Day 19: Support The California Prisoners' Hunger Strike!!

(Note: This is my second essay in support of the fasting prisoners. The first is here. The take away: prisoners have requested your support in their struggle to end long term, 23 hour a day solitary confinement in California’s Special Housing Units. I urge you to support them.)

Today is day 19 of the prison hunger strike. This may be the most significant act of prisoner resistance in 40 years, since the Attica Uprising in 1971.

The LA Times reports:

More than 400 inmates at four California prisons are in the third week of a hunger strike to protest long, punitive stays in isolation cells.

Prison officials, who refuse to allow reporters into the institutions to interview the strikers, said 49 inmates who have lost at least 10 pounds each are "being monitored closely," including seven at Pelican Bay, the maximum-security prison near the Oregon border where the hunger strike began. …

Inmate advocates say thousands of inmates have joined the strike, which began July 1. Many are beginning to show dramatic weight loss and collapse with the early signs of starvation, they say.

Dozens have been sent to prison infirmaries because of irregular heartbeats and fainting, according to a statement issued Monday by a group calling itself California Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity, which represents attorneys and family members of inmates. "Most have lost 20-35 pounds," the statement said.

And, of course, whatever is going on inside the prisons in response to the hunger strike will be shielded from direct, outside observation by disinterested parties. The LA Times reports:

Despite repeated assurances that the situation is under control, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation refused The Times' request to visit and interview striking inmates.

"At this time, we are not allowing media into the prison due to security and safety issues," prison spokesman Oscar Hidalgo said in an email. "This hunger strike signifies a disruption in normal operation of Pelican Bay and our operations staff are focused completely on resolving this issue."

That’s where you come in. The walls are keeping the prisoners in, yes, but they are also keeping you, your eyes, your ears, your nose, and most important, your conscience out. This puts the prisoners at even greater risk because it fosters prison officials’ ability to act with impunity to break the strike and to force feed prisoners and to impose even more punitivie conditions. And it permits prison officials to control information about the strike by preventing prisoners from being heard.

The strike has brought together Black and Latino prisoners who are normally set against each other. They are asserting their humanity and challenging others to reclaim their humanity by standing with them in solidarity.
Some of these prisoners are willing to die unless their demands to end inhuman treatment are met.

Inmates at Corcoran State Prison have issued a statement asking for your help:

“Our indefinite isolation here is both inhumane and illegal and the proponents of the prison industrial complex are hoping that their campaign to dehumanize us has succeeded to the degree that you don’t care and will allow the torture to continue in your name. It is our belief that they have woefully underestimated the decency, principles and humanity of the people. Join us in opposing this injustice without end. Thank you for your time and support.”

 Statement from inmates at Corcoran State Prison


The core demands of the prisoners are in my prior essay and can also be found here with a petition of support.

The prisoners are counting on people of conscience to act now and to show support for the Hunger Strikers.

You can do this by signing the petition.

You can do that by calling the Governor and the Secretary of theDepartment of Corrections (telephone numbers below).

You can do this by writing your own statement of support for the hunger strikers and sending it to the media or posting it on the blogs or the editorial pages. If you do that, please call send a hard copy to:

Secretary Matthew Cate, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 1515 S Street, Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 323-6001

Governor Jerry Brown, State Capitol, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814, (916) 445-2841

As important, call for the prison officials to permit the media to enter the prison and to report on the strike. If prison officials can keep the citizenry from knowing that is going on, they are free to act with impunity to end the strike however they choose.

Please speak up for the striking prisoners. Only your support can bring their struggle to a safe and humane solution.

Support The California Prisoners' Hunger Strike

As you read this, thousands of California prisoners are on a hunger strike. Today is the 18th day of the Strike. This may be the most significant act of prisoner resistance in 40 years, since the Attica Uprising in 1971.

By the prison authorities’ own figures, the hunger strike, which began on July 1, has involved 6,600 prisoners at 13 prisons. As of today, many prisoners are continuing the hunger strike at Pelican Bay and other prisons. The hunger strike comes in response to conditions in the Security Housing Units (SHU) of extreme isolation, brutality and deprivation.

The strike has brought together Black and Latino prisoners who are normally set against each other. They are asserting their humanity and challenging others to reclaim their humanity by standing with them in solidarity.

Some of these prisoners are willing to die unless their demands to end inhuman treatment are met.

The prison authorities are meeting with the prisoners, but so far there has been no agreement about anything. The strike continues.

According to Dr. Robert Rosenbloom, an emergency physician,

“It’s typically believed that after two or three weeks without any sugar source, any food source, you start entering a dangerous zone, that you’re actually doing enough damage to the body, that the body may not recover.

You’ll become, weak, disoriented, have trouble moving and breathing. You’ll risk damage to your liver or heart.

"When you digest, for example, heart muscle, obviously your heart is an incredibly vital organ…and so when you start damaging the heart and the muscle wall gets thin, then you can have some pretty serious consequences."

That’s the outcome the hunger strikers are facing, but they insist they won’t eat until they win changes in prison policies that govern Security Housing Units (SHU). Inmates in SHUs spend 23 hours a day locked up, with an hour outside alone for exercise. It is an extremely bleak, isolated, and mind destroying confinement that may continue for decades and irretrievably harms those so confined.

Many of the 3,900 inmates in SHUs are killers or rapists, but most of them – 2400 or so – got “indeterminate” SHU detention for ties to gangs. The hunger strikers say any link to a gang, such as a tattoo or a card sent to the wrong person, could land an inmate in a SHU and keep him there for decades. Many of these people are hardened criminals. But their treatment by California’s prisons, particularly in SHU, amounts to nothing less than torture: 23 hour a day solitary confinement, no contact with other prisoners or staff, no access to sunlight. An unremitting regimen designed to destroy the body, mind and soul of the person confined.

Many of the Strikers at Pelican Bay are already progressing toward organ damage.

The Five Core Demands of the strike are:

1. End Group Punishment & Administrative Abuse – This is in response to PBSP’s application of “group punishment” as a means to address individual inmates rule violations. This includes the administration’s abusive, pretextual use of “safety and concern” to justify what are unnecessary punitive acts. This policy has been applied in the context of justifying indefinite SHU status, and progressively restricting our programming and privileges.

2. Abolish the Debriefing Policy, and Modify Active/Inactive Gang Status Criteria -
▪ Perceived gang membership is one of the leading reasons for placement in solitary confinement.
▪ The practice of “debriefing,” or offering up information about fellow prisoners particularly regarding gang status, is often demanded in return for better food or release from the SHU. Debriefing puts the safety of prisoners and their families at risk, because they are then viewed as “snitches.”
▪ The validation procedure used by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) employs such criteria as tattoos, readings materials, and associations with other prisoners (which can amount to as little as greeting) to identify gang members.
▪ Many prisoners report that they are validated as gang members with evidence that is clearly false or using procedures that do not follow the Castillo v. Alameida settlement which restricted the use of photographs to prove association.

3. Comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 Recommendations Regarding an End to Long-Term Solitary Confinement – CDCR shall implement the findings and recommendations of the US commission on safety and abuse in America’s prisons final 2006 report regarding CDCR SHU facilities as follows:
▪ End Conditions of Isolation (p. 14) Ensure that prisoners in SHU and Ad-Seg (Administrative Segregation) have regular meaningful contact and freedom from extreme physical deprivations that are known to cause lasting harm. (pp. 52-57)
▪ Make Segregation a Last Resort (p. 14). Create a more productive form of confinement in the areas of allowing inmates in SHU and Ad-Seg [Administrative Segregation] the opportunity to engage in meaningful self-help treatment, work, education, religious, and other productive activities relating to having a sense of being a part of the community.
▪ End Long-Term Solitary Confinement. Release inmates to general prison population who have been warehoused indefinitely in SHU for the last 10 to 40 years (and counting).
▪ Provide SHU Inmates Immediate Meaningful Access to: i) adequate natural sunlight ii) quality health care and treatment, including the mandate of transferring all PBSP- SHU inmates with chronic health care problems to the New Folsom Medical SHU facility.

4. Provide Adequate and Nutritious Food – cease the practice of denying adequate food, and provide a wholesome nutritional meals including special diet meals, and allow inmates to purchase additional vitamin supplements.
▪ PBSP staff must cease their use of food as a tool to punish SHU inmates.
▪ Provide a sergeant/lieutenant to independently observe the serving of each meal, and ensure each tray has the complete issue of food on it.
▪ Feed the inmates whose job it is to serve SHU meals with meals that are separate from the pans of food sent from kitchen for SHU meals.

5. Expand and Provide Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.
Examples include:
▪ Expand visiting regarding amount of time and adding one day per week.
▪ Allow one photo per year.
▪ Allow a weekly phone call.
▪ Allow Two (2) annual packages per year. A 30 lb. package based on “item” weight and not packaging and box weight.
▪ Expand canteen and package items allowed. Allow us to have the items in their original packaging [the cost for cosmetics, stationary, envelopes, should not count towards the max draw limit]
▪ More TV channels.
▪ Allow TV/Radio combinations, or TV and small battery operated radio
▪ Allow Hobby Craft Items – art paper, colored pens, small pieces of colored pencils, watercolors, chalk, etc.
▪ Allow sweat suits and watch caps.
▪ Allow wall calendars.
▪ Install pull-up/dip bars on SHU yards.
▪ Allow correspondence courses that require proctored exams.

Not one of these demands is frivolous. All of them are consistent with avoiding the deterioration, mental, physical, and spiritual, that results from long term, indefinite solitary confinement in the bleak conditions in SHU in California.

Inmates at Corcoran State Prison have issued a statement asking for your help:

“Our indefinite isolation here is both inhumane and illegal and the proponents of the prison industrial complex are hoping that their campaign to dehumanize us has succeeded to the degree that you don’t care and will allow the torture to continue in your name. It is our belief that they have woefully underestimated the decency, principles and humanity of the people. Join us in opposing this injustice without end. Thank you for your time and support.”

-- Statement from inmates at Corcoran State Prison

The prisoners are counting on people of conscience to act now and to show support for the Hunger Strikers.

You can do this by writing your own statement of support for the hunger strikers and sending it to the media or posting it on the blogs or the editorial pages. If you do that, please send a hard copy to:

Secretary Matthew Cate, Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, 1515 S Street, Sacramento, CA 95814

Governor Jerry Brown, State Capitol, Suite 1173, Sacramento, CA 95814

Please speak up for the striking prisoners. Only your support can bring their struggle to a safe and humane solution.

Mothers' Day In Stir

Albion Correctional Facility

Almost three quarters of the 2,422 women in New York state prisons are mothers.

So City Limits reminds us.

Women in New York State are imprisoned primarily at Bedford Hills and Albion.

Maybe we can pause for a second this weekend and think about some of these families in which the mother is behind bars and the children would like to visit. This is particularly hard if the children are in, say, Brooklyn, and the mom is in Albion, some 400 miles away, a distance Google says you can drive in under 7 hours. One way.

Mothers' Day had its origins in the U.S. in the mid-19th century as a day to bring together the opposite sides of the civil war. It doesn't seem to have focused on re-connecting families separated by prison walls. Maybe this would be a time to begin envisioning precisely that.

What's In The Brown Paper Bag

(This is a short story by Luis Ramirez, who was executed in Texas on 10/20/05. My thanks to Abe Bonowitz for this story. The story doesn't require any commentary. It's a gift to all of you for the Holidays, Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, New Year's, Solstice, whatever holiday, if any, you celebrate.)

By Luis Ramirez #999309

I'm about the share with you a story who's telling is long past due. It's a familiar story to most of you reading this from death row. And now it's one that all of you in "free world " may benefit from. This is the story of my first day on the row.

I came here in May of 1999. The exact date is something that I can't recall. I do remember arriving in the afternoon. I was placed in a cell on H-20 wing over at the Ellis Unit in Huntsville, TX. A tsunami of emotions and thoughts were going through my mind at the time. I remember the only things in the cell were a mattress, pillow, a couple of sheets, a pillow case, a roll of toilet paper, and a blanket. I remember sitting there, utterly lost.

The first person I met there was Napolean Beasley. Back then, death row prisoners still worked. His job at the time was to clean up the wing and help serve during meal times. He was walking around sweeping the pod in these ridiculous looking rubber boots. He came up to the bars on my cell and asked me if I was new. I told him that I had just arrived on death row. He asked what my name is. I told him, not seeing any harm in it. He then stepped back where he could see all three tiers. He hollered at everyone, "There's a new man here. He just drove up. His name is Luis Ramirez." When he did that, I didn't know what to make of it at first. I thought I had made some kind of mistake. You see, like most of you, I was of the impression that everyone on death row was evil. I thought I would find hundreds of "Hannibal Lecters" in here. And now, they all knew my name. I thought "Oh well," that's strike one. I was sure that they would soon begin harassing me. This is what happens in the movies after all.

Well, that's not what happened . After supper was served, Napolean was once again sweeping the floors. As he passed my cell, he swept a brown paper bag into it. I asked him "What's this?" He said for me to look inside and continued on his way. Man, I didn't know what to expect. I was certain it was something bad. Curiosity did get the best of me though. I carefully opened the bag. What I found was the last thing I ever expected to find on death row, and everything I needed. The bag contained some stamps, envelopes, notepad, pen, soap, shampoo, toothpaste, tooth brush, a pastry, a soda, and a couple of Ramen noodles. I remember asking Napolean where this came from.

He told me that everyone had pitched in. That they knew that I didn't have anything and that it may be a while before I could get them. I asked him to find out who had contributed. I wanted to pay them back. He said, "It's not like that. Just remember the next time you see someone come here like you. You pitch in something."

I sat there on my bunk with my brown paper bag of goodies, and thought about what had just happened to me. The last things I expected to find on death row was kindness and generosity. They knew what I needed and they took it upon themselves to meet those needs. They did this without any expectation of reimbursement or compensation. They did this for a stranger, not a known friend. I don't know what they felt when they committed this act of incredible kindness. I only know that like them, twelve "good people" had deemed me beyond redemption. The only remedy that these "good people" could offer us is death. Somehow what these "good people" saw and what I was seeing didn't add up. How could these men, who just showed me so much humanity, be considered the "worst of the worst."

Ever since Napolean was executed, for a crime he committed as a teen, I've wanted to share this story with his family. I would like for them to know that their son was a good man. One who I will never forget. I want for them to know how sorry I am that we as a society failed them and him. I still find it ridiculous that we as a people feel that we cannot teach or love our young properly. I'm appalled at the idea that a teen is beyond redemption, that the only solution that we can offer is death. It's tragic that this is being pointed out to the "good people" by one of the "worst of the worst". God help us all.

What's in the brown paper bag? I found caring, kindness, love, humanity, and compassion of a scale that I've never seen the "good people" in the free world show towards one another.