[Pnews] CDCr counterpunch: New California rules designed to silence prison protest

[Prisoner News]

    CDCr counterpunch: New rules designed to silence prison protest
    <http://sfbayview.com/2014/cdcr-counterpunch-new-rules-designed-to-silence-prison-protest/>

June 13, 2014
*http://sfbayview.com/2014/cdcr-counterpunch-new-rules-designed-to-silence-prison-protest/*

/*by Mutope Duguma*/

To all officers and personnel within the CDCr* who have not fully 
grasped the state of our affairs as it relates to the events of the last 
three years, in particular "those damn hunger strikes," if I could read 
your mind, this is what I think I'd hear you say:

We will not tolerate "our" prisoners getting out of line, no matter how 
bad we treat them, because we are the authority here, and this each and 
every one of you will come to know in time. We will pass policies that 
will restrict any prisoners from speaking out to the public. [Editor's 
note: Under CDCr's proposed new censorship regulations 
<http://sfbayview.com/2014/fight-new-prison-censorship-rules-proposed-by-cdcr/>, 
publications like the Bay View that publish prisoners' articles for the 
public to read could be permanently banned from all California prisons.]

We will consider any rhetoric that protests our torture of prisoners to 
be a threat to the safety and security of the CDCr, and that language 
will be banned from our institutions. So, any publications that 
reference such rhetoric will be rejected by our mail handlers.

We do not care about the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 
because our authority is to protect the public by all means. And we 
cannot do this with a lot of red tape, nor can we do this without 
torturing prisoners by holding them indefinitely in solitary 
confinement. Therefore, solitary confinement is very necessary.

We further note that we may now be allowing prisoners to have electric 
typewriters, combo televisions, radios, excess canteen etc., but if they 
get two serious CDCr 115s (Rules Violation Reports) within a six month 
period, we will assert our authority under the new proposed regulation 
titled "program failure" and strip them to their bare necessities, 
meaning all of their appliances (radios, TVs and the like) and excess 
property will be sent home.

That means we didn't really give them anything, because we can 
manufacture these serious 115s, citing confidential information by way 
of our many informants, 1030 disclosure forms, debriefings, staff 
information, talking on the yard or in the building, and take it all 
away. These are some of the many ways in which we can strip them of 
their property, based on these proposed new regulations.


      CDCr is saying in effect: We will pass policies that will restrict
      any prisoners from speaking out to the public. We will consider
      any rhetoric that protests our torture of prisoners to be a threat
      to the safety and security of the CDCr, and that language will be
      banned from our institutions. So, any publications that reference
      such rhetoric will be rejected by our mail handlers.

So if we get this passed as policy [the comment period for the new 
regulations is open until Tuesday, June 17 at 5 p.m. 
<http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/>], then it's open 
season on these guys for real. We can trash their cells during searches 
and if they respond negatively, then write them up a serious CDCr 115 
Rules Violation Report, an RVR. We can feed them slop however we see 
fit, and if they say something negative in response, write them up a 
serious RVR. We can write them up in the law library for many 
violations, play with their canteen and packages, yard; you name it, we 
can do it now, under these new proposed regulations.

We literally can hammer these guys now. We have put ourselves in a 
better position to screw these guys and many will not even see it 
coming. We do it all under the authority of CDCr policy.

Hell, we should be very excited about the position we are in, because we 
got the STG (Security Threat Group, the new term for "gang") I and II 
and the SDP (Step-Down Program) on the books as policy and we didn't 
even have it challenged. Now they are eating out of our hands to get to 
the DRB (Departmental Review Board, which is interviewing prisoners in 
solitary confinement to see whether they belong there). We basically 
just widened our field of play.

We can lock up anyone we desire to under the STG I and II and the SDP. 
Hell, this is 10 times better than indeterminate SHU, under prison gang 
validations. We get the whole enchilada now! And we got four years to 
hold each and every one of them.

We have a pool of 130,000 prisoners to choose from, and guess what? We 
can bring them back to solitary confinement any time we want to. We got 
nothing to worry about, because, hell, we locked some of these guys up 
for 30 to 40 years straight on BS and didn't pay any of them one cent, 
nor were any of our officers prosecuted, and we know that a lot of these 
validations were in clear violation of the law, an injustice where we 
subjected these guys to all kinds of physical and psychological torture 
and got clean away with it. And we have a more elaborate system to 
continue business as usual.


      CDCr seems to be saying: We have a pool of 130,000 prisoners to
      choose from, and guess what? We can bring them back to solitary
      confinement any time we want to. We got nothing to worry about,
      because, hell, we locked some of these guys up for 30 to 40 years
      straight on BS and didn't pay any of them one cent, nor were any
      of our officers prosecuted, and we know that a lot of these
      validations were in clear violation of the law.

We got each and every one of them right where we want them. When looking 
at them today, what has changed? And I say to all my officers, not a 
damn thing changed! We good, so continue to get your overtime and make 
your money and remember that working in solitary confinement pays 
extras. We good!

Oh, and support the legislators for a job well done in writing SB 892.


      *Retaliation by policy*

Though we [Mutope is now speaking in his own voice] are in the 21st 
century, the CDCr is using its authority and power to retaliate against 
prisoners in order to break our will and spirit. Although the method has 
changed, the results remain the same.

The method can be openly brutal, as we see in the Southern states, where 
our New Afrikan brothers and sisters are beat down and murdered, while 
being treated like 1700s or 1800s slaves, working in chain gangs, while 
prison guards ride horses with shotguns, looking like something straight 
out of the movies.

But when you start analyzing exactly what's going on inside California 
prisons, you will begin to see that we too are being beat down and 
murdered, as if we too were in the 1700s and 1800s. Actually, it's been 
equally as devastating for us as it is for our brothers and sisters in 
the Southern states.


      In the Southern states, our New Afrikan brothers and sisters
      are treated like 1700s or 1800s slaves, working in chain gangs,
      while prison guards ride horses with shotguns. In California
      prisons, we too are being beat down and murdered, as if we too
      were in the 1700s and 1800s.

Prison policies have been constructed so that each and every prisoner 
has been subjected to pain and punishment over the past 25 years. The 
CDCr policy makers have used CCR (California Code of Regulations) Title 
15 to attack prisoners in every aspect of our lives -- medical, food, 
property, politics, privileges, custody, education, law library, yard, 
sanitation etc.

No matter the level of attacks, it's always been done to establish and 
constantly remind us that we prisoners are under oppressive prison 
conditions. The policy changes are not something the CDCr even tries to 
hide. It seems as if their sole purpose for introducing policies is to 
subject the prisoners to inhumane treatment.

We have seen, since our first and second hunger strikes, that the policy 
governing hunger strikes (CDCr Chapter 22 and 23 and Operational 
Procedures (OP) 228), under the warden's authority, was changed, simply 
because they could not subject prisoners to "physical harm." So, after 
we came off our first hunger strike, the CDCr turned around and changed 
the hunger strike policy, the OP, to allow them to subject prisoners to 
some kind of pain and punishment, although they had arbitrarily carried 
out attacks against us even when the initial hunger strike policies were 
in effect.

The CDCr uses these prison policies in order to subject prisoners to 
physical and psychological harm. The reason CDCr went back and changed 
their proposed policies was so that they could retaliate against 
prisoners for their peaceful protests. Although they laid claim to false 
security threats to the institutions, they never proved anything. So, 
why would it be a threat to the safety and security of the institution now?

When prisoners write to publications in order to tell our stories to the 
outside world, why would that be a threat now to the penological 
interests of the CDCr when it never has been for over 40 years? Is it a 
threat when prisoners write on our philosophical views, our political 
and ideological beliefs, and sign off with our names? Why would 
prisoners telling the public about the torture we've been subjected to 
at the hands of the CDCr be a threat to the penological interests of the 
prison? In two words, "It's not."

The policy [new proposed censorship rules, officially called "Obscene 
Material" regulations 
<http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/>] is in 
retaliation for prisoners telling our personal horror stories, while 
carrying out hunger strikes in protest of such cruel and unusual 
punishment inside solitary confinement.


      When prisoners write to publications in order to tell our stories
      to the outside world, why would that be a threat now to the
      penological interests of the CDCr when it never has been for over
      40 years? The policy [new proposed censorship rules, officially
      called "Obscene Material" regulations
      <http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/>] is in
      retaliation for prisoners telling our personal horror stories,
      while carrying out hunger strikes in protest of such cruel and
      unusual punishment inside solitary confinement.

The CDCr is neither ashamed nor remorseful for the pain and suffering 
they inflict on so many human beings. Instead, they are constantly 
trying to find ways to silence prisoners and further subject us to more 
pain and suffering. These retaliatory policies are designed to do just 
that. We have to challenge the CDCr's blatant retaliation on prisoners.

One love, one struggle,

/Mutope Duguma/

/Send our brother some love and light: Mutope Duguma, s/n James 
Crawford, D-05996, D2-107, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532./

*CDCr is the acronym for the California Department of Corrections and 
Rehabilitation; prisoners often write the last letter in lower case 
because rehabilitation is nearly nonexistent in California prisons.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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