Kwame 'Beans' Shakur Speaks on Covid-19, Conditions & Repression in the SHU (Update & Call to Action)

The Secure Housing Unit is the most repressive unit in the Indiana prison system: 23-24 hour lockdown, solitary confinement, lights on constantly, starvation diets, and frigid temperatures, and illegal restrictions that deprive people caged there of the basic rights they are entitled to under IDOC Policy & Procedure. We are fighting to get people on the SHU access to video visits, normal diets like in general population, and the commissary they are entitled to receive under IDOC Policy and Procedure!

Kwame also speaks on the Covid-19 situation and how staff are spreading the disease within the facility, how Covid has affected his family, and the illegal lack of access to video visits on the SHU. He also discusses the repression he has been facing in response to his organizing against the federal executions taking place at USP Terre Haute. You can get involved in the fight at supportprisonlives.org.

Please listen to this interview with Kwame “Beans” Shakur and follow up on this struggle as it develops. You can contact and support Kwame by setting up an account at web.connectnetwork.com or try writing to him at Michael Joyner (Kwame) #149677, WVCF, PO Box 1111, Carlisle, IN 47838.

Update 12/25/20

As a result of this demand at least 20 prisoners filed grievances. In an attempt to censor those standing up for Our rights, the facility Grievance Specialist returned everybody's grievance without officially attaching a grievance number or allowing it to pass through the proper chain of command. Therefore no higher authorities know that this issue has been raised and there is no documented paper trail showing that i exhausted all administrative remedies. These are the types of prison politics and corruption that We must expose and challenge. The grievance process is the first step a prisoner must take in order to take his/her case to court or even challenge on a facility level to seek relief. Without it you cannot move forward within the facility or pursue legal action.

Our oppressors/captors waste no time in showing us that We have no human or civil rights in their eyes, and that Our lives DON’T MATTER. This is exactly why N.A.L.C and IDOC Watch are working expediently to develop the regional & national infrastructure and network to Unify the voices of those behind enemy lines. Without the organizational and legal support from the outside We will continue to be silenced and dehumanized inside these modern day slave camps.

In addition to the illegal denial of video visits, people being held in the solitary confinement cages of the SHU are not receiving the diets or access to commissary they are entitled to per IDOC Policy & Procedure.

Please listen to the statements below from Kwame ‘Beans’ Shakur and Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson, who are both being caged on the SHU, and respond to their calls for outside support!

On January 4, we are asking everyone to call Wabash Valley CF warden Frank Vanihel and the IDOC Central Office to demand:

1) That video visit kiosks be installed on the SHU and that the people caged there be allowed video visits in accordance with IDOC Policy & Procedure

2) That people caged on the SHU be allowed the diets and commissary they are entitled to under IDOC Policy and Procedure

Warden Frank Vanihel: (812) 398-5050 (follow extensions to reach the Warden)

IDOC Central Office: (317) 232-5711 ext. 2, ext. 3 ext. 2

Deputy Commissioner James Basinger: jbasinger@idoc.in.gov

#prisonlivesmatter