The Ohio Adult Parole Authority

From The Final Straw.

The Ohio Adult Parole Authority. It was started in the early twentieth century after the Ohio Penitentiary caught fire and a lot of prisoners died. At its inception, the parole board was to act as a mechanism to reduce the prison population responsibly.

It never seemed to do that.

In its modern incarnation, the parole board has been rife with abuses and scandal. In its hey-day in the 1990s, when every prisoner had to appear before the board due to indeterminate sentencing schemes, the parole board was at its worst. Then Board Chair Margaret Ghee would routinely issue a prisoner a five-year continuance of his sentence, then make him an offer: he could keep the five years or trade them in for the Penny Trick. For however many of the ten pennies she dropped hit the floor when she let go of them, the prisoner would do a year. If the prisoner opted for the pennies and caught all ten, he could go home. If he missed all ten, he’d end up with ten years.

If he opted for the Penny Trick, Margaret Ghee would chuck the ten pennies over her shoulder and as they hit the floor, she’d say, “Ten years. Get out.” Continue reading →

Shitville Sticking it to Robert Mahone, Hunger Conspirator: Buried in Medical Dungeon with Broken Jaw, Wearing Same Underwear for Weeks… Seeks Help for Lawsuit Against ODRC and JPay

Robert “Skinny” Mahone had been my next door neighbor since we both transferred from the Ohio State Penitentiary to L-block at Lucasville (for a captivating account of that rip-roaring adventure, check out “Prison Bus to Shitville,”). Skinny got
pepper sprayed and dragged to the hole by racist fuckweasels (for a captivating account of THAT fuckin’ madness, check out “The Hunger Conspiracy“). Because all of you savage cannibal maniacs out there beyond the fence mounted an all-out assault on the Shitville fuckweasels, they dusted Skinny off and returned him to his cell on L-block, his balls still burning from the pepper spray they smeared in his underwear (he called this “waterboarding his nuts”).
But Skinny was no longer my neighbor when I left Shitville on a surprise trip to Warren Correctional. Skinny was in the hospital.

Here’s what happened:
JPay sucks. At Shitville, JPay has four kiosks for general use in the library and two in the gym. Routinely, most of them are broken. This leads to a log-jam as sixty to eighty prisoners attempt to get or send emails or download music in the span of an hour. In the library, for about a week, only one kiosk was working. This led to a whole block of angry maximum security prisoners ready to rumble. Skinny and another prisoner named ATL had a heated exchange over ATL monopolizing the only operable kiosk.
So, JPay’s negligence led to what happened next…
Continue reading →

Paul and Nancy’s Kid…

From The Final Straw Radio.

My parents are old. Old enough that this past Friday, they celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary. My mom is 70 and my dad is 69. He likes to tell everyone he is a decade younger than my mom. He thinks that’s funny. My mom, not so much.

My mom and dad do not know me as Anarchist prisoner Sean Swain. They know me as the idiot they embarrassed all through high school by showing every one of his girlfriends the photograph of him as a kid sitting on the toilet reading a comic book. See, when someone has a picture of you reading a comic book on the toilet , there is really no way later on in life to persuade them as to what an influential thinker you are.

Needless to say, my parents are not anarchists. My dad worked for Ford and retired from the factory after 30 years on the job. My mom was a stay at home mom. They have always paid their taxes and have never been late on a bill. Though they are neither Democrat nor Republican but register independents. They are patriotic. They have an American flag flying from their awning. Their 50^th wedding anniversary was undoubtedly to them a landmark moment indicating they have lived their lives the right way, following the rules. Their allegiance to the larger systems to them is central to their values, to their sense of themselves. Their identities as good people, good parents, and good citizens.

Continue reading →

Call in Successful! Sean is at 3A!

Last week, we sent out an urgent request that supporters call Warren Correctional and demand that Sean be moved to a 3A level cell block. He left SOCF in mid August, he was supposed to be sent to 3A, but was instead “accidentally placed in a 3B unit. 3B is a disciplinary unit, where prison gangs ran things and young guys who were only in for short stints and had nothing to lose would pick fights and cause trouble a lot. At SOCF and OSP Sean was on higher security levels, which means 23 hour a day lock-down and not many opportunities for open conflict. A 3B unit is the place Sean would be most likely to run into hassles with other prisoners. Admins could use any conflict to justify putting him back in long term solitary on level 4 or 5.

This weekend, Sean’s 3B unit was transitioned to housing 3A prisoners, the level Sean was supposed to be in. But they didn’t leave him there, they transferred him with the 3B prisoners to another 3B unit. Continue reading →

Update on Sean and Urgent Call-In Action

We haven’t heard much from Sean since his transfer to Warren Correctional, and it wasn’t until one of us visited him yesterday that we fully understood why. His access to communication has been frustrated by a whole new set of obstacles. Read on for the details, and the simple action you can take to remedy the situation.

I visited Sean yesterday at Warren Correctional, where he was unexpectedly transferred two weeks ago. Sean’s transfer to a medium security prison was accompanied by a drop in his security level, from 4A to 3A. (Ohio uses a security scale from 1 to 5, 1 being the lowest security. Within each security level, “A” status is a lower security level, whereas “B” status is a disciplinary level of security).

Despite the security level drop to 3A, Sean is being held in a 3B unit at Warren with no indication of when he will be moved. The 3B unit at Warren is heavily-controlled by gangs and membership is a requirement for phone access. Sean is generally a well-respected prisoner, both for his many years in prison and for his reputation as an anarchist shit-starter, but he is in uncharted territory at a new prison among young wild-asses who, unfortunately, tend to direct their anger and defiance at one another instead of at the prison itself. Continue reading →

On Being “Good Danes”

During World War II John Steinbeck, one of my favorite fiction writers, wrote “The Moon is Down.” This work was so accurate to real life that real veterans of the resistance later asked Steinbeck how he, an American writer, had snuck into Denmark and snuck back out– his account so true that real veterans thought Steinbeck really witnessed it.

Steinbeck and others have argued that the Danish resistance to the Nazis hasn’t gotten the credit it deserves. Some go so far as to say the Danish Resistance was the pivotal factor that crippled the Nazi war machine, diverting resources and turning the tide in the war.

The Danes practiced sabotage, from the word “sabo” for shoe, referring to the widespread practice of throwing shoes into the machinery. At the onset of the occupation, the Nazis overestimated Danish support for the Nazi war effort and set up critical munitions factories in occupied Denmark. Big mistake.

The Danes resisted. One key component to popularizing the resistance was one particular handbill that was printed on a mimeograph machine. A nationalist appeal, the handbill was produced by the thousands and it was everywhere in occupied Denmark. Continue reading →

Sean’s Parents’ Fiftieth Wedding Anniversary

On August 21st, Paul and Nancy Swain will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. Many of their friends and family won’t be able to celebrate with them, including, obviously, their son Sean. Sean’s aunt is asking friends to send them a surprise avalanche of cards and well wishes. Paul and Nancy are wonderful people who have been supportive of Sean during his many trials in the american injustice system. Feel free to send them a card!

This is a surprise, so try to send em such that they’ll arrive on or soon after August 21st.

Here’s their address:

Nancy and Paul Swain
230 Dell Drive NE
Deming, NM 88030

Sean Transferred!

Earlier this week Sean was unexpectedly transferred to Warren Correctional. It seems he wasn’t given enough notice to send word out to supporters, so we’re not sure what’s up with this. Warren is a primarily level 3 institution, so Sean also likely had his security level reduced.

It is located near Cincinnati, so anyone there, in Bloomington, or in Columbus are now closer than they used to be. Sean loves visitors (and is more down to earth in person than his writings would suggest) so if you’d like to hang out in a big room with uncomfortable chairs, lots of sad people who are happy to see each other and vending machines that provide the best food half the people in that room can get, fill out some visitation forms and write Sean a letter letting him know you’d like to come.

His new address is:

Sean Swain
243-205
Warren CI
P.O. Box 120
5787 State Route 63
Lebanon, Ohio 45036

Prisons, Drones and BlastBlog

From The Final Straw Radio.

Two major events happened to the Ohio Department of Retribution and Corruption this past week, both representing serious challenges that confront the prison industrial complex long into the future. One of the events caught the attention of mainstream media while the other did not.
The first major event occurred at Mansfield Correctional Institution. A drone dropped a load of drugs onto the prison yard, which, really, is an event all in itself; and then prisoners who witnessed the drug drop caused a riot, fighting over the dope. Yeah. Dropping a load of drugs onto a prison yard has the same disruptive effect as throwing dollar bills from the balcony out over the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
This is the first time, to my knowledge, that authorities have documented a drone making a delivery to a prison. That’s NOT the same as saying it was the first drone delivery. Very possibly, drones have been employed in this fashion for quite some time and, quite frankly, with the proliferation of drones everywhere– even to deliver pizza –drone deliveries of all kinds to prisons are simply the new normal. Continue reading →

How the ODRC Medical System and The Federal District Court are Killing Prisoner Mike Santos with Apathy

Mike Santos is a prisoner here at Lucasville. He might be dying.
Nobody cares, including the federal court hearing his civil rights action.
It started with chronic back pain in 2010, which then turned into back and stomach pain. He went from Trumbull to Mansfield to Lucasville, seeking medical help along the way– to no avail. His medical condition has progressively worsened. It now includes chronic anemia, constipation, acid reflux, anal bleeding, fissures, malnutrition, and an inability to digest food.
In short, something seriously wrong is happening in his digestive system, making it impossible for him to digest food. He has lost 22% of his body weight, more than four times the amount that a federal court has found to be grounds for a “cruel and unusual punishment” claim.
Mike has filed, by his count, 18 complaints related to his medical situation. He exhausted 12 of those complaints through the entire grievance process.
In all these years, he has never been referred to a specialist. The most that medical staff has done is to treat some of the symptoms of his illness– giving him pepcid, tucks pads, suppositories, and vitamins.
Mike, in an effort to get to the bottom of this on his own, even read “A Complete Idiot’s Guide to Digestive Health.” In it, he learned that someone suffering bleeding and chronic anemia like he is suffering should be given an upper endoscopy with biopsy to rule out celiac disease, which is an allergy to gluten. So far, no medical professional has so much as mentioned an upper endoscopy– and for good reason: gluten dominates the chow hall menu and commissary. If Mike has celiac disease and gets diagnosed, the ODRC would have to spend the resources to provide Mike the appropriate diet.
But, if he never gets a diagnosis, the prison system can avoid all of that.
In all of these years of no diagnosis and no treatment, Mike’s family has contacted Central Office, the State Medical Board, the Nursing Board of Ohio, and state representatives. No one has assisted in any way. Mike has attempted to retain counsel, but no attorney will represent him. Prisoner civil rights actions have been so limited in recent decades, and state attorneys are so aggressive in fighting civil rights claims, that no attorney wants to take prisoner cases. There’s simply no pay-out and they are almost impossible to win.
After years of stalling by prison officials and stonewalling by doctors, Mike filed a federal civil rights action on his own. He filed it in English, which is his second language– he comes from a Puerto Rican family where Spanish is spoken in the home. He filed the action on 23 June 2015 in the Southern District of Ohio, Western Division. But, because he filed it himself, there is a special “dismissal” process that actions filed by attorneys can bypass.
On 30 July 2015, Magistrate Judge Karen Litkovitz issued a decision of more than a dozen pages, largely in legalese, referring to a plethora of legal technicalities for dissecting everything Mike presented. For example, according to the magistrate, much of what Mike presented is barred by time limits– despite the fact that the whole history relates to ongoing problems that Mike couldn’t bring to court until after exhausting the grievance process. So, because prison officials stalled him, and because his illness continued progressing (requiring him to file yet more grievances that were stalled) the court now chops his claims off at the knees.
The court is now deliberating about whether to adopt the magistrate’s ruling and provide Ohio prison officials permission to let Mike waste away and die of an undiagnosed illness. In the meantime, Mike Santos, a scarecrow of skin over bones, walks slowly to the Lucasville chow hall where he receives a tray and sits, staring at food he cannot digest, wondering how long he has left.
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CALL AND EMAIL THE FEDERAL COURT!
Mike’s pending case is SANTOS V. MOHR. Call the federal court at (513) 564-7500 or email the court at office@ohsd.uscourts.gov and DEMAND that Judge Beckwith REJECT the opinion of Magistrate Litkovitz… DEMAND that the court NOT allow Mike Santos to die of medical neglect!
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The following are assholes who supposedly specialize in assisting prisoners but did nothing when Mike Santos begged them for help. Feel free to let them know what you think about their complicity in Mike Santos’ slow starvation: