This is Bilal Abdul-Salam Bey at the Hudson Correctional Facility. This piece is about the Kansas freedom bill called Kansas’ Healthcare, Education, Rehabilitation, and Re-entry Preparedness Bill Part 1.
Section 1: be it enact a law that, by December 15th, 2021, Kansas Department of Corrections will reduce this prison population down to its designed capacity.
Due to the ill effects of COVID-19 inside KDOC, prisoners who have the following health problems should be release from prison immediately: Bronchitis, TB, Asthma, HepC, HIV and Diabetes.
Prisoners are more prone to get COVID-19 than others due to us being confined in closed spaces. We don’t have enough room to practice social distancing. For these obvious reasons, the secretary of KDOC is ordered by this law to release no less than 100 prisoners per month per year beginning January 15th, 2021 until the prison population is reduced to its current designed capacity.
Section 2: be it also enacted that a moratorium shall issue upon the passage of this bill stating that no person convicted of a crime in the state of Kansas, so be transferred without legitimate reasons to any out-of-state facility.
In order to address the ill effects of mass incarceration for private financial motives, no other public or private prisons outside the state of Kansas shall be used to house anyone convicted of any crime within the state of Kansas.
This concludes the first two parts of this bill. Those wishing to get in contact with me may do so by writing “Charley Hughes” number 96576, Hutchinson Correctional Facility, P.O. Box 1568, Hutchinson, Kansas 67504.
Thank you for your time, effort, and energy.
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)