August 14, 2013
“The indiscriminate use of solitary confinement is not only inhumane and a direct violation of internationally recognized human rights, but is ultimately a self-defeating practice. It has been clearly established that prolonged isolation increases the risk of mental illness, self-harm, and likelihood of reoffending. In order to combat the rampant abuse of this failed policy, I am carrying SB 61 in the hopes of curbing its use on children. Because while subjecting adults to solitary confinement is damaging and backwards, to do so to children is absolutely reprehensible. It is time for California to face the reality of our justice system and force it to move in a direction that is more moral, effective, and just.”
Dan Lieberman
Press Secretary
Office of Leland Y. Yee, PH.D.
California State Senate
Capitol Office – Room 4074, Sacramento, CA 95814
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Excerpts of Ammiano comments at Press Conference:
“When you get a letter that says to incarcerate someone in solitary confinement for longer than a very short period is torture, you know the whole world is watching...There has been some very bad press on this—demonizing us for being activists for human rights for prisoners. We know that there are some people who have committed some very egregious crimes but that’s not the issue… looking at everyone as if they are a gang member and isolating them. We don’t support that. We want appropriate steps to be taken.”
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Here in New Orleans, the incarceration capital of the world, every day we see our friends, our husbands, our sisters, our children and our neighbors go to prison and be subjected to horrible, inhumane and unlawful conditions. In a former slave plantation called Angola, Herman Wallace has spent 41 years in solitary confinement and is now dying of liver cancer as we lie in wait for the state to rule on his humanity. These are the realities of our criminal justice system that seeks to break our communities rather than serve them.
Herman Wallace and the Angola 3 have dedicated their lives to spreading the word that SOLITARY IS TORTURE. The hunger strikers in California are doing the same: risking their lives to tell the world that living in that cage is worse than dying of starvation.
Enough is enough! All of us at Herman’s House lend our solidarity to the California Hunger Strikers as they demand dignity and respect for the rights of the incarcerated! We will fast every Friday in solidarity until their 5 core demands are addressed, acknowledged and met. Jeffery Beard and Jerry Brown, its time for you to come out and explain how being forced to live in this cage is anything less than a state sanctioned form of torture!
Hillary Donnell and the Herman’s House Team
www.hermanshouse.org
@_HermansHouse
[email protected]
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As a physician who has worked with a highly addicted and oft-jailed population, I can attest that mass incarceration and solitary confinement neither help to rehabilitate individuals nor help protect society.
As a world-authority on trauma, psychiatrist Dr. Bessel van der Kolk of Boston University has pointed out, the vast majority of people inhabiting criminal justice facilities were traumatized as children. This is what science shows and my experience attests. People so hurt need compassion, support, counseling, and healing. Solitary confinement in particular damages key brain circuits that make future dysfunctional behavior more likely and rehabilitation more difficult, increasing criminality and social and financial costs. Humanity, science and social self-interest all dictate that such practices must stop. California, a state that has contributed so much positive to world culture, instead of disgracing itself with punitive medievalism, could take the lead in establishing an enlightened approach.
Gabor Maté M.D.
Vancouver, B.C.
Canada
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"The isolation practices of the CDCR (California Prison System) are cruel, brutal and inhumane. The SHUs have been used by the authorities to actually increase prisoner violence and racism and to try and destroy any cohesiveness among prisoners. The policy of locking people away for 10, 20, 30 years in solitary with the only possibility of relief being to finger someone as being a gang member is reminiscent of the practice of torturing people until they give names. Likewise, these practices violate human rights, are outlawed by international covenants, are aimed at breaking down peoples' personalities, and are notoriously good at reproducing lies and violent gang activity when prisoners single out each other. These actions by the authorities themselves are behaviors like those of the very gangs they purport to weaken. The only difference is that the authorities can cloth their behaviors in the legal sanction and can act with impunity and imperial disdain for the powerless prisoners. Mr. Beard's crass lying about the cruel practices in solitary confinement, such as claims the prisoners have skylights and that keeping people decades in solitary reduces gang violence, reveal that he is not fit to be in a position of authority over California's prisons and prisoners. Beard's behavior is a stain on the sitting governor who allows this charade to continue when the State should be negotiating with the non-violent strikers, united across racial divisions against the cruel practices. If the goal were really to end violence in the prisons, the authorities would be pleased to talk with the leaders and mediators of a non-violent and collaborative prisoner movement."
Marc Sapir, MD, MPH one of the organizers of the Health Professional's Letter on the CA Prisoners' Hunger Strike.
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"It is an abomination in violation of the Constitution's solemn prohibition against 'cruel and unusual punishment' for California's prison system to condemn 4,000 prisoners to solitary confinement, some for decades, a barbaric practice fit for the Dark Ages. We applaud the brave hunger strikers for forcing this inhumane horror onto the front pages and we demand that Governor Brown halt this unspeakable punishment immediately."
Stephen Rohde, Vice-Chair, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace.
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I add my voice to the multitude calling for an immediate end to the barbaric conditions in California prisons. Governor Jerry Brown and the CDCR must put an end to their inhumane treatment of the souls trapped in their prisons, which they have literally turned into hellholes.
Stop the torture!
Jack Gerson
Ph.D., MPH
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Christina Garcia-Aguilera whose brother, a Pelican Bay SHU hunger striker, has been in prison for 19 years and in solitary for the last 10. She said he was moved to Folsom during the hunger strike, supposedly because of medical facilities at Folsom:
So overwhelmed.... How do I begin. Chris Garcia, J93559. Is loved. He has family that cares for him. We are not happy about the conditions that are taking place at Pelican Bay. He is now at Folsom due to a larger medical ward. ? We want to let the Governor know that things need to change. The prisoners are being treated very unfairly. We as humans need human interaction. We would all go crazy without that. Fresh air, outside yard, adequate meals and medical attention. Please negotiate and make some changes before more humans DIE. Thank you, in behalf of Chris Garcia j93559 family members, Christina Garcia Aguilera, Lopez family, Guzman family.
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Karen King Modjeski 7:11am Aug 14
If you can, please read this today. Thank you!
My husband has been in the SHU for over 10 years. On our last visit in July he said to me, "I just want to be able to touch you and to give my kids a hug and kiss." To me, that says it all. He is a human being, not a rabid animal. How is keeping him in solitary confinement rehabilitative? And why os he still there? The last time anything wss found in his cell to keep him "validated" was in April of 2008! And that was some Aztec art. Over 5 years later, he's still there. Why? How is that justifiable?
Security Housing Units are death camps. The CDC puts men in there so everyone can forget about them. Well, guess what? They are not forgotten. My husband is alive, he is strong, he is loved and he gives love. He is a man of integrity, intelligence and forgiveness. Governor Brown, Secretary Beard and all others in power, you must end long term solitary confinement NOW!!! This practice is barbaric and inhumane.
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Words from a Jewish Lawyer about the Prisoners' Hunger Strike
I write here to support a change in the ways our society deals with the people we imprison. As I begin to write these words, I think about how many letters and papers have been submitted over scores of years to the same end-- with no penetration. I'm not surprised that little has changed. It's an old story. Who wants to listen?
What I say is not new insight; I just want, once again, to remind us of what seems so simply clear and true: U.S. American culture projects our dark shadow directly onto "dark" people. We get rid of our violence, greed, nastiness, abandon, and addiction first by placing those parts of ourselves into criminals, and second by stuffing the criminals into prisons. In so doing, we have arranged to put 50% of undesirable and scary young men of color into the court and prison systems. Easy. Are we educating? Are we training? Offering jobs? Creating citizens? Showing ways toward integrity? No, of course not. We are, instead, leaving the generations alone, except when we arrest and convict them. And after arrest and conviction, we leave them alone in prison.
Is not the question of race still the central rot at the heart? Are we not turning our back on the wounded, who themselves, unfortunately, wound? Can we not acknowledge that slavery still haunts our dreams? Jews, every Passover, enjoin ourselves to remember that we were slaves in Egypt. The Jewish sense of justice and obligation to others stems from that early wound. Can we not imagine the present and sharp suffering of a people hardly out of slavery (compared, certainly, with 3000 years or so for Jews)? Isn't it clear that Nazis did the same kind of projecting onto Jews, among other others?
What it comes down to-- for me-- is humanitas. Respect for humans. The value of the individual, no matter what his or her sins and omissions. We are all suffering a hard struggle in this life. The suffering, redemption, evil, error-- all of the parts of our own shadows-- must, I think, be reclaimed by each of us; we must take back the mask we placed on the faces of prisoners. The mask is our own shadow. Let's deal with real and full humans inside and outside the walls. Let's pay real and human attention to what our brothers and sisters are saying and what they reveal.
- Steven Rood, Esq.
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"It is an abomination in violation of the Constitution's solemn prohibition against 'cruel and unusual punishment' for California's prison system to condemn 4,000 prisoners to solitary confinement, some for decades, a barbaric practice fit for the Dark Ages. We applaud the brave hunger strikers for forcing this inhumane horror onto the front pages and we demand that Governor Brown halt this unspeakable punishment immediately."
Rev. George F. Regas, Convener and Founder, Interfaith Communities United For Justice and Peace; Stephen Rohde, Vice-Chair, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace.
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Kudos to Tom Ammiano and the Stop Mass Incarceration Network for this creative, audacious plan to demonstrate just how oppressive and torturous the SHU really is. A similar mock cell was set up in Union Square, SF, last month; when I stepped inside and felt the walled-in, closet-size space w/pics on the wall of the actual SHU cells, it was difficult to hold back tears. We must do everything we can, individually and collectively to pressure Gov. Brown to grant the demands of the hunger strikers before we lose still more lives.
Kiilu Nyasha -
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Statement from Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund
By Executive Director Mike Holman
In solidarity with the SHU Isolation Unit Installation, Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund is sharing this letter from a California prisoner, written 3 weeks ago, about the reality of solitary confinement. As you hear this, think about what CDC’s Jeffrey Beard claims about solitary confinement.
In a shining example of torturers censoring news exposing the torture they commit in California prisons, CDC has recently censored at least two issues of Revolution sent to Pelican Bay prisoners by Prisoners Revolutionary Literature Fund. Revolution is covering, and continuing to cover, the courageous and inspiring stand that hunger-striking California prisoners are taking to end the inhumane conditions they face, including what is in fact torture under international law. Revolution reports this from the larger context of exposing a whole system of exploitation and oppression. The prison authorities allege that this news is “unauthorized correspondence between inmates”, and that Revolution incites “…participation in a mass disturbance (which) is a serious threat to the safety and security of this institution”.
Their claims are outrageous and bogus. Hundreds of mainstream and other news sources are covering the hunger strike and prison conditions from different perspectives… Can prison authorities be allowed to ONLY permit prisoners to read news coverage that does not expose and challenge their lies, and censor anything else on the basis that it is “inciting participation in a mass disturbance”? This logic is chilling and illegal and must not stand.
In the 1974 case of Pell v. Procunier, the US Supreme Court found that “the conditions in this Nation’s prisons are a matter that is both newsworthy and of great public importance”. Similarly, the 1987 McCabe v Arave case ruled that the presentation of ideas that some may find controversial does not constitute a plan to breach the security of an institution.
Pelican Bay prison authorities are trying to isolate, demoralize and further torture prisoners through denying them revolutionary sustenance, including news of growing support beyond the prison walls for the prisoners’ just demands.
Prisoners have a right to the life of the mind, which is a key part of being human. Through sending Revolution, BAsics, from the talks and writings of Bob Avakian and other literature to about 800 prisoners in state and federal hellholes throughout the US, PRLF provides them with an educational opportunity to engage with world events and key political, cultural, and philosophical questions of the day from a unique revolutionary perspective… and to critically think about and dissect the current state of society as well as search for an alternative. Censorship of this is yet another intolerable and inhumane form of torture, and must not stand!
There are two things people can do right now to oppose this censorship. Go to our website, PRLF.org, and 1) Sign the statement to End Censorship of Revolution at Pelican Bay Prison; and 2) Donate funds generously at PRLF.org to keep this revolutionary literature flowing to prisoners – in California and across the US.
Numerous family members and friends of prisoners have reported retaliation by prison authorities against prisoners throughout the state. Less than a year ago, Governor Brown vetoed AB 1270, which would have restored media access to prisons to the level it was at in 1996. Several other periodicals that support the prisoners and the hunger strike have had issues of their periodicals censored. Censorship of Revolution and other periodicals that expose and oppose prison conditions could create conditions in which prison authorities are free to commit all kinds of abuses behind thick walls of concrete and of enforced silence. End the censorship of Revolution and other periodicals at all California prisons!
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