Prison Hunger Strikers’ Numbers Increase

(reposted from https://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com)

12,000 Prisoners Resume Hunger Strike in California

Outrageous Retaliation by Prison Officials

by Larry Everest and Bay Area Revolution Writers Group

A very just, very significant and courageous battle is rapidly spreading in California’s state prisons—and beyond. On September 26, prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison in the Security Housing Unit (SHU) resumed their hunger strike—in the face of vicious lies and attacks and retaliation by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and other state officials, including Governor Jerry Brown. They had been on a hunger strike from July 1-July 20, demanding an end to the horrifically inhuman conditions they face. On September 29, the CDCR admitted that 4,252 inmates in eight state prisons had missed nine consecutive meals since Monday, September 26, and that state prisons at Calipatria, Centinela, Ironwood, Pelican Bay, San Quentin, and Salinas Valley, as well as the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and state prison at Corcoran, had all reported inmates on hunger strike. (The CDCR won’t count a prisoner as being on hunger strike until he or she has refused nine straight meals.)

These officials figures, it turns out, underestimated the number of prisoner hunger strikers. On October 1, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity’s website reported, “Numbers released by the federal receiver’s office show that on September 28, nearly 12,000 prisoners were on hunger strike, including California prisoners who are housed in out-of-state prisons in Arizona, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.” (The website adds, “Representatives of the hunger strikers have previously stated that this will be a rolling strike, allowing prisoners to come off strike to regain strength. Because of this, numbers will likely fluctuate throughout the duration of the strike.”)

The strike has also reportedly spread to at least one county jail. The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reported that 50 prisoners in the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, east of Los Angeles, are refusing to eat in support of the hunger strike in the prisons. (September 27, 2011)

More than 6,500 prisoners joined the three-week hunger strike in July. Prisoners at Pelican Bay suspended the strike on July 20 after prison officials promised they would meet some of the prisoners’ demands and address the main issues prisoners were raising. Then in September, prisoners wrote a statement saying these promises had not been kept: “We remain in SHU indefinitely, deprived of our basic human rights—based on illegal policies and practices, that amount to torture; torture of us, as well as our family members and loved ones on the outside. CDCR remains in denial, and continues to propagate the lies re: ‘worst-of-the-worst’ 3000 gang generals, etc.—in order to dehumanize/demonize us, so as to maintain the status quo… CDCR’s intent is to break us down, and coerce us into becoming state informants! A violation of international treaty law, period! This is not acceptable!” (Go to revcom.us/s/pelicanbay-hungerstrike-en.html for extensive coverage of the July hunger strike.)

These prisoners are now putting their lives on the line again, demanding to be treated as human beings—demanding that the CDCR end the barbaric, inhumane conditions of imprisonment throughout California prisons, particularly in the “Security Housing Units” or SHUs. There, thousands of prisoners are locked in solitary confinement in windowless cells, 7.6 feet by 11.6 feet, for 22 hours or more a day for years, denied human contact. There are 1,111 inmates confined to the SHU at Pelican Bay alone, where the average length of confinement is 6.8 years. More than 500 prisoners have been in the Pelican Bay SHU for more than 10 years; 78 have been in the SHU for more than 20 years!

The prisoners’ demands include an end to group punishment, abolishing the CDCR’s gang status and “debriefing” policies, ending long-term solitary confinement, providing adequate food and expanding constructive programming and privileges. (See “Prisoners at Pelican Bay SHU Announce Hunger Strike, Revolution #237, June 26, 2011, for the prisoners’ five demands.)

Vicious Retaliation Against Hunger Strikers

Prison officials were deeply shaken by the breadth and strength of the July 1-20 hunger strike. This courageous action brought to light the horrific conditions of solitary confinement—amounting to torture—and there was broad support for the prisoners’ just demands.

After prisoners announced the strike would be resumed, prison authorities issued two memos to 165,000 prisoners—warning them against going on strike, claiming they were making changes. Disciplinary warnings were issued to thousands of hunger strikers. Supporters of the strikers report that a number of prisoners lost their jobs as punishment for supporting the strike in July, that some received punitive disciplinary write-ups, and some prisoner negotiators were being singled out and threatened with transfers and subjected to cell searches.

A September 29 press release from the CDCR said it “will not condone organized inmate disturbances” and warned: “Participation in mass hunger strikes and other disturbances will result in CDCR taking the following action: Participation in a mass disturbance is a violation of state law, and any participating inmates will receive disciplinary action in accordance with the California Code of Regulations; and Inmates identified as leading the disturbance will be subject to removal from the general population and be placed in an Administrative Segregation Unit.”

Matthew Cate, Secretary of CDCR, interviewed by Berkeley’s KPFA radio on September 27, threatened prisoners: “If they still want to be on a hunger strike then there will be some consequences to that, because you can’t shut down prison operations with no consequences.” Cate repeatedly described the hunger strike as a “mass disturbance” and compared it to a riot. Attempting to justify why the media are not allowed access to the prisoners on strike—who are risking their lives to demand an end to inhumane conditions—Cates said it was “the same reason that we don’t allow media to have access to Charles Manson.”

On July 29 the CDCR released a revision to its Medical Services Program Policy and Procedures regarding a mass organized hunger strike—including criteria for when the force-feeding of inmates will take place. This could mean the CDCR plans to force-feed prisoners to break the hunger strike. The American Civil Liberties Union has written that “force-feeding contravenes U.S. domestic and international law and is universally considered to be a form of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” (Press Release: ACLU Calls For End To Inhumane Force-Feeding Of Guantánamo Prisoners, January 9, 2009)

In July, the CDCR repeatedly lied, saying the strike was organized by gangs. Governor Jerry Brown, who never said anything about the hunger strike in July, has now publicly attacked hunger strikers and given full backing to the CDCR’s policies and attacks on the prisoners, saying, “We have individuals who are dedicated to their gang membership who order people to be killed, who order crimes to be committed on the outside… My recommendation is to deal effectively with gangs in prisons.” (California Prison Officials Warn Inmates On Hunger Strike,” CBS San Francisco News, September 30, 2011)

Family members of prisoners participating in the hunger strike are having their visits cancelled. And the Prisoner Hunger Strike Coalition reports that Carol Strickman and Marilyn McMahon, both attorneys who have served on the hunger strike mediation team and have coordinated legal visits for prisoners in the SHU, have both been banned from prisoner visits by the CDCR. This is a further effort to isolate the prisoners and prevent the truth of their situation from being known outside prison walls. (“CDCR Bans Lawyers: TAKE ACTION NOW!” Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity, September 30, 2011)

Think about what the draconian actions of the CDCR reveal: Who is defending crimes against humanity? Who is lying and justifying criminal violence against human beings? What does all this show about the utter illegitimacy of the prison system—and brutal nature of mass incarceration in the USA? For prisoners subjected to the most isolating conditions, sitting in their cells and refusing to eat is labeled a “mass disturbance.” Their demands simply to be treated as human beings are met with lies and threats of even more violence against them. This is completely outrageous and intolerable!

Carol Strickman put it like this: “We’re saying they are torturing the prisoners and we want them to stop the torture. The prisoners are so concerned about it that they are going to stop eating. If the response is to increase the torture, then they are just proving who they are and what their values are. This is a human rights issue and they are proving that they don’t see the prisoners as human.”

There is an urgent need for those on the outside to expose and oppose all these attacks on the hunger strikers and their supporters.

Strickman also told Revolution that there are other ramifications if prison officials declare the hunger strike a “mass disturbance”: “They could do lockdowns. That would prevent family visits. That means everybody in the prison can’t have visits. That would be another example of group punishment, and abolishing group punishment is one of the prisoners’ demands. So what they would be doing in response to the prisoners’ demands is to crank up group punishment—the behavior that is being protested. It means people can’t go to the law library, people can’t get medical visits, can’t do classes and programming. In women’s facilities they can’t go do their laundry. You can’t go to canteen. There are a lot of things that flow from a lockdown. That is a serious threat.”

California Should Regain Its Lead in Setting National Trends and Stop Building New Prisons and Jails

from California Progress Report

By Emily Harris and Isaac Ontiveros

Across the country, headlines show a new trend of nationwide prison closure. A recent report by the Sentencing Project notes that, to date, 13 states in the US have closed or are considering closing some of their correctional facilities, reversing a 40-year trend of prison expansion. States initiating prison closures include New York, Texas, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Michigan, Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, and Wisconsin. Michigan, for example, has closed 21 facilities and has prioritized re-entry services for people returning to their communities from prison.
Fiscal crises have definitely fueled the trend, but reforms in sentencing and parole policies have also resulted in less demand for prison space. In turn, the closures have freed up millions and millions of dollars that could be used into rebuilding programs and services proven to keep people out of prison and in their communities.
California, unfortunately, is moving in the opposite direction. Despite an ongoing fiscal crisis in California, there are currently 13 costly prison and jail expansion projects moving forward using our states scarce resources, and we anticipate more construction to roll out under phase II of the notorious AB 900 legislation. AB 900 was signed into law in May of 2007, authorizing at least $7.4 billion in lease revenue bonds for the construction or expansion of our State’s prisons, jails and re-entry centers and marks the largest prison construction scheme in human history.
In May the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in a lawsuit against the state involving deadly prison overcrowding. Specifically, the court upheld the ruling of a federal three-judge panel requiring California to reduce overcrowding in its prisons from nearly 200% to 137.5 % of its “design capacity” within two years. The court’s decision will almost certainly result in some of the most dramatic changes to the state’s prison system in decades. So far, the state’s plan for reducing the prison population relies heavily on shifting prisoners from state lockups to county jails, transferring more people to out-of-state private prisons, and building thousands more prison and jail cells.
As we see it, we could continue down this scary, shortsighted path and waste billions of dollars on prison and jail construction to comply with the Supreme Court ruling. But where will this end? How will we pay for the long-term operating costs? And what about the social costs? Will education, health and human services and our shrinking social safety net continue to be jeopardized to cover the bill for mass imprisonment?
The Supreme Court order and our growing budget crisis provide our state with a unique opportunity to change our approach to public safety. Instead of continuing to push forward these unnecessary and costly prison and jail expansion projects, now is the time to look to these other states that have safely reduced their prison populations by implementing basic and modest parole and sentencing reform. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office bolstered that argument after releasing a report recommending that California reconsider its costly construction program.
A place to start would include amending or repealing three strikes law, expanding medical parole, utilizing compassionate release, paroling elderly prisoners and reforming non-violent property and drug sentencing laws. Recent polls show the majority of Californians support these simple solutions. However out of touch our Governor and other lawmakers seem to be, we’d wager that Californians would be willing to take even greater steps against further prison crisis. If we want the safe and healthy California we all deserve, we need to make smart, long-lasting decisions that put our state back in a position of national leadership.
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Emily Harris is the Statewide Coordinator for Californians United for a Responsible Budget. Isaac Ontiveros is the Communications Director for Critical Resistance.

The West Memphis Three are Finally Free

Incredibly good news. The West Memphis Three, who have fought since the 1990s for their exoneration, have been freed from prison.

Three men convicted of killing three 8-year-old boys in a notorious 1993 murder case were freed from jail on Friday, after a complicated legal maneuver that allowed them to maintain their innocence while acknowledging that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict them.
Related


A district court judge declared that the three men — Damien W. Echols, 36, Jason Baldwin, 34, and Jessie Misskelley Jr., 36, known as the West Memphis Three — who have been in prison since their arrest in 1993, had served the time for their crime. The judge also levied a 10-year suspended sentence on each of the men.


With his release Friday, Mr. Echols became the highest-profile death row inmate to be released in recent memory.


The agreement, known as an Alford plea, does not result in a full exoneration; some of the convictions stand, though the men did not admit guilt. The deal came five months before a scheduled hearing was to be held to determine whether the men should be granted a new trial in light of DNA evidence that surfaced in the past few years. None of their DNA has been found in tests of evidence at the scene. The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered the new hearing in November, giving new life to efforts to exonerate the three men.

7/31: SF Chronicle on 2-strikers

Two strikes have large impact on prison population

California’s “three strikes” law is best known for locking up career criminals for life, but the vast majority of offenders serving prison time under the sentencing mandate were actually charged under the less-noticed second-strike provision.

These 32,390 inmates are serving sentences that were doubled as a strike-two penalty, and they account for nearly 20 percent of the state’s prison population. Yet most efforts to reform the law have focused exclusively on the third-strike provision, which carries with it a mandatory 25 years-to-life sentence.

As prison costs in California continue to grow, and the state faces a Supreme Court order to reduce its inmate population by more than 30,000 over the next two years, the tens of thousands of second-strikers appear to pose a bigger challenge to state officials attempting to rein in prison costs than the 8,700 people serving time for a third strike.

“We’re missing the significance of the second strike,” said UC Berkeley’s Barry Krisberg, director of research and policy at the school’s Institute on Law and Social Policy. “It is having an enormous impact on our prison population, and many second-strikers are serving more time than third-strikers, but when people talk about the policy of reforming three strikes, nobody wants to touch the second strike.”

‘Arbitrary’ sentencing

Under the three strikes law, approved by the Legislature and voters in 1994, anyone who was convicted of a serious or violent felony in the past can be charged with a strike if they commit a new felony. Someone charged with a second strike under the law will face double the prison time, regardless of whether the new offense is serious or violent; those charged with a third strike automatically are eligible for a 25 years-to-life sentence.

San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi said the law means that someone convicted of petty theft or burglary who had a prior felony could face four to six years in prison instead of two to three years; and someone convicted of armed robbery would spend at least a decade behind bars instead of five years – or perhaps longer if prosecutors added on sentencing enhancements for using a gun.

“The problem with strike sentences is that it’s not based on an individual determination of protecting the public and ensuring that the personal characteristics of the accused are taken into consideration,” he said. “The rationale for second-strike cases really is arbitrary because you’re not making a determination as to whether this person needs to be locked up. It’s a mathematical equation that you’re up against.”

Most past reform efforts have focused on limiting when someone can be convicted of a third strike. Krisberg, however, said the tens of thousands of inmates serving sentences for second strikes demonstrate that piecemeal reform of three strikes will not solve the state’s larger prison problem: “stiff, determinate sentencing.”

“The fact that second-strikers make up such a huge part of the prison population should tell people that that’s where we should focus our energy,” he said.

Reasons behind costs

Critics of the law, seen as the harshest in the nation, often focus their complaints on the most egregious cases, such as people serving life sentences for shoplifting, drug possession and other nonviolent offenses. But the costs of the second strike are significant as well.

For one, offenders sentenced in the future under three strikes won’t be eligible to be diverted to local jails – even if their most recent crime is nonviolent – under Gov. Jerry Brown’s realignment plan, which calls for keeping more low-level inmates in the community. Those sentenced under the law also stay in prison longer, because they are only eligible to earn a fraction of the “good-time” credits that other inmates may accrue.

“That’s (one) big difference with strike cases – even if it’s a nonserious felony, they have to do 85 percent of their sentence,” Adachi said.

Additionally, anyone sentenced under “three strikes” is likely more expensive to house, because under state prison policies, their long sentence automatically classifies them as a higher-security inmate, even if their latest offense was not violent.

Punishment questioned

Jeanne Woodford, a former Corrections Department chief who spent most of her career as a correctional officer, then warden at San Quentin Prison, said the “three strikes” law has unquestionably helped drive the state’s prison crowding and spending problems, in part because higher-security inmates must be housed in cells, rather than dormitory-style situations. She said those sentenced under the second strike provision are a bigger issue for state officials than those in prison for a third strike.

“Some of these guys are literally serving 60, 70 years – more time than three-strikers,” she said. “The bottom line is that we really do need to look at our sentences. They are just so all over the place that people could commit a very serious crime and get less time than a second-striker who did something far less serious. To be a deterrent, the sentencing system has to be consistent.”

Krisberg agreed, pointing to a report he authored in 2008, which concluded that the biggest driver of California’s growing prison population isn’t the number of criminals behind bars, but the amount of time they spend there. He calls “three strikes” the coup de grace of the determinate sentencing movement, which began in the 1970s and grew over the years to include not just tougher penalties but also fewer opportunities for early release if inmates behave well.

How much is enough?

Longer sentences are especially troublesome when it comes to second-strikers, he said, because they are often eligible for sentencing enhancements on top of an automatically doubled sentence.

“If you get enhancements then a double penalty, you could end up serving 40 years, and it’s not subject to (appeal) – they have to serve all their time,” he said. “It comes back to the issue: What’s enough time? Sometime along the way we’ve changed the assumption about what’s proportionate, what’s fair, what people deserve.”

Second-strikers also have the potential to drive up prison costs in future years because they tend to come to prison in their 30s and 40s and often have decades-long sentences – setting the stage for growing medical costs as they age. A 2010 report by state auditor Elaine Howle concluded that on average, people sentenced under the law receive a sentence nine years longer than they would have without three strikes, at a cost of $19.2 billion to taxpayers. Nearly half of that additional cost, $7.5 billion, is spent on people whose most recent strike is for a nonviolent felony.

The report also found that a small, severely ill portion of the prison population accounts for 25 percent of the approximately $2 billion the state spends on inmate health care every year.

Aging inmates tend to cost more, said Nancy Kincaid, a spokeswoman for the federal receiver in charge of medical care in state prisons. And, she said, those who are severely ill often have to be treated at hospitals outside prison walls – at an even higher cost to taxpayers.

“Our largest driver of costs is outside contract medical care, at $390 million a year,” she said. “Those inmates are the ones that are … here long-term and are going to age and likely die in prison. The majority of medical costs come after age 60.”

E-mail Marisa Lagos at mlagos@sfchronicle.com.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/07/30/MN0F1KFC2T.DTL&ao=2#ixzz1TorYKwjk

William Stuntz, 1958-2011

Criminal justice scholars everywhere are, I’m sure, very sad to hear about the passing of William Stuntz. Stuntz, a criminal procedure scholar at Harvard Law school, was a strong, influential and original voice in support of humane police procedures, sane sentencing regimes, and nondiscriminatory correctional practices. As an example of his unique perspective on justice, read this wonderful post he wrote about the irony of racial discrimination in a supposed era of enlightenment about race and civil rights.

Thank you; I’m Safe

I was so moved to receive emails from blog readers inquiring after my safety in Hawai’i. Thank you so much for your concern. I am safe and on high ground. We’re waiting for sunrise to see the damage.

2010 Violent crime statistics in SF: Homicides Up, Other Violent Crime Down

The Chron reports:

San Francisco residents witnessed an increase in homicides in 2010, with 50 people killed compared with 45 in 2009.

Yet police officials said the overall number of reported violent crimes in the city – homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault – fell 3 percent.

The decline in violent crime, and declines in homicide rates in other Bay Area cities, has been attributed to violence reduction programs and zone enforcement strategies, focused on gangs and organized crime. However, some expressed concern that the decline is due to less reporting by citizens.

A Note About Our Logo

People often ask me about our “bear behind bars”. The idea behind our logo was to communicate that, until the correctional crisis is solved, the entire state of California is imprisoned. The graphic itself is Chad Goerzen’s and is an original creation for this blog. It was also the logo for our conference in March 2009. The reason I mention this is that I have just encountered a copyright infringement situation in which our logo was used for an event invitation without our knowledge or permission. In the future, dear readers, please refrain from using our logo, and if you’d like to do so with attribution, please email us to ask permission.

UPDATE: The offending party apologized and removed our logo from their website. Thanks!