California Prison Hunger Strike Resumes as Sides Dig In

Πηγή: New York Times
By Ian Lovett
Oct 7 2011


LOS ANGELES — When inmates across California’s state prisons went on a hunger strikein July, prison officials negotiated with them, ultimately reaching an agreement to bring the strike to an end after three weeks.

But since inmates resumed the strike last week in continued protest against conditions of prolonged isolation, things have gone differently: the corrections department has cracked down, trying to isolate the strike leaders, some of whom say they no longer trust the department and are hoping to push the governor to enact reforms.

“I’m ready to take this all the way,” J. Angel Martinez, one of the strike leaders at Pelican Bay State Prison, said in a message conveyed through a lawyer this week. “We are sick and tired of living like this and willing to die if that’s what it takes.”

This time, though, both sides have shown less inclination to compromise, and no negotiations between the strike leaders and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have taken place since the strike resumed.

An internal memo from George J. Giurbino, director of the Division of Adult Institutions for the department, outlined new, more aggressive processes for dealing with mass hunger strikes.

The new protocols seek to isolate inmates participating in the strike from those in the general population and potentially subject them to disciplinary measures, while prisoners identified as strike leaders could potentially be denied contact with visitors and even lawyers.

In addition, two lawyers who had helped mediate talks were temporarily barred from state prisons last week because “their presence in the institution/facility presents a security threat.”

The animosity goes both ways, suggesting no easy resolution to a situation in which inmates are protesting being kept in isolation in excess of 22 hours a day, part of an attempt to hamper gangs.

In late July, inmates ended their initial strike after officials agreed to concessions for prisoners in security housing units, including allowing them wall calendars, hobby items like drawing paper and a comprehensive review of how inmates are placed in these isolation units.

The new hunger strike drew 4,000 people last week across the state. But that number had drifted to fewer than 800 by Friday, according to corrections officials, as the department has moved to isolate participants from the general prison population.

Terry Thornton, a department spokeswoman, said that the promised reforms were continuing as promised, and officials remained willing to negotiate, but that leaders had not approached them with a new list of demands.

“Everything we said we were going to do, we did,” Ms. Thornton said. “We are kind of puzzled about why this action was taken again. The review takes time, but we are on track.”

Mistrust of the department is fervent among strike leaders, according to Anne Weills, a lawyer who met with four of them at Pelican Bay. Prisoner rights advocates have also accused the department of low-balling the number of prisoners involved in the strike, arguing that as many as 12,000 inmates had participated.

Ms. Thornton confirmed that 15 inmates at Pelican Bay had been moved to an administrative housing unit because they were identified as coercing other inmates into participation. She also said that all the strike leaders at Pelican Bay were confirmed gang members, and that four of the 11 leaders had ended their strikes.

But Ms. Weills said other prisoners told her that those four did so because they could no longer endure conditions at the administrative housing unit where they had been moved.

“We’re freezing,” Ronald Yandell, one of the strike leaders, said to Ms. Weills this week. “The air-conditioner is blowing. It’s like arctic air coming through, blowing at top speed. It’s torture. They’re trying to break us.”

Oscar Hidalgo, a spokesman for the corrections department, said he did not know why the four leaders had ended their strike.

Sharon Dolovich, a professor of prison law at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the department’s response to the second strike reflected court cases in the last 25 years that had given officials more discretion to clamp down on inmate rights.

“Before, they didn’t want to seem inhumane, and now they’re in damage control mode,” she said. “They’re demonstrating that they’re willing to use the full scope of legal discretion to shut it down.”

Pelican Bay Inmates vow to resume hunger strike

Πηγή: California Watch
By Michael Montgomery

Sep 23 2011

Corrections officials are taking security precautions and gearing up medical staff in response to growing indications that inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison will resume a hunger strike that was suspended July 20.

Strike leaders are calling on state inmates to begin refusing state-issued food Monday to protest conditions in controversial Security Housing Units, according to handwritten letters, Internet postings, and communications with lawyers and advocates.

“Formal and informal sources say they’re going to start the strike again," said Dorsey Nunn, executive director of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, an advocacy group that was involved in mediation efforts during the last hunger strike. "They’re tired of being tortured.”

In a statement posted on an advocacy website, strike leaders accused officials from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation of reneging on promises for major changes in how they manage the state’s four Security Housing Units, the isolation cells that were at the center of the previous strike.

“CDCR has responded with more propaganda, lies and vague double-talk of promises of change in time," the statement reads. "SHU prisoners are dissatisfied with CDCR’s response to their formal complaint and … core demands and therefore will continue to resist via peaceful protest indefinitely, until actual changes are implemented.”

Department officials have agreed to allow personal items for Security Housing Unit inmates that were previously banned, such as sweats, wall calendars and art supplies. And they say new policy guidelines governing the special units will be ready for stakeholder review next month.

An internal memo dated Aug. 25 outlines key elements of the policy overhaul, including changes in how inmates are identified, or validated, as gang members and associates; changes in the criteria used to determine how inmates are assigned to a Security Housing Unit; and the creation of a “step-down” program that would allow an inmate transfer to a general population yard without having to “debrief,” something many inmates consider snitching.

Corrections Undersecretary Scott Kernan said the department has kept its word and will continue the policy makeover even if the inmates launch a new hunger strike. Kernan had sharp words for many of the strike leaders, whom he accused of being "manipulative" gang leaders.

“Unlike in the first instance where we certainly evaluated their concerns and thought there was some merit to it, this instance appears to be more manipulative, and it certainly has the possibility of being a real disruption to the Department of Corrections and the security of its staff and inmates,” he said.

Kernan said officials will treat any new hunger strike as a “mass disturbance” and will take disciplinary action against anyone who takes part. That could include ending commissary privileges and imposing six-month terms in the Security Housing Units for general population inmates who join the action.

Advocacy groups pledged to continue to support the inmates in their demands for change. But some prominent advocates say strike leaders should hold off on another action until the department releases more details on its policy changes.

“If I were the prisoners … I would wait,” said Charles Carbone, an inmate rights attorney who has handled dozens of lawsuits against the corrections department. “But we have to understand these guys have been waiting for decades. Their patience has understandably run out.”

The California Prison System. The Pelican Bay Prison Hunger Strikers: We Are Human Beings!

Πηγή: Global Recearch

By Li Onesto, July 12, 2011


"What is of note here and something that should concern all U.S. citizens, is the increasing use of behavioral control, i.e. Torture units and human experimental techniques against prisoners, not only in California but across the nation. Indefinite confinement, sensory deprivation, withholding food, constant illumination and use of unsubstantiated lies from informants are the psychological billy clubs being used in these torture units. The purpose of this ‘treatment’ is to stop prisoners from standing in opposition to inhumane prison conditions and prevent them from exercising their basic human rights.”

Statement of Solidarity with the Pelican Bay Collective Hunger Strike on July 1st and announcement of participation by Corcoran SHU prisoners
(from California Prison Watch, californiaprisonwatch.blogspot.com)

On Friday, July 1, prisoners in California’s infamous Security Housing Unit (SHU) at Pelican Bay State Prison began a courageous and determined hunger strike. This then, very quickly, turned into a display of collective outrage and solidarity among prisoners throughout the state and beyond.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) initially tried to say the strike was fewer than two dozen prisoners. But they then had to admit that by their own count, more than 500 inmates refused food at Pelican Bay State Prison and that 6,600 prisoners in 13 different prisons participated in the hunger strike on the weekend of July 2-3.

This is an extremely significant and extraordinary development, something that challenges people on “the outside” to sit up and take notice. Many have been moved to support the prisoners in their just demands.

The Pelican Bay SHU is designed to subject prisoners to solitary confinement, isolation and sensory deprivation—indefinitely. Some prisoners have been kept in these completely inhumane conditions for years and decades. And the prisoners in the SHU write that they are fighting to let the world know the brutal injustices being done to them; and that they are risking their lives to send out a message that they are human beings! That they refuse to be treated like animals.

One of the ways prison officials maintain control is by pitting prisoners against each other by race and ethnicity, and exploiting and promoting other divisions among prisoners. But this hunger strike is crossing barriers that usually divide prisoners—building unity to fight the horrendous conditions they all face. The New York Times reported, “The hunger strike has transcended the gang and geographic affiliations that traditionally divide prisoners, with prisoners of many backgrounds participating.”