My Brutal Inmate Experiences Are Proof We Need the Prison Strike

When I first heard about the prison strike currently taking place in facilities across the country, I was confused. A strike? Over what?

As someone who recently served a New York State prison sentence for a surveillance crime, I’m well aware of how miserable the conditions are. Many of the most notorious are the very conditions that the strike seeks to alleviate: slave wages, racist sentencing practices, and lack of rehabilitative classes, among others.

I spent two years in prison from 2013 to 2015, living in a constant state of anger and humiliation. I contained myself when an officer opened the stall as I was using the toilet and stared down at me, claiming he thought I was smoking and needed to check. I witnessed countless staff violations of prison policy and inmate rights, especially the rights of inmates of color, with no choice but to keep my mouth shut or endure a swift reprisal.

I rigged homemade traps filled with peanut butter to try and catch the rats that skittered under my bunk. I saw my facility’s vocational offerings dwindle to a choice between horticulture and flooring, and wondered how the fuck I was supposed to make my way in this world armed with nothing but the abilities to wax linoleum and grow basil in a greenhouse.

So it wasn’t for lack of an understanding about the issues that I found myself confused about the strike. It had simply never occurred to me that I deserved any better. The system will do that to you.

From the moment I first arrived in prison as a scared 23-year-old white boy, everything around me was designed as a reminder that I had no value. Of course there were the head shavings, the ID numbers, the uniforms—measures taken to strip inmates of their individuality, to tell each of them that they’re just one in a herd of beasts that no one cares about. No, it never got easier to be strip searched in front of another man. But the ways in which prison life broke down my sense of self were often much subtler than those well-known examples.

I remember watching an inmate porter on the sidewalk outside my dorm; he was peering down at the ground as though searching for a lost wedding ring. Every so often he would stop and bend down to pick things up off the ground, each one so small I couldn’t make out what they were from the window. Later, I got the full story. The man had come to prison with a wicked smoking addiction that drove him half-insane. Because he only earned 20 cents an hour at his porter job, he couldn’t afford to buy tobacco unless he wanted to starve instead. What I had witnessed was him picking up other inmate’s smoked-down cigarette butts. Back on his bunk later that day, he would pour the tiny amount of tobacco left in each butt into a pile. After a few days, he’d have enough for one cherished smoke of his own.

This is the level to which slave wages will sink a man: to the point where he has to choose between getting enough to eat and buying the one luxury that makes it a little easier to do his time. To the point where he doesn’t have enough self-respect to keep him from rooting in the cracks of the sidewalk for tobacco, stained with the spit of other men.

I remember being relieved that I made as much as $4 a week at my job. By the standards of the facility, that made me rich. Once, earlier in my bid, I’d made the mistake of not hiding what I had well enough from a fellow inmate. That inmate ended up threatening to kill me over a bag of pretzels. That’s how little his violence was worth. Thanks to prison, that’s how little I thought my life was worth.

It’s memories like these that leave me in awe of the incarcerated individuals involved in the prison strike. Not only because of how bravely they’re exposing themselves to an incredibly harsh reaction by prison staff, but because it proves that they, unlike me, have managed never to lose sight of what they’re worth. They haven’t allowed themselves to become so institutionalized that they forget the basic things we owe each other as human beings, regardless of context: humane treatment, a prevailing wage for a day’s work, the right to speak out against injustice.

Prison is full of inmates talking about how they’re going to sue the facility and get a big settlement, or meet a particular correctional officer in the parking lot after they get released. Most of these fantasies come from the same “every man for himself” mentality that governs so much of life in prison. They’re focused on the individual and on getting rich, not bringing about deep-seated change on an institutional level. This strike is aiming higher than that. It’s selfless, it’s for all of us, and it recognizes that no one is going to bring about these changes unless inmates take the lead.

Toward the end of my sentence, I was assigned to teach a re-entry course to other inmates. The crowning event of the final week of class was to be a presentation by a few nonprofits, assistance programs, and government offices from the surrounding counties.

On the appointed day, my students and I gathered in our usual classroom to await our guests. I felt relieved for the first time in months. At least today, for once, these guys would get actionable information that would help them in the real world.

We waited in that room for over two hours. No one from any of the agencies ever showed up.

When I think about the prison strike—about how hard I’m pulling for it, how encouraged I am to see inmates stepping up to help themselves where others have failed, refusing to let prison dictate how they regard themselves—I think about that classroom where my students and I waited in vain. I imagine the 13 of us still sitting there: lights buzzing overhead, an ancient fan shuddering as it rotates in the background, still believing someone might be on their way to help make things better.

Fuck it, I imagine someone saying at long last. We’re just gonna have to do this on our own.

Michael Fischer is a graduate student and mentor for incarcerated authors through the Pen-City Writers program.

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