Last night I received the final piece of the prima facie evidence to show the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) staff use illegal acts to punish and silence the prisoner who exposes their corruption and malfeasance. [Prima Facie, evidence not requiring further support to establish existence.] These illegal acts are condoned and covered up all the way to the IDOC directors’ office.
These documents will be posted on my websites at Facebook.
A little history is needed to understand my journey to this point. In September of 2019, I won the First Amendment right to be free from retaliatory acts and illegal punishment. This punishment was imposed to silence my exposing the corruption and malfeasance via social media like Facebook and this webpage. (See Harris-vs-Calloway & Campbell, 2:17-cv-02075-MMM in the U.S. Federal Central District of Illinois, Peoria Courthouse.) I was imprisoned at the East Moline Correctional Center at that time. I had some real issues there with the wardens allowing the Chicago and East St. Louis street gangs to monopolize the phones and rob the white prisoners of phone pin numbers and property with impunity. (See Harris-vs-Warden Brennan, et al., 4-19-cv-04235-JES also in Peoria Federal Courthouse.)
The Punishment for Exposing Corruption and Malfeasance Inside the IDOC
When I started exposing this corruption and malfeasance there I was again placed in segregation under false charges and transferred to the Pinckneyville Prison on November 6, 2019. On November 7th, 2019, the ticket and punishment was expunged by the IDOC Administrative Review Board. But I was not released from segregation until November 13, 2019. This week in segregation housing was illegally imposed to “get my mind right.” [Segregation is the jail-within-the-prison system where you are stripped of all property and privileges. You are placed in isolation housing 24/7. You get three food trays a day and one shower a week—it’s called “three hots and a cot” in prison slang.)
The word spread quickly through the Pinckneyville Prison staff that the jailhouse lawyer Harris had beat the wrap and was set free—well, free inside the prison. So I had to go to property to pick up my electronic items that were not allowed in segregation. My television was missing again, not shipped with my legal work and clothing that made it out of the East Moline transfer. The property officer let me know he knew me, “Inmate Harris if you would learn to shut your mouth you would not be treated this way. We do not like your kind here. I will try to find your television. I called East Moline and they said they sent it.” So the next week I go back to collect my property. When the officer removes it from the box, the screen is shattered. “I see your stuff was broken. I will sign the slip saying it is broken so you can get another. You might learn from this.”
The public must understand the game afoot here. Most prisoners are indigent. They survive off the ten-dollar-a-month stipend given to the prisoner to buy soap, shampoo, laundry soap, envelopes, paper and pen.
The theft of property and breaking electronics is done to silence the prisoner. Money is tight and families cannot afford the $230 to buy and replace the fifteen-inch television or replace the stolen food and property. They must bow down quickly and accept what is given to them. But I am not your average prisoner. I will not be bent or broken. I live in a house of law, and they work in a house of law, but neither side is above the law. So I demand what I have coming by law and the respect I am to be given.
I bought another television at the Pinckneyville prisoner commissary in November 2019 and replaced what I could of my stolen food and property.
My family wrote the article and published the fact I was being given the retaliatory placement at Pinckneyville as punishment even though my ticket was expunged and the punishment was ordered to be stopped. Then I got a court writ transfer.
Now I am being sent to the Illinois River Correctional Center to go to court for a settlement hearing in the case where I won the right to expose my treatment and staff conduct on social media outlets (Harris-vs-Calloway, 2:17-cv-02075-MM). My family has been posting the fact I am still being punished with the disciplinary transfer to Pinckneyville. The staff at Pinckneyville are monitoring my web sites and do not like the fact I am being sent to court to get paid for the Danville lawsuit for the illegal retaliatory acts to silence my exposing their conduct.
Anyway, when I go to get my other property, the Pinckneyville property officer starts to harass me again, trying to break my typewriter while in storage at the Pinckneyville prison. For I cannot take my property with me to the Illinois River Correctional Center—only court legal documents can go with me in person. And we cannot get typewriters anymore. The Swintec factory in China, which made the typewriters, burnt down. The prisoner needs a typewriter to draft legal documents. So we had some words over the way he was storing my typewriter. (On a “court writ,” you are transferred to the prison closest to the court. Property is restricted to one small box of clothing including shower shoes and soap, and legal work.)
So I leave on court writ to the Peoria court. We do not settle the Danville case. It is now January of 2020. My family contacts the warden at Pinckneyville about the property officer actions. Illinois River Correctional Center is close to Peoria and Quincy, so I was shipped on court writ status from Pinckneyville to Illinois River on January, 2020.
I get shipped back to Pinckneyville on January 15, 2020. The IDOC Deputy Director contacts my daughter. They admit the transfer to Pinckneyville is wrong. They want to stop the illegal acts and work out my transfer to the Illinois River Correctional Center to be housed there until my release.
Word of this gets around the Pinckneyville prison. I am moved to receiving and packed out for transfer. Again, their property officer used his badge and authority to break my television and allows his prisoner workers to steal my property. Electronics are to be placed in a cardboard box and marked fragile. The big box with my typewriter illegally packed in it arrives a week after it was supposed to. All these facts are documented by myself and the Illinois River property officer.
A total of $146.96 in property was stolen by property officer at Pinckneyville before the transfer to Illinois River Correctional Center on February 5th, 2020.
On February 5th, 2020, after my transfer to the Illinois River Correctional Center located in Canton, Illinois, I file the grievance. They covered up the retaliatory acts all the way to the Director of the Illinois prison system.
At the Illinois River Correctional Center, the counselor tried to deny me any replacement my stolen property, or even admit my property was stolen. “Property inventory sheet dated 2/5/20 from Pinckneyville C.C. does indicate a Casio watch was inventoried, but was not present on 2/6/20 property inventory sheet when arrived at IRCC. TV was noted as working, not broken on 2/6/20 property sheet.”
Nowhere does the counselor address the fact my TV, my fan, and my legal box arrived on February 6, 2020, but my large property box did not arrive until a week later, with a large amount of property missing from that box. So I appealed up the line to the grievance officer and Chief Administrative Officer, Warden Hinthorne.
The grievance officer admits my list of stolen property and the fact that my large box of property was missing for a week. Not transferred with me. Grievance officer admits my T.V. is listed as stand wobbly. Out of the $146.96 in property I prove up was stolen, the grievance officer and Warden replace the following items at a reduced percentage. In the end this is one third of what was taken. This is to silence my being a whistle blower who exposed their malfeasance and corrupt acts. This proves they condone this act of theft, and the prisoner never gets a fair decision, or his property replaced in full. Here’s how I was reimbursed:
(1) Casio Watch – $15 replacement
(1) Gray shorts – $6.72 (50% of replacement cost)
(1) Taster’s Choice Coffee – $6.22 (70% of replacement cost)
(4) Shred Chicken – $11.85 (70% of replacement cost)
(4) Shred Turkey – $11.85 (70% of replacement cost)
So the pay out was on- third of the property stolen, a total of $51.64 out of $146.96. It might sound trivial to someone on the outside, but this is a financial blow that will cripple and silence most prisoners. For they realize the system is corrupt and their hard-earned property will not be replaced. They must take the loss and quit complaining. The man wins. The abuse of power will silence most prisoners as property is hard to come by in here. Their family cannot afford to send them more money.
So I have appealed to the Administrative Review Board. I point out the fact this settlement is bogus and not fair. At no time did I buy these items at a reduced rate, nor will I get a reduced rate when I have to buy them again. This point falls on deaf ears, so I am shafted for two-thirds of the property. Director Rob Jeffereys states in a July 24, 2020, letter, “In accordance with AD 02.06.110, as a result of the Committed Person’s Grievance Report #20-0386 the above offender is to be reimbursed in the amount of $51.64 for the loss/damage of property from the Pinckneyville Inmate Benefit Fund.”
At no time did Property Officer Bailey get a reprimand for his unlawful acts. At no time did I get a fair hearing. Never does the “Jailhouse Lawyer” get everything back. So read the truth in matters here. Review the posted exhibits at my Facebook page [link]. The whole history of the act and grievance on it. Then you see the malfeasance and corruption. These retaliatory acts happen all the time. They are illegal acts!
How can one expect the prisoner to rehabilitate himself and respect the law? For in this house of law the prisoner is robbed and ripped off by those in charge. Why? To silence any report of their unlawful acts. Here is the undisputed truth in these matters.
