The Struggle Against Death in California's Gulag Archipelago, Summer 2011
In the months before summer 2011, news spread that between 50 and 100 prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison in the Security Housing Unit (SHU), Corridor D, were going on an indefinite hunger strike, starting July 1.
What was initially expected to involve scores of men laying their lives on the line quickly exceeded all expectations, and in the first weekend of the strike over 6000 prisoners across California participated. While numbers had dropped by the second week, there were still hundreds on strike, and some had escalated to a thirst strike. A human being can only survive a short while without liquids, and as of July 12 there were already reports of prisoners suffering renal failure. It suddenly became horribly clear that this was for real.
It is no coincidence that the largest - and potentially the most tragic - prisoner struggle in recent California history was planned and organized in Pelican Bay's SHU. The D corridor (also known as the "short" corridor) has the highest level of restricted incarceration in the state of California and among the most severe conditions in the united states. The rules of their confinement are extremely harsh in order to force them to "debrief" or offer up information about criminal or prison gang activity of other prisoners. Most inmates in the SHU are not members or associates of prison gangs, as the PBSP staff claims, and even those who are put their lives and the lives of their families and other prisoners at risk if they debrief.Â
Using conditions of severe mental and physical harm in order to force prisoners into confessing is torture. Many debriefers simply make up information about other prisoners just to escape the isolation units. This misinformation is then used to validate other prisoners as members or associates of prison gangs who in reality have nothing to do whatsoever with gang activity.
A system of lies elicited by torture, a kafkaesque world where (regardless of one's "crime") an anonymous accusation can land you in a torture chamber ... this is the nature of the Pelican Bay SHU. There are people who have spent decades in these conditions, despite overwhelming evidence that even short-term isolation can cause serious psychological harm. The SHU is killing people slowly, in a way that is supposed to be "acceptable" and sanitized, with no need of a capital conviction. It is by grasping this reality that one can see that the prisoners' - though refusing food and in some cases water - are not fighting to die, but are literally fighting to live.
These are the five core demands of the hunger-striking prisoners:
- Eliminate group punishments. Instead, practice individual accountability. When an individual prisoner breaks a rule, the prison often punishes a whole group of prisoners of the same race. This policy has been applied to keep prisoners in the SHU indefinitely and to make conditions increasingly harsh.
- Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria. Prisoners are accused of being active or inactive participants of prison gangs using false or highly dubious evidence, and are then sent to longterm isolation (SHU). They can escape these tortuous conditions only if they "debrief," that is, provide information on gang activity. Debriefing produces false information (wrongly landing other prisoners in SHU, in an endless cycle) and can endanger the lives of debriefing prisoners and their families.
- Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in Prisons (2006) regarding an end to longterm solitary confinement. This bipartisan commission specifically recommended to "make segregation a last resort" and "end conditions of isolation." Yet as of May 18, 2011, California kept 3,259 prisoners in SHUs and hundreds more in Administrative Segregation waiting for a SHU cell to open up. Some prisoners have been kept in isolation for more than thirty years.
- Provide adequate food. Prisoners report unsanitary conditions and small quantities of food that do not conform to prison regulations. There is no accountability or independent quality control of meals.
- Expand and provide constructive programs and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates. The hunger strikers are pressing for opportunities “to engage in self-help treatment, education, religious and other productive activities..." Currently these opportunities are routinely denied, even if the prisoners want to pay for correspondence courses themselves. Examples of privileges the prisoners want are: one phone call per week, and permission to have sweatsuits and watch caps. (Often warm clothing is denied, though the cells and exercise cage can be bitterly cold.) All of the privileges mentioned in the demands are already allowed at other SuperMax prisons (in the federal prison system and other states).
Please check out the below "Key Documents", provided by Ed Mead, editor of Prison Focus magazine (and a former political prisoner himself). While all the documents are relevant, the first two ("Formal Complaint" and "Final Notice") contain the essential information.
If you are in contact with any California prisoners it is urged that you let them know that outside support groups are drafting litigation to contest the constitutional validity of certain CDCR practices inside California’s Security Housing Units. And that any prisoner having information on this subject, or who is seeking to learn more about this law suit, should use confidential legal mail to contact:
Marilyn McMahon
Attorney at Law
PO Box 5187
Berkeley, CAÂ
94705-0187
If you can think of any other documents or information missing from this list, please let me know. For inquiries and most up to date information, please visit the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (PHSS) Coalition`s blog at prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com or telephone 510-444-0484.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW INTERNATIONAL CALENDAR OF SOLIDARITY EVENTS
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CLICK HERE TO VIEW INTERNATIONAL CALENDAR OF SOLIDARITY EVENTS
News from the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition:
- From N.C.T.T. at Corcoran SHU to the Occupy Movement
- Feb. 20th: Occupy National Day in Support of Prisoners!
- Prisoners at Cocoran Continue Hunger Strike, Concerns Rise Over Health Conditions
- A Call for Every CA Prisoner: 150,000 Calls on the CA Legislature Supporting the Hunger Strike
- Status of CDCR’s New Regulations
- Prisoners at Corcoran Administrative Segregation Unit Challenge the CDCR & Advance Prisoners’ Struggle
- Update from the Pelican Bay Short Corridor
- Suicided
- Hozel Blanchard Presente!: Open Funeral Service in Oakland, CA
- Three Prisoners Die in Hunger Strike Related Incidents: CDCR Withholds Information from Family Members, Fails to Report Deaths
Key Documents
Agit Prop
Letters from Prisoners
Recent News
this will only show the last ten news items, for older items click here.
Support Organizations
Audio
Off The Hour, CKUT 90.3FM, interviews Ed Mead, June 9, 2011
Sojourner Truth Radio, Update on Pelican Bay Hungerstrike, July 6, 2011
July 7 Interview with Canadian prisoner Peter Collins about the California hunger strike, and isolation-imprisonment in CanadaPeter Collins has been incarcerated some 28 years. He is an artist, creating artworks from cartoons to paintings of wildlife to portraits, of which his latest portrait, that of Ashley Smith* the young woman who died in prison while guards watched on and did nothing, was confiscated by prison authorities and written up as a charge of Contraband. Peter is also an activist behind the walls and in 2008 he won the Canadian Award for Action which was given jointly by The Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and Human Rights Watch. He is also a prolific writer and has been published in various magazines and blogs and he’s also a regular radio commentator reporting on prisoners’ struggles, the realities of Canada’s law and order agenda and the abuses that prisoners are subjected to in prisons in Canada. It is said by his outside supporters that its because of his activism that the Correctional Service of Canada doubly punishes him, by not supporting him for parole and writing up bogus ‘contraband reports,’ setting up a censorship board for his artwork at the Bath prison, where he is incarcerated and other various forms of oppression. In this interview Peter is asked about his thoughts on the hunger strike which began with the prisoners in the SHU of the Pelican Bay State Prison in California, and his own reflections of what a SHU is like, having been incarcerated in one before in the province of Quebec. (*The inquiry into the death of Ashley Smith is still going on.)
Solidarity Words & Action
Background Material
Outside support work for the July 1st hunger strike is being coordinated by the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (PHSS) Coalition, based in the Bay Area and made up of grassroots organizations committed to amplifying the voices of and supporting the prisoners at Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit (SHU) in their hunger strike to end tortuous conditions. Support is crucial; to get involved check out prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com or telephone 510-444-0484.
A blog has been produced my comrades in Montreal with a focus on support activities in canada: http://www.contrelesprisons.blogspot.com/
i also have a page up with as complete a calendar of solidarity events as i have been able to manage.
The Kersplebedeb website is in support of the goals of the hungerstriking prisoners, and of the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition, but is a completely separate project, and PHSS and the prisoners in question are in no way responsible for or necessarily in agreement with anything here. If you see any links or resources you think would belong on this page, please get in touch!
