Inmates in Solitary Confinement in California Respond to Prison Policy Reforms

by Sal Rodriguez

http://solitarywatch.com/2012/05/01/inmates-in-solitary-confinement-in-california-respond-to-prison-policy-reforms/  

Prisoners in California’s Security Housing Unit (SHU) have offered their opinions of the recent reforms of the California prison system’s controversial gang validation policies. In correspondences with Solitary Watch, SHU inmates in Pelican Bay and Corcoran prisons have consistently been critical of the reforms, which among other things reform the gang validation point system and introduce a step-down program in which inmates can  transition out of the SHU. Last month a group of SHU inmates, all of whom are labeled as either members or leaders of prison gangs (Aryan Brotherhood, Mexican Mafia, Black Guerilla Family), released a counter proposal in response.

The following are excerpts from letters written by prisoners currently in California’s SHUs.

From Kijana Askari, who has been in the SHU since 1994 after being validated as a member of the Black Guerilla Family:

With regards to the revisions that were done to SHU management gang policies, well, that is exactly what has taken place—”revisions” (e.g. “reform”). Hence, more of the same in that, the revisions have only strengthened CDCR officials power and ability to label and validate every prisoner in CDCR as belonging to a Security Threat Group–e.g. “prison gang.”At the crux of the revisions is a lack of a definitive and “behavioral-based” criteria, as to what actually constitute as being gang activity. Meaning, any and everything can and will still be considered as gang activity, in spite of how innocuous the activity may be.

In addition to this, we still have untrained and unqualified CDCR officers/officials determining and assessing what is “gang activity.” And this point is critical for two very important reasons: 1) There are no qualitative oversight mechanisms in place, meaning there is absolutely nothing to prevent CDCR’s prison guards, gang unit, etc., from being vindictive, retaliatory, punitive, etc., via the application of these “revised” gang management policies; and 2) it has been proven that CDCR’s prison guards and their IGI gang unit staff do not properly investigate the evidence used in each prisoners gang validation–see Lira v. Cate.

And the new revisions do not do anything to correct this.

Kijana Tashiri Askari (Marcus Harrison) #H54077, Pelican Bay State Prison  D3 122 SHU, PO Box 7500, Crescent City, CA 95531

From a Pelican Bay SHU inmate who has been in solitary confinement for five years and is currently appealing the gang validation that placed him there:

“We were recently afforded a copy of this proposal. Many of us are getting the chance now to read through and evaluate it. I read through it once and will go through it again. There are many aspects of the step down program that at face value seem to provide far better alternatives to the over 20 year long policy of implementing indeterminate SHU programs. Many of the program objectives and privileges outlined in the proposal at first glance look to be very good and beneficial to a lot of SHU prisoners. However, the gang validation/identification aspect of the proposal continues to present an ongoing issue and problem for many individuals who have been validated and will be validated. Under the criteria that is set forth, it continues to target and identify individuals for long-term SHU placement based on gang affiliation rather than actual gang activity or criminal/illegal conduct.”Which is, has been, and under this proposal will continue to be a significant hardship for many who the CDCR looks to place and keep locked away in the SHU for little to no reason.”

From a Corcoran SHU inmate who has been diagnosed with severe depression:

“We did have an opportunity to see and speak to a couple of representatives from Sacramento who are responsible for crafting language that will reflect the policy change. As we understand there are changes being made to the policy. And the CDCR is in the process of implementing the step down program here at Corcoran SHU. And it is anticipated, according to what we were told, that something would be in place within 60-90 days. At least that’s a target date or time frame.

There was a couple of areas of concern for us. We believe that four years is much too long to be in the step down program. It’s a four year step program, each step is one year. It’s basically an observation program in which you graduate to the next step if you have not been documented as having been involved in gang activity. Just what constitutes gang activity is still being determined.

A lot of guys in Pelican Bay and here have already been in isolation for the past 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 years. Many have been disciplinary free and most were placed in isolation for non-disciplinary reasons. It does not make any sense for guys to have to remain in the SHU.

We believe that those guys that the CDCR (genuinely) intends on placing in general population or non-SHU setting should be placed directly into one.

In light of the struggle (and loss of life) it will be extremely difficult for the CDCR to justify not allowing guys to be released to general population. Or at least be provided some kind of meaningful program in a non-SHU setting.

I was diagnosed with severe depression several years ago.

I don’t know which is worse.

At some point you know that the isolation has affected you. Perhaps permanently. It involves so many different factors. Particularly the isolation itself.

Over the years you have seen other people snap. Human beings cutting themselves. Eating their own waste. Smearing themselves in it. And sometimes throwing it at you. Human beings not just talking out loud to themselves–but screaming at and cursing themselves out.

How could you not be affected by this kind of madness?!”

From a Pelican Bay SHU inmate who has been in solitary confinement since 1988, and participated in the 2011 hunger strikes:

“I fail to see how it is any different from my current SHU term…It did not address the fact that there are prisoners who have been in PBSP-SHU for over 20 years without any kind of serious rule infraction. It is written like every single short corridor prisoner is starting from scratch. In other words, no prisoner should even entertain the idea of leaving SHU for the next four or five years. It sounds like a poorly modified version of the six year inactive status program to me. And the IGI still has control of prisoners’ fate through what is decided through classification, telling them when and where to place us.

Nothing has been gained–they’ve put a different name on the same repressive/torturous measures that have been in effect since the state started locking us up for administrative convenience in extreme solitary confinement isolation. There is absolutely nothing about the step down program that allows a SHU prisoner to work their way out of SHU without the expressed approval of the IGI–the whole program as laid out at present is a bunch of clever words seemingly giving prisoners a way to work our way out of SHU. It’s not! I’ve already been in SHU since 1988, what do I need to work on? What exactly are they going to see in my attitude and actions during the four phases of the step-down program that they haven’t already seen in the past twenty plus years during my extreme isolated confinement for administrative convenience? It just does not make sense.

I feel like the CDCR is clowning us!”

The following is from a Pelican Bay SHU inmate who has been incarcerated for forty years, 35 of which have been spent in the SHU.

“Being a labeled outcast makes it easy to see us no more than a farm animal or dog. Which morally assuages the conscience and culpability of individuals’ roles in our vilification. We are living in the times of the Bogeyman syndrome. The power of fear and mistrust. Suspicion which clouds peoples judgment and common sense. Choosing to be ignorant, unable or unwilling to filter out irrelevant noises and views, they transform into parrots that merely mimic the latest tidbit of information.

I don’t have a positive opinion of the impending SHU policy changes. The basic framework, premise and argument is faulty because phantoms are still used as a justification to subject people to punitive action. I am in SHU for non-disciplinary reasons and have been subjected to punitive isolation based on presumption and fantastic takes sown from the chronicle of the Bogeyman. I have spent 35 years in SHU and I should be unconditionally released to the mainline, especially since I haven’t had any serious rule violation in even twenty-five years except for participation in a hunger strike.”

New Policies Overhaul Prison Management

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Michael Montgomery/KQED

Pelican Bay State Prison’s controversial Security Housing Unit (SHU).

Last year, hundreds of inmates staged two hunger strikes that spread to 13 prisons in California. The prisoners were protesting conditions in super-maximum security units. Today, the State Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation issued a new set of policies aimed at overhauling how these units are managed.

We get the latest from reporter Michael Montgomery, who’s been following the story for KQED Public Radio and California Watch.

 http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/security-threat-group-prevention-identification-and-management-model-03-01-2012-1.pdf

Voices from the inside In prison for life for helping his cousin

Voices from the inside

In prison for life for helping his cousin

By: Santos Reyes and Marlene Martin

 

Santos Reyes has been in prison for the past 13 years under the “three strikes law” in California. His third “crime” was taking the written part of a driver’s test for his cousin who could not write English.

Santos had two previous brushes with the law, one when he was a minor, and the other for a break-in, but in neither of these cases was anyone harmed. Santos spent the next 10 years working and raising his family and had no further infractions.

California is the only state that locks people up for life even when the third strike is just a misdemeanor. Efforts to change the law so only violent crimes count as the third strike failed in 2004. On March 10, 2011, the 17th anniversary of the law, Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes held a demonstration outside the Hollywood police station in Los Angeles. The group plans to organize for another ballot initiative next year.

The Supreme Court ruled in 2003 by a 5-4 vote that such sentences do not violate the Eight Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment.”

Santos Reyes was interviewed by Marlene Martin for the New Abolitionist.

Can you explain what you did in order for you to receive a third strike?

Perjury. I was charged and later convicted for sitting in on the written portion of the Department of Motor Vehicles test that my cousin, who didn’t read English, was taking.

How have you been able to survive in prison? What is your daily routine?

Only by the grace of God! Being in prison for what I am here for has definitely humbled me in ways that I didn’t know it could. To be incarcerated for the crime of perjury and on top of it sentenced to life is not only humiliating but also insulting to the entire judicial system in this country. I have been forced to acclimate to this environment that on a daily basis takes me through the gauntlet of emotions.

My daily routine I suppose is like any other prison throughout the country. There is time spent inside the housing unit, and due to my lengthy sentence, my day outside concludes at 3 p.m. I spend time out on the exercise yard, but most importantly I am enrolled in a GED program.

How has this imprisonment affected your family?

It has destroyed it. At this time, I’ve been literally left behind, and my wife and children have moved on with their lives. It breaks my heart, but I also know that this is my experience, and to some degree, it is best that they don’t suffer with me. I yearn to someday some how see my children and, like any father, know how they are doing in school, give them sound advice, and ultimately love and encourage them.

I have not seen my children for over 13 years—the length of my incarceration. All I’m left with are the memories of them as little boys. I know that I’ve made mistakes in the past, and those growing pains/errors were used to bury me, but this injustice has affected every person in my family.

Do you feel you were discriminated against because you are Hispanic?

Absolutely! I am a clear example of the racism of the American Justice System. To them, I am the worst of the worst, and what happened to me doesn’t matter—“he’s an illegal, he doesn’t belong here, so f#*k him” seems to be the feeling I’m left with.

What would you like people to know about you? 

I want people to know that I am not the person they say I am! That I also have a mother, brothers and sisters who I need and who need me. That I want to get out of prison. And yes, it was wrong of me to cheat on a DMV test, but I think I’ve done plenty of time in prison, and I’m sorry.

What do you hope for? 

I hope that this infamous “three strikes law” will be amended so that more than 4,200 men and women serving life sentences for nonviolent offenses will finally be liberated. Enough is enough.

Santos Reyes K-92997

Folsom State Prison

P.O. Box 715071 5-BB2-38

 

Represa, CA 95671-5071

Isolation, indeterminate sentences used to extract confessions at California supermax prisons

July 22, 2011

by Jeff Kaye

A prisoner in the Pelican Bay SHU must remove all his clothing, spread his toes and buttocks and be handcuffed through the food tray slot without physically touching the guard before he can see the prison dentist. – Photo: sfbappa.org

Adding to Kevin Gosztola’s recent coverage of the hunger strike at Pelican Bay prison — which has spreadto at least six other prisons, including Corcoran California Correctional Institution and Valley State Prison for Women — I want to look more closely at one of the prisoner’s demands, in particular their call for the abolition of the “debriefing process.”

The conditions at Security Housing Units (SHU) at Pelican Bay Prison and other supermax prisons clearly constitute torture and/or cruel, inhumane treatment of prisoners. They rely on the use of severe isolation or solitary confinement, the effects of which I’ve written about before in the context of the Bradley Manning case — see here and here.

At Pelican Bay, the prisoners in “administrative segregation” are locked in a gray, concrete 8 by 10 foot cell, 22 1/2 hours per day. The rest of the time is spent alone in a tiny concrete yard, if that privilege is granted. There is no human physical contact, no work and no communal activities. If the prisoner has enough money, he can purchase a TV or radio. Meals are pushed through a slot in the metal door.

An end to solitary confinement, and in particular to long-term solitary confinement of an indeterminate nature, is one of five “core” demands of the hunger strikers.

Another key demand concerns the onerous and sinister “debriefing” process. The prisoners are asking the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to “A) cease the use of innocuous association to deny an active status, B) cease the use of informant/debriefer allegations of illegal gang activity to deny inactive status unless such allegations are also supported by factual corroborating evidence, in which case CDCR-PBSP staff shall and must follow the regulations by issuing a rule violation report and affording the inmate his due process required by law.”

Dr. Corey Weinstein elaborated on the “debriefing process” in an article on Prison Legal News:

“More than 50 percent of the men in SHU are assigned indeterminate terms there because of alleged gang membership or activity. The only program that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) offers to them is to debrief. The single way offered to earn their way out of SHU is to tell departmental gang investigators everything they know about gang membership and activities, including describing crimes that they have committed. The department calls it debriefing. The prisoners call it ‘snitch, parole or die.’ The only ways out are to snitch, finish the prison term or die. The protection against self-incrimination has collapsed in the service of anti-gang investigation.”

The “debriefing” process is set up by statute. It is a long-term process whereby the prisoner “volunteers” to “debrief,” i.e., to snitch upon other prisoners and identify them as “gang” members. The debriefing prisoners are segregated in their own unit for many months, often more than a year. If they fail to finish the “debriefing” process, they lose whatever credits towards release they may have accumulated during the debriefing process.

The case of Tcinque Sampson

An example of the arbitrary nature of the “rewards” allowed to debriefed convicts can be shown by a filing a few weeks ago in the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division One, in the case of Tcinque Sampson.

Sampson was sent to prison in 2008 for two years and eight months for grand theft. He was subsequently “known to be a validated member of the prison gang known as the ‘BLACK GUERILLA [sic] FAMILY’ (BGF) per Institutional Gang Investigator (IGI), Officer G. Garrett,” and sent into “Administrative Segregation” (SHU unit).”

If he could get enough credits for good behavior, he could have possibly been released in December 2010. In an effort to get out of isolation sooner, he volunteered, it appears, sometime in 2009 for the “debriefing” program.

A prisoner’s drawing of the Pelican Bay SHU – Photo courtesy California Prison Focus

But then, in January 2010, the CDCR changed the rules. From then on, no prisoner who was a “validated gang member” in a SHU could earn credits towards earlier release. For Sampson, this meant another 107 days in prison even if he followed the rules and even though he’d agreed to snitch, or make up incriminating evidence, about other purported gang-affiliated prisoners.

According to the legal brief, “During a hearing with the chief deputy warden on September 23, 2010, the petitioner inquired why his original release date had not been reinstated given that he had submitted all of the information that had been requested of him with regard to debriefing. On September 29, 2010, the petitioner was informed that he ‘was “on the list” but the “list” was very long and that is why it was taking so long.’ A few days later, Sampson told prison officials he ‘was no longer interested in debriefing because the institution had not honored its bargain with [him] to grant credits in exchange for debriefing.’”

Last December, the Del Norte County Superior Court granted, in part, a pro se petition for writ of habeas corpus, saying the new CDRC regulations about credits “violated the ex post facto clauses of the federal and state constitutions.” But the appellate court overturned that ruling. Their reasoning tells us a great deal about how state authorities define who is or isn’t a “validated” gang member.

In the end, as we shall see, Sampson’s refusal to engage in the debriefing process supposedly proved he was a gang member and worthy of administrative segregation, or long-term solitary confinement. Bold type in the quote below are added for emphasis:

“Petitioner’s ineligibility for conduct credit accrual is not punishment for the offense of which he was convicted. Nor is it punishment for gang-related conduct that occurred prior to January 25, 2010, since petitioner was not stripped of conduct credits he had already accrued. It is punishment for gang-related conduct that continued after January 25, 2010.

“Petitioner maintains he ‘did nothing’ after January 25, 2010 to bring himself within the ambit of the amended statute, but we see the matter differently. ‘“Gangs, as defined in [California Code of Regulations, title 15] section 3000, present a serious threat to the safety and security of California prisons,” and “[i]nmates and parolees shall not knowingly promote, further or assist any gang as defined in section 3000.”‘ (In re Furnace (2010) 185 Cal.App.4th 649, 657.) The ‘validation’ of a gang member involves no more and no less than the CDCR’s recognition of at least three reliable, documented bases (“independent source items”) for concluding that an inmate’s background, person, and/or belongings indicate his or her active association with other validated gang members or associates, and at least one of those bases constitutes a direct link to a current or former validated gang member or associate. (Ibid.; See Cal. Code Regs., tit. 15, §§ 3378, 3321.) For purposes of placement in a SHU, active gang membership or affiliation is considered ‘conduct [that] endangers the safety of others or the security of the institution’ and ‘a validated prison gang member or associate is deemed to be a severe threat to the safety of others or the security of the institution’ warranting an indeterminate SHU term. (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 15, § 3341.5, subd. (c) & subd. (c)(2)(A)(2).)

In the end, as we shall see, Sampson’s refusal to engage in the debriefing process supposedly proved he was a gang member

“Once ‘validated,’ an inmate’s continued active membership or affiliation in the gang and placement in a SHU continues until one of three things happens: (1) the periodic, 180-day review of the inmate’s status by the classification committee results in his or her release to the general inmate population (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 15, § 3341.5, subd. (c)(2)(A)(1)); or (2) he or she becomes eligible “for review of inactive [gang] status” after six years of noninvolvement in gang activity (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 15, § 3378, subd. (e)); or (3) he or she initiates and completes the ‘debriefing process,’ thereby demonstrating that he or she has dropped out of the gang. (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 15, § 3378.1.) Unless and until one of these three eventualities come to pass, an inmate continues to engage in the misconduct that brings him or her within the amendment’s ambit.”

Guantanamo Bay isolation cells

The appeal court was even more concrete in a later portion of the brief when they stated, “By aborting the process, petitioner demonstrated that after January 25, 2010, he continued to associate with the BGF, continued to pose a threat to prison security, and continued to warrant housing in a SHU.” In other words, if you don’t participate in their snitch program, you must, by the logic of the prison authorities, be an active gang member. Review of possible “inactive gang status” takes place “after six years” of solitary confinement, assuming the prison authorities determine you to have been “inactive” during this time. But meanwhile, there’s a long “list” of debriefing or debriefed prisoners, any of whom, after many, many months of interrogation by prison officials, may have fingered you as gang member.

But these prisoners in supermax are the worst of the worst. Aren’t they in harsh administrative conditions because they have brutally murdered someone or worse? According to the California Code of Regulations, Title 15, Section 3315, there are 23 “serious rule violations” that can send an inmate to an SHU for a determinate time. These include “acquisition or exchange of personal or state property amounting to more than $50 … tattooing or possession of tattoo paraphernalia … possession of $5 or more without authorization … [and] refusal to work or participate in a program as assigned,” among others.

Certainly violence or “mass disruptive conduct” is included in these codes, but so are “acts of disobedience or disrespect” or the perceived “threat to commit” a disruption or breach of security, including the “threat” to “possess a controlled substance.”

From Pelican Bay to Guantanamo Bay

The parallels with the regime instituted by Department of Defense officials at Guantanamo are stunning. Simply replace “gangs” with “Islamic jihadists.” And, as at Guantanamo, the emphasis is on coercing cooperation and collaboration with state authorities. There is an emphasis on fingering other prisoners, thereby building up a case for an even greater threat against state authorities who must have recourse to even more coercion and wielding of state power, all in the name of security, even while constructing the bricks for the edifice of fear out of the very actions of state repression they exercise.

Indeed, quite recently, Jason Leopold and I published documentary evidence that the very SERE techniques that were “reverse-engineered” for use as torture at Guantanamo, Bagram and various “black site” prisons — including, perhaps, the new CIA black sites revealed by Jeremy Scahill in an important new article at The Nation — were originally conceived to fully “exploit” the prisoner, including production of false confessions and the recruitment of double agents and informants.

One wishes, at least, that this was all a recent phenomenon, one that can be “reformed” by a stroke of a pen. But the institution of state repression has sunk its tentacles deep into the body politic. The conditions at California’s prisons are indicative of conditions at other state prisons and federal prisons, and the situation is out of control. Politicians, wedded to law and order rhetoric, are leery of doing anything to change the situation.

The use of forced confessions, indeterminate sentences, harsh punishments and torture were the kinds of inhumane penal conditions that a key member of the Enlightenment, Cesare Beccaria, condemned over 200 years ago in his influential book, “On Crimes and Punishments”:

“If punishments be very severe, men are naturally led to the perpetration of other crimes, to avoid the punishment due to the first. The countries and times most notorious for severity of punishments were always those in which the most bloody and inhuman actions and the most atrocious crimes were committed; for the hand of the legislator and the assassin were directed by the same spirit of ferocity, which on the throne dictated laws of iron to slaves and savages, and in private instigated the subject to sacrifice one tyrant to make room for another.”

From Pelican Bay to Guantanamo Bay, the practice of unnecessarily harsh prison conditions amounting to torture needs to end. The hunger strikers at Pelican Bay and elsewhere, whether criminals or not, are putting their lives on the line for the sake of basic human dignity.

The countries and times most notorious for severity of punishments were always those in which the most bloody and inhuman actions and the most atrocious crimes were committed.

We need to take notice, and then take action. For more information and to sign their online petition, visit the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity website.

The hunger strikers at Pelican Bay and elsewhere, whether criminals or not, are putting their lives on the line for the sake of basic human dignity.

Jeffrey Kaye is a psychologist active in the anti-torture movement. He works clinically with torture victims at Survivors International in San Francisco. His blog is Invictus; as “Valtin,” he also regularly blogs at Daily Kos, Docudharma, American Torture, Progressive Historians and elsewhere.

Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Comrade George Jackson

August 4, 2011

by Kiilu Nyasha

George Lester Jackson, known as Comrade, spent 11 years in California prisons, mostly in solitary confinement. After plea-bargaining a $70 gas station robbery in 1960, he got one to life.

“I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me. For the first four years I studied nothing but economics and military ideas,” he wrote. (All the quotations are from Jackson’s two books, “Soledad Brother: the Prison Letters of George Jackson” and “Blood in My Eye,” published posthumously.)

It’s ironic, if not planned, that this 40th anniversary coincides with California prisoners going on hunger strike beginning July 1 and continuing to press time. Comrade had been an effective organizer: In 1962, he organized a strike at Tracy in protest of bad food that united all the prisoners on the tier, regardless of color. The current strike has done the same.

George Jackson, pictured here in San Quentin, wrote two books while behind enemy lines, “Soledad Brother” and “Blood in My Eye,” that remain wildly popular, especially with prisoners.

The prison population of the nation has skyrocketed to a whopping 2.4 million. California has transferred at least 10,000 prisoners out of state to private prisons – no visits − leaving at least 160,000 prisoners overcrowding this very profitable system.

A lucrative product: In 2010, revenues for the top private prison companies – Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group – exceeded $2.9 billion.

California prison guards alone can sock away $300,000 a year with overtime pay according to Forbes 2009 (www.forbes.com) and its chief psychiatrist was paid $838,706 – more than any other state employee in 2010. California’s total budget is now approximately $9.5 billion.

George Jackson flashes his trademark smile, despite the chains.

“Prisons were not institutionalized on such a massive scale by the people. Most people realize that crime is simply the result of a grossly disproportionate distribution of wealth and privilege, a reflection of the present state of property relations. There are no wealthy men on death row, and so few in the general prison population that we can discount them altogether.

“Imprisonment is an aspect of class struggle from the outset. It is the creation of a closed society which attempts to isolate those individuals who disregard the structures of a hypocritical establishment, as well as those who attempt to challenge it on a mass basis.”

Comrade must be turning over in his grave at the news that the NAACP has joined with the Tea Party, the California Prison Guards Union and Newt Gingrich in addressing, in the words of NAACP President Ben Jealous, “the urgent need to reform our nation’s criminal justice system.”

“That will be your main source of opposition – the Black running dog.” Comrade couldn’t have known how right he was: Add Obama!

George and Jonathan Jackson the last time George was home – Photo courtesy It’s About Time, Black Panther Party Archives

“The ‘good white people’ who own things will always give them a few inches in their papers or other media. That’s how fascism works, influencing the masses and institutions through elites.”

“The U.S. has established itself as the mortal enemy of all people’s government, all scientific-socialist mobilization of consciousness everywhere on the globe, all anti-imperialist activity on earth.”

“Despite presence of political parties, there is only one legal politics in the U.S. – the politics of corporativism. The hierarchy commands all state power. There are thousands of ways, however, to attack it and place that power in the hands of the people.”

“[T]he old guard must not fail to understand that circumstances change in time and space, that there can be nothing dogmatic about revolutionary theory. It is to be born out of each popular struggle … [that] must be analyzed historically to discover new ideas.”

Ruchell Magee, George and Jonathan Jackson – Drawing: Kiilu Nyasha

Eavesdropping laws are taking away one of our best defenses against police brutality. A new category of crime: “Felony Terrorist Videotaping of Police Brutality.” At least three states have made it illegal to record any on-duty police officer; conviction can result in 15 years in prison.

The wealth gaps between whites and the colored majority have grown to their widest levels in a quarter-century with ratios roughly 20-to-1for Blacks and 18-to-1for Latinos. Asians lost their top ranking to whites in median household wealth, dropping from $168,103 in 2005 to $78,066 in 2009.

According to the analysis released in July 2011 by the Pew Research Center, the U.S. poverty rate currently stands at 14.3 percent, with the ranks of the working-age poor at the highest level since the ‘60s, and it will likely climb higher when new figures are released in September.

“Freedom means warmth and protection against harsh exposure to the elements. It means food, not garbage. It means truth, harmony, and the social relations that spring from these. It means the best medical attention whenever it’s needed. It means employment that is reasonable, that coincides with the individual necessities and feelings. We will have this freedom even at the cost of total war.”

George Jackson – Painting: Political Prisoner Sundiata Acoli

“Reformism is an old story in Amerika. There have been depressions and socio-economic political crises throughout the period that marked the formation of the present upper-class ruling circle and their controlling elites. But the parties of the left were too committed to reformism to exploit their revolutionary potential.”

“Fascism has temporarily succeeded under the guise of reform.”

On Aug. 21, 1971, after numerous failed attempts on his life, the state finally succeeded in assassinating Comrade, field marshal of the Black Panther Party. Prison officials claimed Jackson smuggled a gun into San Quentin in a wig in an aborted prison escape. That feat was proven impossible and evidence suggested a setup by prison officials to eliminate Jackson once and for all.

George Jackson’s funeral in Oakland – Photo: Stephen Shames

However, they didn’t count on losing any of their own in the process, namely, three notoriously racist prison guards and two inmate turnkeys. The odds had changed and they went mad. Twenty-six prisoners signed an affidavit written by jailhouse lawyer Ruchell Cinque Magee, detailing the egregious tortures they suffered at the hands of the racist goons.

Subsequently, six prisoners were singled out for what became the longest trial in California history. Wearing 30 pounds of chains in Marin Courthouse, facing charges of murder and assault, Fleeta Drumgo, David Johnson, Hugo “Yogi Bear” Pinell, Luis Talamantez, Johnny Spain and Willie Sundiata Tate were tried. Only one, Spain, was convicted of murder. The others were either acquitted or convicted of assault.

Hugo Pinell, the only one of the six remaining in prison, has suffered prolonged isolation in lockups since 1969 − the last 20 years in Pelican Bay’s SHU, a torture chamber if ever there was one. A true warrior, like Comrade, Yogi would put his life on the line to defend his fellow captives against sadistic guard attacks. He has just come off the hunger strike initiated in Pelican Bay.

As Mumia Abu-Jamal stated, “Their sacrifice, their despair, their determination and their blood has painted the month Black for all time.”

This Black August, let us honor our martyred freedom fighter, Comrade George, as well as those who recently joined the ancestors: Donald Cox, Michael Cetawayo Tabor and geronimo ji Jaga. And let us not forget all those who remain captive after many decades: Mumia Abu-Jamal, Sundiata Acoli, Herman Bell, Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald, Ruchell Cinque Magee − sole survivor of the Marin Courthouse Rebellion of Aug. 7, 1970 − Jalil Muntaqim, Albert Woodfox, Herman Wallace, Leonard Peltier, Oscar Lopez-Rivera and exiled freedom fighter Assata Shakur, to name just a few.

“Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done; discover your humanity and your love in revolution.”

Kiilu Nyasha, Black Panther veteran, revolutionary journalist and Bay View columnist, blogs at The Official Website of Kiilu Nyasha, where episodes of her TV talk show, Freedom Is a Constant Struggle, along with her essays are posted. She can be reached at Kiilu2@sbcglobal.net.

Gardens of the Law: The Role of Prisons in Capitalist Society

 

By Joel Olson

Prison isn’t a place to keep the “bad apples” from spoiling the rest of society. It is for the social control of the entire population–good and bad apples alike. Capitalism requires a politically obedient population that can be put to work making profits for the wealthy. Prisons ensure this politically docile and economically useful population. Prisons are useful for the powers that be; they are only a problem for those locked inside them, their loved ones, and those who want a free society.

Prison Myths

Prisons are not about decreasing crime. In 1976 the Panel on Research on Deterrent and Incapacitative Effects examined the role of prisons in deterring crime. Their report concluded that states like California and Massachusetts, for example, would have to increase their prison populations 150 percent and 310 percent (from mid-’70s levels) to achieve a 10 percent reduction in crime. Minnesota’s Assistant Commissioner of Corrections admits, “There is no evidence of a relationship between the incarceration rate and violent crime. We’re in the business of tricking people into thinking that spending hundreds of millions [of dollars] for new prisons will make them safe.” [1]

Prisons are not about rehabilitation. In 1981 New York State Correction Commissioner Thomas Coughlin confessed, “The department is no longer engaged in rehabilitative and programming efforts, but is rather forced to warehouse people and concentrate on finding the next cell.” Packing in more and more bodies inside their walls is what prisons do; rehabilitating lost souls in order to return them to society is not.

Perhaps most shocking of all to our common sensibilities, prisons are not about punishing people for crimes they commit. Of course, this is one of the things they do (as well as punish people for crimes they did not commit), but it is not the primary function of prisons. Prisons are first and foremost about social control, about suppressing dissent, about creating a more politically obedient and economically useful population. Sure, they isolate and warehouse “criminals” to keep them from the rest of us, but prisons are about controlling “the rest of us” as much as they are about controlling criminals.

How Prisons Achieve Social Control

In a capitalist society, when most people think of crime, they do not think of the acts themselves so much as they do an imaginary “criminal class” that commits them. It’s always these few “delinquents” that commit violent crimes and that have to be brought under control, so the story goes. The criminal in capitalism is defined not so much by their specific unlawful acts, but by the lifestyle s/he leads: gangsta, hoodlum, dope fiend, dealer, thug, whore. The criminal exists before the crime is even committed; a criminal’s prison record is merely a badge that recognizes him or her for doing what is expected. This is one reason why rich white people rarely go to jail: the rich and the white are not defined as “criminals” in this society, therefore when they break the law it’s easier to have sympathy for them for “making a mistake” and to give them a lesser punishment, or no punishment at all.

Prisons are not just the storehouses of this criminal class–they produce criminality by concentrating otherwise decent people into a cramped, crowded, and oppressive environment. In prison, an individual is subject to isolation, confinement in a control unit, violence, torture, gang activity, guard brutality, organized white supremacy, and a life of boredom and useless toil. When and if a prisoner is released, s/he is often condemned to a life of poverty and run-ins with the law. Prisoners have a difficult time getting a job because they are required to notify all potential employers of their felon status on job applications. College scholarship funds for former prisoners have been slashed or eliminated. By sticking people in prison, the prison system condemns them to poverty and stigmatizes them as lifetime members of the criminal class.

The criminal class is the scapegoat for America’s social ills and the justification for spending millions of dollars on building more prisons, hiring more cops, and for drafting tough new “anti-crime” laws. But by trying to make life tough for criminals, we make life tough for ourselves, because the laws that get passed to control the criminal class apply to everyone. If you, the “good citizen,” somehow run up against the law, well, you must be a delinquent, a member of the notorious criminal class. Better shape up, obey the laws and avoid any trouble so you won’t be one of those, those criminals!

By distinguishing “criminals” from the rest of society–not for people’s actions but for who they are–prisons and the “fight against crime” are used to attack target populations and garner obedience from the general population. This is what led writer Michel Foucault to write, “Let us conceive of places of punishment as a Garden of the Laws that families would visit on Sundays.”[2] Prisons are places where criminals are punished, but they are also “gardens” that remind citizens of what could happen to them if they were to become a “criminal.” In this way, prisons help craft a more obedient population outside the walls, outside the garden. Prisons put the cop inside your head. Prisons control your life even if you’ve never been inside one.

Black People are America’s “Criminal Class”

In the United States the criminal class created by capitalism and the prison system are poor people of color, especially African Americans. Over 33 percent of African Americans lived below the poverty line in 1994,[3] and they make up 48 percent of the U.S. prison population. One out of three Black men aged 20 to 29 is under some form of criminal justice control, which is more Black men than are in college. [3] and they make up 48 percent of the U.S. prison population. One out of three Black men aged 20 to 29 is under some form of criminal justice control, which is more Black men than are in college.[4]

This is not because Black people commit more crimes. The total number of crimes committed in America is huge (estimates range between 13 and 49 million annually, for example).[5] Only a tiny fraction of the people who commit them are ever imprisoned.[6] It has been well established that while most of the nation’s drug users are white, the vast majority busted for drug crimes are Black.[7]

Why are most of those who are caught and convicted Black?

The only possible answer is that African Americans are the specified “criminal class” of America, or are at least its biggest subgroup (Latinos and Chicanos are an increasingly large subgroup as well). Of course, most poor Black people are not criminals, but that’s the role they are forced into in the United States. As the author of The Coming of Black Genocide argues, “Black men are considered a criminal class, who must be pushed out to keep white people safe. Anything that is done to them, anything at all, is ok. Everyone is told to fear them, they are the threat.” [8]

Because Black people are the United States’ criminal class, and because in a capitalist society the criminal class must be subdued by terror, obedience from Black people is acquired through terror: police violence, locking up loved ones, etc. Just as the rest of the population doesn’t have to actually go to prison to be made more obedient by the prison system, Black folks don’t have to actually spend time in prison to be terrorized by it. As Malcolm X said, “Don’t be surprised when I say I was in prison. We [African Americans] have all been in prison. That’s what America means, prison.”

The Role of Control Units

Just as prisons create a docile and useful population outside prisons, control units create obedience and usefulness within prison walls. Prisons put the cop in the citizen’s head; control units put the cop in the criminal’s head. It’s not the “worst of the worst” who get thrown in control units, it’s a specific section of the prisoner population, chosen for the perceived threat they pose to order and obedience.

As in the larger society, the vast majority of those locked up in control units are Black. For example, all but a few in the management control unit at New Jersey State Prison are Black. Most are in there because they make trouble for the prisoncrats: they are jailhouse lawyers, political prisoners, activists, and revolutionaries. Especially Black revolutionaries. As Ralph Arons, former warden at Marion admits, “The purpose of the Marion Control Unit is to control revolutionary attitudes in the prison system and in the society at large.” The crime itself doesn’t matter–George Jackson did 11 years for a $78 robbery–it’s the class you belong to that determines whether or not you will go to prison, and once in prison, whether or not you will end up in lockdown in a control unit. And your class is determined by your “revolutionary attitudes,” i.e., a refusal to obey those in power.

Prisons and Liberal Democracy: Brothers in Blood

The notion that crime, the “criminal personality,” and imprisonment naturally go together is a capitalist myth. We need to separate the issue of imprisonment from the issue of crime; they are not about the same things, and one does not cure the other.

One complaint by liberals of the new incarceration society the United States is building (those few liberals who haven’t jumped onto the “get-tough-on-crime” bandwagon, that is) is that it is incredibly expensive. Of course, on the surface they are right; some control unit facilities cost $800,000 per prisoner just to build, and that doesn’t include living costs for the prisoner ($30,000-40,000 a year for general population prisoners). However, those who hold power in this society see things a little bit differently, and regard the rising costs of imprisonment as worth the investment. Since prisons control not just the “criminal class” but the entire population, compared with the possibility of a Northern Ireland-style military occupation of American cities, prisons actually obtain social control of the entire society at a relatively low social and economic cost for the rich. For most folks, though, the cost is devastating, which is why prisons must go.

Capitalism and its sidekick liberal democracy give us the vote, constitutional rights, consumer buying power, and a trunkful of goodies. Why aren’t we free? Because though some of us have toys, we still don’t have power in this society; that privilege is reserved for capitalists and the state. Why does this tiny class of society have all that power, while the majority has so little? Why don’t we just take power from the rich and “vote the bastards out”? Because the ruling class have developed other ways to control the population, so that our political power is much weaker than we are led to believe. Prisons are the linchpin to this social control; they guarantee our submission to the powers that be by opposing “citizens” to “criminals.”

The way to fight this is for those of us on the outside to align ourselves with those on the inside. Together, we can dispel the popular notion that crime and prison automatically go together. Together, we can expose prisons for their true nature. This can’t be done outside the context of fighting capitalism, patriarchy, and a white supremacist society. As capitalism and imprisonment go together, so must they fall together. The gardens must burn.

Notes

1. [back] Criminal Justice Research Associates telephone interview with Assistant Commissioner
   Dan O’Brien, May 28, 1996.
2. [back] Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish, (New York: Vintage Books), 1979, p. 111.
3. [back] Black Americans: A Statistical Sourcebook, 1994, p. 190.
4. [back] Marc Mauer, Young Black Men and the Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later, (Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project), 1995.
5. [back] National Institute of Justice (NIJ), Victim Costs and Consequences: A New Look, (Washington, DC: NIJ), January 1996.
6. [back] Annually in the United States, there are more than 11,876,000 arrests, 945,500 convictions,
   and only about 339,000 people sentenced to state and federal prisons. Black Americans: A Statistical Sourcebook, 1994; Bureau of Justice Statistics, State Court Sentencing of Convicted Felons, (Washington,
   DC: GPO), 1994; Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, (Washington, DC: GPO), 1994; Henry and Camille Camp, Felony Sentencing in the United States: 1992, (South Salem, NY: Criminal Justice Institute), 1992.
7. [back] Mauer.
8. [back] Mary Barfoot, The Coming of Black Genocide and Other Essays, (New York: Vagabond Press), 1993, p. 28.

This article originally appeared in The Blast!, August/September 1994. Reprinted in Criminal Injustice: Confronting the Prison Crisis.

Hunger Strike Continues in California prisons Supporters rally to pressure CDCR to meet prisoner demands

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE—July 25th, 2011
Hunger Strike Continues in California prisons
Supporters rally to pressure CDCR to meet prisoner demands

Press Contact: Emily Harris, Statewide Coordinator
Californians United for a Responsible Budget
510-435-1176

Rally 12 – 2 pm
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation headquarters, 1515 S Street, Sacramento

Sacramento—Hunger strikes continue in prisons throughout California to demand more humane conditions, and supporters are rallying in Sacramento to maintain pressure on the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). While hunger strikers at Pelican Bay have declared a victory, prisoners in Corcoran, Calipatria and Tehachapi prisons continue to refuse food until their demands are met.

“We are rallying today to show that the public still supports the continued hunger strikers,” says Lisa Marie Alatorre, Campaign Director for Critical Resistance, a member of Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB). CURB is a coalition of over 60 organizations that work to reduce the state’s prison budget and the number of people locked up in California prisons, one of several groups who organized the rally. “We are inspired by the victory at Pelican Bay, but the fight is not over. There are people across the country who will continue organizing until CDCR meets the demands of the continuing hunger strikers.”

Family members of strikers, advocates, and organizations from across California will be joining CURB at the CDCR headquarters for the rally, which will include a march to Governor Brown’s office and delivery of a signed letter urging the Governor to intervene in the negotiations and ensure the hunger strike demands are met.

Prisoners in the Corcoran Secure Housing Units, and those who face long-term solitary confinement in Tehachapi and Calipatria prisons, are carrying on the hunger strike started on July 1st by prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison. The strike quickly expanded to approximately 6,600 people in a third of California’s prisons. It received broad international support – organizations and individuals held demonstrations throughout the US, in Canada, and in Australia, and flooded CDCR headquarters and Governor Jerry Brown’s office with demands for negotiation. Strikers won several concessions from the CDCR and prompted California lawmakers to initiate hearings on conditions in the SHU, including the practice of long-term solitary confinement. The CDCR also committed to holding similar hearings, but has yet to schedule them.

“Action is more important than ever. The CDCR must not only meet the strike demands, it must follow-through on promises made to the Pelican Bay prisoners, and there is no clear plan for how it will do that,” explains Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity member Manuel La Fontaine. Another wave of rallies are being planned across the country, including Ohio and New York.

The CDCR has come under increased pressure in the past months as public opinion polls show widening support for reforms to California’s massive prison system. The Supreme Court recently ordered the CDCR to reduce the number of people incarcerated because it has consistently been unable to deliver basic medical care to all prisoners.

“We are seeing over and over the same message to the CDCR, whether it is the hunger strikes, opinion polls or the Supreme Court decision: the atrocious conditions and policies within California prisons must end, and the place to start is by meeting hunger strike demands,” says Alatorre.

Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

Hunger strikes and national protests continue

Hunger strikes and national protests continue

http://sfbayview.com/2011/hunger-strikes-and-national-protests-continue/

Hunger strikes and national protests continue
July 22, 2011

Protesting torture in America continues in and out of prisons

BACK TO SAC ON MONDAY! The hunger strike continues in Tehachapi, Corcoran and Calipatria state prisons, so we’ll keep the pressure on CDCR and Gov. Jerry Brown! On Monday, July 25, noon-4 p.m., prisoners’ families and supporters will meet in Sacramento, at Fremont Park, 15th & Q, at 11:30 a.m.; march to CDCR headquarters, 1515 S St., rally noon-2 p.m.; march to State Building to deliver organizational letter to Gov. Jerry Brown’s office 2-4 p.m. Meanwhile, keep calling CDCR and Gov. Brown demanding more humane treatment of prisoners across California.

by Deborah Dupre, Human Rights Examiner

The historical prisoner hunger strike led by 11 now “shrunken” but alive Pelican Bay Prison inmates advocating human rights, peace and justice continues according to officials, prisoners’ families and prisoner attorney Marilyn McMahon of California Prison Focus, despite announcements Thursday that it ended. Prison officials acknowledge that prisoners for the fourth week are refusing food numbers in the hundreds. Advocates say the number could be in the thousands after California Department of Corrections (CDC) negotiated a token agreement pertaining only to Pelican Bay.

For hours after announcements that the strike ended, communications flying between frustrated reporters recently banned from California prisons, attorneys and family members of prisoners concluded a twofold analysis. The strike ended at Pelican Bay Prison, but until the five core demands are met there, strike leaders’ message to the public is to continue national protests. Secondly, since Thursday’s “token agreement” only pertained to Pelican Bay, the spiraled strike at up to 15 other prisons continues.

A message to the public from the 11 strike leaders was issued by attorney Marilyn McMahon at 7 p.m. PST, Thursday, during a World Can’t Wait teleconference with 15 prisoner advocates and reporters across the nation. Hunger strike leaders had just requested that McMahon relay the public message that the sole reason they got this far is due to “outside actions.” They said they need the “outside movement to continue to make sure the agreement is kept,” especially related to “isolation units.”

According to McMahon, only a “few token gestures have been made by officials” and “people are still being tortured in America.”
Family and supporters of the hunger strikers rallied outside of CDCR headquarters in Sacramento, July 18 – Photo: Grant Slater, KPCC

California Prison Focus issued a statement late Thursday confirming hunger strike leaders at Pelican Bay entered into an agreement with CDCR officials “to end their hunger strike in exchange for a major policy review of SHU housing conditions, gang validation process and debriefing process.”

Among “over 7,000 prisoners” hunger striking since July 1, 17 Pelican Bay prisoners are in the “worst” shape, having lost 20 to 35 pounds, McMahon said. Strike leaders told her Thursday that they all look “shrunken.”

“They are amazingly mentally clear,” she said. “Many people in the SHU are political prisoners. The only chance they have to ever touch their babies is to debrief.”

Debriefing involves snitching on another inmate, denouncing him as a gang member. This automatically results in exoneration of the snitcher and condemnation of the target. The target is then transferred, with no other evidence, to a Security Housing Unit (SHU) for 23 hours per day of indefinite solitary confinement, putting an end to contact with children and other family members that predictably results in mental injury. Some have been in the SHU for 30 years, according to McMahon.

Among prison protesters’ five core demands is ending the debriefing policy, as reported by LA Times.

Official count of prisoners still refusing food

Hours after announcing the historical hunger strike ended at Pelican Bay, CDC officials acknowledged that over 500 inmates continued to refuse meals at three other state prisons: “More than 400 at the California State Prison in Corcoran … more than 100 at California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi [and] about 29 at Calipatria State Prison,” according to prison spokeswoman Terry Thornton.

LA Times reported that the Pelican Bay inmates “agreed to resume eating in exchange for ‘cold-weather caps, wall calendars and some educational opportunities,’” according to a statement by CDC Secretary Matthew Cate on Thursday morning.

Thornton, who called the strikers a “moving target,” stated that many hunger strikers accepted meals at varying points during the three-week protest, but, as family members have gone on record stating, some prison officials were telling prisoners days ago that the strike ended.

Thornton also stated that about 110 inmates “continuously refused state issued food from July 1 through yesterday,” July 20, the day before the Pelican Bay prison strike officially ended.

Seventeen inmates with “early symptoms of starvation” were moved from Pelican Bay to Corcoran Prison to ensure “sufficient and appropriate medical resources” for treatment if they continued striking, said Nancy Kincaid, spokeswoman for the federal receiver overseeing prison healthcare.

Torture in California prisons can end, Gov. Jerry Brown

CDC used cruel actions to end the strike, according to Carol Strickman, a staff attorney for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and staff to the mediation team representing the hunger strikers.
Guards at Pelican Bay conduct a search of a prisoner’s SHU cell. – Photo: Laura Sullivan

In a July 13 interview, Strickman reported to Revolution: “They passed around a flyer saying that this is what will happen if you go on strike …There has been retaliation … provocative acts before the hunger strike started, for example, ‘potty watch,’ not only of the leaders, but of anyone that has indicated support.”

“[Potty Watch is] a very cruel procedure where people are restrained for three days, put in diapers and unable to move their arms sometimes, or forced to stand, or strapped down. The rationale is that the prisoner has swallowed contraband and we are going to see it. We’re going to wait for three days and monitor their bowel movements and find the thing they’ve swallowed. But, it’s used for other reasons.

“It’s used as punishment even if they know that there is nothing there. This shouldn’t be used, even if they think that there is something that the prisoner has swallowed. It’s painful. People can’t sleep. They can’t move their arms.

“I heard that sometimes their arms are put in a plastic pipe … We heard of that happening to one or two people before the hunger strike started in Pelican Bay.”

California prison torture, dangerous snitching policy and poor sanitary conditions prompted the well planned hunger strike that continues spiraling throughout the California prison system and now across America where protests have been held and a national day of solidarity is developing.

Presente! highlights most strikers are Latinos and African Americans. Presente! is among many national organizations calling on Americans in all states to tell Gov. Brown to address inhumane conditions, force CDC to address the inhumane conditions in California prisons and implement Supreme Court and other courts’ orders.

“Regardless of whatever crimes they’ve committed, inmates are only demanding that the state of California do what is required by law: provide humane conditions to inmates,” Presente! stated late Thursday after announcements that the strike ended.

“This crisis is unacceptable and the only person able to respond quickly to this situation is California Gov. Jerry Brown.”

Lessons learned, a gift to Americans

Both attorneys, Strickman and McMahon, highlight that a unique and important essence of this hunger strike is that it transcends all groups and gangs. “The prison is interested in defining groups, labeling groups. You have to be in one group,” said Strickman.

Through leadership of 11 men in Pelican Bay Prison, all the prison groups came together for the common good, a model for all Americans according to McMahon on Thursday.

Strickman said, “I’ve heard prisoners use the term collective.”

“Groups that have been mortal enemies have come together around this and that is very uncomfortable for CDCR so they are doing things to try and break that unity.”

The final message from the 11 hunger strike leaders was one to America’s youth in gangs: “Our message to youth is our example: unity. Then go after the real enemies.”

Learn more

To support the historical peaceful hunger strike in Pelican Bay and other California Prisons entering its fourth week, “every person of conscience needs to think about what actions they can take in support,” according to Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity. For more information, see http://prisonerhungerstrik​ esolidarity.wordpress.com/.

Deborah Dupre holds American and Australian science and education graduate degrees and has 30 years experience in human rights, environmental and peace activism. Email her at Gdeborahdupre@gmail.com and visit her website, www.DeborahDupre.com. This story first appeared at Examiner.com.

–
Mary Ratcliff
SF Bay View
(415) 671-0789
www.sfbayview.co

LA’s Running Down the Walls/ Carrera Contra los Muros

Running Down the Walls 2011

When: Sunday, July 31^st, 2011, 10 am – 1 pm

Where: MacArthur Park, (south west corner), 2230 W. 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90057

On Sunday, July 31^st, 2011 at 10 a.m., the Los Angeles Anarchist Black Cross will host a 5k run/walk/jog/bike around the festive paths of MacArthur Park, Los Angeles.  This run/walk/jog/bike is designed to raise much-needed funds for the ABCF Warchest program, and Revolutionary Autonomous Communities (RAC).

 

We are attempting to reach the goal of $3,500 with the run. Funds will be divided between the two programs:

 

ABCF Warchest:

The ABCF Warchest program is now almost 17 years old; funds for the Warchest are divided and distributed through monthly stipends to political prisoners who receive little or no financial aid. Prisoners use this money to cover the basic necessities of everyday living. These funds have been used by prisoners to pay for stamps, shoes, clothes, as well as assisting their families with what little they can.

 

Revolutionary Autonomous Communities (RAC):

In the aftermath of the May Day 2007 police riot targeting migrant workers who dared stand up for our human rights, members of the MacArthur Park area and others joined together to support those with no papers and those with no means. RAC-LA came forward to aid the community in self-organizing such that with the help of each other we might make an inhuman way of living a bit more bearable while at same time acquiring the means to one day transform this system into an image of our own humanity.

 

Solidarity Runs:

Every year, prisoners and supporters of political prisoners organize solidarity runs with Running Down the Walls. In Sync with each other, we will collectively pound the pavement with our feet and bike tires as we exhibit our strength and stamina as examples of our tireless effort to free our imprisoned comrades.  In past years we had runs in: Albuquerque (NM), Arcata (CA), Ashland, (OR), Bellefonte (PA), Boston (MA), Connecticut River, Dannemora (NY), Denver, (CO), Detroit (MI), Elmore (AL), Guelph (CAN), Inez (KY), Los Angeles (CA), Marion (IL), Mexico City (MEX), New York City (NY),  USP. Navosta (TX), Pelican Bay (CA), Phoenix (AZ), Sandstone (MN), Tucson (AZ), USP Tucson (AZ), and Toronto (CAN)

 

Raising Funds:

The Warchest program was created in November of 1994. Its purpose is to send monthly financial support to Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War (PP/POWs) who have been receiving insufficient, little, or no financial support during their imprisonment.

 

Support the Struggle:

We must remember that many of those arrested in the past or present are not far from us. Many of them were and are community and labor activists, queer, and environmental activists; people who decided to speak out against various forms of oppression and paid the price of their freedom for their actions. We must remember that anyone of these people could have at one time stood beside us in a demonstration, at a speak-out, or even at an organizing meeting. At any given moment it could be us who finds ourselves in this situation, so it is imperative that we ensure that a strong enough community of support exists for these people as well as ourselves. The strength of our movement is determined by how much we support our fallen comrades. As Anarchist and former POW Ojore Lutalo says, “Any Movement that does not support its political internees, is a sham movement.” So please help us, help them! Help us help you!

 

We encourage people to participate in helping us raise funds for the Warchest, which can be done in the following ways:

 

Be a runner:

We are asking people or groups who are running to collect as many sponsor for the run as possible. Remember the money received is going to help imprisoned comrades who need your help. The person who collects the most amount of funds will be given a prize for their involvement and dedication to helping our fallen comrades.

 

Sponsor a runner:

This can be done through a flat donation to the runner of your choice, each flyer is a sponsor sheet. We ask from those who wish not to run to actively support those who are running in hopes of collecting as much for our comrades as possible.

 

Sponsor Running Down the Walls:

Any amount helps. Contact the Los Angeles Anarchist Black Cross if you wish to simply donate money to the cause.

 

Donate to:

-The Warchest:

Send funds directly to the Los Angeles ABCF (PO Box 11223, Whittier, CA 90603) or to the Philadelphia ABCF (PO Box 42129, Philadelphia, PA 19101) Make checks or money orders out only to Tim Fasnacht.

 

-Revolutionary Autonomous Communities (RAC): http://revolutionaryautonomouscommunities.blogspot.com/

 

Get involved in the planning of Running Down the Walls:

We always need help with organizing the event and we encourage people to contact us if they would like to get involved. You can do this by contacting the LA Anarchist Black Cross, www.abcf.net/la, la@…

 

-Jaan Laaman, UFF Political Prisoner Statement of Solidarity

October 19th 2002 My Brothers,

 

“Thank you for running at this special event that means so much to many of us all over the world, both free and imprisoned. In a relative way, we are all political prisoners because it is the politics of this system of things that is exploiting, crushing, imprisoning, and destroying the masses all over the world and the earth itself. Then there are those who know this and take actions against those who seek to deny us our rightful place on earth as common human brethren. Those are the ones we run for and seek to help… whom sacrificed their family, freedom and lives, so that our lives may be better! The fact that you ran with us is a sign that when the red-hour comes, you will not be caught asleep. You are conscious and you too are willing to represent. The potential in you is great. Thank you for running for the cause!”

 

“As we ran we were thinking and talking about all the runners in Los Angeles and how we’d love to be out there running with them. We also spoke about the other political prisoners who were running with us in at least some other prisons.”

 

Running Down the Walls 2011

When: Sunday, July 31^st, 2011, 10 am – 1 pm

Where: MacArthur Park, (south west corner), 2230 W. 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90057

 

Registration fees: $12 preregistration; $15, the day of the run. (Make checks out to Tim Fasnacht)

Or for paypal:

Log in to your PayPal account and send your donation online to the email address “timABCF@…” (Tim Fasnacht). Make sure to add in the notes section that your donation is for RDTW 2011.  If you’d prefer to stay anonymous or are donating in the name of an organization, let us know.

 

For more information contact the Los Angeles Branch Group of the Anarchist Black Cross Federation

PO BOX 11223

Whitier, Ca 90603

http://www.abcf.net/la/laabcf.asp?page=la/rdtw

www.abcf.net/la

email: la@abcf.net

===============================================================================

 

Carrera Contra los Muros

 

CUANDO:

Domingo 31 Julio , 2011, 10 am – 4 pm

 

DONDE:

MacArthur Park, (sección SurOeste),2230 W. 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90057

 

 

COSTO DE REGISTRATION:

$12 preregistration; $15, el mismo dia. (Cheques a nombre de Tim Fasnacht)

 

PRESO POLITICO:
Una persona encarcelada por acciones que apoyan luchas legitimas por auto-suficiencia, o por oponerse a las pólizas ilegales del gobierno o los poderes políticos.
(Tribunal Especial Internacional sobre la Violación de los Derechos Humanos de Presos Políticos y Presos de Guerra en Cárceles de los Estados Unidos. Dic 1990.)

CARRERA CONTRA LOS MUROS:
Domingo 31 de Julio 2011 a las 10am, La Cruz Negra Anarquista de Los Ángeles  (ABCF) hará una carrera de 5Km para correr, trotar, caminar, o bicicletear por Downtown LA. Este evento se hace con el fin de recaudar fondos para La Cruz Negra Anarquista y para Comunidades Autónomas Revolucionarias.

RECAUDAR FONDOS:
Nuestra meta para este ano es $3,500. Dinero recaudado sera divido entre:
•  El Programa Warchest fue creado en Noviembre 1994.  A través de este Programa ABCF manda donaciones mensuales a Presos Políticos y Presos de Guerra quienes han recibido poco o nada de apoyo durante su encarcelamiento.  Presos pueden usar estos fondos para pagar las necesidades básicas de  vivir.  Desde 1994, ABCF ha recaudado mas de $56,000 a través del Programa Warchest.
• Comunidades Autónomas Revolucionarias (RAC): fue creado después del 1 de Mayo 2007 cuando la policía ataco inmigrantes y jornaleros por demandar nuestros derechos humanos. La comunidad del Parque MacArthur se juntaron para apoyar los indocumentados y los pobres.  RAC-LA se formo para ayudar que la comunidad  pudiera organizarse, y para que junt@s podamos mejorar nuestra calidad de vida. También junt@s queremos aprender como cambiar este sistema a uno que refleje nuestra humanidad.

 

APOYAR LA LUCHA:
Recordemos que muchas personas arrestadas (pasado o presente) no son lejan@s.  Much@s eran activistas comunitarias, sindicalistas activistas por el medio-ambiente o derechos queer, gente que lucharon en contra de la opresión y por sus acciones pagaron el precio de su libertad.  Cada quien de estas personas podría haber estado al lado nuestr@s en una marcha, una platica, o una junta. En cualquier momento, podría ser tu o yo quien nos encontramos en la misma situación arrestad@s. Por eso es tan importante que haya una red fuerte de apoyo para l@s presos también como para nosotros afuera.  La fuerza de nuestros movimientos se mide por como apoyamos nuestr@s  companer@s caid@s.
PARTICIPE:
Se puede participar en varias maneras:
• Correr/Caminar/Bicicletear: Pedimos que los participantes obtengan cuantos patrocinadores posible.  Recuerden que todos los fondos van para apoyar companer@s presos y organizaciones locales.
• Patrocine un participante a correr/caminar/bicicletear.  Osea, dar una donación a través de un/una participante.
• Patrocine La Carrera Contra Los Muros.  Cualquier donación  ayuda.  Contacte ABCF para hacer su donación.  Organizaciones que donan mas de $35 serán nombradas como Patrocinadores en el sitio Web y en volantes.
• Done dinero directamente al Warchest.  Para esto, haga una donación directamente  al grupo Filadelfia ABC, indicando que es una donación para el Warchest.  Cheques deben ser a nombre de Tim Fasnacht. (Philadelphia ABCF P.O. Box 42129 Philadelphia, PA 19101).
• Organice una Carrera Contra los Muros en su ciudad: Deseamos expandir estos actos de solidaridad a mas ciudades y mas prisiones. En el pasado se han hecho en:: Albuquerque (NM), Arcata (CA), Ashland, (OR), Bellefonte (PA), Boston (MA), Denver, (CO), Detroit (MI), Elmore (AL), Inez (KY), Marion (IL), Mexico City, New York (NY), USP. Navosta (TX), Pelican Bay (CA), Phoenix (AZ), Sandstone (MN), Tucson (AZ), Toronto, and Ontario.

PARA MAS INFORMACION:

Los Angeles Branch Group of the Anarchist Black Cross Federation PO Box11223 Whittier, CA 90603 la@abcf.net

http://www.abcf.net/la

“Corrimos contra los muros y corrimos para que saliera el sol y lo hicimos con alegría..” –Jaan Laaman, Preso Político

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Radio Broadcast “Dying For Sunlight” (Pelican Bay Hunger Strike)

Mumia Abu-Jamal‘s Radio Broadcasts

Higher Quality Audio files available info@prisonradio.org

Copyright 2010 Mumia Abu-Jamal/Prison Radio

“Dying For Sunlight” (Pelican Bay Hunger Strike)

 

Recorded 7-17-11

1) 1:57 “Dying For Sunlight” (Pelican Bay Hunger Strike) Mp3 version (smaller file)

1) 1:57 “Dying For Sunlight” (Pelican Bay Hunger Strike) Aiff version (larger file)

DYING FOR SUNLIGHT
col. writ. 6/15/11 (c) ’11 Mumia Abu Jamal

Today, at the notorious California super-maximum prison, Pelican Bay, hundreds of prisoners are on a hunger strike. As of July 1, 2011 a number of men ceased eating state meals in protest of  horrendously long-term confinement, government repression, lack of programs and the hated gang affiliation rules.

According to California Prison Focus, the health of some the men are dangerously deteriorating. Some have ceased drinking, as well as eating and haven’t urinated in days. Some are threatened by renal failure, which can result in death.

Why? The demands of the strikers seem relatively tame, which gives us some insight into the level of repression. The five core demands are:

1.     Individual instead of group responsibility.
2.     Abolition of the “gang-debriefing” policy, which endangers both those who debrief and/or their families.
3.     An end to long-term solitary confinement.
4.     Adequate food, and
5.     Constructive programs, such as art, phone privileges and the like.

A sub-demand is adequate natural sunlight – sunlight.  There are few things more torturous than dying by starvation. These men are killing themselves potentially for fresh air and sunlight, and about a third of California prisoners, 11 out of 33 prisons,  have joined them.

Contact the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition to find out how to support this effort for human rights. On the web at: prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com

From Death Row, this is Mumia Abu Jamal.

 

PLEASE CONTACT:
International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Phone – 215-476-8812/ Fax – 215-476-6180
E-mail – icffmaj@aol.com
AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES!

Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370

WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!

Submitted by: Sis. Marpessa

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[Check out Mumia's latest: *WE WANT FREEDOM:
A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from South
End Press (http://www.southendpress.org); Ph.
#1-800-533-8478.]

“When a cause comes along and you know in your bones that it is
just, yet refuse to defend it–at that moment you begin to die.
And I have never seen so many corpses walking around talking about
justice.” – Mumia Abu-Jamal

For additional information and to order Mumia’s new book We Want Freedom,

visit: southendpress.org

Check out Mumia’s NEW book:
“Faith of Our Fathers: An Examination of the Spiritual Life of African and African-American People” at www.africanworld.com