for Skip Martin
"I will hold the candle, til it burns down my arm, I'll keep taking punches until their will grows tired, I will watch the sundown until my eyes go blind, oh I will make my way through one more day." Pearl Jam
I've been locked in ADX ...
When I saw Dan Pens' front page PLN article [Oct. '96] on UNICOR production of bullet resistant vests (there's no such animal as "bullet proof" vests) I was struck by the difference in perspective. I read some of the same material he relied on for his article. Sure, the BOP ...
Society reflects itself in the microcosm of prison. From a class-based, economically driven, racially motivated construct devolves life as a series of Chinese boxes -- a set of boxes decreasing in size so that each box fits inside the next larger one. I am in the smallest box.
I am ...
By Raymond Luc Levasseur
When I was transferred to the U.S. penitentiary in Marion, Illinois in December, 1989, Panama was being invaded by U.S. forces. Amidst the wholesale destruction, mass graves, and lies by U.S. politicians and military leaders was an awesome display of American firepower designed to impose its ...
October, 1994, marked the eleventh year of collective punishment at the United States penitentiary, Marion. It marked a decade of lockdown, control unit regimes and government lies. No doubt the federal Bureau of Prisons will commemorate the event by rolling out its propaganda wagon, and indulging the public with some ...
On January 24, 1994 the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law does not require proof of economic motive, National Organization of Women, et. al. v. Joseph Scheidler, et. al. The court's decision clears the way for NOW to continue its RICO civil suit ...
I received a Denver Post article last week with the latest on Florence. The BOP says that the high security prison will open in February. The administrative Maximum prison (AKA "supermax") will open in the "spring or summer." The only Marion prisoners we expect to be sent to High Security ...
Remember Eugene Debs? One of the first Socialists I ever read, before I moved on to the hard-core. I used to quote him in letters - "where there is a lower class I am of it, where there is a criminal element, I am in it, while there is a ...
By Ray L. Levasseur
Prisoners at the U.S. Penitentiary, Marion, Illinois, have said for years that the government is poisoning us with contaminated water. The government has categorically denied these accusations. On September 28, 1990, a report issued by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) (U.S. Dept. ...
