Yeah, this is Peter Kamal Mukuria. Excuse my voice, I’m slightly losing my voice, but yeah, this is comrade Peter Mukuria, AKA, comrade Pitt Panther. So, I’m calling here from Jessup Correctional Institution in the state of Maryland, where I got sent to formally through the Interstate Compact Transfer from the state of Virginia.
So, since I’ve been here, it’s been quite a turmoil—basically the same issue that I was encountering in Virginia is pretty much the same identical issue that I’m encountering here. You know, I would think that the situation would be finally different here, but it’s actually not. The main thing is, kind of seems like, you know, I come over here and I’m getting along fine with the prisoners, but once again, the administration is hell-bent on pretty much perpetuating the retaliation from Virginia.
So this weekend was the first time that I got to see my parents, for the first time in about 10 years. So it was a visit that I’ve been looking forward to for pretty much a decade, you know? This weekend, which was also father’s day, my father was also coming along—my father and my mother.
They got here at three o’clock, and before they even got here, the first thing they did was they had to call here and schedule for a visit. And while they called here to schedule a visit, they asked about the dress code and everything, and they were pretty much just told, you know, dress appropriately. That was it.
When they got here on Saturday, they actually got here at three o’clock. The visit was scheduled for four o’clock. Upon arriving, they had to go through the metal detector and, you know, pretty much the search procedure. And as they were going through the metal detector, the metal detector went off, and my father went through the metal detector. And it went off three times, and that’s when they finally came to the realization that the metal detector was going off simply because of the zipper that my father—you know, the zipper on his pants.
Even though they realized that, they denied him entry to see me. Because of a zipper. Because of a zipper on his pants, they denied him to see me. And the most ridiculous thing about that is that inside this prison, we have jeans. And with the jeans that we wear, as far as the pants, they have zippers! So, I don’t understand how the zipper was enough to prevent him from coming into this prison and seeing me, when it’s not exactly contraband when we have zippers on our clothes.
Anyway, so he was denied entry. And once he was denied entry, my mother was allowed to come in because she passed through the metal detector. And, you know, as my mother was sitting there in the hallway, another lady happened to come to see somebody else. And she walked through the metal detector, and the metal detector went off. The metal detector went off again, and it went off again for the third time. And this lady told them that she recently had a knee surgery procedure, and that’s why the metal detector went off. Without having to provide any medical documentation or any proof to pretty much illustrate that she is telling the truth—that she recently had a medical procedure—they allowed her right in. You know, my father was subject to different standards.
Long story short, from three o’clock, my mother sat in that lobby until five-thirty. Five-thirty is when I was finally called over there. My mother kept inquiring why it was taking so long for me to get there, and she was being told that I am out for recreation, which is why it was taking so long. On that day, we were actually on lockdown, so nobody was out for recreation. And then when I finally saw my mother, it was for forty-five minutes, when it should have actually been a two hour visit because she was coming from out of town.
But this is just another example of the retaliation from Virginia. Now it’s over here in Maryland. Comrade Pitt. Thank you for your time.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio.
