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California releases plan to cut billions in prison spending
April 24, 2012
Monday the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) released “The Future of California Corrections: A Blueprint to Save Billions of Dollars, End Federal Court Oversight and Improve the Prison System,” an attempt to overhaul and redirect a prison system that has been floundering for at least a decade.
My husband, my hero: The story of a prisoner labeled ‘worst of the worst’
April 6, 2012
Imagine you were framed again by prison gang officers using a tattoo you got as a child and a symbol in a birthday card to “validate” you as a “prison gang associate” and label you “worst of the worst” and placed in segregation in a Security Housing Unit, or SHU, for years on end. That is what happened to my childhood best friend and husband, Robbie Riva.
Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement presents counter-proposal opposing CDCR ‘Security Threat Group Strategy’
March 29, 2012
Top CDCR administrators admitted several times during our negotiations that the five core demands made by 12,000 hunger striking prisoners were reasonable and would all be addressed via meaningful, substantive changes. Our rejection of CDCR’s March 1 proposal is based upon its failure to act in good faith. CDCR is asking lawmakers and taxpayers to allow it to continue to violate thousands of prisoners’ human rights, torturing us with impunity. Our counter-proposal will bring this illegal torture to an end.
NCTT Corcoran SHU responds to new Security Threat Group management proposal
March 26, 2012
For decades the CDCR has operated a domestic torture program in California SHUs whereby men are consigned to indefinite solitary confinement, sensory deprivation and constant illumination with the sole intent of compelling these state victims to become state informants.
Hunger strike analysis: Thinking outside the concrete box
March 25, 2012
If we can do a mass hunger strike, can we not gain support to pursue a mass boycott of the canteen for three-six months. What can prisoncrats do about a collective will to not buy canteen or have family and friends send money when the state takes over half of off the top anyway? What rule have we broken or what prison order has been disrupted?
CDCR Security Threat Group Strategy is designed to retain prisoners indefinitely in these torture chambers
March 23, 2012
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s “Security Threat Group Prevention, Identification and Management Strategy” targets the underprivileged prisoners and their communities to retain them in solitary confinement indefinitely. The Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement rejects this document.
We’ve taken their power away by uniting as one
March 22, 2012
I am glad that the four principle groups behind these prison walls have agreed to the fundamental principles of “each one, teach one” with the open hand of natural humanity from the north to the south to the east to the west. We are united as one, a Prison Movement of the 21st century.
Prisoners in solitary confinement petition United Nations: ‘CDCR destroys our minds, souls and spirits’
March 21, 2012
Comparing their conditions to a “living coffin,” 400 California prisoners held in long-term or indefinite solitary confinement petitioned the United Nations Tuesday to intervene on behalf of all of the more than 4,000 prisoners similarly situated. California holds more prisoners in solitary confinement than any other state in the United States or any other nation on earth. Conditions inside California’s SHUs and ASUs were at the center of two massive waves of hunger strikes last year that saw the participation of thousands of prisoners in at least a third of California’s 33 prisons.
Pelican Bay SHU representatives respond to CDCR’s proposed gang management strategy
March 19, 2012
The Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit Short Corridor representatives have read and carefully considered and hereby reject CDCR’s gang management proposal of March 2012. Prisoners designated Security Threat Group Members – including the majority of us – will not receive any meaningful change.
CDCR releases new gang validation proposal
March 14, 2012
CDCR has released its “Security Threat Group Prevention, Identification and Management Strategy,” which proposes new gang validation and SHU step down procedures. “The biggest issue with the stakeholder review is that the most important stakeholders, the prisoners who have been validated and are currently in administrative segregation or the SHU, are not included,” says Jerry Elster.
Settle your quarrels, come together!
March 8, 2012
My call to arms is this: Until we are organize in consciousness as one class, which we are as prisoners, and eradicate the petty politics that give the illusion of security but only act to strangle our solidarity, we are hypocritical in our demand for CDCR to take the boot off our neck and the knife out of our backs.
Prisoners tell the world about the horrors of California prison isolation
March 2, 2012
The Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law believes that the treatment of California prisoners placed in Administrative Segregation Units and Security Housing Units should be brought before the United Nations. Placing thousands of prisoners in segregation for long periods of time is one of the most serious mass human rights violations taking place in the United States today. On Tuesday, March 20, 10-11 a.m., at the Ronald Reagan State Building, 300 South Spring St., Los Angeles, join the press conference to release a petition calling for a United Nations investigation.
Family of California prisoner who died on hunger strike speaks out
February 23, 2012
The death of Christian Gomez, 27, the first California hunger strike martyr, will be covered by Democracy Now! on Friday, Feb. 24, on 1,024 TV and radio stations around the country and online at DemocracyNow.org. His family is speaking out about the loss of their family member in the hope that similar incidents are avoided in the future. While CDCR emphasizes Gomez’ conviction to discourage public sympathy, his sister contends his conviction was wrongful, and according to a late report, the assault charge that sent him to segregation was about to be dropped.
A discussion on strategy for the Occupy Movement from behind enemy lines
February 19, 2012
Our hunger strikes were the only way to effectively resist the nonstop assault on our humanity which is the inevitable consequence of burying us indefinitely in these sensory deprivation torture units. The success of the Occupy Movement, like the hunger strikes, requires sacrifice and strategic insight. The kind of sacrifices you exemplify – we love it, we love you and we stand with you.
Conflicting reports on hunger strike at California’s Corcoran State Prison
February 18, 2012
The striker reportedly knew Christian Gomez and described the day of his death. Several inmates were screaming and pounding their fists on their cell doors trying to get the attention of the correctional officers. His knuckles were noticeably battered during the visit. CDCR officials continue to assert that autopsy results show Gomez did not die of starvation.
Corcoran ASU hunger strikers continue after one starves to death, while CDCR lags on gang validation revisions
February 15, 2012
CDCR disclosed that as of Feb. 9, 30 men at Corcoran ASU were still striking. One of them writes: “On or about Feb 2nd or 3rd 2012 an inmate has passed away due to not eating … Inmates are passing out and having other medical problems … There will be more casualties if this isn’t addressed or brought to light.”
Prison media access bill passes California Assembly
February 12, 2012
The bill by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, to restore media access to prisoners, AB 1270, passed the California Assembly Jan. 26. The bill would remove restrictions on pre-arranged in-person interviews with specific prison inmates.
Feeling death at our heels: An update from the frontlines of the struggle
January 25, 2012
Since the last hunger strike ended, we have weathered wave after wave of retaliation from the state’s prison administrators that continues unabated to this day. None of us want to die, but all of us are prepared to do so to realize our five core demands. History dictates no less. The ultimate arbiter of our fate – and this society’s fate – is the people. YOU. Our love, loyalty and solidarity to all those who cherish freedom, justice and human rights and fear only failure.
Financing our own incarceration
January 19, 2012
Last night 17 of us were bussed from Pelican Bay State Prison to Corcoran. The ride down here was beautiful. Being able to see the ocean, the trees and all the people going about their daily lives, it was really worth it. After all, it has been over 20 years since I last took a ride outside of Pelican Bay’s SHU.
Riot at North Fork: Private prison exchanges security for profits
January 10, 2012
I am a California prisoner who was sent involuntarily to NFORK CCA (the Corrections Corporation of America’s North Fork Prison), a private prison in Oklahoma, where I have been for over a year. California thought they could more effectively silence my protests and lawsuits by hurling me hundreds of miles away.