Seven Days in Solitary [5/13/13]

May 12, 2013 By Leave a Comment

solitaryThe following roundup features noteworthy news, reports and opinions on solitary confinement from the past week that have not been covered in other Solitary Watch posts.

•  Media coverage on the urgency of closing Guantanamo was heavy throughout the past week, with an estimated 100  of the 166 detainees hunger striking. Most recently, Al Jazeera publishes a Guantanamo prison military document exposing the brutality of the force-feeding. According to the story, detainees “undergo a brutal and dehumanising medical procedure that requires them to wear masks over their mouths while they sit shackled in a restraint chair for as long as two hours…”

•  The New York Times reports that New York City is planning to change the way it disciplines incarcerated people with mental illness, creating alternatives to the use of solitary confinement. “[T]he city Correction Department will transfer severely mentally ill inmates to an internal clinic where psychiatrists will administer treatment and medicine, and the less seriously mentally ill will go to counseling programs designed to help them change their future behavior.”

•  The Los Angeles Times publishes an editorial on the harm inflicted on kids who are subjected to isolation, stating “[s]olitary confinement is ultimately a mental health issue for anyone who goes through it, and the practice, if it is to continue, should at the very least be documented for public review and monitored by mental health professionals.”

•  The Seattle Times reports on a new program at Washington State Penitentiary seeking to to ease violence in some of the most dangerous units inside the prison, minimizing the liklihood of reoffending. “Rival gang members — Norteños and Sureños, Bloods and Crips, white supremacists — all brought together to discuss ways to stay out of trouble, both in prison and when they get out.”

•  Angola 3 News reports on a federal lawsuit filed by Russell Maroon Shoatz’s lawyers protesting his 22 consecutive years in solitary confinement. The story also features a recent interview with activist Bret Grote and Shoatz’ lawyer, Dan Kovalik, taking a closer look at the lawsuit and confronting human rights abuses in U.S. prisons.

•  Momentum builds to end the solitary confinement of youth, with The Nation calling for support in urging U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to ban the use of solitary confinement on youth. The post links to an open letter “in support of a call by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture and the ACLU imploring [Holder] to ban the practice of holding young people in federal custody in solitary confinement.”

•  The Republic reports on a federal lawsuit alleging that correctional officers at North Carolina’s Central Prison brutally beat prisoners held at the facility, using “blind spots” to avoid being seen by security cameras. “An amended complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court by lawyers at North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services says the beatings occurred in Unit One, a cell block known as “The Hole” where inmates are kept in solitary confinement for disciplinary reasons.”

•  NDTV reports on the solitary confinement of Boston marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at a high-security housing unit at a federal medical detention center in Massachusetts. “The only time Tsarnaev gets out of his tiny cell, that contains a sink, toilet, shower and a bed bolted to the floor, is for an hour of recreation every day.”

•  The Colorado Independent reports that Colorado’s El Pueblo Boys and Girls Ranch held Kiondre Davison, a 14-year old with an array of developmental disabilities, in solitary confinement for 25 days. “Of particular concern is imposing isolation on developmentally delayed kids. Kiondre is typical of such cases. He struggled to understand what was happening to him and so only loosely tied his actions at El Pueblo to the consequences they brought.”

•  Alan Prendergast reports that the legal team of Troy Anderson, who is currently incarcerated at Colorado’s supermax prison, has filed court papers contending that Department of Corrections officials have failed to comply with a previous ruling by a federal judge that Anderson is entitled to three hours a week of outdoor activity. Anderson’s attorneys assert that “their client is worse off than before, with less effective mental health treatment, following a transfer from the supermax to solitary confinement at the Sterling Correctional Facility.”

•  In an op-ed published on Times Union, Donn Rowe, President of New York State Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association, responds to a recent story on the harm inflicted on mentally ill people who are subjected to solitary confinement.   According to Rowe, “Special Housing Units are for inmates who are a danger to others and themselves.”

•  SFGate reports that Colorado has banned a youth treatment center in El Pueblo from placing teens in solitary confinement. The state found three violations of Colorado regulations in its investigation, which followed complaints by the ACLU that the program was violating the constitutional rights of youth.

•  Black Agenda Report reports that people held in isolation at California’s Pelican Bay may once again go on hunger strike, stating that “more than 200 inmates at the [facility] have been in solitary confinement for between five and ten years and nearly 100 have been shut off from most human contact for 20 years or more.” The story also calls for outside support, emphasizing the importance of having support networks in place beforehand.

•  New York City Councilmember Daniel Dromm denounces solitary confinement as “cruel and unusual” in a recent editorial, stating “[a]s a matter of fundamental human rights, how the DOC uses solitary confinement must radically change.”

•  The Boston Globe reports that the use of segregation units has come under increased scrutiny in Massachusetts, where approximately 500 of the state’s 11,000 prisoners are held in isolation on any given day. According to the story, “Prisoner-rights advocates, legislators, and even corrections commissioners in other states are increasingly denouncing the use of solitary confinement, while others defend the practice as an essential part of prison management.”

Filed Under: civil liberties/civil rights, human rights, lawsuits/litigation, mental illness, psychological effects, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, torture Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Seven Days in Solitary [5/4/13]

May 4, 2013 By Leave a Comment

solitaryThe following roundup features noteworthy news, reports, and opinions on solitary confinement from the past week that have not been covered in other Solitary Watch posts.

•  Media coverage on the urgency of closing Guantanamo was particularly heavy this week, with numerous organizations and groups calling on President Obama to take immediate action. Most recently, The Economist described the prison as “a deeply un-American disgrace” in a story entitled “Guantanamo: Enough to make you gag,” an obvious reference to the unethical force-feeding of hunger strikers by authorities at the prison. The story outlines the U.S. government’s failure to take action to close the prison camp, concluding ”Mr. Obama should think about America’s founding principles, take out his pen and end this stain on its history.”

•  The Los Angeles Times reports that California Gov. Jerry Brown “appealed for relief from court orders over prison conditions” within just 24 hours of unveiling his plan to reduce overcrowding in the state’s prisons, which, according to another Times story, “would free some inmates early to ease crowding, but still miss court’s target.”

•  The Los Angeles Times reports that people held in isolation in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison are seeking class-action status in their federal lawsuit “alleging the state’s segregation policies equate to cruel and inhumane treatment.” In the motion filed  in U.S. District Court in Oakland, the plaintiffs assert that they have been subjected to prolonged confinement in ”windowless cells… with little meaningful contact with others, restricted food, limited communication and no access to educational or treatment programs.”

•  The Denver Channel reports that Evan Ebel, who is suspected of killing Colorado’s prison chief, filed two grievances in the final days of his incarceration in which he appealed his being kept in isolation up until his release, writing ”Do you have an obligation to the public to reacclimatize ‘dangerous’ inmates to being around other human beings prior to releasing them into society after they have spent years in solitary confinement & if not, why not?”

•  Slate publishes a three-part series of excerpts from the declassified memoirs of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who has been held at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay for almost 11 years. The story describes Slahi’s handwritten 466-page manuscript as “a harrowing account of his detention, interrogation, and abuse.”

•  WHYY Public Media discusses the history of solitary confinement and the contemporary controversies surrounding these isolation practices in a Radio Times program. Guests include Sean Kelley (Senior Vice President and Director of Programming and Public Relations at Eastern State Penitentiary), Jules Lobel (University of Pittsburgh Law Professor and President of the Center for Constitutional Rights) and Shirley Moore (Executive Deputy Secretary of the Pennsylvania DOC).

•  Stars and Stripes reports on “life under lockdown”  for Guantanamo detainees, stating that “[w]ith nearly every one of the 166 Guantanamo prisoners now under lockdown — back in solitary existence after years of communal living — the military has reverted to a battle rhythm reminiscent of the Bush administration.”

•  Sharon Herald reports on the federal lawsuit filed by the Disability Rights Network of Pennsylvania and the ACLU charging that the use of solitary confinement on mentally ill people in Pennsylvania prisons qualifies as a violation of Constitutional rights. The lawsuit, which is seeking “changes in the way prisons respond to the mentally ill,” describes the state’s use of solitary confinement on mentally ill people as a “Dickensian nightmare.”

• James Ridgeway was named a finalist for an NCCD Media for a Just Society Award for his article on growing old in prison, “The Other Death Sentence.”

 

Filed Under: civil liberties/civil rights, human rights, lawsuits/litigation, mental illness, solitary confinement, torture Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Judge Rules California Solitary Confinement Lawsuit Should Have Its Day in Court

March 19, 2013 By 7 Comments
Pelican Bay "exercise" yard, © Richard Ross, from "Architecture of Authority"

Pelican Bay “exercise” yard, © Richard Ross, from “Architecture of Authority”

On Thursday, March 14th, U.S. District Court Judge Claudia Wilken denied a motion by the state of California to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights against long term solitary confinement in the California prison system. The lawsuit, filed on May 31st, 2012, argues that California’s segregation of “gang-validated” prisoners in Security Housing Units (SHUs)for longer than 10 years constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment.” The lawsuit also argues that the current process by which prison officials label prisoners gang members is a violation of prisoners due process rights. In California, as of late 2011, over 500 California prisoners had been in the SHU for at least ten years; 78 had been in the SHU for at least 20 years.

The SHUs, located at Pelican Bay State Prison, Tehachapi State Prison, Corcoran State Prison, and California State Prison, Sacramento, hold over 3,000 prisoners in segregated units. Prisoners are primarily held in solitary confinement in these units, which have been described by NPR as living in a “small, cement prison cell. Everything is gray concrete: the bed, the walls, the unmovable stool. Everything except the combination stainless-steel sink and toilet…You can’t move more than eight feet in one direction.”

Conditions in the SHU prompted two large scale hunger strikes in California prisons in July and September 2011. The hunger strikes drew national attention to the issue of solitary confinement, and prompted California legislative hearings in 2011 and 2013. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has implemented reforms to the system, including an allegedly more stringent gang validation system; CDCR has been criticized for validating prisoners and keeping others in isolation for possession of black nationalist literature and “cultural calendars” on the grounds that they constitute evidence of gang activity. CDCR has also reportedly begun a review of all current SHU prisoners under the new standards to determine whether or not prisoners should remain in the SHU.  According to the Los Angeles Times in February, 144 prisoners had been reviewed and 78 had been released to general population and 52 were placed in a new Step Down Program in which prisoners may transition out of the SHU over 4 years with increasing privileges.

People inside California’s prisons have been less enthusiastic about the reforms.

North Kern State Prison prisoner Terrance White is housed in the Administrative Segregation Unit (ASU) pending an opening in the (full) SHUs.  White initially reported to the San Francisco Bay View that he was observing the prison sending prisoners in the ASU back to general population in December, but now says that “I see I’ve been duped by the lies of CDC. I got released back to the general population yard for 45 days and now they’ve brought me back to get validated. It’s sad to see law enforcement get away with monstrosities everyday, then come after us on the inside for becoming wise to their evils by educating ourselves.”

“They’re still validating people it seems every chance they get,” reports White, who has been validated as a Black Guerilla Family member. “I’m not alone as you are aware of, there’s a lot of us and poor Latinos, a few Natives, and poor whites have also been targeted these days. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be here at North Kern, I’m waiting for the Office of Correctional Safety to send my packet back and then I will be endorsed to the SHU to finish my term.”

Pelican Bay SHU prisoner Paul Sangu Jones is optimistic that the public, who he refers to as “minimum security,” are at least “getting a clearer idea of how their tax dollars are being wasted on all of these unnecessary prisons.” But, he says, “my current thoughts are that we remain in limbo. We are locked into a cycle of torture. We keep hearing about how our situation is going to change but every day we wake up to the same old thing–talk about déjà all over again.”

Jones, who has been in the SHU for over a decade, has been labeled by prison officials as a member of the BGF. He was initially placed in the SHU following an anonymous prisoners claim that he was a high ranking BGF member. He has been subsequently kept in solitary confinement for, among other reasons, possessing a “Black Panther newsletter” and because other prisoners designated BGF had written him letters which were intercepted by prison officials.

Jones has reported that someone in his facility had been recently take out of the SHU and placed in the Step Down Program. “It’s my understanding that the prisons are clearing their Ad Segs [Administrative Segregation Units] of prisoners they were planning on ‘validating’ as gang members. I’m told that these prisoners are being placed in the Step Down Program, and the prisons are saying that they are releasing folks from the SHU. It’s certainly what I’d expect from CDCR–no one in the Short Corridor, where prisoners who have been in SHU 10,20,30,40 years have been released to general population,” Jones writes.

“The Pelican Bay State Prison administration is not going to do anything to ease the SHU torture unless forced to do so by the courts. That is the reality our SHU lawsuit is facing.”

Jones also referred to the declaration by the leaders of the 2011 hunger strikes that the prisoners will launch a statewide hunger strike and work stoppage in July if conditions do not improve. “Surely you’ve heard the talk of another hunger strike? That should say it all…”

Filed Under: California, due process, Eighth Amendment, lawsuits/litigation, solitary confinement, supermax prisons Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

California Assembly Reviews Solitary Confinement Policies As Prisoners Threaten New Hunger Strike

February 26, 2013 By 10 Comments

˜¡@On Monday, February 25th, the California Assembly’s Public Safety Committee, chaired by Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, held a hearing on the state’s Security Housing Units (SHUs). The hearing comes 18 months after the committee held a similar hearing prompted by  a three-week long hunger strike in June 2011 that involved thousands of California prisoners across the state. The 2011 hearing, which was subsequently followed by an additional three-week long hunger strike in September 2011, lead to significant attention on the controversial SHU system. Chief among the demands of the hunger strikers was an end to long term solitary confinement and the controversial gang validation process. Corrections officials have officially stated that reforms first announced in March 2012 were considered and crafted independently of the demands of the hunger strikers.

Monday’s hearing focused on the implementation of new CDCR policies and considerations of their appropriateness.

In California, prisoners determined  (“validated”) by prison investigators (Institutional Gang Investigators, or, IGI) to be members or associates of one of seven prison gangs are placed in a SHU at one of three prisons (Pelican Bay State Prison, Corcoran State Prison, and Tehachapi State Prison). Prisoners in the SHU typically spend 22 1/2 hours in solitary confinement, being allowed out for exercise and showering on an infrequent basis. At Pelican Bay State Prison SHU cells have been described as “small, cement prison cell. Everything is gray concrete: the bed, the walls, the unmovable stool. Everything except the combination stainless-steel sink and toilet…You can’t move more than eight feet in one direction.”

Currently, over 3,000 prisoners in California are held in a SHU. More are held in Administrative Segregation Units (Ad Seg), which are designed similarly to the SHU, pending openings of SHU cells.  Prisoners validated as gang members or associates have been held for indeterminate terms in the SHU, with over 500 prisoners spending over 10 years in isolated confinement, and over 70 prisoners spending over 20 years in the SHU. Until recently, the policies around SHU confinement of gang validated prisoners required that prisoners prove that they have not been active in gang activity for six years, or they must “snitch” on fellow prisoners in order to be transferred out of the SHU.

At Monday’s hearing, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)  Deputy Director in charge of the Division of Adult Institutions, Michael Stainer, defended the gang validation as a necessary component to institutional and public safety. It was argued that restricted housing is necessary to curtail the ability of gang leaders to continue to operate their criminal enterprises, order murders, and orchestrate attacks within the prisons and on the streets.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: California, featured posts, race, solitary confinement, supermax prisons Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

California Inmates Launch New Hunger Strike on October 10th

October 16, 2012 By 2 Comments

On October 10th, inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison and California Correctional Institution in Tehachapi launched a hunger strike. The hunger strike, which has in total involved five hundred inmates, coincided with the date of an announced racial cease-fire issued by inmates in Pelican Bay referred to as the PBSP-SHU Short Corridor Collective. The group, which consists of several inmates who are said by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to be leaders of criminal prison gangs including the Aryan Brotherhood and Black Guerilla Family, issued a call for all inmates to cease racial conflict and urged unity among inmates across California.

It has been speculated that because this same group also lead the historic hunger strikes that took place last year, inmates misinterpreted the October 10th date to launch a hunger strike.

Yesterday, the Los Angeles Times reported:

Inmates on a six-day hunger strike at the state prison near Tehachapi are raising objections over new state policies on how gang members are identified and treated, state officials say.

Corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton said those policies have yet to be implemented and are under review by the state Office of Administrative Law.

As of Monday, 161 inmates within segregated cell blocks at the California Correctional Institution, called the Security Housing Unit, continued to refuse meals, Thornton said. The fasting began on Wednesday with nearly 300 inmates at Tehachapi, as well as another 200 inmates in the general prison population at Pelican Bay State Prison hundreds of miles away. Pelican Bay inmates resumed eating by Friday, Thornton said.

Family members of SHU inmates at Tehachapi told the Los Angeles Times they were unaware of the protest. Unlike a larger statewide hunger strike last year, Thornton said corrections officials had no warning and little information about the underlying issues of this strike. Some hunger strikers have complained about prison food and property rules, while others are raising complaints about proposed gang control policies.

Today, a letter signed by the Short Corridor Collective and issued to California Governor Jerry Brown declared their opposition to proposed CDCR reforms of the SHU and “‘status’-based, indefinite isolation,” a reference to the fact that the majority of inmates in the SHU are there for alleged involvement in prison gangs. The letter, which can be read here, does not reference any current hunger strike action.

If anyone has more information about the circumstances of this hunger strike please contact the author at: Sal_SolitaryW@yahoo.com.

Filed Under: California, solitary confinement, supermax prisons Tagged With: , , , , , ,

California Justice: Three Strikes and Sixteen Years in Solitary

September 7, 2012 By 23 Comments

The San Francisco Chronicle today ran an op-ed called “The Crime of Punishment at Pelican Bay State Prison.” The author is Gabriel Reyes, who has spent 16 years in solitary confinement (and whose artwork is featured on the left). The brief, powerful piece begins this way:

For the past 16 years, I have spent at least 22 1/2 hours of every day  completely isolated within a tiny, windowless cell in the Security Housing Unit  at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison in Crescent City (Del Norte County).

Eighteen years ago, I committed the crime that brought me here: burgling an  unoccupied dwelling. Under the state’s “three strikes” law, I was sentenced to  between 25 years and life in prison. From that time, I have been forced into  solitary confinement for alleged “gang affiliation.” I have made desperate and  repeated appeals to rid myself of that label, to free myself from this prison  within a prison, but to no avail…

Unless you have lived it,  you cannot imagine what it feels like to be by yourself, between four cold  walls, with little concept of time, no one to confide in, and only a pillow for  comfort – for years on end. It is a living tomb. I eat alone and exercise alone  in a small, dank, cement enclosure known as the “dog-pen.” I am not allowed  telephone calls, nor can my family visit me very often; the prison is hundreds  of miles from the nearest city. I have not been allowed physical contact with  any of my loved ones since 1995. I have developed severe insomnia, I suffer  frequent headaches, and I feel helpless and hopeless. In short, I am being  psychologically tortured. [Read more...]

Filed Under: California, civil liberties/civil rights, Constitution, human rights, lawsuits/litigation, psychological effects, solitary confinement, 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: , , , ,

Inmates in Solitary Confinement in California Respond to Prison Policy Reforms

May 1, 2012 By 11 Comments

Prisoners in California’s Security Housing Unit (SHU) have offered their opinions of the recent reforms of the California prison system’s controversial gang validation policies. In correspondences with Solitary Watch, SHU inmates in Pelican Bay and Corcoran prisons have consistently been critical of the reforms, which among other things reform the gang validation point system and introduce a step-down program in which inmates can  transition out of the SHU. Last month a group of SHU inmates, all of whom are labeled as either members or leaders of prison gangs (Aryan Brotherhood, Mexican Mafia, Black Guerilla Family), released a counter proposal in response.

The following are excerpts from letters written by prisoners currently in California’s SHUs.

From Kijana Askari (self-portrait above), who has been in the SHU since 1994 after being validated as a member of the Black Guerilla Family:

With regards to the revisions that were done to SHU management gang policies, well, that is exactly what has taken place—”revisions” (e.g. “reform”). Hence, more of the same in that, the revisions have only strengthened CDCR officials power and ability to label and validate every prisoner in CDCR as belonging to a Security Threat Group–e.g. “prison gang.”At the crux of the revisions is a lack of a definitive and “behavioral-based” criteria, as to what actually constitute as being gang activity. Meaning, any and everything can and will still be considered as gang activity, in spite of how innocuous the activity may be.

In addition to this, we still have untrained and unqualified CDCR officers/officials determining and assessing what is “gang activity.” And this point is critical for two very important reasons: 1) There are no qualitative oversight mechanisms in place, meaning there is absolutely nothing to prevent CDCR’s prison guards, gang unit, etc., from being vindictive, retaliatory, punitive, etc., via the application of these “revised” gang management policies; and 2) it has been proven that CDCR’s prison guards and their IGI gang unit staff do not properly investigate the evidence used in each prisoners gang validation–see Lira v. Cate.

And the new revisions do not do anything to correct this.

Kijana Tashiri Askari (Marcus Harrison) #H54077, Pelican Bay State Prison  D3 122 SHU, PO Box 7500, Crescent City, CA 95531

From a Pelican Bay SHU inmate who has been in solitary confinement for five years and is currently appealing the gang validation that placed him there:

“We were recently afforded a copy of this proposal. Many of us are getting the chance now to read through and evaluate it. I read through it once and will go through it again. There are many aspects of the step down program that at face value seem to provide far better alternatives to the over 20 year long policy of implementing indeterminate SHU programs. Many of the program objectives and privileges outlined in the proposal at first glance look to be very good and beneficial to a lot of SHU prisoners. However, the gang validation/identification aspect of the proposal continues to present an ongoing issue and problem for many individuals who have been validated and will be validated. Under the criteria that is set forth, it continues to target and identify individuals for long-term SHU placement based on gang affiliation rather than actual gang activity or criminal/illegal conduct.”Which is, has been, and under this proposal will continue to be a significant hardship for many who the CDCR looks to place and keep locked away in the SHU for little to no reason.” [Read more...]

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

Families of California Prisoners Respond to Controversial Reforms of Solitary Confinement

April 20, 2012 By 1 Comment
The following is a response by  California Families to Abolish Solitary Confinement (CFASC), an organization dedicated to raising awareness of the use of solitary confinement in California prisons, to the recent revision of gang validation policies. Gang validation is the primary means by which the over three thousand inmates in Security Housing Units (SHU) are placed in solitary confinement, most for years and many for decades. Pelican Bay SHU inmates responded to the reforms, which include the implementation of a step-down program and a transformation in the security point system, with a counter proposal three weeks ago.

LOS ANGELES (April 16, 2012) — We live in a state whose citizens are more morally outraged about the confinement of chickens and dogs than of human beings. We are the families of thousands of loved ones who have been incarcerated indefinitely—some for decades—in California’s “supermax” segregated and administrative housing units. Solitary confinement, even for short periods, has been known for centuries to cause irreparable physical and psychological damage: torture. Yet California continues to condone this practice in violation of both Constitutional and international law against the use of this and other inhuman and degrading treatment.

In March 2012 the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) came out with its long-awaited proposal to overhaul its use of prolonged solitary confinement to manage gangs and violent prisoners. Families, lawyers, prisoners and activists had hoped that after two peaceful hunger strikes in 2011 engaging 12,000 prisoners protesting CDCR’s illegal practices, the Department would follow several other states that have successfully and significantly reduced their use of solitary confinement and instituted effective rehabilitation and re-entry programs—and at great savings to overstressed state budgets.

By definition “torture” is the intentional infliction of severe mental or physical pain or suffering by or with the consent of state authorities for a specific purpose: With CDCR, this purpose is to extract information about gang activities, real or fabricated. There is nothing in these new proposals that leads any of us to believe that a sincere reform of CDCR’s extremist policies is at hand; in fact, the language is more obscure, the policies more layered, and the prisoners’ demands for decency and rehabilitation virtually ignored. Amnesty International and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture among others issued immediate statements repudiating this document as not going far enough to address the inhumane conditions that have persisted in California prisons for decades. If anything, much of the new document appears even more Draconian. We are very concerned for our loved ones inside this prison within the prison.

Prisons are by nature closed systems, yet they are funded by taxpayers and are public institutions whose function is to oversee the deprivation of liberty, an extreme use of power against an individual. Our loved ones are human beings first and prisoners second. Too many have endured retaliation, arbitrary interpretations of CDCR’s regulations code, poor food, medical negligence, and an inability to program out of solitary unless they self-incriminate, snitch, or die. This is not to ignore crime and punishment, but we believe the public interest in law and order can best be served through standards of morality and human decency.

All California communities are stakeholders in what happens in our prisons because many of these inmates will eventually return to society. Even if our state’s citizens may not generally be sympathetic to prisoners, we must hold our public institutions to high ethical standards, including assuring that both prisons and communities are safe.

Gov. Jerry Brown and Secretary of Operations Matthew Cate recently applauded CDCR for removing the last “bad beds” in prison overcrowding—a move to eliminate degrading and inhuman conditions, creating a more effective penal regime that honors dignity and human rights. This thinking must now be transferred to prisoners in solitary. California’s version of supermax is extreme on every level, involving more prisoners for more of their sentences under worse conditions. Many states are revisiting their use of solitary confinement, but given California’s documented tendency to create torturous conditions under the justification of security, large-scale use of solitary confinement in this state should end.

Substantial, meaningful and ethical revision of the CDCR proposals will be a large step toward restoring basic justice in California, with no less concern for the real issue of public safety. We believe California’s faith communities have a considerable stake in this humanitarian reform and we ask your participation in our efforts to raise awareness and end torture in California prisons.

Contact information: California Families to Abolish Solitary Confinement (CFASC), 8018 E. Santa Ana Canyon Rd. Suite 100 #213, Anaheim, CA 92808-1102; 714.290.9077

Filed Under: California, physical effects, psychological effects, retaliation, solitary confinement, supermax prisons, torture Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Isolated California Inmates Continue Their Fight for Reform

December 30, 2011 By 6 Comments

Since the widespread hunger strikes across California protesting the conditions of long-term solitary confinement in the California prison system, there have yet to be any indications of substantive change on the horizon.

According to the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity coalition, three hunger strikers have committed suicide–two in Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing and another at Calipatria State Prison’s Administrative Segregation Unit. This has been denied by CDCR Terry Thornton who claims that none of the inmates participated in the hunger strike. According to family members of Johnny Owen Vick, one of the Pelican Bay inmates, Vick had been suffering from mental health issues for years before his September suicide and had at one point been in the SHU.  The father of Hozel Blanchard, Jr., the inmate at Calipatria State Prison, contrary to Thornton’s assertion, has insisted that his son had in fact been a hunger striker.

There have been reports of hunger striker leaders at Pelican Bay State Prison facing disciplinary action for their participation in the strikes. One hunger strike leader reported that:

On November 30th, myself and several other men here (whom CDCR has labeled as “leaders” of the peaceful-protests) received serious rule violations, charging us with causing a riot/mass disturbance and they referred it for felony – prosecution, to the local D.A’s office.

And further, that:

The Ad-Seg/ ASU units are bad news – I was never housed in them until being put in the one here – on Sept. 29th, this was CDCR’s retaliatory action against (15) of us here. We were all isolated on a tier, in strip cells with nothing but a set of clothes and fish kit (spoon, cup, bar of soap, etc…), with ice cold air blasting outta the vents!

Confinement in the ASU reportedly lasted until October 13th, the end of the Pelican Bay hunger strike.

Since this time, there has been difficulty maintaining the momentum sparked by the first hunger strike, which notably led in a historic California Assembly hearing on the matter with promises of future Public Safety Committee inquiries into the system of solitary confinement.

The frustration with the slow-moving CDCR has apparently led to ASU inmates at Corcoran State Prison to launch a hunger strike on December 28th (more information is forthcoming). A letter declaring the purpose of the hunger strike, along with a list of demands (similar in nature to the previous hunger strike demands) has been published on December 30th.

Dated December 22nd, the below letter is from the Pelican Bay Short Corridor–a group of inmates considered the leaders of the previous hunger strikes. It is reflective of the growing frustration and determination among inmates to see to it that their situation and cause remains in the publics awareness and urges individuals to keep the pressure on CDCR and the California government to fully address this issue.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: retaliation, solitary confinement, suicide, supermax prisons Tagged With: , ,
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