Please Help! We have launched our Campaign for Brandon for his Re-entry Fund on Indiegogo

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/support-for-brandon-on-his-return-to-society

Short Summary

We are two friends of Brandon Green, who has been incarcerated in Utah since 2006, and before that since 2000. Brandon was not ready for parole in 2006, he had no support system and that caused him to be returned to prison. Now he has us, one friend in the USA and one abroad, who keep a close eye on his development.

Brandon (30) has developed into an intelligent man who has sharp writing skills and who is very concerned about his fellow man, whether inside or on the outside. He has become conscious about the world, politics, and the prison industrial complex.

Brandon was charged long ago for drug-related charges. He did not hurt anyone physically. We believe he is definitely worth a second chance now that he has become aware of the workings of the world and is eager to contribute to humanity.

Brandon spent years in the solitary confinement unit in Utah State Prison, but he was recently moved to a less restricted area and he has been able to make phone contact with his uncle after years of not being allowed to telephone. Now that Brandon is rebuilding his family ties and his place at home, we think it is even more important and good to have a trustfund for his rehabilitation on homecoming.

We want Brandon to have a fresh restart when he paroles, and that includes that he needs funds to be able to support himself (clothes, some other basics, and the possibility to learn to work on a computer; maybe some education, written courses, books).

You will be able to really help someone who has been cut off from the outside world since many years, who is very thankful for everything you do for him. You can help rehabilitate a very intelligent and humble person.

The picture depicts Brandon holding his newborn nephew some years ago.

What We Need & What You Get

We recon Brandon needs more than 1000 USD to begin a new life with, but we just want to see how much we can get together here. We want him to have his own set of clothes, just basic clothes, but his own. He needs a duffel bag, to keep his belongings in, shoes, toiletries, etc.

We also want Brandon to have a cheap laptop computer with internet, to learn to adapt to this age. We believe he can contribute a lot to the progressive community this way, and it gives him the opportunity to apply for jobs online.

If there is money left over, he probably needs a telephone/phone cards, a bus pass, some books to learn how to apply for jobs, how to work on internet, etc. He needs some funding to travel to see his family if he is not nearby. He needs all the basics, especially when he emerges from a halfway house.

Our Perks for you:
Brandon is an avid writer of critical essays and poetry. If you decide to donate 25 USD towards the Brandon Green Re-entry Fund, we will send you a Zine with a choice of his writings as a Thank You sign. If you can miss 10 USD, we will send you a postcard/picture with a greeting from Brandon himself.

We will keep all funds we gather here for Brandon and deliver it to him once he is released and has an account. If Brandon is not released on parole this time, we will send him whatever is needed for him while inside and keep the rest safe for him for his return to society. We are positive for his parole, but we are not sure yet until they tell us.

The Impact

A successful re-entry means we all need to step up and reach out to the person rejoining us on this side of the walls. For those who have paid for their crimes, done their time, who have no family available for them, or whose family has abandoned them, because they were unable to help the person in prison and feel not able to do so when he comes home, we as a society can play a crucial role in making sure this person is led on the right track again.

This is where your help comes in! This is your chance to help someone succeed in life, where he had no one or nothing before. By your small investment now, someone's life can be saved and led onto productive paths to wholeness.

Other Ways You Can Help

If you are unable to contribute to our action, it does not mean you can’t help:
Please get the word out and make some noise about this campaign. You can use the Indiegogo share tools!
You can always give things like books, or other things you think Brandon can use when he is released.

And that’s all there is to it.
Thank you so much!!

Please consider donating: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/support-for-brandon-on-his-return-to-society

Please spread the word via facebook, twitter, etc, thank you!!!!

Brandon's writings on website Between the Bars

Since some months, Brandon's writings have appeared on the website called Between the Bars. They scan his writings and post them there. You can comment also to them there. We did not know they were doing this until a friend found the site and told us. We are glad he is sending them his writings, but we like to have known. Still! We will post a few of the writings here when we can.

Here is Brandon's profile on Between the Bars, and here is his essay called Mama Told Me (March 3rd 2013):

 

Here is Brandon's All Alone Amnesia (written March 10th 2013)

Brandon Green Re-entry Fund

[updated Feb 23rd: Chipin will discontinue its services soon]

Greetings friends, strangers and supporters of Brandon Green!

Since this coming Spring, the possibility is reasonably high that Brandon will be paroled (he writes us that he was taken from the supoermax unit and that he will be placed in different units each 30 days up to his parole): we know it is serious.

Brandon has told us that he will go to the halfway house in Utah upon parole.

He needs some funding to put his life together again: clothes, books, maybe even telephone cards and bus tickets, internet access to find a job, all of these need to be paid for when he emerges.

Here is the link to a Chipin we made for this purpose:

[Note on feb 23rd: Chipin is going to discontinue its services! So we have to take down the Chipin!]

You can of course also send Brandon donations via the way Utah DOC says here: http://corrections.utah.gov/administration/inmate_accounting.html

Now is our chance to show Brandon we want to help him with concrete donations. If you cannot donate monetary funds, keep in mind if you can donate something to him that is useful and that you want to give. (clothes, books, an old phone or laptop, etc). Once we know he is being paroled, we will try and organize an address where you can donate things to for him.

If Brandon will not be paroled this time, we will use any money gathered to help him pay off his Civil Lawsuits and get him some books and funds for his canteen, which he can now have! sent into the prison.

THANK YOU!!

Brandon's friends in the USA and in Europe

“Waiting For The World To Give Us A Reason To Live”: Solitary Confinement in Utah

From: SolitaryWatch, Oct. 24th, 2012
By Sal Rodriguez

Utah State Prison’s Uinta 1 facility serves as the prison’s super-maximum security unit, where inmates are held in solitary confinement. Inmates in Uinta 1 may be there for disciplinary infractions, notoriety reasons, protective custody, or because they are security/escape risks. The unit is divided into eight sections with twelve inmates in each section, for a total of 96 maximum inmates. Currently, there are 90 inmates in Uinta 1. The Utah Department of Corrections, in response to a government records request by Solitary Watch, claims it has no records regarding its use of segregation.

Several inmates have recently written Solitary Watch about the conditions in Uinta 1.

L., who has been in Uinta 1 for five months and previously served 28 months there, reports that he is only able to leave his cell three days a week, for a shower and 1 hour alone in a concrete yard. He reports that, in being transported to a 15 minute shower, “we have to wear a spit mask over our faces and handcuffed from behind with a dog leash hooked to us.”

“The rest of the time except on the shower days we are locked down in our cells with the door window closed so you can’t see out,” he writes.

A., who has been in Uinta 1 for a year, adds that, “just the other day, the [Correctional Officers] came and shook our cells down and took away all of our hygiene. They took away shampoo, lotion, conditioner, everything…they also don’t give us anything to clean our cells with.”

A. is in Uinta 1 for his own protection, following what he says was a decision to leave gang life after much “self-study.” Despite this, he says, he is treated as if he committed a  serious offense.

Inmate Brandon Green, who has frequently written on the conditions of Uinta 1, describes the environment in Uinta 1 as reinforcing a vicious cycle in which inmates placed in solitary usually end up back not long after they are released. Green, who has been in Uinta 1 for five years, previously served 18 months in Uinta 1 before a brief period on parole before returning to Utah State Prison. He has been held in Uinta 1 following an escape attempt and refusal to take psychiatric drugs, which he says will only harm his health.

“So alone. So much internal turbulence with nothing like T.V., radio, magazines or conversation to hide [this pain] beneath,” he writes, “a man leaves this place to go to general population or to a less secure facility where you have electronics and a cellie. You can just count down the months before he will return…We learn we can do without anything. And we become content with nothing. The more they take away from us year after year, the more family disappears, the more one doesn’t want to go home, doesn’t want a wife and a job and bills and an Amerikkan future…It is like waiting for the world to give us a reason to live. But the world just keeps giving us reasons to not give a shit.”

This situation leads many inmates to report severe mental health problems that are aggravated by the long-term isolation. The prison routinely responds to such crises by placing suicidal inmates in a strip cell, where they are to be alone in a cell with  and checked every fifteen minutes. Included in many of these cells are cameras.
L. writes that “if someone is gonna kill themselves they take them and out to a strip cell and you sleep on the hard floor and treated like a dog.”
A. reports that “if I lose control because of something I have no control over, they’ll punish me and put me on strip cell for three days…when a mentally ill inmate feels suicidal, they send us to the infirmary to be on suicide watch…then we get from suicide watch back to Uinta 1 and the staff put us back in the strip cell when we get back to Uinta 1.”

In Uinta 1, suicide is not an uncommon occurrence. In 2009, two prisoners in Uinta 1 committed suicide. One was Danny Gallegos, who was found hanged in his cell in June. Another was a friend of Green, Spencer “Spider” Hooper, a “Pink Floyd fan and singer on medications for schizophrenia and depression.” Months after a previous suicide attempt, Hooper was found dead in February 2009, hanging in his cell.

A. and L. also independently confirm that sandbags at the cell doors of inmates gather bugs, which enter their cells. “They got sandbags around all the cells but never pick them up and clean under them so there’s all kinds of bugs and dirt that comes right under our doors,” A. writes.

Green also writes about the declining array of services provided to Uinta 1 inmates. “Years ago indigent captives received five envelopes a week. Now its one. We had five outside contacts a week. Now one. We used to be fed enough to stay full. Now we are starved. We used to have shampoo and lotion. Now we don’t. We grumble for an hour each time something is taken from us. Then move right along to inventing the creative willpower to survive with no penpals and mail, a full stomach or clean hair. Moving right along. We expect tragedy.”

Solitary Watch will continue to report on Uinta 1 as more information becomes available.

Brandon Green welcomes letters. His mailing address is:
Brandon Green #147075, Uinta One 305, Utah State Prison, PO Box 250, Draper, Utah 84020. His blog, updated by an outside supporter, can be seen here.

Many Limbed Oak

I had this dream the other night. I’d bought two old ’69 cameros. 350 HP engines. And I parked them in the drive. I looked over at a huge oak tree. And it had many limbs. But beyond these lims was a huge trunk twisting lift to right into the sky. Either it was broken, cut or disappeared in cloud…

Then I went into the trailer and found the floor flooded. I went to turn off the flooding water in the bathroom and managed to save the carpet. I then left and returned later and a big dog was on a chain by the front door. I was supposed to be scared and I knew if I was scared, the dog would bite me. But I just walked up to the door. Two enemies I don’t know, just people who wished me harm, were in the yard. I go in the house and pet this puppy on the carpet, look up, and there’s my wife or girlfriend and I notice the floor’s flooded again.  I stick my head out and ask my enemies if they know what happened. “Where’s the leak?” They shrug.

I know I’ll have to cut the carpet at this exact spot and pull all the carpet to save the floor. Easy, I think. Ain’t nothin’.  I feel she is waiting. Like the form of our relationship isn’t sorted yet. I stick out my head and ask them what food they want. KFC and some other stuff. I come back in, let you choose which camero you want. Give you those keys to keep. Say: “Please go get us food, flatscreen TV, DVD player, DVD’s, etc. while I clean up this carpet mess.” I hand her a bunch of money. I “give her” and I “do”. I am a man.

And then it comes back to the oak tree in the distance. The many limbs in the foreground and the huge trunk in the background. 

I’ve been a man before like that. Up before the sunrise for work. Nodding off on the drive home.

If I get out and work, she will come. If I get it straight again she will be there. But I don’t want her. I want ‘she-who-will-be-here-now.’ When I am not a “man” in the usual sense. 

She who will recognize that what I’m doing, and have done thus far, is what a true man can only do. But what a work-a-day man can do is what any ol’ man does.

No female sees this struggle – I’ve purposively placed myself into for a reason – no female respects it because they’re blinded by the mainstream man. They see the many limbed oak and don’t look past the acorns and leaves to the huge trunk zig-zagging into the sky (or into nothingness?) in the background.

I could still be at my job on the streets but it’s I had to do these things, all this had to be accomplished, even if she never presents herself at least I’ve found the real me in it. It’s a gamble. And I hope she comes… 

In Strength (but…) Love and Struggle,

B.

8-23-12 

Keep spinnin’

They break the law to punish law breakers.

Unconstitutional conditions and censorship policy.

They give us four envelopes a month.

Expecting our return to society be successful with no one.

They create these dungeons punishing anti-social behavior.

Been alone so long with no telephone, mind and family gone.

They wrestle out of our hands razors, stealing our nooses,

Yet selling us medications causing stroke, dementia, delusions.

They look into my face and consider me crazy ‘cause I smile,

Wondering why I act childish, live naked and… smile.

They believe they are God’s chosen and we are Satan’s spawn,

Going home to beat wives, child pornography and manicured lawns.

They mourn nine eleven like we didn’t deserve it.

Sending sons and daughters off terrorists hunting patriots.

They hate prisoners, Blacks, Latinos and First Nations.

White “Dark-Night-‘killer’” deserving of understanding and forgiveness.

They wonder why the world hates them beyond words.

Military bases spread like cancer the earth over.

They seem so pretty, smart, happy and photogenic,

Just the rich man’s puppets on Broadway, Hollywood, Pennsylvania Avenue.

They frown on dirty language, negative thinking, and atheists,

Dropping bombs on Nagasaki, Hiroshima, unmanned drone celebrations.

They have native sons slowly spinning their destruction.

It’s gonna come from inside, motherfuckers, have patience,

They are depressed, suicidal, owning it all and more.

Better bloody your threshold beast, prostrate yourselves on carpeted floors.

They could come in the morning and shoot me like a dog.

But it’s not going to save them, we will never stop.

They just shone their flashlight and it’s twelve o’clock.

My thirteenth Revolution ‘round Sun anniversary as pig keys walk.

They can convince you to play their lame mind games beside them.

Try and turn me snitch by compliance, you know who you are.

They’ve got you simpering, curtsying, you’re not even tortured.

Rock Solid Revolutionary expecting world to turn on me.

8-20-2012

 

Who’s who

Does Al-Quaeda have military bases

In Salt Lake?

But we do over there.

Who’s terrorist

If I stole your mail out of your mailbox?

That’s a federal offense.

My mail’s stolen and tampered with daily.

Who’s the criminal?

The Department of Corrections institutionalized

My brother, my father and myself.

My nephews now are being inculcated outlaws.

Who pushes propaganda?

Ten years ago I was arrested with dope.

So skinny I slipped my handcuffs.

Ten more years to go for a bag of dope.

Liberty and Justice for whom?

Slowly my liver shuts down.

I’m dying from a curable disease

Because the prison wants to save money.

Profit over people - who’s diseased?

My hair drags on the floor when I sweep it.

My beard enters mouth with bologni and I chew it.

Five years since I’ve visited or telephoned.

Who’s in debt to society?

I’m supposed to be weak and crazy.

Yet I have stretch marks on muscle.

Two lawsuits on unconstitutional conditions and policy.

Who’s anti-social?

I hear voices gibbering on medications,

See body bags and stretchers coming and leaving.

Prison says ignore stretchers and take medications.

Ad you can go home - who’s crazy?

All this is comedy of the darkest stripe.

All one must do is see through the insanity.

All I ask is you listen carefully - don’t trust me

All alone who’s who is good guy camouflaged enemy?

The worst part in all this is I lack a harbor.

My sails snap and moan pulling on this anchor.

The worst thing is knowing you know and do nothing.

Knowing by me letting you know all this.

I should feel sorry.

8/9/12