Black News - Freedom Archives

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Ever since the ."lack men was kidnapped and brought to this country, the u .s .s . government
has been at war with him to perpetuate his servitude . The bloods who heve rebelled against that
situation (mostly the youth) have been incarcerated in prisons all over this lar1 . Black News will
henceforth provide this segment of our/your paper a forum for these prisoners of war .
Commissioner Speaks
at Program on
Sing Sing's Possible End
Community people from throughout
Westchester County and New York City together
with prisoners at Ossining Correctional Facility
(Sing-Sing) attacked the failings of the criminal
justice system with Stephen Chinlund, Chairman
of the State Commission on Corrections in late
December .
Commissioner Chinlund met with the group,
that included members of the Black United Front
of Brooklyn, the Afro-American Cultural
Foundation, the Westchester People's Action
Coalition of White Plains, the Ossining branch
NAACP, and the host, Sing-Sing branch
NAACP .
The prison's 150-year presence in the sleepy
town, which is located 30 miles north of
Manhattan, has become a controversy of late
since a group of local realtors hit upon the idea
of getting the state to sell the property for private
development . The problem for local Blacks is
that many of the old families have lived in the
Sing-Sing area since the last century . Naturally,
redevelopment would mean not only tearing
down the prison buildings, but the homes in that
vicinity as well .
The people at the meeting saw the plans as
another attempt at "Negro Removal" that is
occurring across the country . Sing-Sing is
surrounded by Blacks on the outside, and is filled
with Black and Latin l_)cople, both inmates and
guards, on the inside . If the place were closed,
inmates would be moved further upstate, and the
guards could either hope for transfers to citybased
prisons or go upstate too.Chinlund tried to
assure all that Sing-Sing can't close because of
the fact that prison populations are so big and
growing . He said this despite the fact that Gov .
Hugh Carey, swinging through town on a
campaign tour was quoted as having said,
"We're going to get that prison out of
Ossining ." Contradictorily, Carey later
appropriated $3 million for the upkeep of Sing-
Sing, which enraged local politicians . The future
of Sing-Sing a_ s yet remains undecided,, however .
While still at Sing-Sing inmates find a serious
lack of programs . The General Equivalency
Diploma program doesn't work, and collegelevel
offerings don't exist . The merits of
rehabilitation programs, work release programs,
and school release programs are well-known and
badly needed in a facility like Sing-Sing .
The Ku Klux Klan is alive and functioning
inside state prisons and Bro . Frank Khali Abney
(a member of the August 8th Brigade, indicted in
a riot at Eastern Correctional Facility in
Napanoch, N .Y . that stemmed from Klan
activity) has charged the State with protecting
Klansmen rather that working to wipe them out .
In the meeting at the prison, Chinlund admitted
that racism is rampant on the inside, and that the
Commission is not stopping it .
The strip search, attacked as a degrading
procedure, was defended by the Commissioner
as necessary to control contraband . Every time
an inmate has contact with an outside person, he
has to strip, lift his genitals, bend over and
spread his buttocks . Despite the practice, drugs,
and other forbidden items still show up inside the
prison, meaning that contraband gets in_by other
means, the most obvious being through the
guards . The procedure, a time for degenerate
jokes from inspecting officers, is being-contested
in the courts, but the state is dragging its feet in
changing its policy .
Visitors wait, sometimes for hours before they
see their loved ones in the visiting area where
guards saunter around, interrupting with rude
commands . The aggravation of having-to suffer
these and other indignities appears to be a part of
a continued effort to discourage visiting or make
it miserable .
The answers to the questions asked of Chinlund
probably only reinforced what the askers already
knew : Nobody is going to take care of us for us .
The whole session should have served as reality
therapy for those outside who can forget those
inside and those inside who thought that nobody
outside cared . The next step is to pool energy,
thought, experiences, and information to make
sure that our interests, which really are one, are
protected .