activism, Alabama, Autonomia, Autonomy, Bologna, General, Italy, Prison Strike, Prisons, Protest, StopCopCity, Transcribed, United States

Don Bosco Park Defense in Bologna + Bernard Jemison on Conditions and Resistance in AL Prisons

This week, two segments plus Sean Swain

Don Bosco Park Defense in Bologna

An image of park occupation in Don Bosco in Bologna, Italy with tree sits and a shack, buildings in the background. Also a photo of Bernard Jemison. "TFSR 5-5-24 | Don Bosco Park Defense in Bologna, Italy + Bernard Jemison on Conditions in Holman and other Alabama Prisons"
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First up, an interview submitted by audio comrades in Italy about the struggle against the cementization of the city of Bologna and the defense of Don Bosco park from the expansion of a university, highways… the whole urban landscape without the input of the residents so the city can move a school rather than renovate it. This struggle, including the occupation and defense of the park, represents an innovation in urban struggles in Italy which consciously takes inspiration from the struggle to Stop Cop City in so-called Atlanta and the activities of the park defenders has forced the left-leaning municipal government and mayor to temporarily suspend the cutting of trees. [00:02:04 – 00:27:10]

  • Transcript
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  • Zine (Imposed PDF) – pending

Bernard Jemison on Conditions and Resistance in AL Prisons

Then, you’ll hear Bernard Jemison, an incarcerated activist held in Holman prison in Alabama talking about conditions inside the ADOC recent calls for prisoner strikes in the state by the Free Alabama Movement and their outside supporters, as well as his views on the demands being made. [00:27:57 – 01:05:10]

  • Transcript
  • PDF (Unimposed) – pending
  • Zine (Imposed PDF) – pending

The demands that we mention are the following:

  1. BILL TO REPEAL THE HABITUAL OFFENDER ACT ON THE TABLE
  2. CIVIL CLASS ACTION LITIGATION FOR PAROLE ALREADY FILED. EVERYONE NEEDS TO SIGN UP.
  3. PAROLE BILL ON THE TABLE
  4. WE NEED TO ABOLISH LWOP AND CREATE AN AVENUE FOR JUVENILE OFFENDERS.
  5. NO MORE NITROGEN GAS EXECUTIONS..
  6. STOP SELLING OUR ORGANS.

A few articles on the subjects worth reading include:

Social media accounts Bernard thinks are doing a good job covering these issues:

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Featured Track:

  • On Point (instrumental) by House of Pain

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Transcription

I am Matthew, a researcher in Bologna and I live here in San Donato, the neighborhood where the struggle of the park is taking place. To give a general background: there is a project to cut down a small park in this San Donato neighborhood in order to move a school in. Instead of redoing it or fixing it, they want to destroy the school and build a school in the nearby park. This the general framework of a big number of new projects, urban projects, street projects, highway projects in the first neighborhood outside Bologna. Bologna is a small city, like half a million inhabitants. It’s projected to grow in the next years: they want to build new houses new streets, new highways nearby the city center. So within three kilometers from the city center. There is a project of a new tramway, the a lot of project of  new neighborhoods, new buildings, and the big project of enlarging the highway. Because these will they have not only the bigger flow of cars in the city, but also on a national level, because Bologna has a very important position with respect to logistic flows of merchandise and people.
So what is happening in San Donato is that for some month now, a group of residents of the neighborhood has decided to move against this project. They started with signatures, with articles in the newspapers with small events in the neighborhood. A group of students, younger people and others, decided to join the struggle. At first it was just… I don’t know if in English, you can say “consensus struggle”: try to influence the public opinion about the dissatisfaction toward this project. At the end of January, the municipality tried to start the project. So they arrived to start a building site, they put the fences up. I would say that this was the moment when something new started because some fences [were pulled] down. The [city was] totally not prepared for this, because they were only workers and some vigili urbano (which are less than police, I don’t know how to translate this in English). And so they couldn’t start at the building site this morning. From there, there was a presence of people inside the supposed building site that hasn’t allowed the building to start. This has grown, there was a small house at the entrance and then now there are occupations in the trees and a lot of tents. Right now, there are people staying there during the night, during the day. And the park which was already alive, has acquired a new life, a life that occupies.
The new jump in the mobilization was last week, Wednesday, when they tried to evict the people staying there and start the work at the same time. Because they realize that it’s impossible, because of the shape of the park it’s really impossible to try to put up the fences one day and start the work the day after: people would come in the night. So, they tried to do to start the work at the same day. And this was really strange, also, for this kind of mobilization and fight against the police. They pushed us away for a long time and at the same time because of the shape of the park we succeeded in encircling them again. Once, twice, three times they cut down like four trees, five trees. But at some point there was a breach in the police defenses and some people went up into the next trees that were supposed to be cut down. And so, at the end, after like six hours, they had to say it is not possible to [start construction] this way and is also unsafe, and they stopped trying to push us and cut the trees.
This was the moment when, really, we had the perception that what we did for the four months before was at some level succeeding. Two nights after that, a really bad thing happened during the night. There were high school students who had started to not only be there for the mobilization, but also be there during the night. So staying at the park. One of them was by the park and tried to escape in the park, but he was arrested. He was moved outside of the park, they use the taser on him, used the pepper spray, they beat them. And this was really another thing that moved the city, moved the movement in the high school. The day after, during all the day there was people just outside the judicial palace. People stayed until his liberation. His arrest was confirmed but he was liberated.
We had the strong perception that the normalization adds to small victories. And this was confirmed by the move of the mayor, which is a left-leaning Mayor from the Democratic Party. He did something which is quite interesting, because in some sense, it [was] considered that there was a victory it said “I want to meet the committee which is protesting against the project. And I want to meet, especially, all the people that started this mobilization.” But in this way, it kind of, by conceding that there was a problem, conceding that he wanted to restore dialogue, it is also a means of stopping the momentum that we gained the past week. [The committee referred to is the Comitato Besta, the residents who started the protest against the closure of Don Bosco]
Bologna is student city, but this neighborhood is not a student neighborhood. So it’s the first neighborhood outside of the city center, like 500 meters or one kilometer outside at most. B the neighborhood is more popular, I’d say, and is inhabited by people who have lived there for a long time. A lot of neighbors in the city, also nearby neighborhoods, are inhabited by a lot of students. When we think of Bologna, as a city with a lot of social movements, political movements, we must say that a lot of movements are driven by the student composition and the younger composition, which is not in most cases originally from Bologna. This is an interesting note because also when we think of the ‘70s, we have to think that the biggest project, the autonomous upsurge that took place also in Bologna, was driven by this younger composition. Meanwhile the Communist Party, which has almost always governed this city since the Second World War, found and finds its force in the more in the Bolognese people, in the people that live in the city in some neighborhoods, which have historically relied on to the party. Even after the party changed names, even after the change of brand, I would say because the Democratic Party of today is the Communist Party. There is a continuity of the organization, even if there is a discontinuity in the name.
Historically in this neighborhood, the welfare was good. The way that the Party was able to have a dialogue with the population was good. This school that they now want to move originally was a very interesting project of a urban organization that was made, adding a dialogue with the population with the pedagogists, with the architects. That was really interesting during the ‘70s and ‘80s, the Party decided to operate in this neighborhoods, listening to the people. Nowadays, the approval of the Party in this kind of neighborhood is totally dropped. The urban organization is totally driven by the money coming from European Union in order to renovate the city. The basic idea is to open more and more projects in order to control more and more money, in order to expand the city, which is considered to be too small. So at some point, the contradiction became exposed, which typically is not this kind of political this kind of struggle. But this fight is also engaged by younger people, by people, not from these neighbors, by students, by people that circulate in the social struggle in the usual sense. So, post-social centers, post-student movements.
We are experimenting, like the superposition of people from Bologna, people not from Bologna, and usually younger trying to do things at the same place with different frameworks but trying away to be at the same place. The discourse about the use of force, the discourse about the use of land occupation, even, or tree occupation is like something that goes on and on every day. But it’s kind of working  because the contradiction allowed it to compose in an interesting way. There are a lot of projects like this that moved the population and made a lot of small community of inhabitants criticizing the mayor for this project in different parts of the city, in different neighborhoods. I would say that the project of the highway, the pasante, is the  biggest one, the one that is, like kind of the example of them all. But there are tree cutting projects, or new building projects, or there is this tram way which is destroying some parts of the neighborhood. So there are a lot of things.
And the interesting things are, in my opinion, why in this neighborhood, this kind of force, bigger force and some success? Because elsewhere, we see a lot of critiques, even before this year. But the struggle hasn’t reached a threshold point. I don’t know exactly what is the threshold point. But I would say that a strange alchemy between people who are used to (or looked to) some types of practice, because of its political framework, its political mentality. And [between] people which inhabit a particular place with a strong sense of rooting in that place took place. This strange alchemy took place, and people from social movements have not such a place where they are rooted in anymore. There are no more occupied social centers in Bologna, there was a strong repression against the movements in the last years. And there were less and less, I would say, social movements that you know, that give energy to the more organized militants. So what happened is really that it’s different to say to see where the political militants are rooted in the places, real places with a real rooting with real knowledge of the neighborhood relations are very few.
On the other side, people from the neighborhood, people rooted in this neighborhood, the people with the social knowledge of what really happens nearby don’t have these framework practices. Not only a framework of practices, but also aptitude to look at the political struggle and their strategies. For example, nobody really neatly has tried to occupy the trees. It’s the first time but they’re from for younger people is more natural to look at what happens outside what happens in Atlanta. What happens in France, in Germany and say okay, at the Don Bosco (the park we’re talking about) it would be intelligent to try to occupy the trees. People from the neighborhood or their people, people that in some cases never did the political militancy in their lives. It’s strange [for them] to think something like that. But at some point the alchemy was really that there was this perception that we were mutually convergent, mutually compatible, and some power originated from this encounter.
A question I would say is that if we are able, in this moment after the opening of the mayor, if we’re able to use the power of this encounter to generalize it, to try to do it in other neighborhoods like to try to do it for other projects? Because if not, we have the feeling that the time for such an expensive, the emotional and the physical level: the time is against us. Right now we are in a strange and new position, because we had this week that I think was a winning week, even though there was this terrible thing that happened to the student. And we lost five or seven trees. It was, anyway, a very interesting week, a powerful week. Right now there is this move of the mayor that is opening the dialogue. We have the strange thing that we have to concede some dialogue, because it would break the alchemy, if we don’t concede any dialogue at all. The older population, the population which is more rooted in the city in which they were born, wouldn’t understand if there was no dialogue at all. At the same time, we we have to know that this dialogue is bullshit, this dialogue is only a way to make us look as powerless as everybody else. It is also like stopping the momentum that we gained the past week. And so, my feeling is that in some sense, we had the highest point of, I guess, the momentum of the struggle last week and now we are in a kind of moment where we have to think. The discourse is in this moment, circling around this thing, “what is the true democratic dialogue in the city?” But we know that in two or three months, at most, the mayor is trying to come back to the place when he thinks there will be less people there defending it. So this is the situation: we have these small victories, but we have to think strategically now, “What is happening?” How is this democratic discourse framework gonna be a problem for us.
The people that are circulating at this angle is probably the most interesting thing, because the struggle, as I said, started from a group of people living in the neighborhood, old people living there for many years. We have to try to reach what is happening in general in the city, not through the dialogue started by the mayor, but some other kind of talking, some other kinds of encounter. There is this possibility, because there are tree-cutting projects and building projects and new street projects everywhere. Because what is happening in this particular neighborhood, the source of dissatisfaction of the population, the feeling that you’re not listened to, is everywhere.
But at the same time is not so easy, because what happened was alchemy. It something that is not clear why it worked, it was even I think, luck in some specific situations. For example, the first time the fence went down… it was really interesting how it happened because there were some people more used to a direct confrontation with the cops, but also people that were not used to it at all. There were cops, but they are not real cops. It is really strange to say these but they’re kind of kind of cops which cannot really beat you. And so at some point what happened, there was a kind of a situation that allows that it was easier. And at the end of the day, the people, even people that were not at all used to the use of force said “Okay, this is okay, because they stopped the building site for today.” So this is also luck, I think. We have to search for this kind of situation in other parts of the city, because the fact that the building project, the new urban project catalyzing the dissatisfaction of the population is something which has built up for quite some time. It kind of synthesized the dissatisfaction with a lot of things that structure ones life, and that everybody feels that are decided elsewhere, decided in a sphere which is totally different.
I would give an example that may seem strange, but it’s not strange, it makes sense to me. So at the same time that everything I described is happening, there is this controversy in Bologna, because the mayor put the speed limit on a lot of streets around the city center. And why did he do that? Because it’s in the green branding of the city, because it’s a way of telling people to use their cars less, it’s a way of preparing people for different organization of the street traffic, and so on. But a lot of people who are with us in the struggle against the destruction of the park, a lot of people who feel that the administration is not putting attention into the green spaces in the city, the parks, the trees, the everything that makes the neighborhoods better… The same people say this 30 kilometers per hour limit is bullshit, such limitations are not green, they are impediments to the residents. So there are kind of two sentiments that usually are thought to be separate: the ecological sentiment; and the “I wants to use my car” sentiment. The common ground here is the fact that both issues are thought as something which is really imposed from above: organizing small things in your life, the things that are really personal, physically or emotionally, or the organization of your life. Because the time that you spend in your car is something that is really, for people that use car to go to work, something that you can not [affect], and this sort of change drives those people mad. 
Okay. And I think that the commonality is that different kinds of people are searching for subjects where these dissatisfaction in the ways their life are structured can precipitate into a critical issue, something that they can fight against. It’s not surprising at all when you encounter people that at the same times want to defend Don Bosco Park and also say that the ecological discourse of the mayor is bullshit. We have to say that this mayor is one of the best at making a green discourse, he’s the youngest mayor of the Democratic Party, so his green framework for the city is less bullshit than other politcians, but people are against it. Because people feel and at the same time that they are against the cutting of the trees, because they feel this common dissatisfaction with the strong organization of their live, and the places they live. It’s more strange for younger people who come from a militant background and from a much more organized political discourse to see the link between these two types of struggle.

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Bernard Jemison Transcription

The Final Straw Radio: So would you please introduce yourself to the audience with whatever name, gender pronouns, location, or anything else you want to tell the audience about yourself?

Bernard Jemison: My name is Bernard Jemison. I’m currently incarcerated at a Holman Correctional (Facility).

TFSR:

And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the facility, about what the conditions are like. I know that you’ve participated in some TikTok videos in the past and you’ve written about the conditions. But if you could just highlight what people may not expect or something to kind of paint a picture for people about the conditions there.

BJ: Are you referring to this particular prison or all my prison experience?

TFSR: Either, if you want to. I was thinking about Holman, but if you want to talk more widely about your experience, that’s welcome.

BJ: Holman is a small institution that only has one population dormitory. Besides death row, there is a population of about 170 guys that are incarcerated here. It doesn’t have the problems that other institutions have. I think it’s a condemned prison. What I mean by condemned, is that it’s so small, because four of the major population dormitories are shut down, often due to piping issues and plumbing issues. You know, the water isn’t operating as it should be, it isn’t functioning. So they had to shut down four major dormitories which housed maybe about 1000 guys. And so it is a small institution. We have a death row, we have one regular population that holds life sentences, and even up to as low as 20 years sentences. There is this feeling of a maximum security prison. On different conditions here, I would say for the most part it is better than other places but it’s still extremely poor. We don’t have a cafeteria area.

Well, we have a cafeteria, a kitchen, but there is no running water so they have issues, they can’t serve the food here. We have to get our food from across the street, at another institution. They have it, delivered over here. So that’s one of the issues here at Holman. As for other places, like I say, here it’s not so bad, compared to other institutions in Alabama. It’s a very small prison, with a lot of elder people.

TFSR: Yeah, and how is the situation with elders in the prison? I was reading from an article that in the state prisons more than 7,000 people are older than 50 years old, and about 2,700 are older than 60 years old. I guess with folks that are on a life sentence, that’s just an increasing thing that they are going to see. What kind of medical opportunities do people have in this aging community?

BJ: We have a number of medical issues here that I’ve seen since I’ve been here, and a lot of guys are not getting the proper help that they need. For example, one guy in my dorm had 5 hernias in his stomach. He has had those hernias in his stomach since 2015. We did a video too about it, and finally, the administrator got the medical administration to help him, to relieve him of it. And he hasn’t done much good. Just so that he won’t remain in a state or condition as he has been for like nine years now. It’s caused severe complications. They had to give him medicine every day to make sure that his bowels moved and other things because those hernias are all up in his torso areas. It is causing all kinds of discomfort. And I know other older guys – cancer patients who are not getting treated or get adequate treatment as they see it. There are several medical health issues that the ADOC has…I think they are trying to save money as opposed to spending money and treating these cases when they can let the guys be as they are and save this money. And what I see – it is in fact like in other institutions, they try to limit the money they spend on guys as much as possible for medical issues as opposed to treatment.

TFSR: Yeah, I’ve talked to folks in the past in the Alabama system who have described the policies of Kay Ivey as one of austerity, where basically the government is cutting off funding, whether it be for staff, or facilities, for medical treatment, food quality, cleanup or upgrades of facilities. And just holding the population hostage in order to give arguments: “Look, these facilities just aren’t up to snuff. We need to build new prisons and get contracts and big spending for them”. Does that seem like a motivator there? Is that how people understand it?

BJ: Yes it does. I didn’t quite hear the full question. But yeah.

TFSR: The question is: if it seems like an intentional thing from the state government so that they can get contracts to build new expensive facilities, rather than upkeep the existing ones?

BJ: Oh, as one politician stated: they are putting a band-aid on a gunshot wound. The new prisons won’t eliminate, and resolve ongoing problems: drug overdoses, overcrowding, the violence, and all the killings, suicide. They won’t resolve it, because as long as guys are living in a state of hopelessness, it is never gonna be corrected. So it’s a given that they will clearly not invest in the medical system, or that medical issues. And I don’t know why would they invest a billion dollars in this new company this week here. They say it’s a new company, but (it has) the same personnel. Just imagine having a new company, but having the same nurses, the same personnel, the same tactics, the same practice, which is medical neglect and saving money. So they’re practicing the same thing, but they allegedly enter into a billion-dollar contract. So it’s supposed to be a better medical treatment and conditions. It just isn’t happening.

TFSR: Are there any programs available? Either educational opportunities, continuing education or personal wellness classes, is there anything like that available?

BJ: Not here at Holman, Holman doesn’t have trade school, GED, it doesn’t have anything. You can get assistance in anger management and mental health counseling classes. Education, trade -anything like that – they don’t do that here at Holman.

TFSR: Yeah, I don’t know if the state just considers that when someone has a life without parole sentence -that in that instance it’s not a good investment or something like that, but it kind of denies the fact that these are human beings…

BJ: They can get a trade and a GED, but lifers without (parole)- have to pay for it on their own. They have no scholarships for this. They have to actually pay the cost of attending school. If the (people sentenced to) life without (parole) want a trade, they have to actually pay for it on their own.

TFSR: Do you have a life without parole or a life sentence?

BJ: I have a life sentence with parole.

TFSR: Oh okay. Being in Holman or in a place that doesn’t have any programs seems like it would negatively affect your capacity for actually getting seen by the parole board as bettering yourself or whatever words they would use for it in order to win parole, right?

BJ: Yeah. So you know, they don’t offer those opportunities other than mental health classes. And that’s gonna be a disadvantage when you’re due for parole. Now, the parole board does know the name of each program or programs that are available to the prisons. And they do take that into consideration that they are not [aviailable]…they still should call the administration to bring programs, to observe programs, to try and build programs. But that being hard to do ’cause like I said it’s a condemned prison that only has one population dormitory due to the water pipe being completely damaged and shut down except for the pipeline that’s going to my dorm. So it is a crazy situation and unfortunate. The main issue is that they are really forgetting other rehabilitative opportunities.

TFSR: Yeah, is there actually a housing facility that’s across the street? Where food is prepared? Or is that just a laundry and infrastructure thing?

BJ: Yes, another prison from across the street prepares food and laundry. So when we want to get our clothes washed, we send it and it goes on a truck, and goes across the street. So there’s sort of a facility which is Fountain [Correctional Facility]. When we want to get our meals, they come in a cart on the back of the truck. Just imagine, they put our food in these luggage type pods and they load them on the back of the truck and bring them over here. And they may be covered up inside of the containers, but still, they are on an open-back truck, that truck has no covering on it. In other words, there’s no sanitary way of delivering our food from across the street to over here. It is kind of absurd. Very crazy.

TFSR: When I’ve spoken to folks at Donaldson, they’ve talked about how they’ve seen changes over the last decade with the de-funding of staff and CEOs, creating the space for gangs to fill some of the management of the day-to-day operations inside of the housing units. I don’t know if that’s a thing that you’ve seen, or if that’s something that contributes to violence, or if you want to talk about that at all?

BJ: Well, they actually increased their pay. Their pay has risen. Now they start you off with fifty six thousand dollars a year wokring in the maximum security.

The problem is, they’re so short on officers. So many officers have been arrested. For either drug smuggling or assaulting inmates, a host of officers have lawsuits due to criminal activity. And that’s why they are so short. The other inmates have taken advantage of having so few officers in the places. And we have to patrol ourselves, we have to be our own security because there’s no security provided here. And all those situations – they don’t benefit all of us because a number of inmates are murdered, and a number of inmates are assaulted, a number of inmates suffer. With no security, we have to oversee everything. Anything goes in Alabama prisons. They are really short on staff mainly because of criminal activities by guards.

TFSR: Yeah. To talk about the violence that folks inside the facilities have suffered – I was reading that as of March 15th, 325 people had died in the Alabama Department of Corrections. It was reviewed by the federal authorities. The Department of Justice in 2019 found to be housing people in conditions violating the “cruel and unusual punishment” – Eighth Amendment part of the Bill of Rights. Alabama prisons have a five times higher death rate than the average of US prisons and it’s rising. That’s incredible and scary.

BJ: Yes, it is. You know, that’s another reason why it is a hopeless environment. I feel that the number one reason (and I tell everybody this) that there’s drugs and violence is you take the hope away from guys. 80% of these guys don’t have life without (parole), and they will return to society at some point. But when you decrease their parole chances, or even the ones who have shown they have rehabilitated themselves, through their references and rehabilitative programs, if you still deny them parole for 7 or 5 years, it seems that there’s a bigger agenda about government assistance. There is no justification, to be sending somebody off for parole, denying that parole, and dealing with them for another five years after that, when they have shown that they have been everything you ask them to be.

They see it as a punishment, that takes all the little hope they had. It takes away hope, it increases drug use, drug abuse, it increases suicide, frustration, this results in homicide, and it does all the major damage. And I even shared that with people who are in direct contact with our state leaders. The Parole Board should be investigated for what they’re doing. Are they trying to hold all these damn spaces by denying 90% of paroles, so that they could fill up a new prison? Is that their agenda? What are they trying to do? Gain more money by holding on to prisoners? You know, they get paid money by housing prisoners. Now we understand, that when guys die, they are using illegally their body organs for profit. What is the agenda behind what the Parole Board is doing? That’s the key question. That’s the start of all of the major chaos in the Alabama prison system.

TFSR: Yeah, I’m glad that you brought up organ harvesting. Our concerned listeners may not have heard about that, even though it did make international news. Do you want me to go into a basic rundown of what’s out there or do you want to talk a little bit more about what’s been happening with that?

BJ: Well, it was first brought to my attention by Robert Dotson. The brother of the guy that we first realized about his heart being missing reached out to me on a Thursday and told me that. And I was shocked. I did post it, nobody even knew that that guy’s heart was missing. He was having a personal doctor do an autopsy on his brother, to find out the cause of death, once they received the body home. It was about a week, the stall before the DOC returned his body home. His people wanted to know how did he die. So when he got the body, the doctor noticed that the heart was missing. With the heart being missing, it is almost impossible to determine the cause of death, so the guy reached out to me, cause he knows my involvement in activism. He knows a lot about me and how I have put myself at the forefront of these kind of issues. He reached out to me, he didn’t know what it would turn to. We end up getting him a lawyer, connecting him with all media personnel. And that story, once the media hit it, it blew up. People were in shock, that did not know. He notified me on a Thursday, I posted about it on Saturday, and we notified all media personnel from that point on. Now, since then – we know about several other cases of people that are returning home to their loved ones, and having body organs missing.. The story broke just recently. I think it was in October or November. That’s when the story broke in Alabama.

TFSR: Yeah, absolutely. And it was found that there was also concern from the other end. There were medical students at the University of Alabama who were concerned about where the body parts that they were cutting up and studying – had come from. They did some of the other work – corresponding to incarcerated folks and their loved ones, who are witnessing this desecration of people’s bodies. It sounded like the ADOC, or certain individuals, certain wardens, were involved in the sale of human remains from deceased prisoners to this University of Alabama, to their medical programs, so that they could use the cadavers or the parts in their program. There are ways that folks on the outside can determine if they want to be an organ donor. That’s a decision that people can make, a decision that people’s families can make. In this case, as you described, they do the autopsy, and there’s a heart missing, nobody knows about this. There’s no paperwork saying that the individual made that choice. That is utterly terrible.

BJ: And the reason why they were doing that is that for the majority of the bodies who were returned home, nobody was paying for an autopsy, it costs money to pay an autopsy specialist to determine the cause of death, when they were beginning to distrust whatever the DOC said. The DOC said, “Hey, he died of an overdose” or “he hung himself” or he did this or he did that. Most families were just accepting because they did not think that the DOC would stoop so low as to temper with the actual cause of death. There have been murders, guys being murdered by the police, and their families been told the cause of death is this. But once they get the bodies home, more of the injuries are clearly in conflict, or not agreeing with what the prison officials are saying. One guy allegedly died from an overdose, but his sister sees that his body has bruises all over it. Like eyes and everything, head trauma, as if he was beaten or something. Since then the DOC lost credibility on the cause of death, cause people don’t trust it. So families are now doing autopsies. And these autopsies probably will result in more revelation of organs being missing. It is blowing everybody’s mind that this was a repeated practice. It’s not certain how long it’s been going on. I just thank God the brother of Mr. Dotson reached out to me, and that he had a platform to bring this issue, along with many other issues that have been occurring in ADOC. This is maybe the most shocking of all, that these people would be so heartless and even stalling on turning over the bodies, and on top of that even keeping all the properties of the victim. A host of guys have died and the DOC said they don’t have any property. Some of the families just wanted to receive, to have something to remember their loved ones by, but they are not even turning over their property to them. The DOC is just running a dictatorship of a prison system. They are doing whatever they want to do and not caring about what happens to the guys in their custody.

TFSR: Yeah, I mean, it sounds reflective of what the Chinese government does with political prisoners, you know. This is obviously a different system but just to bring it up, when I was reading about this, I also came across news in Mississippi of the so-called pauper’s graves. They found a mass grave in the jail in Hinds County. Basically, the county had stopped documenting burials or had not been reaching out to family members or doing any work to reach out to family members of people who had died in custody. There’s no chance for a search for truth, accountability, or closure for the family members in those instances, if they don’t even know what happened to their loved one, who just kind of disappeared. But again, that’s Mississippi and not Alabama. It’s just utterly dehumanizing and disgusting.

BJ: Yeah.

TFSR: So along those lines, you mentioned that there’s a death chamber at the facility that you’re at. And there have been demands recently coming out of the ADOC and of the state of Alabama, to change certain policies, some of which reflect what we’ve talked about already, like organ stealing, but also the end of the use of nitrogen as an execution method. Would you be willing to talk a little bit about those circumstances and what you’ve witnessed?

BJ: You know, they were nervous here and trying to carry out the execution using that kind of chemical death for the first time. I think it has been examined for the first time in American history. Officers were concerned. They built plexiglass over all the bars near the death row chamber, to separate the guys on the death row and the guys in the shift main office where the officers work at. It’s like within 15 feet away from the actual death chamber, so they wanted to block that. They just didn’t know what to expect. We have been hearing about the chemical leak of nitrogen that leaked in this facility in Georgia the prior year that killed several employees. So here they were executing someone using the same chemical, and they did not know what to expect. The good thing is no one other than the guy being executed was affected by it. Nobody else was affected. But they did not know what to expect, the inmate population here, we were very nervous. Even though we’re not in the actual building connected to the death chamber, we were still nervous, because we didn’t know what to expect. And the priest that was in the room with the guy–his name was Kenneth Smith–the night that he was executed he testified of what he saw, that it went horribly wrong, it did not go right, the guy did not go to sleep like expected. In the end, he died of poisoning, he suffered, and he was tortured. And he rocked himself back and forth and he had difficulty breathing, all at the same time while he had a mask forced on his face and his arms tied down. And he shook violently, and all kinds of foams came out of his mouth. This is another disgrace of a tactic that Alabama is using. And it’s surprising coming from a pro-life state, which believes in life and promotes life, to go through this craze and find a way to put someone to death by contradicting anything they ever told that as a pro-life state, they stand for. And that’s disgusting. And I hear that they’re trying to carry out another execution in the same fashion.

And it’s terrifying for those guys that are back there on death row knowing that that kind of torture awaits them through t chemical, nitrogen gas.

 

TFSR: Yeah. That’s terrible. I am not a lawyer or a constitutional scholar, but if people had Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment, this would clearly be an instance, something you could point to, to stop this sort of thing. There’s an utter failure at the level of the courts and governance.

Alright, I did mention that there’s been circulating on the outside a call for a strike by the Free Alabama Movement, which has been involved in the past work stoppages or calls for work stoppages. Some of these points we’ve talked about, such as the change-up of the parole system. In that case, one of the demands was an abolition of the life without parole status, as well as an avenue for juvenile offenders, folks that are convicted as juveniles to not serve life without parole, which is basically a death sentence. An end to the nitrogen gas executions and the stopping of the selling of organs. This list has also been circulated by supporters on the outside including the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee in DC. They talk about demanding a bill to repeal the Habitual Offender Act being on the table. Is that anything that you want to talk about?

BJ: Specifically about the Habitual Offender Act?

TFSR: Yeah, I just wanted to see it going off of this list that I’ve got in front of me. If you have anything to say either personally or from experience with the other folks that you’re incarcerated with, about the impact of the Habitual Offender Act and what you’d like to see happen with that?

BJ: The Habitual Offender Act is ridiculous. Just in my dorm alone, there’s so many guys that are imprisoned with simple robberies, nonviolent, no injuries included, they get life without parole. Or maybe a sex case and get life without parole only because they were tried for previous felonies. And previous felons, like one guy got life without (parole) because one of his previous felonies was having a knife, being in possession of the knife at another prison that he got released from, and it got counted as a felony, they ended up giving him life without (parole). It’s obvious to me that the Habitual Offender Act is not only harsh, it doesn’t work. All it does is put people away for not-so-heinous crimes for the rest of their lives. So they’re gonna die in prison. So it definitely should be looked into and reversed. It’s not working, it’s not reducing crime, clearly. And all it’s doing is just holding up their space for the citizens of Alabama to pay taxes just to house people for many, many, many years. And as you know for yourself, the prison age population is rising. And these people actually pose no threat to society. Some of them I know, a couple of guys here have been here over 40 years. And older guys they are just no threat whatsoever. And they did not kill anyone, their only crimes are based on prior convictions. They gave them a Habitual Offender status, they gave them life without parole. So Alabama needs to rethink some of these old concepts, old policies they see us practicing, they don’t cause us to progress in the right way, in any kind of way. And all it does is to have us step back in the attitude and mentality of being tough on crime, but it’s not reducing crime. And this has not benefitted this state. That’s my opinion on the Habitual Offender Act.

Now, a couple of other demands that you mentioned. You know, we shouldn’t have to demand that people don’t sell our body organs. Some stuff should be obvious that they should not be doing [it]. When you have a system like this and it’s so corrupt, there’s no way it’s gonna hold up. They have a habit of continuing to break the law and doing other things. I think that right now the public will no longer trust the ADOC (because of) all the sneaky and horrific things that they do and that we didn’t know about them doing.

TFSR: Just to point to the Habitual Offender Act, one article that I read compared it to what in a lot of states were the three-strikes laws. Where you get a few felonies. And as you said, it could be something that’s totally nonviolent, could be possession of a little bit of marijuana, or survival crap like stealing some food or whatever, could be the thing that sends you over into this sort of funnel into life without parole because of prior convictions.

BJ: Yeah, absolutely.

TFSR: Yeah. The ADOC has been under review from the Department of Justice also. So it’s not only the citizens and community members in Alabama but also even the federal government, as bad as it can be, has been looking at and determining the malfeasance of and corruption in this system. As I alluded to, a group has called for work stoppages. Have you seen any sort of activity at your facility where people are engaging under that banner?

BJ: Oh, no. No facilities, other than in 2023. Then (work stoppages) had a great effect. It posed a real threat to governors and DOC officials here. They were concerned about work stoppage because of the effect that it had. The economic effect and also the threat that other staff members would actually stop working or they will go on strike themselves. But as for anything like that taking place at Holman – not at all, or other facilities, not at all.

TFSR: Do you think people are not participating or engaging in this because they’re not concerned about these issues specifically or for other reasons, like fear of repression or just poor organizing around the terms of this? Or what?

BJ: For the inmate population, there’s no unity, there’s not enough unity to do an adequate strike. And the last one which they feel the result had been no results, no positive results for us, really discouraged the guys from ever attempting to do so again. And that’s where they stand right now.

TFSR: Thank you for addressing that. It’s important work that you’re doing. In my estimation, by talking about this by getting folks on the outside on the page, where they understand what the conditions are like, I wonder if there’s anything that I didn’t ask about? What are the concerns that you want listeners to realize, that maybe they’re ignorant of concerning (in terms of) what y’all are going through inside of Holman or other facilities?

BJ: Well, I’ll just say until society cares more about how our government officials here in Alabama have a set way on how they address criminal behavior, prisoners. Not only, as you can see now, treat us like we’re nothing, or that we are less than human beings. I think it’s a habit, it’s a custom in Alabama here, where you don’t really acknowledge people who break the law as human beings. I think that until society holds them accountable – the medical neglect will continue to go on, they will close their eyes to all the murders, all the suicides that occur. I think they will continue to close their eyes to all these things, till our government officials or our citizens don’t hold them accountable – meaning until society will really care and say: “Hey, what’s going on in the old prison system needs to be changed and revised and we need to fit leaders in place that will really help turn it around”. Until society cares, it seems like it will continue to go on. Despite the lawsuit that the DOJ (Department of Justice) has filed against the Alabama Department of Corrections, this last trial, I think in November. Despite all of that people need to lead it, need to care more. Because when we have a person that sits in this environment, ?don’t think this isn’t a war-type atmosphere, and 80% of the population will be released at some point. They have to go back. So it brings society harm, it doesn’t benefit society, it hurts society, because this place should be a place of correction, and guys are not coming out being corrected. It will cause a problem. Until they provide adequate correction and reward good behavior, It will hurt society as a whole, and society needs to understand that. This is why the crime rate isn’t being reduced at all with them being tough on crime standards, here in Alabama. It will not be until you start to reward decent behavior and that’s pretty much it.

TFSR: Yeah, that’s very well put. Do you have any thoughts about how people on the outside can get more engaged in actively supporting folks like yourself who are speaking out about the conditions? You don’t have to have an answer.

BJ: You know, I mean, I think voting is good, media exposure is good, and sharing the news. Spreading (the news about) what’s going on in the Alabama prison system shocked a number of people. I’ve got TikTok videos that have been viewed millions of times, and not by just people here in the United States, but people who are abroad. People are shocked. So, bringing people aware of just how bad the situation is. I think others can help by spreading it also with our government officials, our leaders, people that don’t understand, people that don’t know, church leaders, people that are in positions of power to bring about change, and stuff like that. I think that spreading the word is the most effective thing that people can do to help bring change.

TFSR: If you’ve got a TikTok channel, do you want to tell people what it is or ways that they can find more of your thoughts in the future? Or are there any other incarcerated educators, influencers, or media personalities, (however you want to put it), that you think do a good job that folks should listen to?

BJ: Oh, they can go to Truth Behind Bars. That’s my Facebook page. The TikTok page is Prison_Talk. And they can see all the videos that I’ve been posting over the years. Absolutely horrific, and it’s eye-opening at the same time.

TFSR: Any other channels you want to shout out that do a good job?

BJ: Hope Dealers does a good job, Alabama Prison Reform Advocate Group. All throughout the state, there’s several of them. And all the news journalists–Beth Shellburne, Chad Morris, people who really cover this horrific story in Alabama and help bring awareness and highlight the things that are going on. I just tip my hat to them. Some of the people in my inner circle who are my diehard supporters, I just thank God for them and everybody else who is concerned about bringing about change.

TFSR: Mr. Jameson, have you faced threats or danger for speaking out?

BJ: All the time. All the time.

TFSR: Is there anything in particular that folks on the outside could do to keep you safer? When that happens?

BJ: You know, I’m a Christian man, I believe in the power of prayer. I think prayer is the only thing that saved my life, the only reason why I’m still alive, I truly believe. I don’t think there’s any intervention of mankind. Even though a lot of people have that vision, they stepped in and made sure I was okay. I went on a 17-day hunger strike. And it got to that, that from the lieutenant governor’s office, essentially, she sent two investigators to come and check on me. And I appreciate that. But I think only by the power of God. And I think that I’m going to be alive despite all the threats and all the hate and opposition that I face, from the guys in here, as well as the officers and all of that. But most of the guys know that I’m doing the right thing and I’m standing up for what’s right. And I think that’s the main thing that has me still breathing right now.

TFSR: Well, is there anything else you want to say before we close up this chat?

BJ: That’s it. Appreciate the interview.

TFSR: Yeah, thank you so much for taking the time and being so quick to respond. And those are great answers. And I hope this gets far and people hear your voice.

BJ: Yes. Thank you.