Salutations Komrades,
It is imperative that I point out the ambiguous evils of North Carolina’s Department of Adult Correction (NCADC), Security Risk Group (SRG) policies and procedures.
Validating prisoners as “gang members” is not only a control mechanism, but it is a derogating process that targets prisoners of color. I’m not saying that whites aren’t being validated, I am a white prisoner who has been validated. But overall the percentage of whites who have been validated are very low.
One doesn’t necessarily have to be a gang member to become validated. If the pigs say you are, you are. We have no way to contest the validation. Pursuant to NCDAC’s policies and procedures, we are supposed to be offered the opportunity to attend a review hearing every 6 months to have our validation reviewed. No such thing is being done. Once we have become validated it is indefinite.
Now, I’m not so naive, that I think gangs/organizations don’t present problems for prison officials. However, the threat or problems they claim the gangs/organizations impose is hyperbolized. As aforementioned, I myself am a member of one of these gangs/organizations. Unlike what prison officials would have y’all to believe, we don’t operate through force, intimidation, or other violent acts. In fact if one was to research the origins of these gangs/organizations they will find they were formed to uplift and protect their communities.
The media, movies, and fictional urban books portray these movements as groups of super predators, when in actuality there is way more to it.
Admittedly, these movements have somewhat abandoned their founding purpose. But again, the media doesn’t cover the positive, only the negative. So the masses don’t see the good that’s being done e.g. food donations, mentorships, school supply drives, etc…
Similar to the media, prison officials focus on the negative which is why validated prisoners find themselves subject to policies and procedures that perpetuates conditions that aren’t right.
When a prisoner is validated he is prohibited to visit with anyone beyond immediate family. This means no mother of your children, aunts, auncles, girlfriend, fiancee and in my case foster parents.
Furthermore, we are only allowed to receive money from those who have been approved for visits. If one has no immediate family they are forced to go without the necessities one needs to survive in here.
Then there’s the lack of educational and vocational programs made available to those who have been validated. Such programs are needed if we are to become successful upon our release from prison.
WE ARE NOT A THREAT TO THE COMMUNITY.
ORGANIZATIONS/GANGS WERE FOUNDED TO PROTECT OUR COMMUNITIES. WE ARE ALSO HUMANS WITH NEEDS AND SHOULDN’T BE TREATED ANY LESSER JUST BECAUSE OF OUR CULTURES.
WE DEMAND THAT THE OPPRESSION STOP.
WE DEMAND EQUALITY.
We need to link arms and raise a fist and stand in unity for what we were founded for and stop being stagnant and thinking our situation is insurmountable. We are not the miscreants that the government portrays us to be.
Nelson Mandela said “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”
WE ARE THE PEOPLE, WE ARE THE STRONGEST.
Solidarity,
Adam Shelby Fleming #1365295
Granville Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 247
Phoenix, MD, 21131
Mongoose Distro 