“Locking Down the Constitution.”
It happened on the last Wednesday of August 2018. Around 8:30 p.m., the PA system announced a lockdown at the prison, apparently a response to a recent spate of staff sicknesses thought to be related to drugs. Even though the suspected cases occurred in prisons in the Western part of Pennsylvania, the entire state system, almost 30 prisons, went into immediate lockdown.
Lockdown means no movement in the prison except for staff. That means all prisoners are locked in their cells for 24 hours a day. All visits were canceled, mail delivery and outgoing mail was cancelled. Several days into this process, guards distributed a three-page memo to prisoners announcing new rules allegedly designed to defeat drug smuggling among them.
Prisons will no longer receive mail, for all correspondences will be rerouted through an address in St. Petersburg, Florida. That office will scan and copy them and then send a digital copy back to Pennsylvania. Legal mail will be xeroxed, and the copy given to the prisoner named in the mail. For three months, no visitor can purchase food or photos for a prisoner, and no books can be ordered by a prison.
The DOC, it appears, is having a temper tantrum and it is engaged in war against all contact with the public. This sounds like the DOC’s equivalent of reefer madness. This is, more than anything else, Pennsylvania DOC’s engagement and drug politics. It’s a war against the prisoners, yes, but also a war against knowledge and ultimately the Constitution itself.
From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of 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
https://conta.cc/4ayDxlB](https://www.prisonradio.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)