Transcript
Not Allowed To Write By Robert Johan Richter First, the timeline. On January 29, I wrote to the Superintendent of Orleans CF, K. Crowley, and told her that inmate Chris Fxxxx was in immediate danger of being raped by a serial sexual predator. She did nothing. The following Wednesday, he was assaulted (because of the rape situation), followed by a second fight, resulting in several inmates going to the box. The whole situation could have been avoided by simply moving either inmate to another dorm. I told the Superintendent last year that I had been moved to this facility specifically to block me from publishing my comics (on www.PrisonsFoundation.org). Orleans has a rule against mailing out "artworks" unless one has a hobby shop permit, and all the artworks must be sent out through the Package Room. However, the permits are only issued for supplies ordered from an outside vendor: Paints, art paper, colored pencils, and such. As written, this rule clearly applies to artworks made with certain materials, and may be a legal way to regulate "unauthorised exchange" (which happens all the time anyway. However, prison officials are strictly prohibitted from censoring , or even reading, prisoners' outgoing mail, absent a threat to the safety and security inside the prison. No such threat exists in this case, quite the opposite. I have a right to write about prison conditions, to mail those writings out in sealed envelopes, and to publish those writings, online or elsewhere. There is no rule or law anywhere in America that says I can't be paid for that. Furthermore, the courts have extended exactly the same protections to artworks as to the written word. No prison official has the authority to censor, edit, or prohibit a prisoner's writings based on their personal dislike of its content, artistic or otherwise. On April 28, I was called to the [draft?] trailer, where Sergeant C. Brakenbury told me that she had decided to destroy my outgoing "comic book", and gave me a dated contraband receipt. This was a neat way to dispose of my PREA complaint, sent to the Superintendent a week earlier. The Sergeant knew that the comic itself was PREA material, and that it contained the PREA complaint. Every DOCCS official knows that it is a crime to destroy evidence, so why did she do it? She tried to justify this by citing the Directive that bans inmates from running a business. My book was written to be published on a free website, no money involved. "It's still a business.", she said. In other words, I'm not allowed to publish anything anywhere. The law says otherwise, but she doesn't care. Apparently, she thinks that she can intimidate me into giving up my Federally protected Constitutional rights, and is willing to create a written record of her illegal acts. I have to wonder if anyone has bothered to inform the Superintendent of exactly what crimes are being committed in her name. My other mail seems to be going out, including a letter to a friend in Pennsylvania. She sent me $50.00, not as payment for anything, but a gift, so that I could have more time for my scientific work (by quitting my Tiring job in the mess hall). Sergeant Brakenbury told me I can't have that money, claiming that I can't make money from anything I do in prison. Where is the law? I can't complain to the FBI about any Federal crimes I suffer or see because DOCCS officials have retaliated against me with physical force for doing so before and have told me in writing that they will do so again. This is obstruction of justice, a Federal felony. Superintendent Crowly has a legal duty to protect me from crimes, whether committed by other inmates or by DOCCS employees. Instead, she is criminally conspiring with Sergeant Brakenbury to violate my rights, steal my property, destroy evidence and prevent me from exposing these crimes to the public and law enforcement agencies. Sergeant Brakenbury told me that both the Superintendent and Deputy Superintendent for Security had signed off on the seizure of my comic. Why? A rule about artworks made with art supplies has absolutely nothing to do with a book, whether it contains illustrations or not, when it is written on ordinary paper with a commissary pen. My book was censored for content, specifically the PREA violation, not because of any legally enforceable rule.
