Is Resistance Worth the Price? Stories of Backlash and Hope

Three prison journalists and activists share how they have countered  retaliation for exposing corruption and inhumane conditions inside America's federal detention facilities. They risked solitary confinement, prison transfers, parole denials and blocked communication - yet remain committed to fighting a system they describe as a "machine that is counterproductive to rehabilitation."

• Robert Barton co-founded More Than Our Crimes and was denied parole. 
• Pam Bailey, his partner, saw her email address blocked at multiple federal prisons.
• Askia Afrika-Ber published exposés on prison corruption at USP McCreary, resulting in 90 days of solitary confinement and transfer to one of the worst facilities, USP Hazelton.

All three continue their advocacy despite the risks, drawing inspiration from civil rights leaders who put their lives on the line. Listeners can support prison journalism by following their work, visiting their website, and sharing information

The next episode will explore the laws and institutions that initially worked against Rob's release and those that finally allowed him to gain freedom.

Follow this podcast so you'll be informed when new episodes are uploaded (twice a month). Meanwhile, read more stories and learn how you can contribute to reform; visit MoreThanOurCrimes.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introducing Eskia Afrika Burr's fearless journalism
• 1:35 Retaliation and transfer to Hazleton
• 3:45 Fighting for transparency at "Misery Mountain"
• 6:00 Personal costs of prison journalism
• 9:15 Why resistance matters despite the risks
• 10:30 Supporting prison activists and preview

Transcript

PAM BAILEY: Hi, this is Pam Bailey. I am co-host of Voices Unlocked, the podcast produced by More Than Our Crimes, which is dedicated to bringing voices from federal prison out to the world. And today we have a very special treat. You've been seeing a whole parade of different co-hosts over the last year or so, and that's because the co-founder of More Than Our Crimes has been in prison nearly 30 years. But he got out on February 13, so you're going to be seeing a lot more of him in the future. So welcome home, Rob.

ROBERT BARTON: Thank you, Pam.

PAM: So tell our audience a little bit about just how it feels. How does freedom feel, since we all take it for granted?

ROB: It feels amazing. It's really unexplainable, but I'll try to explain as best as I can. There are different levels of freedom and I experience it daily. It's the freedom of just knowing that you're about to go home when a judge tells you that you're released and you got this big weight that's lifted off your shoulders. And then it's the freedom of walking out of the prison and the gates opening and you know that man, the rest of your life is ahead of you and you can do and have whatever you want. And then it's the reality of going into stores and having choices.

PAM: All things we take for granted.

ROB: All things y'all take for granted. It is the freedom of, like I was telling you the other day when we did the blog post, walking down to Navy Yard and walking across the bridge and just looking out over the water, which was a freedom of peace and tranquility. It's just so many things that I'm experiencing daily, but all of it is around being free and having the ability and autonomy to do whatever I choose to do.

PAM: In the next episode after this podcast, you're going to hear a lot more about how Rob got out. So, look forward to that. But in this episode we're going to focus on how More Than Our Crimes came to be. I don't think we've ever really explained that, but now that Rob's out, we're going to use this time with you to explain what was behind the founding of More Than Our Crimes. I think the main thing I hope you take from this story is that individuals can make a difference. You really can. Once you find your passion, something you really care about, you can find a way to do your own small thing to try to change things, even now as we see the rise of fascism around us. So, the beginning of More Than Our Crimes...I will tell you a little bit about how I got into criminal justice reform as a personal cause, and I want to give a shout out to David Simon, who is the creator behind The Wire, HBO's program, The Wire, which probably a lot of you have heard of. I had a job where I had the opportunity to interview David.

I don't remember exactly... For those of you who know The Wire, David Simon had worked for the Baltimore Sun and he had reported about the inner city of Baltimore and crime and police and the revolving door between community and prison, but also how similar sometimes the policemen and the criminals are. I don't remember exactly what he said, but he talked about that world and how actually any of us could become criminals. We're all close to it in some way. It just clicked with me and all of a sudden I realized this is a cause I cared about. So I went back to my office at work and I called around to all these organizations saying, I'm a storyteller, maybe you have a volunteer job for me.

And nobody really... usually people don't volunteer for that. So I didn't find a home, but one day I was at a bookstore and I saw a booklet of poetry written by DC residents in federal prison. DC does not have his own prison. So, everybody's sent into the federal system, which means they're all across the country. And one of the volunteer roles that was offered by the organization that produced the booklet was to respond to letters that they received from people in prison. So, one day when I was taking a letter off a pile, I got yours. And I'll tell you what, all the letters were interesting, just because I'm a storyteller and so I sort of relate to discovering new things about people. But your letter stood out because you're a real critical thinker. Qt the time, Rob was in DC.

You'll talk a little bit about why you were back in DC. He had come back from federal prison in Florida, where he'd been, for a hearing. It was for a petition to be released. He was at the DC jail and was able to go to a program at Georgetown University. They came in and you were able to be in classes and you wrote about it in your letter. So you were a really critical thinker and analyzed issues that I found fascinating. And you're also really articulate. I mean, one writer to another, I recognized another writer. So, long story short, we connected that way and I ended up, outside of that volunteer opportunity, writing to you. So, maybe you can reflect on... bring them up to date. You had been in prison for how long? Since what age?

ROB: At that time I had been in prison...let's see,I came home in '25...so I had been in prison almost 25 years. I had been in prison since I was 16 years old. I came back to the city for a law that had just passed that allowed guys like myself who had been incarcerated before they was 18 years old,the opportunity to be resentenced. And this was an amazing time in my life. I saw a lot of guys who were back at the jail who I hadn't seen in 20 years. We had all kind of grew up on the juvenile block in this system and this is why I was back at the jail.

PAM: So you got my letter. What made you want to write back?

ROB: Well, in your letter you said something about storytelling and you was just like... Well, first of all, I write everybody back because I'm in prison and any connection to the outside world is important and I like writing. But outside of that, it was just like we were kindred spirits in the sense that we both were writers and you was telling me that you took my letter... I think in the letter I talked about a book that I wrote and me wanting to start a nonprofit and stuff like that. And you was saying, well probably more than likely I can help you with that. "I do this, I write." And so that made me more eager to write back.

PAM: So it went from letter writing, and then we talked on the phone and I was able to visit you because you were at the DC jail. And then I think a turning point came when you were denied your petition for freedom. I still remember when we got the word that you were denied. I literally cried at work. I had gotten so psyched up for you getting out that I actually had to leave work. I was so upset. What did that feel like for you?

ROB: It was the most devastating thing that ever happened up to that point. You got to keep in mind that at this time, I'm watching my friends go home every other day and we're together making all these plans about what we're going to do in the world. And after not seeing your family on a consistent basis for years, decades, you're seeing your mother every day, you're seeing a woman every day, you're going into these programs, people are shaking your hand, you can really hug people. Those type of things don't happen in a federal penitentiary. You could see outside, you could see the streets. To have all these hopes and make all these plans about freedom and then just to have that snatched away from you, it felt as though I had to go back into.. I started just staying in the cell. I was actually practicing getting ready to go back to the feds.

PAM: You know what I remember you saying? You wrote that when you came into the jail, you took your armor off.

ROB: Yeah.

PAM: Why did you have to wear armor back in prison?

ROB: In a lot of ways, to do a lot of time, you have to harden your heart to a lot of things. So it's like you're putting a shield on. So, those type of things that are normal...not to say that we are not normal... but people who are in society can have the emotional capacity for, we can't. Because, or we don't, we try not to have, because it may drive you crazy. Or you're worrying... It just messes up how you do time. So for instance, my grandmother, I think she died in 2009 or 2008, I'm not sure what year, and I talked to my mother on the phone. My grandmother, I love her to death, she was my baby. She pretty much was the house that raised me and stuff like that. And my mother asked me, "Rob, did you mourn Grandma? Did you cry?" And at the time I was like, "No, I ain't cry, Mom." But I loved her. I just couldn't. I don't know why I didn't cry. But now I understand that when you're doing all this time and you harden your heart to that sense, it is just like you have a thought process that is like, "People die and that's a part of life and I got to keep moving forward." And it was just bad.

PAM: Yeah. So you had taken.. Because the other thing I remember you saying is that you took your armor off because when you went to the jail, and all of a sudden people were shaking your hand, they were treating you had dignity.

ROB: For instance, when I first came into jail, an officer I knew from 20 years ago still was working there and he was like, "Hey, Rob, what's up?" And he stuck his hand out and I looked at his hand like it was a snake because in the feds we didn't do that...It was like a line that you didn't cross. Eventually I started hugging officers, shaking officers' hands, started sitting at meetings with them as we talked about what we needed to do in the YME (Young Men Emerging program) and conjured up different programs and stuff like that. But at that particular time, I still was with my armor on.

PAM: And then you had to go back. So you'd taken it off, you'd gotten used to it being off. And then you had to go back to that environment where if you didn't wear armor, you're putting yourself at a little bit of risk, right?

ROB: And yes, so that was because honestly, for 20 years I was in a federal penitentiary and this is a dangerous place, especially for people that's from DC. So for instance, I kept a knife all the time, at that time.

But when I went back, not only did I know that I got IRAA (to look forward to) but it was just like my mind was like, I'm here, but my mind was not there no more. I'm in the world. So we're doing More Than Our Crimes work, I'm writing blogs, we're doing policy, we're trying to start up the podcast and it is just like physically, I was there, but mentally I wasn't there. But it opened me up for a lot of hurt, to my safety, because I didn't react to things the same way that I used to react to things, or was "supposed" to react to things, and it just was not good.

But I navigated it.

PAM: But now, so the important thing about this though, is that's when... It wasn't until you were denied and you were going to be sent back that we started. Before, it was just like a friendship thing. Yeah. The beginning of More Than Our Crimes (it wasn't called that at the time) is that we had a blog on a platform called Medium and the way I recall it...

ROB: Pretty much what happened was I got denied and you was like, you should start journaling. And so, daily I was journaling, just writing how my day was and what was going on with me that day. And then you said like, "Well, Rob, you know you're a good writer, why don't you blog? I can put it on Medium and stuff like that." So, I don't remember when the first post was, but I wrote that and then I wrote the one...What is it? You always tell me...Oh, "I'm all right."

PAM: Yeah, that's the other thing. When you said that, when you talked about hardening your heart a little bit, I saw that in the fact that, no matter what... I mean, some horrible things would be going on, things that most of us out here would be devastated by. And you always said, "I'm all right." And to me that was part of your armor.

ROB: Yes, it definitely was part of the armor. Even with all my denials and stuff like that, you got to keep going forward. And the only way to do the time is to keep putting one foot in front of the other until (you get to) the door.

PAM: And I'd be like, every time we had a setback, I'd be all jumping up and down and I'd ask one of your friends. And they said, "Oh, he'll be all right." What do you mean, he'll be all right? I'm not all right. So the other thing I remember about the time... The blog to me was for you to sort of journal. But the other thing that was going on at the time, it was a presidential election, very different from the one we just had. And there was actually talk of reform going on. But the thing that we noticed is that, yes, they're talking about criminal justice reform, but they were exempting or carving out anybody with violent crimes. And so what I was thinking at the time when we started the blog was like, "Wow, people do not realize. They hear the label and think "Oh, you're in for this and it's violent." But they don't realize the story behind it.

ROB: I know and that's really how we came up with More Than Our Crimes. Because they passed the bill in DC that, they was basically saying that everybody that got locked up before 2000 would get 54 days of good time for every year that they had been in jail. And what actually happened was that this pushed my parole date from 2024 all the way to 2021, which was right around the corner. But I knew that in theory, this bill was passed because they wanted to empty out the jails because of COVID. They wanted to let people go. But in practice, what would happen was that the parole board was going to deny a lot of people due to their past history or just because. And the bill would be moot, for real.

And that's pretty much what ended up happening. So what I tried to do was we wrote a petition and I tried to get in front of it to tell these stories and try to get something done so the parole board wouldn't be able to do that. I didn't know all the politics and all the things that was going on with our system and the parole system in DC, but I partnered with Karl Racine, who was the attorney general at that time, and Mark Schindler, who was the director of the Justice Policy Institute.

And they helped us start, what was it? What would you call it? 

PAM: It was a teach-in. 

ROB: It was a teach-in, a Zoom, teach-in that we hosted and we talked about these topics. And because we had this Zoom teach-in and I knew that there were going to be viewers that were going to be on the Zoom teach-in, I was like, well, wow, Pam, why don't we just start an organization?

PAM: That's when you were still at the jail?

ROB: Yes.

PAM: Right. Yeah. And I think that's when what started off as a blog only morphed into More Than Our Crimes, which is a website and a podcast. And now we work to get DC residents inside to vote, because DC is one of the very few states (in quotation marks because DC's not a state yet) to actually allow... it's one of three actually... that allow people inside prison to vote. So we wanted to mobilize them. And then the other thing that happened along the way is that as you started introducing me to other people and then my name got passed around...I think it's actually really funny that I heard that my More Than Our Crimes email address is on the wall of a couple of SHU (solitary confinement) cells. That's how people get connected with me. So this network is exploding.

ROB: Well, it shows that you're doing some good work.

PAM: Yeah, the network exploded. It began with just Rob and today we have more than 2,000 people, not just DC people, but across the federal prison system. And that's because along the way, people started talking to me about conditions in prisons. And there are some organizations that focus on specific things like solitary confinement, but there are a lot of other conditions that cause big problems that nobody is focusing on. So we started writing about that. But the point I want to make about this is, as we expanded and started doing a lot more activities, some risks started occurring because the BOP is a system. It's sort of like a machine, the way I see it.

It does not like people trying to stop its operations from just going on and churning the way it is. So we're going to talk a little bit about how Rob and I both felt that risk. There's one interview I did, there's a person you're going to hear from who goes by the name in prisonm Askia Afrika-Ber. And he's somebody that is pretty fearless, actually. We're going to talk more about this. But he is so intent on changing the system that he will not stop. And he wrote...he was in a penitentiary called McCreary in Kentucky and wrote a scathing takedown of all the corrupt and inhumane practices there. And in addition to publishing it on our site, I got a DC paper called City Paper to publish it. And then a local paper in Kentucky covered it.

ROB: I didn't know it went that far.

PAM: Yes. And the warden, everybody knew about it. And the next thing we knew he was thrown in the hole, solitary confinement, and then transferred to one of the worst prisons in the system, which is Hazelton in West Virginia.

So, clear consequence for speaking out. You're going to hear him talk a little bit about his experience and whether he feels dissuaded from speaking out.

ASKIA AFRIKA-BER: My homie, he's an orderly in the unit. He pulled up on me and he said, "Look, the two officers that are working right now, they're reading that article that you wrote. And they're there looking at it online and they're trying to find out who are you? Because quite naturally, in the picture, I don't have my glasses on, I write under my pen name, Askia Afrika-Ber. So they didn't know how to locate me. And he said, "I think they're going to try to find out who you are." They put me in the hole; they came and they took me out of my cell. The whole compound was locked down at the time, this particular day when they came and got me. They came and picked me up, ushered me to the SHU. While I'm back there in the SHU, I'm sitting in the cage in the bullpen, in the little kennels outside.

I asked the officer who was on duty in the SHU office, "What exactly am I back here for? They just came and picked me up. Nobody's explaining anything to me." He said, "Hold up, I'll go look." And he went and checked my lock-up order and came back and said, "You're under some sort of investigation." So right then and there, I could put two and two together. It didn't take rocket science to realize this. It was backlash. It was sheer unadulterated retaliation in regards to my prison journalism. In its entirety, I stayed in the SHU for 90 days three months. It was within the first week that I asked my unit officer and she told me, she said, "Moore, look, it's already been decided that you're going to be getting transferred out of here." And I ended up in USP Hazelton, one of the worst USPs in the system, in our cells all day. Certain housing units can no longer control the lights in their cells. Prisoners are not able to program here. We're just sitting around all day, just intellectually and emotionally and physically deteriorating.

PAM: As I heard more and more about conditions, I started targeting certain prisons and Hazelton is one of them. In fact, you actually spent some time at USP Hazelton on your way back [into the feds].

ROB: Yeah, I've been to Hazelton on the pound before though.

PAM: Yeah, yeah. But I remember...

ROB: When I came back to the feds, I had to go through Hazelton because they was using it as a holdover.

PAM: It's called Misery Mountain for a reason. So not only did I hear such terrible things happening there, but also, and this is critical, I had a large number of individuals there willing to speak out, which is not always very common.

And I had family members, we'll talk about that too. Unusual. So I started targeting Hazelton and I went to the senators, I went to Senator Manchin and I went to Durbin, who was chair of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate. And I went to the media, although I had a hard time getting their attention. It resulted in a letter that was issued to the Attorney General and the head of the BOP at the time, a scathing letter from Manchin and Durbin and several members of the Senate. It also resulted in the U.S. attorney setting up a special center to receive complaints about Hazelton. And it included an email address so that people in prison could directly submit their concerns. But then what happened is the prison blocked it and so they couldn't do it. So I said to them, okay, send me what you would like to submit and I will submit it for you. And almost immediately after, I was blocked, my email address is blocked. And that actually led, because I had a number of cases like this across the country, I ended up suing the BOP to try to stop them. So, the more we got deeper into our work, there were risks. And there are members of our network who pay the price.

ROB: There are also members of your network that don't ever say nothing because they don't want to pay the price.

PAM: So, I already talked about the fact that I felt it because I think there are about 10 prisons that blocked my email address and made it very difficult for me to gather information. And that's why I have a lawsuit pending. But what about you, Rob? So you also kept writing highly critical articles, very honest articles the whole time. What kind of repercussions did you feel?

ROB: I remember when we published a piece about lockdowns in Politico, and I was in the Challenge program, and the director of the Challenge program, I was in the office with her, and she was basically telling me, "I seen your article and my coworkers or basically the administration seen it. And you're a good writer, it is good, but I believe that the people that you're really writing for or trying to help ain't shit anyway. And you should free yourself because you can't help nobody until you get free. So get out of jail first before you do that." And then nobody never really said nothing to me directly, but at my parole hearing, my last parole hearing for instance, the whole hearing was about you. He didn't ask me to show contrition or if I was accepting responsibility. It was, "Who's Pam Bailey, what is More Than Our Crimes? What is y'all doing? Where did you meet her at? How did you meet her? How long? Why she go visit all these guys?" And it is like, "What does that got to do with me and my freedom?" And then you were denied And then I was denied. So what actually had to happen was that I went to the parole hearing from the SHU because I caught a shot in the visiting hall with you.

PAM: A shot means...

ROB: An incident report, a disciplinary report. And one of my friends was told that, when he try to come back, they basically told him, "Tell her to write another goddamn post about something." And at the time you had just did an interview with NPR about lockdowns and with a highlight on Coleman.

PAM: With a highlight on Coleman.

ROB: Exactly. So that's the targeting right there.

PAM: And I have to tell you, I remember feeling, it was the first time that I felt like, wow, the work that we're doing, that I'm doing. is directly impacting you to the point it could cost you your freedom. And it really made me sit back and think like, wow, is it worth it?

Should we keep doing it? Yeah. And we talked about this, when is resistance worth the price you pay?

ROB: Well, my friends told me when I came out of the hole or before, "Man, you need to just chill and get out of jail or get out of prison." And I did move a little bit...Well, actually I didn't have to because IRAA came.

PAM: Your release came...

ROB: In the next few days, which was a blessing in itself. But it's just like... I see a wrong. I know that prisons, especially in these feds and these penitentiaries, they're closed encampments and nobody sees in. And so it don't matter how many laws that the Senate pass or like this stuff you talked about when you got 'em to do that to Hazelton. They can always just block it or they tell you that we're supposed to have these programs or you're supposed to be doing this and they don't do it. But when people come in there, they're going to do a dog-and-pony show like they're doing everything they're supposed to do. The only way that we're going to get some type of change or we're going to be able to change the system is for people like us to do this type of work and for people to be able to have the scruples to resist.

PAM: Yeah. Well, we were talking about this, that there's certain people in history. There's George Jackson, and I sent a book to you about (Alexei) Navalny, the Russian opposition figure who insisted on going back to Russia after being poisoned and sho died for his convictions. And you can easily say that those people are stupid, foolish.

Because they could have gotten out. And yet we were just talking before this podcast episode. If you didn't have people like them, I mean, think about the wins we've had throughout the civil rights movement. If you didn't have people willing to put their lives on the line like Martin Luther King Jr. did, if you didn't have them, we would never get anywhere,

ROB: That's true. And so you need... It takes all type of people to make a world, and not everybody will have the balls to do those type of things. I do. I care about all my comrades that I left behind. So I'm going to continue to keep on carrying the mantle and whatever: when I was there and now and whatever comes with it. Because I believe that a person who doesn't have nothing to die for ain't fit to live. And this is my cause. This is what I believe in. This is what I want done. I know the way that they incarcerate in America is counterproductive to rehabilitation. And I know it's the direct reason why the recidivism rate is so high. So it needs to be changed. And I'm going to do everything in my power to try to change it.

And the thing I would add is, it's perfectly understandable that most people would say, I" can't take that kind of risk." But what we can do is support the people who are.

And that's what I'm asking, whether it be mainly the guys in prison and their family members, all I ask is just y'all follow us, listen to the podcast. Go on the website. There's all type of information on there that's going on with your kids.

PAM: Pass it around to friends.

ROB: Pass it around to friends. And through collaboration in those ways, you're fighting. You don't have to put your neck on the line.

PAM: That's right. Because others are.

ROB: Others are.

PAM: So this is a place to end. In the next episode of Voices Unlocked, we're going to talk in a little bit more detail about some of the laws and the institutions that worked against Rob's release and those that finally allowed him to get out. So thank you for listening. I hope you subscribe so you'll get notice of the next episode.