Alright, I’m Matthew Garcia, EG5999, calling in from SCI Chester. So, “How Much Does It Take?”
Freedom comes to mind for the majority, but it’s undoubtedly much more complicated than that. We lose our identity. We are stripped and removed and separated from more than just liberty, distanced of who we are in totality, and categorized people that are poorly fit in any societal current, because bad decisions made us less than a genus homo, human beings whom all are created fallible.
So prisons are deemed the most suitable environments and have laws documenting that there is no constitutional right to treatment or rehabilitation. We sit poorly in any societal climate, but we live with a history behind this: slavery, rape, murder, police and drugs, [inaudible], and in the worst possible way, introducing crack to an environment that already hurt: Jim Crow, overdose, Wall Street, the church. In many instances of history, it didn’t reflect the best view of leaders, of unity, of equality, of positivity.
I would never speak promotionally about a state of lawlessness or disorder due to any absence of authority. This is not an anarchist manifesto at all. And many men and women make bad choices that don’t just affect them but clearly a bevy of others which need to be addressed. And warehousing isn’t what should be in the minds of those with an appetite for justice. This redemption lifestyle of any consequence is redemption only designated to whom a certain select group is tied.
See one whom is incarcerated loses much more than freedom. A prisoner suffers more hazardous effects than meets the eye. Besides the humiliation of being abused as if you have a contagious infection while being in prison, nothing you do to uplift, to encourage transformation, modification means much, because your value has been diminished tremendously. And righteous actions in pursuit are cheapened, depreciated. If you knew of the love that walked away because of the inherent oppression, if you heard the conversations that was taking place behind concrete and steel, you might have a different attitude about it all together
And yet the depression of a bad decision that breeds the constant pain of fear trying to [inaudible] where you let love love is present, cultivating and fostering love only for that subjected to all the handicaps, all the hardship, all the limitations, schedules, all the judgments, metal detectors, body scanners, hard feet screwed into action, cameras, eyes, dress codes, miles of transportation, the heaviest attractions between two consenting adults only to have to press them and still find the value of an embrace. [Inaudible] money to sponsor more support, as if the physical and emotional support given isn’t enough.
Prisons touches home in proximity to portfolios of years of philanthropy is an education. Time spent trying to correct more than just yourself and the minds and hearts of contemporary youth and elders that are intoxicated by the doses of hopelessness administered daily. Years living in a few feet of space, years of deprivation, time in going death with no semblance of closure. How healthy is it to have to persevere through conviction of a marathon of prison and doing so feeling fatigued spiritually, robotic emotionally. Yes, crime does fracture, and ignorance is an excuse in most cases. I attest to this as being true.
However, prison doesn’t just shelve people. Prison tortures too. Prison makes you drown in your own fears and still be responsible to try to keep afloat the people that love you when they’re submerged in their very own as well. Challenge every day to take on the world, facing the possibility of someone else saying they had enough, hearing the voices of loved ones giving up as well, saying they having enough, looking forward no matter how much you travel and still having enough of whatever it takes to survive after hearing someone that you love say that by you being in prison, they are suffocating.
So casualties and servitude, mental anguish and much more are in there is a thing called redemption. So know that prison causes more destruction than many are aware of. If we look deeply at time, and decades served mean nothing, then consider the loss of everything meaningful. We breathe still, yes, we breathe with the loss of everything and everyone else because it was all suffocated. How much does it take?
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
![Prison Radio is sharing an abbreviated version of a press release covering recent racist incidents at SCI Rockview in PA and the organizing to demand accountability. We are reaching out to people incarcerated at Rockview as well as recently transferred folks, inviting them to call, in hopes of hearing commentaries from them.
Benner Township, PA.-
On November 24th, 2023, imprisoned people at SCI Rockview found two nooses hanging in the CO’s office, displayed visibly for many prisoners to see. When the prisoners asked the staff why the nooses were hung, they were told it was a joke.
By December 4th, prisoners filed a grievance to document what they saw, noting that the hanging of the nooses was “unethical, racially motivated, hateful, [a] deliberate debasement of black inmates" and “unsafe for inmates, staff, [and] the whole prison in general.” In the grievance, they demanded that Sgt. Mosser and CO Richard be fired and investigated for a hate crime, and for CO Kirchner to get therapy. Captain Andrews, the head of security, denied the grievance.
The sergeant and COs are still working in the prison to this day, with no repercussions...
As of March 10th, prisoners have reached out to Pennsylvania officials at the Dept. of Corrections in a letter campaign, sending 100 copies of the grievance. Copies of the letter also were mailed to Governor Shapiro, Senator Fetterman, Senator Street, and various advocacy groups. The demands for relief in the original grievance have now become the platform of demands for this campaign. About 20 of the 100 letters were withheld by the prison.
Activists on the outside are joining forces with prisoners to elevate their demands, flooding the phone lines of DOC offices, assisting with outreach to media, and circulating the stories of prisoners who have found unity in opposition to the facility's virulent institutional racism.
In any other workplace, hanging a noose would be grounds for immediate termination. However, Nicki Paul, the superintendent's assistant and "grievance coordinator" informed the public that they self-investigated their staff and found they did nothing wrong.
Read the full article at i
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