windows in some units “to combat contraband.”

The prison strike call-to-action outlined four activities prisoners could participate in—work stoppages, hunger strikes, boycotts, and sit-ins—to open the opportunity to all prisoners, not just the ones who work. Eddie said JLS members at his prison have been focusing on boycotting the commissary.

He said he hopes the strike will “raise awareness among the prisoners as to what the issues really are. What are the conditions that are shaping and fomenting the violence amongst us back here? And what are some of the issues we really need to be coming together on to address as a collective?”

Eddie places the blame for the state of America’s prisons on lawmakers at the state and federal level. “What’s happening inside these prisons, lawmakers created it. … They created these conditions,” he said. “If we keep on this same track, we’re going to have issues far worse than they’ve ever seen, far worse than Attica.” The strike is timed to end on Sept. 9, the same date as the Attica rebellion in 1971.

Jailhouse Lawyers Speak members have decided to remain anonymous in their interactions with the public to try to prevent the type of retaliation launched against leaders of the 2010 work strike across six prisons in Georgia, as well as the leaders of the Free Alabama Movement, a group that helped call for a 2016 national prison strike and organized several work stoppages within the Alabama prison system. Several guards beat alleged strike leader Terrance Dean unconscious after the Georgia strike. “The system is not a game to be played with,” Eddie said. “The one thing [JLS] always said was don’t put your face out there, don’t put your name out there under any circumstances because if we’re doing five or 10 years [in a] supermax, there’s nothing [the public] can do” to prevent reprisals.

The strikers’ demands, which Eddie described as “the immediate problems we have right now,” include better-funded rehabilitation services, reinstating Pell grants, an end to racist gang-enhancement laws, an end to prison slavery, restoring the voting rights of all confined citizens, and an end to the racial overcharging, over-sentencing, and parole denials of Black and brown people.

“For us, it’s just a matter of life and death actually, just to be blunt. That’s kind of where we’re at.”

https://theappeal.org/theres-an-all-out ... om-prison/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Wed Sep 05, 2018 7:36 pm

I have not looked at this entire thing but I think it worth looking at.

https://trueleappress.files.wordpress.c ... s-now1.pdf
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 07, 2018 1:12 pm

Image

Courtesy Socialist Party of Coastal SC @CoastalSCSPUSA
(Who are these people? Might be 150 miles away but I gotta see...)
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 07, 2018 1:20 pm

blindpig wrote:
Fri Sep 07, 2018 1:12 pm
Image

Courtesy Socialist Party of Coastal SC @CoastalSCSPUSA
(Who are these people? Might be 150 miles away but I gotta see...)
Oh, socialist Party USA...
We are a multi-tendency organization. We orient ourselves around our principles and develop a common program, but our members have various underlying philosophies and views of the world.
That ain't no Party, they have no ideology. Nevermind.

Didn't mention capitalism either. Why is that?
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 07, 2018 3:43 pm

The Democrats' Near-Total Silence on the National Prison Strike Speaks Volumes

Roqayah Chamseddine
8/29/18 9:29amFiled to: NATIONAL PRISON STRIKE

Image
Photo: Getty

Prison conditions in the United States—where inmates routinely face sexual violence, torturous isolation, and warehousing that leaves them vulnerable to things like extreme heat—have galvanized prisoners into using whatever means at their disposal to prevent the state from gaining access to their labor. That is why prisoners across America are now on strike in what may be the largest such action in U.S. history.

Yet you wouldn’t know this from the near-total silence that has greeted the strike from the highest levels of the Democratic Party. Even as the party’s looming presidential primary contenders attempt to position themselves as progressive standard-bearers, their unwillingness to back the strike underscores the limits of the party’s discourse around criminal justice reform.

The strike is an insurrectionary uprising at every level, down to its timing. It was launched to coincide with the 47th anniversary of the killing of Black Panther Party member George Jackson, and is set to end on September 9, the 47th anniversary of the Attica Rebellion.

The strike’s list of demands include: an immediate end to forced labor; the restoration of voting rights to inmates; an end to racist so-called “gang enhancement laws” which give prosecutors broad powers to label people as gang members and thus increase their sentences; more rehabilitation services in prisons; and the rescinding of the Prison Litigation and Reform Act, a Clinton-era law which has denied prisoners the ability to address grievances and rights violations by curbing the number of civil cases against prisons.

Jared Ware, who is currently assisting the prisoner’s rights advocates group Jailhouse Lawyers Speak, told Splinter that prisons have been conducting massive cell phone sweeps, and shaking down entire prisons looking for contraband in response to strike action. Yet, despite these attempts to choke off communication, Ware said that there are 17 states that will be attempting to participate at some point during the strike. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they meet that goal or exceed that,” he said.

There are multiple reports of strike activity around the country, and Ware said that actions are taking place in prisons in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

This should all be very exciting for anyone who considers themselves a progressive or a proponent of criminal justice reform. Yet thus far, not a single establishment Democrat, including the party’s most high-profile members, has even offered a performative acknowledgement of what is unfolding across the country.

Even the Democrats who now proclaim themselves as champions of reform have a great deal to answer for.
For instance, Senator Kamala Harris, the former attorney general of California who has attempted to market herself as a progressive firebrand—and who wrote an essay last year on the need to engage in rehabilitation efforts rather than expand mass incarceration—has made no mention of the strike on or offline. Neither have 2020 frontrunners like Elizabeth Warren, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, or Bernie Sanders. (Some up and coming Democrats, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have highlighted the strike.)

Though this state of affairs is depressing, it’s hardly stunning. Democrats have long been complicit in a bipartisan approach to criminal justice which has led to an expanding security apparatus, as well as little to no material gains for those more directly impacted by racist policing, discriminatory incarceration, and prison abuse. And even the ones who now proclaim themselves as champions of reform have a great deal to answer for.

Harris’ history, for example, is mired with calculated attacks on those targeted by police and discriminated against by the penal system. In 2014, while serving as Attorney General, Harris challenged a federal ruling against the death penalty; she also helped expand the prosecutorial reach of the state by offering a package of bills intended to whip up hysteria around truancy. In 2016, she was pressed by civil rights advocates, as well as members of California’s Legislative Black Caucus, to allow for independent investigations of deadly police shootings, something which she staunchly opposed. Especially pertinent to the strike was her office’s contention that California’s prisons would lose a vital source of labor if they let some people out early.

In New York, Andrew Cuomo, another possible 2020 contender who is seeking his third term as governor, rolled out what was dubbed a “nation-leading” series of proposals earlier this year that promised to “overhaul antiquated laws.” The sweeping changes included in the “reform package” promised to help those incarcerated transition into their communities. But the governor’s own record shows the limits of his reform talk.

For instance, Cuomo attempted to cut the number of visits, books, and packages prisoners could receive—a direct attack on the kinds of things that make life worth living. He has also issued just 12 commutations in eight years, according to The Appeal—a far worse record even than some of his Republican predecessors. According to campaign Free Them NY, the New York chapter of Survived and Punished’s commutation project, Cuomo issued just two commutations between 2017 and 2018 to date. There are currently more than 50,000 people imprisoned across the state of New York, clearly demonstrating that the clemency promises made—seemingly in order to temporarily appease prisoner rights advocates—have not been met, and as a result there are thousands still languishing behind prison walls.

Democrats have long cultivated ties to the prison industry as well. Today, opposition to detention facilities and private prisons have become a central theme for some Democrats—especially those who claim to be moved by the images and sounds of interned children—but it was only a few years ago that the former chair of the Democratic National Committee, Florida representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was doubling down in support of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). CCA, since rebranded as CoreCivic, is one of the country’s largest private prison companies and now runs the most expansive immigrant family detention facility, the Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. In 2011, despite fierce public opposition, Schultz defended the building of a proposed immigration detention facility, going as far as to write a letter to former ICE director Gary Mead praising the economic benefits of the move.

Perhaps it’s the abolitionist bedrock of the strike that has silenced Democrats. Or maybe it’s how these demands so resolutely undermine the act of policing, and the insidious public prison industry, which often faces less criticism than private prisons. Whatever the case, their lack of support for the strike should not go unnoticed.

In Soledad Brother, George Jackson wrote on the conditions of the incarcerated with a damming prescience and energizing call to arms. “Nothing has improved, nothing had changed,” Jackson argued. “Growing numbers of blacks are openly passed over when paroles are considered. They have become aware that their only hope lies in resistance. They have learned that resistance is actually possible. With the sure knowledge that we are slated for destruction, we have been transformed into an implacable army of liberation.” The spirit expressed by Jackson remains today. It is our duty to direct attention to what transpires beyond the watchtower so that the flame of resistance keeps burning—with or without the help of elected officials.

Roqayah Chamseddine is a freelance writer.

https://splinternews.com/the-democrats- ... 1828636782
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Sat Sep 08, 2018 1:31 pm

UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules)
The UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (SMRs) were initially adopted by the UN Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders in 1955, and approved by the UN Economic and Social Council in 1957.

On 17 December 2015 a revised version of the Standard Minimum Rules were adopted unanimously by the 70th session of the UN General Assembly in Resolution A/RES/70/175; (see PRI’s press release). This followed a four-year revision process after a 2010 UN General Assembly resolution which requested revision of the SMRs ‘so that they reflect recent advances in correctional science and best practices’. Find out more on the revision process.

The revised Rules are known as the ‘Nelson Mandela Rules‘ to honour the legacy of the late President of South Africa, Mr. Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, who spent so many years of his life in prison.

PRI has also produced a Short Guide to the Nelson Mandela Rules in 10 languages.

Download a copy of the Nelson Mandela Rules here:

https://s16889.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploa ... 16-WEB.pdf

https://www.penalreform.org/resource/st ... oners-smr/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

User avatar
blindpig
Posts: 10586
Joined: Fri Jul 14, 2017 5:44 pm
Location: Turtle Island
Contact:

Re: Police, prison and abolition

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 11, 2018 12:29 pm

Prisons Use Solitary Confinement to Silence Strikers Nationwide—But Their Voices Have Been Heard
By VALERIE KIEBALA AND JEAN CASELLA
SEPTEMBER 10, 2018

In commemoration of the Attica Uprising 47 years earlier, incarcerated organizers chose yesterday as the final day of the nearly three-week-long National Prison Strike that began on August 21. The strike eventually extended to federal prisons, state prisons, immigration detention centers, and local jails across at least fourteen states, with actions ranging from work stoppages to sit-ins, hunger strikes, and commissary boycotts. Both the strikers’ original demands and the harsh repression they faced serve as a grim reminder that in many ways, the U.S. criminal justice system has actually regressed in the intervening 47 years—a period in which the prison population grew by nearly 700 percent.

Along with its nationwide reach, the strike was remarkable for the breadth of the ten demands released through Jailhouse Lawyers Speak (JLS), a group of incarcerated legal advocates which, along with the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), was instrumental in organizing the strike. Far from concentrating on a narrow range of improvements to prison conditions, the organizers made clear that they are challenging the punishment paradigm that underlies the American criminal justice system, and seeking sweeping reforms to reverse the five-decade trend toward mass incarceration that began during the era of Attica.

The demands include not only improved conditions that “recognize the humanity of imprisoned men and women,” but also payment of the “prevailing wage” for prison labor (effectively an override of the 13th Amendment); sentencing and parole reform, including an end to life without parole; and measures to address the racism that saturates the system. Demands also include reversal of the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act, which sharply curtailed the ability of incarcerated people to fight for their rights in court; access to rehabilitation and education for everyone, including those convicted of violent offenses (and the funding to pay for it); and voting rights for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated citizens. The demands end, appropriately, with the statement: “All voices count!”

Incarcerated people who participated in the strike took great risks in their words and actions, seizing the chance to empower themselves in an environment designed to strip them of power, along with freedom and dignity. And not surprisingly, prison administrators and staff have been swift to employ their primary tool of control to repress incarcerated voices, retaliate against incarcerated organizers, and preemptively quell the strike: solitary confinement.

The nationwide strike, which began on the anniversary of the death of prison activist and Black Panther George Jackson, was planned in reaction to a deadly riot in April of this year at the maximum security Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina. While prison officials blamed the riot on gang disputes, Amani Sawari from JLS attributed the violence to “really aggravated conditions” at the prison, including an extended lockdown that subjected the entire prison population to virtual solitary confinement. “They were placed on lockdown all day,” she said. “They weren’t allowed to eat or use the bathroom. They were placed in units with rival gang members. And then their lockers were taken away, so they didn’t have any safe place to put their personal belongings, which really aggravated and caused tensions among prisoners—to the point where fights broke out.” Seven incarcerated men, six of them African American, died in the riot, and at least 22 were injured. No corrections officers were injured, and one witness told the Associated Press that “the COs never even attempted to render aid, nor quell the disturbance.”

Incarcerated people at Lee Correctional continued to be held in conditions of solitary confinement following the riot, allegedly for safety reasons. One man held at Lee claimed that the officials were actually using solitary confinement as a method to prevent participation in the widely publicized nationwide strike. Fearing retaliation, the man spoke anonymously to Kite Line, saying, “As an attempt to oppress our voices and quash our unity, we have been on 24-hour lockdown since what has transpired at Lee Correctional Institution back in April this year.” He explained, “That means zero movement whatsoever. We’re being fed late in the night. We’re only receiving one shower a week. We’re being denied cell cleaning as well as clean drinking water, even when there are water advisories. Any inmate who attempts to participate in this strike is being placed in solitary confinement, which is lockup—seg. As a result of what has taken place, you know, what has transpired at Lee, and the fact that we have been on 24-hour lockdown without any cell movement whatsoever, there have been a number of suicides and attempts.”

South Carolina was not the only state to lock down a facility in the days leading up to the strike. A story in the Santa Fe Reporter revealed that the New Mexico Department of Corrections had publicized in a Facebook post a “statewide lockdown at 11 prisons” starting on August 20. The story also featured an internal memo from New Mexico’s Lea County Correctional Facility, announcing the “lockdown schedule,” beginning on August 20 and lasting until September 17, which explained that if an incarcerated person’s “behavior is acceptable,” their privileges will be gradually reinstated each week. The memo suggested prison officials were tracking down individuals participating in a “disruptive behavior.” It stated, “Although some participants have been identified, all have yet to be identified.” Those who are identified, the memo continues, will have their “good time suspended” and will remain in the restricted conditions, barred from visitation and phone calls, receiving only “one sack meal and two hot meals,” and allowed only a 10-minute shower three times a week.

Retaliation against individual organizers also began in anticipation of the strike. The Appeal reported that as early as June, a man held at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Ronald Brooks, was punished for making a Facebook video using a contraband cell phone that urged others to take part in the upcoming strike. “We are anti-slavery and are organizing to transform our ghettos into communities and our jails and prisons into places of human redemption,” Brooks said in the video. Brooks had helped organize a previous work stoppage at Angola, a former slave plantation where men earn as little as 4 cents an hours to work in the fields. While Brooks had previously been caught with illegal cell phones and punished with loss of privileges, this time the state transferred him 250 miles away to David Wade Correctional Center. “To be moved totally from a facility [has] to do with the fact that they knew that Ronald was being a human rights advocate,” his mother told The Appeal. “What they wanted to do was to move him away… because he was an organizer.”

Once the strike began, a host of media outlets covered its development, and some reported on the conditions underlying the strikers’ demands. Articles appeared in most of the nation’s leading publications, including USA Today, the New York Times, the Washington Post, The New Yorker, and Time, as well as dozens of local, international, and progressive news outlets. As the strike gained media traction, the use of solitary as a means to silence organizers and stifle participation increasingly came to light.

Imam Siddique Abdullah Hasan, who is incarcerated at Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP), was placed on lockdown in late July after prison administrators intercepted strike-related mail and overheard Hasan speak to a group of strike supporters over the phone. According to an article in Shadowproof, the head of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction’s Bureau of Classification wrote that prison officials obtained this information about Hasan while “monitoring communications and social media postings related to planning a nationwide prison strike from August 21 to September 9, 2018.” Hasan remains in the most restricted form of solitary confinement and has been prohibited from phone communication for a year. When another man incarcerated at OSP, Greg Curry, passed along news of the retaliation against Hasan to people on the outside, he was placed in solitary as well.

Kevin Rashid Johnson, currently held at Sussex I State Prison in Virginia, published an article in The Guardian describing the retaliation he has faced for his outspoken organizing behind bars in the past three decades, including physical abuse, interstate transfers, and solitary confinement — most recently, on Virginia’s death row, although he is not serving a death sentence. The Virginia Department of Corrections has set a hearing for Johnson for September 10, which he fears “is preparatory to another out-of-state transfer, possibly into the federal system and into a site of extreme isolation,” according to Johnson’s website.

Ezzial Williams, an organizer with the IWOC held at Union Correctional Institution in Florida, was placed in solitary confinement in what the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) calls “close management,” which he attributed to his involvement in organizing the strike. In a letter to Solitary Watch, Williams said, “As the National Prisoner Strike leading up to September 9 continues to gain momentum, I find myself in super-solitary confinement humbly rooting for the progress being made. I mean, it’s all over the news these days! You see, I am currently serving an 18-month punishment in solitary (close management) for allegedly attempting to incite a riot through an ‘email’ speaking out about the inhumane treatment of inmates. Despite only suggesting non-violent sit-downs that never occurred, I was found guilty for saying something versus doing it.”

Williams continued on to describe the conditions he faces in close management. “Not only has my custody gone from minimum to maximum but I went from a work camp to being housed right next to death row inmates, locked down for 23 hours a day for the next year and a half. I’ve been subjected to a cell with no running hot water and a broken light that brightly blinks off and on all night, disrupting my sleep greatly. Every time I step out of the cell to go to medical or take a shower (three times a week), a few feet away I have to strip down and expose each orifice for contraband. Cell searches to harass us under the guise of security is the norm and sometimes soon after, a surprise inspection is called… which means if your cell is untidy (thanks to the search), you could go on ‘strip’ for 72 hours (all property, linen, and clothes is removed except for your boxers) or be subjected to disciplinary action resulting in a longer stay in solitary.”

An outside prison reform activist told WJCT public radio in Jacksonville that strike participants across Florida facilities have faced retaliation. She said, “They are sprayed with pepper spray, they’re put in solitary in freezing conditions, in just underwear, handcuffed and slammed into walls.” Karen Smith, a Florida IWOC organizer, stated to The Guardian, “Prison authorities have moved most of the local strike organizers into solitary confinement wings where they will be unable to communicate with others.” IWOC reported to the Daily Beast that Florida had locked down at least five of their prisons by August 24, though the FDOC refuted this.

Hunger strikers at the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC), an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility operated by the GEO Group in Tacoma, Washington, allegedly faced solitary confinement for their participation in the strike as well. An organizer with NWDC Resistance told Think Progress, “The numbers [of strike participants] started with about 200 people. We were cautious with the number of people we were counting…The people who were hunger striking were moved immediately into solitary confinement.” NWDC Resistance reported that 20 more people at the facility faced solitary after joining the strike on August 30.

According to the IWOC, David Easley and James Ward, held at Toledo Correctional Institution in Ohio, were placed in solitary confinement following their initiation of a hunger strike as part of the nationwide strike. IWOC also reported that Jason Turmon, a Jailhouse Lawyers Speak organizer incarcerated at the McCormick Correctional Institution in South Carolina, was sent to the solitary confinement unit for his participation in the strike.

Solitary confinement has historically functioned as a means to prevent the collective action of people in prison. Acts of unity and solidarity among incarcerated people, even those that present no risk to peace or security, are considered threats to the absolute power wielded by correctional staff and the functioning of the prison system. Ezzial Williams echoed this in his letter when he said, “The odds are stacked against us here and this whole thing is designed to break you down.”

In an appearance on Democracy Now!, Cole Dorsey, a formerly incarcerated organizer with the IWOC, commented on why he believes the strike threatened the larger social and economic order, and had to be quickly repressed. “If these jobs that they’re now giving to prisoners—meat packing and call center workers—if they were given at a prevailing wage in those same communities that those prisoners came from prior, then they wouldn’t be in the prisons now,” he said. “But the system has recognized that it’s easier to control the population while they’re inside prisons than it is if they’re outside, because then they have the right to strike, they have federal protections, whereas inside it can just be called an insurrection. Automatically, the leaders are sent to solitary. Automatically, they’re transferred. Automatically, privileges are denied—no more family, no more phone calls. So from a social justice and human rights aspect, it’s really draconian.”

Those who organized and participated in the National Prison Strike undoubtedly knew that they would face punishment, including the torture of prolonged solitary confinement. And most of them surely knew that none of their demands would be met as a result of the strike. Yet they were willing to take action and endure the consequences. Their strategically planned strike, with its broad demands and strong outreach to the media, at least ensured that millions of Americans would be reminded of the suffering and injustice that goes on behind bars, and the existence of a path to change. And the message they sent to the outside world is clear: The next steps are ours to take.

http://solitarywatch.com/2018/09/10/pri ... een-heard/
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

Post Reply