Category: Letters from Dallas

Horizontal Accountability

Email sent, over ConnectNetwork, the first week of February, from outside supporter:

Hey Stevie,

Here’s some Questions i’ve been reflecting on, in response to the situation in the abolition movements in recent years. More conversations are needed about what ‘accountability’ means on both sides of the wall in this movement, and the specificity of it for ppl on the outs. How do we further think about the ‘inside-outside’ relation as ‘one struggle at base’ (to paraphrase George Jackson), while recognizing the different demands or responsibilities that ppl in the so-called free world bear? What are those historical responsibilities and how are ppl on the outside falling short? What are the material and structural circumstances that condition ppl’s behavior and actions on the outside? What enables unaccountability or on the flip side what incentivizes commitment? Does any of this have to do with the fact that a lot of ppl who come into this support work do not have relationships with those inside prior to entering the work? If so, doesn’t that mean we must be providing further resources to ppl who already have loved ones inside? — ppl who, in fact, have a stake (beyond their paycheck or a CV line) in an imprisoned person’s survival?

I’m interested asking these questions about relationships across the wall considering the fact that much of the movement to abolish the PIC is *not* predominantly centered in oppressed communities still. And the dominant models of organization cater to recruiting college students and people who formalize their identity as activist specialists. It goes beyond academic abolitionism & extends to the entire non-profit industrial complex and its catering to middle class & professionalized activism.

I also want to question the influence of liberalism on how people conceive of ally politics which i understand to be a bankrupt approach to relationships. We need to be *co-strugglers* w/ eachother. That means people on the outside need to sacrifice some things. But also the extant paradigms leave too much room for paternalism to thrive.

-anonymous outside supporter

ConnectNetwork email correspondence, excerpts beginning on 2/17/2024:

Mulling your questions in the first email. They provoke deep thought. And they need to be answered, wrestled with, by all of us.

Always,

Stevie

02/21/2024 04:12 PM

I haven’t been able to fully articulate what I feel is wrong/off about certain groups. But I believe what you are saying/gesturing toward is close. And the core of it is a detachment from on the frontlines. By that, I mean people inside and people from incarceration-impacted families and communities. When we look at the existing orgs, do we seem these folx in position that determine agendas, concerns priorities and budgets?

Always,

Stevie

02/21/2024 04:12 PM

Subject: response to reading article on “social capitalism”

I do want to tell you that I look at many of our abolitionist collectives and organizations differently now, after the past year especially. I see exactly what you are talking about, in the questions earlier in the month. What happened this past year woke me up.

I plan to return to Philly…. My idea of organizing seems old-fashioned to some people. I am about getting on the ground with the people, my people…. listening to them, and building power collectively.

Always,

Stevie

02/26/2024 04:35 PM

RE: Tasting Abolition article

Thanks for sharing the “Flavors of Abolition” article, this is a good piece. I want to sit with it and think about these categories/flavors. Your other email with the twitter thread questions about state violence and interpersonal violence has me thinking about “violence” and how we define it. I think interrogating the definitions that have been foisted upon us, especially imprisoned people, is a good place to start. Another point is how little discussion there is behind the walls how state and interpersonal violence are linked. We tend to focus on them exclusively. Some people never address the interpersonal violence that is cause my state violence. And that is a major hole in analyses coming from behind the walls.

Always,

Stevie

02/27/2024 12:16 PM

Subject: thanks for updates

Thank you for the updates on SCI Rockview. This is what we need more of, sharing updates on what is happening at other facilities, for the movement. Even in the same state, we don’t know what is happening to each other. We must find a way to keep each other informed. So much of what is happening in one place is happening in another. We need to share news, tactics, strategies and outcomes.

Always,

Stevie

02/28/2024 08:38 AM

I have been thinking about these issues a lot. I am preparing a response to the latest report on incarcerated labor by people in the #endtheexception crowd. I am thinking about how wrong they are and why. First, their method smacks of paternalism, saviorism and epistemic injustice. As you mention, who determines the content and form of struggle? With them, imprisoned people have no part in determining either. They know better than us. Moreover, the continue to turn to the state for “knowledge” about what is happening behind the walls. They have no spoken to imprisoned people nor do they center their voices. Moreover, their demands, always about conditions of confinement, are minimum demands.

These are the same people who waged a campaign to end the exception in the fall of 2022 in Alabama. During this time, FAM was waging a war for freedom. The demands of FAM clearly center on pathways to freedom, not higher wages. Instead of supporting this prisoner-led movement for freedom, the exceptioners ignored them. In the end, the measure passed. But there has been change in the material circumstances of anyone, anywhere the exception has been removed. This is a fact the exceptioners refuse to acknowledge.

Always,

Stevie

03/09/2024 12:08 PM

What does a demand that helps imprisoned and criminalized people survive under conditions of genocide, but doesn’t further entrench, expand or legitimize the PIC look like? Where are discussions about these possible demands occurring? Where are we experimenting with these demands?

Always,

Stevie

Conversations

-sent by email 

02/18/2024 1:47 PM EST

It was fifteen degrees outside this morning so I knew we weren’t going to have yard. I had been reading Issue 40 of The Abolitionist when the call for day room came. I wandered into the day room, plugged my tablet into the kiosk and headed to one of eight tables in the room to drink my coffee and continue reading. At the far end of the table, two young Black males, both 23, were conversing about happenings in their ‘hood (SW Philly). I knew them both and was especially close to one of them. I slid toward their end of the table, making it obvious that I was listening to them, and waited to get their attention.

Before long, we were engaged in conversation. One of them was very angry with “the system.” His minimum prison sentence is 13 years. He has six years inside. He felt the system was wasting 13 years of his life and that he was going to make up for that lost time upon release.

I asked him why the 13 years had to be a waste. He felt that no matter what he did inside, the time was gone so it was a waste. I explained that it didn’t have to be. That he could use the time to benefit himself, to not let the system win. Getting to this point took more than 30 minutes. He really didn’t see how one makes prison time beneficial.

I shared some of what I have been involved in as an organizer and writer. I told him it all started with reaching out across the walls, with making connections. I shared how doing so helped me grow and benefit from this time. And because he has seen my work (political education and mutual aid) in the prison and on the block, he believed me, knew that it was possible.

We began to talk about gun violence, a real issue in the lives of young, Black men. I told them about the roundtable I convened at another prison. Both of them were adamant about not putting down their guns. They had reasons. Many of them. They also felt that people didn’t understand them or try to understand them. No one was listening. I told them there our people

I told them there are people out there who do care, who do want to hear their voices. People who know those closest to the problem are closest to the solution. And no one is closer to the problem of gun violence than young Black men. They are the most likely victim of gun violence in the country. They are spoken about but rarely spoken to. They aren’t being asked why they carry guns. They aren’t being asked why this type of violence happens. They surely aren’t being asked how to solve, diminish, gun violence.

I asked each one of these men about their experiences, their lives before incarceration, and what could be done to stem violence. I listened. Some thing many don’t do when it comes to young Black people. And I learned. A lot. I asked each person to write a two page essay explaining why they weren’t going to put their guns down. No judgement. They have their reasons for feeling that carrying a gun is best for them, despite the possible consequences. I offered to share these essays with the world anonymously so people could hear their voices. They demanded I share them with their names attached.

All of this has moved me to reconvene the roundtable. The plan is to bring these young men together to discuss a problem that has and continues to vex them. From my previous roundtable, I learned how toxic masculinity was behind so much of the violence. Whether they called it heritage beef, pride, drugs, money or even women, underlying it all was an adherence to a masculinity that called upon them to believe conflict could only be resolve with violence.

I hope to connect these young men with people and organizations outside that know and practice another way of resolving conflict, who don’t see conflict as necessarily destructive. I hope to learn from these young men and teach them another way of seeing the world. And I ask for and need your help in doing so.

Always,

Stevie

Harassment at SCI Dallas

I’m having an issue with an officer here. This guard, C/O JR Harrison, has continued to harass me. I have spoken to the security Lt., my unit manager Mr. Pyzia, and Lt. Beck about his behavior. Today, I was told by another person that this guard told him not to speak to me and another imprisoned person, Ibrahim Sharif, because we are homosexual lovers. This is a lie. This person who told me is a friend and he defended me and Sharif. He was upset that a guard would start this rumor. I filed a PREA complaint via of the grievance process and verbally reported it to the sergeant on duty.

After doing so, I was told by another imprisoned person that he was filing a grievance on the same officer because that very morning he heard the officer talking about me to another imprisoned person, calling me a pedophile. When this person, Gorge Claudio, confronted the officer, the officer called him a rat and a snitch. Claudio continued to tell the officer he was wrong and shouldn’t be talking about prisoners like that.

This officer is out of control. His behavior could lead to hostilities. I am asking that people call SCI Dallas and complain about this officer and ask that he be held accountable for his actions.

Always,

Stevie

Nonsense

SCI Dallas is up to the same nonsense that SCI Camp Hill was trying to pull. The mail sent from Free Society Community Library was confiscated due to copyright laws. Specifically, they said: “Copied publications should be denied due to copyright laws per central office.” They are saying anything that has been published is prohibited for imprisoned people to have. I can’t even get my own work then!

So, they’re saying that imprisoned people cannot receive any published materials even though the DOC mail policy 803 says we can receive materials from the internet? They also confiscated zines that True Leap Press sent that clearly say anti-copyright! Anything that is published online or off has a “copyright” to them.1 So they are prohibiting us from all these materials.

Ironically though, an imprisoned person can go to the library here and copy pages from any book he or she wants to and that is okay.

Always,

Stevie

note from blog admin:

[1] Contrary to what the prison claims, Title 17 USCS section 107 says:

Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair Use: “Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106 and 106A [17 USCS sections 106 and 106A], the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.”

Thoughts on Extraction

When Ruthie Wilson Gilmore and I sat down for a conversation, we spoke about how the PIC not only exploits the labor of imprisoned folx (mainly via reproductive labor of the prison), but also extracts value from us. I came to this conclusion because I knew that our labor wasn’t the only or even major source of value the PIC was after. The PIC extracts our lives, our life time. Ruthie helped me to see each person as a territory that the PIC extracts value from via a time-space hole that imprisonment creates. Incarceration creates a mechanism through which money/capital can flow through a person and into the pockets of the PIC. This all sounds abstract. I know. But since coming to SCI Dallas, I clearly and concretely see how extraction, not exploitation, is the big game the PIC is using. And we need to get hip.

I am housed on a Veterans Service Unit (VSU). This is one of four blocks within the PA DOC prisons system that partners with the Veterans Services Administration (state and federal). Currently imprisoned people who have served in the military, no matter how they were discharged, are eligible for the services on these blocks. Most of these people don’t work. But they still provide value to the PA DOC/PIC. How? Programming.

The PA DOC receives state, federal and private funds for creating these types of programs and keeping them filled. Almost every prison in PA has a therapeutic community (TC) for drug/alcohol treatment. Money has been flowing to the PIC via imprisoned people in these programs for decades. But now, DOCs are getting hip and creating more programs (usually centering on mental health) in order to extract more value from imprisoned people. We don’t need to work to be of value to the PIC. Just being here and being “diagnosed” by their staff makes extraction possible and valuable.

PA has created an alphabet of solitary under the mental health programming name. Thousands of people are in these programs and capital/money is flowing through them and into the PIC. These funds could be and should be used to provide non-coercive, community based services. But the PIC is gobbling up more and more of them. Mental health, substance and alcohol treatment, reentry services, elder care programming is ramping up behind the walls. We don’t have to work. All we have to do is be imprisoned and we become of value.

Some of us are experiencing exploitation. We don’t program, but we work. Most imprisoned folx don’t work but those of us who do are being exploited. These places couldn’t run without us. But many more people are experiencing extraction. Remember, many programs are mandated for parole purposes. Working isn’t. Some of us experience both. And what is even more disturbing is that many of these new programs use the labor of imprisoned folx to succeed. On my block, there is a program almost everyday. Only once a week does a DOC employee run the groups! Every other group is run by a DOC trained imprisoned person. All sign ups and paperwork too! The staff don’t even have to show up!

Extraction is going to become the dominate game. With fewer jobs available (most of us didn’t work anyway) and less out of cell time since COVID, programming is the way to create value and keep imprisoned folx running. And what makes it more sickening is that many imprisoned people are fooled into thinking these programs are the way to success, happiness, peace and safety.

***

These observations help me to see extraction as the major mechanism of the PIC. While this is more easily seen and accepted outside the walls, exploitation has been the major topic behind the walls. Even though most people don’t work in here. And work is becoming less important. They are using fewer people to work. And they are giving us less hours. A shift in the kitchen used to be 6-8 hours. Now it’s 4-6 hours. It is a rare person who gets paid for an 8-hour shift.

People out there see how extractive the PIC is. Offender-funded punishments are common. Remember Ferguson? What do we think e-incarceration is all about? But people don’t realize extraction is happening in here too. And it is taking money, programs and services from our communities and sending them through imprisoned people and into the pockets of those vested in the PIC.

Besides capital, legitimacy is being bestowed upon the PIC. It continues to offer itself as the “solution” to social problems. State, federal and private funds are flowing into prisons. These death making spaces are passing themselves off as life enhancing. Besides state and federal money, I have witnessed nonprofits like LOOP get into the game, partnering with the DOCs in a number of states to provide programming, often dependent on imprisoned people’s labor.

We have to talk more about the role of extraction in all of this.

Always,

Stevie

Abolition and Co-optation

Prior to the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a state agent, I was aware of people and organizations that described themselves as abolitionists, but promoted policies and goals that contradicted abolition. One example is Just Leadership USA which called for the building of new cages in New York City boroughs. Abolition is about shrinking the state’s ability and capacity to punish, control, cage and surveil. Abolitionist never support the building of cages. Like many others, JLUSA often claimed to center the leadership of formerly and currently imprisoned people. The truth is these organizations don’t center the leadership of currently or formerly incarcerated people. Hiring us, even placing us in upper administrative positions, doesn’t mean our leadership, concerns or priorities are being centered. What is centered by these organizations is the wishes of their funders. And the formerly incarcerated people they hire must support the line of these funders to stick around.

Since 2020, this situation has become more common. Organizations claiming to be abolitionist attach themselves to formerly or currently imprisoned people and use them to promote reformist goals. Most often, these organizations work in only two areas: litigation and electoral politics. For some reason, they believe elected officials will lead us to freedom. For some reason, they believe the most conservative branch of government, the judiciary, will grant us freedom. Don’t they know that whatever they give they can take away? Don’t they know freedom is not something given? Don’t they know history? Right now, the voting rights that elected officials and the courts granted in the 60s and 70s are being taken away all across the country? We will never obtain freedom begging politicians and judges for it.

These same organizations spend little, if any, energy organizing communities. And let it be known, mobilizing people for rallies and marches isn’t organizing. It’s mobilization. There’s a time and place for mobilization, but what we need is organizing. Like Malcolm X said, and Saidiya Hartman reiterates, we are not outnumbered, we are out organized. We need to be in the communities, connecting with people, listening to them, assisting them in obtaining what they need not only survive, but thrive and do this work. And I am talking about communities on both sides of the walls. If we are going to build a mass movement that demands freedom, that expands the meaning of freedom, that obtains freedom, we have to organize.

These people and organizations that promote legislating our way to freedom distract us from true paths to freedom. We must be vigilant. A person or organization doesn’t have to be abolitionist to be against policing, prisons, racism, sexism, ableism, imperialism, homophobia, transphobia or any other oppression. But when a person or organization claims to be abolitionist, there are expectations. There are principles and ethics that need to be upheld. We cannot allow these people and organizations to co-opt abolition, truncate its vision and distort its call.

Abolition is for and by the people!

Letter from SCI Dallas

I don’t have my property with me. I went to the library today, searching for some text that could nourish me until I received my property or books from comrades. As I perused the shelves, I realized how absent my communities are from what was available. There were no works on abolition, Black queer studies, Black studies, feminism, queer/trans liberation, disability justice or community organizing. I searched by topic and author. I searched specific titles. Nothing. This is how the PIC wants it to be. This is how fascists want it to be. I usually don’t depend upon prisons libraries for reading materials. But what about those who do? Where do they find affirmation? Where do they find sustenance for their spirits?

Moments like this make real the connection between censorship on both sides of the walls. People and their experiences are being erased. People and their concerns are being silenced. I remember the feelings of home and hope when I first encountered Joe Beam’s In The Life. That book gave me life. I was struggling. I felt alone. I felt despondent. One book changed those feelings. One book opened the world to me. In prison, marginalized people cannot find the materials that affirm them, that connect them to the world, that tell us we belong.

As I took in the purposeful absence, the shutting out, of marginalized voices in the prison library, I questioned why people and organizations partner with the state, the biggest purveyor of censorship, and believe they are providing imprisoned people with opportunities for transformation. The state denies imprisoned people the materials we need to grow. The state will never provide or allow materials that call it into question, that encourage critique of racial capitalism, heteropatriarchy or ableism.

This trip to the library encouraged me to dig deeper and find ways to get the materials we need to live, to build community and to effect real transformation.

Always,

Stevie

3/12