Foreign language
By Brandon Astor Jones
"Life is a foreign language ... [many] mispronounce it." — Christopher Morley (1890-1957)
Taken from Thunder on the Left (1923), Christopher Morley's words remind me that death is the only language spoken here. This is death row, and the people who run this political show do not take kindly to foreigners — especially those foreigners who entertain progressive left-wing views regarding prisoners and prisons in the United States.
Most people in foreign countries tend to see the vast majority of men, women and children in US prisons as human beings. Such a humane notion is in absolute conflict with the whole administration and process of dehumanisation in place at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison.
Georgia's capital city, Atlanta, is but 80 kilometres north of the prison. The residents there like to think of theirs as an international city. Yet, the administrators of G-Unit (Georgia's death row) seem to go well out of their way to keep as many visiting foreigners out of the prison as is possible.
For example, in 1995, for much of the year, the GD&CP's administrators would not allow any men on death row to correspond with our friends and loved ones who live in places like Australia, England, France and Japan, to name but a few.
The administrative politics of prisoners and prisons in Georgia is such that if someone's political point of view or behaviour demonstrates even the slightest concern for a prisoner, that person is immediately considered to be a threat to the order of things. If you are a paying foreigner, they are only too happy to take your money at their local bars and hotels, but do not let them know that you came here to visit a prisoner on death row, because if you do you will cease to be a much sought after paying customer. In no time flat you will be reduced to a "damn bleeding heart foreigner!"
At this writing I know of at least two people (one in Australia and the other in England) who are being denied visiting entry here for no other reason that the fact that they are foreigners. Of course, I was told that the person who wants to visit me cannot do so because "The FBI cannot run a background check [on them] without a social security number."
This, despite the fact that the person had filled out the GD&CP's visiting form and had paid money to have it notarised. The information includes the person's full name, address, date of birth and driver's licence number. None of that seems to be good enough.
It should also be noted that the person in question was approved to visit here for nearly two years before I was moved to another prison; so it is not like the prison administration here does not know who this person is.
In essence the following message is what the Georgia prison system is giving to most"foreigners":
Stay out of our right-wing prisons with your left-wing concerns. We do not want to humanise our prisoners; and we resent your coming over here and treating them as anything more than a dollar and cent commodity!
My hope is that immediately after reading this, hundreds of people in the cited countries (and in the USA) will recognise the attitude of Georgia's prison system for what it truly is and then contact their US embassies and ask them to encourage the GD&CP's administrators to be more humane and do the right thing.
[The writer is a prisoner on death row in the United States. He welcomes letters commenting on his columns. He can be written to at: Brandon Astor Jones, EF-122216, G3-77, Georgia Diagnostic & Classification Prison, PO Box 3877, Jackson, GA 30233, USA. Brandon and his friends are trying to raise funds to pay for a lawyer for his appeal. If you can help, please make cheques payable to the Brandon Astor Jones Defence Account and post to 41 Neutral St, North Sydney NSW 2060, or any Commonwealth Bank, account No. 2127 1003 7638.]