Sunday, May 22, 2016

" COMMON GROUND", A solution to long term isolation (AC)



 Brainchild of Uhuru, " COMMON GROUNDS"is a unique approach to ending AC-i.e. actual communication. FFUP proposed it to Warden Pollard in 2014(letter below). It was never even acknowledged. Maybe its time is coming.

Forum For Understanding Prisons(FFUP)
a 501c3 non profit


TO:                   Warden Pollard;Dr. Ingres;Dr. Ludigson;Toni Meli;WIDOC security Director;WIDOC health director
RE:     Longterm Seg./AC Programs WCI
September 29,2014Warden Pollard, et al:
Please find enclosed the CG (Common Grounds) longterm seg/AC program resolution that FFUP's "think tank" has put together and donated to Waupun to try to address the longterm seg/AC problems that exist there.
We believe a fresh look at the AC/longterm seg. problem is needed, and we believe common grounds can be part of that solution.Thank you for your attention to this matter.
We request feedback as to whether this program will be used or any comments on it.
Sincerely,


Peg Swan
 Member, FFUP
29631 Wild Rose Drive
Blue River, WI 53518
1-608-536-3993
Web:prisonforum.org


Common Ground (CGS)
Logline: Transitioning Prisoners From AC and Longtime Seg.
Goals: Addressing conflict resolutions that prisoners in AC/longtime segregation have with prison staff and/or among themselves, resulting in the hopeful transitioning and release from AC/long time seg.
Premise of Program: CGS begins with the premise that if a prisoner has been placed and held in AC/long seg. status there has to be an existence of some kind of conflict between either staff or the prisoner and other prisoners that has lead to this long time segregation placement.
Unique Approach: Instead of placing blame or approaching the conflict from a subjective point of view, CGS is designed to not take a particular position in the conflict, but equalize the concerns voiced by both the prisoners/staff conflict or prisoner/prisoner conflict that led to the AC/long seg. placement, and focus on resolutions without placement of blame.
This unique approach is effective because, as in any conflict, resolution and all points of view must be aired and respected as part of the resolution discussion. No problem has ever been solved by one party in a given conflict being burdened with blame, while the other takes on a superiority complex.
Objective: The objective is to find common grounds that everyone can respect each other’s security and classification concerns without placing blame and the use of inferiority labels that makes one party feel the need to be defensive, which is what most prisoners who are held in AC/long seg. feel. This defensiveness has been the main reason no previous administration/ clinical programs have successfully led to the prisoners transitioning and eventually being released from AC/long seg.
Designed: This is what makes CGS unique and effective. It was designed specifically with AC/long seg. prisoners in mind after careful review of complaints, court cases, and other view points of prisoners held in these statuses. The CGS think tank recognized the fault lines that kept the prison officials security claims and goals from registering with the prisoners and the prisoners’ views being considered by the prison officials. Both sides took a "my way or the highway" approach. Resulting in the stalemate with the prisoner stuck in AC/long seg. for indefinite years and the prison officials having to pay the cost of these prisoners becoming more defensive and in the more extreme cases, psychologically damaged beyond the objective penological goal of the status. And a psychologically damaged prisoner is not in anyone’s best interest. It is certainly not in the best interests of society, where some, if not most, of the prisoners will be freed to; nor the tax payers, who now have to pay extra to staff special housing units to police segregated mental units that are in fact disciplinary segregation units, which only exacerbate the original conflict.
Workshops: The CGS is organized in six workshop sessions:
Session One: Begins with both the prison official and prisoner reducing to written word what each feels is the contributory problems.
CGS freedom of expression: in order for the workshops to be effective there has to be a certain level of free expression. CGS believes all participants must be allowed to state their views free of punishment. Free expression does not entitle abusive language used to provoke or disrespect the other participants, or create more problems.
Session Two: begins with the prison official recitation of the prisoner's point of view and the prisoner recitation of the prison officials. Or, in case of prisoner/prisoner, each would recite the other's views. The participant must defend each other's view point as if it was their original view to examine and experience the difference in each other's views.
Session Three: begins with each participant putting forth prospective resolutions to the conflict, with discussion.
Session Four: begins with the mediator of CGS - a neutral and independent person - putting forth resolutions that participants should consider. The participants can accept or alter these resolutions and stipulate.
Session Five: begins with the participants pointing out what issues of concern that the other one has. They can agree these are ones to be dealt with and agreements to resolve them.
Session Six: begins with all participants putting forth future resolution commitments to prevent and stop future problems and incidents.
Completion of CGS: Upon completion of CGS, which is a six week session workshop, the prisoner participant should be placed in a transition housing to be phased back to general prison population.
Homework Assignments: After each workshop the participant should take a story of real life conflict (past and present, over the span of the workshops) and write a report stating now both sides to that real life conflict could resolve the matter. Also, what might be the fault line problems preventing the current resolutions. The reports should also point out valid points that each side has that should be taken more serious by the other side.
Final Report: At the completion of CGS, the participant should write a one hundred word essay
on how the examination of the report conflicts has impacted their opinion, and if so, made a change in view point.
Disclaimer: The reports written should be permitted some freedom of expression and not be used to continue AC/Seg. placement, nor future placement. The reports will be either read at sessions or by the mediator who will return them to the participant.
Rights: CGS was created by FFUP in house pro se legal consult, R. U. and FFUP reserves all rights.
Donation: FFUP waives the rights to WI DOC to use CGS as part of the prisoner AC/long time seg. remedy.

Saturday, May 21, 2016

Uhuru: Stronger than a Rat/Surviving Long Term isolation Confinement



Stronger Than a Rat
Skinners Rats
         By Ras Uhuru
                                          Surviving Long Term Isolation Confinement
1) it is not surprising for human beings to have been thrust into isolation holes to start exhibiting psychological and emotional affects. These are conditions contrary to human nature. Even monks or other hermits who went into elective “eremos” (Greek, Solitary) had to struggle and strive to maintain some sense of stimulus.

2) But human beings having a supportive mind, have the ability to maintain a stong mind despite the “breaking men’s mind”  tactics being employed in supermaxes, SHU units or any other seg environment.

3) I offer to you the anecdote of Skinner's Rats to use as the barometer of strength. Considering all the constructs and puns of the term “rat”, one should find it easy to be as strong as any kind of rat. But we deal specifically with psychology. In the early developments of the foundations of American Psychology, one of its pioneers, Burrhus Frederick Skinner ( 1904-90) employed a “hope and hopeless “ experiment *in which he placed a rat in a pool of water and the rat could not get out of it. The rat was forced to keep swimming around in circles as it searched hopelessly for a way to get out. Because the pool construct was designed to prevent such, the rats continued to tread water.

4) Skinner and his assistants would keep time of how long the rats would tread water until they gave up and started to drown. They would then place a small stand in the pool so the rat could get out of the water.

5) What Skinner’s repetitious observations showed was that the rats who experienced the “hopeless experiment” would tread water longer than those rats who had not experienced receiving the life preserve stand. The rats who had not, would allow hopelessness to set in and would give up and drown and the rats that had been pushed to the drowning point in the past and had received the stand would keep on treading for minutes longer than they previously had in hope that Skinner would put the life preserve stand in the pool at some point. This showed the rat would never give up of if he thought that there was a chance to get out and stand. *

6) So what I gain from this , and what I believe is that a humana are capable , even in the most deplorable circumstances to create their own hope (stand) and change the circumstances of their percieved hoplessness into real true hope. We don’t have to be rats or take a rats false sense of hope or hopelessness as our fate. We are and can be “stronger that skinners rats” or any other variety anthromorphized.
                                             UNDROWNED. 


·      *   A lot of his experiments with infants would not be permitted in modern psychology.like scaring infants with loud noises while pacing rabbits and other animals in front of them to induce fear of the animals or to teach fear.
·          Even for those rats Skinner trained to have hope,the false sense of hope only lasted so long- Even those would finally give up and drown too if the stand failed to appear.

Kamau, Raynell Morgan :"it's time to Stand up!"



"IT'S TIME TO STAND UP!"
Dedicated to Kamua
TZ.Damali(little brother) who is
near death after fourteen years in
solitary confinement
The current crisis in the Black community is absolutely horrifying; 45.2% of incarcerated people in Amerika are of Alkebulanian (African) descent. 94.5%of Black homicide victims are murdered by fellow Blacks. What these statistics illustrate is that too many people of Alkebulanian descent, particularly Black men, are in prison, and too many, particularly Black men, are dying/killing each other.
The Black community needs to seriously ask itself how many more of its people have to perish before it realizes it's in a crisis and do something about the terrible reality of Black on Black homicide and incarceration, which is taking a catastrophic toll on it socially, politically,' educationally, economically, emotionally, and spiritually.
When we were being lynched and brutalized by racist sectors of white Amenka aforetime we marched, protested, resisted and demanded to be treated like human beings Someof us even took up arms to combat the oppression. Now that we are lynching each other the energy pf protest, resistance and struggle appears to have withered drastically. Why is it that when others oppress us we become outraged and demand for it to stop, but when we oppress each other its seemingly accepted with open arms? The passive attitude we seem to have when it comes to black on black homicide is not only hypocritical; its also cowardly, embarrassing and morally inexcusable. This attitude needs to be obliterated outright.
I understand that most of the social evils and causes behind the dysfunction in the Black community ar a result of poverty, unemployment, institutional racism and a failed educational system However, we have minds of our own and we need to cease blaming white Amerika for our short comings, mishaps and laziness We need to start blaming ourselves and being accountable for our actions Once we accomplish that, we'll be able to move to the next stage, which is togetherness. Togetherness (unity) for all intents and purposes, will enable us to work on and address the critical issues tearing at the core of our peoples existence It (togetherness) will also enable us to merge our ideas to create incentives that cure poverty, unemployment and a failed education system For instance, we fight/cure poverty by establishing committees that organize community clean up drives and educates the community about the importance of a clean and safe community, and how trash and pollution tragically impacts the health and welfare of the community. If a member of the community is old or disabled and cannot clean their own yard or house, then we must be willing to do it for them.
As for unemployment, the steps needed to solve it are to pool our resources together and invest in businesses that will create employment for us and the community collectively Indeed, it will require a lot of-research time-and-devotion-to  achieve this goal, but if we are sincere about being self-reliant and
self-sufficient, the hard work will be well worth it As for the failed education system, this problem can't be solved overnight, because it's a century old problem. However, one of the best ways to remedy it is home schooling and formulating an educational system of our own. This can take place in the local churches, community centers and in the comfort of our own homes. We are responsible for our children's education and learning abilities. Acquiring former teachers as well as present ones is paramount. Resolving most of the issues in our community will be, without question, a massive task, but very possible.
We need to start being positive examples for our children and we need to reclaim our communities and rescue them from its current destruction, so that our young men and women can be successful members of society instead of murder victims and captives in every prison throughout Amerika.
Simply put: IT'S TIME TO STAND UP Respectfully Submitted
Mr. KarnauT.Z Damali #279380 Wisconsin Secure Program Facility 1101 Morrison Drive
P.O. Box 9900
Boscobel, Wisconsin 53805

Monday, May 9, 2016

Open Record Request reveals who is on administrative Confinement and Where

who's where?
The where is easy to see here but the " how long" is not. These guys are switched from AC to regular segregation often. Conditions are the same but it looks different on paper. The question to ask is: how long have you been in isolation? and remember- for some a short time is devastating. Studies have found, and I have found that prisoners that study the law, which is allowed by law, helps the prisoner keep sane. I am told by the long timers though, after a certain number of years deterioration sets in even then.


Waupun Correctional Institution WCI AC (20) https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/wci-ac-prisoners4-16.pdf

Green Bay Correctional Institution GBCI AC (3) https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/gbci-ac-prisoners-2016.pdf

Wisconsin Secure Program Facility (Supermax formerly- now WSPF)  (68)
https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/wspf-ac-prisoners-2016.pdf

 Columbia Correctional Institution CCI AC prisoners (11)
https://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/cci-ac-prisoners-2016.pdfhttps://ffupstuff.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/cci-ac-prisoners-2016.pdf

Psychological Abuse and Torture in guise by Uhuru 2013

PUNISHMENT BY ANOTHER NAME: LONG TERM AC/SEG
 By Prince Aturn-Ra Uhuru Mutawakkil
Waupun 9/23/2013

 To: Fountain of Life Gathering of Sept., 27th, 2013
 Re: Psychological Abuse and Torture in Guise

 1) Distinguish guests! I write to you today to request that you take interest in the mental and psychological health of not only those prisoners who are clinically diagnosed as having psychological conditions, but those without problems but are being unfairly held in long term seg/ac for punishments that are guised up as Administrative management issues.

 2) My personal experience in Wisconsin extends for 14 years of long term segregated confinement. Thirteen of them at the Wisconsin Supermax now guised as WSPF.

3) Allow me to provide context to these claims made by a class of us being thus held. In 1996 - 97, Governor Thompson petitioned the Federal government for money for corrections. That request was turned down because Wisconsin did not have an overcrowding problem. To get that money, Tommy Thompson created one.

 4) Years later, when discussion of his unnecessary and unwarranted Supermax was placed on the table, told Wisconsin did not need such a prison and not enough prisoners were Supermax material, nor could be classified as such under the existing 308 Administrative Code. Language changed to overly broad and wide sweeping language so that the lack of required numbers needed to justify a Supermax prison was Hocus Pocus created.

 5) Wisconsin went from having an estimate of 16 to 26 people on Administrative confinement (AC), to hundreds and a false mirage for a Supermax need. And once the pretext was built, the fuzzy math went from a few hundred to thousands or more on AC or some protracted long term segregation.

 6) In addition of changing the language to permit carte blanche discretion and venal use of AC. The code was eviscerated of all its language that gave it any real and true non-punitive properties.

 7) For example, language like 'while on AC a prisoners will be allowed the property allowed where he is allowed" (meaning AC could be re-fitted daily based upon the attitude of those who do not have a favorable opinion nor the rights of the prisoners at heart). Those who wish and want to see those suffer and be tortured the most.

 8) This means they can tell you, as the case at WCI, that AC is the same as those doing punishment time except with a few more privileges to create the facade for the illusion of difference. The old code before Thompson's gut move, mandated prisoners be allowed all property and privileges that prisoners in General Population (GP) received unless and until it could be shown to be a 'security" concern.

 9) With Thompson's gut and blanket discretion, prisoners like me have been one continuum long term of disciplinary punishment guised up as non-punitive AC.

 10) You must realize that the only thing that creates and makes a distinction between hole time (Seg) punishment and/or verses AC (non punitive) status, is the amount of property you receive and the kind-of property you. receive, and- other things that have no legit security classification for restricting. Otherwise, AC is and will always be guised up punishment.

11) I offer the discapere eximere (following example): If you give one girlfriend a rose with three thorns on it and give another girlfriend one with six on it, and then tell them that each rose is different and tell the latter that her rose is more special and valuable that the former because of the extra thorns, and that she could count them as "more of a second rose", any materialist and psychologist would call me a cad and my spiel a svengali suzerain play.

 12) This is the exact type of guised up word play DOC/WCI is playing on us long term AC/Seg prisoners.

13) Act two/Part two: Having created these problems, Thompson's cabal had to manage this flow by the revolving seg door and justification for long term seg. I.e., AC

14) See the picture? If I overcrowd the prisons, filling up the beds, I can add a few more hundred products/bodies, by also filling up all the segregation beds. So, my building capacity goes from 400 beds to 600 or 600 to 800.

 15) But what do I do when it is time to let those in the hole (seg beds) out? Oh, that is no problem. Write tickets and send new people to the hole to trade them out. And do this as often as needed. It is easy to find faults among a bunch of criminals to justify more punishment. By this means the prison can always operate at full body capacity. No bed is to be left unturned. This is the same philosophy hotels employ.

16)So, this is why conduct reports are intentionally and maliciously written to the detriment of those in the cross hairs, and used with such distortion that a writer of current and provocative events can be labeled an Al-Qaeda for the sole purpose of making sure one seg bed will forever be full. Those of you who have gathered have the power, votes, and voice (vox populi) to stop this abuse and demand true and proper dealings with those being abused. Thank you for listening. Feel free to give feedback or help. Prince Aturn-Ra Uhuru Mutawakkil Norman Green 228213 WCI; PO Box 351 Waupun, WI 53963