The Voice of the Anti-Imperialist Movement from

Under Lock & Key

[Hunger Strike] [Control Units] [Abuse] [New Jersey State Prison] [New Jersey] [ULK Issue 33]

Protest at New Jersey State Prison

Prisoners at New Jersey State Prison, the only maximum security facility in the state, staged a non-violent protest June 6 through 8, 2013. Initially, prisoners on the West Compound, the older part of the prison, and one of the oldest in the nation, functioning since 1830, refused to go to the mess hall for the entire day. Despite some lack of cooperation at the breakfast movement, the mess hall finally remained empty at dinner time. The next two days the modern North and South compounds of the prison joined in the protest, bringing the institution to a complete standstill.

The protest came as a consequence of several factors. First was the issue of collective punishment. The prison administrator issued an official memorandum in which he threatened to suspend recreation and privileges to entire wings of any individual prisoner who had committed a serious offense (a common occurrence on a prison that houses close to 2000 people).

Ancillary issues involved the harassment of people at the central rotunda, a place of obligatory pass for any activities, including meals, recreation, education and religious programs. The officers, with little supervision, or perhaps encouraged by supervisors, overtly harass inmates, many times without probable cause, as demanded by the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of New Jersey, and affirmed by the 10A Code that regulates prisons in the state. Prisoners are stripped searched at the mere whim of any guard. Made up charges that lead to lock-up time are usually the result of such harassment.

The last issue that weighed on the decision to stage a non-violent protest relates to the abusive language and arbitrary searches conducted by a second shift sergeant. Sometimes, the results are outright sad and curious, i.e., the same shank found in several cells by the same sergeant.

In conclusion petty management practices, abuse of power by supervisors, lack of concern by the administrator and superintendent (supervision from an Ivory Tower), collective punishment, and indiscriminate use of lock-up as an instrument of control, led the prison community to unite as one to express their concerns.

It is important to highlight that the prison, at any given time, keeps an estimated 750 inmates on closed custody units such as 1-Left lock-up, Ad-Seg, MCU (Management Control Unit), and P.C. (Protective Custody) — a full 38% of the prison population. More than one in three prisoners are kept in solitary confinement.

Although nothing has changed as of the writing of this report, it is important to highlight that the level of unity achieved across nations and groups, the effective organization of the protest, and the fearful response by the state demonstrate the power of non-violent resistance in a corrections environment. During the demonstration the prison was militarized by SAG, the special operations response team of the DOC, hundreds of officers were summoned to work, and all administration had to report to work. It is presumable that the cost of overtime hours, and the emotional cost of an oppressive power challenged by the masses will affect the way in which future decisions are made by the administration. A group of prisoners were transferred to other facilities across the state, some others placed in solitary confinement. As it usually happens, most were not organizers of the protest.

[Control Units] [Medical Care] [Mental Health]

The Health Effects of Solitary Confinement

The author Charles Dickens (in American Notes for General Circulation) wrote these words about solitary confinement in 1842:
"I believe that very few men are capable of estimating the immense amount of torture and agony which this dreadful punishment, prolonged for years, inflicts upon the sufferers, and in guessing at it myself, and in reasoning from what I have seen written upon their faces, and what to my certain knowledge they feel within, I am only the more convinced that there is a depth of terrible endurance in it which none but the sufferers themselves can fathom, and which no man has a right to inflict upon his fellow creature. I hold this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain to be immeasurably worse than any torture of the body, and because its ghastly signs and tokens are not so palpable to the eye and sense of touch as scars upon the flesh, because it's wounds are not upon the surface, and it extorts few cries that human ears can hear, therefore the more I denounce it."

Upon reading a study on solitary confinement I reflect on the following effects of this legalized tool of torture.

Significant decrease in the ability of the nervous system functions:

  1. Significant disruptions in hormone levels
  2. Absence of menstruation in women with no other physiological, organic cause due to age or pregnancy (secondary amenorrhea)
  3. Increased feeling of having to eat: Zynorexia/cravings, hyporerexia, compulsive overeating
  4. In contrast, reduction or absence of thirst
  5. Severe hot flashes and/or sensations of coldness not attributable to any corresponding change in the ambient temperature or to illness (fever, chills, etc.)

Significantly impaired perception and cognitive ability
  1. Serious inability to process perceptions
  2. Serious inability to feel one's own body
  3. Serious general difficulties in concentrating
  4. Serious difficulty, even the complete inability, to read or register what has been read, comprehend it and place it within a meaningful context
  5. Serious difficulties, even the complete inability, to speak or process thoughts in written form (agraphia, dysgraphia)
  6. Serious difficulties in articulating and verbalizing thoughts, which is demonstrated in problems with syntax, grammar and word selection and can even extend to aphasia, aphrasia, and agnosia
  7. Serious difficulties or the complete inability to follow conversations (shown to be the result of slowed function in the primary acoustic cortex of the temporal lobes due to lack of stimulation)

Additional limitations
  1. Carrying out conversations with oneself to compensate for the social and acoustic lack of stimulation
  2. Clear loss of intensity of feeling
  3. Situatively euphoric feelings which later transform into a depressed mood

Long-Term health consequences
  1. Difficulties in social contacts, including the inability to engage in emotionally close and long-term romantic relationships
  2. Depression
  3. Negative impact on self-esteem
  4. Returning to imprisonment situation in dreams
  5. Blood pressure disorders requiring treatment
  6. Skin disorders requiring treatment
  7. Inability to recover in particular cognitive skills (e.g. in mathematics) the prisoner had mastered before solitary confinement

[Middle East] [Elections] [ULK Issue 33]

Egypt Protests Demonstrate Power and Perils of Mass Protests

mubarak morsi the same







[Rhymes/Poetry] [ULK Issue 34]

We'll Never Know

Logic & Last Resort
featuring Maverick Sabre, Akala & Big Frizzle
from the album True Talk (2012)

Let me start with the basic structures of a Western country
Imperialism, it's all about the money
While we moan and complain when it's not sunny
Little kids hustle foods, tryna fill their tummy's
And, every kid's seen a gun, when you go to places like Iraq and Afghanistan
While kids over here think that shooting's fun
Kids over there shoot to protect their mums
And, over here, we can't claim real hardship
Trust me, we don't really know what hard is
A hard life, where your family is starving
A hard life, where your family is killed by the army
A life where you're seen as a target
A life that you wish never started
But, they got big hearts, big smiles and energy to make a change
I make music for them to play

[Hook: Big Frizzle]
I said we'll never know
Because the places we've grown
Ain't nothing like what they know
Cause we'll never know

[Maverick Sabre]
Whoa little lad, I know you're feeling sad
Trust me there'll be better days you never had
The pain you face will never last
Try and say we ain't the same, walkin' to different paths
Why must I hate? Turn on the TV and just sit and laugh
But, that child'll never smile, he's lost his dad
Seein' foreign flags fly above his mother land
He's hearin' gunshots like shots from your block
When he bleeds, do we not bleed the same blood?
There's no lovin' growin' up as cold thugs
Imagine growin' up where every sip of water makes you throw up
Where soldiers patrol every road, throwin' stones
To protect your home, all alone, when there's no-one else
So they say we ain't relatives, cause the difference in our melanin
As hell as being relevant, fuck it all, to hell with it
This evil has been spreading it
And, even if my death comes quick
I'll be fighting 'til the end of it

We live in a period where our world has both the resources,
The technology and the know-how to end world poverty.
But, unfortunately we also live in a point in time
When at no other point in history has there been so much suffering

[Hook: Big Frizzle]
Cause we'll never know

Okay, let me make clear my position
I know your estate feels like shit to live in
And, watching mummy graft to stop bailiffs from ringing
Is enough to make you wanna hit the block and start slingin'
I've been there, no gas, no electric to the kitchen
Fridge cuts off, defrosts and starts stinkin'
Whether Gorbals in Glasgow, Mumbai or Brixton
May not be the same shit but it is the same system
But, this is Britain. As hard as some of us have it
We're still far better off than ninety-percent of the planet
And, that is what you learn, when you get to start travelling
Unravelling the bullshit that they are babbling
So, this is for the nameless, faceless
Millions that die everyday, but don't even get a funeral
And, we tell ourselves because where they were born
They are less worth, less intelligent or beautiful
Well, I don't agree, they are you and me
And we are them, but we're too blind to see
While some have everything, they ain't got shit
And, we tell ourselves, well that's just how it is
There ain't enough to go around, on this abundant planet
Of course there is, it's just that some of us are ganits
And, the habits we developed
That are so far divorced from the source
We don't even stop to pause, at the destruction everyday
Of counts of this human family, it's just normal insanity

[Hook: Big Frizzle]
I said we'll never know (We'll never know, never know)
Because the places we've grown (Places we've grown)
Ain't nothing like what they know (Ain't nothing like ohh-oh)
Cause we'll never know (We'll never know, never know, never know)

I said we'll never know (We'll never know, never know, never know)
Because the places we've grown (Places we've grown)
Ain't nothing like what they know (Ain't nothing like they know, ain't nothing like)
Cause we'll never know

music video for We'll Never Know


Death Row Prisoners Kick-Off California Hunger Strike July 1


  2. The unfair administration and classification committee practices
  5. The unlawful practice of group punishment tactics and lockdowns
  6. The unlawful practice of "interviewing"/forced interrogation









San Quentin State Prison
San Quentin, CA 94964

Internal Affairs CDCR
10111 Old Placerville Rd, Ste 2000
Sacramento, CA 95827

CDCR Office of the Ombudsman
1515 S Street, Room 311 South
Sacramento, CA 95811

The California State Senate Research Team
Attn: Senator Darrell Steinberg
Room 205
State Capitol
Sacramento, CA 94248


[Organizing] [Federal] [ULK Issue 33]

Solidarity: Dead in the Feds

There are certain "rights" that are made into "privileges" in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP): our right to adequate clothing, adequate sunlight and fresh air (outdoor rec), calorically adequate meals, and peaceful assembly.

On 17 June 2013 at United States Penitentiary in Pollock, Louisiana, in the SHU we were fed a lunch that consisted of a one-ounce spoonful of pasta and a half-ounce scoop of green beans. On every meal we are to have at least two ounces of protein (meat, peanut butter, cheese, soy, etc) according to the BOP program statement. When asked about our protein we were told to not eat if we did not like the meal. The following ensued (taken from a prison report):

"On the above date while feeding Range 1 of the Special Housing Unit (SHU), inmate [X] received the noon meal in his assigned cell. He instantly ordered staff to give him a dessert and some 'protein.' The range officer instructed the inmates that there was no dessert or protein. Inmate [X] started chanting 'we want dessert, we want protein.' Inmate [X] told all the other inmates on the range to 'start bucking' and 'we need to be a group on this and not give up our trays and we will get what we want.' He began to call to cells and other inmates by 'nicknames' and saying 'come on y'all, don't bitch up.' Before SHU staff could exit the range, inmate [X]'s disruptive behavior had spread throughout the range and the range above. The result of which caused a security issue due to 53 inmates covering cell windows and refusing all orders given by staff. After several attempts had been made to collect the food trays, 46 inmates complied and were placed in 'alternative clothing' and three cells (including inmate [X]'s cell) required an 'immediate use of force team.' All actions taken by SHU inmates acting as a group were a direct result of inmate [X]'s disruptive actions."

Our clothing was taken away and we were all placed in paper boxers and a paper gown. This "alternative clothing" is reserved for prisoners on suicide watch and not to be used for disciplinary purposes. Me and my cellmate (along with five other prisoners) refused to give up our clothing while the other 47 prisoners gave their clothes up. I was gassed five times, and when the gas proved ineffective I was "sting bombed" twice. A sting bomb is a bomb full of rubber bullets and "ghost pepper" gas. Our peaceful assembly was met with force.

We are all also on "disciplinary meals" which consists of two sandwiches and a half of an apple, hardly meeting our 2,200 daily calorie needs.

If everyone would have refused to give up their trays and clothing the police and administration would have had to negotiate with us. Instead, the majority folded up like lawn chairs, making our collective stand futile in the end. It pains me to say it but solidarity is dead in the feds. The sheep are ready to be sheared.

MIM(Prisons) responds: We get a lot of letters of frustration from prisoners about the lack of unity and organization among prisoners. This letter actually demonstrates a relatively high level of unity as so many prisoners joined in a spontaneous protest action. The fact that most did not stick it out is no doubt disheartening to the organizer, but this points to the potential for greater unity. Organizing is a long slow process, and it requires the background work of education and building of unity that does not happen overnight. We don't know the back story to this incident but we urge our comrades to take lessons from these events and move forward to educate and build greater unity for the future.

[Control Units] [Political Repression] [Nevada]

Nevada Creates False Lists of Enemies

In Nevada, Security Threat Group (STG) and Disruptive Group (DG) designations have a formal process, so instead of attempting to STG/DG everyone they generate enemy or separate lists which are quite similar to the validation dilemma in California.

  1. There are no procedural safeguards so anyone can put anyone on these lists
  2. No investigation is conducted into the allegations
  3. You can't defend against any allegation
  4. You can't find out who the enemies/separates are because it's all "confidential" and ergo permanent.

Initially these lists were created to protect victims from predators and clashes between known enemies/factions, but they've become a weapon that staff and prisoners use to retaliate and cross out other prisoners.

While reviewing my file on an unrelated matter I discovered a document: "Nevada department of prisons central monitoring status sheet" (supposed to have been removed form the file prior to my review). On this document are detailed 2 additions of enemies/seperates. Both of these additions were placed there by staff to justify my transfer last year and conceal the fact that the transfer was in retaliation for my litigation. Both of these prisoners are friends, so it has the added consequence of insuring friends are permanently separated.

MIM(Prisons) adds: It's important that prisoners are aware of this tactic by the pigs to create false divisions between prisoners. It is in our interests to build unity, but the prisons see this unity as a threat. Separating people working together, under the guise of safety, is just another way the prisons try to stop our unified work against the criminal injustice system. The one constant (if you can get mail past the prison censors) is MIM(Prisons). If you stay in touch with us you will be in touch with the anti-imperialist movement no matter how isolated you are behind bars.

[Elections] [New Afrika] [ULK Issue 33]

Election Begs Question of the Road to Dual Power in New Afrika

map of kush region


This plan states:











[Economics] [Theory]

Opposing Turning the Tide Attacks on MIM(Prisons)







San Quentin Adjustment Center list of demands to CDCR











    2. Allow two phone calls per month.
    5. Allow $110.00 canteen draw a month.




    Thank you.


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