(this is from October of 2003. This immediate health crisis has passed, but Seth still needs all the support we can give him...)

by Crystal Hayes

The PIGS (Prison Industry Gang System*) are at it again!

They insist upon the incarceration of my father, Political Prisoner and ex-Black Panther Robert Seth Hayes, yet they refuse to provide him with even minimal medical care even as hepatitis C and diabetes try to claim his life. On Oct. 3, my father was removed from the hospital ward where he had received daily treatments for those dread diseases.

This is nothing less than terrorism when a prison administration willfully ignores the life and death medical needs of their inmates. My father was moved to the hospital in the first place because of the seriousness of his illnesses, and even in the hospital under medical supervision he complained of dizziness, weakness, headaches behind his eyes, numbness in his limbs and lethargy. His symptoms make clear that his health is precarious and deserves serious consideration, not release from the hospital into general population where he is forced to watch his health deteriorate.

The diseases in his body that threatened his life at the time of his transfer into the hospital ward remain in his body today, so there is no reasonable explanation for his transfer to general population - other than an illegal execution sanctioned by a in-justice prison system. They must not be allowed to get away with this!

Even the Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners are entitled to medical care as wards of the state. Minimally, the prison is responsible for health maintenance of all its residents. The administrative nurse at Clinton Correctional Facility, John Mitchell, transferred my father out of the hospital, and whether he is ignorant of the Supreme Court decision or not, Mitchell and his superior, Chief Medical Officer Lester Wright, must not go unchecked! Mitchell and Wright rely on all of us to be silent while they brazenly abuse our fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. They depend on all of us to feel detached from the reality of brutal prison culture.

My father has been in prison for nearly 30 years now, and I cannot remember when visiting him did not involve at least a 6-10 hour drive. Today, visiting him at Clinton requires a weekend sleepover, because the prison is on the border between New York and Canada.

It is not by chance that inmates are located as far as possible from their kin. If family and friends are unable to manage visits, then they are less likely to maintain relationships in prison, and if they cannot maintain their relationships they eventually become detached. If families are detached from their people in prison, then they are not likely to understand the politics behind prison walls and therefore less likely to be in a position to respond accordingly when things are critical. Again, the system depends on us to feel removed from our people and removed from the terror of prison culture!

If you want to help save my father’s life, it is absolutely imperative that you take a moment to act on this very important issue. We are always tremendously grateful for the love when you write, attend rallies and contribute to commissary funds. We ask that you continue to be steadfast in your support and take a moment to let Clinton administrators know that they are accountable to a large community of activists who take issue with the brutality of prison policy, and that we are politically prepared to organize against them.

*I have coined this acronym myself, borrowed from the 1960s term “pigs” used by the Panthers to describe the police and the insidious system of policing that terrorized African American people across the United States. I draw from this political experience when talking about the Prison Industrial Complex to demonstrate that terrorism is present and active in most prisons across the country when human beings are regularly denied life saving medical treatment.

Crystal Hayes is a mother, activist, and full-time student at Mount Holyoke College in Western Massachusetts.