By: Daniel J. Simms, Imprisoned Independent Journalist/Author/Podcast Host.
Does the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and the State Department of Corrections (DOC) intentionally incite violence? Yes. It does. Common sense and historical evidence have long proved that scarcity of resources incites violence. It invites murders, assaults, and strong arming within the prison populations. Moreover, it incentivizes the formation of prison gangs and fosters the gang's proliferation. As to be expected, prisoners traumatized by chronic prison violence and cutthroat gang warfare and politics are soon released into your communities. Without preamble those released quickly resume criminal activity and violence in your communities. All victims of recidivist crime are unknowingly a product of intentional penological policies.
Free will and independent autonomy of released prisoners is BOP's and DOC's main argument against accountability for recidivist crime victims. Such a defense is shallow and weak. Upon a cursory examination of empirical data, the falsity is quickly and thoroughly debunked. Humans are a product of their experiences and environments. That is a fundamental maxim of truth. One cannot overcome circumstances beyond their control. Politicians and prison authorities are wholly in control of prisoners’ experiences and environments within prison walls. They are completely responsibility for whether one gets assaulted, stabbed, or murdered for scarce resources within prison walls. Likewise, they should be entirely liable for all recidivist crime by those released traumatized, indoctrinated by violence and gangs, uneducated, and impoverished.
If virtually every resource in your community is scarce you will witness the human descent into depravity. It would be a deeply sad but wholly predictable eventuality. That is what is being witnessed by me and everyone else awake enough to understand the true impetuses to violence, gangs, and recidivism. Violence and gangs will proliferate in any all-male, or all female, community that lacks in demand resources. Without plentiful pull up bars, dip bars, picnic tables, seating (diner room, dayroom, yard, gym, etc.), clothing (whether personal or State), food (whether inadequate State rations or irregular weekly commissary), funds (largest slavery scheme and labor wage theft conspiracy in human history), familial connections, consortium, guards, and the list goes on and on, there will always be violence and gangs. Essentially every resource from funds to sex is controlled by BOP, DOC, or Politicians. No one can expect uneducated, untreated, and impoverished Americans to behave differently than all humans throughout all history have behaved during times of scarce resources. Countless Nations have fought wars over scarce resources. Countless governments have instituted violent confiscation policies. And immeasurable amounts of people have died over the protection or taking of scarce resources. Entire armies, militias, and police departments were created to protect or take scarce resources. This is natural human behavior. Therefore, it is only natural that prisoners would operate under such primal instincts as well. No one is responsible for such degeneration except those that artificially manufactured the scarcity. Period.
Even U.S. Courts have declared liability for similar artificial scarcity. For instance, Lloyd Buffkin, Kim Caldwell, and Robert Parham represented an entire class of prisoners accusing the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (DPS) of being deliberately indifferent to their medical necessary needs. (See Buffkin v. Hooks, 2019, U.S. Dist. LEXIS 45790). The Court found that the limited availability of medical resources in the prison context has at least some bearing on the deliberate indifference inquiry. Cost and resource scarcity is not a complete defense to a deliberate indifference claim "because prison officials may be compelled to expand the pool of existing resources in order to remedy Eighth Amendment violations." (See: Peraltra v. Dillard, 744 F.3d 1076, 1083 (9th Cir. 2014); see also: William v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 300, 111, S. Ct. 2321, 115 L. Ed. 2nd 271 (1991)). Therefore, it is clear the artificial scarcity which produces the traumatizing violence and gangs witnessed in prisons across the country are the fault of politicians and prison authorities. They should be held accountable. Both to the prisoners enduring such preventable violence and the new victims of recidivist crime. They are equally victims of the failed policies instituted upon our troubled Americans.
One case, amongst millions across the country, demonstrates the incredible hardship and trauma inflicted upon families of the incarcerated. Cliff Clive Cave and Ruth Hamacher Cave took a three-year unwritten verbal contract for a promising accounting job from a known business owner. But within six months he was replaced and abruptly fired despite the verbal contract. Cliff Cave demanded the full two and half years expected pay. The business owner refused. Cliff Cave, as a designated corporate accounting officer, took a loan out against what he was owed according to the verbal contract. The business owner was furious and accused Cliff Cave of executing financial fraud. Of course, Cliff Cave was within his rights to do what he did. Nevertheless, the government prosecuted him anyways. The jury acquitted him of all charges at trial. But Cliff Cave was incarcerated for months fighting the malicious charges. As result of his lengthy incarceration, Cliff Cave lost his job, and was subjected to threats and abuse from both guards and prisoners. His diary detailed his despair, his loneliness for his wife and child, and his physical and emotional struggle to survive imprisonment. His wife, Ruth Cave, suffered considerably as well. Losing the "breadwinner" of the family as Cliff's was their main source of income. They were virtually destitute while he was in prison. Ruth was traumatized by her husband's arrest and imprisonment and had no one to turn to for help other than her neighbor. Because Ruth did not speak or write English fluently, she was unable to find employment, but did raise some funds by babysitting. She had to sell most of her and her family's jewelry to support herself and her daughter, Ashley Cave. They did not have any health insurance so when Ashley got sick Ruth had to borrow funds to buy prescription medications. The family's car was repossessed, and they were in danger in losing the family home due to nonpayment of mortgage. After paying bills from funds borrowed from family and friends Ruth had twenty dollars a week left for food and other necessities. Ruth soon became a social outcast due to unjustifiable prejudice and bigotry. She lost twenty pounds, was depressed, and cried daily, and experienced insomnia. Ashley's only Christmas present that year was from a church group who donated gifts to children whose parents were in prison. (See: Cave v. Davison, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14895)
This one case illustrates the immense hardship and trauma that families go through. Millions are suffering similarly due to the current corrupt criminal justice system. If systemic slavery and wage theft was not occurring on a national scale as it is today our troubled American people could support their families. Even while they remained incarcerated. It is their property anyways. It is a human right that all people, including prisoners, have property interests in their labor. Just like anyone else in the country has. When the State steals prisoners wages it deprives them of resources which could have supported their families, repaid victim restitution, buy hygiene and food, and successfully reintegrate back into society. It is an atrocity.
When I write these articles, I want to keep them professional. Separating my pain and suffering due to almost twenty years of enslavement by focusing rather on others and the sad truth of mass incarceration. Sharing my family's emotional distress, or my deep depression and sadness, in daily articles would only focus on my story and distract from the social justice mission which affects millions of Americans. I am not unique, millions of troubled Americans have made bad criminal decisions and ended up incarcerated, therefore it is vastly more critical to present our unified struggle. It is important to report dispassionately about what I see every day. It is hard. But I do it so that you will understand how badly prison reform is needed. Nevertheless, this article hits my heart hard. Seeing our fellow Americans suffering so greatly and yet so intentionally breaks my heart. But if I neglect to share my own personal experiences that bolster the article then I would be derelict in my duties to you. So, I want to share some painful moments. My second wife, struggling with bills and debts due to my incarceration, committed financial infidelity. (See: Simms v. Schwab, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 135502) This resulted in a painful divorce and a season of sadness and despair. When my son's mother died, I tried vigorously to get my son, Dillon, placed with my wife at the time, or with a family member. That way he would be raised in a good home knowing his father. But then a stranger, supposedly a friend of the maternal Grandmother named Daryl Fish, developed an interest in getting custody of my son. So, a long-drawn-out custody battle ensued. Unsurprisingly he used his vast wealth and privilege as a Boeing engineer to hire expensive attorneys that promptly demonized me and my ex-wife. Needless to say, he outrageously got custody of my son. It has been years since that custody battle. My son is well past his eighteenth birthday. And I have still not spoken to him at all in years. Clearly his guardian manipulated him, slowly and daily whispering how bad and violent his dad is, how he is better off without any relationship with his dad. Words cannot express how much I miss my son. My heart hurts even thinking of him. Dwelling on his upbringing makes me incredibly depressed. I blame myself. I have no control over the corrupt criminal justice laws that have enslaved me, but I still feel incredible regret. (See: Simms v. Fish, 2021 Wash. App. LEXIS 1542 and see: In re Custody of D.R.K., 2020 Wash. App. LEXIS 2838) Those are just two documented painful moments in my life. There are other significant moments such as my father, Mother, and both grandmothers dying since my incarceration. All of which died from stroke. I could lie and say I did not cry and bang my head against the wall. Contemplate suicide. And wonder if I could continue onward during these very emotionally tolling times. Yet I struggled through the despair. The pain I experienced propelled me to strive for purpose in other ways. Journalism, authorship, and podcasts dedicated to prison reform became my passion. Now you understand why speaking out against mass enslavement has become my life's mission. Preventing these injustices from occurring to you, or your descendants, is solace enough to keep me moving forward. Recently the medical within DOC took my blood. A week later, medical told me that I had an eight to ten percent chance of having a fatal stroke within the next ten years. Knowing I may die in prison provides the motivation to try immortalizing our collective struggle. The suffering of millions of Americans, including me, due to the evil mass incarceration system deserves to be exposed. We hope our outspokenness will inspire change.
The solution to the madness we see today is easily ascertained. The first thing we must do is end prisoner slavery. That is first and foremost. Minimum wage, or more, will provide the adequate financial resources our people need to support themselves, compensate victims, and sufficiently reenter society. Next, we must turn all prisons into treatment and career centers. Inspiring change and elevating our fellow Americans to higher depths of life that they had not known before. At the same time, we should enact meaningful sentencing reform. Reducing all non-homicide offenses down to a maximum of eight to ten years. Just enough time to get a Doctorate degree. And all homicide sentences down to fifteen to twenty years. Which is plenty of time to treat and educate them. These are reasonable reforms and are consistent with advanced societies such as Norway.
As time has unfurled many have recognized how incredibly harmful the current corrupt mass incarceration is on our people. The reality is prisons are inflicting more trauma upon our people than they had inflicted upon anyone to deserve such maltreatment. How can a State justify inflicting such pain? Virtually every single American entering prisons today will encounter a culture normalizing murder, stabbings, assaults, fighting, rape, extortion, and every other conceivable depravity imaginable. And it is all predictable and absolutely preventable.
The question we all ask is, how can the State continue to perpetrate this failed system? If it is so widely known to cause such damage, how can it persist? The answer is easy: ignorance, deliberate indifference, or willful blindness of the American people. Regardless of how intent politicians, prison administrators, and other powerful pro prison organizations are on prolonging the failed experiment of mass enslavement, it is still futile if the people unite. United we stand and divided we fall. That is a true maxim. And it is exactly what we need to achieve meaningful change. Otherwise, our descendants will be entering a society that views their misbehavior as a "pretext" to enslave them. That powerful profit motive incentivizes the government to continue enacting more and more laws to ensnare our people. From the nineteen seventies until today the mass incarceration population has exploded. That was not by accident. And it is not an anomaly. Frighteningly it will only get worse. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Prior generations have ceded and sowed their collective power to politicians that wielded it to expand mass prisoner slavery. Because of that current generations are reaping the hate, violence, and oppression that prisoner slavery inevitably inflicts upon our people. The only way to reverse this evilness is by sowing our collective power into reform.
You can support this social justice mission by simply subscribing to our free podcast and blog. All new subscribers will receive a free digital copy of one of my two books: "DEFUND DOC: TURNING ALL PRISONS INTO TREATMENT AND CAREER CENTERS," or "THE ART OF LIVING: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS IN LIFE AND BUSINESS, I LEARNED IN PRISON." Buying either book on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, or other book retailers would cost you over ten dollars. So, this is an amazing free offer!
YOU can be a reality TV show star! Yes you! We are super excited to announce DefundDOC.net is preparing to film a pilot for a reality show entitled "LOVE and PRISON ACTIVISM." We are hoping to secure MTV, VH1, or other TV channels to distribute it. The crowdfunding will begin on July 4, 2024. Our Country's forefathers fought and won freedom and independence on that date. Likewise, we are fighting to obtain freedom from prison slavery amongst other reform policies. We will be seeking reality show cast from across the country. We hope to cast people in every State. No experience in mass incarceration is required. All that is required is a love for the American people and the passion to demand reform. We need anybody and everybody willing to participate. We will also be seeking family members (i.e. wives, children, parents, etc.) of incarcerated Americans. If you are interested, please subscribe to receive frequent updates!
You can also help our cause by getting the limited time offered three digital book special supporter bundle: "HOPELESS IN SEATTLE: A FOSTERKID'S MANIFESTO," "THE ART OF LIVING," and "DEFUND DOC." All three books for the price of one book on Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, or other book retailers. At fourteen dollars and ninety-nine cents ($14.99) it is unbelievably low. We will take the loss, however, to share this awesome social justice message with you and invite you into our mission of reform.
Supporters encouraged us to create custom branded designed collections of items to sell online. So, we did it. Please find the online stores that carry the Defund DOC brand: Etsy.com, Tiktok.com, and of course on our website DefundDOC.net. We are actively seeking new ways to promote and bring attention to this mission. You were going to buy sweatshirts, tee shirts, mugs, and other items, so why not get them from us? Every penny of profit goes towards furthering this overdue social justice mission. Remember becoming a supporter is merely an insurance policy. Statistically speaking you, or one of your descendants, will be ensnared in these corrupt and evil mass incarceration or mass supervision systems. Therefore, you are contributing towards a future where prisoner slavery is a part of the ugly past. Where all prisons are turned into treatment and career centers. And meaningful sentencing reform occurs. Supporting ensures your name will be written in glory and history! Just like those that fought to end slavery!
Comentários