Maroon the Implacable

The Collected Writings of Russell Maroon Shoatz

Russell Maroon Shoatz, Fred Ho, Quincy Saul, Fred Ho, Quincy Saul

• Publisher: PM Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781604868531
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Advocacy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Russell Maroon Shoatz is a political prisoner who has been held unjustly for over thirty years, including two decades in solitary confinement. He was active as a leader in the Black Liberation Movement in Philadelphia, both above and underground. His successful escapes from maximum-security prisons earned him the title "Maroon." This is the first published collection of his accumulated written works, and also includes new essays written expressly for this volume.

Despite the torture and deprivation that has been everyday life for Maroon over the last several decades, he has remained at the cutting edge of history through his writings. His work is innovative and revolutionary on multiple levels:
• His self-critical and fresh retelling of the Black liberation struggle in the U.S. includes many practical and theoretical insights;
• His analysis of the prison system, particularly in relation to capitalism, imperialism, and the drug war, takes us far beyond the recently-popular analysis of the Prison Industrial Complex, contained in books such as The New Jim Crow;
• His historical research and writings on Maroon communities throughout the Americas, drawing many insights from these societies in the fields of political and military revolutionary strategy are unprecedented; and finally
• His sharp and profound understanding of the current historical moment, with clear proposals for how to move forward embracing new political concepts and practices (including but not limited to eco-socialism, matriarchy and eco-feminism, food security, prefiguration and the Occupy Wall Street movement) provide cutting-edge challenges for today's movements for social change.

Appendix 1
A Summary of the Case Russell Maroon Shoatz: More Than Twenty Years in Solitary Confinement

This document was originally drafted by Bret Grote and submitted by the signers to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment, Mr. Juan Méndez, asking him to investigate Maroon’s case as an example of torture.

Factual Summary

Russell Maroon Shoatz (Maroon), a sixty-nine-year-old political prisoner, has spent the last twenty-one years in solitary confinement within the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC). During this time, he has not violated prison rules and has not been issued any misconducts in more than two decades. Despite his impeccable record, prison authorities continue to hold him in twenty-three to twenty-four-hour lockdown at the State Correctional Institution (SCI) Greene based on acts that occurred more than thirty years ago.

Background

During the 1960s and early 1970s, Maroon had been a dedicated human rights activist and community organizer in Philadelphia with the Black Unity Council and the Black Panther Party. In 1970, Maroon and five others were accused of an attack on a police station that resulted in the death of a police officer. The attack was carried out in response to the well-documented, pervasive assaults, beatings, and killings perpetrated against the black community in Philadelphia by police forces. Maroon was captured in 1972 and subsequently convicted, sentenced to serve multiple terms of life without the possibility of parole.

Maroon managed to liberate himself from prison on two occasions, once in 1977 for a period of twenty-seven days, and a second time in 1980 that lasted three days before he was recaptured.

During the 70s and 80s, Maroon was frequently placed in solitary confinement in order to repress his organizing ability, as he was and still remains an influential figure both inside and outside of prison. Maroon was placed in solitary after being elected as president of the DOC-approved lifers organization in 1982. In 1989, after a prisoner uprising at SCI Camp Hill in central Pennsylvania, Maroon was temporarily transferred to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, although he was not confined at SCI Camp Hill during the uprising and played no role in it. During his eighteen months in federal custody, Maroon was held in the prison’s general population without incident. Upon his return to Pennsylvania, he was immediately placed in solitary confinement, where he has remained to this moment in violation of his right to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

Conditions in the Restricted Housing Unit

Prisoners in the PA DOC’s typical solitary units, known as “Restricted Housing Units” (RHUs), are held in tiny, windowless concrete cells that are approximately 64 square feet. The cells contain a concrete slab for a bed, and a thin foam mattress is provided to sleep on. The cells also come equipped with a sink and toilet. The cell remains constantly illuminated, twenty-four hours per day.

Prisoners in the RHU are deprived of all meaningful social interaction, deprived of environmental stimulation, and severely restricted in the forms of intellectual activity that they can engage in. There is no educational, vocational, therapeutic or other programming in the unit. Reading material is often censored in order to control the ideas a prisoner has access to. Prisoners in solitary confinement have substantial limits on the amount of property they are allowed to possess. All visitations are noncontact, conducted through a thick pane of glass, during which the prisoner is handcuffed. Prisoners are served meals three times a day in their cell by guards who deliver the food through a tray-slot that is present in the middle of the solid steel door of the cell. The door has two thin glass slits for windows, providing limited ability to see outside of the cell. Exercise is permitted for one hour five days per week in a caged area not much larger than the solitary confinement cell itself. There is no exercise equipment or recreational items available to RHU prisoners. Showers occur three times per week. During escort to showers and yard, a prisoner may be subject to a visual strip search and will be handcuffed prior to leaving the cell. Often prisoners are placed in leg shackles as well.

Solitary confinement units throughout the PA DOC, including those Maroon has been confined in, are often populated with mentally disturbed and sometimes psychotic individuals whose incessant screaming, talking, ranting, crying, banging on walls and furniture, and so on make it difficult to concentrate, sleep, and hold onto one’s own sanity.

In addition to these general conditions of confinement, the solitary units in the PA DOC are rife with human rights violations, including physical and psychological abuse, racial discrimination, deprivation of food, yard, showers, routine retaliation, sexual harassment on the part of staff, refusal to provide competent and prompt—or even any—physical and mental health care, and more. Over his twenty years of solitary confinement, Maroon has experienced or witnessed others who have been subject to these further human rights violations.

During his time in solitary confinement, Russell Shoatz has experienced several serious health problems that have been exacerbated by the intense stress of the RHU, and by the inadequate health care provided to prisoners in solitary units in Pennsylvania. These conditions have included hypertension, prostate infection, damage to his muscles based on his being provided inappropriate medication, and development of cataracts in both eyes. Although he received surgery for one of his cataracts, he is currently in need of surgery to remove the other.

The imposition of such conditions of confinement for more than twenty years constitutes a flagrant violation of Russell Shoatz’s right to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment.

Rationale for Continued Placement in Solitary Confinement

There are two classifications for prisoners placed in the RHU by the PA DOC: disciplinary or administrative custody. Disciplinary custody is for those found guilty of violating prison rules. Administrative custody is a catch-all that has broad criteria capable of justifying virtually any decision to hold a person in solitary confinement. In Maroon’s case, he has been kept on administrative custody status for more than twenty years under the pretext that he poses an escape risk if removed from the RHU. This rationale overlooks the reality that Pennsylvania prisons are far more fortified than when Maroon last escaped more than thirty years ago, along with the fact that Maroon is nearly seventy years old and less capable of posing a threat. Preventing escape, however, does not explain the extreme sterility, isolation, and deprivation of his current confinement, which is instead punitive in design and function. Maroon and his supporters are also aware of instances of other prisoners who have escaped or attempted to escape who have since been released into general population. Finally, this rationale overlooks the fact that Maroon has been released into the general prison population by the PA DOC and the federal prison authorities since his 1980 escape without incident.

The PA DOC has placed Maroon on something it refers to as the “Restricted Release List” (RRL), which is a list of approximately eighty-five prisoners (as of August 2010) who may not be placed into general population at any prison without the express authorization of the Secretary of the PA DOC, John Wetzel. In order to be removed from solitary confinement, Maroon must first be granted authorization by the prison at which he is held, in this case SCI Greene, then by the Regional Deputy Secretary and the Secretary. His classification status is nominally reviewed every ninety days, although he is always presented with the same rationale (escape risk) and never told what is necessary for his release.

Further, during a visit with SCI Greene’s warden, Louis Folino, a visitor was informed that Maroon is being kept in solitary confinement due to an alleged plot to take over a prison in the 1980s and his role as an organizer. A mental health staff person asked Maroon about this alleged plot during a psychological evaluation a little more than a year ago. Maroon has no knowledge of any such plot, and if there is information regarding such in his file it is a fabrication. To the extent that Maroon is being held in permanent, life-long solitary confinement on the basis of secret and fabricated evidence his rights to due process are being violated.

Signatories:

Theresa Shoatz, Sharon Shoatz, Russell Shoatz III (on behalf of their father, Russell Maroon Shoatz), and the Campaign to Free Russell Maroon Shoatz (http://russellmaroonshoats.wordpress.com/), along with the following organizational and individual cosigners: Center for Constitutional Rights; National Lawyers Guild; Human Rights Coalition-Fed Up! Chapter, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Matt Meyer, War Resisters International, International Peace Research Association UN representative; Jihad Abdulmumit and Paulette D’auteuil, co-chairs, National Jericho Movement; Dequi Kioni-Sadiki, Malcolm X Commemoration Committee.

For those interested in fighting for Maroon, please write letters or make phone calls to demand Maroon’s freedom to:

Secretary of Prisons John Wetzel, 2520 Lisburn Road PO Box 598, Camp Hill, PA 17001. Phone: [phone]

State Correctional Institution SCI Greene Superintendent Louis Folino, 169 Progress Drive, Waynesburg, PA 15370. Phone: [phone]

To write to Maroon: Russell Shoatz, AF-3855, 175 Progress Drive, Waynesburg, PA 15370

To join the Campaign to Free Russell Maroon Shoatz, contact: [email protected].

You can join the campaign by helping with fundraising, legal assistance, outreach/education, publicity/media, volunteering at events, etc. When you contact the campaign, please include your name, phone and/or email, city in which you live, and the type of help you can offer. Someone from the campaign will get in touch.

Appendix 2
Manifesto for Scientific Soul Sessions

SSS members are united by the drive to prefigure a new society free of imperialism, colonization, racism, heteropatriarchy, and capitalist exploitation. We stand up against all forms of social inequality, and we stand for the dignity and self-determination of oppressed peoples. The leadership for this movement will first and foremost be women and oppressed nationalities. It is based on excellence and experimentation.

Together, as members of Scientific Soul Sessions:

1. We promote ecosocialism: the unity of humanity with the planet’s ecosystems. As aspiring ecosocialists, we aim for existence based on the same respect indigenous peoples have always had for the earth and returning to producers the rightful share of the fruits of their labor. We respect our Mother Earth as provider of all life on this planet. We take concrete steps to lessen our ecological footprint for the health and well-being of all beings and future generations.
2. We are building toward a matriarchal future, which will be the opposite of patriarchy, not its mirror image. Matriarchy will be a revolutionary future, in which the social construct of gender is eliminated and humanity is re-socialized, in which the values of caring, nurturance, creativity, compassion and collectivity dominate.
3. We denounce gynocide—the ways that capitalism and white supremacy have attempted to break the spirit of struggle by inflicting violence upon and de-valuing women and all we represent. Our decision-making process emphasizes imagination, improvisation and intuition leading the way into the new and unforeseen; perception, wisdom, communal balance, and the art of listening and reception, as ways to overcome brute power.
4. In all decisions, we keep the seventh generation of our descendants in mind (as taught by many indigenous peoples).
5. We recognize spirituality as an essential element in the struggle for liberation. Our name is Scientific Soul: “Scientific” because we seek answers and solutions; “Soul” because we believe in each self moving beyond its limits, reaching out to people, natural creatures and to the cosmos, imagining and doing the impossible!
6. We bring art and politics together in provocative ways in our quest for excellence and the impossible dream! We see anti-capitalist analysis and anti-imperialist aesthetics as the paradigm for a new way of being and living that is not dictated by Western capitalist values.
7. Through forward-thinking artistic creation and political organizing we realize SSS leadership principles of commitment, capacity, and clarity.
8. Recognizing the self-determination of oppressed nationalities and the strength of a United Front, our leadership is principally composed of oppressed nationalities and women. Each of us checks our privilege and takes responsibility to change the ways we reproduce our internalized racism and oppression.
9. We refuse to compromise and be made mediocre by institutions such as the NGO/Non-profit Industrial Complex. We aim to be self-sufficient.
10. We are intergenerational. We acknowledge the experience and dedication of our elders. We respect the energy and fresh visions of the young.
11. We are internationalist. We seek to build a united front across boundaries and divides.
12. We are revolutionaries! We don’t think capitalism is fixable.

Scientific Soul Sessions is proud to support the Campaign to Free Russell Maroon Shoatz.

For more information, visit: www.scientificsoulsessions.com.

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