There’s a call for people to contact the Indiana Department of Corrections on August 11th in co-ordination with a protest that’ll be taking place against the incredibly restrictive new mail rules. People can ring IDOC director Rob Carter at (317) 233-6984, or for international supporters who don’t feel up to making US phone calls, you can email them at rcarter@idoc.in.gov, mauxier@idoc.in.gov, jbasinger@idoc.in.gov and lsalinas@idoc.in.gov. In the words of Indiana prisoner Kwame “Beans” Shakur:
“On April 1, 2017, the Indiana Department of Corrections implemented a new policy that targets our incoming mail: ALL mail must be handwritten on white lined paper in a white envelope. This policy restricts us from receiving any greeting cards on birthdays, Father’s Day, holidays etc., any typed letters or political documents, or any type of drawings from our kids!
Whether it’s simply more convenient, or out of necessity, our elderly family members with medical conditions like arthritis can’t handwrite their letters, and typing is the only way they can send us mail. With the increase of political education material like this very memo coming into the prisons with the intent to educate, agitate and organize prisoners, this new policy is also aimed to eradicate any such efforts.
This is blatant censorship and repression from the state. In their words, they “are going to see how it goes” from April to October before they actually put the policy into effect permanently. If there is no public outcry and resistance from the people on the outside against this policy, then they will have no reason to retreat: Once it goes into effect across the entire state, there will be little we can do.
The powers that are over Pendleton Correctional Facility are slowly attempting to turn this prison into a supermax facility, cutting us off completely from the outside world. Aside from the restriction of incoming mail, those of us like me who are housed on the G Cell House lock up unit (administrative disciplinary segregation) have also been stripped of our phone and video visitation the past 10 months. The policy states that we are entitled to phone privileges at least three times a week.
This cell house is only allowed visitors two days out of the week, Monday and Wednesday. With work and school during the week, it is extremely difficult for our loved ones to travel here during visitation hours. Fortunately, we were able to receive video visits on the JPay kiosk with our loved ones in the comfort of their own homes any day of the week – after work hours until 8 p.m.
However, the lieutenant of this cell house – not the facility or the DOC – recently made it to where we can only receive one 30-minute phone call per week. We can only receive video visits once a week, on the same day and time as our phone call.
We are locked in cages 24 hours a day. The courts and policy have determined that we are entitled to leave these cells for at least an hour of recreation five days a week; however, on average we may get rec once or twice a week, a direct violation of their own policy and procedure.
We have pushed our pens until the ink runs dry and filed the necessary grievances to seek relief. The same individuals who we file our paperwork on are the SAME individuals who respond to our claims, making the entire grievance process ineffective and contradictory.
If the policies and court rulings can be so irrelevant to these people, if the process we are told to follow in order to seek relief and correct such violations is ineffective, then where is the justice? Again, we’re being silenced and censored; we are powerless in these cages against the prison politics of prison autocracy.
Nobody is investigating or calling into question the death of an inmate who was excessively sprayed with multiple cans of mace, shot by pepper balls – a paintball gun that shoots paint balls filled with mace – and then left in a cell untreated to die last year!
For far too long, these people have gotten away with their crimes, without any blowback and resistance from the masses. For far too long, they have gotten away with the exploitation of our families through overpriced phone calls, vending machines in the visit room, JPay fees and commissary.
All across the country, we have formulations and prisoner advocacy organizations assisting us in our struggle to expose the prison industrial slave complex and fight for our rights. It is time that we organize and mobilize right here in our own back yard; our captors must come to learn that there will be consequences for their actions, that they will have to answer and face the people here in Indiana as well.”
Cautiously pessimistic 