by Mutope Duguma
In all policies, the truth is in the details of their implementation. On the surface, a policy can appear reasonable, but once you get into the actual working out of the details, you can see that it’s not what it seems like. For example, the war on crime, the war on gangs, the war on drugs and the California three strikes law are policies which we have come to learn in practice were nothing but phrases – and very costly phrases.
The cost of those policies must be measured in the billions, because the actual carrying out of these policies ends up indicting and outright assaulting the poorest communities in Amerika, the same communities that populate the prison industrial slave complex today. So in responding to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitaion’s response to our 40 supplemental demands, I would like to get into the actual details of what the CDCr is and is not saying in response to prisoners.
There have not been any policy changes by CDCr or by Pelican Bay State Prison that verify the statement in the third introductory paragraph: “Despite policy changes that had already addressed the concerns raised during the two previous hunger strikes, gang leaders initiated a third strike and made 40 additional demands.” The term “gang leader” is offensive and baseless. It also has nothing to do with anything but character assassination to criminalize, devalue, degrade and dehumanize all prisoners who are demanding to be treated humanely.
No policy was addressed before the July 1, 2011, hunger strike. The program changes thus far have been based on operational procedural (OP) changes, which any warden can take or give anytime they desire to. The 40 supplemental demands are crucial for anyone who has to spend one day in these modern day torture chambers, where we exist in physical and psychological bondage.
Solitary confinement units are graveyards. You’re buried alive in a tombstone, confined to your own personal cube. Each cell is a concrete slab box to which you are restricted for the rest of your life. Then you’re tormented by your keepers to see how much you can take before you break. This is the format for all solitary confinement units throughout the United States, and almost 80 percent of the people who enter these tombstones are broken.
A friend of mine, Vikki Law of Truthout, once asked me, “Mutope, what about those who say, why would you want to make solitary confinement comfortable?” I told her it’s humanly impossible to make solitary confinement comfortable. What you attempt to do is keep people connected to their humanity; that’s it. Mere placement in solitary confinement is torture; looking in or out, it’s torture.
Supplemental demands 1-40
The Pelican Bay Human Rights Movement wrote 40 supplemental demands to detail what prisoners are entitled to and need to have re-instated.
Supplemental Demand No. 1 calls on CDCr to rescind all Form 115 RVRs (Rules Violation Reports) issued to hunger strikers during the peaceful protest. The CDCr has refused so far. Following is the prisoner representatives’ response:
CDCr’s own policy says that we have a right to go on a hunger strike without suffering any reprisal from the state. What CDCr officials in Sacramento did was retaliatory because they didn’t like the fact that there were a mass of prisoners on hunger strike protesting the inhumane conditions of solitary confinement, so they penalized all hunger strikers by saying it was a mass disturbance and that hunger strikers were manipulating the words from the CCR Title 15 to justify it.
The four representatives and I had read everything to make sure anything we did wasn’t against state rules or policies, and going on a hunger strike was not. So when we went on the July 1, 2011, hunger strike, the undersecretary of the CDC at the time, Scott Kernan, had the PBSP warden give us all CDC 128B chronos [informative documentation placed in a prisoner’s file] saying if we were to do the hunger strike again, we would face serious disciplinary action. This threat was arbitrary and an abuse of his administrative authority.
The four representatives and I had read everything to make sure anything we did wasn’t against state rules or policies, and going on a hunger strike was not.
So when the second hunger strike came, Scott Kernan had Lt. Barneburg of IGI (Institutional Gang Investigations) at the time give each and every one of us a CDC Rule Violation Report (RVR) 115 for inciting a riot or mass disturbance. We couldn’t believe it, but it was true. They had misused the specific act in order to embellish an RVR from nothing to a real serious RVR offense.
Lt. Barneburg is now a captain of ISU (Investigations Services Unit). I can only suspect his promotion was for the many evil deeds he has carried out against prisoners throughout his stay as a so-called gang officer, where they manipulate confidential information, along with documenting words, all toward persecuting prisoners. This is why the CDCr RVR 115s should be dismissed, because they were illegal.
The RVRs we received for this July 8, 2013, hunger strike caused us a loss of credit for time served of 90 days for participating in the hunger strike. This time they left out “inciting a riot.”
The CDCr RVR 115s should be dismissed, because they were illegal.
Supplemental Demand No. 2 asks that no RVR be issued during July 8, 2013, hunger strike. CDCr refused to observe this request. The regulations do not apply here in relation to the hunger strike because refusing to eat does not equate to a disturbance and anything can be considered a disruption of orderly operations in the institution. But a hunger strike is definitely not an interruption. CDCr’s arbitrarily issuing RVR 115s was illegal, an outright abuse of their authority.
Supplemental Demand No. 3 asks that no retaliation happen when the July 8, 2013, hunger strike occurs. CDCr ignored this request. Notice that CDCr said policies and operational procedures are again a process in which the warden institutes the OP (operating procedure) concerning the safety and security of the institution. This OP does not supercede CDCr’s standing policies, state penal codes, or constitutional law.
These, again, are arbitrary attacks on all hunger strike participants by the warden at PBSP. Although the hunger strike OP 228 stipulates that all men who are identified as hunger strike representatives will be removed from the rest of the hunger strikers and placed in Ad Seg, CDCr and PBSP deviated from this practice and placed every last one of us on hunger strike in Ad Seg.
We found out that this OP was revised by gang officers at PBSP to retaliate against all hunger strikers in September 2012. It’s a clear case of abuse of authority by prison officials who use their power to punish prisoners.
There was never any policy before the July 1, 2011, hunger strike that punished prisoners for going on a hunger strike. Undersecretary Kernan arbitrarily drafted up a memorandum to this effect and the PBSP warden inserted that memorandum into the OP with the gang officers’ twist to punish prisoners.
There was never any policy before the July 1, 2011, hunger strike that punished prisoners for going on a hunger strike.
Supplemental Demand No. 4 concerns the re-opening of a visiting room in Facility D, which PBSP is slowly working on. They have reopened Facility D, which should have never been closed in the first place, but the mismanagement of the prisoners’ program and the deliberate attack on solitary confinement prisoners and our families were part of that suppression of all relationships with our families. This was done by way of arbitrary order from the warden at PBSP. No policy or OP, just outright wickedness.
Supplemental Demand No. 5 calls for weekly phone calls to families and friends for all prisoners in SHU. CDCr is actually drilling holes in concrete walls for wires now. What about prisoners who will be literally waiting months, if not years, to get into a step?
This is where people in the public and prisoners have to be very cautious and conscious of the continual games by CDCr, because there are prisoners who have not talked to a family member in countless years. It’s been so long for some, it’ll be like calling strangers.
Again, it’s a policy and actual procedure that has been extremely wicked in its application and suppression of family and prisoner relationships. Phone calls should be instituted instantly, because families, friends and prisoners have already suffered enough.
There are prisoners who have not talked to a family member in countless years. It’s been so long for some, it’ll be like calling strangers.
Supplemental Demand No. 6 concerns access to hobby and art supplies and one photo per year, no matter what the prisoner’s record is. Well, there is a problem with putting photos down as a privilege, because photos are connected to the rehabilitation of the prisoners, like phone calls, visits etc., which build on family ties and friendship ties. People become re-humanized by being able to communicate who and what they are to the outside world through photos. To allow arbitrary, overzealous, racist, prejudiced and biased prison officials use an RVR 115 to deprive a prisoner of such important social, cultural and family-oriented treasures like photographs is in itself cruel.
People become re-humanized by being able to communicate who and what they are to the outside world through photos.
Supplemental Demand No. 7 calls for prisoners to be allowed to sell or give away art work, no matter what their record is. Now here’s where safety and security are an excuse used to suppress people’s natural talents and creativity. The very system that claims to be about “free enterprise” is now using fascist-like suppression tactics to deny prisoners the human right to express themselves based on their God given talents.
This is criminal. There is no security concern here. This is where “group punishment” is applied, a policy where every prisoner is punished based on the act of one individual. We all are made to suffer for an individual’s action.
Every man and woman should be paid for his and her labor. Here there should be no exception. Any violation of a program should be punished to the fullest extent of the restrictions assigned to that violation, but to arbitrarily take away that program from everyone is exactly why our Core Demand No. 1 is so important. Nothing is non-negotiable where it suppresses the talent of a prisoner’s creativity. This goes to the heart of their rehabilitation.
Supplemental Demand No. 8 is to allow the Inmate Welfare Fund to be used to re-stock books for prisoners in the prison library. CDCr gave an excuse for not doing it. If this is true, why haven’t we seen one “new” book issued to prisoners? Yet, when we order a book from the library, it’s missing pages and is old. The CDCr’s state prison budget covers these expenses with taxpayer money. CDCr has to be honest about their responses. We have been held in these solitary confinement units, and we know the real truths. Independent investigation would prove these monies are being re-routed elsewhere.
Independent investigation would prove these monies are being re-routed elsewhere.
Supplemental Demand No. 9 regards CDCr allowing funds for education programming. Compliance is yet to be seen. Plus, I would like to add that we are living in the 21st century and prisoners’ educations are like relics when it comes to the education of the average Amerikan. We are so far behind that we will know nothing when we parole.
The prisons have to move toward technological education systems. This is real rehabilitation for prisoners. For society to not move prisoners in this direction, to keep up with overall society, is a disservice to them and the communities they are returning to. I can only hope that CDCr is sincere about the educational programs, because if you truly want to civilize prisoners, then education is the key. And no prisoner should wait to be educated by CDCr, especially since they have a track record of over 40 years of not educating their prison population.
Supplemental Demand No. 10 concerns legal books not being counted in the 10 book allowance for each prisoner; inmate-owned legal materials need to be in separate category. The June 5, 2013, memorandum does not go far enough, and clarity is crucial in respect to how staff are directed to deal with legal mail when they have possession of the prisoner’s mail.
Supplemental Demand No. 11 is about allowing prisoners to donate old appliances to other prisoners. Again, here’s where safety and security is again abused by the CDCr. The real reason CDCr has applied their safety and security concerns to this supplement demand is because it is an underground profit incentive for CDCr. Where is the safety and security concern? The process is real simple. Make sure the TV is functional – no parts missing etc. Then sign it over to the next prisoner who is without an appliance or one who needs one due to their TV going out. When prisoners have to “donate” their TVs to staff, it becomes a lucrative business for the prison staffers.
Supplemental Demand No. 12 increases money allowed for canteen because of higher prices in canteen. Price gouging is the problem here in PBSP canteen, because prices fluxuate through a manipulation of product changes. For example, in the CSP-SAC canteen list there is a 1 pound bag of hot cocoa for $3.85. In PBSP the exact same bag costs $4.85, a dollar difference. PBSP canteen managers have been scheming on money from prisoners for years. So, it should be granted that all prisoners be able to spend $65 per month, regardless of whether they are in a step-down program or not.
Supplemental Demand No. 13 regards prisoners being able to donate to outside charities. Now this exposes the true wicked intentions of CDCr’s claim that they rehabilitate prisoners, when they bar us from supporting community projects like charities. We know that no matter where people are at or what color they are, if they are poor, they are struggling. Prisoners have good in them and should be able to benefit the communities. Allowing us this project is the least CDCR can do. Times are bad. Allow food drives to occur as much as possible in order to serve the community around us.
Supplemental Demand No. 14 regards typewriters being allowed. CDCr in Sacramento approved that prisoners in solitary can have a typewriter, but now some overzealous property officers at PBSP have interfered with the process, repeating their famous line that it affects the safety and security of the prison.
Supplemental Demand No. 15 allows prisoners to have multiple appliances. CDCr has approved the purchase of radios through their designated vendor, so allow us to have them. The games continue.
Supplemental Demand No. 16 calls for electrical outlets in cells and fire sprinklers in cells. CDCr mandated through a 602 appeal process that was granted that all Ad Segs can have electrical outlets, and yet PBSP is being disingenuous when they deny us the right to have them.
Supplemental Demand No. 17 reinstates family visits for General Population lifers. The CDCr campaigned against allowing conjugal family visits for prisoners, saying it was not economically feasible for them. But this puts them in contradiction with their own rehabilitation policy that family visits are the most beneficial to families and prisoners, as well as an incentive for controlling prison violence, hopelessness, depression etc. because prisoners value the union with their families and so do the families. It was a wicked attack against the family program.
Family visits were initially banned for sex offenders, yet when it was all said and done, CDCR ended up banning conjugal visits for all prisoners. Hell, all non-sex offender prisoners hate child molesters, rapists and domestic abusers. Any abuses against women or children are seriously looked down upon by a high percentage of prisoners.
So when CDCr proposed the order to the Legislature and got it through, they did it by attaching the sex molester stigma to it. The Legislature will now have to change it back in order to allow family conjugal visits again for non-molesters. But let’s be clear: The CDCr is the one that destroyed this important family-based program, which was effective and a more humane deterrent for prisoner misbehavior than some savage debriefing program. Reinstate the Bill of Rights for Prisoners, and a lot of these issues will be resolved.
Reinstate the Bill of Rights for Prisoners, and a lot of these issues will be resolved.
Supplemental Demand No. 18 calls for Prison Industries of America, California, to supply standard quality products and food. PIA is fleecing taxpayers all across Amerika. Monopolies shut out citizens and small businesses from getting contracts with the state, by demanding that all prisons purchase only their items, and then they can produce low quality products, from food to mattresses. Their lumpy mattresses are like sleeping on a bunch of softballs, causing one’s blood circulation to be cut off if sleeping on one’s side and also causing crooks in the neck and hip pain. PIA’s poor quality food is infamous.
Supplemental Demand No. 19 regards PIA producing substandard clothing. Again, PIA is incompetent in manufacturing its products.
Supplemental Demand No. 20 concerns the contents allowed in annual and semi-annual packages for prisoners. On June 5, 2013, CDCr officials granted T-shirts, along with sweats, thermals, etc. Now it should be obvious that all these non-food items can and should be able to be purchased once a year. We shouldn’t have to compromise one of the two annual food packages that prisoners are allowed to have, by including clothing as part of one of the two food packages.
The supplemental demand requests one non-food package per year, solely for clothing, which can be heavy when a pair of shoes is enclosed. Here the supplemental demand is requesting a non-food package in order to get these items. CDCr’s answer was deliberately evading the question. Plus, special purchases can easily be implemented through the warden’s OP procedures, which is allowed once a month already. So CDCr’s designation of the contents in the boxes, i.e., clothing, ribbons, cups, bowls, headphones, paper, colored pencils, etc. is reasonable. Making it necessary for us to include clothing in one of our food packages is outright unreasonable.
Supplemental Demand No. 21 regards the list of items allowed to be purchased. Well, I’m glad CDCr said “partially,” because there’s no food or spices that we should be denied. But having it written on the matrix specifically shows the psychological torment – power play – that we are subjected to by prison property officers who get a sadistic kick out of confiscating food items, which are our property, on only a technicality.
Supplemental Demand No. 22 calls for getting rid of PIA as a food supplier. CDC did not respond to the request from prisoners to “refrain from utilizing CAL-PIA for food products due to poor quality,” and we are left with food not worth taxpayer dollars for the poor quality provided. This monopoly is double taxing taxpayers, because the poor quality food does not provide nutritional value, and that leads to medical problems, creating another expensive contradiction where taxpayers foot the bill.
The only way to demonstrate the truth about the food is to allow an independent dietician to investigate the actual food being served to prisoners. Currently, the prison dieticians can call the food we get a “heart healthy diet,” because the CDCr dieticians never examine the food, just the menu. The prison food managers are the real conspirators (criminals) when it comes to the feeding practices, because they do not provide, nor prepare, adequate nutritional calories in food items. Using terms like “one each,” they serve you a muffin for breakfast the size of a biscuit and tell you it’s adequate because the menu says “one each.” These are price shaving tactics and schemes most prison food managers use at the expense of prisoners’ health.
The poor quality food does not provide nutritional value, and that leads to medical problems, creating another expensive contradiction where taxpayers foot the bill.
Supplemental Demand No. 23 concerns portions of food now served to SHU prisoners. I know for a fact that PBSP does not provide an adequate amount of nutrition and calories, and SHU prisoners do not receive the same amount of food as do GP prisoners. Whoever in Sacramento responded to this question is lying outright. I have studied extensively the food at PBSP and the deliberate games employed to inadequately feed prisoners in order to profit. Plus, I have the evidence to prove it, if CDCr’s Michael Stainer and Kelly Harrington are interested in the truth. Oh, there is no need to tear my cell up; it’s in the hands of the lawyers.
Supplemental Demand No. 24 regards the severely limited movies available to prisoners. Again, the CDCr has implemented policy around discrimination by cutting out R-rated movies and programming documentaries, plays, etc. CDCr has been able to take away 85 percent of the New Afrikan and Latino-Mexican movies and programs, because most of our programming is R-rated. This is the situation now with the implementation of this race-based policy.
Furthermore, the state has abused the obscenity penal code policy by deliberately misinterpreting its purpose and meaning as defined by the court in the Martinez case. The PBSP warden has been censoring PG-13, PG and G movies by cutting away whatever some officer feels is too offensive or too suggestive for the viewer, and his personal standard is cutting 40 percent of the movies.
But what’s really disturbing about PBSP practice is that they are paying $100 per video, which some if not all the time they edit to only an hour and 10 minutes per movie. OIG (Office of the Inspector General) Renee Hanson told me she was reviewing the expenditures of the IWF, Inmate Welfare Fund, and I informed her that PBSP officials have been embezzling, stealing as well as misappropriating IWF monies, when they claim to be paying $100 per video, which adds up to $2,400 to $2,600 per month. I find this to be outright criminal. I have the evidence to back up these facts, if Undersecretaries M. Stainer and Kelly Harrington wish to look into these allegations.
No need to search my property; the lawyers already have these facts in their possession. CDCr has to, in the interest of fairness, remove this silly state regulation that is designed to racially discriminate against prisoners.
Supplemental Demand No. 25 concerns the limited number of TV channels provided. CDCr claims PBSP prisoners have access to 23 channels. Now this is a lie that has already been proven to be a lie. Under no circumstances does PBSP provide 23 cable channels. I am shocked that they even claim it in the public media. The public should demand the name of all 23 channels they say they provide.
This is what I mean by the arrogance and abuse of power. The CDCr and PBSP officials feel they can lie, steal and cheat the people and then just provide some lame nonsense of a story and that justifies it. There needs to be an open, independent investigation of these outright lies, because this is why we went on two hunger strikes and are again on a peaceful protest hunger strike, due to lies.
Scott Kernan, former undersecretary of CDCr, admitted he was duped on the 23 channels. Now I see Michael Stainer of the Inspector General’s Office and his cronies are using this same lie as a means to deny a reasonable supplemental demand.
These actions speak to the wickedness of CDCr to deny adequate, meaningful programming for prisoners held in solitary. They are bent on punishment and this has been their core drive – punishing prisoners until they break us. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are taking taxpayers’ money out of the state budget for those 23 channels. PBSP only provides one cable channel. There should be an independent investigation of these allegations, enough so there is public outcry.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they are taking taxpayers’ money out of the state budget for those 23 channels. PBSP only provides one cable channel.
Supplemental Demand No. 26 regards access to cable channels for prisoners. Well, taxpayers already cover these fees and the PBSP officials are able to reroute these fees by writing down that they have purchased educational programs, when in all actuality they have paid for nothing. And when we do get to see education programs, they are repeats of the same programming we’ve been seeing for over 20 years, which allows them to pocket the funds that were meant for new programs.
This is where the real crime is committed. Ask what they spend for the 23 channels, and it’s probably a ridiculously low price. But again, we get nothing for it. It’s the same as with the $100 they say they spend for each video. There needs to be an independent investigation as to these allegations.
Supplemental Demand No. 27 calls on CDCr to purchase dip and pull-up bars with IWF funds. Some people stay in ASU (Administrative Segregation Unit) for months and years, and these isolation units can be worse than the SHU in most cases, with no personal property and nothing to do on these so-called ASU recreation yards. The excuse being made is weak and disingenuous because CDCr knows they should not hold people in ASU for years. So be truthful, CDCr.
Supplemental Demand No. 28 asks for weight-lifting equipment on yards. Again, CDCr has gone on a smear campaign about how letting prisoners lift weights is a threat to citizens. They put a bunch of money behind the bill and into politicians’ campaigns, urging that we have to get rid of these weights because prisoners are getting out stronger and can then victimize Amerikans. This is how our privileges for weights were lost.
The California Legislature needs to immediately reverse this bill, because all it did was create a medical crisis, where there were many prisoners whose health deteriorated due to lack of exercise. Taxing who, again? Yes, taxpayers.
The CDCr claims its policies are about the safety and security of the public and the prisons. You can easily see the truth when you look at the details. For instance, the weights that we used to have access to on the yards kept the prisoners occupied, exercised and tired after weightlifting.
This was one of those situations where CDCr took away the weights out of pure spite, nothing else. It’s kind of a sad state how prisoners are being caged on prison yards, locked in concrete slabs with nothing to do, sectioned off by race, just looking at each other all day, as if they are in Roman caged gladiator fights. And here we are in the 21st century.
Supplemental Demand No. 29 calls for a stop to “contraband (potty) watch” practices immediately. Let’s call it what it is, “potty watch,” for the sole purpose of humiliating the prisoner. It is a savage practice where you are taken to some cage and held in “slave shackles” until you defecate. This is a reflection of the nature of the beast that we are dealing with: CDCr uses the procedure to entrap the bowel movement in your jumpsuit.
These savages tape the jumpsuit to your ankles. They make you defecate three times before they relieve you of this torture. There is no real reason for a high percentage of these potty watches. It’s speculative for the most part and, as requested, they need to be banned immediately. The whole procedure is nothing but a trauma, and points to the military personnel working inside the prison. It’s a brutal practice; some prisoners have been known to spend three nights and days on potty watch.
Supplemental Demand No. 30 calls for Medical Doctor Sayre to be fired and never hold a position of authority over prisoners again. CDCr stands behind their crooked Dr. Sayre, who is head of medical care at PBSP. They don’t seem to be able to get rid of Dr. Sayre. He has done too much and he knows too much. He can destroy the whole system’s secrecy, which is why he will never be fired.
The mere fact that he attacked one of his own co-workers over a parking space that he claimed was his speaks to the instability of Dr. Sayre. He has been demoted, but the irony is that he still runs everything. They simply put his girlfriend in his spot, so he still runs medical at PBSP.
Just so you can see his arrogance, he took away many men’s medications before the hunger strike and during this hunger strike. This guy is a threat and a danger to all Pelican Bay prisoners. When who ask to see outside doctors for serious health issues, no matter how sincere the request nor how well it is documented, he denies it.
This is why CDCr keeps him, because he saves CDCr money in medications and treatments. Dr. Sayre, in my opinion, is a heartless murderer by proxy. Many PBSP prisoners have suffered under him and continue to suffer. This is no doctor.
Supplemental Demand No. 31 regards maintenance of cells, painting them. We have been locked down for cell painting each week lately, so it shouldn’t be a problem to meet this request.
Supplemental Demand No. 32 concerns maintenance of the ventilation system. Now the problem here is that Pelican Bay is breaking down and they are trying to do maintenance when the buildings are structurally incapable of functioning for another 20 years. The whole system is collapsing from the inside out, and the bandaid fixes will only be temporary fixes.
The ventilation is extremely poor, and we prisoners are made to suffer due to this poor structure. We might as well be outside when we’re inside a building as far as temperatures are concerned, because there is no insulation anywhere in the prison. So if it’s freezing cold outside, we are freezing cold in the building. If it’s burning up outside, we’re burning up inside. The PBSP plant operation cannot protect us from this reality, because the problem is in the structure. Independent investigation will bring out these facts.
There is no insulation anywhere in the prison. So if it’s freezing cold outside, we are freezing cold in the building.
Supplemental Demand No. 33 regards Lexan plastic plates on cells. CDCr is still using them, making excuses that are disingenuous, because there are many avenues to gas or attack an officer, if that’s the prisoner’s objective. To have Lexan or Plexiglas on cells is a health hazard.
What does the Occupational Safety and Health Board say about the plastic being a health hazard to prisoners due to collecting bacteria in the cells? They didn’t put me behind them because I made them spray the door regularly in order to get at that bacteria. Plus people with real bad asthma and allergies are at risk.
There’s hardly any violence in PBSP solitary units despite all the hype by CDCr about how dangerous we are. If you cut away the plastic at the bottom of the cell walls, there’s no real threat to staff, no matter who is in the cage.
There’s hardly any violence in PBSP solitary units despite all the hype by CDCr about how dangerous we are.
Supplemental Demand No. 34 regards the percentage CDCr can take for restitution. Now here is a policy that is exploitative in all its practices. Here is the state abusing its authority by taking 55 percent of each dollar that a prisoner who owes restitution gets from his friends or family. And to say it is benefitting “crime victims,” well, the statistics say that most convicted felons commit offenses against their own race – New Afrikan on New Afrikan, Mexican on Mexican, or white on white. One thing we do know, poor lower class on poor lower class applies.
None of these victims are receiving any of this restitution money. So where is the money going and where is it at? If the dollars were going to them, the state would have never raised it to 55 percent, because they don’t want them to have it either. The injustice is that there is a conspiracy where the judicial proceedings tack on all these outrageous restitution fees and the CDCr then collects them for the court, and then CDCr charges the prisoners a 5 percent fee for removing them off your books (trust account).
This is criminal and the real victims never see a penny of this money. The 33 percent is a reasonable request, but I would go further and say that it should not be taken from anyone who owes restitution unless it’s going to the victim of the crime they committed or any prisoner who does not have a pay number.
The money that family and friends send in from the streets should not be touched at all. The prisoners should have access to a pay number to pay off their restitution. Independent investigation is needed to locate where this money is going!
Supplemental Demand No. 35 allows mail to be delivered and legal and family visits to be normal again. The SSU (Special Services Unit), IGI, ISU and OCS (Office of Correctional Safety) are the biggest SHAM I’ve ever been able to witness and the public should be outraged at all the time consuming hours and taxpayers’ dollars wasted into this sham of a system. Although there is a lot of hype on gangs, these guys have not even been able to manufacture any criminal gang behavior convictions.
The extent of their service is gang validations, which they have given 80 percent of the prison population. They have a track record for terrorizing poor, weak citizens of this nation, they sweat everything too frivolous to mention, and they do nothing but harass prisoners and their families and communities. They have been sued countless times and their arrogance allows them to commit the same constitutional violations of a prisoner’s rights, over and over again.
But this is because they do not foot the bill; therefore, they have no discipline in their actions. They have not made communities safer, nor prisons. So what is it all for? There has to be a benefit from such an expensive gang investigative unit, but in 30 years the CDCr gang investigators have only allowed gangs to expand – in and out of prisons. So where is the safety and security? Independent investigation is necessary here.
There has to be a benefit from such an expensive gang investigative unit, but in 30 years the CDCr gang investigators have only allowed gangs to expand – in and out of prisons. So where is the safety and security?
Supplemental Demand No. 36 concerns timely hearings when RVRs are issued, or dismiss them. Well, CDCr is the one that changed the state law and it should be changed back, because it goes against the fairness of our procedural due process, in which we are punished for time constraints violations. Yet staff violates time constraints all the time; it is considered harmless and they are still able to impose on us the worst punishment by violating prisoners’ time constraints. But if we dare to violate the time constraints, we have our complaint dismissed. Unfair practice!
Supplemental Demand No. 37 calls for timely hearings for serious RVRs. The answer to this response from CDCr is above, in No. 36.
Supplemental Demand No. 38 asks for an independent audit of IWF. CDCr did not comply. The key word here is “independent,” because it will show the misappropriation of the IWF monies. OIG’s Renee Hanson is doing a review of IWF and we want those findings released to the public. Independent investigation is key here.
Supplemental Demand No. 39 would reinstate the monthly meetings between the associate warden and prisoners to address problems. If this ever becomes fact again, few if any of our complaints would be necessary. The [now former] warden at PBSP, G.D. Lewis, was as incompetent as they come. He did not have the backbone to put an end to the gang officers basically terrorizing other staff and then dictating to every functionary in the solitary confinement units, so that they now feel free to attack prisoners in those areas through mail restrictions, bad food, property abuses, corrupt canteen practices, poor movies, and lack of medical care, education, supplies, law library access etc.
They make it a living hell for prisoners and not one supervisor or manager has ever made rounds to talk to prisoners, even after receiving complaints, and nothing has changed at all. So supervisors and managers have not been doing their jobs in over 23½ years at PBSP; I’ve never seen them walk in my 15 years here.
I have been here, and the avoiding by the guards of answering our questions is deliberate. The question asked was that the associate warden ensure that prison issues will be resolved and we prisoners should not have to wait until we can’t take the suffering any more and act on our own. When prison officials get paid good money – some better than college or university graduates – to maintain prisoners’ lives along with the safety and security of all prisoners, then we expect that to happen.
Supplemental Demand No. 40 asks for hunger strike and work stoppage negotiations to be conducted with the prisoners’ mediation team and the press in attendance. CDCr has never been supportive or about transparency. They know they are not going to be trusted in a closed room with our representatives, without witnesses or third parties, but they continue with the lies they have told about our reps.
Hell, Michael Stainer told our mediation team that he sees all of the 40 supplemental demands as being reasonable and that it is just a matter of working out the details. Then he two-faced everyone, so no way can we now trust what comes out of CDCr’s mouth.
Plus, the governor vetoed the Media Access Bill, because CDCr is not about transparency. And the question was clear during hunger strike negotiations, and no one said anything about any of the points made in any of the hearings on these matters! CDCr is evading the real issues again.
These counter-responses were written by Mutope Duguma toward the end of the 60-day hunger strike and work stoppage in 2013 – i.e., when he had eaten nothing for nearly two months. Send our brother some love and light: Mutope Duguma, s/n James Crawford, D-05996, PBSP SHU D2-107 up, P.O. Box 7500, Crescent City CA 95532. In the past, statements like this have come from a collective, and the Bay View has published the names of all those involved. Now, however, Mutope Duguma must be shown as sole author to avoid an accusation by officials that multiple authorship is evidence of gang activity.