Barrett Brown’s latest letter from prison


I have written before about journalist Barrett Brown who is currently in federal prison (see here, here, and here). The Intercept has been periodically publishing his letters from prison and they make for fascinating reading about life inside. He casts a sardonic eye on his surroundings and manages to wring humor out of his experience though I suspect that it is a lot more grim than he makes out. He has just been transferred to a different medium security prison at the Federal Correctional Institution Three Rivers after a series of run-ins with the authorities at the previous prison in Fort Worth that resulted in him being sent repeatedly to the ‘hole’, the name prisoners give to solitary confinement.

As is the case with the country at large, the rules within each federal prison are such that a large portion of everyday activity actually violates those rules — and in both cases, 99 percent of the violations go unpunished, while anyone who proves inconvenient to the powers that be can be singled out for retaliation. Technically it’s against the rules to give anything to another inmate, for instance, or to sell or trade or lend for that matter, but of course this is done all day without a second thought, often in plain view of the guards, not a single one of whom would consider objecting. There are other rules that are almost universally disregarded but can be invoked at whim; there is also a catch-all violation, “Anything Unauthorized,” on hand as a last resort.

The reality is that control is shared by way of a sort of makeshift federalism that varies in particulars from prison to prison but in which real power is always divided among the various gangs, the staff, and local and regional administrators in an arrangement that’s best described as a cross between the old Swiss canton system and China during the Warring States period, which I’ll be the first to acknowledge is not especially helpful. Suffice to say that it will take me the remainder of my sentence to provide a real sense of this remarkable state-within-a-state and its inimitable politics — the politics of the literally disenfranchised, who live their lives in the very guts of government without being able to rely on its protections, and so are forced to provide their own. Really, it’s a state-within-a-state-within-a-state.

Complicating matters further is the great extent to which prisons can differ, with the most pronounced of these divisions being that between the state and federal systems. Broadly, we federals tend to look down upon our regional cousins as “not quite our sort, old boy,” although I’m probably the only one who puts it in exactly those terms. The state prisons tend to house the small-time dealers, whereas the feds are more often home to the guys who supplied them. The state is halfway filled with such actual criminals as thieves, rapists, and murderers, whereas the feds are made up largely of illegal immigrants and drug entrepreneurs — people who have neither hurt anyone nor deprived them of their property, but instead made the mistake of taking all of this “free market” talk seriously. The character of the federal prisons, then, will usually differ from those of the states.

Brown is a very good writer with a keen journalistic eye. I fully expect him to be snapped up by some publication upon his release.

Comments

  1. says

    “whereas the feds are made up largely of … drug entrepreneurs — people who have neither hurt anyone…” Assides those who’ve had their lives destroyed by drugs, of course.

  2. John Morales says

    Nathan:

    Asides those who’ve had their lives destroyed by drugs, of course.

    Yes, they were held down and forced to do drugs, repeatedly, until their lives were destroyed.

  3. File Thirteen says

    they were held down and forced to do drugs, repeatedly, until their lives were destroyed

    It’s not just the drug-takers that are affected. If your child dies from an overdose you might reasonably say that your own life has been destroyed. And addicts commit more than their share of crimes in the never-ending quest for drug money. It’s a big mistake to suggest the drug dealers are devoid of fault.

  4. John Morales says

    File Thirteen, prohibition was tried and failed miserably; the ongoing “war on drugs” is a reiteration of it.

    (Also, note the regulated permission of alcohol and tobacco, both of which equally destroy lives — but people are only jailed for trafficking those if they avoid taxes. The hypocrisy is evident.)

  5. John Morales says

    Nathan, the issue at hand is personal agency.

    It’s one thing for government to protect people from others, and another to protect them from themselves.

    (But this is a digression)

  6. says

    Are you seriously suggesting that a drug dealer bears absolutely no responsibility in their clients overdose death? And it’s because the addict somehow had a choice as to whether or not to use the dealers product?

    That sounds like free market ideology taken to the extreme.

  7. John Morales says

    Nathan:

    Are you seriously suggesting that a drug dealer bears absolutely no responsibility in their clients overdose death?

    Not even slightly. But they provide the supply, not the demand.

    And it’s because the addict somehow had a choice as to whether or not to use the dealers product?

    Indeed; as I noted, it relates to personal agency. Do you deny them any such?

  8. Silentbob says

    @ 9 John Morales

    I agree with Nathan (@5), you display a shallow understanding of addiction.

    It’s the nature of addiction that the addict’s personal agency is impaired. It’s also the nature of addiction that supply creates demand.

  9. John Morales says

    Silentbob, impairment refers to a diminution, not an expungement.

    Also, if one is addicted to something, one is definitionally part of the demand for that something… so your second claim is circular.

    (Your equivocations are duly noted)

  10. Seth says

    The vast majority of drug dealers are not in prison, because they deal legal drugs, even if those drugs destroy the lives of the people who either cultivate or consume them (or both). Sugar, nicotine, and alcohol are each more deleterious and deadly than almost any ‘controlled’ substance (and, really, has there been a more ridiculous euphemism?), and yet the purveyors of these products are wealthy and productive members of society. By and large, those who consume the three chemicals listed are seen as being responsible for their dependencies, or at least on the hook for whatever ill effects come from them. (When was the last time you heard about a brewery getting sued in a drink-driving case, by the way?) Addiction is a serious problem, but it’s a matter of public health, not of criminal justice. If you think waving a magic wand and calling certain addictive substances illegal actually does one single thing to curb addiction, rather than making everything infinitely worse for addicts, you haven’t been paying attention to the last hundred-plus years of public policy and the history of incarceration in North America. If your answer to a century of disastrous public health outcomes is “more of the same”, you probably aren’t really concerned about addiction, much less the collateral damage that addicts inflict on those around them. And, no matter your motivations, your rhetoric only serves the cartels on both sides of the law, who all benefit from the status quo, to the detriment of nearly everyone else.

  11. Dunc says

    I realise this is getting very off-topic, but it’s an interesting and important subject…

    Are you seriously suggesting that a drug dealer bears absolutely no responsibility in their clients overdose death?

    Overdoses are almost always the result of prohibition. In places and times where addictive drugs which pose a risk of overdose (such are heroin) are available legally, overdoses are rare. It’s primarily the unpredictability of the purity of illegal street drugs that leads people to overdose. Even mere decriminalisation of users (as in Portugal) results in dramatic reductions in overdose rates.

    Well, accidental overdoses, anyway… If you start looking at intentional overdoses, then then the major issue is with OTC analgesics.

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