John Bowden – Time To Get Him OUT!

Leeds Anarchist Black Cross | 21.09.2012 15:52 | Repression | World

Militant prisoner John Bowden has been locked behind bars for more than three decades, and the prison authorities continue to do everything they can to keep him there. In the past, he was punished with beatings and brutality to try and break his spirit, and to stop him participating in organised resistance to prison repression. In more recent years the State have used prison-hired quacks like Matthew Stillman, and now Marc Kozlowski, and scumbag Probation workers like Brendan Barnett to do their dirty work. Despite the recommendations of the Parole Board more than a year ago that John Bowden be moved to an open nick and be prepared for release, the screws are determined to keep John inside.

Below is a recent update on John Bowden’s situation. Leeds ABC are launching a new campaign to get John out of jail, details of a Day of Action, the first salvo in this renewed campaign in support of John, will be posted shortly. We hope that comrades everywhere will join us in supporting John Bowden and in demanding that he be freed from jail.

Leeds ABC

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Manufacturing artificial “Risk factors” to prolong and extend the imprisonment of some life sentence prisoners has become a fairly standard tactic by the prison system, especially in the case of lifers considered potentially “subversive” and “anti-authoritarian”, or those with a significant history of questioning and resisting authority. The complicity and direct involvement of prison-hired “professionals” (psychologists, psychiatrists, and social workers) in that victimisation is also an established fact. Indeed the prolonged detention of certain “difficult” lifers would be made considerably more difficult without their assistance.

Throughout the 1980’s and 90’s, John Bowden was at the forefront of the British prison struggle, leading and being involved in serious acts of resistance against the prison system, and was deeply politicised by the experience. Viewed by most prison staff as a committed and dangerous “trouble-maker”, John was often brutally punished, suffering years of brutality and prolonged solitary confinement. He has been victimised, in one way or another, ever since.

In June of last year, after hearing the evidence of an independent psychologist, the Parole Board decided that after 30 years in prison, John Bowden represented no real risk or danger to the community, and like the two men originally imprisoned with him in 1982, who were released almost 20 years ago, he should now be returned to that community. The Parole Board therefore asked the Scottish Prison Service (SPS) to transfer John to an open prison in preparation for release twelve months later. At the parole hearing itself, a representative of the SPS agreed to comply with the Board’s request. In reality, however, the SPS had absolutely no intention of preparing John Bowden for release, or even allowing him out of maximum security conditions.

Instead, a “Lifer Liaison Officer” (a senior screw) at Shotts maximum-security jail in Scotland, decided that John Bowden should be “generically assessed” for “offence-related” courses, despite the ultimate risk-assessment body, the Parole Board, after hearing the evidence of both independent and prison-based professionals, deciding that no such courses were in fact necessary. In the face of the Parole Board’s decision, and in defiance of its legal authority, the “Lifer Liaison Officer”, Martin Whiteman, appointed himself as the sole and ultimate decision-maker as to whether or not John Bowden would ever be released. Clearly, his view and personal opinion of John Bowden was deeply coloured and prejudiced by his essential role of prison guard over a prisoner with a “bad” reputation as a “trouble-maker”. Whiteman was also in contact with Brendan Barnett, a social worker employed by Edinburgh City Council, who had been given the responsibility of creating a post-release supervision plan for John Bowden. Barnett had instead written a report for the Parole Board full of lies and prejudice, and is now himself the subject of an investigation by Edinburgh City Chambers, Whiteman and Barnett had obviously colluded, with the aim of preventing John Bowden’s release.

Whiteman also interfered with the so-called “generic assessment” procedure in John Bowden’s case, and persuaded the prison’s “Prisoner Case Management Board” (PCMB), chaired by compliant prison psychologist Marc Kozlowski, to “vote” that John Bowden be made to complete lengthy “offence-related” courses, which have no relevance to John’s current behaviour and character, and are clearly intended to prolong his imprisonment. The PCMB subsequently refused to reveal both the identity of its members, and bearing in mind John’s offence was 30 years ago, what assessment procedure was used to justify his now being made to address patterns of social and criminal behaviour which no longer exist in his life, as clearly evidenced by the prison authorities previously allowing John to work outside with vulnerable members of the community and go on numerous home leaves. The decision of the Parole Board last year was absolutely clear in its view that John Bowden had changed fundamentally and irrevocably since he was imprisoned 30 years ago, and should now be prepared for release. In Martin Whiteman’s view however, John Bowden now, as a person, is probably more threatening and dangerous than the brutalised young man who entered the prison system 30 years ago.

Because John Bowden has refused, on principle, to cooperate with Whiteman’s demand that he attend wholly inappropriate “offence-related” courses, he remains warehoused in a top-security prison while Whiteman writes reports to the Parole Board claiming that John refuses to cooperate with a “Management Plan” and should therefore remain in jail until he dies. John Bowden is now, very clearly, being held in jail because of his history and reputation as a prison militant, and Martin Whiteman is using (and abusing) his position of authority to co-opt compliant “professionals like prison psychologist Marc Kozlowski into legitimising the victimisation of John Bowden.

The abuse of power in prison takes place because individuals like Martin Whiteman are allowed to operate with impunity, and have the support and compliance of middle-class “professionals” like Marc Kozlowski, who willingly provide cover for them. John Bowden, on the other hand, is isolated and powerless, and yet continues to resist and defy his tormentors. He should be supported by anyone who truly understands the significance and importance of the prison struggle.

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You can download John Bowden’s pamphlet ‘Tear Down The Walls!’ free of charge from the Leeds ABC website at:  http://leedsabc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Tear-Down-The-Walls-2010.pdf

Also check out a pamphlet recently produced by our comrades at Bristol ABC to which John contributed:  http://leedsabc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/cscs-torture-units-in-the-uk-screen31.pdf

Please send letters and cards of support to John at:

John Bowden
6729
HMP Shotts
Cantrell Road
Shotts
Scotland
ML7 4LE.

You can write to the individual who runs Shotts prison at:

Ian Whitehead,
HM Prison Shotts,
Cantrell Road,
Shotts,
Scotland,
ML7 4LE.

The Unlawful Detention of John Bowden

In 1982 I was sentenced to life imprisonment, with the trial judge’s reccomendation that I should serve at least 25 years before the Parole Board would consider my release. Legally, therefore, the trial judge had authorised my detention until 2005, after which a judicial body; the Parole Board, would have to authorise my continued detention. In the case of prisoners sentenced to life in jail, they are in fact set “tariffs”, which are the minimum and specific length of time they are to be detained in the interests of retribution and punishment. Once that “tariff”, or period of imprisonment, has been served the continued detention of the lifer must be authorised by the Parole Board. That is the law. It is a law also underpinned by Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

In June of 2011, SIX YEARS after the expiry of my “tariff” and the original trial judge’s recommendation, the Parole Board finally reviewed my detention. After a brief hearing, they authorised my continued detention for a further twelve months. That twelve months has now passed and I remain in jail with no sign of when my imprisonment is likely to be “reviewed” again. I am therefore being detained unlawfully.

The average sentence of imprisonment for holding a person unlawfully against their will, usually referred to as hostage taking, is ten years.

The prison authorities have persuaded a compliant Parole Board that although I represent little or no risk to the wider community, (a prime criterion for releasing life sentence prisoners), I am however a prisoner of strong “anti-authoritarian” beliefs and ideas centred on my relationship with the prison system, and fuelled by my contact with politically “subversive” groups on the outside. That primarily is why I remain imprisoned, and imprisoned unlawfully at the moment.

In 1982 I was sentenced to life imprisonment with two other men. Both were “model prisoners” and both were released almost 20 years ago. I remain in jail because of my activities in organising and protesting against a prison system that routinely and systematically abuses prisoners’ basic human rights. Indeed, by continuing to detain me without proper legal authorisation, my own basic human rights are being breached.

If the prison authorities are determined to detain me, even unlawfully, unless I compromise my basic human integrity by never questioning or challenging their abuses of power, then I am prepared to die in here. Before surrendering what is vital to my humanity, my spirit of resistance, I would sooner surrender my very life and existence. In fact, true human survival in prison has a fairly straightforward root: A refusal to compromise, even where there is nothing to gain. So if my captors have to now break the law to continue imprisoning me, so be it.

“You left me my lips.
You took away all the oceans and all the room.
You gave me my shoe-size with bars around it.
Where did it get you? Nowhere.
You left me my lips, and they shape words, even in silence.”
Osip Mandelstrom.

John Bowden

Please send letters and cards of support to John at:
John Bowden
6729
HMP Shotts
Cantrell Road
Shotts
Scotland
ML7 4LE.

Complaints:

Ian Whitehead,
HM Prison Shotts,
Cantrell Road,
Shotts,
Scotland,
ML7 4LE.

The Parole Board,
Grenadier House,
99-105 Horsferry Road,
London,
SW1P 2MX.

You can download John Bowden’s pamphlet ‘Tear Down The Walls!’ free of charge from the Leeds ABC website at:  http://leedsabc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Tear-Down-The-Walls-2010.pdf

Another recent article about John’s situation:  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2012/09/500392.html

A Day of Action in support of John Bowden is being organised for Friday 19th October. Call-out will be released shortly. Please start organising support activities. John Bowden deserves our solidarity.

Leeds ABC

This is a call out for a new letter writing campaign to protest the treatment of Jerome White-Bey, who yet again is being held in isolation on the punishment blocks under a false investigation. His situation in his own words:

I would like to bring your attention to the abuse, harassment, and unjust treatment I have been receiving at the hands of prison officials over the last ten years or more here in the Missouri prison system. Beginning from the Director George A. Lombardi and Dave Dormire, Director, Division of Adult Institutions, and each warden at every prison I am sent to are all involved in a plot to harass, punish, and even maybe murder me, all because of my founding the Missouri Prisoner’s Labor Union here in the Missouri prison system. The abuses, the lies, the frame-ups, are well documented, yet nothing seems to stop the prison officials from harassing and abusing me.

It seems that the closer I get to release from prison the more aggressive they have become in their unjust treatment of me; here lies their two most painful and recent attacks. In 2011, my Custody Level was dropped from a Custody Level of C-5 to C-3 based upon good behaviour, so I was transferred to WMCC which is a Custody Level-3 Prison. While I was at WMCC, prison officials claim to have received a letter threatening the staff there by me, I was put in the ‘hole’ under an investigation, it was later proven that I did not write the letter, I received no conduct violation; but I was still punished for it because my Custody Level was raised from a Custody Level-3 back to a Custody Level-5 which places me into a maximum security prison that has extremely violent inmates, and orders were issued from the Director to the Classification staff, that my Custody Level is not to be dropped again; and I am to remain at Charleston prison until I am released from prison on December 25, 2015.

Now, while in Charleston, since 4/6/2012, I am in Ad Seg, under a false investigation claim. This time it revolves around prison officials who have claimed they received information my name was on some kind of ‘hit list’, so the claim now is I am in the ‘hole’ under an investigation for my protection, yet their records will show I have no enemies at S.E.C.C., but here I am in the ‘hole’ again unjustly. It means nothing to prison officials that I have not had any problem with anybody since I’ve been at Charleston; the investigation is nothing but a sham to harass and punish me. I have not made a request for protection, nor do I need it, so why am I in the ‘hole’? The Missouri Department of Corrections has a system in place to where they reward informants by placing money on their accounts for information received regardless of whether it’s true or not, and if it is on someone who is targeted, the more money the informant gets. Since my name is well known I am an east target for these people, giving the information to prison staff that they want to hear.

I am calling upon you to help me by writing to the following state officials demanding my release from Ad Seg., and a transfer back to a lower Custody Level. The Director George A. Lombardi and Dave Dormire should be fired, and the MDOC should be investigated for ‘hate crimes’. Please send letters of concern about my unjust treatment to the U.S. Department of Justice, and if you do, please mention and ‘CC’ the Missouri State & U.S. Senators/Representatives herein listed, and feel free to write to me here as well.