One Year After Historic Hunger Strike, Isolated California Prisoners Report Little Change

August 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

At this time one year ago, a three week hunger strike across California prisons had been concluded, and the California Assembly had begun planning a hearing on the use of solitary confinement in California’s prisons. The conditions of the California Security Housing Units, where over 3,000 inmates are held in isolation, many for decades, had come to the public’s attention. In the time since August 2011, there would be another round of three week hunger strikes, a smaller series of hunger strikes at the Corcoran Administrative Segregation Unit, a new “Step Down Program” announced in California, a federal lawsuit filed by Pelican Bay SHU inmates, and a US Senate hearing on solitary confinement.

Even so, the situation in the SHUs and ASUs remains much as it did one year ago. A few concessions by prison officials, such as issuing sweatpants and allowing family photos, did nothing to change the problem of long-term isolation and non-existent due process.

It should be reiterated that in California, the majority of SHU inmates are not necessarily there for conduct, but for gang membership.

In a letter to California activists, Pelican Bay hunger strike leader Alfred Sandoval reports feeling  like “just banging my head against the wall because nothing ever changes around here. Right now the Department of Corruption and the current administration have been attempting to pacify prisoners with items…ie. sweats, watch caps, and various food items from canteen–in hopes of distracting us …”

He continues, “the sad fact is that some have been complacent and accepted the physical and psychological abuses as normal because it has been implemented in small increments over decades, year after year so it has become the norm.” [Read more...]

Filed Under: California, due process, psychological effects, solitary confinement, supermax prisons Tagged With: , , , ,

Suicide in Solitary: The Death of Alex Machado

July 24, 2012 By 13 Comments

Alexis “Alex” Machado was a prisoner at Pelican Bay State Prison’s isolation units for nearly two years when he took his own life on October 24, 2011.

According to the autopsy report, Machado was last seen alive at approximately 12:15 AM “as he was examined and then cleared by medical staff for a complaint of heart palpitations.” Thirty minutes later, at 12:45 AM, an officer found Machado and reported that “….Machado [was] hanging inside his cell…” He was seen “sitting on the floor with a sheet tied to his neck and the sheet tied to the top bunk.”

Concluded the autopsy: “The decedent died as a result of asphyxiation due to strangulation by hanging.” Toxicology reports were negative.

As institutional records and letters from Machado in the year leading up to his death show, he had been suffering severe psychological problems in response to his prolonged isolation. Once a jailhouse lawyer whose writings were both clearly and intelligently composed, his mental state would decline at Pelican Bay.

Machado had been incarcerated since 1999 on a robbery charge and a related shooting. He was sentenced to an 80-to-life prison term. Described as an intelligent and thoughtful man with a warm smile by his sister, Cynthia, he generally experienced no problems in his initial 11 years of incarceration. For most of his time, he was held at Kern Valley State Prison.

Things began to change in late 2007, when a race riot took place. “The prison said he was the one who started the riot,” according to Cynthia, “when he really had nothing to do with it.”

His involvement in the riot would result in his being placed in Administrative Segregation Unit (ASU) in December 2007. Though he was never officially found guilty for the riot, prison gang investigators would begin to build a case for his validation as a gang member. In December 2008, he was placed in the ASU again for “manufacturing a weapon”; in January 2009, a confidential informant was officially cited by prison officials as evidence of his gang activity. [Read more...]

Filed Under: California, due process, featured posts, mental illness, psychological effects, solitary confinement, suicide, supermax prisons, torture Tagged With: , , , ,

Voices from Solitary: Can’t You Hear Us?

July 14, 2012 By 2 Comments

The following is an excerpt from testimony submitted to the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Human Rights, and Civil Rights by Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit inmate Gabriel Huerta. He has been in isolation since November 1986; like most in the SHU, he was validated as a gang member on questionable evidence of gang activity. He writes about the latest basis for his renewed SHU term, the need for social contact, and argues that long-term solitary confinement constitutes an act of torture. The rest of his testimony can be read here.–Sal Rodriguez

Many people may not know what it’s like to be isolated for so long, the way that we’ve been here, and I would say that it’s like being locked in the trunk of a car with just enough weather stripping removed so you can breathe, and with enough food and water stuffed in every day so that you can physically survive. You’re soon going to realize what it actually means when it’s said that we’re social beings. You’re going to crave social interaction and human contact. Soon you’ll be hollering out there, “anyone” you can at least talk to for even a brief time. Just like that Pink Floyd song says, “Hey you out there beyond the walls, can you hear me?” And yet every time you talk, every time you act like a human being and interact with other human beings, you’re told that that’s gang activity and you have to stay another 6 years now before your next review.

A book was found in my cell on 12/8/08, that my neighbor had let me read. It had his name and number on the book cover. This same neighbor also shared with me some pages from a Readers Digest that someone had sent him–the jokes section. These pages also had his name and number on them. It was concluded by staff that, “A friendship with a validated gang member proved through this lending and borrowing personal property solidifies the association with the gang itself.” My next review will bow be 2014.

Now let me ay this, there are many of thus who can endure this and much more–to the very end. But you know what? It doesn’t make the is existence any less “sorry.” It’s a sorry existence no matter how well you can endure it. I myself can, if I let myself, get lost in my own little world within the trunk of this car, reading my books and drinking my little pulque. I myself can, if I let myself, become “comfortably numb.” But that’s sorry, and so I’ve got to struggle in whatever way that I can. [Read more...]

Filed Under: California, human rights, international agreements, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, torture, Voices from Solitary Tagged With: , , , ,

One Year Anniversary of Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Against Solitary Confinement

July 3, 2012 By 1 Comment

One year ago on July 1, 2011, approximately 6,600 inmates across California launched a hunger strike in protest of conditions at Pelican Bay State Prison.  The leaders of the strike were a group of prisoners referred to as the Pelican Bay Short Corridor Collective, a multiracial group of prisoners.

The group issued five demands:

1. End Group Punishment & Administrative Abuse

2. Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria

3. Comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement

4. Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food

5. Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.

The strike would last three weeks before coming to an end. Several strikers would be hospitalized. The strike brought attention to the widespread use of solitary confinement in California; currently, approximately three thousand inmates are held in one of California’s three Security Housing Units, where inmates determined to be gang members are sentenced to indefinite terms in solitary confinement. Those sentenced to the SHU for gang validation must either become an informant and leave the gang, must be inactive for six years, or they must parole from their sentence; the phrase “Parole, Snitch, or Die” captures the means of leaving the SHU.

The strike prompted the California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee to hold a hearing on the issue of long-term solitary confinement in California’s prisons. Corrections officials defended their use of the SHU, arguing that it was necessary in controlling prison gangs. Critics pointed to the mounting evidence of the detrimental effects of solitary confinement, the absence of due process in gang validation, and the fact that many inmates have been isolated for decades.

The hunger strike would not be the last. On September 26, 2011, prisoners would launch another hunger strike that would also last approximately three weeks.

At least two hunger strikers would commit suicide.

Smaller strikes would follow at Corcoran State Prison’s Administrative Segregation Unit months later.  One hunger striker, Christian Gomez, would die during the strike.

In March 2012, California Correctional officials released a new gang validation policy. The plan revised the criteria for being validated a gang member and implemented a step-down program in which inmates could hypothetically be released from the SHU in four years, instead of the average of 6.8 years. [Read more...]

Filed Under: California, due process, solitary confinement, suicide, supermax prisons Tagged With: , , ,

Voices from Solitary: Isolated for Having a “Gang” Calendar

July 1, 2012 By 1 Comment

We have heard a lot about the gang “validation” in California prisons–the process by which inmates are identified as members of prison gangs. Validation can land a prisoner in solitary for five, ten, even twenty years, and was the main focus of the recent hunger strikes at Pelican Bay and other California supermaxes. We have also heard stories of prisoners who’ve been validated on the basis of tattoos or reading materials, as well as testimony by other prisoners, who are rewarded for “debriefing.” This is the first time, however, that we’ve heard of a prisoner being validated and placed in solitary because for having a calendar that was deemed to be gang-related–proving, once again, that First Amendment rights often end at the prison gates. — James Ridgeway

I am currently in the administrative segregation unit in a California prison. I was not placed in the ASU for any disciplinary reasons-I was placed here for having copies of a 10-12 year old cultural calendar. I’m basically here for having copies of other peoples’s artwork that dates back up to 20 years. Because these individuals were deemed “prison gang members” I am deemed a “threat to the safety and security of the institution’’ for simply admiring their artwork. How trivial is that?

I’ve been ion this situation for 15 months now. It is extremely mind-boggling how the state and courts allow the prison system to take all your little comforts, the things that help you feel like you are doing something positive with your time such as education (I was two classes away from getting a second college degree), AA/NA classes, a job and a few hours of recreation a day over some innocuous copies.

Now I sit here day in and day out wondering if humanity has desensitized itself to the suffering of other human beings. It is incredible when I hear about the anger and moral courage some people feel at how a chicken or any animal is caged up, but don’t bat an eyelash whena human being is treated worse. It simply amazes me.

Filed Under: California, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, Voices from Solitary Tagged With: , , ,

A Day in the Life of Three Prisoners in Solitary Confinement

June 29, 2012 By 2 Comments

Below are glimpses into the daily lives of three inmates held in isolation. Each has been in isolation for at least five years. Their reasons for being held in solitary vary–one was validated for gang membership, another for an escape attempt, and another for assaults on correctional officers. Their reasons for incarceration vary, from attempted murder to drug law violations. There are some commonalities in their experiences: none of them have reported meaningful programming opportunities and there is a crippling monotony to their lives. All have reported feelings of frustration–both as an emotional response to their circumstances, but also due to the absence of foreseeable release from isolation.

California

Inmate M. has been in the Pelican Bay SHU for five years, a validated Hispanic gang member. He describes his cell as roughly 8 x 12; in his cell are a concrete bed, stainless steel toilet and sink, desk, small stool and a thirteen-inch television. He wakes up at 5 AM, exercises, and takes a “bird bath” from his sink. Breakfast and lunch bags arrive around 7:30 AM. After eating, he spends three hours reading, writing, and worrying.

At some point in the day, he is allowed 60-90 minutes on the yard. He describes the yard as a “concrete box, with a mesh ceiling that allows us to see the sky and get fresh air.”

Depending on how much yard time he gets, he usually spends the next few hours watching television, especially sports. Like many on his unit, he enjoys watching “General Hospital.” He then naps.

Mail is delivered at 4:00 PM, dinner at 5:00 PM. He eats dinner and watches television before going to sleep at 10:00 PM. This is what he’s done for five years, every day.

Utah

Inmate B. has been in isolation for 5 years, in Utah State Prison, Draper’s Uinta 1 facility. He doesn’t leave his cell to shower or exercise due to the procedures that entail putting a bag over an inmates head, handcuffing and tethering between transports.

“We get a styrofoam dinner, which is warm, but two cold meals of bologna (4 pieces), carrots, celery, bread (4 pieces), two cheese slices and one orange with two fruit bars. I wish I could send you a packet of bologna we’re fed for breakfast and lunch. A guard once stated: ‘This shit could withstand a nuclear holocaust.’”

“I can’t train as much cause my liver really goes through hell. It takes three hours to do it. One hour legs, one hour pushups/burpies, one hour curls/shrugs. But I don’t take medication. The prison won’t treat my Hepatitis-C because they say it’s not bad enough yet! I have to be almost dead before they’ll begin the interferon. My training helps my liver, at least I keep telling myself that. I get real hot, cold. I hve to drink cold water some weeks and hot others. My eyes are always bloodshot and are sunken in. I’m dying that’s the long and short of it.”

“I wake up at lunch 11:00 AM. Eat a white sack and then read or write/sweep floor/clean/bird bath in sink until 4:30PM dinner/styro, eat that. On Fridays and Tuesdays I workout or do crunches at that time too. Then pace from 4:30 to 8:30 or 10:30. I read and write at desk and pace. Each a little. Then second white sack at 8:30 PM. Go to sleep around 3 or 4 AM.

“It sounds…bad doesn’t it?  And it would be without me doing my heavy workout and having all the dreams I could possibly want to come to me when I sleep. I think because the days are so bland my dreams are more vivid.”

Oregon

Inmate G., an Oregon IMU inmate currently held in Texas, described his experience at the Snake River Intensive Management Unit in Ontario, Oregon.

“The cells are sealed off pretty much completely, even the doors shut and have a side-bar type thing that fits along the deal. You’ve got to yell to be heard, which is often more of a headache than it’s worth. There’s four large windows at the front of the cells, but you can only see the depressing view of the tiers, and the guard tower. Snake River IMU has always been the most isolated and depressing of the two [OSP being the other].”

“The cell is eight by twelve. A bunk running along the side wall, where the toilet and sink combo is behind the bunk. A table is attached to the other wall, with a small corresponding stool. That’s one of the only good things about IMU in Ontario, the large and spacious cells. But it’s so much more socially isolated and depressing.”

“SRCI’s IMU is so damn bright, with the powerful florescent lights. Even the ‘night lights’ they keep on 24/7 are similar to an average light! There’s many things that combine that place into being miserable.”

With regards to recreation yards: “In Ontario, you’ve got two. One outside and one inside. And they rotate the days, so you don’t go outside everyday. The inside one is merely a large empty cell pretty much…about ten by fifteen. And there’s a dip bar and pull up bar. The outside rec yards there are probably ten by thirty, with a basketball hoop and ball out there.”

“I’ve always liked to read, fiction and nonfiction, and I try to keep active with a workout, although sometimes it’s incredibly easy to get lazy. I love music, so having a radio has been my escape. I write, although not as often as I used to. There’s not much you can do, but I try to keep busy nevertheless.”

Filed Under: California, Oregon, physical effects, psychological effects, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, Utah Tagged With: , , , ,

California Bill Would Lift Media Ban on Access to Prisons

June 13, 2012 By 5 Comments

This important story was put out yesterday from Californians United for a Responsible Budget, via San Francisco Bay View. If legislation like this were passed in other states, as well as in California, it would go a long way toward exposing to the public the truth about supermax prisons and solitary confinement units–which are not only torture chambers, but also virtual domestic “black sites.” See our earlier post for more background on the bill.

Today, residents throughout the state celebrate as AB1270, a bill to lift the media access ban in California prisons, passed the Senate Committee on Public Safety in a 4-2 vote. AB1270 will now go to a vote in Senate Appropriations. A rally on the north steps of the Capitol was held at noon as calls for transparency in California’s troubled prison system spread. Since 1996, media have been prohibited from choosing their interview subjects inside prisons, and nine versions of this bill have been vetoed by three different governors.

Supporters of AB1270 note that the Supreme Court ruling on overcrowding and unconstitutional medical and mental health conditions and last year’s massive prisoner hunger strike demonstrate the need for California taxpayers to have full information about what goes on inside California’s prisons. Testifying on behalf of the bill, a spokesperson for the California Newspaper Publishers Association said: “With the scrutiny and limited resources now being directed to prison facilities, this bill could not be any more timely … Most newspapers have forgone these beats … because there are so many limitations. It’s very difficult for reporters to get in and do their jobs.” A steady stream of supporters from dozens of organizations throughout the state added “me too’s” to the bill…

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, sponsored the bill, citing the need for more transparency and public accountability from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). “Independent media access to prisoners is critical for ensuring transparency and accountability,” said Ammiano. “Despite the thousands of prisoners who participated in a statewide hunger strike last year over conditions in the prisons, it was near impossible to get unbiased information about what was happening due to these restrictions. Today’s vote is an important step towards providing the public with balanced and necessary information about our prisons.”

Read the full piece, which includes a list of the organizations supporting the bill, here.

Filed Under: California, civil liberties/civil rights, legislation, media, solitary confinement, supermax prisons Tagged With: , , , , ,

Voices from Solitary: “The SHU Is California’s Equivalent of Waterboarding”

June 10, 2012 By 8 Comments

The following piece, and accompanying artwork, comes from an inmate in Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing Unit. He is among the over 1,100 inmates at Pelican Bay to be held in isolation from general population. SHU inmates in California generally spend 22 1/2 hours in a cell alone, for an average of over 6 years. In this letter, the inmate blasts the premise of the SHU, and argues that it amounts to nothing more than the “equivalent of waterboarding” to “extract information from [gang] validated inmates.” –Sal Rodriguez

California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) Isolation facilities (SHUs) are unique in relation to other supermax facilities in the nation, in that they lock up and house inmates indefinitely without having committed prison rules violations.

They are isolated solely based on the identification as a gang associate, absent any actual gang misconduct charges supporting gang involvement.

The inmates are classified by CDCR as a threat to the safety and security of the central prison population. However, CDCRs own policies undermine these allegations because the CDCR will release these inmates from isolation promptly if they debrief, ie. become prison informants while in SHU. Yes, in exchange for information the CDCR will release them from their torturous SHU confinement (this is  illegal coercion). This exchange discredits CDCRs claim that these inmates are a threat (a danger that requires segregation).

If such was the case, any amount of information cannot remedy that alleged concern. Instead this exchange exposes CDCRs true objective, which is to extort information from prisoners by the threat of indefinite isolation and sensory deprivation. It’s no different than the methods used by tyrants and dictator nations. The SHU is California’s equivalent of waterboarding, for the purpose of extracting information from validated inmates. A SHU housed validated inmate cannot achieve release from isolation by good behavior–but it is guaranteed release if he becomes an informant. A blind man can see what’s going on here in California SHUs. It’s all about extorting the perceived information CDCR suspects an inmate may know.

The end game for CDCR is to break these inmates by turning them into prison informants by debriefing. It’s not about good conduct or actual threats.

Filed Under: California, due process, politics of punishment, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, Voices from Solitary Tagged With: , , , , ,

Controversy Over Kids in Solitary Confinement in Texas

June 8, 2012 By 4 Comments

Not to be missed (though we did, initially) is a recent post on the Texas criminal justice blog Grits for Breakfast, titled Solitary Confinement at Texas Youth Prisons: A Brief History. As blogger Scott Henson points out, every time violence increases in the youth prisons under the management of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, elected officials begin calling for an expanded use of solitary confinement–which in Texas goes under the euphemism of “behavioral management plans.”

The latest round in this battle concerns the opening of a new block of solitary confinement cells for violent and disruptive teenagers. To its credit, the leadership of the TJJD appears to be opposing the move, arguing that it will disrupt any educational and rehabilitative efforts. But the chair of the Texas Senate’s Criminal Justice Committee, John Whitmire (a Houston Democrat), supports the expanded use of isolation, according to an article in the Austin American-Statesman, and referred to the kids in questions as “thugs”:  ”They should already have opened that place — for safety, for common sense. This boils down to a policy by some of ‘hug a thug’: If you just talk to the worst offenders enough, they’ll be nice. That’s crazy.”

If the pro-solitary camp prevails, Henson points out, it may eventually run into legal limits placed on the use of juvenile solitary confinement, based on a federal lawsuit settlement that dates back to the 1980s. According to a 2008 report by the juvenile justice system’s ombudsman:

The 1983 settlement agreement that ended litigation in Morales v. Turman prohibits facilities from using isolation as a mode of retaliation or as a first-resort punishment, and limits its use to when the facility’s superintendent agrees that an inmate is out of control and dangerous. When the inmate is sufficiently under control, he or she shall be released. Isolation should not be used for more than 3 hours. The agreement, with a few exceptions, allows placement in security only as a last resort, and for no longer than 24 hours. If the inmate is kept in security longer than 24 hours, he or she is entitled to impartial review and appeal of his or her confinement. While in isolation or security, inmates must receive: daily visits from the superintendent and personnel from clinical, social work, and medical units; appropriate psychological and medical services; and the same food, prepared in the same manner, as other inmates.

Whitmore and other advocates of expanded solitary confinement, however, seem determined not to let a mere federal court order stand in their way. Henson argues that they are using solitary as a punitive response rather than look at the staffing and structural problems that actually contribute to violence in youth facilities.

The controversy over juvenile solitary confinement is playing out in other states, as well. The practice was recently banned in Mississippi after revelations of horrendous abuses at a privately run youth facility. But in New York City, the use of solitary confinement for everyone, including kids, is on the rise, despite ample evidence of other problems increasing violence in Rikers Island’s youth jail. And in California, a bill that would have placed some modest limits on the widespread use of juvenile solitary couldn’t even make it out of committee. All of which goes to show, once again, that there are no red or blue states when it comes to the issue of solitary confinement.

Filed Under: California, juveniles, New York, politics of punishment, solitary confinement, Texas Tagged With: , , , ,

Pelican Bay Prisoners File Lawsuit Against Long-Term Isolation

June 1, 2012 By 8 Comments

The Center for Constitutional Rights yesterday filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a group of California prisoners, challenging the practice of long-term isolation in the state’s notorious Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City. The lawsuit was filed May 31st on behalf of Security Housing Unit (SHU) inmates who have spent 10-28 years in solitary confinement. They are among the 500 inmates at Pelican Bay who have been segregated from general population inmates for at least ten years, and among the state of California’s over three thousand SHU inmates.

Arguing that long-term solitary confinement (at least 10 years) is a violation of the 8th amendment, the lawsuit cites research finding that the practice of solitary confinement has negative effects on the mental health of inmates subjected to it. Included in the text of the official complaint are anecdotal reports from SHU inmates indicating significant psychological  problems stemming in part from the conditions of isolation. Among the examples cited are an inmate who “feels that he is ‘silently screaming’ 24 hours a day” and another who reports feeling “like a caged animal.”

The lawsuit comes nearly a year after the first of two large-scale hunger strikes launched in protest of long-term solitary confinement in California prisons. The first of these hunger strikes lasted three weeks in July and prompted a hearing by the California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee to publicly discuss the situation in the SHU. A second, larger strike involving over 6000 inmates launched in October also lasted approximately three weeks. A later, smaller hunger strike at Corcoran State Prison’s Administrative Segregation Unit resulted in the death of inmate Christian Gomez in February.

The lawsuit claims that most of the plaintiffs in the case participated in the first two hunger strikes. This, they claim, “provide[s] additional evidence of the severe psychological distress, desperation, and hopelessness that they experience from languishing in the SHU for decades.” Further, the complaint points out that hunger strike participants ”reported viewing the possibility of death by starvation as a worthwhile risk in light of their current situation.”

The lawsuit also challenges the current use of the gang validation process which results in most SHU placements. Of the 1,128 inmates in the SHU, all but 66 are there for prison gang activity, the rest being there for behavioral issues. SHU inmates at Pelican Bay have argued that placement in segregation should be based on behavior, rather than suspected prison gang activity. [Read more...]

Filed Under: California, civil liberties/civil rights, Constitution, due process, Eighth Amendment, lawsuits/litigation, psychological effects, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, torture Tagged With: , , , , ,
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