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A message to supporters of the Five Core Demands
January 23, 2013
As a devout supporter of the Five Core Demands, I write this article not only to commend you for your support and participation in the previous hunger strike, but also for getting us all on the same and most effective page throughout the California prison system on our next collective push to have these Five Core Demands met via continued hunger strikes.
It’s time to replace prison oppression with prisoner solidarity
January 19, 2013
The only way that we can stop the bleeding is by prisoners ending it first. By embracing the Agreement to End Hostilities, we can change our prison oppression into a more productive prison environment that serves the interests of us prisoners, as well as put an end to the policies that are inhumane.
Scare tactics: How loved ones are terrorized into breaking bonds with prisoners
January 12, 2013
I am writing to inform you of the scare tactics that California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) here at Pelican Bay State Prison Security Housing Unit (PBSP SHU) uses in order to intimidate our families, friends and associates away from corresponding with those of us who are held in these solitary confinement units – AdSegs and SHUs.
How CDCr scams California taxpayers
January 1, 2013
For the past 40 years, prisoners have been removed off general population due to being validated as alleged prison gang members or associates. This is the sole reason for our placement: not behavior. CDCr started this indefinite lockup in the mid- to late 70s and soon realized that there was an economic incentive for labeling prisoners as a threat to the safety and security of the institution.
Report from the Pelican Bay SHU Short Corridor Representatives: Continued ignoring of Five Core Demands could prompt resumption of peaceful protest
December 28, 2012
It has been more than 13 months since we agreed to suspend our non-violent, peaceful protest hunger strike actions in response to CDCR’s top administrators’ admissions that all of our Five Core Demands were reasonable and would be responded to via substantively meaningful changes to the policies and practices at issue. This has NOT HAPPENED.
Legislative Analyst Office predicts Corrections won’t meet budget reductions
November 15, 2012
Californians demand further reductions in prison spending to restore social services. A post-election poll by Californians for Safety and Justice determined that 62 percent of voters believe too much state funding goes to California’s prison system, and 86 percent agree that more resources should be dedicated to preventing crime rather than funding prisons and jails.
California’s cruelest prisons
November 1, 2012
It is well established that solitary confinement is cruel and psychologically damaging. Many of the SHU’s indefinite residents haven’t even broken prison rules. They are there because the California Department of Corrections claims they are connected to prison gangs. Such arbitrariness and cruelty has no place in a constitutional democracy. California should reexamine this practice.
End of hostilities holds in prisons statewide and spreads to the streets
November 1, 2012
Whether committing to end hostilities is called a “peace treaty” or “unity,” what’s starting to grow is a powerful force of strong minded individuals – in prisons statewide and on the streets – putting aside their differences with one another and standing up against the system to take back what’s rightfully theirs as human beings: their human rights!
No new jails! Californians fight on a year after realignment
October 1, 2012
Oct. 1 marks the first anniversary of the boldest and most controversial of Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget balancing actions: criminal justice realignment. A year later, reactions to the plan remain strong. “It is past time for real bail reform, for real sentencing reforms and for a shift in funds from law enforcement and corrections to social services and education.”
It is a matter of innocence, not economics
October 1, 2012
Please DON’T vote in favor of “The SAFE California Act” to end California’s death penalty. Your vote for this act would throw away the key for all the innocent men and women on death row and, instead, sentence all prisoners on death row to spend the rest of their lives in prison without the possibility of parole and without effective legal representation.
Amnesty International report condemns shocking conditions in California SHUs
September 27, 2012
The state of California must make substantial changes to their prison isolation units and halt the inhuman suffering of thousands of prisoners, Amnesty International said in a new report out today. “The Edge of Endurance: Conditions in California’s Security Housing Units” explores the conditions of confinement endured by more than 3,000 prisoners – including 78 who have spent in excess of two decades in isolation.
Solitary confinement policies in California revised again, as inmate leaders promote end to racial hostilities
September 26, 2012
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has recently circulated a memo regarding the most recent revised edition of its Step Down Program (SDP) and Security Threat Group (STG) Program proposal. The revised policies come one year after a series of statewide hunger strikes by inmates in the Security Housing Units (SHU) in Pelican Bay and other California state prisons.
We wrote our own appeal to prove my husband’s innocence
September 20, 2012
My husband, Robbie James Riva, who currently resides at Calipatria State Prison, has maintained his innocence for the past 11 years. After his appeal was denied in 2009 and there was no more money to pay an attorney, I decided to take it on myself. We put our minds together, our strength, our love and we told each other we could do this and we did. He wrote his appeal himself with the documents I sent him.
PBSP update: Assessment of meetings with assistant warden
September 17, 2012
Two letters follow: The first, by Mutope Duguma, describes the current Pelican Bay State Prison Short Corridor situation. The second, by Pelican Bay inmate and hunger strike leader George Franco, is reposted here and now so readers can compare prison officials’ promises with the situation described by Mutope Duguma a year later.
Pelican Bay SHU confiscates prisoner’s letter, warning him not to ‘associate with SF Bay View’
August 31, 2012
I’m writing this letter to advise you and your loyal readers of the retaliation that Pelican Bay State Prison gang investigators have taken up against those of us inmates who “associate with SF Bay View” and inform them not to be discouraged or dissuaded in our struggle to have our voices heard.
Senate passes Prison Media Access Bill
August 30, 2012
Update: Gov. Brown signed AB 1270 Aug. 31, restoring the conditions that existed before 1996, when corrections officials cut down on reporters’ ability to report on prisons and prisoners. “With passage of AB 1270, legislators have voted for transparent and accountable reporting of the state’s 32 prisons and the more than 130,000 prisoners locked inside their walls.”
Duguma wins major court victory: Without a fight it can’t be no struggle
August 20, 2012
The First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco has ruled in a 3-0 decision that alleged members and associates of the New Afrikan revolutionary leftist organization titled the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF) and all New Afrikan prisoners have a First Amendment right to expression of their United States constitutional rights to speak to the New Afrikan nationalist revolutionary man ideology. These are clearly our political beliefs.
CDCR registers last minute opposition to expanding media access to state prisons
July 27, 2012
AB 1270, legislation that would increase transparency and media access to California’s notorious state prison system, is currently facing opposition in the Senate Appropriations Committee. CDCR is formally opposing the bill, citing cost as their main concern. There are two ways that you can help: Attend a Lobby Day on Aug. 9 or phone committee members from home before Aug. 13.
In response to CDCR’s security threat – gang – revisions
June 7, 2012
CDCR Deputy Director Stainer said that the STG (security threat group regulations) will replace the six-year inactive status program – big whoop! Yeah, it will but it will have the same end result. Only this time, we’ll all be bouncing back and forth like a ping pong ball between step 1 and step 2, all while we’re in the same cell until we die.
A response to CDCR’s ‘Security Threat Group Prevention, Identification and Management Strategy’
June 5, 2012
After we read the content of the document [the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s “Security Threat Group Prevention, Identification and Management Strategy,” released in March], we had a tier discussion of it. To a man, we believe that document is nothing more than an attempt by CDCR to regain public support.