#supportprisoners

Red spoke with Alisha on Friday (3/13), and LeLe said Decatur is going on lockdown.

All in-person visitation has been cancelled, and video visits are tentatively going forward, but that it is unclear if GTL tech staff will be allowed into the prison for technical support and administration of video visitation. LeLe also mentioned that the GTL staff were working on installing a video visitation kiosk on unit but that she doesn't know what the ETA for it going operational will be.

As of now, Red and Aaron have a video visit with LeLe scheduled for this coming Thursday evening.

LeLe said no one she knows is sick, and that she and those she's talked with on unit are being proactive and buying soap at commissary (the hand sanitizer they are offered at commissary has no alcohol content, which means it's virtually ineffective).

As of an email we got from LeLe today (3/15):

All activities have been cancelled (including educational classes, other certification courses, and their Shakespeare rehearsals) except for Chow and Gym, but she said the COs said those are next to be cancelled too.

They're currently only being allowed two 20 minute phone calls a day.

We'll keep you updated on what Alisha wants shared! Right now, we're asking our community to please share and circulate these resources and demands:

https://transformativespaces.org/2020/03/15/chicago-covid-19-hardship-and-help-page/?fbclid=IwAR1jMaGUJkkJ2H59zR-NNr7giEbCyB07pRysTyEs6t_6umNJm826rgdAnOg

https://chicagobond.org/2020/03/13/open-letter-to-cook-county-regarding-covid-19-and-cook-county-jail-protect-public-health-through-decarceration/?fbclid=IwAR2iolu-IAnh2Y1DI7Nf0bP4puJfMZqc8to3kj92avkuFU5rCVUqJSUF320

Cuomo Denies Clemency to Criminalized Survivors of Gender Violence

For the eighth straight year, Governor Cuomo has refused to use his clemency power to combat the rampant criminalization of efforts to survive sexual and domestic violence. Survived and Punished NY denounces the governor’s decision to double down on his inaction, effectively abandoning incarcerated survivors of gender violence.

Over the past year, Survived and Punished NY has corresponded and visited with dozens of criminalized survivors—people caged because their efforts to survive sexual and domestic violence were criminalized—as part of our #FreeThemNY campaign. We have compiled 15 criminalized survivors’ stories, with new stories coming in. These fighters agreed to take their stories public as part of a collective demand for recognition of their dignity and their right to survive.

Governor Cuomo could free these people today; indeed, he has indicated that his office would take a very close look at clemency applications for domestic violence survivors. Under the New York Constitution, Cuomo has the sole discretion and virtually unlimited power to grant clemency—either in the form of a pardon (erasing a criminal record), or a commutation of a sentence (reducing the length of a sentence so as to release someone earlier). After granting the first and only commutation of his eight-year tenure to a criminalized survivor, Valerie Seeley, in 2016, Cuomo’s Counsel said the governor “absolutely” planned to keep using clemency for criminalized survivors, and explained that his office had created a domestic violence “subgroup” because “we know that [survivors] have historically been incarcerated for domestic violence.” In the meantime, Cuomo continues to cast himself as a champion for survivors, for women in general, and for criminal justice.

Yet when it comes to criminalized survivors, Cuomo continues to be MIA. On New Year’s Eve, Cuomo granted a total of 29 clemencies—22 pardons and 7 commutations. This is wonderful for these individuals, their families, and their communities.. Yet none of the 29 clemencies benefited incarcerated survivors of domestic violence. Of the 29, only four women were pardoned, and not one woman received a commutation. This flies in the face of the fact that Black, Latina and Native women, as well as transgender and gender non-conforming (TGNC) people, are the fastest growing populations in prison, all disproportionately affected by gender violence and mass incarceration. For survivors, women, and TGNC people, Cuomo’s cold shoulder to clemency contradicts his cultivated public image as a “champion” for gender and sexual violence.

In fact, Cuomo has no grounds on which to call himself a “champion” of anything related to criminal justice reform. Daily, there are close to 200,000 New Yorkers under correctional control, including 50,000 in prison and 27,000 in local jails (most because they cannot afford bail). Even compared to Republican governors, Cuomo is failing survivors, specifically women and TGNC people. This month, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam granted clemency to Cyntoia Brown—who, at 16, was doing survival sex work and killed a client  in self-defense—after years of pressure from organizers and her family. Also this month, Ohio Governor John Kasich granted clemency to Thomia Hunter, who killed her abusive ex-partner in self-defense. Kasich and Haslam—both Republicans with regressive criminal justice records—have recently outperformed Cuomo.  In addition, it is worth noting that between 2011 and when he left office last month, Governor Jerry Brown pardoned 1,332 individuals. Despite having promised in 2015 to broaden the availability of clemency, Cuomo’s actions are paltry in comparison to his peers. Cuomo has still only commuted 19 sentences in eight years.

For Cuomo, clemency appears to be a way to brand himself in opposition to Trump and cast himself as a so-called progressive. Pardoning immigrants facing deportation appears to be the predominant theme in Cuomo’s clemency grants, which Cuomo positions as a rebuke to Trump’s “war on our immigrant communities.” Survived and Punished celebrates that some are spared deportation as a collateral benefit of Cuomo’s public relations campaign, but Cuomo’s thirst for national headlines (and possibly national office) has not translated into concrete benefits for criminalized survivors. Perhaps, if principle alone isn’t enough, Governor Cuomo should do more than pay lip service to the #MeToo movement and diversify his headline-seeking by taking action against gender violence as well.

Criminalizing survivors "disappear[s] them into the system," ensuring they no longer exist in the mind of the public. Cuomo reinforces this disappearance and disposability by abandoning survivors to the criminal punishment system, often condemning them to relive the gender violence in prison. His actions indicate that he views survivors as categorically undeserving of clemency.

We are watching Governor Cuomo. We demand that he keep his promise on clemency and use this power to free criminalized survivors—not next New Year's eve—but now, and continuously throughout the year.

From Peepshow Podcast: Episode 38 is our first episode of 2019! 

This week we feature an interview with Red, a New York City-based Marxist/feminist community organizer sex working art historian. Red’s organizing efforts sit at the intersection of art, politics, and labor. In addition to a discussion of the prison industrial complex as it relates to sex work politics, we talked to Red about the work they have done curating the art exhibit Whores Will Rise.

For the news segment, we invited back Kate D’Adamo to talk about the clemency granted to Cyntoia Brown’s, how we got here, and organizing around similar cases.

Alisha’ latest art piece, created for Domestic Violence Awareness month. 

This was her first attempt at drawing people she said. It received 2nd place in a prison wide completion at Decatur Correctional. No, the irony and heartbreak of a prison hosting a DV Awareness poster contest was not lost on Alisha or us. She was told she received 2nd place because the drawing of her survivor had “too large of breasts.” 

We are so incredibly proud of Alisha for continuing her pursuit of art and creative expression. Please visit her amazon wishlist to send more art and drawing instruction books that she’s requested: http://a.co/ewyWkXX

Proud to have joined Survived & Punished NY for a light board action on Tuesday, September 11th, 2018 at Foley Square to demand the immediate release and sentence commutation of our incarcerated comrades. 

Join Love & Protect for a conversation with Andrea Ritchie, LaSaia Wade, and Eisha Love!

RSVP here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1183516328417662/

We drove through snowy desolate bullshit to see our friend on January 3rd.

Thankfully our visit lasted for over 4 hours and the heat was working in the visitation room at Decatur. Our conversation was stream of consciousness, chaotic, excited, it later morphed into reflection and pause while we imagined things to come. She had a lot of news for us, as we had for her.

Shakespeare auditions and rehearsals are on the horizon. Alisha is beside herself with happiness over this. She is determined to act this year, and if they let her, also perform cello. She’s vying for the “lead horny guy” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, she says, Lysander. I know this play well but all of us get stuck on his name. We list off all the characters and count them trying the account for each and it occurs to us how absurd and hilarious this activity it. We’re talking Shakespeare inside. Dope. We laugh.  

There’s some pain too though, but it’s coupled with a resoluteness. Alisha has just (again) separated from her partner. So-and-So had become whorephobic and jealous, not wanting LeLe to write to pen pals who might offer some monetary security. LeLe put her foot down: “If she can’t handle this small hustle while I’m in here, how the hell is she gonna be when I’m at work outside?!”

This lead into a discussion where she outlined the way in which other folx inside have been latching onto drama in the face of boredom or lack of control, constant picking at each other, getting people “sexuals” (the term for getting a ticket or citation for suspected sexual activity). But beyond this, the social minutia, the rumors etc, have been freaking Alisha out, and as a result she’s been isolating herself from others. In talking about tickets we started to discuss her active grievance writing against a number of COs who have been continually harassing her. She caught a goddamn ticket on Christmas. These sorry assholes wrote her a ticket on Christmas! She elaborated by listing their names and aggressive behaviors. She said the Black and Brown COs (like cops on the outside) exhibit worse behavior toward inmates. This really infuriates and depresses Alisha, and we talk about the way that white supremacy and abuse of authority creep into people (specifically cops/COs/detention workers etc). The political climate is confusing and terrifying to her, she brings up hearing about Trump and the Kim Jong-un bickering and threatening each other, she asked, very seriously,  if we would be safe in NYC, because the North Korean leader had alleged his warheads would reach the east coast. This was a truly bizarre moment, very surreal.

We then discussed Cyntoia Brown’s case, LeLe wants to send words of love and support and is frustrated by the lack of rights prisoners have with regard to writing to one another. She also can’t write her cousin jay because the warden has deemed he isn’t “immediate family.” We talk hunger strikes in North Texas prisons, the heating going out in Tennessee detention centers. I tell her about other prisoner actions planned around MLK Day. I’ve told her about DRIVE (DEATH ROW INNERCOMMUNALIST VANGUARD ENGAGEMENT) long ago but it never ceases to be such an amazing example of inside organizing.

This spurns a whole take-down of complaints about prison policy. Apparently Mp3 players are going away, the prison will be moving to tablets, which means no more buying music. The only option will be a very expensive Pandora subscription for $32 a month. Alisha has already said fuck that. She’ll stick to her radio. There are still no college classes being offered. The COs we ask on our way out are less than unhelpful about timelines. The only functioning program is the dog grooming work and it has an exceptionally long waiting list. Alisha can’t get work. Which means she can’t earn days. This climate has cause rumors to circulate. Rumors about time served laws, for every 1 day you get 7 back? No one at the prison has been able to confirm anything to her.  

In 11 days, it will be the half-way mark before parole. This means it will have been a full 4 years of incarceration for LeLe. Her birthday in also upcoming on February 11th, she’ll be turning 25 years young. This prompted us to recount how we found out about her case, and we all shared this moment of shaking our heads in disbelief. She’s family now. We have big plans for a new campaign launch on her birthday. She’s excited for our collective actions to come.

Then came the rush of “freedom plans.” Tattoos, movies, swimming, choreography, fashion design, this intense creative energy, travel, take out a goddamn credit card! We laugh as we brainstorm all the possibilities. She’s committed to organizing, and as she calls it, “giving back.” “I wanna be in the streets with y’all. I wanna show them I won’t be broken. I wanna free people.”

Her creative energy is palpable. She was able to release property to us, a poster, which won second place in the DV Awareness month poster competition the prison held. The irony was not lost on all 3 of us. Second place because, the survivors breasts were too big. “I made her too thick like me, and they haaaaated that, but it was too fire not to place.” On the poster are the words strength, support, Survived & Punished, Black & Pink, among others.

We update her about Sherri, her momma, having to send another letter to the warden about visitation. The prison still hasn’t reconsidered Sherri having access to visits to be with Alisha. We talked about communism, socialism and anarchism. A lot. (insert tilted laugh/cry emoji)

Her former pimp is now in Cook County she tells us, Alisha celebrates his comeuppance. I’m conflicted. I hold her hand, happy that she feels like he can’t access her in any way, but devastated another person has been added to the county’s cages.

It was around this time that one of the counselors walked by, she’s notorious for backing up COs, always siding with prison, and never believing Alisha or her fellow prisoners when they challenge the tickets or try to file counter statements.  

LeLe asked for a full run-down of the December 17th actions for International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. We reported on the vigils in Brooklyn and in Chicago. We shared that her poem was read in both cities to mourn and express collective rage. We talked about rallying for Yang Song and how the NYPD was responsible for her death.

As our visit drew to a close, Alisha shared that she was really beginning to see her priorities come into view; she could feel her own personal growth. She nodded decidedly, saying that she knew what she was about. She used the words solidarity, supported, loved and powerful to describe her various states of feeling. We hugged a lot. We blew kisses. And we were back out into the frustrating landscape of nothing.