The Opening Statement – Summer 2024

Announcing a new issue of The Opening Statement from Michigan Abolition and Prisoner Solidarity (MAPS).

MAPS is delighted to present the 21st issue of The Opening Statement, a free quarterly newsletter that features articles, poetry, political writing and opinion pieces, as well as other relevant pieces by non-incarcerated authors.

OPENING STATEMENT – SUMMER 2024  (CLICK THE LINK TO DOWNLOAD PDF)

ARTICLES AND AUTHORS LISTED BELOW:

• Do Children Have a “Right to Hug” Their Parents? Sarah Stillman
• Prisons Across the US Are Quietly Building Databases of Incarcerated People’s Voice Prints George Joseph and Debbie Nathan
• Prison Phone Rates Set for Drastic Reduction Under New FCC Rules Paula Seligson and Ellen Schneider

Abolitionist greetings and happy summer!

The theme of this issue of The Opening Statement is digital surveillance under capitalism. We all know that states are always spying on us; cops and guards monitor, arrest, and infiltrate us; prosecutors investigate and frame us; corporations steal our data to make money off us; and so on and so forth. We also know that surveillance in all its forms can be extremely profitable: data about our phone calls, emails, credit card purchases, etc., are bought and sold to the highest bidder. And as the global crisis of the present intensifies in all its forms—resurgent fascism; climate catastrophe; hyperpolicing, militarization, and global war; poverty of the many alongside extreme wealth of the few—we expect all forms of repression, including surveillance, to intensify as well. As a result, we think it’s worth taking up this theme again and thinking about what we can do to try to keep ourselves safe.

Prisons may be the place where surveillance by the state and corporations is most apparent. From the ground up, prisons are designed to monitor and control prisoners; they are trying to keep you all from talking to each other and building relationships, while also cutting you off from your families and supporters on the outside. The three articles we include in this issue look at the relatively ubiquitous communication technologies like phones, tablets, and e-communications offered by companies like Securus (operated by a company called Aventiv) and GTL (which changed its name to ViaPath). According to a recent article in The Appeal, these two companies “dominate roughly 80 percent of the U.S. prison telecom industry, forming an effective duopoly that thrives on the captive markets found inside the nation’s lockups.” They contract with 43 state prison systems and over 800 county jails. Their almost complete control of the market allows them to charge prisoners and families exorbitant rates for their services. Even if the products they sell are lifelines to the outside world, it’s important to talk about the role they play in facilitating surveillance and in gouging their captive user base.

The first article, “Do Children Have a ‘Right to Hug’ Their Parents?,” is an abbreviated version of a long essay that was printed in the New Yorker in May. It discusses something we mentioned in the news roundup of the last issue of TOS: the lawsuits against Michigan’s Genesee and St. Clair counties for their deals with Securus and GTL that provide “financial incentives” for jails to eliminate in-person visits in order to force prisoners to use these companies’ digital products. Not only do the companies charge prisoners exorbitant fees to communicate with their families, they also use prisoners as “experimental subjects” for the development of new surveillance technologies. The article explores the emotional impact of these policies on family members, especially children, who have been cut off from their incarcerated parents. It also describes some of the “surveillance products” the companies market to prisons.

The second article, originally published in The Intercept in 2019, looks at the voice recognition technologies and voice-print databases developed by companies like Securus. These technologies help prison authorities monitor prisoners’ private communications and map out communication networks to reveal who is talking to whom, both in- side and outside of prison walls. One of the implications that the article points out is that this technology could be used to “coordinate crackdowns against prison organizing campaigns.” Moreover, because prisons are often used as laboratories for behavior modification and surveillance tools before they are rolled out for the free world, this “new” technology will almost certainly be used sooner or later on both sides of the walls.

The third article looks at Securus/Aventiv and GTL/ViaPath from a financial angle. As a result of debts and the financial pressures of coming price caps, GTL/ViaPath is desperately trying to refinance its loans while Securus/Aventiv is trying to sell itself—if it can’t find a buyer, it might have to declare bankruptcy. We see a few of takeaways from this article: 1) corporations continue to exploit the growing market of prisons; 2) outsourcing communications to corporations benefits jail/prison administrators while ultimately harming prisoners and their loved ones; 3) even companies as big and as powerful as these have serious economic vulnerabilities that activists could potentially target; and 4) it’s unclear how prisoners will maintain communication with their loved ones if these companies do collapse. We don’t know how this will play out, but we’ll be keeping our eyes on this.

On a related note, back in TOS Issue 9 in Spring 2019, we published an editorial explaining why MAPS doesn’t use JPay (which is owned by Securus). If you missed it and would like to read it, write to us and we will send you a reprint. Sometimes folks write to us asking if we’ll communicate with them on JPay instead of sending handwritten letters, and we totally understand the request—it can be easier, cheaper, and faster to send an electronic message. For us, though, the downsides outweigh the upsides. We see JPay as a way for companies to turn prisoners into profits and as a means for guards and administrators to more easily monitor prisoners’ communications.

As always, we’re interested in your thoughts about these articles. What is your experience using communication services? Do these prices seem fair? Has the cost increased in recent years, and if so how much? Do you find something useful or worthwhile about these technologies in spite of their problems? What is happening with in-person visits in the prison where you’re being held? How did the COVID-19 pandemic impact communications and surveillance?

And now for the news roundup. First, an article by Paul Egan in the May 13 issue of the Detroit Free Press describes an “employee database” that MDOC was required to create to log “complaints related to sexual assault allegations made against [guards] by prisoners.” The article focuses on one officer in particular, who worked at Richard A. Handlon C.F. from 2000 to his retirement in 2019, and whose record was especially terrible, with more than 60 complaints against him. In spite of this, the guard in question was never disciplined by MDOC or interviewed by police. The evidence discussed in the article comes from a lawsuit on behalf of six current or former prisoners at Handlon who say that this guard sexually assaulted them. Unfortunately, because the article focuses so much attention on a single guard, it implies that the problem is one of “bad apples” rather than a structural feature of the prison system, which encourages this kind of behavior and ensures impunity. Actually, the article indirectly acknowledges that the problem does go beyond this one guard, when it notes that his “more than 60 entries” were “more than twice as many as anyone else on the list”—which suggests that other MDOC guards, who go unmentioned in the article, have been accused of as many as 30 sexual assaults! This only confirms that the prison produces sexual violence, rather than protecting anyone from it.

For another article in the Free Press, published on April 18, reporter Violet Ikonomova conducted a “first-of-its-kind” investigation into shootings by Detroit police in recent years. She found that, between 2015-2021, Detroit cops shot 30 people nonfatally, and a third of their victims were never charged with or convicted of “the conduct officers said prompted them to open fire.” In other words, the cops probably shot people and then lied about it. As Julie Hurwitz, a civil rights attorney who represented one of the survivors, told Ikonomova, what the cops accuse the people they shoot of “is made up and is used as a justification for shooting them.” The article also documents the fact that Detroit police have shot more than 125 people (fatally and nonfatally) since 2011, an average of around nine people per year, and none of the cops involved has been charged in any of these shootings. Is anybody surprised? We sure aren’t.

On June 17, MDOC published a press release announcing changes to housing units at three prisons: Baraga, Chippewa, and Oaks. One of the changes is to reopen a Level II housing unit at Chippewa that has been closed (three more housing units there will remain closed); another is to transition a Level II housing unit at Oaks to Level IV; and finally, an 88-bed housing unit at Baraga will be closed. MDOC states that the closure at Baraga “reflects a continued decline in the state’s administrative segregation population,” but it seems like the main reason they are doing it is to address staffing shortages, since the closure will mean that “22.75 fewer officers” are required to operate the facility. Yet opening the unit at Chippewa will increase staffing needs by “10.5.” Overall, they claim that “these changes will result in a net increase of 72 active beds in the MDOC.” We thought this was important to highlight because MDOC administrators are always bragging about how the prison population is declining, but these changes seem to point in the opposite direction. If you’re being held at one of these facilities, have you heard about these changes? What do you make of what’s going on? How will they meet the call for increased staffing at Chippewa, which is already facing a staff shortage?

On July 3, the president of the union representing MDOC guards demanded that Governor Whitmer deploy the Michigan National Guard to “to provide immediate custody support to prisons.” Paul Egan reported in the Free Press that Byron Osborn, president of the Michigan Corrections Organization cited understaffing, excess overtime, mass resignations, and the removal of hiring incentives as justification for this dangerous demand. Unsurprisingly, Egan’s article does not quote a single prisoner about how they feel about understaffing across MDOC or about what bringing in the National Guard would mean for them and their loved ones.

On May 13, the Newberry News reported that charges were officially dismissed against two MDOC guards who were involved in the 2019 death of John Lancaster, who was imprisoned at Alger at the time. The two guards were moving Lancaster from an observation cell when he died from extreme dehydration. They join six others who had been charged in Lancaster’s death, but whose charges were dismissed last year. Once again, from the perspective of the state, it’s no accident, no crime, when the prison kills—because it’s doing what it’s meant to. We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and loved ones of John Lancaster. Though we know true justice can’t come from the same legal system that locks up our loved ones, we can’t imagine how painful it must be to see an opportunity for accountability be dismissed this way.

Outside of Michigan, at Angola prison in Louisiana, prisoners have for decades been forced to do agricultural labor for little or no pay (the maximum wage is 2 cents an hour), even in extreme heat. On June 18, reports Nick Chrastil for The Lens, lawyers representing Angola prisoners “urged a federal judge to halt operations of the Farm Line any time the heat index rises above 88 degrees.” This month, the heat, exacerbated by climate change, is expected to soar to unsafe levels, exposing prisoners to “serious risk of injury or death.” “When prisoners are forced to work on the Farm Line, they are rarely given breaks or drinking water and lack necessary equipment, their lawyers said. Also, many incarcerated people have medical conditions that make them vulnerable to heat related illness—but they are not exempt from work on even the hottest days.” According to the legal filing, “the officers who oversee the Farm Line used to ride horses, but no longer do. Prisoners contend that the practice was ended in order to protect the horses from the ‘blistering’ heat” (if this sounds like slavery to you, we agree). On July 2, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring prison officials to immediately institute a variety of protections from the heat for Farm Line workers. The broader class-action lawsuit to end forced labor altogether is scheduled for September.

We also wish to offer some updates from the global struggle against imperialism that is being taken up by colonized people across the world. In the last issue we wrote about Israel’s ongoing genocide in Palestine, as well as the mass displacement, starvation, and war underway in Sudan and the Congo. The mass displacement and death in all of these places continue. In this issue, we turn to Kanaky, or so-called “New Caledonia,” an archipelago of islands in the South Pacific between Australia and Fiji that has been under French colonial control since 1853. On May 13, 2024, protests broke out in the capital, Nouméa, after the French parliament passed electoral reforms allowing French residents who have lived in the territory for just 10 years or more to vote. These residents are, by and large, white and not Indigenous Melanesian or Polynesian people. This would tip the balance of local elections away from the 41 percent of Indigenous Kanak people living on the islands in favor of white residents, both those descended from earlier white settlers and this recent wave of European tourists-turned-residents. Though the French parliament claimed this move would “improve democracy,” many Indigenous Kanak people see it as undermining their right to self-determination. Protests escalated into violent clashes in the capital city and throughout the territory between predominantly white settlers, settler-run police forces, and Indigenous Kanak youth, six of whom were killed. From 16,732 kilometers away, France closed the Nouméa airport and deployed 3,500 French cops and soldiers to the city to violently suppress the uprisings. According to a report published on the French-language blog Sans Nom and translated into English by Abolition Media, many Indigenous Kanaky have been injured (although the French authorities are refusing to count them) and several “have lost an eye or have the bones of their faces shattered following police flash ball shots, others have gunshot wounds and are in a coma.” Arrests and ”disappearances” of Kanaky people have also begun to rise, with at least 726 people in police custody, 115 referrals to court, and 60 committal warrants since the protests began. Seven independence activists were not only arrested but also deported to mainland France for pre-trial detention. This has sparked protests in Paris as well, once again raising the colonial question in France.

But the protests are not just about voting rights—they’re also about colonial capitalist mining. The Sans Nom report continues: “New Caledonia has a quarter of the world’s nickel reserves, exploited in open-pit mines, to supply three pyrometallurgical processing plants. The first two produce ferronickel, a lower-quality mixture used in stainless steel, and the third produces battery-grade nickel (mainly intended for Tesla since 2021).” In the months leading up to the change in voting eligibility, France had been negotiating a “Nickel Pact” with the New Caledonian government in an effort to intensify the extraction of nickel for the French market. The politics of these negotiations are complicated: there are the interests of the French state, a fraction of Kanak elites loyal to France, and another elite fraction that favors independence and hopes to use extensive nickel mining to achieve it. But mining wealth has never trickled down to the Kanak poor and urban youth, who make up the majority of the rebels in the streets. Mining has also caused widespread environmental devastation, polluting rivers, increasing landslides, and exacerbating health problems. As a result, the rebels “are beginning to advocate an independence that would drive out the French state but also the mines.” Much like the situation in the Congo, which we discussed in the last issue, here too valuable minerals—in this case, nickel for use in electric vehicle batteries—are at the heart of this conflict, and they also explain France’s desire to maintain its colonial rule over Kanak territory. More generally, in keeping with the theme of this issue, it’s important to remember that the tablets, video kiosks, and cell phones we use day in and day out are powered by these minerals. Our devices aren’t only surveillance apparatuses—they’re also soaked in blood.

On June 18, 2024, Kenyan President William Ruto proposed a controversial finance bill that would have introduced higher taxes on daily items and services including internet data, fuel, bank transfers, bread, and diapers. The bill would also allow the Kenyan state to collect citizens’ personal data from bank accounts and digital money apps, undermining digital privacy laws (surveillance capitalism turned into state surveillance). Youth in the capital, Nairobi, began to organize mass demonstrations. Protesters are fed up not only with Ruto, but also the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which has been enforcing resource extraction and austerity across the African subcontinent since the 1980s, under so-called “structural adjustment programs.” In this imperialist scheme worthy of the dirtiest loan shark, impoverished nations are given loans under repayment terms they can never meet. Then the IMF dictates how the economy must run and how people can live—or more likely die. In Kenya, corruption runs wild while the IMF demands that the people suffer to repay the loans. Kenyan officials pay themselves at the highest rate relative to cost of living of any nation in the world. The youth have had enough.

In response to their protests, Ruto deployed the police who killed 22 protestors in a week, while over 50 people have been arrested. A Member of Parliament, outspoken in support of the protesters, was abducted in broad daylight. According to Al Jazeera, over 300 people have been treated and discharged from hospitals with protest-related injuries. Some badass youth stole horses from the police, and others smoked tear gas like it was a vape (their lungs must be coated with diamonds). People stormed the Kenyan parliament and successfully drove police out of their neighborhoods chanting “we are peaceful!” Under popular pressure, Ruto announced on June 26 that he would not sign the bill, but youth continue to mobilize, demanding Ruto’s resignation in response to the murders of protestors. Protests spread from Nairobi to the cities of Mombasa, Eldoret, and Kisumu. Now, in domino fashion, there are protests planned, or feared, in Uganda, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and other African countries that have suffered decades of imperialist oppression via the IMF.

As always, please write with any information you wish to share about suspended programming, parole board delays, new policies, mail and book censorship, staff shortages, difficulty in accessing programs, commissary inflation, and anything else you think needs to be shared. We’ve heard that some guards are messing with people’s halal meals—is this something you or anyone you know have experienced as well? If so, we would be very interested to hear more about what’s going on. We would also like to invite anyone who is an illustrator or visual artist to send us artwork that we might include in future issues. Some future topics and themes for TOS that have come up recently in our conversations and correspondence are prison infrastructure, the prisoner benefit fund, climate change, and analysis and critiques of the “good time” bill. What topics do you want to see us cover? What information or news do you want to read? Finally, would you or someone you know be interested in a Spanish edition of TOS, or figuring out ways to include some articles in Spanish? Write to us and let us know.

In solidarity,
MAPS

Photo by Umanoide on Unsplash