by Michelle Renee Matisons, Ph.D
“But now with the living conditions deteriorating, and with the sure knowledge that we are slated for destruction, we have been transformed into an implacable army of liberation.”
“But now with the living conditions deteriorating, and with the sure knowledge that we are slated for destruction, we have been transformed into an implacable army of liberation.”
--George Jackson
Phone calls, canteen
purchases, visits from loved ones, and work assignments are all part of Florida
prisoners’ daily routines. But so is massive coordinated resistance to
incarceration conditions that, in Florida, includes the 2012 torture and
subsequent death of Darren Rainey. Rainey was incarcerated in the Dade
Correctional Institution in South Florida when guards “punished” him by pouring
boiling shower water on him for two hours. Unfortunately, his death has become
emblematic of general Florida prison conditions many are courageously
resisting.
In a 101-page report
released last spring, officials ruled Rainey’s death an “accident,” and blamed
it on his poor health condition that includes schizophrenia and heart disease.
Others investigating the death point to an incomplete investigation into
Rainey’ death… You know: business as usual for the Florida Department of
Corrections (FDOC).
It's treatment like
torture, solitary confinement, medical neglect, and exploited labor and living
conditions that have us witnessing sustained prisoner resistance efforts in the
face of serious administrative repression. The most recent campaign is
Operation PUSH (#OperationPUSH), which was launched on January 15, 2018 to
honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. This is a statewide prisoner strike to
end inhumane, even deadly, Florida prison conditions.
Florida’s Prison
Plantations
It is one thing to
refuse to purchase services or take visitors, it’s quite another to refuse
work. This is exactly what the savvy organizers inside, and their outside
supporters, know well. Hitting the industries profiting from prisoner wage
theft can serve as a wake up call to the FDOC. Not only do inmates perform the
grunt work that keeps the prison running-- laundry, cooking, cleaning-- but
they also participate in a state-approved non-profit program called P.R.I.D.E. This
organization has prisoners working in all kinds of industries like furniture
and garment manufacturing--for very low pay and in frequently dangerous
conditions--under the auspices of inmate vocational training that makes
communities safer and saves taxpayer money.
Redefining the meaning
of the word “pride,” striking prisoners in 8 facilities started a laydown/ work
stoppage and refusal of other privileges for at least one month, or until
demands are met.
Theft of prisoners’
wages is a growing topic of concern in the liberal media, like PBS and NPR.
Recently, we saw coverage of California women prisoners earning a mere $2.00 to
fight deadly toxic wildfires. In Florida, the average hourly wage is from $0.00
to $0.32. This wage theft reminds us of Florida’s status as one of a handful of
states where prison jobs can go unpaid altogether. Alabama, Georgia,
Mississippi, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Texas are the other states with
literal slavery conditions:
there’s no other way to describe mandatory free labor.
This no and low pay condition for mandatory labor has a cascade effect hindering other quality of life issues for prisoners, such as inability to pay exorbitant fees for canteen items and phone calls.
One organizer explains
in an interview with It’s Going Down, as published on the
Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) website: “These “privileges”
are a facade which help them more than it does inmates by boosting their
revenues. Boycotting them may temporarily seem like creating burdens for
ourselves, but that sacrifice now is worth having a better tomorrow. Or
future.”
Meet the F&$%*@!
Demands
This widely supported
and extremely well-coordinated effort has three major demands:
“payment for our labor, rather than the current slave arrangement; an end to
outrageous canteen prices; and the reintroduction of parole incentives to
lifers and those with Buck Rogers dates.” (Buck Rogers dates are release dates
set so far in the future as to seem fictional in nature.)
Other more specifically
stated goals include: stop the
overcrowding and acts of brutality committed by officers throughout FDOC which
have resulted in the highest death rates in prison history; expose the
environmental conditions we face, including extreme temperatures, mold,
contaminated water, and being placed next to toxic sites such as landfills,
military bases and phosphate mines (including a proposed mine which would
surround the Reception and Medical Center prison in Lake Butler); honor the
moratorium on state executions, as a court-ordered the state to do, without the
legal loophole now being used to kill prisoners on death row; restore voting
rights as a basic human right to all, not a privilege, regardless of criminal
convictions.
The idea is to laydown
and refuse work until Governor Rick Scott faces the harsh financial reality of
hiring outside of his precious walls for labor to run daily prison operations. This “could cost
millions of dollars each day the strike continues, which the state of Florida
relies on incarcerated workers to do for a fraction of that cost.”
Haitian strikers
currently incarcerated in Florida are connecting their presence as laborers in Florida
facilities to Trump era detention policies. A solidarity statement
from Haitian prisoners explains: “Prisons in America are nothing but a
different form of slavery plantations... There are so many Haitians, Jamaicans,
and Latinos in the FDOC serving sentences that exceeds life expectancy and or
life sentences who are not being deported. They use all immigrants, for free
Labor and then deport them.”
This strike emerges on
the heels of what has been a few serious years of prisoner resistance and
organizing in the state, coordinated with national efforts. August 2016 saw
prisoners placed on lockdown in anticipation of the national prisoners’ strike
commemorating the Attica prison uprising’s 45th anniversary on September 9,
2016.
Prior to
#OperationPUSH’s January 15th kick-off date, on January 13 it was reported that
facilities began to retaliate against strike leaders and organizers by placing
some in solitary confinement.
An Implacable Army of
Liberation
On the strike’s first
day, communication from inside ceased. Outside, supporters,
including 100 organizations, organized solidarity actions including a protest
at Norfolk City Jail in Virginia and a solidarity demonstration in Tallahassee,
Florida where one demonstrator, a Dream Defender, was arrested. Supporters also
rallied outside Miami’s Florida Department of Corrections building, outside the
Lake Butler facility, and in Jacksonville.
It’s no shock that Angela Davis has
thrown her enthusiastic support behind the strike, exclaiming that: “There’s no
better way to keep the legacy of Dr. King alive than by supporting the
prisoners’ strike.” Her speech was delivered to a packed audience at Florida
State University, Tallahassee on Wednesday, January 16, 2018.
IWOC has merely heard
rumors of what is currently happening inside, and the organization initially
waited to verify rumors as facts before releasing information. As of January
17, there’s verification of pre-emptive organizer sweeps and facility
lockdowns: collective punishment, if you will. Given the brutal conditions that
characterize U.S. prisons, jails, and detention facilities, we should not be
surprised to hear about prison administration crackdowns on strikers-- yet we
should remain outraged.
On the Supporting
Prisoners and Real Change (SPARC) Facebook
page, it’s reported as of January 17 at 10
AM that: “Info coming in... key organizers being held in confinement ‘under investigation’
with no reason being given. Strong possibility they do not have access to
certain personal property such as writing materials or extra clothing to deal
with the extreme low temperatures in these prisons without heat. Details will
be updated as we receive them.”
The temperature
throughout the state is no joke this time of year. January 17, 2018’s evening
temperatures dropped below freezing in Florida’s panhandle.
By January 18, the UK’s Daily Mail has
covered the strike, reporting that Florida prisons have the highest death rate
in history. Also, in 2017 alone, the FDOC confirms prisoners performed 3.15
million hours of outside labor as “community work squad members,” worth $38
million. Part of the arrangement is that instead of getting paid, inmates can
work off sentence time. Of course, this also produces a sinister culture
whereby guards can place time onto prisoners records-- especially if they are
strike organizers and participants.
Speaking of sinister,
Florida eliminated parole for non-capital felonies in 1984, and strikers are
demanding the return of the parole option, which would reduce overcrowding,
illness, suicides, and deaths.
Some prisons have
already cancelled visitation and phone calling privileges in retaliation
against strike demands. This is nothing other than pre-emptive collective
punishment as this new round of serious struggle commences. Under collective
punishment, every prisoner is a political prisoner. SPARC reports that Avon Park prison has
shut off all facility phones. Prisoners who once planned to boycott phone use
are now being denied the privilege pre-emptively by Polk County’s Avon Park
administrators. What the hell are they planning to do to strikers?
In the meantime, as more
news trickles in about the strike climate, there are many things you can do as
an individual or a group to support #OperationPUSH. You can organize and attend
solidarity demos; coordinate your organization’s endorsement of the strike
(email fighttoxicprisons@gmail.com); use the #OperationPUSH hashtag to publicize the strike;
write prisoners; and donate to supporting organizations.
Relevant and informative
websites following the strike include:
Addendum: Kevin “Rashid”
Johnson’s Invaluable Perspective
Amidst the general
organizing efforts inside Florida prisons, there’s a recent addition to the
Florida system, and officials can’t be happy. Kevin “Rashid” Johnson,
co-founder and Minister of Defense for the New Afrikan Black Panther Party
(Prison Chapter), and author of anti-prison organizing book, Defying the
Tomb, Kersplebedeb: 2010) was transferred from Texas to Florida State
Prison in Bradford County six months ago.
Since this is Johnson’s
fourth state prison system in six years (he’s also done time in Virginia and Oregon),
he is one to adequately compare state systems. He has gone down on record as
stating that he “can personally attest that conditions [in Florida] are among
the worst I’ve seen.”
In addition to slave
labor, Johnson also describes other
travesties of justice: “On a literal daily basis prisoners are gassed, tortured
and/or brutally beaten by guards with the full complicity of medical and mental
health staff. As part of this culture of abuse, grievance officials
routinely trash prisoners’ attempts to grieve their mistreatment. This to
eliminate any records of the abuses and to frustrate any potential attempts at
litigation.”
Other shocking examples
of more routinized economic exploitation include Johnson’s list comparing Texas
prison canteen prices to Florida.
Highlights include price-gouging for ramen, oatmeal, and other anti-starvation
necessities: “One Top Ramen soup is $.30 (TX); $.70 (FL); ten individual packs
of oatmeal are $1.50 (TX); $5.30 (FL)...”
When Florida is outdoing
other monumental prison states like Texas and California for exploitation and
corruption, we have a serious situation on our hands that will not simply go
away.
While striking prisoners
portray their resistance as deliberately non-violent in the tradition of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr., the state remains complicit in running a violently
racist, class bludgeoning death chamber that is receiving international
attention.
Even an imperialist U.S.
president like John F. Kennedy can tell you that “Those who make peaceful
revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
Governor Rick Scott and
Company: it’s probably a good idea to heed this warning.
Michelle Renee Matisons,
Ph.D. is an adjunct philosophy professor and writer living in the Florida
panhandle. She can be reached at michrenee@gmail.com.
