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Facing hate: The psychological torment continues
July 2, 2012
The prison officials believe that they have a right to subject us prisoners to physical and psychological torment simply because we choose to fight peacefully for our basic human rights. These officials fail to realize that prisoners are committed to the peaceful struggle and by no means do we plan on giving up, under any circumstances.
Starving for change: Hunger strike underway since June 10 in Georgia’s Jackson State Prison
July 2, 2012
Since June 10 an undetermined number of Georgia prisoners have been on a hunger strike. Some of these men are the Jackson State prison strikers. After two weeks, according to the families of Miguel Jackson and Preston Whiting, they are weak from hunger and subject to fainting spells. But they seem to believe they have little to lose. They are, a letter from one of them asserts, “starving for change.” We must demand justice for Miguel Jackson and other Georgia state prisoners who are being targeted and brutalized for exposing their inhumane conditions and standing up for their most basic human rights.
Support the Pelican Bay State Prison Peace Talks
June 26, 2012
In 1989 the California Department of Corrections opened Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP). Their primary stated reason for its construction was to reduce prison violence by isolating “alleged” gang leaders and members, but contrary to their stated purpose, prison violence has both rapidly and dramatically increased. California prisons are more violent now than before the opening of Pelican Bay.
A voice from within
June 21, 2012
The Pelican Bay SHU is a desolate and dreary place, where one is locked in a windowless cell, or better yet a “TOMB,” 24/7 for years on end. This type of solitary confinement and sensory deprivation can and does weigh heavily on a person’s mind, body and soul. – Sonny Trujillo. This story is illustrated with a scale drawing of a SHU cell by another Pelican Bay prisoner, F. Alejandrez.
Angola 3: Time for justice is now!
June 19, 2012
Robert King writes that “standing on the State Capitol steps on Tuesday, 17 April, I felt the power of the people, of 65,000 people and more – all those who have supported the Angola 3 over the years were also with us. We could not be ignored – the media were there and wanted to report on this; organizations stood by our side in support. Amnesty’s presence was felt.”
Solitary confinement on trial: an interview with law professor Angela A. Allen-Bell
June 18, 2012
On the morning of Tuesday, June 19, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights is having an important public hearing on “Reassessing Solitary Confinement.” This Senate hearing comes on the heels of widespread prisoner hunger strikes that have made the use of solitary confinement a central issue.
Prison destroys 4,250 prisoners’ letters
June 18, 2012
I got a letter from the attorneys Rosen, Bien, Galvan telling me they just learned that 4,250 letters intended to be sent out by prisoners at my prison “between 2009 and 2012” were never processed by mail room staff, and both legal mail and personal mail were affected. The CDCR internal affairs and the U.S. Postal Service are investigating the mail problem cover-up.
Families of California prisoners respond to controversial solitary confinement reform proposal
June 17, 2012
We are the families of thousands of loved ones who have been incarcerated indefinitely – some for decades – in California’s “supermax” segregated and administrative housing units. Solitary confinement, even for short periods, has been known for centuries to cause irreparable physical and psychological damage: torture. Yet California continues to condone this practice.
Gang validation images needed for July 1 hunger strike commemoration
June 14, 2012
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (PHSS) will be organizing community actions to commemorate the one year anniversary of the California prisoners’ hunger strike, which began on July 1, 2011. As a part of these community actions, we plan to have some visual images that express aspects of what it means to be in solitary confinement.
‘We must sustain hunger strike solidarity,’ says leading prisoner rights campaigner
June 13, 2012
On May 14, nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners ended their historic mass hunger strike in Israeli jails, as prisoner representatives entered into an Egyptian-mediated agreement with Israeli prison officials. Israel agreed to limit the use of administrative detention indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial and said it would ease harsh restrictions on visiting.
Lawsuit challenges solitary confinement at California prison
June 2, 2012
The Center for Constitutional Rights filed a federal lawsuit Thursday on behalf of prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison who have spent between 10 and 28 years in solitary confinement. The legal action is part of a larger movement to reform inhumane conditions in California prisons’ Security Housing Units (SHUs) dramatized by a 2011 hunger strike by thousands of prisoners.
Standing on righteousness
May 10, 2012
I’m asking the Bay View newspaper to please print this open letter so that California Prison Focus, MIM Distributors, Rising Son Press, Anti-Racist Action and the Black Riders Liberation Party will know why they have not heard from me – also Shaka of the Black August Organizing Committee and Brotha Secretary Yawo at the Oakland Uhuru House. I have no addresses, so at this point I cannot contact them unless they contact me.
CDCR calls emergency meeting for hunger strike mediators as prisoner supporters rally outside
April 26, 2012
A little over a month after CDCR released its “Security Threat Group Prevention, Identification and Management Strategy,” which proposes new gang validation and SHU step down procedures, the department has called a meeting with members of the mediation team advocating on behalf of SHU and Administrative Segregation (Ad-Seg or ASU) prisoners.
California, the land of the gulag
April 13, 2012
The Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law has filed a petition to the United Nations on behalf of hundreds of prisoners kept in solitary confinement in California prisons and subject to treatment amounting to torture and violating international human rights norms.
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.
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.
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.
Decolonizing/occupying the plantation known as San Quentin Prison
March 8, 2012
This powerful event resonated deeply, bringing meaning to the “occupy” movement and showing that its power is to support existent fights and organizing efforts for silenced peoples that have been raging on for years as well as to shed light on the increasingly po’lice controlled state that we all live under.
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.