ANNE FRANK, KKK PRISON GUARDS AND WHITE SUPREMACISTS CONVERGE IN FLORIDA

The recent murder of the Colorado Department of Corrections chief by a suspected white supremacist gang member ex-con, and his subsequent shoot-out death in Texas brings to national attention a situation that has ramifications for the state of Florida.

Thousands of Florida prisoners are suspected or confirmed members of hundreds of gangs ranging from Hispanic and Latino, local and nationally-affiliated black gangs, to a number of white supremacist hate groups and biker gangs. When gang violence breaks out in one prison, in their wisdom the prison authorities lock up the suspects, then transfer them to scattered prisons across the state in an effort to split up their influence. What actually happens is that, in effect, by shipping gang members elsewhere, the prison officials inadvertently pollinate and seed gang gene pools that develop and grow new hotspots of gang activity in prisons that might not have previously experienced gang issues, to the chagrin of officials at those prisons.

What the public doesn’t realize is that not only are there white supremacist prisoners incarcerated in Florida, but there are an unknown number of prison guards, “correctional officers,” who are also either members of white supremacist groups or are sympathizers with them. The most infamous of these white supremacist groups is the Ku Klux Klan, or KKK, which has maintained a shadow presence in the prison system for decades.

According to Compton’s Encyclopedia, the FBI estimates KKK membership at between 6,000 and 12,000 people, most in the Deep South, although there are significant populations of KKK members and sympathizers in several Northern states, including Ohio, Michigan, and Illinois. Anyone who has served lengthy time in Florida prisons, especially in the North Florida areas bordering Alabama and Georgia, is aware that KKK prison guards are not a well-kept secret. Many brag about their affiliations.

What should concern the governor, the Florida corrections chief, and the public are the ramifications of the influence of white supremacist groups with both prisoners and guards. With the huge amounts of money generated from sales of drugs, tobacco, and cell phones in prisons, associations between prison gang members and sympathetic correctional officers who share their ideology are perfect fits. Once the sympathetic guards cross the line, they are on the hook, and are unlikely to say no to their fellow conspirators, no matter what the request.

I have personal experience with retaliation by KKK prison guards at another North Florida prison over ten years ago, and the publication of my memoir of that retaliation resulted in more official retaliation in 2010, retaliation that has continued to this day. What is confounding to me is the apathy exhibited by several national associations that are supposedly against white supremacist groups, at least when it comes to responding to a complaint from a prisoner. Neither the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union, the First Amendment Foundation, and the Southern Center for Human Rights were the least bit interested in investigating retaliation by KKK prison guards, totally ignoring the First Amendment freedom of speech civil rights violations inherent in the retaliation. Neither the Florida governor’s office, the Chief Inspector General, nor Department of Corrections officials exhibited any concern that state employees were members of a hate group classified by the FBI as domestic terrorists. Strange, but true.

This current three-year retaliation odyssey actually began in 2008, when the “Anne Frank Center USA” invited me to join with 100 noted prison writers nationwide to participate in the “Anne Frank Prison Diary Project.” With the approval of the DOC officials, I agreed, and a packet of journal materials, including Anne Frank’s memoir, “Diary of a Young Girl,” (which was subsequently confiscated, stolen, and ostensibly destroyed by guards who ransacked my cell several months later), was sent to me to complete.

In the 200-plus pages of journal and diary entries that I sent to the Anne Frank Center a couple of months later, I wrote at length about my imprisonment from my 1978 arrest in Tampa for a murder I had not committed, until the present, including my run-in with KKK prison guards years before. Excerpts from my prison diary memoirs were widely published. A 2400-word excerpt titled, “To Protect the Guilty,” was nominated for a literary award and published in an anthology in late 2009. A copy of the anthology was mailed to me in January, 2010, and when I inquired of a mail clerk why I hadn’t received the book, she told me, “I read the article you wrote, and I felt it was a threat to security. I sent it to the assistant warden.”

Prison is full of rules, and the Florida law mandates that prison staff must follow the rules, too. There are rules pertaining to book confiscation, and when I asked the mail clerk why none of the required paperwork had been issued, she just stared at me. After I filed formal complaints to the assistant warden and mail room over the improper confiscation, I was notified that I would be issued a disciplinary report instead, for vague, inapplicable congregated mail violations. The investigating sergeant came to me a few days later, told me the prison warden had been “offended” by my article, and laughingly informed me, “The warden wants your ass in jail.” And that’s where I eventually wound up, in solitary confinement for thirty days, with loss of thirty days gain time. Meanwhile, the FDOC’s “Literature Review Committee,” which makes the final decision on what publications are approved or rejected for entry into prison, heard my appeal, overruled the confiscation, and ordered the assistant warden to give me the book, stating, “Simply because an article written by an inmate was published in a book does not make it a threat to security.” I got the book, but the false disciplinary report and resulting punishment stood, causing my parole release date to jump from 2014 to 2017. So much for the First Amendment and freedom of expression in Florida prisons.

Because I have continued to fight that bad decision through the courts, I have been punitively transferred twice in the past two years to harsher prisons far from my family and friends, edging closer and closer to Alabama and New Orleans, necessitating distant, expensive treks for my supporters to travel from Tampa and Jacksonville, and additional sojourns in solitary confinement. The Klan’s roots run deep, and everyone conversant with my travails agrees that my continuing targeting by prison officials tracks back to the KKK prison guard memoir.

Now we are horrified that a prison white supremacist gunned down the Colorado prison chief, and is suspected of being involved in another high profile murder weeks before, in Texas. What we should be concerned about are the secret memberships and associations of prisoners and guards closer to home, in Florida, and address official retaliation by prison officials against a prisoner who dared to write about what is not a very well-kept secret.

What I would like to ask is why these “watchdog groups” that monitor and fight against hate crimes have expressed no interest in this case.

“Something is wrong with this picture,” as an old Mafioso once said.

Charlie