MASSACHUSETTS
Should prisoners pay rent? They say no!
By Phebe Eckfeldt
Boston
An attempt by the state of Massachusetts to balance the
budget on the backs of the poorest of the poor--prisoners--is
meeting heroic resistance from prisoners themselves.
This spring the state came up $2 billion short in tax
revenues and began slashing social-service programs. In a
desperate attempt to raise funds, the government attached
language to the appropriation line item for the operation of
the Office of the Commissioner of Public Safety that requires
prisoners to pay $5 a day towards the cost of their
incarceration.
House Budget Line 8000-0000, as it is called, would give the
state the power to take that money out of prisoners' canteen
funds or their pay, if they have jobs.
Prisoners are already forced to buy all their personal items
such as soap, deodorant, toothpaste, toilet paper, clothing,
footwear and medications from the prison-run canteen.
In addition, the state would force released inmates to pay
up to 25 percent of their earnings from any job on the outside
in order to pay back the accrued debt. It is estimated that a
prisoner released after serving five years would owe more than
$9,000.
When in the spring the warden at the Bristol County House of
Corrections arbitrarily decided to impose this $5-a-day fee
before the law was passed, prisoners rebelled for two days. On
Aug. 7 a lawsuit was filed against this fee on the prisoners'
behalf.
Item 8000-0000 has passed the State House of Representatives
and is now before the Senate. Proponents say that it would
generate $1.1 million in revenue from prisoners and their
families.
Prisoner leads protest
Nathaniel Atkins is an inmate serving a double life sentence
at the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center (SBCC) in Shirley,
Mass. At great personal risk, Atkins, along with other inmates,
wrote a sample letter protesting this attack. Prisoners were
asked to get family members, friends and other supporters to
send this letter to their senators in protest.
The letter says the budget rider "is designed to guarantee
that poor people who become incarcerated will be consigned to
degrading sub-poverty status for the rest of their lives. A
financial slavery that will extend for many years after their
release from prison.
"To charge $5 a day to the person committed to a
State/County correctional facility only furthers desperation
and oppression in the lives of that person and their family. It
makes a bad circumstance even worse. A huge majority of the
incarcerated are at a poverty level to begin with and they have
family to support.
"Allowing this $5 a day to accrue and then the bill managed
by probation/ parole to be paid after the person wraps up a
sentence is legalizing extortion. It is also a motive for
someone NOT to seek legitimate employment upon completion of
his sentence."
At SBCC jobs are available for only around 20 percent of the
prisoners and the average pay is $1.50 per day. Working six
days per week, this translates into $9.00 per week.
To add insult to injury, Line Item 8000-0000 also states
that if a prisoner is found responsible for injuring a guard
and the guard needs workers' compensation or has medical bills
as a result, the prisoner will be responsible for those costs.
Many observers consider these new rules an expansion of racism,
as in Massachusetts African American men make up 40 percent of
the prison population but only 5.4 percent of the state
population.
SBCC is a super-max, high-tech prison. Prisoners are kept in
their cells 20 hours a day. Contact among prisoners in a
cellblock is only possible for very short periods during gym
and yard time and 20 minutes during meals.
Despite this isolation, Atkins and fellow prisoner activists
were able to flood the entire prison with this letter, reaching
all 16 cell blocks with 64 men per block. This underscores the
tremendous respect Atkins has earned over the years as a
political activist.
Prison authorities frame Atkins
To stop his organizing and remove him from the general
population, the Department of Corrections decided to frame up
Atkins on bogus charges. A prison informant told authorities
Atkins said he would take the superintendent hostage if the
bill passed.
Atkins was thrown into the segregation unit where a prisoner
is confined to a 7-foot by 10-foot cell 23 hours a day for five
days a week and 24 hours a day for the other two. Abuse by
guards is random, arbitrary and frequent. No televisions or
radios are allowed, only Walkmans, a Bible or Koran and
first-class mail. Human contact is irregular and infrequent and
only with staff.
Atkins remained in segregation for 43 days. But he refused
to be intimidated and managed to continue to educate other
prisoners in the segregation unit on this issue.
Atkins' supporters were able to secure legal assistance for
his disciplinary board hearing and in writing his subsequent
appeal. Recently the Department of Corrections ruled Atkins
guilty on two charges, including threatening the warden. His
punishment is the loss of six weeks of library time and no work
anywhere for six months. This translates into total loss of
income.
Atkins told Workers World, "People cannot concern themselves
with individual repercussions because that isn't what it's all
about-the individual. It's about the collective, the good for
the whole. Someone has to step forward to fight the good fight.
We all know a standing stream will become stale and putrid so
to keep it healthy you must agitate, agitate and agitate."
Atkins and his supporters outside the prison are asking
Massachusetts residents to write a letter to their senator
protesting House Budget Line 8000-0000.
Letters of support can be sent to: Nathaniel Atkins,
Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, P.O. Box 8000, Shirley,
MA 01464.
Reprinted from the Aug. 29, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
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