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Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 13, 1997
issue of Workers World newspaper
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Commentary from death row

Texas leveling system shows rise in repression

By Harvey Earvin
Huntsville, Texas

The newly instituted leveling system on death row in Texas under which prisoners are classified in one of three categories—supposedly based on their disciplinary record—is nothing but heightened repression.

It masquerades as a means to provide uniform rules and regulations in managing male prisoners sentenced to death. But in truth it is a reactionary response to prisoners’ efforts over the years to organize themselves against cruel and inhuman treatment.

The Endeavor Project, the Lamp of Hope Project, and now Panthers United for Revolutionary Education are just three examples of prisoners’ efforts to protect themselves and resist.

Any time prisoners, and even people on the outside—unions, women, people of color, gays—begin to organize themselves across color lines, the system devises counter-schemes to bring it to a fast and abrupt halt.

The Texas death row leveling system is another of these, out of a huge bag of trickery designed to dominate, subjugate and divide prisoners. It’s no different from when businesses divide workers, colleges divide students, and the ruling class divides the poor masses by establishing lines of antagonism.

Before the leveling system, all death-row prisoners in Texas—except for those classified as work-capable—were already confined to "administrative segregation" status. In other words: lock-down.

Among all the lock-down cell blocks, Cell Block J-21 has been the scene of the most cruel physical torture—and therefore the scene of the most intense prisoner rebellions. Of the three existing prisoner organizations, two were formed on J-21.

In response to the executions and physical abuse by the guards there have been floods; fires; shouting, cursing and rattling of bars; whole recreation groups refusing to rack up; individual prisoners refusing to vacate the visiting area; and other forms of spontaneous resistance.

All of this—chaos, confusion, frustration and general feelings of helplessness on the part of the prisoners—was fun and recreation for the prison guards until someone shouted, "Let’s organize!"

What was once chaotic was becoming structured. The prisoners of Cell Block J-21—Black, brown and white—were coming together. Until the leveling system came.

The prison administration began classifying the prisoners of Cell Block J-21—not in accordance with the written Death Row Plan, but by race and ethnicity, it seemed. Black and Mexican prisoners cried racism.

And just as the administration had anticipated and intended, some of the anger and frustration was misdirected toward white prisoners who had absolutely nothing to do with how the Black and Mexican prisoners, or themselves, were classified.

However, members of PURE along with some others clearly see the prison administration’s grand scheme. They are attempting to awaken others to how the system manufactures racism and uses it to serve its own interests—both inside prisons and outside in the "free world."

Racist torture

In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal—which included Unemployment Insurance, welfare, the National Labor Relations Law, etc.—was in fact a package of gains won by the people. These were concessions forced by mass unity.

In the 1960s and 1970s, civil-rights and affirmative-action laws were also gains won by the people. But today’s criminalization of affirmative action is a grand counter-scheme. The ruling class has carefully nurtured the notion of "reverse discrimination," which is an example of government deception at its best.

On a smaller scale, the Texas prisoners’ movement of the 1970s—which culminated in the class-action civil lawsuit Ruiz vs. Estelle—exposed the barbaric treatment of prisoners and won gains. These too were concessions forced by mass unity.

The grand counter-scheme here is the manufactured fear of crime. Public paranoia about crime far outpaces the actual incidence of crime. This in turn helps justify prison guards beating, disabling and murdering prisoners.

The videotaped use of attack dogs, stun guns and clubs against inmates in a Brazoria County jail 60 miles south of Houston, which made national news last summer, was no aberration, although those who uphold the system will swear it was.

Texas death-row prison guards consistently get away with assaulting prisoners: slamming them to the floor while they are handcuffed from the back and unable to catch themselves or break their fall.

Until the masses of people come to see and appreciate prisoners’ movements for what they truly are—legitimate human struggles, human beings demanding to be treated as such in spite of their prisoner status—prisoners will forever be helplessly tortured. And if released, they will continue to return home more damaged and angrier than ever.

Of all the symbols of power in the United States—the eagle, the Capitol, the dollar bill, the Pentagon—prisons are the highest symbols of power and repression. And the most corrupt and hypocritical of all are the prison systems that hail themselves before the world as humane examples of legal and moral fairness.

All along, behind closed doors and in secret, they beat and torture their captives for sport.

The writer is a death-row prisoner and the prime minister of Panthers United for Revolutionary Education.

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The levels of hell

Some of the sharp distinctions among the new levels on Texas death row:

Commissary:

Level 3 cannot purchase anything at all from the commissary. Not soap, deodorant, toothpaste, shampoo. Nothing.

Level 2 can purchase one each of these items. Level 1 can purchase the above items, plus canned goods, pastries, sodas, ice cream and the like.

Visitation:

Level 3 is entitled to only one visit per month—zero visits if the prisoner is in solitary confinement.

Level 2 is entitled to two visits per month. Level 1 is entitled to a weekly visit.

Recreation:

Level 3 is entitled to one hour of recreation three days per week. The prisoner must be alone during the recreation. There is no socializing.

Level 2 is entitled to one hour of recreation four days a week, also alone, also without socializing.

Level 1 is entitled to two hours of recreation five days per week, in small groups. An average of six per recreation group.

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