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Michigan Committe For Prisoners' Rights

Michigan Committe For Prisoners' Rights image
Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
August
Year
1972
OCR Text

MICHIGAN COMMITTEE for PRISONER'S RIGHTS   MCPR

IN THE JOINT

 On July 21, the Michigan Committee for Prisoners Rights and STONE SCHOOL ROAD travelled to the Michigan Training Unit in lonia, Michigan to take a little bit of Ann Arbor's rainbow rock n' roll energy to our brothers locked up and cut off from the people on the street in MTU.

MTU is located n lonia, Mich., the home of the larger Michigan Reformatory at lonia and the Michigan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. MTU is considered by the Michigan prison authorities to be a 'show place' of progressive Michigan penology. MTU is the place that prison officials from other states visit when they come to check out the Michigan penal system. Most of the brothers there are ages 16-22, the guards and staff don't call you 'prisoner' anymore, you are now called 'resident'. Oh, they got a lot of changes, yes indeed. Being in the penitentiary isn't called 'being in the penitentiary' anymore, it's called 'going through the program'. Guards no longer wear uniforms gray or green, they now wear shirts and ties, with sport coats and slacks.

But no matter what kind of clothes a person wears, it they hold the keys and have a gun, they still are a guard. You can say resident if you want to, but if you live in a place surrounded by a fence and gun towers then you're a prisoner, in prison, god damn it! You can say 'program' too, but a penitentiary is a penitentiary. Period.

One of the purposes of prison is to cut off our brothers and sisters from any contact or identification with comrades on the outside. When the prisoner is totally isolated, he or she is totally at the non-mercy of rehabilitation programs developed by the prisons to break the life spirit of our sisters and brothers and turn them into pigs. Prisons have 'approved book lists', 'approved hair styles', 'approved correspondence lists', 'approved visiting lists', 'approved movie lists', and 'approved clothing lists'. The reason for all this is to control the prisoners information, and to limit the information that a prisoner can get, in this way the prisoner begins to feel totally lost and helpless, they are lost from their people and cut off from their energy, when this happens, prisoners become easy prey for the human being lawnmower of the prison system.

The Michigan Committee for Prisoners Rights and STONE SCHOOL ROAD salute the men at MTU, we salute you for your energy and beautiful spirit. It was an honor for us to serve you. We believe that our music is central to our lives, we must be in touch with it, hear and feel it. We believe that it informs us and gives us energy. We believe that we must have the music, just as we must have newspapers, letters, visits, books. posters, movies and other aspects of our culture to keep us up to date and informed.

The MCPR recognizes these needs, MCPR is moving in such a way to be able to answer these needs of our sisters and brothers in jails and prisons across Babyion USA. STONE SCHOOL ROAD recognized this need and moved through MCPR to answer this need. MCPR salutes our sisters and brothers locked away everywhere, we dedicate ourselves to serving you, getting you materials to keep you strong and eventually set you free. MCPR salutes STONE SCHOOL ROAD and all people's bands who take the music behind bars and wall to give it back to the people.

ON THE STREETS

On July 22, on the Diag of U of M, the MCPR and the Ann Arbor Human Rights Party sponsored a rally to support 'he Michigan Prisoners Labor Union that is now being organized by prisoners in Marquette and Jackson Prisons.

Principle speakers at the rally were Lee Dell Walker, an innocent man released from Jackson State Prison after doing 18 years on a conviction that the State Supreme Court overturned. Also speaking was Pun Plamondon from the RPP and the MCPR, as well as Nancy Wechsler, Human Rights Party City Councilwoman.

Prisoners in the Michigan prison system are forced to work in sweatshop conditions for 20 to 25 cents a day, at the end of a hard days toil a person doesn't even have enough money to buy a pack of cigarettes or a tube of toothpaste. Yet these same men and women carry on work that is essential to the economy and functioning of the state. They build road signs, signs in the state parks, license plates, shoes, mops, brooms, clothes, all work that is necessary for the state to function. These men and women are kept not only as prisoners but also as slaves, to work for the master for no wages, and no share in the fruits of their labor.

What the Michigan Prisoners Labor Union calls for and what the Rainbow People's Party and Human Rights Party and the Michigan Committee for Prisoners Rights calls for, is a labor union that protects the interest of working prisoners and their families. The workers in Michigan prisons, jails and camps must have the same protection guaranteed to other workers in industry, minimum wage, pensions, health plans, insurance and the right to earn and save money until the day of release. That a man or woman can go to prison and work for years on end and have nothing to show for it, that they are forced to do menial and sometimes dangerous tasks under fear of losing their 'good time', that the state of Michigan would move to crush the Prisoners Labor Union and its principle organizers. points to the righteousness of our cause.

We call for the end of prisons, as a stepping stone, we call for a Prisoners Labor Union, organized and controlled by prisoners of Michigan prisons to safeguard their rights and sacred humanity.

Power to the people, more power to the prisoners.

-Brother Chinner MCPR

-Brother Pun, RPP