VICTIM BEHIND THE WALL Part Vl What Is Justice By James Avent

Justice and Justification is not only for the victim’s, but it is also for the defendant’s who are wrongly convicted and over sentenced pass their guidelines and prosecuted by bias judges and prosecutors on a bias and profitable justice system here in the state of Virginia that sends those off to a prison that lies and does not believe in Rehabilitation or Prison Reform but only in warehousing or dehumanizing those that they house. As a offender myself I can say I’ve witnessed and was part of the corruption and back door deals mad by the lawyers who swore to represent us (offenders) in these times of needs and to get the best outcome in the favor of the defendant, but as those who don’t know a lawyers only protection is the Commonwealth of Virginia and not the one he/she is representing. As I have almost finished out my 5 years and 9 months sentence I strongly advise my fellow peers to let their pens tell the truth of how the Virginia Prison System and the Department of Corrections and current Governor Glenn Youngkin have manipulated those in society to not believe in warehousing humanity like livestock and never giving a second look into these worn down prisons that house us and neglect our needs and oppress us (offenders) far as getting an education, programs that actually help, better healthcare and food that is rich in nutrients and is consumable and don’t cause health problems down the road. Bring change to the Department of Corrections because they are not correcting anything. They are stealing money and peoples lives our lives the (offenders).

Victims behind the wall 

James Avent 

PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS AND CRIMINAL INJUSTICE IN VIRGINIA

 

Credit / Kevin "Rashid" Johnson

This is an article and statement I submitted in support of a rally in Richmond in support of VA prisoners. I have made some editorial changes to it. Please share far and wide. 

I have sat down with numerous Virginia prisoners asking their thoughts and concerns for changes in the Virginia Department of Corrections (VDOC) and criminal injustice in Virginia.

CHANGES TO OUR SUPPORT NETWORK

Foremost we'd like to see a revival of a support network that is strategically oriented to struggle for more than just reforms and cycles of mobilizing people to sit in legislative sessions year after year with only the most limited results. 

There are already multitudes of laws on the books which SIMPLY AREN'T FOLLOWED. In fact the violations of those laws are the cause of many of the problems we need to have addressed. 

We need a support network that is willing to organize independently to address the needs we have, and that looks beyond pleading and rubbing shoulders with representatives of the very system that is the source of our suffering and abuses. 

History teaches that the system only strings those who plead for reforms along year after year to keep us coming back begging and legitimizing them, whereas when the people begin to organize to change things independently and expose the true nature of this corrupt system it is then that the system implements a slew of reforms to appease us and win us back over to reformist tactics.

The VDOC exposed it weakness and the sort of organizing that presents a genuine threat to its abuses and business as usual. It did this when it systematically got rid of most of its prisoners who were litigating , exposing and organizing outside protests against its abuses. 

They sent all of us out of state and tried to discredit us by stigmatizing and portraying us as monsters; the age old tactic of demonizing resistant slaves to terrify whites into seeing us as enemies to violently contain and repress instead of allying with and supporting us.

This began first with me. I was interstate transferred in 2012 as soon as Harold Clarke was appointed as the first token Black director of the VDOC as window dressing to counter the public exposures and resistance of the racist operations of and abuses within the two unneeded and expensive supermax prisons Red Onion and Wallens Ridge State Prisons (ROSP and WRSP). Exposures and protests that I was instrumental in helping generate.

CHANGES TO THE VDOC

We want these two prisons, Red Onion and Wallens Ridge, CLOSED DOWN. They continue to be unneeded and expensive burdens on Virginia taxpayers that exist to serve a age old agenda of using poor politically empowered hostile white Southern populations to repress and contain politically disempowered populations of color.

They continue to remove Virgina's disproportionately nonwhite prisoner population into regions populated by segregated rural white communities that are culturally hostile to Black and Brown people.

Worse still is that the VDOC under its token Black director has continued tactically locating its newly constructed prisons in such locations.

I can't count the number of prisoners of color who have expressed to me that they never hated white people until they experienced the racism and abuses these Southwestern Virginia prisons. 

We want an end to the VDOC tactically interstate transferring prisoners who challenge and expose abuses to prisons and prison systems that are, just like ROSP and WRSP, located in rural segregated white communities where the same and worst sorts of racist abuses are also practiced.

There is a UNANIMOUS desire for conjugal visits and not as a privilege but as a right. The 

International Convention Against the Crime of Genocide forbids as genocide conditions that reduce the birthrates of a given racial group or nationality of people. This is EXACTLY what the VDOC is doing by denying its prisoners, who again are disproportionately Black and Brown, the ability (indeed the right) to procreate and legally couple with our partners with whom we might reproduce. 

The two methods of inflicting genocide or killing off a people is 1) increase their death rate and 2) 

decrease their birth rate. The culture of violence foisted on our communities, especially by an 

entertainment and music industry we do not control, achieves the former, while disproportionately imprisoning then denying the ability of tens of thousands of us in every state to reproduce accomplishes the latter. It's a textbook strategy of genocide.

Our daily diet is repulsive. We want food fit for human consumption, and an end to serving us 

processed meats which the FDA acknowledges is not only unhealthy but carcinogenic. We want fresh and varieties of natural meats, fruits and vegetables.

We want daily outside and out of cell recreation and exercise, which is constantly denied upon claims of staff shortages, especially in prisons located in the VDOC's central and eastern regions. Over half a century ago Virginia's federal courts ruled that denial of outside recreation creates volatile and dangerous prisons. The federal courts have also established that staff shortages and overcrowding are not valid excuses for denying outside recreation. (1)

Here at Sussex 1 State Prison (SISP) we have not received outside recreation in over a month and most cellblocks go days on end without out-of-cell time. Just a few years ago Harold Clarke and this same prison lost a lawsuit for doing the exact same thing to its then death row prisoners, and had to build inside and outside facilities to provide those prisoners regular outside and out-of-cell recreation. (2)

We want the establishment of prisoner legal research facilities that can accommodate ALL the VDOC's populations. The existing system has only one to three research computers per prison that must accommodate over a thousand prisoners at each facility. 

Virginia can contract with GTL, its already existing telephone services provider, for tablets that have 

not just the telephone system on them but also access to an electronic legal research database. This system is available and used in other prison systems where I have been confined such as Indiana and Ohio.

We want an end to the use of K9s (euphemistically called working dogs) in VDOC prisons. These 

animals are used not only to abuse but are themselves abused. We saw the abuse right here at SISP with the mutilation of Curtis Garrett on Christmas day 2020 when two K9s were set upon him and guards beat him. He lost use of his hand and a leg and was transferred to WRSP where prisoners are sent for tactical abuse and retaliation from these eastern and central facilities. At WRSP he was denied medical 

treatment, resulting in infections of his bite wounds and permanent impairment. (3)

And we must not forget the practice of VDOC K9 units teaching handlers to masturbate the dogs which was exposed in 2009 and 2010; blatant crimimal animal cruelty and beastiality. (4)

The use of these animals to terrorize and maul Virginia's disproportionately Black and Brown prison populations is a direct continuation of the state's racist slave era practice's. Hounds were a primary weapon of terror used against slaves. (5)

Not only this but in 2006 Human Rights Watch wrote a report exposing the use of K9s in 9 U.S. prisons and jails to terrorize prisoners just as military dogs were abused against Arab detainees which was exposed in an international scandal in 2004. (6)

But SOMEHOW Virginia was overlooked as a state 

that not only uses dogs in this manner, but uses them to actually attack and maul prisoners. A cursory review of federal litigation attempts by Virginia prisoners reveals a massive number of lawsuits filed about the abuses of dogs and maulings of prisoners. How has Virginia gotten away with this? How has the practice avoided public exposure and scrutiny? We need a different and more aggressive sort of support and protest.

There are a range of other changes prisoners want, including adequate health care and public accounting for our care. In 2003 the ACLU exposed the VDOC was killing multitudes of prisoners through medical neglect, hiding their deeds, and the deaths and causes by citing privacy protocols. (7) 

This needs to be countered. Which I can attest to because these officials have tried quite blatantly to kill me by medical neglect, leaving me with untreated cancer for over a year after blood tests showed I likely had it and over 6 months after positive diagnoses by biopsy.

We want an end to receiving contaminated drinking water at Sussex 1 and 2 State Prisons. The water at both these prisons is frequently contaminated and Brown in color. They give off a putrid smell and staff as forbidden from drinking it and are given free bottled water to drink. Prisoners are forced to drink and bathe in this water and cannot receive free bottled water. Boiled water alerts are frequently issued but we cannot boil water in general especially in segregation units and during frequent lockdowns. As noted many cellblocks never come out of their cells for exercise anyway.

We want an end to the ongoing use and abuse of solitary confinement in Virginia prisons. The VDOC continues to confine prisoners for months to years on end in solitary, euphemistically called Restorative Housing. The change is in name only. In fact the VDOC is at present the defendant in a federal class action lawsuit challenging this housing which has earned it a negative ruling from the court and it's finding that the Restorative Housing status is in fact solitary confinement and unlawful. (8) And not just this but VDOC officials have been retaliating against the prisoners who brought that lawsuit. (9)

These are just some of the changes that mam prisoners have expressed a desire to see in the VDOC and Virginia criminal injustice system.

Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!

All Power to the People!

By Kevin "Rashid Johnson

_____________

Endnotes:

1. See, Gilland v. Owens, 718 F. Supp. 665, 685 (W.D. Tenn. 1989) (lack of staff does not provide 

penological justification for lack of exercise)

2. See, Porter v. Clarke, 923 F. 3d 348 (4th Cir. 2019)

3. Keith Sanders, "Virginia Prison Guards Attack Prisoners With Dogs," PRISON LEGAL NEWS 

(Aug. 2021), p.54, http://prisonlegalnews.org/news/2021/Aug/1/virginia-prison-guards-attack-

prisoners-dogs

Theresa Vargas, "Virginia is using dogs to 'terrify and attack' prisoners, say lawsuits that describe one 

man as mauled in his cell" WASHINGTON POST (Mar. 6, 2021) 

http://washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-is-using-dogs-to-terrify-( )

4. Matthew Stabley, "Corrections Officers Take 'K-9 Handling' Too Far: Five Face Animal Cruelty 

Charges After One Was Filmed Masturbating A Dog," NBC Washington (Oct. 29, 2009), 

www.nbcwashington.com

David Reuter, "Virginia DOC K-9 'Training' Results in Animal!Cruelty Charges," PRISON LEGAL 

NEWS (Apr. 15, 2010)

5. Larry H. Spruill, "Slave Patrols, 'Packs of Negro Dogs,' and Policing Black Communities, PYLON 

(1960-), Vol. 53, No. 1 (Summer 2016), pp. 42-66, 

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/phylon1960.53.1.42

T.D. Parry, " Slave Hounds and Abolition in the Americas" (2020), 

https://academic.oup.com/past/article/246/1/69/5722095

Charlton Tingling and Tyler Parry, "The Canine Terror," (2016), https://jacobinmag.com/2016/05/dogs-

bloodhounds-slavery-police-brutality-racism/

6. "Cruel and Degrading: The Use of Dogs for Cell Extractions in U.S. Prisons (Oct. 2006) 

http://hrw.org/print/reports/2006/10/09/cruel-and-degrading-( )

Seymour Hersh, "Torture at Abu Ghraib: American Soldiers Brutalized Iraqis. How Far up Does 

Responsibility Go?" THE NEW YORKER (May 10, 2004)

7. Laura LaFay, "Accountable to No One: The Virginia Department of Corrections and Prisoner 

Medical Care, ACLU of Virginia (May 2003)

Matthew T. Clarke, " Bad Medicine, No Oversight, Total Secrecy: ACLU Reports on Virginia DOC 

Prisoner Medical Care" PRISON LEGAL NEWS (Dec. 2003)

8. See, Thrope v. VDOC, 2021 U.S. District LEXIS 112284 (W.D. Va., June 15, 2021)

9. Kevin "Rashid" Johnson, "Retaliation for Litigation: Virginia Targets Prisoners Suing Against Solitary Confinement" (2022) http://rashidmod.com/?p=3243

VICTIM BEHIND THE WALL Part V What Is Justice By James Avent

What is Justice? The Webster's dictionary say 1. moral rightness; equity. 2. Fairness. 3. The administration and procedure of law. 4. A judge. It is sad that this word (Justice) only applies for court rooms, victims and the department of corrections, but never for the offender who is sent to prison. We offenders are misled by the system of another chance at life or bettering ourselves. They talk about all these good programs they have to offer and how keeping your head on a swivel will help but it’s all lies. Being here at Greensville, a level three compound and the biggest compound in the state of Virginia you are always short staffed and you have nobody there really cares to help the offenders. They apply these levels and security points to your file for what? Because at the end of the day you are thrown into the abyss of the prison system and abandon. We are savagely oppressed by those in power and due to the system here at Greensville, you file a complaint against a staff member. They either sign off on it or one of their buddies do and you get the complaint form back with a bs answer that we (offenders) know is straight trash. This letter is not to forget that me or my peers have made mistakes that have landed us either back again or their first time in prison. It’s to let people and the world know that the prison system here in Virginia does not care about correcting those mistakes. They only care about profits and stealing funds and continuing to create the worst in those they warehouse by mentally and emotionally abusing them down to poor healthcare and feeding us worst than stray animals.

Victims behind the wall

James Avent 

Is Anyone Surprised that the Virginia Department of Corrections [VADOC] In 2022 Is Resorting To 1868 Pro-Slavery Arguments In Defense Of It's Use Of Solitary Confinement By William Thorpe

 

Credit William Thorpe

When Virginia Democrats controlled its government from 2017-2021. A number of prison and criminal justice reforms were breathed into existence of which Virginia Department of Corrections [VADOC] use of solitary confinement was a work in progress.

In 2021 Republicans and reactionaries wormed their way into Virginia's political leadership and reacting against, revising and rescinding some of those prison and criminal justice reforms were number one on their list. So the work on reforming and abolishing VADOC's use of solitary confinement ground to a halt under Republican gimmicks, gambits and outright despotism with VADOC given one of those make it look like there is transparency and accountability gambit in the governance process by doing a sham review of the solitary confinement practice. Not only was the process a sham but it was a travesty of Virginia governance, because courts, the rule of law had already told VADOC in a number of court rulings that not only was solitary confinement an unconstitutional, hence extra-judicial act, but it violated the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as a cruel and unusual punishment. So why was taxpayer money wasted on review of a Virginia governmental practice that has been found to be unlawful?

Nonetheless, on December 1, 2022, VADOC gave us the sham review, titled  Reports to the General Assembly - RD744 - use of Restorative Housing within state correctional facilities and Juvenile Correctional Centers. So the executive summary of what should be correctly titled VADOC's extra-judicial use of solitaey confinement gave us 3 bloated paragraphs focusing on and I paraphrase, solitary confinement reform activists contacted Virginia prisoners thereby possibly influencing prisoners who are brutalized and dehumanized daily on the fact solitary confinement brutalizes them. Let me just quote what Virginia taxpayers paid for.

" Told VADOC leadership of the situation and an email investigation with jpay was conducted to ensure the incarcerated individuals interviewed were not influenced in their responses based upon the information in both emails from members of the coalition. The investigation revealed that a member of the Virginia Coalition sent (2) separate emails (on the above date) to 28 incarcerated individuals who varied in housing across what appeared to be at least 12 VADOC facilities. Only one incarcerated individual of the 25 interviewed received emails on the dates provided by the member of the Virginia Coalition on Solitary Confinement."  [unquote]

What this RD744 VADOC report underscores is the resurrection of the infernal arguments made by pro-slavers in the context of American chattel slavery that the enslaved black person had to be influenced, incited to recognize that their condition was barbaric, evil, savage and ahumanisitc viz VADOC's RD744 report stating solitary confinement reform activist were investigated to ascertain or find out if they hadn't influenced prisoners, as if prisoners who are being treated unlawfully by VDOC  had to be instructed, that VADOC was brutalizing and dehumanizing them. This pathetic reach and spin by VADOC has been the only argument made by people, governments, institutions and religions confronted and challenged on their quintessential mythology of purpose.

So are we surprised that VADOC when called out on the lawlessness of it's solitary confinement practice as a extra-judicial imposition finds refuge among the "influenced/incited" to recognize sophistry? No, we are not. Because it is the emphysemic, wheezing flailing, delusional logic left the administration of evil and solitary confinement is an evil judicial institution and only minds and hearts that see themselves as above the human condition, outside of history, beyond reproach and are above law pretentiously labor as tirelessly as VADOC and its allies are in maintaining it and it is an it that it is no more complicated in its psychology than gratuitous sadism. 

Lest we forget what some of the influenced, incited to recognize sophistry is like  we are told in the October 31,1868 issue of the Daily Ledger, an Albany, Indiana paper that a judge Carlton expressed his disdain for Republicans in Virginia inciting Negroes with "low-flung" speech.

Then,

Nancy Isenberg in her book White Trash, tells us on pp.184.

"During the election year 1868, the scalawag was accused of inciting  blacks, and giving them the idea that they deserved social equality."

Then,

The revisionist and supremacist writer, Alan Brinkley in his book, The Unfinished Nation a Concise History of the American People Vol.1 to 1877 tells us on pp. 80-81.

"Occasionaly a master or mistress would teach slave children to read and write but as the slave system became more firmely entrenched, strong social (and ultimately legal) sanctions developed to discourage such efforts lest literacy encourages slaves to question their stations." 

I'm William Thorpe, Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm held in solitary confinement at Wainwright unit.

WHY WOULD MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS LIE? MY DENIED CANCER TREATMENT BECOMES MORE SINISTER (2022) By Kevin "Rashid" Johnson

Credit Kevin "Rashid" Johnson

A RECAP OF MY DENIED TREATMENT

As those who have been following my situation of denied cancer treatment know, Virginia prison officials have known from blood tests taken over a year ago that I have had prostate cancer at least since Oct 2021. But they have systematically delayed and denied me any treatment to allow the cancer to spread and eliminate any possibility of curing it, which would ensure that it becomes fatal. The intent to murder me by medical neglect is more than obvious.

Only because of ongoing public protests (for which I am humbled and grateful) have officials made gestures TOWARDS providing me treatment, although no actual treatment has yet been provided AT ALL.

DOCTORS CONCERNED THAT THE CANCER HAS SPREAD

After several months of repeatedly missed and rescheduled consultations with radiologists to determine my treatment options, I finally saw a couple of radiologists, Drs. Alfredo Urdaneta and Navid Fallahi on Oct 4, 2022 at the Medical College of Virginia hospital (MCV).

Based on symptoms that I have recently developed due to the continued passage of time without treatment, the doctors were concerned that the cancer has now spread or metastasized beyond my prostate gland. Which would mean that curing it would no longer be an option and I will almost certainly die from the cancer. They therefore ordered a PET scan to determine if and to what extent it may have spread and a follow-up visit with them to go over the results with me.

On Oct 31st I was transported to MCV for the PET Scan by two guards, Vareen and Smith. Upon reaching the hospital the guards went inside for a few minutes then returned to tell me the appointment had been rescheduled and we were returning to the prison. I asked why the appointment was put off, since this would be the FOURTH time a hospital appointment related to my cancer had been "rescheduled." Vareen stated he did not know why.

MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS JOIN IN SPINNING A WEB OF LIES TO DENY TREATMENT

Back at the prison I was taken to the medical department for a vital sign check, which is routine procedure anytime a prisoner returns from a hospital visit. At that time I was able to speak with the prison's nurse practitioner C. Riner and assistant Health Administrator H. Holloway. Both claimed to not know why the PET scan was not performed that day but assured me that it had been rescheduled for the very near future.

On Nov 4th I was taken to MCV by Vareen and another guard Lewis. This was for the follow-up radiologist visit to discuss the PET scan results. When the radiologist Dr. Fallahi looked at my hospital records he asked why the PET scan wasn't preformed on Oct 31st. I told him I didn't know but that I was told it was rescheduled. He said it had NOT been rescheduled and there was no indication why it hadn't been done. I then asked the guard Vareen, who had brought me to MCV that day, why he was told the the PET scan wasn't done. Again he claimed noone explained it to him, but that he was told it had been rescheduled.

Dr. Fallahi expressed that the scan needed to be done and he was immediately rescheduling it, but that he was worried that I might be mysteriously turned away again.

On returning to the prison I was taken to the medical department for the routine vital sign check. As I entered the medical department I passed an office where I saw nurse practitioner Riner sitting at a computer. A new nurse named Fenner took my vitals. I asked her if I could speak with Riner and the Health Administrator to determine why my PET scan wasn't done on Oct 31st and why they'd misinformed me on that date that it had been rescheduled when it hadn't. Fenner then unwittingly spilled the beans.

She revealed that the PET scan wasn't done on Oct 31st because the guards got me to MCV too late and missed my appointment; which made the second time this has happened. She explained that she'd read it in the records sent back with me from the hospital that day, as had Riner and nurse Holloway. So everyone, including Riner, Holloway and the guards who took me to the hospital on Oct 31st, had lied about not knowing why the PET scan wasn't done and claiming that it had been rescheduled.

I again asked Fenner to tell Riner I needed to speak with her about all this. Fenner left to give Riner my message, then returned a few minutes later to tell me Riner couldn't see me because she was seeing another patient. Moments later I was escorted by the transport guards from the medical department and passed the office where Riner was still sitting alone at a computer.

I then asked the guard Vareen why he'd lied claiming he didn't know why my PET scan wasn't done when actually he was the cause of my late arrival and missed appointment on Oct 31st, and everyone including medical staff had obviously conspired to close ranks around this lie. He would not answer and gave only a nervous chuckle.

I've known Vareen from my prior confinement at Sussex 1 State Prison in 2018. He worked on death row, where I was illegally held in solitary confinement for four months until I was transferred to the Indiana prison system. During that time I observed that he is a closed-lipped and loyal "Blue Line" pig who will quietly go along with and cover up any dirt that his peers engage in or orchestrate, especially administrators. I believe my late arrival and missed hospital appointment on Oct 31st was deliberate and that Vareen was directed to do this.

In any case, the pattern of denied and delayed cancer care by prison officials is clear, as is their sinister intention to cause me death from this cancer. They know that prostate cancer is the second leading cause of death in men, and can only be cured if caught AND TREATED before it spreads beyond the prostate. My prolonged delay of care ensures its spread and fatal outcome.

That medical professionals are party to this and lying to inflict this deadly harm is particularly egregious. As I've expressed before, in the context of prison medical care, their Hippocratic oath of "First do not harm" is inverted into one of "First do no good," especially in the case of political and politicized prisoners.

Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!

All Power to the People!

By Kevin "Rashid" Johnson

it is up at https://rashidmod.com/?p=3255