Jacktown Lowdown

  "OK, men, this is Jackson. We cali the cells "houses", we expect you to make yourself at home and take care of it as if you.were on the streets. " And the process of institutionalization begins. By that I mean that you're encouraged to make a life of the existence in the penitentiary. We all do to one extent or another.

   This is a brief statement by Mike Danne describing the conditions he and 47 hundred other brothers have to live with every day in Jackson Prison.

   In order f or us to move to change those conditions, which we can, we have to have the conditions of this country's penitentiaries and prisons exposed to us by the prisoners locked inside them.

   For any of you who don't know what Jackson Prison, only 66 miles away from us, is really like, Mike goes on with:

   The beds I've slept in have all been lumpy. The toilets Ive had to use and sleep next to have all stunk and churn up whenever anyone on either side of your cell or above or below your cell uses their toilet. The water is always too hot to wash in and not hot enough for good coffee. I've never had anything more than a 60-watt bulb, naked in the ceiling to read by. Cockroaches have shared every cell I've had to sleep in. There has never been privacy to any real extent, especially at the dorm and farm. The food has never been really good, usually cold. There is a line for everything and always a long wait in those lines. The lights come on too early in the morning and go off in the middle of something every night at 10:00. The mail seems to always come too late for whatever it is that I might be waiting for. You have to go on sick call to get aspirin for a headache and that takes one or two days. Takes two or three days to see a doctor. I spent a week in the hospital for blisters when all I wanted/needed was a different pair of shoes that fit. You're kept constantly waiting, waiting for the doors to open, waiting for mail, for parole board interview, for parole board decision, for a transfer, etc. I rode in the back of an open pick-up truck five miles back and forth to the cannery in rain and snow for 25 cents a day. I've had books that I wanted to read, refused, people I've wanted to see, refused visits. They refused to let out a short story that I wrote because this obscene system had the nerve to say that some of the language in it was obscene. Spent weeks without prison staples (coffee and cigs. ) because their bureaucracy fucked my money up. I spent two weeks in the Marion County jail waiting for the U.S. Marshalls to return me to the luxury(Comparatively) of this prison. Two weeks with 44 guys in a cell with 20 bunks, in the middle of summer with no ventilation, with mostly 15-day drunks who puck in the toilets or on the floor right next to the tables where we eat and sleep. . etc.

   Many of the brothers in both Jackson Prison and Wayne County jail are right from rockin & rollin Ann Arbor, ripped off from their community and families. These brothers are trying their best to let us know what is going on inside America's cages, which has been a secret for too long.

  We can support these brothers by letting them know what is going on out here. The Ann Arbor Sun is to subversive & obscene for most block head wardens and prison officials to allow into any prison population, so information must be individually sent in by us out here in the community.

    We've got a list of some killer brothers & sisters and their addresses from all over the country. And they could dig having someone write and tune them into what's happening in the courts streets, the music scene, everything. (the only reading Pun has had since he first arrived is Moby Dick.

   If you'd like to start writing a brother or sister, come on over and talk to me about it at 1520 Hill St.

      All Power to the People ! !

      Free the Dragons ! ! 

    Bill Goodson, RPP