Prisoners have an absolute right to speak in their own voices. Especially those who have been targeted by the PA DOC, an entity which seeks to keep us enslaved by cowardly using inappropriate force, to ban our expression and humanity. It’s not the first time I’ve been targeted, nor will it be the last. In the past, I’ve stopped an 860 million coal gasification plant from being built 300 feet from the prison yard at the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy. I pointed out the failure of the system to accommodate life sentence prisoners with compassionate release, and I’ve raised the alarm about poor drinking water and other issues.
On top of that, I’m an innocent man supported by the alleged victims family members for the past 30 years. And in response to all of that, I’m now confined and isolated in solitary confinement, separated from my family, friends and supporters, who are now all 10 travel hours or more away from me. But I am free to speak, whether in guilty man’s brown or orange clothing. I’m still a Latino, a man and a jailhouse lawyer, environmentalist, uprooted from my home district in response to the exercise of my constitutionally protected First Amendment rights, in defense of myself and other inmates.
You can bet that the inmate publication review committee will attempt to censor this article by using a fictitious offense or by stating that I’m a threat for assaulting them with my First Amendment weapon. For the record, no matter how the PA DOC twist the facts, I’ll remain in their eyes a constitutional threat for indefatiguably exercising my free speech. The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment is the US Constitution’s foremost, majestic guarantee—the right to free speech, press, assembly, petition and association—occupies a preferred place in the constellation of the United States constitutional protections as enshrined in the First Amendment.
It is quite alarming to know that Lieutenant Cahoon and the PA DOC have used my freedom of speech to manufacture three false misconducts, as if my words could create a circle of violence towards correctional staff. These misconducts have been shown to be fabricated because they were all dismissed by three separate hearing examiners, with the last one being dismissed with prejudice. It is an exaggerated penological response. All of this demonstrates how the PA DOC trivializes physical harm in order to halt communication of any kind while using unjustified state violence through their punitive use of excessive force against me for, among other things, merely being quoted in William Renick’s interview in Workers World.
Freedom of speech is the greatest antidote against violence. Freedom of speech is anti violence. The inner workings of the Free Speech Clause are central to our democracy because free speech enhances personal growth and self realization. It defines your identity. Through the use of it we are all vessels that are vested with freedom of expression every waking day and night of our lives. Bryant Arroyo, inside the nation of prisoners, for Prison Radio.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio
