“Locked up and locked down.”
For nearly a month now, all prisoners in Pennsylvania state prisons, over 40,000 men and women, have been locked down. What does lockdown mean? When I was on death row, all of us were locked down. As the saying went, “23 and one,” or for 23 hours a day with one hour for out of cell exercise in a cage.
After over a decade, it went to “22 and two,” but this lockdown is occasioned by the coronavirus. So meals in the chow hall, visits with family and friends, religious services, classes, prison jobs, all are offline. In the rare occasion a prisoner leaves the cell, he or she wears a paper or cloth face mask. Several states like, New Jersey for example, has followed suit.
And then there are county prisons, where the sheer overcrowding leads to chaos. In Philadelphia County prisons, an estimated 18 people, prisoners have the virus. Then comes Cook County, Illinois, where over 400 men have tested positive for COVID-19. That’s a county joint. For some men and women, being in prison and county jail isn’t just something that resembles death row. For them, it will be a new death row. For that jail cell will be the place they die. Mass incarceration is so much a part of American life that the opposite idea, decarceration, begins to sound crazy. But the truth is it wasn’t always this way. This scourge is the product of neoliberal politics. And if neoliberalism caused this problem, how can it ever solve the problem?
From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
[Sound of prison door clanking open.]
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
[Sound of prison door slamming shut.]
![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
https://conta.cc/4ayDxlB](https://www.prisonradio.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)