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Author: Jason Walker

Reliving the Past: A Hands-On Experience of Modern-Day Slave Labor in the Lone Star State

Reliving the Past: A Hands-On Experience of Modern-Day Slave Labor in the Lone Star State

Since the birth of the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC), now called the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), Texas has used a not so subtle tool of profit and anti-social control to exploit its captives via unpaid forced labor. This method, both grassroots scholars and many average laymen agree on, is akin to a benign form of slavery – thus to say modern day slave labor. In fact Texas’ first form of prison management was on former slave plantations….

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The Importance of Public Support and Scrutiny: From Physical to Psychological Warfare

The Importance of Public Support and Scrutiny: From Physical to Psychological Warfare

The value of having support beyond these prison walls is invaluable. The prison administration knows this as well, which is why they set rules and guidelines that can only be fought and petitioned outside of their protracted prisoner grievance and appeal procedures. If they are individually challenged from within, staff of all ranks can and will use each other’s “written-in-stone” integrity to escape punishment. One example of this is the grievance procedures. During the investigation of our complaint, a sergeant,…

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Report on Unhygienic Living Conditions at Ramsey Unit, Texas

Report on Unhygienic Living Conditions at Ramsey Unit, Texas

As I explained in a previous piece, we prisoners at the Ramsey Unit in Rosharon, TX, have to drink discolored and contaminated water. Besides this, we are being forced to live, eat and congregate under conditions that are egregiously unsanitary. Every cell has a colony of roaches living in it. Throughout this prison are many cellblocks. Each cellblock has a number of cells that remain closed while we are in the day room. Several times a day we are allowed…

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Confessed killer strangles cellmate to death – Texas prison staff tries to shirk liability

Confessed killer strangles cellmate to death – Texas prison staff tries to shirk liability

Odd as it seems, seeing prisoners left for dead or killed by guards is nothing new to me. The reason this may seem odd is that each death was during my seven-year stint in solitary confinement, and I was a prime witness or in earshot of a direct witness. It seems that the Ad-Seg Transitional Program (ASTP), where I am now, is no exception where the killing of prisoners is concerned, as I was recently in the proximity of another….

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TDCJ’s ad-seg program is for profit not for rehabilitation: From sensory deprivation to sensory overload – and back

TDCJ’s ad-seg program is for profit not for rehabilitation: From sensory deprivation to sensory overload – and back

After randomly being awakened in the early morning, boarded onto the TDCJ transportation bus, then shipped to the Ramsey Unit, a prisoner told me that the experience was like “being snatched from a dungeon and sent to a new wave slave plantation.” The statement he made is a reality that many prisoners housed in close custody units and solitary confinement cells throughout the state of Texas are experiencing, on a whim. In fact, the majority of prisoners that are sent…

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Water Supply at the Ramsey Unit, Texas, May be Contaminated Like the Rest of the State

Water Supply at the Ramsey Unit, Texas, May be Contaminated Like the Rest of the State

his is a notice to the Fight Toxic Prisons campaign, the EPA and everyone who is against tainted drinking water: the Ramsey Unit here in Rosharon, TX (near Houston) may have high levels of radium in the water supply. I was brought to this conclusion after hearing a news update on January 15th 2018, which mentioned that the water supply throughout the state of Texas was at high risk of containing harmful levels of radium. The city of Houston was mentioned as being…

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Erasing the line: The organic link between the struggles of the working class, Amerika’s prison population and Black Amerika

Erasing the line: The organic link between the struggles of the working class, Amerika’s prison population and Black Amerika

One of the most important ways that a tiny 0.01 percent of the population controls all of society is through its police, military and prisons. These are some of the fascist institutions within capitalism that, through its control of mass media, can shape and mold how the contradictions between the capitalist class and working class are viewed. These views never expose the truth about how capitalism is a predatory system that has to be destroyed entirely if the working class…

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After seven years of solitary confinement, I’m heading to population … and snitch school?

After seven years of solitary confinement, I’m heading to population … and snitch school?

After spending over seven years in solitary confinement, I was finally given the opportunity to go back to the general population through a re-entry program. But this opportunity came at a price. On Oct. 30, 2017, I was awakened by Officer Graham during business hours and was told to pack one bag of property. I was being transferred. The rest of my property, I was told, would be packed later and sent to me. Whether they send everything or not…

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What Can Be Done With A Prisoner Like Maurice Smith?

What Can Be Done With A Prisoner Like Maurice Smith?

From the first day I stepped foot in a jail cell, I immediately got a good taste of what it’s liked to be housed around the mentally ill. These prisoners are nothing like your average prisoner, starting with how they live and smell. While it’s common to walk past a mentally ill prisoner’s cell and see him passively strutting in his own feces and chanting tribal war cries with shit smeared on his face like warpaint, it’s absurd and ridiculous…

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The Struggle Continues: Reflecting on the Past And Moving Forward

The Struggle Continues: Reflecting on the Past And Moving Forward

Reflecting on the September 9, 2016 prison work stoppage from the perspective of a marginalized dissent, within the nucleus of this historic event, basically I’d like to show three things: 1) What brought thousands of men and wimyn to this point of resistance, or as Chris Hedges calls it: The New Slave Rebellion. 2) The success gained from our organizing, support building and resistance. 3) The positive and negative lessons we learned through trial and error, and suggestions to help…

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