Psychopaths Rule.

       It's common knowledge, or should be, that prisons are institutions of brutality, where violence is arbitrary, justice is varied on a whim, human rights are removed at the will of an individual, physical and psychological health is of little concern to the authorities, control and authority is all that matters. It is the control and authority of individuals who interpret these in their own manner according to their own particular mood or disposition. All this goes on in our towns and cities and we calmly go about our daily business.

    Some prison have a more brutal reputation than others, but a recent report from America, puts Alabama prison system right there at the top of the festering heap of callous brutal savagery that stinks of psychopaths give free rein.

The Alabama Report:

 

      Alabama prisons have used ”cruel and unusual punishment” on inmates by allowing correctional officers to perform routine beatings, the Department of Justice (DOJ) said following an investigation.
      “Our investigation found reasonable cause to believe that there is a pattern or practice of using excessive force against prisoners in Alabama’s prisons for men,” Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the department’s Civil Rights Division said.
     An investigation of 13 Alabama prisons found that 12 of them had correctional officers using excessive, and sometimes deadly, force on inmates that violated their Constitutional rights.
       Excessive force by corrections officers included the use of batons, chemical spray, and physical beatings involving kicking prisoners, which often resulted in serious injuries. Two Alabama prisoners died from excessive force incidents in the last months of 2019 alone.
       In one fatal incident in October 2019, “the level of force used caused the prisoner to sustain multiple fractures to his skull, including near his nose, both eye sockets, left ear, left cheekbone, and the base of his skull, many of which caused extensive bleeding in multiple parts of his brain,” according to the DOJ.
       The 28-page report released on Thursday highlighted multiple instances of officers using excessive force on inmates, with some of those times including when there was no physical threat to the employees' safety. The report also found officers would “use force as a form of retribution and for the sole purpose of inflicting pain".
     One instance stated how an officer “brutally hit, kicked and struck a handcuffed prisoner” in a medical unit while calling himself the “reaper of death”. The prisoner reportedly “begged for the officer to kill him”, according to four nurses who witnessed the incident.
      Low staffing and overcrowding in Alabama prisons was credited in the report as a trigger for officers to become “tired, stressed, overworked and angry”.
     “After carefully reviewing the evidence, we conclude that there is reasonable cause to believe that conditions in Alabama’s prisons violate the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution and that these violations are pursuant to a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of rights protected by the Eighth Amendment. Specifically, we have reasonable cause to believe that the correctional officers within the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) frequently use excessive force on prisoners housed in Alabama’s prisons for men. Such violations are pursuant to a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of rights secured by the Eighth Amendment,” the DOJ said Thursday in a letter to Alabama Governor Kay Ivey.
       This report comes as the DOJ first started looking into the Alabama prison system starting in 2016. The department already found that the prison system was “deliberately indifferent” to prisoner-on-prisoner attacks on sexual abuse. Investigations also found officials failed to maintain facilities that were “sanitary, safe, or secure”.
    “Ultimately, Alabama does not properly prevent and address unconstitutional uses of force in its prisons, fostering a culture where unlawful uses of force are common,” the most recent report stated.
     Ms Ivey said in a statement that her administration was hopeful they could reach a resolution to all the department’s allegations.
      “I am as committed as ever to improving prison safety through necessary infrastructure investment, increased correctional staffing, comprehensive mental-health care services, and effective rehabilitation programs, among other items,” the governor said.

      So the governor said, and we heard Bla bla bla bla! Prisons must crumble to dust for freedom and justice to flower.

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Three Weeks Of US Prisoners Strike.

       Not a whisper, not a sound, from our babbling brook of bullshit, the mainstream media, about the US prison strike, now in its third week. In one prison even the guards failed to turn up for work. The US prison system, like others around the world, is creaking at the seams, brutality, corruption, over crowding, and the blatant injustice of the whole festering cancer, is becoming more and more evident day by brutal day. Those incarcerated in the state's cages are fighting a very unequal fight, they face the state at its most brutal stage, confined within walls and cages, under constant surveillance, their rights stripped away and at the mercy of the state's armed minders, but still they resist. There actions demand our solidarity, we built those prisons, we can pull them down.  

This from It's Going Down: 

       It is being reported that last week while at the prison after attending the funeral of the pig who was stabbed here on September 1st and died from his injuries, the REGIONAL COORDINATOR Grantt Culliver, stated to several prisoners that he was going to bring the CERT, the department of corrections’ special response squad to Holman prison in Atmore, Alabama on the 1st of Octobeter and that they will be here for the next ninety days to search the prison for every knife and cellphone, and that are going to take the prison apart piece by piece until they have found every weapon and phone.
       This is an attempt at intimidation and move to reestablish authority and total control. Control over human beings who have been resisting and saying fuck your authority! Humans who no longer accept the narrative that they are worthless and that the state has a right to punish and use violence without it being returned. No longer will we allow the gross injustices to go unchecked.
         We want you all out there in the open air prison called the free world to keep an eye on what happens here. We know that the pigs are angry about the death of their colleague at the hands of a prisoner and all the resistance that has sprung up here within the last year and have / are planning to crush the resistance. Keep an eye on Holman and continue to show solidarity through direct action.
No gods, no masters!
Death to the state!
Long live anarchy!

       Prisons can be, and often are, grotesque exaggerations of the patriarchal system that exists in society at large, magnifying problems with gender issues.
This from Anarchy Live:

      The web has been abuzz with information about the recent riots here in Alabama at Holman prison – the stabbing of a warden and correctional officer, the fires that were set, the overcrowding, etc. – but what has been left out of this narrative is that the catalyst for the riots was a fight between two queer prisoners about queer relations. After quelling their beef, a pig and the warden attempted to intervene and was stabbed.
      No one wants to mention that out of the six prisoners who were charged with the stabbings of the warden and correctional officer, four are queer. Historically, attempts have been made to write queer resistance out of history. But, despite all the attempts, queer folk have refused to allow these stories to go unknown.
      What I think most people refuse to acknowledge is that prisons are extensions of patriarchal control. Male prisons are hyper-macho environments with very hierarchical structures and class divisions. In the prisons, queer prisoners have taken on a submissive and passive persona, because they themselves are not immune to all the psychological bullshit that society teaches about gender, sex, and class, and how that gender should be lived – you know, ‘females are weak and only to use, and control.’ The queer prisoner is on the bottom of the social ladder, just above snitches. The life of the queer prisoner is one of gross disrespect, violence, and oppression, from prisoners and pigs alike. Most prisoners look at being queer as an abomination, as something nasty and weak.
      But on March 11, 2016, that narrative was shattered after queer prisoners went on the offensive against the pigs.
      One queer prisoner went from dorm to dorm inviting, exhorting, and encouraging prisoners to come out of their cells and join in tearing the prison down. One dorm refused and placed a lock and chain on their dorm’s cell door, successfully locking themselves in and everyone else out. The queer prisoner started calling these guys on this and called them pigs, Uncle Tom, etc. all while brandishing a knife.
      And this is not the only instance of queer resistance against the pigs:
      – In 2012, a stabbing of a guard in the segregation unit at Holman was taking place while showers were being done, and Fredricka, a queer prisoner’s, cell door hadn’t closed and she ran out the cell, down the stairs and into the control unit. She kicked the pig down who was in the control unit, handcuffed him and opened some of the segregation cell doors, allowing other prisoners to come out their cell and attack the police.
       – Also in 2012 at Holman prison, queer prisoners formed the “Gay Militia” as a prison gang for the protection of themselves against homophobes.
       – At Donaldson prison in Alabama, queer prisoners form F.A.G. as a self-defense organization.
        – In 2015 at Holman prison, a queer prisoner set fire to a guard in the segregation unit.
        The history of queer resistance is long and beautiful. It didn’t start with Stonewall.
In Solidarity,
Queer Resistance

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk