[Real World] Pelican Bay SHU Hunger Strike Planned for July 1st

[Inquisitor]

The prisoners of the SHU at Pelican Bay, one of the United States's most notoriously terrible prisons (home to various gang leaders and other fun people) are putting aside their differences in a movement of solidarity and going on an indefinite hunger strike, starting on July 1st. The prisoners concede that they would rather die by willful starvation then continue to slowly be murdered by the oppressive prison system.

It is important for readers to understand the cruelty of the policy sanctioned by the state that allows the CDCR to place men/women under an indeterminate SHU program only on the word of a prison informer—where there is no offense, no violence, nor any gang or criminal activity. Yet prisoners who are held in indeterminate SHU are held, well, indefinitely—for the rest of their lives in SHUs and Adjustment Centers across the state, and even on Death Row if validated as a gang member.

The cruelty is a protracted attack against prisoners, their families, friends, and all of their associates who are subjected to investigations for criminal activities. It does not matter if they are into crime or gang activity or not, the objective is to insinuate that they are and to cut off any relationships that may exist with the prisoner. The gang investigation officers manufacture their evidence by using inmate informers to create as assumption of crime to attack our friends and families.

The CDCR’s gang investigators understand that the prisoners held in solitary confinement are being subjected to various forms of torture and are nonetheless able to sustain themselves, even in the face of these ongoing attacks. Prisoners have adapted to maintain their sanity. So the gang investigators take it a step further, beyond the prison walls, where they work to intimidate by way of threats and other means our friends and families, be they children, grandparents, sisters, bothers, parents or whomever—people who are completely innocent of any gang or criminal activity. They intimidate and incriminate people across the board. They run them off in fear of being prosecuted for a crime that does not exist (other than to say they are under investigation). This kind of attack is not only very intimidating for someone who has never even had a traffic ticket, they are actually cruel to those dear to us.

Since 1990 prisoners have been making complaints against abuses by prison guards. Some of these abuses against PBSP-SHU prisoners were addressed in the Madrid case, where the court agreed that guards were responsible for a number of areas of prisoner mistreatment. Because medical treatment was so bad the federal court put the prisons into receivership and appointed a special master to oversee changes. Many prisoners have suffered mental disorders as a direct result of their placement in the Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Units (PBSP-SHU). The overwhelming majority of these men had not mental illness prior to entering the SHU, but rather lost their sanity as a result of their placement in this facility, as a result of the long-term impact of such confinement.

The Madrid ruling was a failure. Prison guards either ignore the court order altogether or implement token rules they do not follow. Nothing the court did persuaded the guard staff or prison administration to change their abusive behavior. This place is a plantation or a prison colony and we prisoners are the slaves (a status legitimized by the 13th amendment to the U.S. constitution). The guards are free to do with us as they please. They have complete control of our medical care, mail, visits, property, supplies, law library access, laundry, yard, isolation, the lights in our cell, family, friends, lock downs, etc. This is an environment in which the prison guards can torture prisoners both physically and psychologically over extended periods of time. One such attack is the dehumanizing yet widely used “potty watch” which is used under false pretenses—not to find drugs, but to humiliate other human beings.

The actual objective or goal of all this is to force every indefinitely held SHU prisoner to “debrief” (to turn rat, snitch, turncoat, however you want do define it). Some SHU prisoners break and give their captors names just to escape the terrible conditions of confinement. These prisoners are rewarded by being placed in Special Need Yards (SNY) where living conditions are better. This has been happening since the 1990s and it continues today. Ninety-five percent of the debriefers lie in order to get out of the SHU and then go on to become lifetime stoolies for the cops.

The CDCR uses every trick they can to force men into debriefing, including every increasing levels of what can only be described at torture. But if you are innocent, or if you are a principled person, they force you to endure every hardship in an effort to break you. It is this ever increasing attack that has forced us prisoners to put aside our historical differences in order to address the protracted attack on our lives and to expose the criminal activities and abuses against all indeterminate SHU prisoners in the state of California. Effective July 1st we are initiating a peaceful protest by way of an indefinite hunger strike in which we will not eat until our core demands are met. This hunger strike will be carried on by all races, New Afrikans (Blacks), Mexicans (i.e. of all walks), whites and others who realize the we are silently being murdered by CDCR/CCPOAA Union as well as the U.S. judicial system who have turned a blind eye while we suffer a civil death at the hands of profiteers.

Therefore we have decided to put our fate in our own hands. Some of us have already suffered a slow, agonizing death in which the state has shown no compassion toward these dying prisoners. Rather than compassion they turn up their ruthlessness. No one wants to die. Yet under this current system of what amounts to intense torture, what choice do we have? If one is to die, it will be on our own terms.

Power concedes nothing without demand.

* According to the San Francisco Chronicle one prisoner a week was killed in the state’s prison system due to medical neglect.

http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/voices-from-inside/why-prisoners-are-protesting/

The prison administration has retaliated by circulating advertisements of "ice cream" and "strawberry shortcake" in celebration of July 4th - two items which have, allegedly, never even been served at the SHU before.

I'm interested to see where this goes, and if the prisoners actually hold out in a message of solidarity and civil dissent. Having had the displeasure to actually read into the unseemly things that have gone down at Pelican Bay, I sincerely hope this gets the media traction it deserves and we can finally begin addressing the issue of prisons in the US. I doubt it will though - the political climate is too much for reasonable debate on economic matters, let alone silly things like drug wars and prisoner abuse.

[Devin`Asures]

What a horrifying situation, and the prospect of a hunger strike is equally horrifying. Those poor bastards.
I recently watched the film Hunger, which was about the 1981 Irish hunger strike (also prison related), and it paints a terrible picture of the effects of a hunger strike on the participants. Things must be pretty bleak in this US prison if the inmates are striking.

I'm curious to see how long the strike will last if it goes ahead. In the Irish hunger strike, the leader Bobby Sands died after 66 days of striking (he was the first to start).

Added: Just read on wiki that this isn't the first hunger strike in Pelican Bay. The others didn't get much media coverage, so I hope this one gets some too.

[Flamme Noire]

Drug war doesn't work, Ron Paul 2012!

/argument + /no sarcasm

Thanks for giving me a forum, Inquisitor.  Hats off.

[Inquisitor]

What a horrifying situation, and the prospect of a hunger strike is equally horrifying. Those poor bastards.
I recently watched the film Hunger, which was about the 1981 Irish hunger strike (also prison related), and it paints a terrible picture of the effects of a hunger strike on the participants. Things must be pretty bleak in this US prison if the inmates are striking.

I'm curious to see how long the strike will last if it goes ahead. In the Irish hunger strike, the leader Bobby Sands died after 66 days of striking (he was the first to start).

Added: Just read on wiki that this isn't the first hunger strike in Pelican Bay. The others didn't get much media coverage, so I hope this one gets some too.

US Prison conditions are arguably worse then anything the Soviets could do. Though I guess it's debatable - would you rather die toiling uselessly or in a box, trapped away from the rest of the world?

The most striking aspect to me was the language used by the prisoners, stating they'd rather die a slow death at their own hands and at their own choosing, rather then get "murdered" by the system. American prisons being so bad that slow, painful suicide is preferable then continued existence, there's a rather large problem.

[Familiar]

Or it could be an exaggeration. I wouldn't know - I have no desire to try out their prison systems myself to confirm said experience.

[DMD]

Don't do dumb shit like drugs or gangs, won't end up in prison.

And it's virtually impossible to vonlutarily starve ones self to death, ask any doctor or scientist.  This won't last long.

[Furr]

Right, Diver, so all the previous hunger strikes that's been successful are like nothing?
Suppose your conditions are horrible enough. You're desperate. You have no other means, other than violent rioting, but you know that won't bring anything more than more punishment.

What will you do?
Hunger strike is the least offensive form of demonstration, and it ought to bring light to the insane conditions in the prisons.

[Devin`Asures]

And it's virtually impossible to vonlutarily starve ones self to death, ask any doctor or scientist.  This won't last long.

(For the logical fallacy fellators, note the appeal to authority in the quote above?)

Ten prisoners starved themselves to death in the 1981 Irish hunger strike. The first striker began on March 1 and died on May 5, and the last started on 22 June and died on August 20.

There's a good list of hunger strikes available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_strike#Recent_instances where they note incidences of people who have died hunger stiking.

[1337]

Quick someone say ad homenomadingdong.

[Familiar]

As homenomdongding.









... DAMN IT

[Inquisitor]

Or it could be an exaggeration. I wouldn't know - I have no desire to try out their prison systems myself to confirm said experience.

You think they're exaggerating? Pelican Bay SHU is the Supervised Housing Unit, a unit fenced off even from the General Population of Pelican Bay. (Think about it like this - the Worst of the Worst have a prison inside a prison, for even worse offenders). Even just scanning the Wikipedia article, you get things like this:

Pelican Bay opened in 1989. Pelican Bay's grounds and operations are physically divided. Half of the prison holds Level IV prisoners in a "general population" environment with outside exercise courts. The other half of the prison contains Pelican Bay's best-known feature: an X-shaped cluster of white buildings set apart by electrified fencing and barren ground known as the Security Housing Unit (SHU).

The 8 x 10 foot cells of the Pelican Bay SHU, or Secure Housing Unit, are made of smooth, poured concrete. They have no windows. Instead, there are fluorescent lights, which stay on 24 hours per day. For at least twenty-two hours every day, prisoners remain in their cells, looking out through a perforated steel door at a solid concrete wall. Food is delivered twice a day through a slot in the cell door.

A guard in a central control booth controls these doors; he can press a button and allow one prisoner at a time to go out to a shower, or to his court-mandated five hours per week of outdoor exercise. This exercise takes place in a cement yard, often called a “dog run,” which extends the length of three cells, and has a roof partially open to the sky. The guard in the control booth is always armed; from his central vantage point in the control booth, he can shoot onto any one of six pods, each containing eight cells.

There are 1107 prisoners in the Pelican Bay SHU as of June 15, 2011.



This is your room. You live walled off from all physical contact with the outside world, for 22 hours out of a day, alone in a 10-foot concrete box with only a bed, and the lights on. An hour every day, you're allowed out to shower - or to spend your time in a concrete enclosement for an hour of exercise in a space maybe 3 times as large as your average cell. Many prisoners report that isolation alone and lack of sleep will cause depressession, and other detrimental, lasting psychological effects.

Courts of law do not sentence prisoners to the SHU. Rather, correctional administrators assign prisoners to the SHU, either for a fixed term, because they broke an in-prison rule, or for an indeterminate term, because they were “validated” as prison gang members. Jailhouse lawyers and political activists are disproportionately sent to the SHU. Although a gang validation finding is reviewed regularly and, by law, is not supposed to extend for more than six years, the prison’s gang unit inevitably comes up with “new evidence” to extend the validation finding. Prisoners who have been “validated” as gang members can escape the SHU if they “debrief.” To debrief is to provide prison officials with information incriminating other prisoners. Debriefing can be dangerous to the prisoner who debriefs, or to his family; conversely, prisoners are often falsely identified as gang members by prisoners who debrief in order to escape the inhumane conditions of the SHU.

SHU assignments can affect sentence length in two ways. Prisoners cannot earn “good time credit” while in the SHU. Therefore, a prisoner with a determinant (fixed) sentence will be released later than he otherwise would have. Second, an unwritten rule prevents any lifer in the SHU from being granted a parole date. For prisoners with an indeterminate SHU commitment, the only way to get out of the SHU is to “parole, debrief or die.” As a practical matter, lifers can only get out of the SHU if they “debrief or die.” In this way, the life sentence imposed by a judge is administratively converted into an LWOP (life without parole) sentence, regardless of the prisoner’s present dangerousness.

As of 2007, prisoners in the Pelican Bay SHU spent an average of just over two years in solitary confinement, before being released back into the general prison population, or onto parole. Prisoners have spent as long as eighteen years in the Pelican Bay SHU before being released back into the general prison population, or onto parole. While some prisoners have spent decades in the Pelican Bay SHU, most prisoners are eventually released. On average, sixteen prisoners per month are released directly from the Pelican Bay SHU onto parole in California. They are provided no pre-release services to assist them transition from long-term isolation to life on the outside. [6]

SHU confinement in California disproportionately impacts Latino prisoners. In 2007, Latino prisoners made up 42 percent of the population of all parolees in California. However, of the paroled population who had served a supermax term, 56 percent were Latino. [7]

CDCR does not release data about annual per prisoner costs broken down by individual state institutions, like Pelican Bay. However, in states that do release such data, the average annual cost of supermax confinement is twice as much per year as the average annual cost of non-supermax confinement. The average cost of incarceration per person per year in Californiais $49,000; the average annual per person cost of supermax confinement is likely much higher.

Although supermaxes were designed to reduce violence in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), there is little evidence that they have any impact at all on violence levels, either within high security prisons or within the Department overall.

Prisoners are removed from Gen-Pop and forced into the SHU for whatever infraction the CDCR can figure out. Because there's no oversight, it's possible to get thrown into the SHU for loose things like "gang affiliation" - which can be anything as simple as sagging your pants too low, or Being Black. Once placed into the SHU, you can be held indefinitely despite your offenses, legal rights, and lose all rights to your properly earned "good time" throughout your stay in the California penal system.

The Correctional Officers divide the SHU/prison on race lines, and then hand out infractions based on race. Worse yet, they often do not punish individual prisoners for things like starting fights - instead, they punish the entire dormitory, or the prisoner's race behind bars. Once in the SHU, the only way out is to die, starve, or rat out the other prisoners. The correctional officers quite obviously do their best to shatter over all prison solidarity; it is beneficial for the prison guards to segregate prisoners by race and gang. This hunger strike poses a problem to the correctional officers because it's a rare sign of the prisoners uniting against their common oppressors.

[Inquisitor]

Don't do dumb shit like drugs or gangs, won't end up in prison.

Ignoring the fact that you're stupid: The people that end up in the SHU aren't your average drug dealers and gangbangers. Most of them are serving life sentences for violent crime in some way or another, or for being the HEAD of a gang. Not just your nickel-and-dime coke dealer.

((Though California's absurd three-strikes laws also inflate the prisons with non-violent offenders getting locked up for their 3rd bag of pot)).

[Inquisitor]

Quick someone say ad homenomadingdong.

Contribute to the thread or don't post.

[Inquisitor]

I'd also like to note that in addition to protesting the terrible conditions of the prison conditions now, these protests almost certainly tie into the recent decision by the Supreme Court of California to begin the immediate release of non-violent offenders from overcrowded California prisons. While this should be seen as a welcome and refreshing change (and helps the ailing deficit of California). However, the correctional officer's union has responded by appealing the decision and attempting to stall the release of prisoners, all in order to continue their rampant abuse on prisoners.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a cap on California’s prison population that was imposed by a three-judge federal panel to reduce prison overcrowding and improve inmate health care.

At the time the cap was imposed, it could have resulted in the release of 46,000 prisoners. Since then, 9,000 prisoners have been released, reducing the potential number of prisoners that could be freed under the order to 37,000.

The U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision on Monday found that the cap was authorized by the Prison Litigation Reform Act and needed to combat violations of inmates’ constitutional rights to medical and mental-health care. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion (PDF).

The potential release of prisoners under the cap is “of unprecedented sweep and extent,” Kennedy wrote, but “so too is the continuing injury and harm resulting from these serious constitutional violations.”

An appendix included two photos of crowded prison conditions and a third showing the small cells for people waiting for a bed for mental-health crises.

Before the cap was imposed, California prisons were housing nearly double the numbers they were designed to hold. Under the lower-court order, the state was required to reduce the prison population over a two-year period to 137.5 percent of the design capacity.

“For years the medical and mental health care provided by California’s prisons has fallen short of minimum constitutional requirements and has failed to meet prisoners’ basic health needs,” Kennedy said. “Needless suffering and death have been the well-documented result.”

[Familiar]

Don't do dumb shit like drugs or gangs, won't end up in prison.

Ignoring the fact that you're stupid: The people that end up in the SHU aren't your average drug dealers and gangbangers. Most of them are serving life sentences for violent crime in some way or another, or for being the HEAD of a gang. Not just your nickel-and-dime coke dealer.

((Though California's absurd three-strikes laws also inflate the prisons with non-violent offenders getting locked up for their 3rd bag of pot)).

Therefore don't they sort of belong there if they're part of the violent group of inmates? Personally I'm an eye-for-an-eye treatment (I do live in Texas - go death penalty!) but of course there are exceptions made for some of the manslaughter cases. For the extreme however, letting them slowly rot away the life they ruined but doing these severe offenses of murder or overseeing multiple murders.

No, the judicial system isn't perfect. The three strikes, especially for minor drug offenses (like pot, but I suppose that's for another thread/another debate), can lock up anybody and make the system even more congested but Pelican Bay isn't an ordinary prison.

[Inquisitor]

Therefore don't they sort of belong there if they're part of the violent group of inmates?

No one is disputing if these people generally deserve to be in a supermax prison - only protesting the terrible conditions inside the prison.

Personally I'm an eye-for-an-eye treatment (I do live in Texas - go death penalty!) but of course there are exceptions made for some of the manslaughter cases. For the extreme however, letting them slowly rot away the life they ruined but doing these severe offenses of murder or overseeing multiple murders.

No, the judicial system isn't perfect. The three strikes, especially for minor drug offenses (like pot, but I suppose that's for another thread/another debate), can lock up anybody and make the system even more congested but Pelican Bay isn't an ordinary prison.

No one deserves to be tortured. Solitary confinement for months, frequently up to 2+ years, is torture. Cruel and unusual punishment is banned by the Constitution, and I can't see how you can argue with a straight face that America's supermax prisons aren't cruel and unusual.

[Auvic]

I'm not supporting torture-by-omission, but at the same time, I don't really see how you could justify living conditions better than those that people on the street have, Sid.

On one hand, you have people that are living in conditions obviously unsuitable for humanity.
On the other hand, if you treat them too hospitably, you sort of defeat the purpose altogether.

Where would you draw this middle ground, and how would you separate conditions in a supermax prison from any other prison while maintaining this same middle ground?

[DMD]

Prison is supposed to be a bad place, a punishment, a deterant.  And I agree, the guys in this prison aren't the guy selling pot out of the back of the one hour photo hut, these guys are animals and predators. They pride themselves on being hard and bad, and now they're crying because they're being treated rough? Boooo hoooo hoooo.

[Styles]

These types of problems did not exist in ancient or medieval times, with reason.

[Familiar]

All in favor of reviving the ye old Iron Maiden...?

[DMD]

And the gallows, and the firing squad and tar and feathering and drawing and quartering and keel hauling.

[Auvic]

@DMD:
Research has shown that using things like long prison terms, capital punishment, and other forms of harsh punishments aren't effective measures of crime prevention. It only keeps people who wouldn't commit crimes anyway from committing crimes, but doesn't affect people with unusually violent tendencies or sociopathy or what have you at all.
We had an entire day in class about this in my social psych class.

Gallows was also used for any number of things, including killing people that the magistrate(s) didn't approve of, killing merchants that didn't bribe enough, and any political dissidents.
Firing squads tended to be part of militocracies (I think that a word), and those tend to be prone to whimsical leaders and coup d'etats, and other such uprisings. Not a very stable sort of place to live in, I'd imagine, even if you don't want to have anything to do with anyone.
Tar and feathering was used more as a method of shaming people (see: tar and feathering of tax collectors in colonial US times) more than a method of punishment for wrongdoing, though it was undoubtedly painful, as people're pouring hot tar on you and you get to sit inside it for quite a long while. Again, pretty subject to mob mentality, which doesn't tend to be very sensible.
Drawing and quartering is just a death sentence with a large axe, and harsh punishments don't really deter hardened criminals anyway.
Keel hauling, I think, was only applicable for sailors. Not really prisoners.

@Famil:
The Iron Maiden's existence in medieval times was pretty systematically disproved, last I heard. Just some object someone made up and thought was funny, for the most part.

@Styles:
You're right, these problems didn't exist in ancient times because the gangsters were the government. If there's a head honcho that'll punish himself for wrongdoing, I'll eat my hat. And boots. And possibly your entire redneck truck.

All my /headscratch at you people.

[Devin`Asures]

I was speaking to a former prison guard here, and he said that the imprisonment itself is supposed to be the punishment for offenders. I agree. The intolerable conditions and inhumane treatment are unecessary.

[Inquisitor]

I was speaking to a former prison guard here, and he said that the imprisonment itself is supposed to be the punishment for offenders. I agree. The intolerable conditions and inhumane treatment are necessary.

Thank you. This is the point I was hoping to drive home, much more succinctly.

Being segregated from the rest of the known world for 25 years-until you die, in a small cell surrounded only by guards and other inmates is a punishment unto itself. While being in prison they should hopefully be given a chance to redeem themselves, not turned into even more violent, mentally ill people.

There's no reason to go to the extremes the United States DoJ goes to punish criminals and convicts. The perceived societal gain is completely outweighed by the losses.

[Levistus]

Pelican Bay is for the real niggas that deserve to be in prison for the rest of their life and the SHU is for niggas that break the rules. You can act like Pelican Bay is a small town jailhouse all you want, but their gang affiliation is hardly "pants sagging low". It's probably "threatening to rape people" or, you know, "RAPING PEOPLE". Let them fucking starve to death. You don't want to get treated like shit, don't do anything to get forcibly removed from society. I hope these dumb asses starve themselves to death so the state of California won't be maintaining their existence on the taxpayer's dollar.