Jacq Williams,

 

I am writing in response to the open MI door campaign article in the August MI-Cure. I don’t usually pay much attention to MI-Cure because its usually a bunch of lip service about all the wrong in Michigan that never lead to any changes we can feel on this side of the walls. It always inform you of all the good changes that happen in other states that have no effect on Michigan, and no pathway to getting any change here, just talk. 

 

I am currently housed in segregation at Baraga Max. Really this whole compound is segregation even in GP you are in your cell 23 hours a day. Yes you can get law library once a week and some get weight room and gym but most of the time you are in your cell. These are single man cells and talking to your neighbor or the guy across the hall can get you an excessive noise ticket when it is not excessive. They just don’t want to hear your voice while they huddle around the officers station and drink coffee all shift is between rounds every 30 minutes to a hour. If you get a ticket no matter what ticket your sanctions will be lost of privileges which means there going to take your t.v. and mp3 player so now you are expected to sit in your cell quiety for however many days, could be as little as 1 day to as many as 30 days per ticket. So leaving segregation you have nothing better to look forward to just more of the same in a different unit. All you get is the ability to order commissary and use the Jpay machine where you can send mail and purchase music and listen to your music. So in reality all you gain is the ability to spend money with them, for getting off of seg. 

 

I came to Baraga August 2018 from a level 2. All I did to get here was write a Jpay to a family friend. That Jpay said, “check out this website and let Ride and Lowe know.” That was the national prison strike website for 2018. Rude and Lowe and her husband and brother and they are both in prison. I sent it on July 24th 2018 and they took me to seg on August 1st. Nothing happened from the time I sent it to the time they came and got me or even after. But they still wrote me a inciting a riot ticket and sent me here. I got here and they kept me in seg for only 4 months. Clearly it wasn’t that big of a deal because there is no way I would’ve been released from seg that quickly. On paper “inciting a riot” sounds horrible but when you really look at what happen it like, “what the hell?” so I get out December 28, 2019 and two weeks later I had a job. Which is also unheard of but due to my institution record I qualify for any job especially here because I shouldn’t be here, quickly I moved up to one of the highest paying jobs at the facility of 50 whole dollars a month. Never had a ticket or incident until 12-20-19 when I got into a fight. Now I wasn’t the problem in this situation. Four guys coming at me I have no choice but to fight and the camera shows this clearly. So I been here 8 months for a ticket less severe than the incite a riot ticket that got me here based on how they categorize the severity of their tickets, 3 months after coming to seg they gave me the porter job in seg. Which made me one of two people deemed trustworthy enough to be out of their cell all day to clean, wash laundry and whatever else they ask you to do. Alot came with that job because you have to deal with many officers emotions and I found myself walking on egg shells all the time just to insure them that I wasn’t going to snap and beat all they al because I’m a big bald head black dude which is a stereotype guys like me deal with. Thats largely based on the fact that I was out there around them hearing the bullshit they said about guys seeing the bullshit they would do. So I just quit the job. No I have never heard them call anybody a nigger but you can feel and sense that there is racism related in the way they treat us, address, us, and look at us. 90 percent of the 616 people here are black. We all come from lower Michigan. Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint, Saginaw, mostly urban low income areas. Of the 200 or so employees here only I look like us. Don’t none of these people give a damn about rehabilitating us. We just a pay check to them. All they do is throw 3 trays of slop through a hole in the door with just enough food to unsure you make it until tomorrow so they can earn that $36,000 a year off you. None of us are going back into there community so its clear that they don’t give a damn why are we way the hell up here with them? Clearly it is solely to help the economy up here. Why are we used to boost an economy in a community that we will not be apart of? Nobody sets visits, we 8 or more hours away aint nobody driving that far to talk to you threw a glass on a phone for 2 hours. Where we from you can go out of state and back in less time. Because I quit that job there is a campaign retaliation against me so who knows when I will get out of seg. I’m already 2 months beyond the usual amount of time. When I do get out there will be officer picking at me to put me back in seg so the more they keep you going back and forth the longer they can justify keeping you here. They make claims on paper that you are a threat to the safety and security of the facility. But that same person can see the parole board and get a parole. So how can that person be that much of a threat to a facility but get a parole. So clearly what they writing is a bunch of bullshit. Due to the pandemic every officer makes $75 a day extra in hazard pay if there is a positive case whether its staff or prisoner. They act as if we are a danger to them when the truth is they are a a danger to us because the only way we can get covid is if one of them brings it to us. So it seem we should be paid hazard pay for living here. 

 

While in seg we get 2 phone calls a month. Because of the pandemic we get a free 5 minute call a week. I can go on and on about how messed up prison is but deep down I know its pointless because nothing is going to change by me writing this letter, the real truth is I’m 12 years in on a 33 year sentence and no matter what I’m going to do everyday of it. Yes, I am guilty of a crime but I was extremely over charged for what I actually did. But at the same time I was wrong. If I was released today I can say 100% without a doubt I would not be a threat to anyone and would no longer be violent to anyone, ever unless it was defense of myself. So why is it necessary for me to sit around and be a burden on the state for another 21 years when I got the point already? The state of Michigan can put me threw medical shool at Harvard, anger management, buy me a house and car for around $100,000 and save $650,000. That a never happen but the point is that Michigan is wasting money on over incarceration when the answer is rehabilitation. 

 

You are welcome to use this in anyway you like. If there are any questions yo want to ask I’m here to provide honest answers. Please sign me up for any newsletters you offer or any that you are aware of about prisons, criminal justice, sentencing reform issues. Thank you for your time and hopefully something good comes of this Open MI Door Campaign and mass incarceration in Michigan, but I won’t hold my breath. 

 

Sincerely

DeShawn Foster 

The same way everytime Donald Trump leave the White House its a reporter with a microphone in his face it should be happening to Whitmer, she is the president of this state. The same amount of attention Trump get the our local stage she suppose to get on our local stage. The same way the reporters be at the U.S. capital questioning congress the same way reporters on the local level here has to do congress to hold them accountable. Any change has to come locally so why do our elected officials get to do nothing for mass incarceration with anonymity? You can not turn on the TV and ever find nothing specially about Michigan how we ever gonna see a change when nobody no anything is wrong but the prisoners and organizations like yours? Nothing ever going to change if we never put there feet to the fire for the whole state to see for themselves. MI-Cure can continue to write articles to prisoners and wont nothing ever change because we don’t have the power to force change. The only people benefiting from our incarceration is mostly white MDOC employees. Why would they change anything that benefit them? They keep talking about the population declining and they closing prisons. They just not flopping people as much as they used to which is good. So that enable them to close level 1 prisons. When they repeat truth in sentencing and release people sooner than their ERD and start cloding level two’s, and four’s and gives thats a real population decline. To make up for not flopping as much people are just being sentenced to longer sentences.