National Lawyers Guild Prison Gang Workshop

American Friends Service Committee letterhead

National Lawyers Guild
Prison Gang Workshop
November 3, 2000
Boston, MA
by Bonnie Kerness, Associate Director
Coordinator Prison Watch

I've been a human rights advocate on behalf of prisoners for the American Friends Service Committee for over 25 years. Since the 1980's I've monitored the growing use of extended isolation in United States prisons beginning at that time with control units extending to current times monitoring what have become called "Security Threat Group Management Units" or "gang units".

Many of us trace the development of control units to the tumultuous civil rights era when many activists found themselves in US prisons. Sensory deprivation as a form of behavior modification was used with imprisoned members of the Black Panther Party, Puerto Rican Independentistas, members of the American Indian Movement, white radicals and prisoners involved in the growing prisoners rights movement. In later years, we found jail house lawyers, Islamic militants and ethnically based prison gangs, many of whom were highly political. A number of these groups posed potent challenges to the balance of power inside prisons. The concerns raised by all of these groups about racism, brutality, overcrowding, and prison conditions garnered considerable visibility and support. What we didn't know then, but do know now is the role of the FBI Counterintelligence Program called COINTELPRO. Many of these groups were specifically targeted via COINTELPRO because of their involvement in activities which had a notable impact on broad segments of community opinion.

In New Jersey, prisoner Ojore Lutalo has been held in the Management Control Unit in New Jersey State Prison since February 4,1986. Ruchell Magee has been living under these conditions in California for more than 20 years. Russell Shoats has been living in various Pennsylvania isolation units for over 17 years. It's no surprise that Ojore, Ruchell and Russell are all connected in some way with either Panther or BLA formations, each of which are considered gangs by various Departments of Corrections.

In recent years, the evolution of control units has resulted in the proliferation of the building of independent isolation prisons known by many names, most commonly supermax prisons. As the AFSC monitored supermax prisons we found a high percentage of the mentally ill, youth of color imprisoned as a result of the racist crack cocaine laws, prisoner activists and people who are and aren't members of gangs.

The US and its media would lead us to believe that there is one way to define "gang" and "gang activity." They imply that a "gang" is a "band of anti-social adolescents" which engages solely in illegal activity. A look at Webster's dictionary tells us, however, that a "gang" is a group of people with close social relations that work together. In essence, a gang is any group of people which has a common identity, purpose and direction.

In 1997, the Department of Justice administered a national survey on prison Security Threat Groups to Departments of Corrections throughout the country. The results of this state-by-state survey are revealing. The State of Kentucky notes that the Aryan Brotherhood is adversarial with all black groups, which is not true. I have known of many instances of the Brotherhood working with black militant prisoners. Minnesota and Oregon simply name all Asians as "gangs", which Minnesota further compounds by adding all "Native Americans" as gangs. The State of New Jersey DOC lists the Black Cat Collective as a gang. The Black Cat Collective is my free (not imprisoned) foster son along with three of his friends who put on Afro-Centric programs in libraries.

While many of the states responding name a number of the gangs with whom we are more familiar, I find myself growing increasingly uncomfortable with who is and who isn't a gang, and what is exactly wrong with being a gang. It seems to me that the anti-crime hysteria and the anti-gang hysteria came along about the same time in history. The criminalization of poverty certainly serves to undermine actual and potential bases of contending power within oppressed communities. Many of the activists I know in inner cities are currently in the process of assisting gangs as they struggle to engage in a process of transformation into community groups that aim to combat some of the very real problems they are facing.

Prison gang policies occur, of course, within the context of our larger society and the wider criminal justice system. Certainly, in the criminal justice system, the politics of the police, the politics of the courts, the politics of the prison system and the politics of the death penalty are a manifestation of the racism and classism which governs so much of the lives of all of us in this country. Prisons are one of the largest growth industries and the criminalization of poverty has become a lucrative business. I've heard many people note that the criminal justice system doesn't work. I've come to believe exactly the opposite, that it works perfectly as a matter of both political and economic policy. The growth of gang units (or STGMU's) is part of the landscape of the use of extended isolation and is part of larger policy agendas in US prisons.

In New Jersey, the DOC recently built a 720 bed gang unit - supermax style. I have been monitoring New Jersey prisons since 1976. Although New Jersey had prison gangs, it has never had a gang problem. As I monitor nation-wide, this trend is being repeated resulting in the increased building of supermax prisons. This is being fostered by the federal government which is funding a percentage of the cost to states which build supermax prisons. I've been told by Corrections' personnel that the nation-wide move to expand the use of isolation, including STGMU's, is fostered by guard unions. Guards report feeling that these types of units provide a safe working environment. I believe that isolation units also provide them with a place in which to engage in unwitnessed torture.

In one recent dialogue that I had with a Department of Corrections official, they noted that from the perspective of administration gang units have been a huge success as a management tool. They said that the number of prisoner to prisoner assaults, and the number of prisoner to staff assaults had been cut by a large percentage. They also acknowledged that these units held many people who were simply assaultive and not members of any gangs or groups. As I pursued the dialogue they noted that they don't really have the authority to say who is and who isn't a gang member based on a tattoo or a photograph and that there were many in the New Jersey STGMU unit who were peaceful people who didn't belong there. As I further pushed the topic, I was finally told that the diminishment of assaults really had more to do with the zero tolerance drug policy with both staff and prisoners, and that most of the known prisoner drug dealers were now in STGMU.

I hear from people locked in gang units throughout the country and there are similarities to their complaints and suffering. They talk of interference with regular as well as legal mail. They talk of lack of access to the law library, typewriters or copiers so necessary to their pro se legal work. They report feeling isolated with little or no medical care or access to social workers. They feel unable to advocate for their own human rights. Many of them freely acknowledge being part of associations or groups, many say they are part of larger nations, formations, tribes or belief systems.

I want to share with you just a couple of the voices coming out of the extended isolation unit in the Northern State Prison in New Jersey known as Security Threat Group Management Unit:

"A member of the NETA Association was very ill. Most of the wing had to kick the cell doors to protest because he was always ignored. One night we protested so that he may receive medical attention, but to no avail. He died the night that we kicked on the cell doors...."

Another says, "a member of the NETA Association was being taken out of his cell to be placed on detention. While coming out of his cell he was assaulted by an officer and then four other officers joined in the beating. Two Latin Kings saw this and they lit their bed mattresses on fire in order to distract the officers from further hurting a fellow inmate. These fires started the biggest protest ever. Over 50 STGMU prisoners lit their rooms on fire..."

In yet another letter, "They dragged two Latin Kings down metal steps and then dragged them through a gauntlet of over 50 officers. Both prisoners were then hospitalized and given false charges."

In one case an entire unit of prisoners was complaining about not being permitted to shower. We received a report of one NETA brother starting to kick the door. The administrator told the officers to "lock him up" meaning he'd be transported to the Administrative Segregation Unit within the back of this prison. About 10 minutes later a riot squad came suited up with sticks and helmets - about 20 of them. They sprayed mace in the cells then opened the door to run down Latin brothers. Blood was everywhere. Six prisoners went out in blankets or stretchers bleeding and unconscious".

Article I of the United Nations Convention Against Torture prohibits "physical or mental pain and suffering, inflicted to punish, coerce or discriminate for any reason". Practices such as the administration of dangerous chemical agents or simply the use of extended isolation puts the US in violation of UN Treaties and Covenants which it has signed.

These past years for me have been full of hundreds of calls and complaints of an increasingly disturbing nature. Most describe inhumane conditions including cold, filth, callous medical care, use of devices of torture, harassment and brutality. I have received vivid descriptions of four point restraints, restraint hoods, restraint chairs, restraint beds, stun grenades, stun guns, stun belts, tethers, waist and leg chains. Although not all of this is coming in from gang units, it is coming from isolation units.

In 1996, the World Organization Against Torture asked if I would contribute to their report "Torture in the United States - the Status of Compliance by the US Government with the International Convention Against Torture" and a second report "The Status of Compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination". As a result I had opportunity to read both conventions and then I read my daily mail. There is no doubt that the US uses devices of torture with impunity. There is also no doubt that racial profiling targets people of color for harassment and arrest is part of a larger pattern and practice in law enforcement. There is no doubt that the US uses extended isolation as a form of torture. The construction of Security Threat Group Management Units and the keeping of organized associations in isolation prisons, is part of that pattern.

According to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the World Organization Against Torture, and Prison Watch International, there is a persistent and widespread pattern of human rights violations in the United States. The AFSC has contributed to each of those reports. The wall of silence that has been built around prisons and prisoners has got to be broken down. What is going on in prisons generally and in supermax and STGMU's is a conscious attempt to physically, mentally and spiritually break down people. For the most part it is going on unchallenged.

We all know that there are people in prisons who need to be kept separate. We also, however, need to know very clearly what the implications are of Security Threat Group Management units, who defines a gang and whose agenda is being promoted by this kind of treatment.

When I asked two activist/lawyer friends of mine what I should be saying to you, they said that we need lawyers to give more sufficient attention to the Torture and Race Conventions, as well as other international law. Lawyers have been dealing with racial, ethnic and gender discrimination using domestic remedies but have been reluctant to recognize that international standards also apply. In terms of immigration law, judges are already receptive. We have a Congress and a Supreme Court that are cutting back on civil rights, people's rights, reproductive rights, prisoners rights, and criminal justice reform. Our gains in these areas have been under siege, and we now need to reach an understanding on how new sources of law and new sources of advocacy based on international standards can help.

Because my own background stems from the Civil Rights Era, I am very mindful of who is considered a "security threat" to this country. Many people of my generation were either killed or imprisoned by government forces. I want to read you something from a memorandum written by the Investigative Services Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison, a control unit/gang unit prison in California. In it they are reviewing a prisoners central file and they comment, "this memorandum refers to the subjects correspondence with Bonnie Kerness who acts as a mail drop for prisoners and militant organizations throughout the United States. The Prison News Service... organized by Bonnie Kerness has been identified as the newsletter for the Black Guerrilla Family..." That memo goes on for three pages with its distortions. I have had a dozen other, similar intelligence memos about me from various government entities. I have been followed, and have had men in dark suits sitting outside my house on any number of occasions.

To me, oppression in the United States is a very real thing. The Counterintelligence Program of the 60's was designed to disrupt or destroy groups, which the FBI considers to be politically objectionable. I have been part of the struggle against oppression in this country for the past 35 years. I have seen the horror and havoc that US policies can create with people's lives. What is going on in prisons, what is going on in Security Threat Group Management units is far wider than gangs being threatening to prison authorities. The Department of Corrections isn't only a set of institutions, it is also a state of mind.