Under Lock and Key RAIL
RAIL Radio Program
Dec. 4, 1998

Amnesty International Takes on U.$. Prisons
A letter from a New York Prisoner says the real criminal is 
Amerika

Welcome to Under Lock and Key, news and commentary about 
prisons from the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League. The 
U.$. incarcerates a greater percentage of its population 
than any other country. The rate for imprisonment of Blacks 
is 4 times that of apartheid South Africa, and the U.$. 
sends more Black men to prison than college. The purpose of 
this program is to educate about, and inspire activism 
against, the Amerikan lockdown. 

Amnesty International Takes on U.$. Prisons

In early October, Amnesty International initiated its 
campaign entitled "Rights for All." This campaign focuses on 
human rights violations by the United snakes internationally 
and domestically. The campaign is to run from October 1998 
to May 1999. "Rights for All" is campaigning for:  

"an end to police brutality; 
an end to torture and abuse of prisoners; 
the protection of asylum-seekers; 
the abolition of the death penalty; 
ratification of human rights treaties; 
and a code of conduct for arms sales." 

At the beginning of the campaign, Amnesty released a 150-
page report documenting human rights violations in the U.$. 
by "police departments, prison systems, detention 
facilities, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) 
and other institutions."

RAIL welcomes this mainstream exposure to the daily 
atrocities committed by and backed by the United Snakes of 
Imperialism. Details provided in the reports adds to the 
work that RAIL and prisoners have done to expose the nature 
of the U.$. INjustice system as a system of social control 
and national oppression. We invite Amnesty chapters and 
supporters to struggle with and work with us. There are many 
projects which we can collaborate on based on our mutual 
goal to expose and oppose U.$.-imposed oppression.

In this feature, we focus on the aspect of Amnesty's report 
dealing with the Amerikkkan prison system. We credit Amnesty 
for conducting investigation and exposing some of the 
conditions in Amerikan prisons. In the past, we have used 
information that Amnesty provides and have credited it when 
Amnesty has been correct in exposing imperialist-country 
atrocities.

The Amnesty International report's chapter on prison says:  
"Every day in prisons and jails across the USA, the human 
rights of prisoners are violated. In many facilities, 
violence is endemic." Further, Amnesty adds, although "many 
of these practices violate US laws as well as international 
human rights standards," in current prison system "serious 
violations can occur and continue without being effectively 
challenged."

The report documents many cases of brutality by prison 
officials, including:  

administrators supervising beatings of prisoners, 
"gladiator" fights arranged by guards, 
false reports filed to cover up guard atrocities, 
racist attacks and false disciplinary charges lodged against 
Black prisoners, 
600 prisoners handcuffed outdoors for 96 hours, 
wimmin prisoners raped and sold by guards for sex (which is 
torture according to international law), 
the use of restraints deliberately imposed as punishment, 
chains and leg-irons (illegal under international law), 
prisoners who died from blood clots from prolonged 
immobilization, 
prisoners tortured while strapped in restraint chairs, 
prisoners with tape wrapped round their mouths and football 
helmets placed backwards on their heads, 
hogtying, 
pregnant wimmin forced to give birth in shackles, 
the use of dangerous amounts of tear-gas as retaliation for 
nonviolent protests, 
prisoners maced and racially taunted while already in 
handcuffs, 
lethal use of pepper spray, 
the use of electric stun guns to shocks prisoners already 
restrained, 
and the use of dangerous remote control electro-shock stun 
belts.

One useful element of the report is Amnesty's documentation 
of where U.$. practices violate international laws. These 
are largely hollow in the case of the Amerikan government, 
which generally ignores them, but pointing out these 
violations helps expose Amerikan hypocrisy in its treatment 
of prisoners. For example, transferring prisoners thousands 
of miles from their communities, which RAIL and others have 
protested in recent years, violates the Standard Minimum 
Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners in international law.

These international rules are pretty much used as toilet 
paper by Amerikan prisons. Imagine what prisons would be 
like if they followed all this:  "Under the ... Convention 
against Torture, the US government is obliged to ensure that 
people are not subjected to torture (including rape) or to 
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and that people 
deprived of their liberty are treated with humanity and with 
respect for the dignity of the human person." 

The U.$. government ratified this Convention in 1994. 
However, said it would interpret the rules to apply the same 
way the "cruel and unusual punishment" clause of the U.$. 
Constitution is used. In other words, the Convention against 
Torture is to be heeded by Amerika rarely if at all. 
Listening to any edition of this Under Lock & Key program 
exposes the lie of these so-called rights in Amerikan gulags 
today.

---

Part of Amnesty's focus is on how prison guards should do 
more to prevent violence between prisoners. For example, 
"Overcrowded correctional facilities lack the space and 
staff to protect vulnerable inmates from predatory ones. As 
a result, physical and sexual violence and extortion are 
rife in many prisons and jails," examples of which they 
provide in some detail.

In the real world of politics such demands turn public 
opinion against prisoners, lead to increased prison funding 
and a bigger prison system, and divert attention from the 
central issue, which is the national, gender and class 
oppression of the injustice system. These are not the 
concerns of Amnesty International, however.

RAIL agrees that the injustice system should be held 
responsible for crimes against the people committed in 
prisons. And we know that the conditions of prisons and the 
machinations of the prison officials cause immeasurable harm 
to prisoners. However, we don't want to put our political 
energy into demanding that prison guards do more to stop 
these crimes. And progressives must make clear that 
additional guards will not decrease violence within prisons. 
The guards themselves are the primary perpetrators of crimes 
in prisons and we do not trust these pigs to end violence. 
In many cases reported to RAIL, even prisoner on prisoner 
violence is instigated by the guards like some sick human 
version of a cock fight.

The crimes which prisoners commit within prison represent 
consequences of the root injustice of the system. The 
pitfall of single issue politics in this situation is 
revealed when Amnesty's solution does not take into 
consideration the social causes of violence amongst 
prisoners. Setting aside pig violence -- prisoners fighting 
themselves or even being self-destructive through the use of 
drugs, stems from social inequalities and massive repression 
and denial of a meaningful existence prisoners face.

Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China up to 
1976, the Chinese people developed prisons which helped 
prisoners to rebuild their lives as productive members of 
society. The Chinese prisoners were assisted in genuine 
rehabilitation with the result of prisoners having more 
respect for themselves, other individuals and for society in 
general. This is one of the many reasons RAIL addresses 
problems like violence within prisons from a revolutionary 
analysis. Piecemeal approaches will not solve the problems 
of either crime or prison torture.

--

The Amnesty International report on the injustice in U.$. 
prisons also criticizes supermaximum securityÑor supermax--
prisons. As of 1997, there were at least 57 supermax prisons 
in use by 36 states and the federal government. More than 
13,000 prisoners are currently in these high-tech dungeons, 
and many more facilities are currently under construction. 
Supermax prisons have already been condemned by Amnesty as 
well as the UN Human Rights Committee.

Supermax violations of international law include:  
cells smaller than 80 square feet, 
no windows and little or no access to natural light or fresh 
air 
and insufficient exercise. 

Further, "In Westville, Indiana, prisoners were not allowed 
to wear watches or ask the time until a hunger-strike and a 
lawsuit led to some court-imposed changes." U.$. courts have 
forced some changes, but generally permit supermax 
administrators to have their way in the name of "legitimate 
security needs."

According to Amnesty, QUOTE "the process of review is 
discretionary, or the criteria for moving out of the units 
are vague or difficult to meet. Some prisoners may spend 
years in supermax units." In particular, "Prisoners may be 
assigned for long periods ... for relatively minor 
disciplinary infractions, such as insolence towards staff 
... Others have reportedly been moved to supermax units 
because of overcrowding or because they have complained 
about prison conditions." In Valley State Prison, 
California, for example, wimmin were "assigned, or 
threatened with assignment, to the supermax unit if they 
complained about sexual abuse by guards." Finally, "some 
prisoners have reportedly been put in supermax units because 
of their political affiliations."

Listeners will be interested to know that QUOTE 
"International standards clearly specify that medical care 
and treatment shall be provided whenever necessary, free of 
charge." Not only is medical care inadequate, but it is 
often not free.

--

The report goes on to list many reforms that would reduce 
specific abuses, such as banning stun guns, limiting time in 
supermax conditions, and so on. It is useful to have groups 
such as Amnesty agitate for these reforms. RAIL has led or 
joined some struggles to improve prison conditions. However, 
the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League takes it as our 
main task, to build public opinion against the injustice 
system as a whole, and to build a movement to overthrow the 
system that imposes these draconian conditions.

We have long criticized Amnesty International for its focus 
on the oppression committed by Third World governments 
without assigning blame to the imperialists in the 
background whose power and influence are often at the root 
of "local" acts of oppression. 

We have also criticized Amnesty for its whole approach to 
"human rights" and supposed "apolitical" stand, as if rights 
could be divorced from power and politics in a world 
dominated by imperialism and patriarchy. Amnesty generally 
uses a bourgeois theory of 'human rights.' We argue that 
there are no inherent rights, there are power struggles. 
This means we recognize the reality that those in power are 
the ones who determine what is and what is not a right. The 
ability to be treated in a certain way, or for the 
bourgeoisie to hold its property or any other 'right' is 
only supported by the ability to actually gain and defend 
it. Conceiving of justice in terms of rights allows the 
bourgeoisie to determine what is and is not a right and for 
which groups of people. Capitalism forcing whole villages to 
starve or denying health care to Blacks in the U.S. is 
typically not thought of as a human rights violation.

That disagreement with the overall approach is unchanged. 
But we have also blamed Amnesty for a tendency to ignore or 
tone down criticism of the First World -- and especially the 
local First World -- country. Within the United Snakes, 
Amnesty will sometimes focus timid pressure in some death 
penalty cases. People can most effectively organize in their 
own territory, but Amnesty chooses to ignore the torture in 
police stations and prisons right around the corner. Even 
from within the reformist perspective, the people who need 
to shut down the Control Units at Marion prison--cited as 
torture by Amnesty -- live within the United Snakes. For 
local issues not to be an integral organizing strategy is a 
mistake. And here Amnesty has improved their record in our 
eyes.

Yet even now, as the mainstream media generally ignores the 
Amnesty report after a brief mention, the problem with 
Amnesty's piecemeal approach is apparent. The next time the 
pig media do a report on atrocities in a Third World 
government the U.$. is hostile toward, and it's splashed all 
over the news, we hope someone from Amnesty will stand up. 
Amnesty will need to expose the imperialist power structure 
and history behind the offending government, and compare the 
atrocities to the crimes of imperialism. These crimes 
include not just wars and interventions, but also 
starvation, disease, and environmental devastation.

In short, Amnesty criticizes a series of misbehaviors by 
governments, but not the systems that drive them. This 
leaves their work open for use by the many people who use 
"human rights" as a club to impose Amerikan hegemony on the 
rest of the world. 

But Amnesty has also taken a big step forward with the 
organizing of local U.$. chapters to oppose torture and 
injustice in their own country. The current Amnesty 
International campaign to focus on the abuses of the U.$. 
prisons is a great contribution to the movement for justice 
in North America.

--

A letter from a New York Prisoner says the real criminal is 
Amerika

Let us start with the fact that if the same laws enforced 
by the U.S. empire upon its population were applied to the 
state, we would find them *currently* guilty of 
1st degree robbery, 
1st degree murder, 
extortion, 
1st degree of unlawful imprisonment, 
1st degree assault with deadly weapons, 
possession and sale of controlled substances, 
kidnapping.... 

The list goes on but you get the picture, the U.S. empire 
is, according to their own law, an illegal government in 
direct violation of the RICO Act. 

Law is the political, economic and social domination of 
one class or nation over another class or nation. The ÒlawÓ 
is manifested and exercised through state institutions such 
as courts, local police, alphabet police 

(FBI, CIA, IRS, BATF, DEA, INS) 

and backed by political branches such as the legislative, 
judicial and executive. These institutions enforce the 
ruling class or nationÕs will by violence in order to 
fortify their domination and market. So lets remember that 
society is whipped in line by violence and the constant 
threat of violence.

Crime is a term used to describe actions that defeat the 
ruling class or nationÕs power. Essentially, the labeling of 
murder, extortion, robbery and other acts as crime has 
nothing to do with the act per se, if this were the case all 
of Amerika would be ÒcriminalsÓ acting in concert, for we 
have and continue to benefit from the 1st degree armed 
robbery, 1st degree murder, extortions, kidnapping and 
holding hostage entire nations that the U.S. empire commits 
on a daily basis. If I violate humanity via murder robbery 
etc. in the name of the ruling power and I do a good job at 
it then I will be showered with praise and medals, but if I 
do it in contrast to their power then I will be showered 
with punishment, imprisonment, and humiliation. So we can 
see that the act per se is not criminal but who and what the 
act is against makes it a crime....

When a person is punished by the state with imprisonment 
for defying the economic repression, political domination 
and social control of those in power, that person is in all 
sense of the word a political prisoner. Just because a 
person/people is not consciously aware that they are in fact 
oppressed does not mean they arenÕt oppressed and just 
because a people are not consciously aware that they are 
political prisoners does not mean that they arenÕt political 
prisoners.

No matter if you do or donÕt commit [so-called] ÒcrimeÓ 
if you are a member of the nationally oppressed the pressure 
by the state will remain on you. Just so you can realize 
that the violence places demands on you no matter what. We 
walk with prisons hovering above our heads. The state seems 
gigantic to us, Ôcause we sitting on our asses. 

Let us rise.

That was a letter from a New York Prisoner.

--

This has been Under Lock and Key, a weekly Revolutionary 
Anti-Imperialist League program about prisons. For more 
information, contact: RAIL PO Box 712 Amherst MA 01004, or 
email mim@mim.org.