Egos, COs, and Razors!

Here in PBSP's infamous shu (security housing unit), everything is done with the intent of breaking one's spirit. You can lose your mind to the sensory deprivation and isolation, earning a release to a psu (psychiatric unit) which is no better and i some ways worse. The other option is to become a rat, a snitch, and a pc (protective custody inmate), which means you make up really fantastic lies...the types most people see on shows like Prison Break, about real people who the administration hasn't been able to break.

"What about parole?" I hear you saying. Well even that's a fantasy which most of us who have parole dates will probably never see come true, for several reasons. Here's one...

It all began on August 1st, 2006, as i sat i this cage attempting to do some legal work. I say attempting, because when you're so cold that your hands are swollen, every letter of every word you scratch out becomes a syringe jammed into your fingers, each prick injecting anti-though serum that prevents one from doing much of anything other than climbing into every piece of raggedy clothing one can find and under anything available for warmth (i've heard stories of guys lining their bedding with newspaper, magazines,and brown paperbags).

What's worse is knowing it's being doe as a form of torture. The reasoning behind not turning on the central heating and turning up the cold air when it's raining and 30 or 40 degrees is to break one's spirit. It makes conditions so unbearable, one is forced to act in ways those applying the technique want...torture!

So i'm sitting here and two troopers storm up to this cage... "Castlin, report to the front of the cell and submit to cuffs, for a cell search!"

"Search for what? Why do you need to search?"

"Don't worry about that. I'm ordering you to submit to cuffs!"

"First, who are you? Second, i don't take orders. i'm not in anybody's gang, definitely not yours, and i don't work in a fast food joint. And third, the rules and regulations section 3287 says that during special inspections or searches, initiated because the inmate is suspected or having contraband the inmate should be permitted to observe the search. Therefore, i need to know the purpose of the search."

"You're fricken making this more difficult o your fricken self. Submit to cuffs now, or i'll call the sergeant and you'll be fricken sorry!"

"Listen little fella, you call the sergeant, the govern-nator, and the president! The rules say what they say, so i want to observe the search!"

Well, to make a long story short, eventually the sergeant comes. He tells me the search is for an inactive gang status review. I cannot observe...because in his words "we don't follow those rules. We've got our own and if you don't like it, file another lawsuit." [every six years they put on this facade, pretending to review one's shu placement and either release you to a general population (gp) yard, or keep you in shu for another six years. This charade goes on constantly, with them using such innocuous things as a book by George L. Jackson (Blood in my Eye) which i ordered and was approved to have by the same staff, or a poem by Hugo Pinell which was taken out of a magazine they approved us to have, as evidence that you're not only a member of a 'prison gang' but an 'active member,' which really means you haven't been broken of your political activism.]

Not wanting to be physically removed, at which point they'd still have searched the cell with the added satisfaction of beating on me under the pretense of law and order, i allow the search. Thirty minutes into it, the same officer who threatened me comes to where i'm being held in an even smaller cage and says

"We've got you now; I'm booking your for the weapon."

"What weapon?"

"The razor. I found it in your cell."

"You didn't get no razor from my cell!"

"Prove it!" he said with a grin.

So now, 6 or 7 months later, this is where we find ourselves. i was charged with a felony. "possession of a weapon" [which, by the way, is impossible to get. In the shu, we are only allowed disposable razors three times a week when we shower. You're issued one razor with your cell number on it, as you enter the shower stall. Immediately after you come out, you must return the razor, little clear plastic cover and all, to the CO who inspects it, ensuring your number and all its parts are untampered and intact.]

If i'm convicted of this felony, i'll be given a life sentence. It's really that simple; at any moment of any day, any CO, for any reason, can simply say i did or didn't do something, i had or didn't have something, and the fantasy of a parole date vanishes like smoke before a fan...or is pushed another year or two away. This has not been a total bust. i did learn a few things.

1. This charge is a matter of business as usual, or should i say sports as usual. Here in crescent city, they've got a nice con-game going, where a triad of pbsp, the DA's office, and the public defenders' office line up tenpins (convicts) with meaningless petty offensives (initiated by COs) then charge them with strike-able felonies (done by the DA) and finally they're bowed down (by a public defender pretending to give a damned) with an 8, 12, or 16 pound ball (representing the number of months they give you in a plea agreement. Or you can play baseball (3 strikes and you're out!) take your bogus case to a jury trial with no money, no chance of wining, and all the players - even your appointed attorney and the judge - on the opposite team.

Either way, the triad wins. The DA gets another conviction on her record, a notch in her belt come time to run for office. The public defender racks up another favor and paycheck; the COs get job security, along with the added satisfaction of teaching you a lesson and supporting their lies about "the worst of the worst" and other such nonsense with stats.

2. What i was missing throughout this entire ordeal is...it never was about the physical razor, which the CO claims to have found in my cage. That was just a prop in the game - a physical metaphor, if you will, for the real razor. My willingness to stand up to their supposed authority. My wit, my tongue, which on that cold August morning in 2006 was sharp enough to cut one of pbsp's igi officers (the worse of the worst!) clear down to his soul, exposing the fragile and timid ego of a child. So, inflated with the pompousness of class orientation and skin privilege he believes as they all do. He's done nothing wrong. Perhaps he hasn't...as laws were made to protect people like him from the desperation of the oppressed slaves, like me!

3. The pomp ad circumstance of a trial would only be used to further bolster the farce of a working judicial system in amerika. Although it bruises my own often inflated ego to acquiescent once again to another unjust plea agreement, this travesty proves for the last time the truth of Gs words..."You don't get justice in amerika. You take it!"

So, i'll accept this latest plea agreement, return to my cold cage, continue to study, write, and smoulder, always on the look out for a chance to set the prairies ablaze!

push up. push out. push back.
shut down the shus
akili

(post note: 1. the next post will be my sentencing statement; 2. Of course, i was denied inactive gang status. big surprise.)