here is TL 18
the files that follow are from Taking Liberties Number 18 - the bulletin of the Anarchist Black Cross
ANOTHER DEATH
Alton Manning died in Blakenhurst Prison on 8th December 1995. A post- mortem by the Home Office and an independent autopsy confirmed that death was caused by asphyxiation. the second independent pathologist said 'In my opinion death was due to the way in which he was handled' (by prison officers) and he drew a parallel to the death of Joy Gardner. This supports what other prisoners have expressed in writing to the family through their solicitor. Seven screws were said to have beaten him up. It was stated by the Prison Service that Alton Manning had just 'collapsed' as a reason for his death - yet the family noticeed he had injuries on his neck and severe bruises on his face. Alton had been subjected to four years of harassment from police and prison authorities, and told his mother, just hours before his death, that he believed he would die. Alton's family are calling for a public enquiry into his death, supported by Birmingham Racial Attacks Monitoring Unit.
Contact BRAMU, 339 Dudley Road, Winson Green, Birmingham, B15 4HB. Tel 0121 454 9500. Fax 0121 454 5933.
STOP IMPRISONING ASYLUM SEEKERS
Up to 10,000 people are imprisoned every year under immigration legislation - half in special prison camps called 'detention centres' and half in prisons and police stations. At any one time there are 6 - 700 people locked up without basic 'human rights', such as suitable medical attention and food, access to translators and legal representation. Since the 1993 Asylum and Immigration Act the number of people detained has doubled and the number of detention places has increased with the opening of Campsfield and 100 places at Haslar and Rochester Prison. The average length of detention has also increased from 2 to 4 months, although some detainees have been held for up to two years! Usually detainees are held without having been charged or tried for any crime, and remain subject to deportation at any moment on the decision of the Home Office.
MORE DETENTION TO COME
The new Immigration and Asylum Bill and cuts to benefits for asylum seekers are likely to mean even more people being locked up in British prisons and detentions centres. Why?
* A new fast-track procedure for processing asylum claims has been 'successfully' tested, which means that it led to rapid refusal of asylum and deportation of those involved. it will be first introduced at Gatwick to coincide with the opening of 50 new detention places. Asylum-seekers from countries with high refusal rates are likely to be detained and subjected to this new procedure. After escaping from their own country and finding themselves locked up and without access to good legal advice they will be given an interview which they are likely to fail. They will then be moved rapidly through the appeal stage and then deported.
* The introduction of a 'white list' of countries (which the british government approves of for its own political and economic reasons) means that many asylum-seekers will have their applications rejected with only limited appeal rights. The Home Office will deem that their claim for asylum is 'manifestly unfounded' and they are likely to be detained as soon as a claim is made.
* The Immigration and Asylum Bill increases the number of categories of people defined as 'illegal immigrants' and therefore the number of people who will be locked up. They will introduce internal immigration controls, spreading official racism into schools, benefits agencies, social services and hospitals, by asking workers to act as immigration officers.
* By cutting benefits and housing availability to refugees, it will be even more difficult for those detained to get bail.
FREE THE DETAINEES:CLOSE THE DETENTION CENTRES
We don't want these racist detention centres in our communities. Local campaigns have been established in many places to demand the closure of detention centres and release of those detained. The National Network Against Detentions and Deportations is a non-sectarian group set up to co- ordinate the working together of these campaigns. If you want to get involved in a local group or start one in your area please contact them on 0171 837 1450.
Or write to them c/o CARF, BM BOX 8784, LONDON, WC1N 3XX
AVI NAFTEL
Avi Naftel has been imprisoned up in Arizona, USA, since 1981. He was given 25 years for disarming a state trooper who stopped him and pulled a gun on him. Avi was born in the UK, grew up in Israel, moved to the US and served in Vietnam, becoming disillusioned with 'the American Dream'. Since going down he has corresponded with anarchists all over the world and fought his own and other prisoners corner as a jailhouse lawyer, facing the usual harassment and abuse from guards and authorities as a result. He has also had to cope with cancer, for which he has fought to get proper medical care and a healthy diet.
Last year Avi was forced to go on hunger strike to stop prison officials and screws messing with his diet. He successfully got an injunction against any interference pending two court cases related to his diet, which a lawyer has now taken on.
Avi says: 'I myself am doing well at this time. My diet has been maintained, though with some problems. Still, my health has returned (though I'm still trying to put weight back on), and I'm able to work out and run daily.....There have been no changes in my parole certification dates, and I will be seeing the Parole Board in August this year. Next month I go before the Reclassification Committee, but I doubt there will be any change in my housing or security status.'
Avi would like to thank everyone who wrote in support or protested to the prison /court during his hunger strike. He asks that people send letters to his lawyer, letting him know that you support his decision to take the case. Write to:
David P. Braun, Attorney at Law, 36 West Franklin, Tucson, AZ. 35701, USA
Drop Avi a line: Avi Naftel #45287,
Arizona State Prison,
Santa Rita Unit,
10,000 S. Wilmot Rd,
Tucson
AZ. 85777,
USA.
JAILED FOR CARING
By an odd quirk of fate, it was my kind heart which led to the predicament which I now find myself in. I had been working as a freelance journalist for several years before I decided to go to Italy to combine a working holiday, writing and teaching with pleasure. I wanted to use it as a chance to recuperate from an abusive relationship which had lasted over 5 years. Living with a violent alcoholic had diminished my self-esteem and I felt in need of a change. I came back several months later, a few weeks before Christmas and having witnessed such corruption in Italy, felt the need to do something a bit more worthwhile than just writing before going to my family over the Christmas holidays. As I had previously worked on a publication entitled Care Weekly, I thought it might be nice to combine the experience of caring for someone with being able to write about the experience.
So I applied to an agency and was given a job straight away caring for Cathy O'Neill as their previous carer had left them in the lurch. We got on straight away and things seemed to be going very well between us. The only problem was that Cathy tended to have a suspicious mind and often told me that other carers had stolen things from her which I'm sure was imaginary. Anyway, one day she gave me some money and a cheque to put in the bank. At the last minute she decided she didn't want the money put into the bank as she would need it to do a big shop on Friday. The on Thursday she said she had phoned up the bank and the money had not been put in. I explained that I'm sure she hadn't given me the money but I agreed to go to the bank and make enquiries. They didn't know anything about the money. Anyway i had a look through her drawers but could not find it. On Friday I did find he money hidden in one of the envelopes so we went shopping and had a pleasant afternoon out. We came back and had some tea. She had been ill in the morning with diarrhoea and before I left to go out around 8pm she went to the toilet and had to stay there. I said I would stay with her but she explained that her friend was coming round to see her and told me to go. She probably felt bad about the misunderstanding earlier.
I caught the tube to Ravenscourt Park where i met up with my friend Tadeus at a Polish delicatessen. We then went by car to the Bar Madrid in Oxford Street where i was due to meet another friend who did not turn up. We stayed for a few hours and Tadeus drove me home around midnight. He did not come into the house but drove back to his hotel. When I opened the door I noticed there was dense smoke around. Worried I called out Cathy's name but there was no reply. I went to the bedroom and lounge before rushing into the bathroom. The smoke was incredibly thick there. I went over, and, opening the window, looked down to see Cathy's body on the floor covered in blood and slightly burnt. I knelt down and shook her, calling her name but there was no reply. I burst into tears and was in such a state of shock I think I stayed in the bathroom for a long time. I can't really remember much else of what happened that night. I was so withdrawn and almost in a trance-like state.
I can understand more now about how I felt as i went into the same state when my brother was tragically killed last year. I could not do anything, would lie or sit dazed for a long time and was unable to speak coherently. When I tried to do something it would take ages and afterwards I would have no recollection of this. I recognise now I was suffering from post- traumatic stress disorder but at the time could not understand why I behaved in that way. It was partially triggered by living in an abusive relationship for so long and having to conceal everything inside as it was the only way to survive, plus being too frightened to speak in case I was attacked or it caused an argument. I also felt incredibly guilty at leaving Cathy alone that night even though I knew I was entitled to go out.
I can remember i locked the back door which was lightly ajar, as i was scared that the person might return. I was obvious that the intruder had entered the house that way. I wish no that i had called the police but i was unable to speak to anyone at that time. The next thing I can remember is the neighbour coming round to the house and asking for Cathy. She then left to telephone the police. I went to look for help myself then but the police arrived and I was taken to the station for questioning. they later charged me with Cathy's murder.
The police did not carry out a proper search of the premises but just assumed I was guilty. They had someone for he murder so did it really matter whether they were responsible or not. They hardly searched for fingerprints at all throughout the house, only in the bathroom, even though it was obvious that the place would have been covered in them, particularly as Cathy had many visitors as it was so near Christmas. It emerged during the trial that they had not disclosed a fingerprint which they had discovered that did not match any they had taken of regular visitors to the house. The police had tried to keep this from the defence as hey knew if we were aware of its existence before the trial we would have been able to carry out a detailed investigation into it. As it was, we were completely taken by surprise and my counsel were therefore unable to cross-examine effectively. It also emerged that no murder weapon had been discovered as the pathologist stated that the knives found in the house were unlikely to have have been the one that caused the 55 stab wounds in Cathy's body. Yet the prosecution said that I had carried out the murder and then remained in the house all night.
The pathologist also stated that Cathy's carotid artery had been severed as well as her jugular vein, so who ever killed Cathy would have to have been covered in blood, particularly as splashes of blood had been discovered all over the bathroom. They only found some faint smudges on the kneecaps of my jeans which were consistent with my story of having knelt over the body. The pathologist put the time of death at 2am but said it could have happened up to 6 hours earlier or later. The prosecution at the trial made the supposition that I had killed Cathy at around 9pm and yet if it was the case why did I stay in the house all night. I would have had ample opportunity to leave which would have been my likely action if i had been guilty.
I did not give evidence ass i was advised not to by my counsel and was badly shaken by the whole trial and repercussions issuing from it. The jury judged e on ten days of my life without knowing anything about me apart from the fact that I had no previous convictions and was a university graduate. The QC I was due to have pulled out at the last minute as he was in the middle of a huge fraud trial so I only met my QC a day before the trial was about to start. So I felt, given the seriousness of the charge, we should have been given a postponement. In the end the jury convicted me on a 10-2 majority nut if they had known more of the facts I'm certain I would have been acquitted. I had asked for my friends to be character witnesses as they could have stated that they never saw me become angry - I was always calm and easy going, but was advised by my counsel this was a bad idea.
On remand I just shut everything inside me, particularly as i was warned not to discuss my case with anyone, because I had learnt to deal with anything traumatic that I was going through in that way, after the abusive relationship. I did not have access to a counsellor and was unable to tell my solicitor much of what had happened in the relationship, even lying over the fact that i had nearly died as I was ashamed to admit it, even though there were hospital records to prove this.I have since received adequate counselling and am able to cope with what happened to me in the past and talk about it. I feel that if this had come up in court, my reaction that night would have been understood.
I have also been able to remember more in detail about the days leading up to the night in question. I can remember talking to a man on the very morning of the the murder and even giving him my address as he promised to come round and look at the boiler which wasn't working properly. I told him I was was going out that evening as he offered to meet me in a local pub.
The judge's summing up at the trial was very biased and dwelt mainly on the prosecution story of what they alleged had happened that night, hardly dealing with the defence's points. There was no forensic evidence linking me with the murder, just circumstantial, and yet if the prosecution story was true there would have to have been forensic evidence.
At the time, we tried to trace Tadeus, my alibi, at the delicatessen and his hotel but he had already left without leaving an address. After sticking polish notices up at various Polish clubs and local papers he eventually contacted us this summer after having been abroad for a long time so now I can prove I went out that night. Additionally, after threatening judicial review several times and a two and a half year wait, we eventually gained access to the fingerprint evidence for an independent expert to examine closely. I have also had a beneficial report done by Dr Gillian Mezzey who is an expert in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder which should explain my inertia.
I will carry on fighting my case until my name has been cleared.
CLARE BARSTOW, H WING, HMP HOLLOWAY, PARKHURST ROAD, LONDON, N7
JAILED FOR CARING DYING TO GET OUT
Increasingly, vulnerable and depressed young people incarcerated within Britain's prisons are choosing to take their own lives rather than facing another day inside. The official Home Office statistics state that in 1993- 4 80 prisoners per week were deliberately injuring themselves. Of those 80, 15 were deemed to be with 'apparent suicidal intent' and on top of those figures, 45 inmates actually committed suicide between April 1993 and April 1994.
The official 1994-5 figures are not available yet but one statistic is certain and that is that in the period April 1994 - April 95 there was a 26.5% increase in suicides; 67 prisoners taking their own lives in that period. If you assume (as is reasonable) that there was also a 26.5% increase in the numbers attempting suicide or self-harm then that means that in 1994-5 around 5,296 prisoners deliberately injured themselves and of those, 1044 would have been serious suicide attempts.
We believe that all these statistics are only conservative estimates and that the official statistics belie a problem that is more serious than anyone imagines.
If you look back in previous statistics, the estimates for inmate self- harm for 94-95 show a 340% increase on 1985-6. So what is going wrong? In April 1994, Derek Lewis, The (sadly since departed- Ed) Director General of the Prison Service, introduced a new scheme for the care of those at risk. The F2052SH system with training material entitled 'Care of The Suicidal In Custody - Policies and Procedures' was designed to provide prison officers with well researched, comprehensive and easy to understand guidelines for them to follow and adhere to in the identification, monitoring and support of prisoners believed to be at risk of self-harm. it is since the distribution of these guidelines that the number of instances of self-harm have rapidly increased.
In a written answer to Mrs Barbara Roche on 30th January 1995, Derek Lewis explains away the dramatic increase in prisoner self-harm between 85-86 and 93-4, as due to ' the introduction of the new system for identifying those at risk of self harm.' He goes on to say that 'It is possible that the introduction of the new form together with the higher profile which the strategy affords to identification of and support for potentially suicidal prisoners has affected recording procedures. Staff may have become more disposed to ascribe suicidal intent or alternatively have become more attentive to self-injurious behaviour.'
It might be possible that a new system for identifying those at risk is better able to record incidents of self harm and therefore it might appear that the numbers have increased whereas it is merely the recording of them that has, but this argument falls down in two main areas:
a) Many (if not most) prisons, 15 months after the introduction of the guidelines, are at best only following some of the procedures and at worst not implementing them at all. So if the F2052SH system is not being used, how can it be blamed for the increase in the recorded incidents of self- harm?
b) Also, how can the incidents of Actual suicides be blamed on the new system? If the F2052SH system was up and working it should be reducing suicides, not sending them sky high! Derek Lewis cannot say that more suicides are the responsibility of more efficient recording procedures! So, where does the problem lie? There is no problem with the guidelines themselves: they are thorough and well presented and give prison officers a clear indication of the factors involved in assessing an inmate who may be at risk of self harm, how to successfully monitor them and the type of support that should be given to help the person over the crisis point and beyond. The problem lies with the fact that the system was presented as a series of 'Guidelines' and not 'Rules'. Derek Lewis says in his introduction to the F2052SH training pack:'The pack does not lay down rules for all establishments and all at-risk prisoners. I therefore encourage Governors and Suicide Awareness teams to adapt the use of the pack to their own needs, taking into account local circumstances and priorities. Different parts of the pack may be of greater relevance at different times.' This statement is the most ambivalent, back-covering thing I have ever heard. it can be clearly be seen as a euphemism for 'Look guys, i don't want to impose anything on you, that's why these are only guidelines, so choose what bits (if any) you want to use from them and if your local circumstances and priorities are that you haven't got enough manpower and your budget can't cover the costs involved then I don't mind if you don't use them at all.....but they look good and you can always hand them out to grieving relatives as good P.R.'
Something must be done to sop the appalling loss of life that occurring in our prisons but when, and by who?....It certainly will not be done by the present tactics of the Home Office or the Prison Service, as the blame for the increased numbers of inmates committing suicide can only be laid at their door. The Coroners' Court, who could afford their juries the power to return verdicts of 'Suicide due to Lack of Care', therefore placing the responsibility on the prisons to carry through a complete system of care, in a professional manner, for those at risk, do not (thanks to the Jamieson Ruling) hold that prison staff, knowing someone to be suicidal and not adhering to the prescribed care plan, are in any way responsible for that death. The Ruling states that actual negligence would have to mean something as extreme as a prison officer seeing someone with a noose around their neck and not doing anything to stop that man hanging himself. A jury cannot claim negligence has contributed to the death if, for instance, the prison knows someone to be suicidal or at risk of self harm, that inmate then physically harms himself and the prison officers do not specially monitor him at all times during the subsequent 12 hours, during which time the prisoner hangs himself and the only watch officer to check on the cell later says that 'with hindsight, now I know he has hung himself in the position he did, perhaps he was already dead when I looked in on him, but I'm not sure.' Such blatant uncaring, unprofessionalism, in direct contravention of the F2052SH system should be classed as negligence because the ramifications of such verdicts are the only way that the prison service will be forced into adhering to the rules of care. Until it is brought home to them that their slap-dash half-hearted approach to care is directly responsible for these deaths then no change will come. Suicides amongst inmates are not of much interest to the media either. If someone escapes from a prison, gets special treatment or is released to commit further crime then the press have a field day, there are calls for enquiries, and many a governor's job has been on the line, not to mention the Home Secretary's. But if a prisoner commits suicide it barely rates a couple of lines in the local rag (unless of course, that prisoners is Fred West).
So the fight to see that changes come about, again, is reliant on members of the public such as myself who have a personal reason for wishing things were very different and are willing to give up their time, their money, their health and their very being to see that, however long it takes, the changes do come about.
Valerie Hannington.
SUPPORT RONNIE EASTERBROOK
Ronnie Easterbrook is a 64-year old man from South London, who is serving a life sentence for armed robbery. The robbery took place in 1987, when Mr Easterbrook was 57; he has always maintained he was 'set up' by the police, using agent provocateurs. Now Ronnie's friends are anxious that his treatment in prison is threatening his life.
Ronnie Easterbrook has one lung and suffers from arthritis and a number of other ailments. Despite this the Home Office continues to treat him as a 'high risk' Category A prisoner. Since he began his sentence he has been moved between prisons 25 times. He is now being held in the punishment block at Whitemoor Prison, Cambridgeshire, in conditions of extreme squalor and brutality. Since March he has been on a 'dirty protest' which he feels is the only way he can draw attention to his sitation.
A younger prisoner, Dennis Prescott, who desperately wants to be moved back to the north of England, close to his family, is also on the same form of protest. The two men say they have been constantly harassed by prison staff, their mail interfered with, visitors turned away, property destroyed and food contaminated.
At Ronnie's age being sentenced to life imprisonment is already like receiving a death sentence, but it now seems as though the prison authorities are determined to kill him off sooner rather than later. He has gone on this protest because he feels it is his last possible resort. He writes:
"Prison is not meant to be nice and it never has been. Horrible conditions were tolerated years ago because it was also understood sentences were not designed to destroy, however unpleasant the experiences, Over the past twenty years, calls for longer and longer sentences have resulted in all politicians banging the same drum and more misery, suicides and broken relationships. There is nothing positive in it and it doesn't prevent crime."
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP
The Friends of Ronnie Easterbrook are asking that people help by:
Send letters of support to Ronnie Easterbrook (B88459) and Dennis Prescott (CF0338), at HMP Whitemoor, Longhill Road, March, Cambs, PE15 0PR. Send letters of protest about their treatment to the Prison Service, the Home Secretary and the Minister for prisons at the Home office, Queen Anne's Gate, London, SW1, and to your MP at the House of Commons, Westminster, London, SW1.
NB: Dennis Prescott has come off the dirty protest since this was written. SUPPORT RONNIE EASTERBROOK
VICTORIAN VALUES
In 1878 a Royal Commission ordered the demolition of cells at Dartmoor and Portland prisons, on the grounds that, being just six feet square, they were too degrading and inhumane. Things being what they are, in today's hard-pressed for space prison system, they can't afford to be so picky. Most of the 124 cells at a new women's prison, Eastwood Park near Bristol, are six feet long by six feet wide. This breaches the prison Service's own 'official standards' - it is less than half the size of most cells in female prisons. The cells have no available floor-space: half is taken up by the bed, a quarter by the toilet(See diagram). Zoo mangers have said they would not be allowed to keep apes in cages this small.
Most of the women going into these cells are or will be on remand, or convicted for petty non-violent offences, based on the figures for women at Pucklechurch Jail nearby, which Eastwood Park will effectively replace. The Prison Service says that their own standards are only a benchmark, not legally enforceable, (Yeah, who said just cause they made up the rules they have to stick to them?!?) and that prisoners will 'only use them for sleeping'. Officials have also claimed the first women to be locked in the cells 'liked them'.
However, one report from a woman inmate there says that far from 'only using them to sleep in' they are often locked up in this space for 22 hours a day, in common with many regimes in local prisons, and that the cells are a claustrophobic nightmare. 'The door cannot open to its full capacity as the bed is bolted behind it...The sink is largely inaccessible due to a large metal grate, covering pipework, which extends beneath it...' To reach the shelf you have to stand on the toilet! Meanwhile, cell toilets don't flush properly, the heating system was out for two days in February, one bath shared by two wings has no cold water.
It seems inevitable that the claustrophobic size of these cells will increase depression, suicide attempts, self-harm, already rife in women's jails. The smaller the space you confine someone in, the longer they have to spend there, the worse their mental state is going to become. After the press fuss about pregnant prisoners being shackled during childbirth, the Prison Service seems determined to sink to new lows.
RESISTING FITTING UP
This article was written by a member of the Anarchist Black Cross and Conviction, the organisation that supports and campaigns for prisoners framed up by the police. It was 'provoked' by an article 'In the Frame' in Taking Liberties no 15; the author seeks to add to and clarify some points raised in that article. Anyone who wants to respond , get in touch with Taking Liberties.
I want to recount the story of Scott Tomlinson's arrest, not because it is by now unheard or unpublished, but because any such event, carefully constructed and the product of considerable investment by the state, is located in a multi-dimensional web of connections, causes, effects and knowledge.
Scott was ambushed as he sat in his car, by a bunch of thugs who mashed his windscreen with baseball bats and pointed guns at him. He drove off at speed, knocking two of them over, and soon afterwards crashed the car. he ran off and hid in a shed. It was not until he heard the helicopter overhead and men entered the shed that he realised what now seems obvious - the thugs were the Greater Manchester Police's Tactical Firearms Unit.
He was convicted of possession of guns and drugs (cocaine, with intent to supply), and received an 11-year sentence. he knew nothing if the guns and drugs: the police were acting on the tip-off of a regular informer who was (in their own words) an 'active armed robber'. Almost certainly the police had both the house where the guns and drugs were found, and Scott himself, under surveillance, and so knew that Scott was not 'in possession' of the the guns and drugs, and also knew (probably) who the owners - and serious drug-dealers - were.
It was not Scott's first experience of arrest, and he had been aware of being followed and watched. On a previous occasion, he had been the explicit target of police surveillance, 'Operation Scottie'. Police had watched him and a friend until the opportunity came to arrest them, because a Securicor van was collecting cash on the other side of a supermarket where they happened to be. Scott got 5 years for conspiracy to rob.
Both events (arrests and surveillance) constructed the evidence that secured Scott's conviction - his flight from the thugs dominated his trial and was interpreted as indicating guilt. The second fit-up of Scott built on the investment made in the first, and constituted additional investment in Scott as an asset owned and exploited by the criminal justice system. the asset, a representation of dangerous criminality, need bear no relation to any personal characteristics of Scott, save one: his impressive ability to resist the exercise of power by the police, which significantly contributes to his value as an asset.
The greater the resistance, the more effective the exercise of power - and the more effective the revelation of the criminality of the individual, which only police can produce. No-one is more resistant than those who are fitted up: hence the tactic of fitting up and all the practices that make it possible are routines embedded in the policing and the criminal process, not as casual impositions or aberrations, but as desirable, approved and legal routines.
The numerous examples of fitting up practices like these, which appear in the serious cases which come to the attention of Conviction, are exposed because the cases are serious - that is, all the evidence is available in documents and has been disclosed and subjected to intense scrutiny by teams of skilled lawyers. Conviction set out to help all framed prisoners, but quickly restricted itself to prisoners serving long sentences (because lawyers and courts act so slowly that prisoners finished their sentences before any attempt to help could succeed), to a limited number of cases (because there are potentially thousands, and supporting each case requires a lot of work), and to limited areas (because we hope to make connections between cases). Despite (or because of?) the care with which serious cases are handled - the scrupulous observance of suspects' rights, the work of a team of experienced defence lawyers, prolonged trials conducted according to the letter of the law - defendants are frequently fitted up; so, in the informal, careless and half-hidden context of the policing of minor crime and magistrates' courts, fit-ups must (in the words of the article in TL15) 'go on constantly'.
The present article welcomes and supports all the main points made in that article: that fitting up is routine and 'integral to the work of...the whole system'., and acknowledges that the practice of fitting up of people for minor crimes needs to be challenged at least as much at that level as at the level of indictable offences (which go before crown courts). Repeat fitting up, as experienced by Scott, is common, and starts at the level of the cautioning for trivial offences which first puts people on police records. Minor convictions damage people's lives in such a way as to put them under the control of the police. The police-constructed careers, which start at this level, lead in two directions: resistance, leading to increasingly serious fit-ups; or recruitment, in which those threatened with prosecution do deals and become grasses, effectively becoming part of the police. Neither career precludes involvement in crime: if you're being convicted as a serious criminal, you may as well become one in practice; if you are a grass, you can lead a protected life as a criminal - like the armed robbers who grassed up Scott, and - notoriously - Manchester constable Ged Corley - at the encouragement of senior officers. Effective police work like this throws up problems which the programme proposed by the TL article does not cover. The programme, of community support for those who are fitted up, and exposure of police crime, is fine. But the example given - Hackney Community Defence Association - exposes police involvement in crime, such as drug-dealing, and police use of grasses who are active criminals. Policing and the crime it constructs are inserted intimately into communities and social life, and neither exposure of police fitting-up and crime-producing practices, nor the proposition that alternative methods of securing the safety of all members of all communities, are in themselves adequate to deal with the continuously imposed and heavily resourced impositions of power by the state.
At one level, the activities of police and the criminal justice system produce crime which is a serious threat to the individuals and to the coherence of communities. It is a protection racket which is effective: only the police have the resources to deal with serious crime, and asking people not to call on the police when they experience violence or when they are deprived of possessions essential to their well-being, is doomed to failure. But because criminal activity is protected by the police, threatened communities tend, if they are not destroyed, to turn to vigilanteeism as their own imitation of police, justice and penal system, which reconstructs at a local level all the features of the system for which it is a substitute.
At another level, both criminal activity and grassing are intimately inserted into communities. We are already under surveillance, not from the sophisticated technology of video cameras and hidden microphones, but from other people, who can be recruited as grasses at any moment (if they have not already been). Whole communities are made to be dependent on the economy of crime - such as drug-dealing, which depends on being both illegal and police-sanctioned in order to survive and return a profit to otherwise deprived areas and individuals.
Those aspects of Scott Tomlinson's case drawn out here - the heavy investment which produces him as an asset representing a dangerousness which the police alone can reveal and control, and the precise techniques deployed - show how the exposure of fitting up in serious cases tells us what the problems are. But it is not the exposure of something hidden. As the last TL points out, fitting up is a constant threat - as is the presence of grasses in communities and the possibility of crime - and so it is well known, part of the repeated discourse on policing. What cases like Scott also show is that the provocation of resistance which fitting up produces is an essential element of fitting up. Policing and criminal justice may be for social control, but it is not control which aims for unresisting compliance; rather it expects, makes provision for, provides resources for, and provokes resistance - and recuperates, limits, controls and makes use of resistance. the exercise of power, the resistance it provokes, and the knowledge that is thus 'revealed' of crime and the criminality of individuals, are features not just of fit-up cases but appear in other contexts. Clare Barstow's article in TL (also no 15) illustrates how prisoners are set up so that co-operative prisoners can be represented as disruptive. Every demonstration seems to be subject to provocative police tactics which enable the production of knowledge about demonstrators as violent and threatening - however peaceful and fluffy they are when they set out.
All of this applies to the resistance of communities. But there is not one tactic deployed preferentially or exclusively in order to recuperate the resistance of communities. Communities which have low crime, are made criminal because police enter their territory using routine tactics of constructing serious and dangerous criminals and informer networks, and introducing the crime which accompanies informers. The resistance which this provokes - protest, exposure of corruption, vigilanteeism, self- policing - is all subject to recuperation and recruited for the extension of policing.
Does that mean effective resistance to policing is impossible? No: because policing needs a generalised resistance which can never be overcome - crime which precedes the state and which (the story goes) requires it to come into existence. Resistance may always be recuperable, but it must at the same time always extend beyond the capacity of the state to recuperate it. if we are to resist effectively, we must learn how to take resistance beyond the imagined boundaries set by the state. It requires an explicitly anarchist programme.
The first step involves knowing how individuals - and communities - are fitted up.
Andrew Green, Sheffield, September 1995.
Frankland Lockdown
Frankland prison in Durham was locked down continuously from the 7th to 11th january .Prisoners stayed in their cells the whole time,except when being allowed out individually to collect meals.
This was supposely in responce to an alleged escape attempt on New Years Day and other incidents including missing or copied keys. Ray Gilbert a prisoner there reports:
Dedicated SSearch Teams went through each wing [all supposive security 'compromises' were on C wing-Ed] destroying inmates cells,by removing excess funiture and ripping shelves off waalls.The policy was to remove all objects from cell back walls for a clear view to detect any tampering.This resulted in in choas with search squads ransacking whole cells in malice for in makimg them look inadequate over the keys going missing etc.
So inmates were agitated,furniture smashed and thrown out into a quadangle which combines all inner cells in a square.Fires were started with kangas running round putting them out.
Seventeen imates got nicked for various actions arising out of this.With one going on a lay down to Durham and two others on G.O.A.D. in the seg.' Over the next month there were further one-day lock-downs,and all High Risk Cat A prioners were moved out.'Volumetric control' is now being brought in,restricting property prisoners may keep in thier cells to what will fit into small boxes,and prisoners refusing to work are being kept locked up all day. One prisoner who was shipped out of Full Sutton following the protest there in november and is now at Frankland,says'all the little things that happened at Full Sutton have already started happening here,even the little changes;it's like continuous deja vu.'
DEFEND BIG GEORGE!
On Easter Day 1993, the brothers confined to the Lucasville prison, Ohio, USA, rose together and took control of the prison due to the repressive conditions created by Warden Tate and his regime. During the 11-day siege, a prisoner then identified as 'Inmate George' put his life on the line by walking into the muzzles of 1000s of National Guard, State Highway Patrol, sheriff and FBI weapons to relay a message to the media from the brothers inside that the uprising was not a racial incident (contrary to what the prisoncrats propagandised to the media). Black, white and chicano all stood united against the oppressors due to the repressive conditions , and all wished for a peaceable end of the siege via negotiations, which the Dept of Corrections was not doing.
'Inmate George' was soon identified as Big George Skatzes, doing a life sentence for a murder that a private investigator announced on nationwide TV she did not feel he had committed. After the siege, the guards who had been taken hostage publicly declared that it was Big George who had done most to ensure their safety while being held hostage. He was identified by the Department of Corrections as being a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. I don't know about that, but I do know that Big George was a convict with honour and principles, and his involvement was to try and calm mass hysteria, due to his being an older, well-respected convict .
Even though the guard hostages praised Big George for keeping them safe, the Special Prosecutor has kept him and the other spokesman of the uprising in complete isolation since the siege, & fabricated false rumours that he was going to inform on his fellow prisoners. Chillicothe Prison Officials have stolen his regular and legal mail, harassed his wife both verbally and physically when she came to visit and used every form of torture and behaviour-modification tactic known to break him and his wife and supporters. George and the other negotiators have been convicted of murder for the death of Guard Robert Vallandingham because all but one refused to testify against other prisoners.
This is an urgent call for action asking all of you to flood the governor's office and the office of DRC Director Reginald Wilkenson with calls, faxes and letters protesting the convictions and demanding that George be transferred out of the north hole at Chillicothe Prison, his wife not be harassed, his mail not withheld, censored or destroyed. DRC officials admitted to the media that they had been censoring his privileged client-attorney mail and they were reprimanded for it. A civil suit is pending on this.
The brother put his life on the line against oppression and is paying dearly for it. Your immediate help is vital. Call, fax and write:
Governor George Voinovich,
Vern Riffe Center,
77 S. High St, Columbus , OH. 43266-0603,
USA. 614 466 3555.
Director Reginald Wilkenson,
1050 Freeway Dr. N. #403,
Columbus,
OH. 43299, USA. 614 431 2771
Write letters of encouragement to George, urging him to stay strong and letting him know we care:
George Skatzes, CCI #173-501, PO Box 5500, Chillicothe, OH. 45601, USA.
LATEST: George and another defendant have been SENTENCED TO DEATH! Get writing.
ARTLESS BASTARDS
Simon Sunderland has been sentenced to five years imprisonment for 'Criminal Damage'. He had painted a number of pieces of graffiti art in Sheffield. Most of his work was carried out on derelict, now demolished sites, in out of the way place. Sheffield Council claimed that each of these cost over £1000 to clean - although they were demolished ! Other work hasn't even been removed: despite the fact that it was done three years before Simon was arrested. None of it was abusive or contained offensive language.
Newspaper reports claimed he had sprayed a member of the public in the face when they protested about his work. This is a lie, and the prosecution never claimed it happened.
Sheffield Council have claimed that graffiti was responsible for businesses refusing to invest in Sheffield, the poor health of Sheffield people...What a load of bollocks. Sheffield has got high unemployment, poor housing, etc, like most cities, especially given the closure of most of the steel industry over the last twenty years etc. Daft council ideas like holding the World Student Games (for which the City will be in debt for years) and ripping the city apart to build a Supertram network, are what's costing people money. Simon's graffiti art did no one any harm and brightened up grim spots: that's worth sending him down for more than most rapists get?
Simon was looking to go to art college, he was due to start a course in September 1995. He pleaded guilty to the charges, having spent five and a half months on remand,. A probation officer's report recommended a non- custodial sentence, and the Prosecutor was seeking a 12-18 month sentence (fucking stupid enough !) But Judge Robert Moore (clearly not an art- lover) gave him five years. For graffiti.
Simon would appreciate support. His appeal may be heard in the next few months. Drop him a line:
Simon Sunderland RR1591, E Wing, HM Prison Everthorpe, Brough, North Humberside, HU15 1BA.
Free Simon Sunderland Campaign, c/o 87 Dylways, Camberwell, London, SE5 8HW or 18 Wentworth Road, Jump, Barnsley, S74 0JY
GRAPO HUNGER STRIKE
On Tuesday 9th January five political prisoners of PCE ¨ and G.R.A.P.O (Re- constituted Spanish Communist Party and First of October Anti-fascist Resistance Groups) began an indefinite hunger strike. The rest of the political prisoners of both organisations joined in from 19th January, to make a total of 58 hungers strikers.
In their statements the first five hunger strikers announced they were on refusing food to achieve the following aims:
1. Reunification of all the political prisoners of the collective PCE (r) and GRAPO in a single jail. The prisoners also demand the movement to Euskadi (Basque Country) and Galiza of all the independist political prisoners of E.T.A. and E.G.P.G.C. (Galician independentist). This is in opposition to the Spanish State's policy of dispersing the prisoners as far way as the Canary Islands. The policy of dispersal has caused pain, communication breakdowns, isolation,for prisoners, families and friends. Its aim was clearly to break their solidarity and force them to renounce their political ideas. Despite beatings, isolation, sanctions, mistreatment and abuse, this policy has largely failed.
2. Immediate application without exception of the Article 60 of the General Penitentiary Law to all severely ill political prisoners . According to their own Law, at least five political prisoners should already be free due to their serious illnesses. As to the militants of PCE (r) and GRAPO, the hunger strikers demand the immediate freeing of Juan Manuel Perez Hernandez, who suffers from an irreversible senile dementia, associated to a degenerative process; he also suffers from the Wernike Korsakoff illness (absolute self-incommunication, obsessive mania). The government of the Canary Islands has recognised his 66% disability. He has also suffered three heart attacks in prison. He has been imprisoned for 6 years. Milagros Caballero Carbonell suffers from the Wernike syndrome, polineumony in her legs, she has been using a wheelchair for four years and now she can only walk using a walker, which makes her life in prison even harder. She has been imprisoned since 1986.
3. Immediate freedom for all the political prisoners who have served the proportional part of their sentences. This is only a demand to force the bourgeoisie to follow their own laws. Due to their unlawful practices 122 people are kidnapped in prison (82 ETA militants, & 40 of PCE (r) and GRAPO).
The five political prisoners who started the hunger strike are: in Albacete Prison: Aurora Cayetano Navarro, from Vigo, 18 years imprisoned, in Acebuche Prison (Almeria), Francisco Tapia Segovia, from Barcelona, 11 years imprisoned, Encarnacion Leon Lara, from Sevilla, 4 years imprisoned; Fernando Hierro Chomon, from Vigo, 18 years imprisoned, and the Basque political prisoner Ana Belen San Miguel Martinez, from Barakaldo, 12 years imprisoned. They are all GRAPO militants.
The strikers who started the protest on Tuesday 9th January have the symptoms of dizziness, vomiting and discomfort. These political prisoners are: Aurora Cayetano Navarro in Albacete Jail and Ana Belen San Martin Miguel, Encarnacion Leon Lara, Francisco Tapia Segovia and Fernando Hierro Chomon in Acebuche Prison (Almeria).
On Monday 15th, the political prisoners Jose Maria Sanchez Casas and Francisco Cela Seoane, militants of GRAPO and Jose Balmont Castell, militant of PCE (r), the three of them jailed in Sevilla-II, Prison joined in the indefinite hunger strike.
The Spanish Government is always afraid of the solidarity with the political prisoners, and especially international solidarity. So, if you could write letters complaining about their plans to the Spanish Justice and Home Officers, Spanish embassies and consulates in your areas or make some demos or actions to show your protest, boycotting Spanish companies, etc. These actions can help in thwarting their plans to exterminate the prisoners.
It is also very important to spread the news of this struggle in the Spanish prisons, so use the any left/alternative publications, zines, to spread the news. If you could send news about the solidarity in your area we'll spread it in the Spanish alternative media. Our address is: A.F.A.P.P.
Asturies. Apdo. No 20.,
33.430. Candas (Asturies),Spain.
You can also write to the Judges of Penitentiary Surveillance asking for the freeing of the severely ill political prisoners:
Juan Manuel Perez Hernandez (GRAPO): to ask for his liberation you can write to: Sr. Juez de Vigilancia Penitenciaria de Canaria Palacio de Justicia. Sta.Cruz de Tenerife. 38.071 Canarias. Spain.
Milagros Caballero Carbonnel (GRAPO); to ask for her liberation you can write to: Sr Juez de Vigilancia Penitenciaria. Palacio de Justicia de Valencia. 46.071 Valencia Spain.
Thank you in advance for your solidarity with this struggle. A.F.A.P.P.
GREECE IS THE WORD
Greek prisons went up in March, as 1000s of cons went on the rampage demanding an end to chronic overcrowding and atrocious conditions, in the second mass prison uprising in Greece in 6 months. The prison rebels, who included large numbers of turks and albanians, destroyed everything in sight, according to reports we have received, vowing to carry on the revolt until laws were passed to reform the penal system. Although information we have is sketchy, it seems that jails at Patras, Larissa and on the islands of Corfu, Chios and Crete were at the heart of the mutiny. 47 prisoners escaped during the insurrection: there was a mass breakout at Corfu, and a smaller escape at Patras. 12 inmates are still on the run. The latest word is that the government has announced that 800 prisoners are to be released to ease overcrowding - though with 10,000 prisoners over capacity, this is a drop in the Aegean. The prison system is said to be still in a state of tension: our sources predicted it would go up again soon.
We'll let you know more if we hear it.
ALLAN GREEN
Dear Friend, My appeal against conviction was dismissed by Lord Chief Justice Taylor on the 10th April 1995. There are two aspects to the decision one is criminal the other is political. I believe I am correct in saying that everyone involved in the review of my case, including the Lord Chief Justice, accepted that the evidence of the police sergeants, Sheard and Jackson was pure fabrication (as you will be aware the Judiciary never use the correct terminology which in this case is 'Liars' ). It was also accepted that the corroborating evidence of the victims friend, John Hanson, could not be considered as it merely implied 'guilt by association' and there was other prosecution evidence which contradicted his evidence. You may be asking yourselves what evidence convicted me and caused the Lord Chief Justice to dismiss my appeal. The victim Martin Wood, after he had been stabbed in the heart, told the police sergeants that his assailant had gone into the Chancery public house and that he was wearing a brown leather jacket. Wood was the helped by the police to enter the pub with a view to identifying his attacker, even though he was suffering a severe loss of blood as a result of his injury. Fortunately for the police and Wood I was stood near the the door of the pub with my back to the door and was wearing a brown leather jacket. I would estimate the distance the distance between the door and myself was to be about 12 and 15 feet and as the pub was very busy (shoulder to shoulder), there were a lot of people in between. I heard a voice behind me say 'that's him' and then I felt a tap on the shoulder and was by the police to go outside with them, which I did. Outside the police told me that Wood alleged I had stabbed him, I said 'I'm sorry but I don't know what you are talking about'. The police then asked to search me and I agreed to their request. They searched me but did not find whatever it was they were hoping to find. By this time Wood had lost so much blood that I think he fainted and he was sat on the pavement with his back supported by the pub wall. A police vehicle then then arrived and took Wood to hospital. I was arrested and walked to the police station with the sergeants. I went willingly and handcuffs were not used. I was charged with GBH with intent and later with Attempted Murder. At the trial it was agreed that this was a case of identification and hinged on whether or not Wood had correctly identified me as his attacker. Wood claimed that I had deliberately bumped into him earlier in the evening in the Chancery public house where he was stood with Colin Simpson. He claimed the bump was so severe that it rocked him backwards. I don't know if this happened, but if it dit it certainly wasn't me. I also find it strange that he didn't mention it to his friend, Colin Simpson, and that Simpson makes no mention of any such incident in his evidence. The next identification opportunity claimed by Wood is that when he was leaving the pub he held the door open for me. If it was his attacker it certainly wasn't me. But it must be appreciated that the pub door is located in a dark area where the lighting is similar to a dark night club so I suppose it is reasonable to make mistakes especially if his attacker was wearing a brown leather jacket. The final opportunity for identification was the attack. Wood claimed that his attacker was walking in front of him with another man. The attacker then apparently started walking backwards, bumped in to him,spinning him round and then stabbing with a right handed movement. (nb: I am left handed) According to Wood his attacker then went back into the pub. I would like to comment on this final identification as follows:- 1) It is hard to believe that an attacker would choose to walk backwards to his intended victim; how could he be sure contact would be made? 2) As police evidence has been discredited the only other 'independent' evidence is that of his friends Hanson and Simpson. Hanson said that Wood came staggering out of the pub and that no one was with him. This raises the question: Did the stabbing take place in the pub doorway? -If so, the attack in the street never happened! In conclusion it will be appreciated that there should have been serious doubt regarding identification based on the 'bumping' incident in the pub earlier and the attack on the pavement outside the pub as it is questionable as to whether these incidents took place! This leaves us to consider the opportunity for identification in the pub doorway and it must be appreciated that if Wood did hold the door open for somebody it was dark and must have been a 'fleeting glimpse' which has proven in numerous cases to be unreliable. My claim is that the person in the doorway was not me.
If we look at the other aspects of my case, the prosecution conceded that: - there was no forensic evidence to link me with Wood;
- no weapon was found in my possession;
- I had no reason to attack Wood. There was no motive.
To conclude the criminal aspects of the case, although I can't prove it, i am fairly sure that many aspects of statements made by Wood, Hanson, Simpson, and the police sergeants were orchestrated by CID to obtain a conviction. This is understandable, as the police officers who were first on the scene did not respond correctly to a major incident in that they failed to search the pub for any other person who may have been wearing a brown leather jacket. They also failed to seal off the pub to identify potential witnesses.
In regarding the political aspects of my case, it must be appreciated that I have, through Mr Bill O'Brien MP, fought for the right of equal legal representation at my appeal to ensure that I had the same level of legal expertise as the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). On the 20th March 1995, the Solicitor General, Sir Derek Spencer, in answering a question raised by Mr Bill O'Brien in the House of Commons, agreed that equal levels of representation should be available. This principle should substantially increase the amount of funding required by the Legal Aid Board to ensure that ordinary people have the same benefits as the CPS. Traditionally it has been the Registrar of Appeals who has decided what level of legal representation appellants get.
Politically this has been a bitter pill for the government to swallow as they are currently trying to reduce the amount spent on legal aid. At the Court of Appeal on Monday 10th April, I was surprised to learn that my case was to be heard not in Court 7 as all official notification indicated, but in Court 4 in front of Lord Chief Justice Taylor. Despite excellent presentation by Mr Rock Tansey QC, my appeal against conviction was dismissed. I was awarded a 2 year reduction in sentence in recognition of my previous good character, this means that i will now only have to serve a ten-year sentence for a crime I did not commit instead of a twelve- year sentence.
Being realistic, I knew my conviction could not be reversed as this would have required an admission that he police had lied and distorted the truth, a Queen's Bench Judge had not given the jury sufficient guidance at my original trial and that by fighting for my rights of fair and equal legal representation i have opened the floodgates which could cost the government millions of pounds.
Thanks for your support and friendship,
Allan J. Green DH3745, E Wing, HM Prison Full Sutton, Moor Lane, York, YO4 1PS.
ABC GROUP RAIDED
The ABC group in Jacksonville, Florida, USA, was raided by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office on `12th January. Over 20 cops wearing body armour and fatigues searched the house, interrogated three members of the household, and seized legal shotguns, pamphlets, spray paints, stencils and a radio scanner. The cops admitted they were trawling for information about the ABC and the local Youth Action Movement group. On January 24th they were arrested again, and charged under Felony Criminal Mischief, with spray-painting political slogans on city and State property, which carries a maximum sentence of five years. Two activists were arrested at work, which lost them their jobs. they all spent three days in jail, and eventually bailed. Jax ABC say they won't be intimidated and are carrying on their activities. They are collecting money for legal costs, so if you inherit a few million send 'em some dosh - or at least write and send your support.
Jacksonville ABC, Suite #20/3628 Park St., Jacksonville, FL. 32205, USA.
ANARCHIST ACTIVIST CONVICTED IN GREECE
On Wednesday 6th of September 1995, George Kritikopoulos was tried in Serres, a town in northern Greece. George was arrested on March 21st 1995 after a demo in solidarity with the Zapatistas, in Thessaloniki, when a small group of militant anarchists attempted to attack the small International Expo in Thessaloniki. George was found guilty of two crimes: possession of explosive materials and intent to cause bodily harm, and three other offences relating to resistance against the authorities. George was sentenced to 12 years and 40 days jail. Throughout the trial, George adopted a political stand, declaring he was an anarchist and an enemy of the state. What is required now is mass organisation and campaigning so that George will be freed and an appeal can be heard. We also need to recognise that George is in a terrible financial state and so sending him money is crucial.
Money can be sent to a bust fund which has been set up for anarchist prisoners at the National Bank of Greece account no: 157/882717 -63, or by writing to ALFA newspaper at PO Box no 31809, Athens 10035, Greece (mention that the money is for George Kritikopoulos.)
More info contact Melbourne Anarchist Black Cross, PO Box 145, Moreland 3058, Australia.
[just for info - this ABC group does Greek - and i think - turkish - translations]
ROLLING BACK THE YEARS
The recent report by General Sir John Learmont into prison security, commissioned by the government following the high profile escapes from Whitemoor and Parkhurst, was probably summed up most accurately by the outgoing Chief inspector of Prisons, Judge Stephen Tumim, when he described Learmont's recommendations as 'taking the prison system along the road of the concentration camp'. It is undoubtedly a measure of just how barbaric and repressive Learmont's scheme for the prison system is, that a fellow establishment figure like Judge Tumim should use such chilling language with which to describe and condemn it. In fact, the truth is the Learmont's report simply report simply represents the most definitive expression yet of a strategy of repression against long-term prisoners, in particular, that long pre-dated the Whitemoor and Parkhurst escapes, and which has characterised the state's response to unrest and rebellion in prisons for at least three decades. Learmont, like so many other government-instigated inquiries into 'serious incidents' of rebellion and escape by prisoners, adopted the customary establishment perspective on such matters and defined his terms of reference almost exclusively as how best to control and subdue a minority of ubiquitous and pathological 'trouble-makers', and neutralise their 'contaminated' among the majority of otherwise well-behaved and conforming prisoners. in the well-established ideological tradition of the Home Office, Learmont ignored or denied the true causes of unrest and resistance in prisons, and instead painted a scenario of dangerous and gratuitous convict trouble-makers, hell-bent on disrupting regimes and threatening security, and from which both prison staff and other prisoners had to be protected. this sort of crudely reductionist view of prison unrest conveniently obscures the true reality of why prisoners are driven to protest and acts of rebellion, while also providing a legitimacy for more repressive regimes and methods of control. What characterises the Learmont report from beginning to end is most definitely not a serious analysis of the structural causes of prison unrest (eg the gross overcrowding of gaols, increasingly longer sentences, a dramatic deterioration in facilities and conditions, institutionalised violence and maltreatment, etc), but far more a preoccupation with eradicating all resistance to those structural ills by creating a prison environment of total and absolute control.
Learmont's role was essentially to synthesise and consolidate ideas and strategies developed by the state in response to at least two decades of serious and sustained prison rebellions and uprisings, during which the balance of power, in long-term prisons especially, had shifted inexorably in the prisoners' favour. it was this progressive self-empowerment of long- term prisoners over the last two decades and their collective ability to dictate and define the conditions of their imprisonment that Learmont claimed was the primary cause of both a 'crisis of control' in prisons and the increasing ability of long-term and 'dangerous' prisoners to successfully breach prison security by escaping. the concepts of control and security are merged into a single imperative and strategy by Learmont, who claims that escape-proof prisons must necessarily also be overtly oppressive and control-orientated. This, of course, serves as a useful justification for an attack on 'liberal' regimes and 'prisoners' power', and a rolling back of rights fought for and won by prisoners over the last 20 years.
First and foremost, the Learmont Report represents a full frontal assault on long-term prisoners' rights and an explicit attempt to seize back absolute and total control over their lives through the use of over- oppressive regimes and Alcatraz-type prisons. {?edit this parag?} Since at least the mid-1960s, when the infamous Mountbatten Report was commissioned by a Labour Government to examine ways of making prisons more impregnable and impenetrable, the central question characterising all official discussion and debate on the treatment of rebellious long-term prisoners has been whether such prisoners should be dispersed, and their 'contaminating influence' diluted, throughout a fairly wide range of high security prisons, or whether they should be concentrated as a group within a single 'super maximum security' prison in the tradition of Alcatraz. Up until the Learmont inquiry, the Home Office had opted for a policy of 'dispersal', which mainstreamed 'escape risk' and 'difficult' long-term prisoners among seven or eight maximum security jails, operating more or less relatively flexible regimes. But the 'dispersal system', which became the scene during the late 1970s and 1980s of a protracted struggle for prisoners' rights and some of the the most spectacular uprisings in British prison history, was increasingly criticised by a succession of official reports and prostituted academic opinion as an obsolete instrument of control, and (after the high profile escapes from Gartree and Whitemoor) containment also.
Rightwing intellectual opinion within the penal establishment and its various legitimising academic research units started to push the ideology of 'concentration' with increasingly greater success towards the end of the 1980s when the dispersal system lat strewn with successful struggles for prisoners' rights and the most recent purpose-built additions to the system ) Frankland and Full Sutton) were locked in total confrontation, as prisoners there mounted war of attrition against attempts by their gaolers to deny them rights won and established elsewhere throughout the dispersal system. This push towards a policy of 'concentration' and the creation of Alcatraz-type prisons for 'unmanageable' and 'subversive' prisoners was provided with greater impetus and ideological enthusiasm by the US example, where a policy of concentrating 'difficult' long-term prisoners within 'end of the line' control unit-type prisons, such as the notorious Marion, hadn't really changed, despite the closure of Alcatraz in 1963.
As part of his inquiry into prison security in Britain, Learmont visited the latest purpose-built US super-maximum security prison: ADX Florence in Colorado, and strongly recommended it as a model for something similar in Britain.
The Florence complex cost $150 million and has an annual payroll of $44 million. It contains 168 video surveillance cameras and 1400 electronic gates. there are 416 cells in the Supermax prison, each measuring less than 9 foot by 10 foot. Each contains a bed, desk, stool and shelf of reinforced concrete, a toilet and a shower, reducing the need to leave the cell and the possibility of contact with other prisoners.
The first prisoners were moved into the Florence supermax in 1995, most of them flown in from Marion under heavy security. They report that whenever moved for any purpose they are handcuffed and surrounded by guards. The current ratio is in the region of six guards to one prisoner. One prisoner summed up the intention of Florence as 'geared to do exactly what Marion has done for years, bring out the worst potential in those it forces into its dungeons. The expressed plan is to break our spirit.'
According to Ralph Arons, former warden at Marion, the true purpose of this prison was to 'control revolutionary attitudes in the prison system and in society generally'. the eradication of political resistance in prisons and the breaking of prisoner leaders in the prisons is exactly what Learmont has attempted to provide a blueprint for.
THE HATE FACTORY
There is another far wider political and social dimension and consequence to the brutalisation of long-term prisoners and the dehumanising effects of the 'supermax' prison, and this is intrinsically related to a related to a strategy of greater control by the state over society generally. If a group of people are so brutalised and damaged by their experience of prison and turned into walking time-bombs, then ultimately they will turn their rage on society and adopt a predatory relationship towards it. This in reality is what the supermax' prison manufactures: predatory individuals who are then demonised and turned into social folk-devils in order to generate fear and insecurity. This is itself transferred into a justification for greater police powers and surveillance. Indeed, the whole obsession over the last ten years with crime and social control has spawned a massive increase in police powers and private security involvement in policing the community, and at the very centre of this web of social control and surveillance is the prison, manufacturing hatred and rage.
{Learmont's ideas and recommendations are, therefore, part of a much wider strategy of repression, whereby the dehumanisation of prisoners and their complete alienation from society is then utilised by the state to conjure up the spectre of psychopathic folk-devils, against which normal society has to be increasingly policed and protected. } [the above could be cut]
The struggle of prisoners against repressive and dehumanising regimes is, therefore, a struggle that possesses a profoundly liberating dynamic at its core and a significance that extends far beyond the prison wall. When prisoners collectively resist and fight back, they are reaffirming not only their common humanity with oppressed people everywhere, but also making common cause against an apparatus of social control that holds us all within its omnipotent grasp.
Over the next few years Learmont's recommendations will have an enormous repressive impact on the way that long-term prisoners are treated and dealt with in Britain, and used to legitimise a denial of even the most basic of human rights. In this green and pleasant land will exist modern high-tech concentration camps where prisoners will be tear-gassed if they protest and shot if they attempt to escape. That is the hard-edged reality of what Learmont and his kind seek to create as a means of crushing all resistance in prisons and restoring absolute power to the gaolers. It is also indicative of where capitalist society is heading in the 1990s. There is a struggle now being fought out within the state's most repressive institutions between powerless and desperate prisoners on the one hand, and increasingly vicious and amoral keepers on the other, that will define and determine just how far the state is allowed to go when dealing with social dissent and defiance in the future.
JOHN BOWDEN, 1273/94, HMP PERTH, EDINBURGH ROAD, PERTH, SCOTLAND.
LETTERS TO TAKING LIBERTIES
STITCHED UP
Dear Mr Black, In regards to Issue 16. The piece on Class War being banned: I am one of the inmates Long Lartin got rid of over the censorship with media by letter or phone.
On 31st July 1995, 5 of us, all framed prisoners, commenced a hunger strike, over our convictions and mail, which was being stopped. Mail to bodies like Trial and Error, HTV Wales, journalists and MacKenzie people working on cases. Governors called each one of us in, Bamber, O'Brien, Sherwood, Shirley and myself. Told us in no uncertain terms we were not to contact the media by phone or letter, under the amendment to Standing Order 5, which deals with obscene letters and phone calls (...How can we be classed in that category when our letters were not derogatory or insulting to anyone...) Otherwise disciplinary action would be taken.
I find myself stitched up because of the media coverage the strike received, which embarrassed the prison.
Two of us have been shanghaied for writing articles to the media about the harassment prisoners who are miscarriages of justice face. The whole structure of justice is being impeded with articles 8 to 10 of the European Court of Human Rights, infringed. Prisoners rights are being eroded with the policy changes Howard is implementing throughout the penal system.
With oppressive and brutal regimes in force. We need organisations like yourself for all prisoners, to highlight the draconian effects that are causing dissatisfaction amongst the prison population. There is blatant intimidation and confrontation by staff on inmates at various establishments, with prisoners wary after the sentences on the Strangeways inmates, who showed the way forward to fight back against a system that is once again getting away with murdering prisoners. I expect to be blocked for seditious behaviour. As a prisoner they regard as subversive, it's nothing new.
Keep up the struggle for all prisoners who need the support of family, friends, organisations, media etc to speak out on our behalf to highlight the injustices done to all prisoners.
Best wishes,
Ray Gilbert, H10111 HMP Frankland, Brasside, Durham, DH1 5YD.
YO GAT IT WRONG
Greetings! As is the case with all issues of your publication, I ready #16 with great interest, having first read it while I was still down by law near five years ago .I remain active being at liberty and consider Taking Liberties vital to my keeping up with international struggles. I do wish to comment on something which I believe needs some clarification. Hopefully you will see the point I am trying to make.
I was surprised to see that your publication referred to yoga in a headline as a joke. As I read the unsigned article, I began to get rather pissed, but then I realised that some people are simply unaware of all the facts about yoga/meditation. I agree with a lot of things you are saying, but there is also a lot unsaid about yoga which you may not agree with. But then who agrees all the time anyway?
Having spent seven out of the past eleven years in maximum security cages, and having gotten better despite of it all is my only claim to understanding issues I am raising here. After the abuse I endured at a Catholic Training School (like a borstal), you can imagine what I thought about religion. However, when I went to prison, one of the things I noticed immediately was that a majority of the people who voluntarily came to visit prisoners were members of religious communities. Having been thrown out of society and feeling alienated, I attended some of their services and meetings just for the human contact. I did meet a lot of principled and down to earth people. Of course some tried to force their beliefs on me and I believe that in some ways religion can be a form of control. Just as you have faith in your working class, though, others have faith in god, a religion or simply in the community it often builds.
After reading about a local yoga teacher being wrongfully dismissed for allegedly causing high school students to question their religion, as prisoners, we managed to get her a contract to instruct us at the penitentiary. I left the prison and missed the six week program, but I had done some yoga on my own and learned it all while locked down at Millhaven prison. My lessons came written on small notes inside greeting cards. Some prisoncrats consider yoga a threat to their maintaining control and outlaw it with the claim that the exercises are a form of martial art. The Prison Ashram Project, an international prisoners' support group began as yoga instruction in the U$ Bureau of Prisons but was soon shown the door when yoga/meditation influenced too many prisoners to take control of their lives.
The discipline I developed from doing the exercises for ten minutes twice a day affirmed that I could in fact take physical control of myself even though I was locked in a cage. I practice it to wake up as well as to go to sleep. The breathing exercises taught me that I could take control of my body, which had a very positive effect on my mind and spirit as well. I believe it is a method to help develop the necessary balance our body, mind and spirit needs to be in for us to be whole as humans. I continue to use some of the methods I learned and simply cannot list all the benefits of yoga.
I am not trying to convince anyone that yoga/meditation is the right thing for them. Because of myths and misconceptions however, I figure we probably miss out on a lot of good things though. As a publisher of material for prisoners' support and to raise awareness of justice and prisons, I am sure you wouldn't want the wrong message to get out. And you certainly wouldn't want prisoners missing out on something simply because they had the wrong idea about it. Thanks.
Zoltan Lugosi, Canada.
TL REPLIES: Err...yeah, OK, we were being cynical. We take the point that yoga can be used to help people get through bad times inside. The article was intended as some light relief, which everyone would agree is in short supply in Taking Liberties! It seems that the prison authorities' response in Canada is very different to that in Britain though, if yoga was suppressed there it seems to be in favour here, explicitly the source we had made it clear they saw it as a way of diffusing anger so that prisoners would be easier people to control. While ways of people getting control over their own individual life inside are as you say not to be sneered at, there is no doubt that its collective action that makes lasting changes (Sometimes!).
Malcolm Kennedy Appeal
Malcolm Kennedy is still serving time for manslaughter, after his cell mate in Hammersmith Copshop, Patrick Quinn, was kicked to death by the police.
Malcolm's appeal has now been set for July 1st at the Court of Appeal. A picket of the first day is being planned, so turn up and give 'em shit! Malcolm is pleased with the situation and is bearing up very well under the circumstances. He recently received security clearance at Blantyre house which means he will be able to leave the prison and work in the local village. However, he is not allowed to visit London to meet his lawyers, which would help in the preparation of his appeal..
Please write to Malcolm - Malcolm Kennedy, MB0292, HMP Blantyre House, Goudhurst, Cranbrook, Kent TN17 2NA
Recent developments in the case have centred around former PC Giles, on duty at the time of Pat Quinn's death. Giles left the Metropolitan Police on medical grounds on 18th January 1995. He is currently working as a security guard. In May 1995 Giles served a writ on Granada Television Limited alleging that the World in Action programme, Time to Kill, broadcast in April 1992, was defamatory. The significance of this for Malcolm is that the prosecution's justification for not calling Giles as a witness at the second retrial was because that it would cause irreparable damage to his mental health. However, in order for Giles to sue Granada he will have to appear in court as a witness. This makes a mockery of the Crown Prosecution Service's claim that it was unlikely that he would ever be able to testify in court on the incident.
Malcolm's solicitor is looking into the manner Giles gave evidence in the first trial & also seeking to get a computer expert to examine the CAD printout which was missing for nearly three years and mysteriously re- appeared while Giles was giving evidence in the first re-trial, and caused the trial to be halted. It was the prosecution's case that the CAD printout proved Giles was not lying about the times he was in Hammersmith police station. The prosecution used the printout to justify leaving Giles out of the second re-trial. The computer expert will examine the possibility that the CAD printout is a forgery.
Free Malcolm Kennedy/Justice for Patrick Quinn Campaign, c/o
HCDA, Colin Roach Centre 56 Clarence Road London E5 8BE tel: 0181 533 7111
Hammersmith & Fulham Irish Forum 44 Coinger Rd, London SW6. Tel: 0181 741 0466
Tony and Gary
On February 12th, framed prisoners Gary Mills and Tony Poole finally had their appeal heard at the Royal Courts of justice in London. Gary & Tony have already served 7 years of a life sentence for the murder of drug dealer Hensley Wiltshire, although strong evidence has always pointed to Gloucestershire Police for Wiltshire's death.
On the night before Wiltshire died, Gary admitted he had had a fight with him, although it was in self-defence, and Wiltshire only received superficial injuries. When released from hospital Wiltshire was taken into police custody to be questioned for unrelated offences. After being ferried back to the hospital and then back to police station, he was held for 5 and a half hours which resulted in him being moved from a bloodstained cell in a coma, from which he never recovered. The evidence shows the police physically abused Wiltshire: He had 60% more injuries recorded on his final visit to hospital than on the first, including a broken leg, broken ribs, extensive bruising, and gashes to his face - obvious things that would have been noticed if they had been there the first time. After killing Wiltshire, the police went on to frame Gary and Tony to cover their tracks, using a variety of well-known police methods: paid witnesses, intimidating defence witnesses, committing perjury themselves, making false statements and dodgy forensic evidence. Gary & Tony have always pleaded their innocence, and have worked for 7 years to gather expert medical evidence, fresh statements, and solid grounds for appeal against their convictions.
THE APPEAL
Kimberley Stadden, an eye-witness to the fight between Gary and Wiltshire, was discredited as a reliable witness on the first day of the appeal when it was revealed that she had done a deal with the police for her to say she saw Tony Poole systematically stabbing Wiltshire: in return she would have fraud and drug offences dropped. On the second day, Dr Don Trunkey (known as 'the expert's expert' in accident and emergency treatment) was called by the defence and stated that the cause of death at the original trial was wrong, and Gary and Tony didn't kill Wiltshire.
A third eye-witness Ian Neville-Juke was called in by the judges to give evidence - it was damning to the police. Neville-Juke said in his original statement to the police that Wiltshire was the aggressor and instigator of the violence and that Gary acted purely in self-defence, also that Tony played no part in the fight. After his first statement, he said, the police threatened to charge him with the murder unless he made a second statement implicating Poole.Juke admits he said exactly what the police wanted him to say, although it was lies. Juke never gave his evidence at either the committal or the trial, as days before, Inspector Gladding warned him over the phone to stay away from the court or else he would be sent down. Juke claimed this was part of a long campaign of harassment and intimidation by the police, especially Gladding. He said that this frightened him off from attending court and furthermore Juke backed this claim up with a tape recording of the phone conversation in which Inspector Gladding threatened him.
Also that day, the Court heard statements from various other people who were in police cells next to Wiltshire the day of his death. They testified to hearing police telling Wiltshire to 'Shut up you black bastard'. Others saw Wiltshire in the cells covered with blood. Finally the police were cross-examined, and were understandably nervous. The evidence had come out about their covering up of evidence, threatening witnesses, making deals with others. Over all the appeal fell in favour of Gary and Tony, but after 6 days the Judges deferred their decision and won't reveal the outcome until April.
Gary Mills WM0469 and Tony Poole WM1030 are still awaiting the result in Long Lartin Prison, South Littleton, Evesham, Worcs., WR11 5TZ. Send up a good luck card.
For more info contact their campaign: Set Up for Life, the Bungalow, Dinglewell School, Hucclecote, Gloucester, GL3 3HR. Tel: 01542 371116.
update....
Their appeal was refused, on April 18th. Not that it will stop the struggle. There's gonna be a demo in Gloucester against the ops there, on May 18th.
MOVE 'EM OUT
For many years the MOVE organisation has spearheaded the campaign to free Mumia Abu-Jamal. MOVE, a mainly black, revolutionary ecology organisation, was set up in the early '70s, starting open 'Study Sessions' on Natural Law, the religious teaching on John Africa, the founder of MOVE. Throughout the early '70s, MOVE initiated hundreds of demonstrations and campaigns against institutions such as industrial corporations that were and still are destroying the environment and people's lives through pollution, exploitation and abuse. Keen as ever to please their masters in big business, the cops tried time and time again to silence MOVE with beatings, trumped-up charges and jail. When MOVE members tried to go through legal channels to stop police brutality they were given more of the same. During the '70s, MOVE were being constantly beaten and arrested by cops. In the case of Rhonda Africa, she was beaten by cops so viciously when she was 8 months pregnant that her baby was born covered in bruises and died shortly after birth. Alberta Africa, arrested at a peaceful demo in April '75, was taken to police headquarters, held down by 4 cops while another cop kicked her in the vagina until she miscarried. In '76, MOVE members were attacked outside their house by cops. Janine Africa's 3-week old baby was deliberately knocked from her arms and trampled to death by cops. The list goes on...MOVE wouldn't be forced to submit by the State and decided to take a serious defensive stand against any further brutality from the cops. In May 1977 MOVE held a demonstration in front of their HQ in Powelton Village, Philadelphia, making their position clear to the city authorities. What followed was a year-long siege of the MOVE HQ by the cops. By March '78 a starvation blockade was attempted by city authorities; anyone trying to take food and water into the MOVE house was arrested. Things came to a head on August 8th 1978, when despite an agreement with MOVE to end the confrontation peacefully, the city authorities sent in 100s of cops, armed to the teeth with everything from machine guns, tear gas grenades to heavy equipment like a bulldozer and a tank (all this for the 12 adults, 8 children and some animals inside the MOVE house). In a frenzy to kill MOVE, the cops managed to kill one of their own officers (James Ramp) in the crossfire, whilst MOVE came out alive.
Nine innocent MOVE members have been in prison for 17 years since August 8th 1978. All nine were given sentences of 30-100 years each by Judge Malmed for third degree murder. The other 3 adults who had also been inside the MOVE house when Ramp was shot were all released after stating to officials that they were no longer MOVE members. The MOVE organisation on the outside campaigned against the unjust and illegal imprisonment of the MOVE 9. The authorities responded with more attacks on MOVE. The most publicised example being the the May 1985 bombing of MOVE's new HQ, in which the police pumped at least 10,000 rounds of bullets into the building after MOPVE had barricaded themselves in. When this failed to exterminate those inside, city officials had a bomb dropped from a helicopter on the house, which killed 11 MOVE people (including 5 children) and turned 61 homes to cinders in the surrounding area. Despite all this MOVE fights on with solid determination for freedom and justice. In March 1993 the MOVE 9 filed PCRA papers (a form of appeal) to show why the case against them should be overturned and they should be released immediately. Some of the issues raised on their PCR papers are that:
1. City officials deliberately destroyed vital evidence when they tore down the MOVE house and tree in front of the house which was the scene of the 'crime': a blatant violation of law and in any other case the charges would have been dropped immediately, through lack of evidence.
2. The tests from the bullet fragments found in Ramp's body were found to be inconclusive making it impossible to prove that MOVE shot Ramp.
3. Cops had the same kind of guns they claim MOVE used to kill Ramp.
4. MOVE members were in the basement, Ramp was facing MOVE headquarters when he was shot in the back of the head and the bullet travelled downwards.
5. Judge Malmed convicted nine MOVE members for killing one cop with one bullet from one gun. How can nine people kill one cop with one bullet from one gun?
6. None of the MOVE members have any weapons charges.
7. Judge Malmed admitted on public radio (WWDB-FM), when asked who actually killed James Ramp, that he did not know who did it, making it impossible to say MOVE is guilty.
8. District Attorney Wilhelm Knaur deliberately tampered with evidence by changing facts on Ramp's autopsy report in the courtroom.
Until just last year the US government had lodged a parole stipulation on all MO)VE prisoners stating that they could not get parole unless they agreed to leave MOVE, not go to any MOVE house or associate with MOVE members (including husbands and children). These stipulations were dropped by the government only after intense pressure from MOVE and their supporters. Again the US government will have to be forced with International pressure, just like that put on to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal. At the very least you can put pressure on officials through consistent action by writing letters or making phonecalls to:
1. US Senator Arlen Spector, 530 Hart Building, Washington, D.C. 20510, USA. Tel 202 224 4254.
2. Senator Rick Sentarium, Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510, USA.
3. Governor Tom Ridge, Main Capitol Building, Room 225, Harrisburg, PA. 17120, USA.
4. Philadelphia District Attorney Lynn Abraham, 1421 Arch St, Philadelphia, PA. 179107, USA.
5. Judge Joseph Papalini, PCRA Unit, 758 City Hall, Philadelphia, PA. 19107, USA.Tel 215686751.
It's important to write to Papalini in particular because he is the Judge handling the MOVE appeals, so let him know how you feel about the unjust imprisonment of innocent MOVE members. Papalini has the authority to: Reverse the trial judge's guilty verdict and release all MOVE members immediately based on non-effective evidence; Give Move another trial; Reduce the sentence or give MOVE time served.
If you'd like more information or to contact MOVE prisoners directly write to :
Merle Austin Africa #006306, 451 Fullerton Avenue, Cambridge Springs, PA> 16403-1238, USA.
Or Huddersfield ABC, 17-21 Chapel St, Bradford, BD1 5DT.
'MOVE ain't talking about changing governments, replacing one corrupt dictator, enslaver for another, MOVE is talking about eliminating all forms of external government and replacing it with the government of self, freedom, the natural right of all life. MOVE ain't talking about making jail so call better, MOVE is fighting to do away with all prisons and the mentality of enslavement that allows prisons to exist when freedom should be the only force recognised,,,MOVE don't endorse criminality of no kind, MOVE is working to eliminate the conditions that cause crime, working to eliminate this entire system.' - The MOVE Organisation.
TAKE WHAT'S YOURS - AND MORE!
Lifer Noel Brown sent us this account of his claim against the Home Office;
"This issue is about the prison canteens that seem to take great pleasure in taking more money from prisoners (who don't even earn enough to buy the essentials each week to survive, contrary to what the media would have the public believe), but are very reluctant to honour bona-fide money-off coupons.
I can appreciate that the prison canteens have to make some profit, this I understand should be no more than ten percent a year - however, a majority of canteens in British prisons are making something like 25% profit a year which I think is like what your paper is called:'Taking Liberties'.
The prison is refusing to honour a 25p off coupon from a box of Alpen I purchased from the prison canteen. The 25p off coupon, (this being the material inducement) is what led me into entering the contract with the prison shop. The case is due in court soon and I would appreciate any help from a barrister, solicitor or anyone of that stature to assist me as a MacKenzie Friend when my case is heard at Huntingdon County Court. I only have a basic understanding of the law and no doubt the Home Office will have their best counsel on the job in defending the action.
I know alot of people may feel that this matter of 25p is such an insignificant amount of money that it is hardly worth making a fuss about - however the 25p that I am being disadvantaged out of reprsents almost 5% of my weekly wage. Let's say for argument's sake that your weekly wage was 200 and the retailer wanted to make a further deduction of 5%. The nthis deduction would be 10 of your weekly wage; now this 10 may be your petrol money for the week, or the money you need to buy your husband/wife some chocolates. or you may want to buy that blouse/shirt you saw in the sales. As you can see, the 25p in percentage terms is of great significance. the reason why I have been forced to submit this case to the court is due to the Defendants' reluctance to resolve the matter I put to them in several requests and application forms.
I believe that I have a very good case for breach of contract against the prison, and I have put the very little money I had where my mouth is, in issuing the summons against the Home Office! I have been told that if I pursue the case my case in court I will not get my Cat D. Well I believe that prisoners should not be blackmailed in this manner and had the Defendants resolved this matter I put to them in not one, not two, three but FOUR Request/Complaint forms (not to mention the memos), then there would be no need for me to submit my case to Huntingdon County Court.
LATEST:
Well I had a few letters from the Home Office who tried to insult me by offering me £1 damages for my claim, which I told them was wholly inadequate. The case has now progressed to arbitration, but the District judge Goodman wrote to me asking my views on whether it was necessary for me to attend the hearing (strange question). he said that my case should be dealt with by proper submissions rather than attendance. I wrote back explaining that my case is a very complex one and for that reason my attendance would be necessary.
However it seems that not only do I have to defend myself against the Home Office but the judge appears to be on their side; the court wrote back and the letter goes as follows:
'Dear Mr Brown,
Re: yourself vs. the Home Office Case No HN501675
The district judge has considered the comments of yourself and the defendant and has directed that this case proceed to an arbitration hearing and that he is not prepared to make a production order'. So much for JUSTICE, eh! Anyway I'm not going to let that put me off.
NOEL BROWN, T65170, HMP LITTLEHEY, PERRY, HUNTINGDON, CAMBS, PE18 0SR
A RIP OFF ON VISITS
By Noel Brown
My friend Paul wanted to visit me as he had not seen me in ages (five months being the last time he saw me). A note was left on my bed to send Paul a Visiting Order, which i sent first class (this was also delayed). The visit was arranged for the 18th November 1995 and i was looking forward to it. Why? Well I don't get many visits, being so far away from home and being and being a life sentence prisoner - this visit was to the second this year.
The 18th November came and I was feeling quite happy. The doors were opened at 1.45pm and I went to the Education Department which opened at 2.00pm. The reason why I went to the Education Block was the tannoy system works better down there. i sat and waited for my name to be called out (visits are meant to start at 2.15). I waited, it was 2.30pm, I waited and it now 2.47pm and finally at 3.10pm visits decided to call me (no doubt out of the goodness of their hearts!). Well, I thought as I was walking over to the visiting room, 'What the hell is going on?', I arrived on my table and hugged my friend and his girlfriend who had come all the way from Edinburgh to see me.
I asked Paul how long he had been waiting for me and he told me that he got into the visiting room at 2.30, so he had been waiting for 40 minutues. he then told me that he had to ask at the desk 'again' when they were going to call me for the visit, they asked him who , he said 'Noel Brown' and gave my number. Paul said they looked at him as if they had never heard of me which is quite extraordinary when you consider I have been in Littlehey for over 21 months, I'm 6'1' tall - and wait for it - my Personal Officer was on duty at visits that day!
The N0 ! Governor, Mr Knight, entered the visits and strolled over to the staff table. I got up and went over to him and asked if he could spare some of his valuable time, my visitors would like a word. He looked none too pleased that I should dare ask such a request, anyway, I pointed out my visitors to him, and he said he would come over.
I went back to my visitors to continue the visit, I also kept an eye on the governor as I knew from past experiences that he says one thing but does the opposite, Anyway, just as I thought, Mr Knight tried to copy the Harp advert and make a sharp exit - however, I called out to him and he tried to make out that he didn't hear me so I called out again but raising my voice, this caused some of the visitors to look around.
He approached my table and asked what the problem was, my friend Paul explained that he and his girlfriend had come all the way from Edinburgh to visit me and had been waiting for 40 minutes, He wanted to know why it took so long for visits to call out my name. The Governor said, he would find out. He came back and said visits had called me, some three times he claimed. The only Brown they called out three times was 176 Brown, but my last three are 170. Mr Knight was still claiming they called me out, but I pointed out that I am not in the habit of keeping my visitors waiting if I have a visit. I don't get many as it is.
Paul continued saying this was not the only problem. He told the Governor that when he rang the prison to book the visit, he was kept in some stupid phone queue for almost an hour before he could get through, and when he finally got through the officer was very rude to him. Paul also told the Governor that when he has tried to organise visits to Littlehey in the past, he as always encountered problems with the staff who it seemed tried very hard to be as difficult as possible, He also pointed out that when he had visited me at other prisoners he didn't encounter any problems with them. Mr Knight then tried to make up some sad excuses as to why it had happened here but none of them were any good. He said he would make some more inquiries to find out why visits called me out so late and get back to Paul, but as yet Paul has received no such response from Mr Knight, and if you ask me he is not likely to either. It took Mr Knight 'SEVEN' weeks to reply to my Request?Complaint form when he should have replied within a week..
We also have an added problem to visits, as some Governor, (Mr Roebuck) in his divine wisdom thought it would be good to implement a new booking system for visits but he didn't even think it out properly! The notice to inmates goes as follows:
'Some discretion has been exercised in the implementation of the new booking of visits procedures. To ensure fairness this discretion will continue up to the Christmas period. However visits should continue to be booked.
With effect from 1 January 1996, only those visits which have been booked will be allowed to take place.
ML KNIGHT
Governor.'
However, does the Governor not realise that his decision to refuse visits on the assumption that the visit was not booked, would be subject to Judicial Review as it potentially infringes upon the rights of both prisoner and visitor?
JUSTICE AND FREEDOM FOR SAMAR
Four Palestinians will go on trial in October this year charged in connection with the July 1994 bombings of the Israeli Embassy and Balfour House.
One of them is Samar Alami, a young Palestinian woman who was studying in this country. Samar has consistently maintained that she is innocent of all the charges against her. Samar has been arrested and jailed three times, though she is now out due to campaigning by friends and supporters. A YEAR OF ARRESTS
17 January 1995: Samar was first arrested under the prevention of Terrorism Act, and her home searched by police for three days. Four other palestinians were arrested at the same time. On 20th January Samar was released without charge, along with two others, and tow more were charged and held in custody - one of these was later bailed, one has remained on remand .
22 March: Samar was arrested for the second time at her home, this time under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE). The police searched the house without any of the family or their legal representatives being present. The house remained under police control until the following day. Samar was charged with conspiracy to cause explosions, appeared in court on 23 march, and was remanded to Holloway Prison. On May 10th Bow Street Magistrates Court committed Samar for trial.
19 May: Samar was granted bail at the Old Bailey and left Holloway prison on the 23rd. Bail conditions included the surrender of her passport.
2 June: Samar was arrested for a THIRD time, while walking in the street near her home. She was arrested again under PACE, for supposedly committing new offences while on bail. She was questioned again and the next day given new charges of possessing arms and explosives. her family home was searched for a third time.She appeared in court on June 5th, along with two other defendants (charges were later dropped against these). Later in June another person was arrested, charged and is still being held inside.
On August 18th, Samar was committed for trial, originally scheduled to start in January 1996.
CONDITIONS OF DETENTION AT HOLLOWAY
Samar suffered detention as a Category A prisoner at Holloway Prison, so that she had to cope with harsh and unnecessary conditions. Her mental and physical state clearly began to deteriorate. Her weight came down steadily. Some of the problems were due to the chronic shortage of staff at Holloway and overcrowding. As a Category A prisoner, she was often the first to be locked up and was badly treated. The following points illustrate her plight:
¥ As a Category A Prisoner, she had to be 'shadowed' all the time, ie she could not leave her cell, even to take a shower, without a special officer allocated to her. Previously, despite the contracting of such a guard to watch her, she still barely got the association time stipulated by Holloway's own regulations. At one point her 'shadow' went on holiday and was not replaced until more than a week later.
¥ Samar was refused permission to work on her M.Sc thesis mainly on security grounds, jeopardising her ability to obtain her degree. As a Cat A prisoner she was not usually allowed to use the library, and her cell didn't have a plug for her to have a portable computer.
¥ Since the end of June, she was kept in her cell 23 hours out of every 24 on most days. This condition contravened regulations which stipulate that Category A prisoners should be allowed a minimum of 4 hours a day out of her cell.
¥ From the start of August, she hardly got to eat out of her cell more than 4 days per week.
¥ She had to fight for her rights and on one occasion had to hand in a written complaint to be allowed to have a daily shower.
¥ The staff shortages meant that on occasion:
-All inmates were locked up from early afternoon in five consecutive days, with all activities, including watching TV, cancelled.
-Samar found no-one to whom to give a complaint about her virtually continuous confinement.
¥ As a Category A prisoner, Samar was automatically subjected to strip- searches before and after legal and social visits.
¥ As a remand prisoner, she was forced to carry all her belongings, including all her legal files, every time she is due to appear in court.
RELEASED
Due to the deterioration of her mental and physical health, Samar was transferred to Durham prison in November 1995.
Samar was well-known for her work in Palestinian women's organisations and commitment to palestinian struggles. After her arrests, her bail application was supported by letters from 70 people. Friends and family campaigned for the easing of her conditions of detention at Holloway and her release. This seems to have been successful and she has now been released on bail. However the trial has now been moved to October. By the time the case comes to court, one of the two men being held in Belmarsh, will have been in remand for two years. Since January 1995, a climate of intimidation has been created in London's Palestinian community by the cops, looking for people to pin the bombings on.
For more information contact: Friends of Samar Alami, BM FOSA, London, WC1N 3XX.
SATPAL LATEST
Satpal Ram is in his tenth year of imprisonment for murder, after a racist who attacked him in a restaurant died after Satpal defended himself. Satpal's appeal was heard in November 1995: his cap[aign organised several lively demos at the High Court. However, the appeal was rejected. Satpal was refused the right to speak in the court and was dragged out shouting "No Justice No Peace!" Outside, campaigners blocked the road and were shoved aside by police, who nicked two people. They were later bound over for 6 months. THE CAMPAIGN WILL CONTINUE.
Meanwhile, Satpal suffered attacks in Long Lartin Prison. He was collecting information and statements on the process of forcing prisoners to squat for internal examinations, which is supposed to happen only when 'absolutely necessary'. On the 26th February, before he could send these papers to his solicitor, he was grabbed by prison officers in riot gear and taken to the Segregation Unit. Satpal says: " I have been in solitary confinment for approx 2 weeks now, in a cell 8 by 7 feet with no access to toilet or washing facilities, legal paperwork or personal property, & have been wearing the same clothes since my arrival. I have been denied phone calls to family, friends and solicitor because I refused to squat during a stripsearch. I have spent many hours in the strongbox...& on one occasion was dragged out unconscious by prison officers and denied hospital treatment.
It has also been alleged that I took part in an assault on prisoner Khan who has stated to the prison governor that I had no involvement in the incident whatsoever." Satpal was stripsearched immediately on leaving the visiting area on March 9th. The following Sunday he attacked by 3 screws. Another prisoner, LLoyd Sanderson, has been on hunger strike since March 6th in protest against the conditions and the ongoing catalogue of abuses against inmates. The Free Satpal Campaign organised a demo at Long Lartin for March 14th
. Satpal's supporters are asking people to bombard the prison with protest letters, faxes calls, demAnding that both Satpal & Lloyd be released from the Seg Unit, that Satpal be given proper medical attention, and that the prison explain why they enforce squatting in searches in breach of regulations.
Address protest to the Governor, Mr Mullins, HMP Long Lartin, South Littleton, Evesham, WR11 5TZ. Tel: 01386 830101. FAX: 01386 832834. Letters of support to and Lloyd Sanderson at the same address. and Satpal Ram, E94164, at HMP Brixton, Jebb Ave, London, SW2, till early May: he'll be moved soon after.
Free Satpal Campaign, c/o Handsworth Law Centre, 101 Villa Rd, Birmingham, B19 1NH.
STRANGEWAYS PRISONERS
April 1996 sees the sixth anniversary of the uprising at Strangeways prison in Manchester which led to a siege lasting 25 days, and sparked off riots, sitdowns and rebellion at prisons all across the country. The April 1990 events led to attempted reforms to make the prison life more acceptable and calm prisoners' anger; reforms which have now been swept away in the tide of middle-class bloodlust. Whatever the reforms, the prisoners who could be identified as being involved, or those who screws had grudges against, got long sentences added on for their part in showing up the prison system. Most are still inside and will be for a long time. Show you haven't forgotten them - send them cards and letters.
TONY BUSH, CD0405, HM Prison Frankland. Nine years from the riot, plus 18 months for escaping during the second trial.
GLYN WILLIAMS. HM Prison Full Sutton. 10 years from the second Strangeways trial.
PAUL TAYLOR. HM Prison Durham. 10 years from the first trial.
DAVID BOWEN, DA0146, HM Prison Brixton. 9 years for the riot, 3 years for a trumped-up jury-nobbling carge.On remand in Strangeways in April 1990 for shop-lifting a pair of curtains - he took no active part in the riot. Defended himself this June in a trial for escaping from Hull Prison during the second trial (after beatings, threats and abuse from screws). He got off on assaults on the transport screws, was convicted of escape & got an extra year on his sentence.
MARK AZZOPARDI, DA0147, HM Prison Frankland. 8 years from the second trial. Plus 3 years for escaping twice during the second trial. Moved out of Full Sutton in November after the recent prisoners strike.
JOHN HUGHES, AK2374, HMP Long Lartin.
ALAN LORD, K80382. HM Prison Hull. 10 years for the second trial after being acquitted in the first. Plus 18 months for escape. Already serving life.
KEVIN GEE. HM Prison Long Lartin. 10 years from the second trial.
BARRY MORTON, CV0221. HM Prison Frankland 8 years for the second trial and 18 months for escape. Wants people to write to him.
MARK WILLIAMS, Ashworth Special Hospital. 8 years from the second trial.
NATHAN GAYNOR, CX1148, HM Prison Bullingdon. Has been denied Home Leave due to 'anti-social behaviour'. Will be released Jan '96.
Nicki Jameson and Eric Allison's story of the 1990 events, with some brilliant inside stories, is available from Taking Liberties for £6.50 inc P&P.
US PRISON SYSTEM ERUPTS
The US prison system also erupted into rioting in October last year. Unfortunately we have been unable to get any detailed information on what went on, but according to one report ith at least 38 prisons suffered disturbances. This followed a year of increasing trouble in the prison syste, with protests, prisoner litigation, attacks on guards mounting up, in response to the "the current repressive, irrational and devastating law 'n' order mentality that has swept this nation off its feet." (Prisoners News Service).
The media blamed the uprisings on the defeat of a measure aiming to even up sentences for dealing crack cocaine and powder cocaine (crack dealers, being and selling more to black/poor people, get vastly longer sentences than powder dealers, dealing more to the middle class). This is an over- simplification: it may have been a spark, but the huge racist bias in the US criminal justice system, the 'war on crime', the bursting full prisons, have been lighting a fire under the system.
The October Uprisings weren't confined to one or two institutions, but spread across the whole country. The Bureau of Prisons in respsonse decided to lock down all federal jails, which led to more confrontations. Many prisoners were thrown iinto segregation, charged with various crimes, sentenced to more time in solitary or transferred.
With 1.5 million people inside, and the laws being tightened to come down harder on the poor, it seems likely that this explosion of violence is only going to be a beginning.
We are trying to get more info on the uprisings, which e will publish if and when we get it.
Visits: are they for the governor or the inmates: this is the question? by Noel Brown, Littlehey Jail
This issue is concerning the new booking system for visits which was implemented by Mr. Roebuck, Governor grade 5. A notice came out in mid September 1995 explaining some of the reasons why this was necessary. The final notice to prisoners came out on the 23rd November 1995 to come fully into effect on the 1st January 1996
. FOR:
The reason for the new booking system was: to stop the increasing number of prisoners' visits being cut short; to keep within the fire regulations of how many people could be in an area provided for visitors; for management to organise manpower more effectively; to help relieve the stress of both prisoners and visitors and to start visits at 2:15pm which was not always possible in the old system.
Some inmates expressed that the new booking system is a good idea as visitors coming a long way would be assured of a longer visit.
On the new system, once 48 visits had been booked no more visits would be allowed-thus, visitors would receive the full time of the two hours, and not 30 minutes which happened on the old system if there were more than 48 visitors.
In the preface of Standing Order 5 it states:
It is one of the roles of the Prison Services to ensure that the socially harmful effects of an inmate's removal from normal life are as far as possible minimised, and that contacts with the outside world are maintained. Outside contacts are therefore encouraged, especially between an inmate and his or her family and friends.
AGAINST:
However, the advantages of the new booking system are outnumbered by the disadvantages and reasons are as follows:
One of the difficulties of the booking system is, it requires the visitor to ring the prison in order to book the visit -however, what this system overlooks is that not every visitor may have a phone/or access to one that they can use to ring the prison. Some of the visitors may not be in a position to pay the phone bill as they may only be receiving supplementary benefit.
It has been known that when visitors ring up they have been kept waiting for up to an hour before getting through to book this visit being the unfortunate 49th caller, the visiting room can only accommodate 48 visits!
The new system causes great inconvenience to visitors which it is supposed to help! The times visitors have to make any bookings for visits has to be between 6 to 8pm. However, what happens to the people who have to work odd hours, or even the people who cannot ring at the times given?
Further to the inconvenience, what happens if a visit has to be arranged quickly, for example, if there death in the family and the person or persons concerned cannot give the 48 hours notice which the "prison" requires?
Another problem that has arising is, some visitors who have the necessary finance and time of their hands have been booking their visits well in advance, causing a situation where other visitors could not book an alternative visit.
One final point; if it is the Prison Services; role, as it is stated in Standing Order 5 for: "Outside contacts are therefore encouraged, especially between an inmate and his or her family and friends," then the policy of the Governor to turn inmates' visitors away (who had a valid visiting order) would clearly be a contradiction in terms.
If the Governor is still to continue with the policy of: "With effect from 1 January 1996, only those visits which have been booked will be allowed to take place" then his decision to refuse visits on the assumption that the visit was not booked, would be subject to judicial review as they potentially infringe upon the rights of both prisoner and the visitor.
CONCLUSION:
In closing the new booking system has proven to be a headache to staff who have to implement the system, to visitors who have to book the visits and for inmates who are forced to accept it. Most of the inmates would prefer that the system was disbanded and the old system of the visits reintroduced, they believe in the fundamental principle that what you lose on the Swings you gain on the roundabout!
A lot of inmates feel that the new system has done nothing to alleviate any of the old problems in that if the staff know there are only 48 visits and knowing which inmates will be getting visits then visits should not be delayed. However, visits have still failed to start on time and if the purpose of the new system was to start visits on time to enable inmates and their visitors to have a longer visit then it has failed miserably.
It has also been pointed out that prisoners are sent to prison as a punishment and not for punishment. However, with the new system it is felt that prisoners' families are being punished by incurring extra expense in making phone call/s (not to mention the inconvenience of it all) for the visit which would not have occurred under the old system.
Source Material used for this essay are as follows:
The Governor's notice to inmates (dated the 23rd November 1995
Standing Order 5 (Communication)
Taking Liberties (Newspaper)
Prison Law (Book)
Discussions with inmates and some visitors.
WELLING UP
Don't forget the eight prisoners inside for fighting back against the coppers at the 1993 Welling anti-BNP march:
Karl Anacoura RN0599 3 years
Russell Wild RN0597 3 years
The above are being held at: HMP Elmley Church Road, East Church Sheerness Kent ME12 4AY
(books and magazines can be sent, postal orders payable the HMP Elmley with prisoners name and number on back.)
Sanjiv Karla RN0598 2 years
Mark Gay RN0594 3 years
HMP Standford Hill Church Rd, Eastchurch Sheerness, ME12 4AA
Charles Ryder RN0595 16 months
HMP Aldington, Rochester, Kent, ME
John McFeely RN0596 2 years
HMP Lindholme, Bawtry Rd, Hatfield Woodhouse Doncaster DN7.
Paul Gay RN0593 2 years 8 months
HMP Maidstone County Rd, Maidstone Kent ME12
that was Taking Liberties - due to technical problems the articles on Leonard Peltier and deathes on remand could not be posted - sorry! - to get a print copy of TL write to ABC - 121 Railton Rd, London SE24 0LR - subs are 10 pounds per year for organisations and 5/3 for waged/unwaged individuals in the Uk and maybe something more outside [but no prices are listed]