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POLITICS OF PRISONS
{ This website is brought to you by POLITICS OF PRISONS in collaboration with FAMILIES OF PRISONERS CIVIL RIGHTS FOUNDATION, and DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS EMPLOYEES FOR SAFE AND HUMANE PRISONS. }
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POL-I-TICS (noun)
"....The activities or affairs engaged in by a government, politician, or political party: "All politics is local" (Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr.)
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THE QUESTIONS:
What activities or affairs do our government, politicians and political parties engage in regarding prisons? Do you know the voting records of your local, state and federal representatives on prison issues? How much do you know about the prison administrators and guards who live in your community?
These are some of the questions we'll be dealing with on this Politics of Prisons website, which is devoted to putting a face on the hundreds of Washington prisoners being routinely subjected to torture and other severe maltreatment in Washington's "intensive management units" (IMUs).
We always welcome your comments, questions and suggestions. We are especially seeking submissions of anecdotes and stories about Department of Corrections employees who are doing an outstanding job of making Washington's prisons safer, more humane places for prisoners and employees alike.
THE CLEANSING LIGHT OF PUBLIC EXPOSURE:
We are of course continuing our campaign to rid the prisons and our communities of the handful of Department of Corrections torturers and fascist cliques which make some of Washington's prisons -- such as Walla Walla and Clallam Bay -- such dangerous and inhumane places to live in and to work in.
We encourage you to name names and provide documentation whenever it is possible, and safe, to do so. Be sure to keep a copy of anything you send -- or have sent -- to us. We will not print your name unless you specifically ask us to do so.
Although we are presently concentrating on Washington prisons, we welcome exposes and tips from other states as well.
CONTACT: jamesthejust@ourchurch.com
PLEASE NOTE THAT READERS MAY FIND SOME OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS AND CASE HISTORIES ON THIS WEBSITE DISTURBING.
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AN EXCERPT FROM ONE OF THE MANY LETTERS WE HAVE RECEIVED ON THIS SUBJECT FROM WASHINGTON STATE PRISONERS:
.....Of course the only reason the videotape didn't pick up any of the things the guards purport that I did is because they just didn't happen. The guards' claims are desperate lies which are meant to cover up their use of extremely excessive force, to justify their own criminal conduct: that they beat me extremely severely with my hands cuffed behind my back, connived and collaborated against me and then charged me with felony counts of assault. All done under the pretext of "working together for safe communities" (the motto of the Washington Department of Corrections (WDOC).
The question isn't "why would these prison officials/guards assault me and then cover it up?" It is instead: "why are they able to continuously do this to people and get away with it?"
The answer is that the administration is unwilling to hold the guards accountable for their actions; thus, they're free to subject convicts to summary punishment without fear of any consequences. Whenever something like this happens, everyone from the top (Superintendent Lambert) on down (guards) must do everything in their power -- i.e., collude, connive and collaborate -- to cover up the use of excessive, unauthorized force, and torture.
The little known reason behind their ability to prosecute people after having beaten and tortured them is -- like so many other things -- explained by two words: money and power. The WDOC and its various agencies incessantly seek to maximize their influence and affluence. The best way to achieve their aim is with statistics. The higher the recidivism rate the more logical seem the unending pleas for more prisons and taxpayer money to build and to run them. Similarly, the more violence and inmate on staff assaults they can statistically point to, the stronger appear their arguments for their unending budget increases.
As for the reasons they are able to continuously assault, cover up and prosecute inmates with impunity -- simple: the majority of convicts lack either the strength, knowledge, courage or resources to wage a vigorous struggle against the gross injustices that some prison administrations/officials/guards subject them to. Also, the often lazy and compliant media by and large accept and perpetuate the prison bureaucracies' demonization of convicts, who are automatically deemed manipulators and prevaricators; consequently our testimonies have little or no weight, especially in the court room, against those prison "professionals."....
James E. Curtis
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Some thoughts on THE PRISON EDUCATION SYSTEM
WHEN OPPORTUNITY DOESN'T KNOCK
Q: What are prisoners learning while incarcerated?
A: More than any one person should ever know!
Inmates are not being educated by the State because the State believes convicted felons are not deserving of "free" education.
Every state in the US spends millions each year to improve the structure and maintenance of their prisons, and then throw peanuts at the structure and maintenance of their prisoners. The public needs to be aware of the true prison education system:
Inmates are left to their own devices as far as education goes, and so they educate each other. For instance: any inmate serving a two year stint can easily earn a masters degree in safe cracking, car chopping, lock popping, or any other criminal profession he may choose.
JOHN WALSH, of "America's most Wanted" recently struck fear into the hearts of US citizens by screaming about a fugitive ex-convict who was wanted for murder. Walsh said, "Nobody is safe, this man could be at your back door right now!"
Well, Mr. Walsh was right. But do you know what is really scary? While that same ex-convict was in prison the first time, he could have earned an honest education and become a productive member of society. But instead, all he ever learned how to do is open your back door!
The real crime is not what is happening on the outside of prison walls, but rather what is NOT happening on the inside of prison walls.
People in this society need to become actively involved in what goes on inside US prisons, because each and every citizen has a very high stake in what comes out of those prisons!
Merel D. Oppen
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Excerpts from the Preface, written by Bonnie Kerness, to a new pamphlet just published by the Quakers' AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE entitled:
TORTURE IN U.S. PRISONS:
Evidence of U.S. Human Rights Violations
[Our emphasis added. POP]
The American Friends Service Committee has had a Criminal Justice Program in Newark, New Jersey since 1975. We have received thousands of calls and letters of testimony of conditions of imprisonment from family members and prisoners rhroughout the country. As a result, the AFSC began a project called PRISON WATCH which monitors human rights abuses in United States prisons. For the past 24 years, I have had the privilege of being a human rights advocate on behalf of the AFSC for US prisoners. This pamphlet is our attempt to share with you some of the voices we hear during our days.
The politics of the systems -- the welfare system, the public school system, the health care system and the criminal justice system -- play a profound role in the lives of the poor in this country. It is hard not to note that the rules and regulations of these systems which affect almost all of us, are created, written, and voted upon by mostly upper class white males whose lives will not be touched by their decisions. Their children do not go to public schools, they do not use public hospitals, they are surely not on welfare [Actually most of them ARE on CORPORATE WELFARE: billions in government subsidies to the rich --- POP.], and should they commit a crime, even their prisons are different.
Certainly, in the criminal justice system, the politics of the police, the politics of the courts, politics of the prison system and the politics of the death penalty are a manifestation of the racism and classism which govern so much of the lives of all of us in this country. Every part of the United States criminal justice system falls most heavily on the poor and people of color, including the fact that SLAVERY IS STILL PERMITTED IN PRISONS by the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution. Although prison labor is not the focus of this pamphlet, involuntary slavery in prisons is real....
....Prisons are one of the largest growth industries in the US. We live in an age where young males of color have been moved out of a historical state of oppression into one of uselessness in the economic context of this country. They have been discarded as a waste product of the technological revolution, with illegal drugs turning the ghettoized poor into invalids just as alcohol was introduced to incapacitate the people of the First Nations.
I don't believe that it is an accident that people who are perceived as economic liabilitie have been turned into a major economic asset -- for the young male of color who cannot get a job and is, therefore, worth nothing in the country's economy suddenly generates between 30 and 60 thousand dollars a year once trapped in the criminal justice system. Nor do I believe it's an accident that this technological revolution has been accompanied by the largest explosion of building prisons in the history of the world. The expansion of prisons, parole, probation, the court and police systems has resulted in an enormous bureaucracy. This proliferation of the Prison Industrial Complex has been a boon to everyone from architects, plumbers, and electricians to food and medical vendors, all with one thing in common -- a pay check earned by keeping human beings in cages. The criminal justice system costs multi-billions of dollars which means that there are a lot of people being paid a lot of money for containing mostly folks of color in cages in human warehouses. The criminalization of poverty is a lucrative business and it seems that WE'VE REPLACED THE SOCIAL SAFETY NET WITH A DRAGNET....
....Right now, the latest explosion filling the isolation cages include youth of color imprisoned as a result of the racist crack-cocaine laws. And of all the people that I've seen in these units over the years, these youngsters are the most ill prepared for the torment of endless isolation. Current efforts to expand the solitary confinement population involve the alleged spread of gang problems in US prisons. While most of us working for prisoner rights know gangs exist in prisons, we also know this problem is sometimes created and enhanced by prison authorities. In New Jersey, the Department of Corrections recently built a 720 bed gang unit -- supermax style. I have been monitoring New Jersey prisons for 24 years. Although New Jersey has prison gangs, it has never had a gang problem. This trend is being repeated throughout the country, resulting in the increased building of supermax prisons. In these gang prisons called Security Threat Group Management Units, prisoners are called upon to renounce their "gang" membership -- which for some of us is reminiscent of the witch-hunts which went on during the McCarthy investigations in this country in the 1950s. For instance, in a national survey produced under a grant by the Department of Justice, "NATIVE AMERICANS" IS LISTED AS A PRISON GANG in the State of Minnesota.
Corrections personnel have told me that the national-wide move to expand the use of ISOLATION IS FOSTERED BY THE GUARD UNIONS. These unions are contributing heavily to the political campaigns of law and order candidates. Guards reportedly feel that these types of sensory deprivation units provide a safe working environment. I BELIEVE THAT ISOLATION UNITS ALSO PROVIDE THEM WITH A PLACE IN WHICH TO ENGAGE IN UNWITNESSED TORTURE....
....The folks in prison are mostly poor and working class who need jobs and education. United States prisons also serve as housing for vast numbers of the mentally ill, just as they serve to hold a huge drug dependent population which desperately needs treatment. PRISON ISSUES ARE RACE AND CLASS ISSUES. The crippling of our poor, [and] of our young people of color in US prisons is expanding, and none of this is about the rate of crime -- which has dropped dramatically. It is about capitalism and it is about racism. It is about a culture of greed and a culture which fears the joy of diversity...
....Twenty-four years ago if you had interviewed me I would have fought any implication of torture in the United States. I would have fought the notion of US political prisoners. I would have fought any notion of a prison system that looks suspiciously like the system of slavery....
....The wall of silence that has been built around prisons and prisoners has got to be broken down. What I have described is a conscious attempt to physically, mentally and spiritually break down millions of people, and for the most part it is going on unchallenged. The American Friends Service Committee has become so concerned that WE ARE CURRENTLY ARCHIVING PRISONER TESTIMONIES OF TORTURE STATE-BY-STATE....We're also asking prisoners to draw what they are seeing and experiencing, some of which you will see reflected in these pages. Some of these drawings have already been used by newspapers who find that they can't get into the isolation prisons to photograph....
.... I have been part of the struggle against oppression in this country for the past 35 years.... I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE WHAT I AM SEEING NOW IN UNITED STATES PRISONS....
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