Follow Us
25 Ohio supermax prisoners start a hunger strike
May 8, 2012
On Monday, April 30, at least 25 prisoners at Ohio State Penitentiary (OSP) began a hunger strike. They are demanding that the warden meet and negotiate with them for improved conditions in Ohio’s supermax prison. The number of prisoners refusing food has fluctuated from 24 to 48 over the last week. Call the warden and state prison director.
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.
Hunger strike in the supermax: Pelican Bay prisoners protest conditions in solitary confinement
July 2, 2011
As Americans prepare to celebrate Independence Day, inmates in solitary confinement at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison are standing up for their rights in the only way they can – by going on a hunger strike.
California SHU prisoners begin hunger strike July 1
June 30, 2011
Prisoners in the Security Housing Units, SHUs, at Pelican Bay and Corcoran state prisons in California are beginning an indefinite hunger strike on July 1, 2011, to protest the cruel and inhumane conditions of their imprisonment in what is being called “an unusual show of racial unity.” Breaking news: Prisoners at Centinela have joined the hunger strike. A prisoner there reports: “Only a few inmates are walking the yard. No Blacks or Hispanics have left their cells. No one has gone to work. He said all the races are united in this fight.”
Mumia on the death penalty – and in conversation with Cornel West
April 23, 2010
At its core, the death penalty derives from, and thus replaces, lynch law. States in the former confederacy established the convict lease system, where prisoners worked, without pay, for the state. Both Black men and women became “slaves of the state.”
Nevada Prison Board hearing, Part 2: Shocking public comments
April 20, 2009
“You could hear a pin drop” when prisoner Marritte Funches’ letter was read at the April 14 hearing of the Nevada Board of Prison Commissioners. These are four of the shocking public comments submitted to the Prison Board on April 14.