HUNGERSTRIKE UPDATE, DAY 35 for Humane Conditions in CA Prisons
Please read and take action now. If you are in the Humboldt region, please come to the Arcata Plaza on Thursday in Solidarity with the Hunger Strikers, 5PM FOR THE 5 DEMANDS! There are Solidarity events all over CA and the world. Check out the calendar on the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity website & create your own events!
Before you read the Hungerstrike News, please sign these petitions:
FOUR PETITIONS TO SIGN! (don't worry about accidentally signing a petition twice; it won't let you)
http://www.change.org/petitions/governor-jerry-brown-stop-the-torture-in-california-2
http://act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=8249
http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/51040/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11455
HUNGERSTRIKE NEWS
Vol. 3 #26, August 11, 2013
Day 35 Countdown for Humane Conditions
Carol Strickman, Mediation Team
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition
Some California prisoners got good news on Friday: the Federal Communications Commission agreed to limit how much companies can charge for phone calls made from behind bars. But this welcome reform does not affect SHU prisoners. Why? Because SHU prisoners in California are not allowed to call home. Lack of family phone calls is one of the reasons why California’s SHU cells are characterized as solitary confinement – the harsh deprivation of family and social ties.
Prisoners in the SHU are not even allowed to write letters to their loved ones, if their loved ones are also incarcerated. The letters they are allowed to write are copied and scrutinized by gang investigators for evidence of gang involvement. And gang investigators find “gang involvement” everywhere they look – even in the drawings of a five year old girl who sends her artwork to her daddy. Imagine a little girl getting her drawing back from the prison because it is considered gang-related. Gang investigators will even reach out to family members and friends who write to SHU prisoners, warning them that they face possible investigation themselves merely for corresponding with a SHU prisoner.
SHU prisoners in long-term solitary confinement value their family relationships above all else. So that is what SHU prisons try to destroy. Consider this: a mother with two sons in prisons (one in general population and one in SHU) cannot write to both. Why? Because she knows that gang investigators will link her sons to each other through her address, thereby jeopardizing the son in general population with gang validation and placement in SHU.
This is the meaning of cruel and unusual punishment. How long would you tolerate these sorts of attacks on you and your family? Would you be driven to hunger strike because of these and other cruelties?
CDCR has created the conditions that drive prisoners to desperation. Whether it be a lonely suicide in an isolation cell or a united peaceful protest, the message is clear: SHU prisoners have been pushed beyond the limit of what human beings should have to bear. It is horrifying to witness CDCR’s response to the current hunger strike: crank up the cruelty and let them die.
Today is Day 35.
On behalf of the Mediation Team,
Carol Strickman, Legal Services for Prisoners With Children, (510) 289-7225
Hunger Strike Mediation Team
Dr. Ronald Ahnen, California Prison Focus and St. Mary’s College of California
Barbara Becnel, Occupy4Prisoners.org
Dolores Canales, California Families to Abolish Solitary Confinement
Irene Huerta, California Families to Abolish Solitary Confinement
Laura Magnani, American Friends Service Committee
Marilyn McMahon, California Prison Focus
Carol Strickman, Legal Services for Prisoners With Children
Azadeh Zohrabi, Legal Services for Prisoners With Children
Please Also Read Intense Informative Countdown Reports
Day 34: http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/2013/08/11/day-34-countdown-for-humane-conditions/
Day 33: http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/2013/08/11/day-33-countdown-for-humane-conditions/
SHU isolation cell to be installed on State Capitol South Steps Aug. 14
by D’Andre Teeter, San Francisco Bay View
The Stop Mass Incarceration Network and Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, in support of the California prison hunger strikers and their five demands, invite the public to visit an installation of a life-sized mock Security Housing Unit (SHU) cell on the California State Capitol South Steps in Sacramento.
The cell will be on display – and you can walk right in to see how it feels – from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 14. A press conference, featuring Assemblymember and Public Safety Committee Chair Tom Ammiano, the Stop Mass Incarceration Network, people formerly incarcerated in California Department of Corrections (CDCR) SHUs, SHU prisoners’ families, and other voices of support and conscience will be held at noon.
California’s Continuing Prison Crisis
New York Times Editorial, August 10, 2013
California has long been held up as the land of innovation and fresh starts, but on criminal justice and incarceration, the Golden State remains stubbornly behind the curve.
13 Reasons to Shut Down California SHUs*
1. SHUs don’t work.
Rates of gang activity, yard violence, illegal drug sales and assaults on staff are increasing in California, while decreasing in other states. Maryland has recently closed its SHU.
2. SHUs add violence to the prison system.
The psychologically brutal and degrading conditions of long term SHU confinement encourages violence and harassment by guards and enrages inmates.
3. SHUs cause short, medium, and long term psychological breakdown and social deterioration.
SHU inmates have no physical contact with anyone for years on end and rarely are able to talk to anyone else in the prison.
4. SHUs do not serve public safety.
Inmates are often released directly from the SHU to the general public without skills that would help them survive. They are thus often less well equipped than nonSHU inmates to function in society. Staff working in SHU units have higher rates of drug use, family breakdown, and spouse/child abuse.
August 23rd: Hearing on Torture and the Pelican Bay SHU!
Sacramento Tues, August 23rd:
Legislative Hearing on Torture & the SHU at Pelican Bay.
Please join us and support a statewide mobilization to Sacramento on August 23rd for an informational legislative hearing held by the CA State Assembly's Public Safety Committee!
Support Statewide Mobilization to Sacramento August 23rd
Day of Action to Support the Hunger Strike & 5 Core Demands! Family and community members across the West Coast will mobilize to Sacramento for a rally and legislative hearing at the State Assembly. Rally starts at 11:30 am on the South Steps of the State Assembly Building. Hearing starts at 1:30 pm, room to be announced.
URGENT: Hunger Striker’s Health Rapidly Deteriorates
More on Medical Crisis, Need Support Pressuring Immediate Negotiations
July 14, 2011
July 12 Update: Prisoner Hunger Strike
CONDITIONS REACH CRISIS IN PELICAN BAY HUNGER STRIKE
"The prisoners are progressing rapidly to the organ damaging consequences of dehydration. They are not drinking water and have decompensated rapidly. A few have tried to sip water but are so sick that they are vomiting it back up. Some are in renal failure and have been unable to make urine for 3 days. Some are having measured blood sugars in the 30 range, which can be fatal if not treated."
Since the hunger strike has spread to at least a third of CA's prisons, family members have informed Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity of their loved one's conditions. They have reported hunger strikers have lost 20-30 pounds, are incredibly pale, and that a number of prisoners fainted and/or went into diabetic shock during family visits this past weekend. Some prisoners have been taken to the prison hospital in at least Corcoran and Pelican Bay.
TODAY: Take Action! Call NOW!