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                 People's Tribune (Online Edition)
      Second Anniversary of the Lucasville Prison Rebellion
                        Special Edition

                  Vol. 22 No. 17 / April 24, 1995

                 P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654
                        Email: pt@noc.org

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INDEX to the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition)
Vol. 22 No. 17 / April 24, 1995
Lucasville Prison Rebellion Special Edition

Page One
 1. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LUCASVILLE PRISON REBELLION
 2. THE LUCASVILLE REBELLION: WHAT HAPPENED
 3. 'YOUR ACTIONS ARE FORCING A NEW BREED OF PRISONER'
 4. REMEMBER LUCASVILLE!
 5. 'I HAD AWAKENED THE DEAD AND THE ADMINISTRATION DID NOT LIKE 
    IT': AN INVISIBLE SCALPEL
 6. A CALL TO DEFEND BIG GEORGE
 7. ATTORNEY CALLS LUCASVILLE 'A TESTING GROUND'
 8. OHIO INMATE COMPARES 'INSIDE' AND 'OUT':S AMERICA'S POOR: 'IN 
    THE PRISON OF THE FREE WORLD'
 9. LUCASVILLE: COULD IT HAPPEN AGAIN? WILL IT HAPPEN AGAIN?
10. A SPECIAL MESSAGE TO PRISONER CORRESPONDENTS:

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1. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE LUCASVILLE PRISON REBELLION

By The Editors

LUCASVILLE, Ohio -- Fifteen years ago, as the industrial north of 
Ohio began to buckle under massive layoffs and the streets of 
Youngstown, Canton, Cleveland and Akron filled with thousands of 
hungry, unemployed and increasingly desperate men and women, a new 
industry began to take the place of the rubber plants and steel 
mills: the warehousing of human beings. 

As the state's prisons filled more rapidly than at any other time 
in its history, the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility -- already 
the most notorious penitentiary in the state -- became the first 
prison, by a far-reaching 1981 Supreme Court decision, to permit 
the legal housing of two inmates in a cell designed for one. From 
there, the destruction of the last vestiges of human rights was 
the order of the day. The die was cast for the bloody siege that 
began Easter Sunday, April 11, 1993, and became known as the 
Lucasville Rebellion.

Today, two years later, the human suffering and injustice that 
bred the Lucasville Rebellion has spread well beyond the prison 
walls into the out-of-work, impoverished streets of America.

In 1995, the distinction between the 1.2 million people behind 
bars and the 75 million people below the poverty line is fast 
disappearing. The brutality of the prison guards parallels that of 
the cops in our neighborhoods. The withholding of adequate meals 
and medical care to inmates mirrors the proposed destruction of 
child-nutrition and Medicaid programs affecting millions of 
Americans in the "free world." And when the people protest such 
outrages, they are met with billy clubs and arrests as readily as 
the rebellious inmate faces the "cell extraction" and the 
sharpshooter.

This country is moving to a police state to control those on the 
bottom. Lucasville was a concentrated expression of that process. 
As Ohio prison activist Jacob Feurerwerker puts it, "Whatever they 
can pull off in their prisons, with regards to draconianism and 
takebacks, they'll do the same, in proportion, to the rest of 
society."

We now have the technological capacity to feed, clothe and house 
everyone in this country, to permanently eliminate the economic 
and social conditions that are swelling the inmate population. But 
a clique of wealthy capitalists, still clinging to an archaic, 
outdated social order, is  preventing the people from benefiting 
from that very same productive potential. 

It doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to tolerate the 
state of affairs wherein a prison cell can be built in a 
computerized factory while on the street a homeless human being 
lives in a cardboard box. Just as the men of the Southern Ohio 
Correctional Facility fought, resisting every effort of their 
enemies to divide them along the lines of color or creed, so must 
the rest of America's "prisoners" stand as one today, envisioning 
and fighting for the kind of just society we could and should 
have.

On the anniversary of Lucasville, we can say history will always 
absolve those who rise up against injustice. From the "outlaws" 
who risked their lives in the Ohio Underground Railroad before the 
Civil War, to the 24,500 Ohioans who paid the final price in that 
great struggle; from the workers of Akron who battled the rubber 
capitalists with the sit-down strikes of the '30s to the men who 
seized "L" wing on Easter Sunday 1993, the history of Ohio, the 
history of America, bears witness to those who take a principled 
stand.   

That is the lesson of the men of Lucasville. 

Inside this special feature, the story is theirs to tell.



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2. THE LUCASVILLE REBELLION: WHAT HAPPENED

On April 11, 1993, some 400 prisoners in the infamous Southern 
Ohio Correctional Facility seized control of "L" wing and began 
what was to become a dramatic and bloody struggle for human rights 
lasting 11 days.

From the beginning, the unity of white and African American 
prisoners became evident as desperate inmates took hostages and 
enumerated a list of 21 demands. Conditions at the overcrowded, 
sprawling 69-acre maximum security prison -- population 1,819 -- 
had gone from bad to worse with the installation of Warden Arthur 
Tate and the denial of fundamental religious, human and civil 
rights.

Under the guise of a federal court order to "integrate" prisoners, 
officials attempted to force known white supremacists to share 
cells with minority inmates, with predictable violent results. As 
far back as 1984, an emotionally disturbed, African American 
inmate named Jimmy Haynes had died after a "fight" with a dozen 
white guards. No criminal charges were filed in that case, or in 
the many subsequent acts of brutality against inmates of all 
nationalities.

As the Easter rebellion unfolded, the lives of reputed prisoner 
informers were taken and a prison guard was killed, reportedly 
after a corrections department spokeswoman publicly denigrated 
inmates' demands and discounted their threats.

As the world watched, the insurgents were granted access to radio 
and television to broadcast longstanding, unresolved grievances. 
Meanwhile, the state legislature's own Corrections Institution 
Inspection Committee admitted receiving hundreds of letters from 
inmates going back years regarding the subhuman conditions in the 
prison.

Finally, after 11 days, a "peaceful" end to the uprising that cost 
10 lives was negotiated between the state and prisoner 
representative Niki Z. Schwartz, a Cleveland attorney. But two 
years later, according to Lucasville inmates, very little of the 
21-point agreement has been honored by prison officials. Says 
inmate leader John W. Perotti: "Many of the same conditions, 
policies and practices that led to the rebellion are still in 
place."


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3. 'YOUR ACTIONS ARE FORCING A NEW BREED OF PRISONER'

[The following is excerpted from a statement in court by Michael 
Lee Wood, who is incarcerated in the Southern Ohio Correctional 
Facility in Lucasville, Ohio.]

Here before you is a man who as a young kid was bound over as an 
adult and placed in adult institutions to fend for himself. I was 
one of the lucky ones. I learned quickly how to be vicious. I 
learned how to survive. I learned how to set my fears aside and 
meet the violence in the environment with violence of my own.

We watch and the hate builds up like a festering sore. You give us 
laws you don't apply to yourselves. You discipline prisoners for 
the same crimes you commit against us. The wardens are an elite 
group, answerable only to the director, who is nothing but a 
political puppet. They do not discipline one another. That would 
look bad to the public eye and draw attention to the fact that, 
indeed, there are corrupt, cruel and inhumane wardens in charge of 
42,000 Ohio prisoners.

My methods may not be in accordance to the norms of society, but 
after 17 years of prison, I don't feel very normal. Don't 
misunderstand, I'm not here to cry about being in prison. I'm 
justifiably incarcerated, and I accept full responsibility for my 
actions. If I must live the rest of my life in prison, I can 
accept that. What I refuse to accept is the continual 
psychological tortures, the continual isolation, the treatment as 
if I am a mongrel dog, and the physical confrontations.

Let me tell you about Lebanon, where I was shipped from [the 
Southern Ohio Correctional Facility] and placed in a block by 
myself for six months, strip-searched and moved from cell to cell 
every day, shook down twice a day. The only thing I had in the 
cell was half a roll of toilet paper, a pair of coveralls and a 
blanket. When they brought my food, they laughed about it. Put it 
on styrofoam, slide it under the door. Don't eat it all at one 
time. There might be three or four peas on the tray. What kind of 
man walks away from that? What type of psychological effect do you 
think it has on a man?

No man wishes to live his life in constant turmoil wondering what 
tomorrow may bring, and knowing that whatever it is, it's not 
going to be productive. Your actions are forcing a new breed of 
prisoners, men who hate society and rebel against authority. Men 
who have so much time on their hands, they care about nothing and 
look for ways to fight the system.

I've seen the system work, and it's pathetic. I no longer have any 
respect for the laws of Ohio. I've realized long ago those laws 
are only for the privileged. So [don't] speak to me about laws and 
justice. There's a reason the woman's wearing a blindfold.  In 
good conscience, I cannot sit still and accept the tyranny of 
hypocrites. I may be a prisoner, but I am an American, in the 
strongest nation in the world; I believe I warrant more 
understanding than continual physical and mental abuse.

I'm here to make it known to society, the courts, we are a million 
strong, and your actions dictate a million reactions. We're not 
going to just go away and, at the same time, we aren't going to 
keep accepting more and more stifling isolation and abuse.

I'm not a man who recognizes holidays. But for 1995, I've made a 
resolution. My resolution is this: I will leave behind my more 
radical ways and do things in [an] attempt to resolve differences 
in a more civilized manner that I hope our administration will 
respect. Given the choice, I would much prefer to do my bit 
without unnecessary hassles.

But I refuse to live in conditions that see men beaten, abused, 
disrespected and thrown arbitrarily into isolation for 
indeterminate amounts of time. As a convict, I cannot and will not 
stand by and watch. I won't stand by and watch this happen without 
fighting a corrupt system. To stand idly by is to condone the 
injustices. My beliefs are far too strong for that.


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4. REMEMBER LUCASVILLE!

By John W. Perotti

LUCASVILLE, Ohio -- It has been two years since the Easter Sunday 
1993 uprising at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF) at 
Lucasville, Ohio. Prisoners held control of " L" side for 11 days, 
protesting gross human rights abuses and the total tyranny of 
then-Warden Arthur Tate. My brother Little Rock Reed and myself 
have uncovered SOCF documents illustrating that Warden Tate 
orchestrated the uprising so as to justify construction of a Super 
Max block at SOCF. He also instigated the uprising by interpreting 
a court order to de-segregate cells to mean instituting a policy 
of putting known racists in cells together and ordering that the 
only way a prisoner could refuse integration was to use force on 
his cell mate, i.e., one had to attack his cellmate before being 
moved to another cell.

This has been a tactic of prisoncrats over the years -- putting 
known enemies in cells, hoping that one will kill the other for 
the prisoncrats' sick, perverted pleasure. Many of the 21 points 
agreed upon by all parties to be rectified have not been done.

Many of the same conditions, policies and practices that led to 
the rebellion are still in effect.

Unit management still utilizes a snitch system; rules are made up 
daily and enforced arbitrarily; and those prisoners that litigate 
or are activists are passed over on security level reviews, 
targeted for repression. Racism amongst the staff is still 
prevalent, and wages have not been increased, yet commissary 
prices have. Beatings, called "attitude adjustments," by guards in 
the lockdown blocks are still occurring.

Ohio still refuses to use the Interstate Compact to transfer 
prisoners to other states. The only changes are that the cells are 
now single cells and they've hired more guards and have stricter 
security. Paroles are being denied to most SOCF prisoners.

In short, due to the public attitude against crime, the uprising 
doesn't seem to have resulted in a social or political awakening 
to the public. More prosecutions and convictions have resulted 
from this uprising than any previous one in history. The prisoners 
not involved in the uprising are bitter because of the increased 
repression at the SOCF.

Ohio legislators have introduced "get tough on crime" bills 
harsher than ever before in history. This is in step with the 
national trend of get tough on crime -- refusing to treat the root 
of the problem. In times of peace, prisons are the U.S.'s major 
industries.

The brothers who put their lives on the line to try to better 
conditions at Luke deserve our respect and our support. Trials are 
in process right now for the death of  SOCF guard Robert 
Vallandingham. Three prisoners have been indicted for murder with 
death penalty specifications, while the fourth prisoner who 
admitted to killing the guard is testifying against the three, in 
exchange for leniency. Yet where are our people to support these 
brothers at trial? They are not in the courtroom giving moral 
support for the brothers, a sign of the times.

As long as the politicians continue to misrepresent the people, as 
long as the trend toward crime and punishment continues, it is 
axiomatic that there will be more uprisings in the United States 
whose prisons are filled to bursting, breeding anger, hatred and 
discontent, warehouses for the poor. Building more prisons, 
stiffer sentences and hiring more police is not the solution. 
Statistics show that crime is not decreasing, and the death 
penalty is not a deterrent. We must make the politicians represent 
the people, to treat the underlying social aspects that lead to 
crime. Until this happens, our prisons are ripe for revolt.

[John W. Perotti, a Lucasville inmate and jailhouse lawyer, has 
long been a target of the authorities for his continued 
leadership.]


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5. 'I HAD AWAKENED THE DEAD AND THE ADMINISTRATION DID NOT LIKE 
IT': AN INVISIBLE SCALPEL

By Roosevelt G. Bellamy, #158-673

[Editor's note:  The following is excerpted from a letter we 
received.]

LUCASVILLE, Ohio -- Now, while being incarcerated at Lorain 
Correctional, waiting on a revocation hearing with the parole 
authorities ... I had a group of inmates gather every day in the 
pod's library in a group therapy program that I had put together 
for these so-called gang-bangers whom the judges had thrown the 
book at and given unheard-of time. 

However, after I cut into them with an invisible scalpel and 
showed them the contaminated disease which had caused them to lose 
sight of the world, for not only what they were doing to others 
but also to themselves as well, these same individuals who could 
not read nor write, were reading and writing and speaking as 
intelligent individuals within a 60-day time period.

And they loved their new selves so much, they would openly express 
their testimony to others, and my reward  to them would be to get 
them back into court and get their time cut or a completely new 
trial, all because they had been totally unconscious.

I had awakened the dead and the administration did not like it.

I was called to the deputy warden's office and questioned about 
what I called myself doing out in the population? I stated, 
"Helping my fellow young comrades learn the truth about themselves 
and today's society."

I was then grabbed up in my shirt collar and told by the deputy 
warden, while his four storm troopers stood on guard, "You will 
stop these so-called classes in your pod. If not, I will place you 
where you will stop, because, point blank, let those young niggers 
stay asleep, for if you wake them up too much, we will not have a 
job."

However, I didn't stop, because young (as well as older) brothers  
were still coming to me for a conscious awareness and even though 
I told them of the threat that was forcefully expressed against 
me, I gave them the wisdom which they were seeking.

For this, I was harassed persistently by the administration, from 
strip searches and illegal shakedowns of my cell two to three 
times a day, where they would leave my personal pictures of my 
family members floating in the toilet with urine upon them, which 
was all I could take. I asked to speak with a supervisor and was 
to told to shut my f------g mouth. I spoke up again to state this 
was not right and was forced up against a wall, handcuffed and 
taken to the Hole. Once there, after a week, I was found guilty of 
threats, which was a trumped-up charge just to remove me from the 
population. I was given six months in the Hole.

I now sit in A.C. (Administrative Control) in the torn, ridden 
aftermath of the riot at Lucasville Correctional, in a cell 24 
hours a day.

I am truly in the belly of the beast ... .


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6. A CALL TO DEFEND BIG GEORGE

By a Field Marshall

On Easter Day, 1993, the brothers confined to the Lucasville 
prison rose together and took control of the prison due to the 
repressive conditions created by Warden Tate and his regime. 
During the 11-day siege, broadcast on all stations, a brother then 
identified as "Inmate George" put his life on the line by walking 
into the muzzles of thousands of National Guard, State Highway 
Patrol, sheriff and FBI weapons to relay a message to the media 
from the brothers inside that the uprising was not a racial 
incident (contrary to what the prisoncrats propagandized to the 
media). Black, white and Chicano all stood united against the 
oppressors due to the oppressive conditions and policies set down 
by Warden Tate, and all wished for a peaceable end of the siege 
via negotiations, which the Department of Corrections was not 
doing.

"Inmate George" was soon identified as Big George Skatzes, doing a 
life sentence for a murder that a private investigator announced 
on nationwide television she didn't feel he had committed. After 
the siege, the guards who had been taken hostage publicly declared 
that it was Big George who had done the most to ensure their 
safety while being held hostage. He was identified by the 
Department of Corrections as being a member of the Aryan 
Brotherhood. I don't know about that, but I do know that Big 
George was a convict with honor and principles, and his 
involvement was to try to calm mass hysteria, due to his being an 
older convict who was well-respected.

Even though the guard hostages praised Big George for keeping them 
safe and trying to restore order from disorder, the Special 
Prosecution has kept him and the other spokesmen of the uprising 
in complete isolation since the siege, fabricated false rumors 
that he was going to inform on his fellow prisoners, and allowed 
Chillicothe Prison officials and guards to steal his regular and 
privileged legal mail, harass his wife both verbally and 
physically when she came to visit, and used every form of torture 
and behavior-modification tactic known to break him and his wife 
and supporters. George and the other negotiators have been 
indicted for murder with death penalty specifications for the 
death of guard Robert Vallandingham because all but one refused to 
testify against the brothers inside.

This is an urgent call for action asking all of you to flood the 
governor's office and the office of DRC Director Reginald 
Wilkenson with calls, faxes and letters demanding that George be 
transferred out of the north hole at Chillicothe Prison, his wife 
not be harassed, his regular and legal mail not be withheld, 
censored or destroyed, and that he be treated like the honorable 
man that he is, so he may prepare his defense. DRC officials had 
admitted to the media that they had been censoring his privileged 
attorney-client mail and they were reprimanded for it and a civil 
suit is pending on this.

The brother put his life on the line against oppression and is 
paying dearly for it. Your immediate help is vital. Call, fax and 
write:

Gov. George Voinovich
Vern Riffe Center
77 S. High St.
Columbus, Ohio 43266-0603
614-466-3555

Director Reginald Wilkenson
1050 Freeway Dr. N. #403
Columbus, Ohio 43229
614-431-2771


Write letters of encouragement to George, urging him to stay 
strong and letting him know we care:

George Skatzes
CCI #173-501
P.O. Box 5500
Chillicothe, Ohio 45601

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7. ATTORNEY CALLS LUCASVILLE 'A TESTING GROUND'

By Anthony D. Prince

PORTSMOUTH, Ohio -- R. Tracy Hoover reminds me a little of 
Clarence Darrow, the famous Chicago lawyer who once told inmates 
in the Cook County Jail that society's real criminals were the 
utility companies and wealthy property owners.

I'm sure he would shake off that comparison/compliment, but just 
as Darrow was the "attorney for the damned," R. Tracy Hoover 
represents some of the locked-down men of Lucasville, and he's not 
ashamed to admit it. 

"I've been going in and out of these prisons for six years," says 
the attorney who now represents, among others, Lucasville inmate 
Michael Lee Wood, once charged with a threat to kill former warden 
Arthur Tate and still regarded as "the most dangerous man in 
Ohio."

In January, Hoover talked about Wood in a Scioto County courtroom. 
"He's known ...  as being the most dangerous because he has the 
ability to think, to rationalize. And he has a willingness to work 
and sacrifice on behalf of not just himself and others, but for 
his beliefs."

Clearly, Hoover (who also teaches school) sees something of 
historical significance as he watches defendants dragged before 
the Ohio bar. "In the days of the Romans, the Jews were treated 
differently, as a class," he says. "In the 1800s, it was the black 
man in America. In the 1950s, they targeted the communists, 
people's political affiliations, and today, it's the 'criminal.' "

To Hoover, it's no accident that the government is scapegoating 
and targeting the prisoner while really aiming at millions of 
Americans. Outside his office window near the Kentucky border, the 
lush landscape of Appalachia hides the shuttered mines and 
deserted coal camps in this region of grinding poverty and 
official neglect.

"I had an inmate named 'Noodles' Workman," says Hoover. "He called 
Lucasville a 'concentrated reality': a testing ground for rules of 
society used by the government against the people."

Now, as he continues to represent inmates on various pre- and 
post-riot related charges, R. Tracy Hoover is aware that what he 
does is not winning him any popularity contests, but he doesn't 
care. He sees much further than the courtroom; he recognizes that 
America is at an historic crossroad. Says Hoover:

"What's popular is not always right and what is right is not 
always popular."


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8. OHIO INMATE COMPARES 'INSIDE' AND 'OUT'

AMERICA'S POOR: 'IN THE PRISON OF THE FREE WORLD'


By Ronald R. Hines, #194-189

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- I've been in the hole basically for standing up 
for my constitutional rights, by exercising my right to litigate 
and file a grievance. The address of the People's Tribune found me 
in a section of prison where conditions are far worse than the 
human imagination of hell could be. I strongly feel that I must 
step up, make my presence known, take my place in our struggle, 
because what the People's Tribune stands for is not esoteric, it's 
for every man, woman and child in this country!

I'm a revolutionary and I would like to voice what's really 
happening in these man-made hellholes called prisons. What's 
happening is slow death, mentally and physically, to those who lay 
down and accept the systematic genocide of the poor and 
disadvantaged.

I've been in the system a long time, and I've got a long time to 
go. In my case, there are no dead bodies, no one hurt, only money 
stolen in a robbery. Men in prison of the poor and disadvantaged 
class are political prisoners. We, as the poor and disadvantaged, 
need to come together as one.

The word "homeless" sounds out of place in this United States of 
America, the richest country in the world. They [the homeless] are 
in "the prison of the free world." They must live like dogs and 
rats anywhere they can and are denied medical care.

I wonder what would happen, and what excuse this country could 
give, if all the homeless went into food and clothing stores, and 
stole what they needed? Then, once they went to court and got 
sentenced to prison, then they would have three meals a day, clean 
clothes, medical treatment, educational and vocational 
opportunities and conversing with real revolutionary and political 
prisoners that are ready to make a change by any means necessary? 
Then the sole assignment of error in their appeals would read "I 
was homeless and this was the only opportunity left."

Now in the 1990s, if we don't wake up, the powers that be in 
Washington, D.C., and the state capitals of this country are 
drawing up a blueprint that will move back the hands of time 500 
years. I remember the "unity" we had in the 1960s ... and the 
positive results we accomplished. I know what fortitude, unity and 
fighting for what is right will do. I also challenge all those 
that "say" they're down for the struggle to support the People's 
Tribune morally and financially, and to attempt to make friends 
with a political prisoner in the system, to make that positive 
change.

Can you walk that walk or do you just talk that talk?

We can make a change, and we must wake up and see with both eyes 
open. Then we will know what direction we must go. In the land of 
the blind, the one-eyed man is king. I'm ready, what about you? 


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9. LUCASVILLE: COULD IT HAPPEN AGAIN? WILL IT HAPPEN AGAIN?

By Rabbi Jacob Feuerwerker

MARION, Ohio -- Nearly two years ago, a very tragic "prisoners' 
riot" took place at Ohio's Southern Ohio Correctional Facility 
(SOCF), also known as Lucasville for the small town near which it 
is located. Why did the riot happen, and could it happen again?

The reason why the riot happened is simple. There are not a whole 
lot of complex issues as the so-called experts will have us 
believe. Since 1983, prisons have been Ohio's only true growth 
industry in "well-paying jobs." Prisons are also the politicians' 
and bureaucrats' last great bastion of graft and nepotism. 

Simply put, prisons are very profitable to them. Irrespective of 
the fact that at $12,000 per year per prisoner, Ohio spends well 
under the national average of $20,000 per prisoner per year, 
Ohio's politicians and bureaucrats are still garnering a lot of 
graft and corruption from their prisons. 

This is accomplished mostly through kickbacks from purchases that 
are way overpriced, or kickbacks from items invoiced but never 
delivered. Sometimes it is accomplished through outright stealing 
by state prisoncrats of state prison property or food. 

Naturally, when there are two or three prisoners filling up each 
space intended for one prisoner, they'll pull off more graft and 
corruption out of a given prison space. I have witnessed it all 
over the years of my own unjust incarceration. Were I to start 
listing it, I would be writing a small book.

Naturally, with their overcrowded prisons being so "profitable" 
for them, Ohio's politicians and bureaucrats don't want to do a 
thing that would reduce their take of taxpayers' hard-earned money 
which they extort through taxation. This includes not following 
the laws on the books that are intended to reduce prisoner 
overcrowding. Naturally, they will then try everything possible 
not to follow the orders of federal courts to reduce prison 
overcrowding.

This is why the Lucasville riot happened. Back in the mid-1980s, I 
was incarcerated in that gulag for nearly 22 months (on my current 
term of incarceration). Though conditions were dire, Warden Tate 
made it much worse! For over 10 years, Ohio's gulagcrats have been 
coping with prison overcrowding by reducing the prisoners' 
property rights (privileges). Warden Tate made it worse by 
purposely celling two incompatible prisoners in a 58-square-foot 
cell intended for one prisoner. The gulagcrats claim the cells 
there are 63 square feet, but this is only true of the slightly 
wider corner cells. But keep in mind that the minimum personal 
space per prisoner is 50 square feet. Here, we are in cubes of 43 
square feet for two prisoners.

When I was first transferred to the Trumbull Correctional 
Institution, I asked the educational director and two other 
officials if the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections 
will follow the latest court-ordered population reduction, which 
was supposed to have gone into effect July 1, 1993. He said "no," 
but he promised me that there would also be a major riot in one of 
Ohio's prisons to forestall this order for at least two years, and 
afterwards, expect another riot, if the courts insist on reducing 
the prison population to anything resembling capacity.

Ohio's prison officials, courts, prosecutors and current 
politicians are a murderous lot. They don't care if they punish 
the guilty along with the innocent. In fact, they prefer more 
innocent people to be incarcerated, because we are easier for them 
to manage and control, and we are less of a physical threat to 
them.

It is the combination of all these factors that caused the riot. 
The most important one being that the officials wanted it. From 
eyewitness accounts, I read that a white officer attacked a black 
prisoner for no reason at all as this prisoner was returning from 
the yard. But the most important issue to keep in mind is that 
prisons are a big experimental ground for the politicians. 
Whatever they can pull off in their prisons with regards to 
draconianism and takebacks, they'll do the same, in proportion, to 
the rest of society.

In conclusion, all good Americans must be on guard to the games of 
the politicians and their prisoncrats, because we, the poor and 
middle class, are their true targets. Yes, it could happen again, 
and I feel that the officials are planning for it to happen again.


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10. A SPECIAL MESSAGE TO PRISONER CORRESPONDENTS:

In response to our request for articles, reminiscences, and 
updates on the Lucasville Uprising, we received far more material 
than we are able to publish at this time. We want to thank you for 
your contributions and assure you that we will publish the 
submissions we received in future issues as space permits.

We want to remind you that unless our inmate correspondents 
specifically indicate otherwise, the People's Tribune reserves the 
right to print, edit and include the name of the author of any 
correspondence we receive.

Once again, to those who sent in stories and who continue to 
contribute financial support, thanks!

-- The Editors


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This article originated in the PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE (Online Edition), 
Vol. 22 No. 17 / April 24, 1995/Lucasville Prison Rebellion 
Special Edition; P.O. Box 3524, Chicago, IL 60654; Email: 
pt@noc.org. Feel free to reproduce and use unless marked as 
copyrighted. Please include this message with reproductions of 
this article. The PEOPLE'S TRIBUNE depends on donations from its 
readers -- your generosity is appreciated.
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