Tag: Todd Ashker

Prisoners in Pelican Bay’s SHU have announced a push to end all hostilities between racial groups within California’s prisons and jails. The handwritten announcement, sent to prison advocacy organizations, is signed by the PBSP-SHU Short Corridor Collective. The statement calls for the cessation of all hostilities between groups to commence Oct. 10, 2012, in all California prisons and county jails. It also calls on prisoners throughout the state to set aside their differences and use diplomatic means to settle their disputes.

Solid resistance is not only possible but also very effective, and it can be done in smart, fully advantageous ways. It simply requires prisoners to come together collectively for the common good of all and with the support of the people outside, forming a powerful force to compel changes that are long overdue.

More than a year after our July 1, 2011, peaceful protest hunger strike actions, calling for an end to decades of SHU/Ad-Seg abusive confinement, CDCR has yet to meet our five core demands, all of which they admitted were reasonable, so now we're focusing on two non-negotiable demands: 1) CDCR must abolish “intelligence” based solitary confinement, and 2) A four year step-down process is too long. For more than 25 years, CDCR has placed thousands of us in solitary for being gang members or associates, even though we never committed a gang-related criminal act.

SHU prisoners have been subjected to years of prolonged segregation. CDCR's method of releasing gang segregation prisoners back to the general population via the new Security Threat Group policy is going to replace the six-year inactive policy, but in name only.

CDCR will submit their proposal to the Office of Administrative Law, and absent peaceful direct action to force the mandatory major changes required in order to make any gang management policy changes acceptable, we’ll be stuck with CDCR’s version as is for the next 25 years.

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.

The families and loved ones of us all constitute a very powerful voice and matter tremendously in any change that is coming. You really do have the respect and support of us all.

I really believe the time is ripe to force change – it can be done with peaceful protest type activity. But it will require direct action. Families and loved ones need to rally together for the common cause and make a solid, hard core stand to demand changes. “Rights” are not given; they are taken by the people!

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.

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.

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.

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.

The new CDCR proposal will only make things worse by creating the Security Threat Group (STG) designation so as to place thousands more in Ad/Seg-SHU-type units. It’s the only way for CDCR and CCPOA (guards’ union) to recoup some of the loss sustained from the prison population reduction forced by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in May of 2011.

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.

Discussions are underway with the intent to set short term and long term goals in the resistance struggle against SHU practices and the prison industrial complex. People are indoctrinated, brainwashed into believing they are weak or powerless – that prisoners in this state are evil and deserve to be punished and treated as some type of sub-human animal, based on their felon status.

The reduction of 35,000-40,000 prisoners equals a potential loss of $2 billion in the yearly CDCR budget and 7,000 CCPOA members. The “security threat group” (STG) scheme enables CDCR to segregate a lot more men. Segregation costs nearly double general population and requires more staff.

A shout-out of respect and solidarity from the Pelican Bay Short Corridor Collective to all similarly situated prisoners subject to the continuing torturous conditions of confinement in these barbaric SHU (Security Housing Unit) and Ad/Seg (Administrative Segregation) units across this country and around the world.

The CDCR should have to prove its accusations of gang activity, membership or association, providing the full panoply of constitutional protections. If the courts will not discharge their duty to protect constitutional rights, then the people must demand a change as is our/your right.

It’s a good thing to have exposure of torture going on in the Ad/Segs. We’d included all SHUs and Ad/Seg units from the beginning in our formal complaint. We all need to be united and work together on making the wrongs in this system right! It’s critical to include ASUs in the process of challenging SHU issues!

If this second hunger strike effort has taught us anything, it is that the power to transform an intransigent CDCR must come from the will of the people, from exercising your limitless power. Prison authorities were fully content to let us die this time and even modified their medical responses to maximize the chance of permanent injury or death to hunger strikers, which makes the broader aspects of this struggle so significant. Who dares to struggle? Who dares to win? We do, and we hope you do too. Join us! The power to shape history and the future of the society is in your hands.