Saturday, September 29, 2012
No More Shackles: AB 2530 is SIGNED!
From: an email from Eveline Shen, Strong Families, confirming this:
Sept 28th 2012
Today, Governor Jerry Brown signed AB2530, which means that pregnant women can no longer be shackled in California's jails and prisons. For more information about what this means and what's ahead, please see this blog post by Karen Shain of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.
This is an enormous victory--fought hard by many of our partners and allies. We are so excited for that this step means, for women and families in California and beyond.
We are still waiting anxiously for the Governor to take action on other critical bills--especially AB889, the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, and AB2015, Calls for Kids.
We will write more next week about the important gains of this legislative session, but we wanted to share this great news with you right away.
Thanks so much for all you did to help make this a reality. The thousands of emails that Governor Brown received let him know we were watching.
Thank you.
---
From Karen Shain (on the site of: Strong Families Movement):
By Karen Shain, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Finally! After three years and countless petitions, letters, phone calls, votes, revotes, and two vetoes, Governor Brown has signed AB 2530, a bill that bans the most egregious forms of shackling of pregnant women in California’s state prisons, juvenile detention facilities and county jails.
At last! We have an answer for the pregnant women who write to Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC) about having to wear chains around their bellies while going to court, about being shackled around their ankles while waiting to see a doctor, about standing in countless lines waiting to get on countless buses while handcuffed behind their backs: you are right. This is illegal. You should not be restrained in these ways if you are incarcerated in California.
I can’t wait to visit pregnant women at California Institution for Women (CIW) or one of our 58 county jails. We can rejoice together that this long, long battle has been won!
The coalition conference calls are going to change. No longer will we be talking about designing the next petition or support letter or legislative alert. No more legislative visits, searching for an author, co-author, supporter. No more tracking down potential opposition to make sure they are still neutral or (hopefully) in support of our bill.
This is clearly a time for celebration! And because the work took so long, there are so many of us who get to celebrate. The thousands of letter writers, hundreds of organizational supporters, dozens of organizational sponsors—we did it! Assembly Members Nancy Skinner, Toni Atkins, Holly Mitchell—you stepped up at the right time and we will always remember you.
And then, after all the celebrating, after all the thank you notes, after the tears of joy and slaps on our collective backs…then we have to get to work.
Because I have learned one really important lesson over the past decade that I have been doing legislative policy work—a good bill is only as good as its implementation. It took over five years for California’s counties to begin writing policies to conform to state law banning shackling of women during labor, delivery and recovery (see LSPC’s report, Stop Shackling). We must not allow county sheriffs, juvenile probation officers or state prison officials to wait five more years before shackling becomes only a memory in our state.
As of January 1, 2013, this is what the new law will be: NO PREGNANT WOMAN in California’s prisons, youth authority, county jails or juvenile detention facilities can be shackled around the belly, around the ankles or handcuffed behind the back DURING THEIR ENTIRE PREGNANCY. And once a woman is in labor, delivery or recovery…OR IF A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL ORDERS IT…they cannot be restrained at all, provided that there is not a pressing security issue.
At our office, we are starting right now to find out what pregnant women who are jailed in California are facing. Come January, when the new law goes into effect, we will begin the work of implementation. And we need the help of every incarcerated pregnant woman in our state as well as every family member…you are the ones who know what is happening. We ask everyone who is released from a woman’s prison or jail to let us know if you witness violations of the new law.
It took a lot of people to get this legislation passed. It will take at least as many to get it implemented. Let us not lose a minute. It’s now in all our hands to STOP SHACKLING PREGNANT WOMEN!
Please email me at karen@prisonerswithchildren.org if you hear of or see any violations to the new law.
Dispatches from the Inside: Rehabilitation needs are not being met for California prisoners
By Richard Gilliam
From: KALW, Local Public Radio
August 27th 2012
From: KALW, Local Public Radio
August 27th 2012
Richard Gilliam is incarcerated at the California Men's Colony (CMC).
August 27, 2012
I'm always interested in reports dealing with the state of corrections in California. So I sat on my bunk with headphones over my ears in anticipation as the weekly morning radio program, The California Report, aired a three-part series they called "Prison Break". The third installment of the series dealt with the CDCR's aspirations for rehabilitating those prisoners not affected by Realignment. I'm talking about people such as myself, labeled serious or violent offenders, serving lengthier prison terms.
The report feature CDCR Secretary Mathew Cate, who stated "We need to provide rehabilitation programs" for these inmates. Well, that's a no-brainer. It also interviewed Joan Petersilia, a professor of Law at Stanford University, and an acknowledged expert on California penal policy. She agreed with Cate's assessment, but stated, "I'm not confident" about the outcome of current efforts at rehabilitation.
The report noted that at Solano prison alone budget cuts reduced the educational workforce from 135 teachers to 32. Prisoners there lamented that there were long waiting lists for programs and jobs, and that only 10-20% of prisoners were having their rehabilitational needs met. Professor Petersilia went on to label the delivery and efficacy of efforts to rehabilitate prisoners as "an experiment".
We all know that sometime "experiments" fail. Prisoners are not lab animals to be poked and prodded and experimented upon. We are human beings that suffer from diverse disabilities. These disabilities must be comprehensively addressed and energetically overcome if incarcerated men and women are to function normally when reintroduced into society. What happens if your "Experiment" doesn't live up to expectations? Do you simply give up? That's simply not an option. And given CDCR's minimalist approach to rehabilitation, I've no doubt that any pilot programs implemented will fail for lack of enthusiasm.
Just last year, Mathew Cate stated his intention that community volunteers would be tapped to help fill the void left in program staffing created in the wake of Realignment. But to date there are no more volunteers coming into CMC than when I first arrived. I can count the number of non-custody volunteers that oversee programs such as AA and NA on one hand. An evening literacy program operating when I first arrived, no longer exists because correctional staff are no longer available. This, while San Quentin relies on scores of educators and facilitators to run the dozens of programs in place there. With institutions of higher learning such as Cal-Poly and Questa College literally right outside the prison's gates, it is not due to a lack of willing personnel that we are starved for programs here. It is due to the administration's opposition to rehabilitation programming that discourages community involvement.
Several weeks ago I read an article in the Los Angeles Times, concerning the evolving issues in the race for L.A.'s District Attorney. In the article, which spotlighted the ideological shift most of the candidates have made away from "Lock-em' all up" crime prevention, to a more moderate stance. The article quoted one candidate as saying he would now advocate for substance abuse, anger management, job training and other programs for non-violent offenders. That's a start. What I'd like to know is, how these candidates plan to help violent offenders once they're released from prison? It's issues such as drug abuse, lack of education and job-training and mental health concerns that caused them to offend in the first place. As has been the policy of lawmakers and the CDCR, do we ignore their needs only to be shocked when they commit another serious or violent crime and are imprisoned for even longer next time?
The men and women still in prison need intervention and rehabilitation as much or more than those that commit less serious offenses. The implementation or rehabilitative treatments in all prisons should not be viewed as an "experiment", it should be the Number One goal and priority of corrections officials. Because in truth it's not the pot-smoking, hackey-sack playing recalcitrant you need to worry about. It's the former armed robber coming out of prison without the education, job-skills or psychological treatment he needs to succeed after prison.
Friday, September 28, 2012
Summary of Propositions, State Bills and Donating your Vote
From an email by Charlie from SF Pride At Work & the Prison Abolition Working Group (we asked the email sender from O4P for permission to post):
Most the information below has been gleened from various email lists / websites / organizations / etc that i'm sure most on O4P folks are familiar with but its nice to have it all in one place sometimes.
Below you will find info on:
1. Propositions 34, 35, & 36
2. Cal State Bills
3. info on how to Donate your Vote
1. Propositions
Prop 34
Summary
* eliminates lethal injections
* converts all lethal injection death row inmates to LOWP (life in prison without parole)
* LOWP inmates mandated to work, with earnings to the state
* the state would no longer pay for appeals for those on death row b/c LOWP sentences are not considered "death sentences"
* law enforcement exigences would receive a one-time infusion of $100-million dollars to "solve homicide and rape cases"
MORE:
Kevin Cooper Statement & that other guy's statement..
Those serving on death row will shift to life in prison without possibility of parole term. These and future inmates will be put to work with earnings going to "any victim restitution fines or orders against them," according to the official state summary. Additionally, a one-time $100-million fund will help law enforcement agencies solve more homicide and rape cases. If the prop succeeds, it will become effective the day after the election.
Under the state's current criminal justice system it would cost taxpayers between $5 billion and $7 billion more to execute a prisoner than it would to carry out a sentence of Life Without Parole because current system covers costs for appeals for those on death row.
Woodford is the former director of the California Department of Corrections and the past Warden of San Quentin. She is the official proponent of Prop 34. "California voters have an historic opportunity this November to prevent the waste of that $5-7 billion, and to use the money to catch more murderers and rapists instead, in order to keep our families and communities safe," Woodford said.
CA's Death Row houses 729 inmates. CA's last execution took place 6 yrs ago. Then a federal judge brought the process to a halt when he ruled that the state's method of execution violated the 8th Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. (Evidence brought forth in the lawsuit indicated a high number of botched executions at San Quentin, where executioners administered lethal drugs to inmates in a small, dimly lit former gas chamber. Questions surfaced about executioners' training and qualifications. The leader of the lethal injection team had previously been suspended for smuggling drugs into the prison.)
CDCR then built a new lethal injection chamber at San Quentin and rewrote its protocol, adding a step in which lethal injection team members would gently shake an inmate after they gave them a sedative to make sure sleep had set in before administering a painful, heart-stopping drug. Last year a judge threw out that protocol, saying the state violated its own rule-writing process when it failed to adequately consider public comment on the process.
The judge pointed out the state's decision to stick with a three-drug lethal injection process over a one-drug procedure that many consider more humane and less prone to mistakes. (They also don't have one of the drugs they need for the cocktail: pancuronium bromide, the second drug in the series (designed to paralyze the inmate), it's no longer manufactured in the US)
Earlier this year, Governor Jerry Brown instructed CDCR to pursue a single-drug protocol. Lawyers for the state say it has complied. During previous hearings on this case, a consultant to the department testified that the state has written and tested at San Quentin a single-drug protocol.
But Goldman did not know when CDCR would begin the official rule-writing process that would allow that protocol to become a law. He estimated that process could take about 10 months once it's started.
OHIO just had 2ND DEATH ROW EXONERATION IN 9 MONTHS, 141st in the Nation - this would stop if prop 34 passes as prisoners would no longer have support for appeals!
John Donohue, a Stanford law professor, who studied how capital punishment was imposed in every Connecticut murder case from 1973 (when the state passed a death penalty law) to 2007.
His analysis dispelled the erroneous claim that only the “worst of the worst” among criminals are given the death penalty. Instead, he found that the penalty has been applied with “arbitrariness and discrimination” based on race and geography, and that death row inmates are indistinguishable from other violent offenders who escaped capital punishment.
http://www.kcet.org/news/ballotbrief/elections2012/propositions/prop-34-death-penalty-repeal.html
http://www.kcet.org/news/ballotbrief/ballot-measures/prop-34/la-judge-says-no-to-executions-study-shows-death-penalty-will-cost-state-billions.html
http://www.kcet.org/news/ballotbrief/elections2012/propositions/prop-34-funding-death-penalty-repeal.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/opinion/sunday/a-trial-on-death-row.html?_r=2&emc=eta1
Prop 35
SUMMARY
· Further criminalizes sex workers, most of whom are women (majority mothers) and young, transgender and immigrant people. It can be used as a pretext to label sex workers themselves as pimps and traffickers.
Prop 35 will discourage sex workers from seeking help when they are subjected to force and violence for fear of being caught in the criminal legal system.
· Targets undocumented sex workers for arrest and deportation through police sweeps under the guise of “searching” for trafficked victims who are minors.
· Criminalizes anyone that associates with a minor involved in prostitution regardless of whether there was any force or coercion involved.
· Increases police power to detain and interrogate people under the pretext of looking for trafficked minors and increases funding for law enforcement training to find traffickers.
· Channels money to victims’ services and non-profit agencies that work hand-in-hand with law enforcement, ICE and Homeland Security, giving those agencies a vested interest in the fines that are charged to those convicted of trafficking.
· Requires all people convicted of trafficking to register as sex offenders for life.
· Monitors the internet use of all those convicted as traffickers for life.
· Costs the state of California several million dollars to enforce.
MORE: http://www.againstthecaseact.com/
Prop 36 – 3 strikes
SUMMARY
Revise the three strikes law to impose life sentence only when the new felony conviction is "serious or violent".
Authorize re-sentencing for offenders currently serving life sentences if their third strike conviction was not serious or violent and if the judge determines that the re-sentence does not pose unreasonable risk to public safety.
Continue to impose a life sentence penalty if the third strike conviction was for "certain non-serious, non-violent sex or drug offenses or involved firearm possession".
Maintain the life sentence penalty for felons with "non-serious, non-violent third strike if prior convictions were for rape, murder, or child molestation."
MORE:
If Proposition 36 is approved by voters, approximately 3,000 convicted felons who are currently serving life terms under the Three Strikes law, whose third strike conviction was for a nonviolent crime, will be able to petition the court for a new, reduced, sentence.[2] Reducing the sentences of these current prisoners could result in saving the state somewhere between $150 to $200 million a year.[3]
Altogether, about 8,800 prisoners are currently serving life terms in California prisons under the 1994 law.[4]
California spends up to six times more on prisoners per year than on K-12 students. With the three-strikes law, more prisoners are being incarcerated for longer periods of times and for lesser charges. For instance, if a person has two serious felonies against him or her and commits another felony, serious or not, such as petty theft of more than $950, that person can be sentenced to life in jail. This law has created a substantial burden on the state’s budget, shifting funds from education to our prisons.
2. CA State Bills:
Youth LWOP - Senate Bill 9 in California
SUMMARY:
This bill will give people who were sentenced as teens to life without parole a chance to have their cases reviewed after they have served 25 years.
MORE:
SB 9 made it through the state Legislature and is now on Governor Brown's desk! It is now up to the governor to sign or veto the bill. We are very concerned about whether he will sign it. Opposition to the bill is well-funded and working hard for a veto.
Phone calls and letters to the Governor’s office could make all the difference at this crucial moment. Please take just two minutes to call the governor’s office and send a letter from your organization, church, school and/or community group(s). “Please sign SB 9!” Governor Brown’s phone number is: (916) 445-2841. It’s a quick and easy call!
http://www.fairsentencingforyouth.org/take-action/
Unshackling Pregnant Women in Prisons
SUMMARY:
This bill adds a section to the penal code stating: An inmate known to be pregnant or in recovery after delivery shall not be restrained by the use of leg irons, waist chains,or handcuffs behind the body.
MORE:
Currently, incarcerated pregnant women in California's jails and prisons are shackled in excessively restrictive ways.
Gov. Brown vetoed a similar bill last year that had unanimously passed the legislature, so he needs to hear from you today. AB 2530 addresses Governor Brown’s veto by clarifying language and prohibiting the most dangerous forms of shackling.
http://capwiz.com/fclca/issues/alert/?alertid=61862266
Media Access
SUMMARY:
The bill would restore the conditions that existed before 1996, the year that state corrections officials cut down on reporters’ ability to report directly on prison circumstances.
MORE:
California Senate passed AB 1270 by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano today, sending the bill on prison media openness to Governor Jerry Brown for his signature.
"With passage of AB 1270 legislators have voted for transparent and accountable reporting of the state's 32 prisons and the more than 130 prisoners locked inside their walls,” said Nancy Mullane, a prize-winning reporter and author on prisons. “With the governor's signature, no longer will professional, credentialed, hard-working journalists be forced to interview whichever inmate the prison authorities make available to them. For the first time in more than two decades, journalists will be permitted by law to request an interview with an inmate by name."
Following passage, the Governor has until September 30 to sign the measure.
http://asmdc.org/members/a13/news-room/press-releases/item/2995-senate-passes-prison-media-access-bill
3. For those not voting
SUMMARY:
Vote for the Vote is a vote donation program for the 2012 US presidential elections. Vote for the Vote helps registered voters give away their votes to individuals who have been robbed of right to vote by state laws restricting access to the polls.
MORE:
Millions of Americans will be unable to cast their ballots this election season because of state laws that make voting difficult or impossible for certain groups of people. In the swing state of Florida alone over 1.5 million people are unable to vote because of these laws. Nationwide, 13% of African Americans have lost the right to vote, and in several states that number is as high as 20%.
http://www.voteforthevote.org./
Most the information below has been gleened from various email lists / websites / organizations / etc that i'm sure most on O4P folks are familiar with but its nice to have it all in one place sometimes.
Below you will find info on:
1. Propositions 34, 35, & 36
2. Cal State Bills
3. info on how to Donate your Vote
1. Propositions
Prop 34
Summary
* eliminates lethal injections
* converts all lethal injection death row inmates to LOWP (life in prison without parole)
* LOWP inmates mandated to work, with earnings to the state
* the state would no longer pay for appeals for those on death row b/c LOWP sentences are not considered "death sentences"
* law enforcement exigences would receive a one-time infusion of $100-million dollars to "solve homicide and rape cases"
MORE:
Kevin Cooper Statement & that other guy's statement..
Those serving on death row will shift to life in prison without possibility of parole term. These and future inmates will be put to work with earnings going to "any victim restitution fines or orders against them," according to the official state summary. Additionally, a one-time $100-million fund will help law enforcement agencies solve more homicide and rape cases. If the prop succeeds, it will become effective the day after the election.
Under the state's current criminal justice system it would cost taxpayers between $5 billion and $7 billion more to execute a prisoner than it would to carry out a sentence of Life Without Parole because current system covers costs for appeals for those on death row.
Woodford is the former director of the California Department of Corrections and the past Warden of San Quentin. She is the official proponent of Prop 34. "California voters have an historic opportunity this November to prevent the waste of that $5-7 billion, and to use the money to catch more murderers and rapists instead, in order to keep our families and communities safe," Woodford said.
CA's Death Row houses 729 inmates. CA's last execution took place 6 yrs ago. Then a federal judge brought the process to a halt when he ruled that the state's method of execution violated the 8th Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. (Evidence brought forth in the lawsuit indicated a high number of botched executions at San Quentin, where executioners administered lethal drugs to inmates in a small, dimly lit former gas chamber. Questions surfaced about executioners' training and qualifications. The leader of the lethal injection team had previously been suspended for smuggling drugs into the prison.)
CDCR then built a new lethal injection chamber at San Quentin and rewrote its protocol, adding a step in which lethal injection team members would gently shake an inmate after they gave them a sedative to make sure sleep had set in before administering a painful, heart-stopping drug. Last year a judge threw out that protocol, saying the state violated its own rule-writing process when it failed to adequately consider public comment on the process.
The judge pointed out the state's decision to stick with a three-drug lethal injection process over a one-drug procedure that many consider more humane and less prone to mistakes. (They also don't have one of the drugs they need for the cocktail: pancuronium bromide, the second drug in the series (designed to paralyze the inmate), it's no longer manufactured in the US)
Earlier this year, Governor Jerry Brown instructed CDCR to pursue a single-drug protocol. Lawyers for the state say it has complied. During previous hearings on this case, a consultant to the department testified that the state has written and tested at San Quentin a single-drug protocol.
But Goldman did not know when CDCR would begin the official rule-writing process that would allow that protocol to become a law. He estimated that process could take about 10 months once it's started.
OHIO just had 2ND DEATH ROW EXONERATION IN 9 MONTHS, 141st in the Nation - this would stop if prop 34 passes as prisoners would no longer have support for appeals!
John Donohue, a Stanford law professor, who studied how capital punishment was imposed in every Connecticut murder case from 1973 (when the state passed a death penalty law) to 2007.
His analysis dispelled the erroneous claim that only the “worst of the worst” among criminals are given the death penalty. Instead, he found that the penalty has been applied with “arbitrariness and discrimination” based on race and geography, and that death row inmates are indistinguishable from other violent offenders who escaped capital punishment.
http://www.kcet.org/news/ballotbrief/elections2012/propositions/prop-34-death-penalty-repeal.html
http://www.kcet.org/news/ballotbrief/ballot-measures/prop-34/la-judge-says-no-to-executions-study-shows-death-penalty-will-cost-state-billions.html
http://www.kcet.org/news/ballotbrief/elections2012/propositions/prop-34-funding-death-penalty-repeal.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/opinion/sunday/a-trial-on-death-row.html?_r=2&emc=eta1
Prop 35
SUMMARY
· Further criminalizes sex workers, most of whom are women (majority mothers) and young, transgender and immigrant people. It can be used as a pretext to label sex workers themselves as pimps and traffickers.
Prop 35 will discourage sex workers from seeking help when they are subjected to force and violence for fear of being caught in the criminal legal system.
· Targets undocumented sex workers for arrest and deportation through police sweeps under the guise of “searching” for trafficked victims who are minors.
· Criminalizes anyone that associates with a minor involved in prostitution regardless of whether there was any force or coercion involved.
· Increases police power to detain and interrogate people under the pretext of looking for trafficked minors and increases funding for law enforcement training to find traffickers.
· Channels money to victims’ services and non-profit agencies that work hand-in-hand with law enforcement, ICE and Homeland Security, giving those agencies a vested interest in the fines that are charged to those convicted of trafficking.
· Requires all people convicted of trafficking to register as sex offenders for life.
· Monitors the internet use of all those convicted as traffickers for life.
· Costs the state of California several million dollars to enforce.
MORE: http://www.againstthecaseact.com/
Prop 36 – 3 strikes
SUMMARY
Revise the three strikes law to impose life sentence only when the new felony conviction is "serious or violent".
Authorize re-sentencing for offenders currently serving life sentences if their third strike conviction was not serious or violent and if the judge determines that the re-sentence does not pose unreasonable risk to public safety.
Continue to impose a life sentence penalty if the third strike conviction was for "certain non-serious, non-violent sex or drug offenses or involved firearm possession".
Maintain the life sentence penalty for felons with "non-serious, non-violent third strike if prior convictions were for rape, murder, or child molestation."
MORE:
If Proposition 36 is approved by voters, approximately 3,000 convicted felons who are currently serving life terms under the Three Strikes law, whose third strike conviction was for a nonviolent crime, will be able to petition the court for a new, reduced, sentence.[2] Reducing the sentences of these current prisoners could result in saving the state somewhere between $150 to $200 million a year.[3]
Altogether, about 8,800 prisoners are currently serving life terms in California prisons under the 1994 law.[4]
California spends up to six times more on prisoners per year than on K-12 students. With the three-strikes law, more prisoners are being incarcerated for longer periods of times and for lesser charges. For instance, if a person has two serious felonies against him or her and commits another felony, serious or not, such as petty theft of more than $950, that person can be sentenced to life in jail. This law has created a substantial burden on the state’s budget, shifting funds from education to our prisons.
2. CA State Bills:
Youth LWOP - Senate Bill 9 in California
SUMMARY:
This bill will give people who were sentenced as teens to life without parole a chance to have their cases reviewed after they have served 25 years.
MORE:
SB 9 made it through the state Legislature and is now on Governor Brown's desk! It is now up to the governor to sign or veto the bill. We are very concerned about whether he will sign it. Opposition to the bill is well-funded and working hard for a veto.
Phone calls and letters to the Governor’s office could make all the difference at this crucial moment. Please take just two minutes to call the governor’s office and send a letter from your organization, church, school and/or community group(s). “Please sign SB 9!” Governor Brown’s phone number is: (916) 445-2841. It’s a quick and easy call!
http://www.fairsentencingforyouth.org/take-action/
Unshackling Pregnant Women in Prisons
SUMMARY:
This bill adds a section to the penal code stating: An inmate known to be pregnant or in recovery after delivery shall not be restrained by the use of leg irons, waist chains,or handcuffs behind the body.
MORE:
Currently, incarcerated pregnant women in California's jails and prisons are shackled in excessively restrictive ways.
Gov. Brown vetoed a similar bill last year that had unanimously passed the legislature, so he needs to hear from you today. AB 2530 addresses Governor Brown’s veto by clarifying language and prohibiting the most dangerous forms of shackling.
http://capwiz.com/fclca/issues/alert/?alertid=61862266
Media Access
SUMMARY:
The bill would restore the conditions that existed before 1996, the year that state corrections officials cut down on reporters’ ability to report directly on prison circumstances.
MORE:
California Senate passed AB 1270 by Assemblymember Tom Ammiano today, sending the bill on prison media openness to Governor Jerry Brown for his signature.
"With passage of AB 1270 legislators have voted for transparent and accountable reporting of the state's 32 prisons and the more than 130 prisoners locked inside their walls,” said Nancy Mullane, a prize-winning reporter and author on prisons. “With the governor's signature, no longer will professional, credentialed, hard-working journalists be forced to interview whichever inmate the prison authorities make available to them. For the first time in more than two decades, journalists will be permitted by law to request an interview with an inmate by name."
Following passage, the Governor has until September 30 to sign the measure.
http://asmdc.org/members/a13/news-room/press-releases/item/2995-senate-passes-prison-media-access-bill
3. For those not voting
SUMMARY:
Vote for the Vote is a vote donation program for the 2012 US presidential elections. Vote for the Vote helps registered voters give away their votes to individuals who have been robbed of right to vote by state laws restricting access to the polls.
MORE:
Millions of Americans will be unable to cast their ballots this election season because of state laws that make voting difficult or impossible for certain groups of people. In the swing state of Florida alone over 1.5 million people are unable to vote because of these laws. Nationwide, 13% of African Americans have lost the right to vote, and in several states that number is as high as 20%.
http://www.voteforthevote.org./
Amnesty International report finds California SHUs illegal
From the Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Solidarity website:
Amnesty International report finds California SHUs illegal
Posted on September 27, 2012
Amnesty International released a report today (Sept 27, 2012), called “The Edge of Endurance: Prison Conditions in California’s Security Housing Units”. The report slams the state of California for abusing prisoners’ rights under international law as well as for falling short on the recently implemented step-down procedures. It also includes a section about the 2011 hunger strike.
Read the full report HERE (PDF), or check the bullet points that we pulled out of the Executive Summary after the jump. Below that, we’ve copied and pasted the report’s section on the hunger strike.
-No other US state is believed to have held so many prisoners for such long periods in indefinite isolation.
-Many prisoners have spent decades in isolation despite reportedly being free of any serious rule violations and – if they are serving a “term to life” sentence – without any means of earning parole.
-Prisoner advocates and others have criticized the gang validation process as unreliable and lacking adequate safeguards, allowing prisoners to be consigned to indefinite isolation without evidence of any specific illegal activity, or on the basis of tenuous gang associations, on evidence often provided by anonymous informants.
-No changes to the physical conditions of confinement are proposed for the Pelican Bay SHU, where prisoners would spend at least two years in the same isolated conditions of cellular confinement as they are now.
-Amnesty International considers that the conditions of isolation and other deprivations imposed on prisoners in California’s SHU units breach international standards on humane treatment.
THE 2011 HUNGER STRIKE
“During the hunger strike he was taken to a Pelican Bay Administrative Segregation Unit (ASU) with eleven other hunger strike leaders. He was in ASU with no warm clothes, bed blankets, possessions (including writing materials). The air conditioning was turned right up while he had just a t-shirt and trousers.” - Wife of gang validated SHU prisoner, one of the hunger striker leaders- this information was corroborated by one of the lead hunger strikers with whom the Amnesty International delegation spoke.
On 1 July 2011, prisoners in the SHU initiated a hunger strike to protest against their conditions of confinement, bringing the issue into the public spotlight.
The strike spread to prisons across the state, with more than 6,000 prisoners participating at one point. The hunger strikers’ demands for improved conditions in the SHUs give an indication of just how stark those conditions were: they included requests for access to personal items such as being able to purchase wall calendars, “watch caps” (outdoor headwear when exercising in bad weather), “sweat pants” (to keep warm) and at least some basic in-cell art materials. They also asked to be able to have an annual photograph taken to send to their families (a common practice allowed to most prisoners).
The strike ended on 20 July after CDCR agreed to make some modest changes immediately (allowing prisoners to have “watch caps”, wall calendars and some other personal items), and said it was undertaking a policy review to address the wider demands. One of the hunger strikers’ “core demands” was that California comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in Americas Prisons 2006 recommendation to end long term solitary confinement and make segregation a last resort. The strikers also called for prisoners who had served ten or more years of indefinite SHU confinement to be released to the general prison population. Other demands included better food (following repeated complaints that the food provided to SHU prisoners was often cold and lacking nutrition) and requests that SHU inmates with chronic health problems be moved to the New Folsom Medical SHU facility.
Following concern among prisoners about what they perceived as a lack of progress in implementing changes, the hunger strike resumed briefly in late September 2011, but was called off after meetings between prisoner representatives and CDCR and further assurances that CDCR would institute changes. While no disciplinary action had been taken against the first hunger strikers, the second hunger strike was treated by CDCR as a major rule violation and some prisoners were punished by having their property and canteen privileges confiscated. Fifteen of the strike leaders were reportedly moved to harsh conditions in administrative segregation cells for a short period. Amnesty International wrote to CDCR at the time, urging it to take action to end to the hunger strike by providing assurances on improvements both to conditions and the procedures by which prisoners are assigned to the SHU, rather than through disciplinary action resulting in still harsher conditions.
Full Report: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/california_solitary_confinement_report_final.pdf
Amnesty International report finds California SHUs illegal
Posted on September 27, 2012
Amnesty International released a report today (Sept 27, 2012), called “The Edge of Endurance: Prison Conditions in California’s Security Housing Units”. The report slams the state of California for abusing prisoners’ rights under international law as well as for falling short on the recently implemented step-down procedures. It also includes a section about the 2011 hunger strike.
Read the full report HERE (PDF), or check the bullet points that we pulled out of the Executive Summary after the jump. Below that, we’ve copied and pasted the report’s section on the hunger strike.
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| Pelican Bay State Prison front view of cell D1-119 |
-Many prisoners have spent decades in isolation despite reportedly being free of any serious rule violations and – if they are serving a “term to life” sentence – without any means of earning parole.
-Prisoner advocates and others have criticized the gang validation process as unreliable and lacking adequate safeguards, allowing prisoners to be consigned to indefinite isolation without evidence of any specific illegal activity, or on the basis of tenuous gang associations, on evidence often provided by anonymous informants.
-No changes to the physical conditions of confinement are proposed for the Pelican Bay SHU, where prisoners would spend at least two years in the same isolated conditions of cellular confinement as they are now.
-Amnesty International considers that the conditions of isolation and other deprivations imposed on prisoners in California’s SHU units breach international standards on humane treatment.
THE 2011 HUNGER STRIKE
“During the hunger strike he was taken to a Pelican Bay Administrative Segregation Unit (ASU) with eleven other hunger strike leaders. He was in ASU with no warm clothes, bed blankets, possessions (including writing materials). The air conditioning was turned right up while he had just a t-shirt and trousers.” - Wife of gang validated SHU prisoner, one of the hunger striker leaders- this information was corroborated by one of the lead hunger strikers with whom the Amnesty International delegation spoke.
On 1 July 2011, prisoners in the SHU initiated a hunger strike to protest against their conditions of confinement, bringing the issue into the public spotlight.
The strike spread to prisons across the state, with more than 6,000 prisoners participating at one point. The hunger strikers’ demands for improved conditions in the SHUs give an indication of just how stark those conditions were: they included requests for access to personal items such as being able to purchase wall calendars, “watch caps” (outdoor headwear when exercising in bad weather), “sweat pants” (to keep warm) and at least some basic in-cell art materials. They also asked to be able to have an annual photograph taken to send to their families (a common practice allowed to most prisoners).
The strike ended on 20 July after CDCR agreed to make some modest changes immediately (allowing prisoners to have “watch caps”, wall calendars and some other personal items), and said it was undertaking a policy review to address the wider demands. One of the hunger strikers’ “core demands” was that California comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in Americas Prisons 2006 recommendation to end long term solitary confinement and make segregation a last resort. The strikers also called for prisoners who had served ten or more years of indefinite SHU confinement to be released to the general prison population. Other demands included better food (following repeated complaints that the food provided to SHU prisoners was often cold and lacking nutrition) and requests that SHU inmates with chronic health problems be moved to the New Folsom Medical SHU facility.
Following concern among prisoners about what they perceived as a lack of progress in implementing changes, the hunger strike resumed briefly in late September 2011, but was called off after meetings between prisoner representatives and CDCR and further assurances that CDCR would institute changes. While no disciplinary action had been taken against the first hunger strikers, the second hunger strike was treated by CDCR as a major rule violation and some prisoners were punished by having their property and canteen privileges confiscated. Fifteen of the strike leaders were reportedly moved to harsh conditions in administrative segregation cells for a short period. Amnesty International wrote to CDCR at the time, urging it to take action to end to the hunger strike by providing assurances on improvements both to conditions and the procedures by which prisoners are assigned to the SHU, rather than through disciplinary action resulting in still harsher conditions.
Full Report: http://www.amnestyusa.org/sites/default/files/california_solitary_confinement_report_final.pdf
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
The corrupt validation process under IGI Duarte
From SF Bay View, Sept 25th, 2012
by German Cabrera
I would like to shed some light regarding Institutional Gang Investigator (IGI) E. Duarte. I’ve been in ASU (Administrative Segregation Unit) since Oct. 26, 2009. I am currently validated as an alleged associate of a prison gang and I did have a discussion with IGI E. Duarte prior to being placed in the hole (segregation).
That bad day took place on May 14, 2009. IGI E. Duarte and his sergeant forced me to sign what’s called a “safety chrono.” When I refused to do so, I was threatened to be placed in the hole. How it took place was as follows: After taking my work shower on my return from my vocation assignment (job) and yard was recalled completely in B5, I was walking out of the shower and I noticed a sergeant just looking at me. He didn’t say anything though.
I did not have five minutes in my cell when my cell door reopened and I was told by the tower that I had a 115 hearing in the program office. I told him to close my door, didn’t think he was serious. So he did, just to reopen it, and he said, “They want you to go to the program office for a 115.” I asked who is “they”? He replied, “The sergeant.” I replied that the sergeant was just here and did not say anything, plus the sergeants don’t hear 115s – it’s the lieutenants that do – plus I didn’t have any 115s.
I told him to close my door. He (Duarte) insisted but ended up closing it. Seconds later the floor officer came and said, “They want me to cuff you and take you to the office.” I asked, “Do you know who?” He replied, “You know who it is!” Then he went ahead to say “but I’m out of it.” So I told him, “Get out of it then and get away from my cell door.”
He did and minutes later I heard squad’s arrival; it was around five or 10 of them. When I got closer to my door and looked, it was an officer heading towards my cell door real fast. When he arrived, his name tag said “E Duarte.” Duarte started to get loud, stating, “You like attention, huh; you like attention, huh. OK, I’m going to give you attention.” I told him, “I don’t even know who you are for you to get crazy with me.”
That bad day took place on May 14, 2009. IGI E. Duarte and his sergeant forced me to sign what’s called a “safety chrono.” When I refused to do so, I was threatened to be placed in the hole.
He ended up cuffing us up. While I was cuffed up and out of the cell, he was acting dumb with my cellie, trying to intimidate him. Then I was told I needed to sign something and I asked what it was; it was a “safety chrono.” I stated to them, “I’m cool.” Duarte said, “If you don’t sign it, you’re going to the hole (segregation).”
Then it was given to IGI Tamayo, who read it. I then asked him, “This is what you’re using to remove me from general population?” I asked because they did so with another inmate in my building. IGI Tamayo said, “Oh, you’ll know when I come for you.” I got into a little discussion of how come they can’t just take my word that I have no safety concerns and I don’t know what’s really behind this chrono because it doesn’t say if and how it was proven to be true or reliable. So in reality I don’t know what and why I’m signing. Then IGI Sgt. E. Silva jumped in saying to chill out, that I do need to sign it or they will place me in the hole (ASU).
I ended up signing because I had a lot going: I was in vocational training – AA classes – in cell studies plus earning good time credits, and I remained in B yard for five and a half months until the incident involving inmates and COs (correctional officers) in B-2. After the incident with Velarde (Velarde vs. Duarte, Case No. 3:2011cv00287 in the United States District Court, Southern District of California) and CO Magdaleno, who hit the inmate while he was cuffed after the searches, me and other Mexicans/Latinos/Hispanics were placed in Ad-Seg – the hole!
I got targeted in this validated process, and I assert and refute the following: I was picked up by IGI pending an investigation into alleged association(s) with a prison gang and as an alleged active member of a street gang/disruptive group. I refute IGI’s source items used against me in this duo-validation individual and collectively and assert that this malicious targeting was done in retribution and revenge for the prior incident involving myself and IGI Duarte in which Duarte exhibited a hostile nature and unnecessarily forced me to sign a “safety chrono” as well as a subsequent incident involving Mexicans/Latinos/Hispanics.
I assert that Duarte’s unnecessary force was a personal attack on my character and positive programming in this institution. A fact supporting Duarte’s use of invalid information given by inmates seeking protective custody is illuminated by me remaining on B-yard general population several months with no incident, expounding on this doubly damning attack on my character.
After the incident with Velarde (Velarde vs. Duarte, Case No. 3:2011cv00287 in the United States District Court, Southern District of California) and CO Magdaleno, who hit the inmate while he was cuffed after the searches, me and other Mexicans/Latinos/Hispanics were placed in Ad-Seg – the hole!
I have been targeted and harassed on numerous occasions during this validation process and in violation of my due process rights, due solely to my appearance. IGI Duarte, while handing me my street gang/disruptive group validation packet, sneered at me stating to my surprise, “You got it all over your face.”
They’re using my past against me in addition to IGI Tamayo’s alleged interview where he states I admitted to being a gang member. That is a complete fabrication of the events of such day and the abuse of power and malicious harassment by IGIs. I have suffered these unconstitutional harassment specifically at the hands of IGI E. Duarte, IGI Tamayo, IGI Silva with a certain number of searches occurring after facility searches or returning from court in May 2008, with specific reference to incidents such as the constant search and seizure of property with no real provocation, no probable cause, and never yielding any contraband directly related to any association, either street gang or prison gang. Also, their malicious acts, such as withholding my outgoing mail and disallowing my incoming mail, are unconstitutional and put a strain on my family relationships.
The malicious acts of IGI E. Duarte, IGI Tamayo and IGI Silva, such as withholding my outgoing mail and disallowing my incoming mail, are unconstitutional and put a strain on my family relationships.
In 2009 I was given the street gang packet and was made to believe it was going to be submitted; so both packets gave me 11 points to rebut. I know how they go about their evil ways: 1) When Duarte and Tamayo came to pick them up, I slid them my arguments as soon as he got in front of my door and they stated, “You’re done?” looking all surprised. Plus when they left to do the copies they are obligated to give me, the copies were purposely made wrong! 2) All those points were obviously given to me all at once in hopes I get stressed out and not be capable of rebuttal nor do it correctly. 3) The IGIs were hiding my property because most of property consists of legal books and case law and coincidently I had a validation manual.
I made it clear to all involved – officers and officials – how I was not going to allow their criminal tactics to be pushed on me without a fight on my behalf. They all told me IGI has to have it. Then like magic my property appeared but days before I was officially validated by Sacramento.
I have several appeals/602s and staff complaints against IGI and ISU (Investigative Service Unit) as a whole as well as several of them as individuals. But I was expecting them to respond that their COs did nothing wrong. It doesn’t matter to me because I preserved my rights doing so.
Before I bring this to a close, just recently I was served again with the street gang/disruptive group just because I requested the face sheet of that packet out of my central file (C-file) so they retaliated and reserved me. On my interview for it, I came out and IGI Duarte was there. I made it clear: What was he doing there if I have a staff complaint on him?
And this past Monday when I went out for medical within the facility, I ran into IGI E. Duarte; he was the sergeant for that day. Yup, he’s a sergeant now. He was the last one of the squad that placed most all of us in ASU and he will be working in ASU a couple of days out of the week!
I know for a fact there’s a lot of merit in appeals/602s and complaints filed against Duarte. How is it that he got promoted and, on top of that, (got assigned to) work where inmates he conspired against are housed and where he physically hurt an inmate.
I know for a fact there’s a lot of merit in appeals/602s and complaints filed against Duarte. How is it that he got promoted and, on top of that, (got assigned to) work where inmates he conspired against are housed and where he physically hurt an inmate. People out there should request to be provided documents specific to what are the requirements for a CO to become a sergeant and what disqualifies a CO from getting promoted becoming a sergeant?
“Silence in the face of injustice is complicity with the oppressor.” – Ginetta Sagan
Send our brother some love and light: German Cabrera, T-50054, ASU-197, P.O. Box 5008, Calipatria, CA 92233. These letters were written to and transcribed by Kendra Castaneda, a prisoner human rights activist, whose husband, Robbie Riva, T-49359, is currently in segregation at Calipatria State Prison ASU for validation as a prison gang associate, being labeled “worst of the worst” by CDCR. Her husband, like many other men at Calipatria State Prison, was validated by CDCR as a prison gang associate due to IGI E. Duarte authorizing falsified evidence.
by German Cabrera
I would like to shed some light regarding Institutional Gang Investigator (IGI) E. Duarte. I’ve been in ASU (Administrative Segregation Unit) since Oct. 26, 2009. I am currently validated as an alleged associate of a prison gang and I did have a discussion with IGI E. Duarte prior to being placed in the hole (segregation).
That bad day took place on May 14, 2009. IGI E. Duarte and his sergeant forced me to sign what’s called a “safety chrono.” When I refused to do so, I was threatened to be placed in the hole. How it took place was as follows: After taking my work shower on my return from my vocation assignment (job) and yard was recalled completely in B5, I was walking out of the shower and I noticed a sergeant just looking at me. He didn’t say anything though.
I did not have five minutes in my cell when my cell door reopened and I was told by the tower that I had a 115 hearing in the program office. I told him to close my door, didn’t think he was serious. So he did, just to reopen it, and he said, “They want you to go to the program office for a 115.” I asked who is “they”? He replied, “The sergeant.” I replied that the sergeant was just here and did not say anything, plus the sergeants don’t hear 115s – it’s the lieutenants that do – plus I didn’t have any 115s.
I told him to close my door. He (Duarte) insisted but ended up closing it. Seconds later the floor officer came and said, “They want me to cuff you and take you to the office.” I asked, “Do you know who?” He replied, “You know who it is!” Then he went ahead to say “but I’m out of it.” So I told him, “Get out of it then and get away from my cell door.”
He did and minutes later I heard squad’s arrival; it was around five or 10 of them. When I got closer to my door and looked, it was an officer heading towards my cell door real fast. When he arrived, his name tag said “E Duarte.” Duarte started to get loud, stating, “You like attention, huh; you like attention, huh. OK, I’m going to give you attention.” I told him, “I don’t even know who you are for you to get crazy with me.”
That bad day took place on May 14, 2009. IGI E. Duarte and his sergeant forced me to sign what’s called a “safety chrono.” When I refused to do so, I was threatened to be placed in the hole.
He ended up cuffing us up. While I was cuffed up and out of the cell, he was acting dumb with my cellie, trying to intimidate him. Then I was told I needed to sign something and I asked what it was; it was a “safety chrono.” I stated to them, “I’m cool.” Duarte said, “If you don’t sign it, you’re going to the hole (segregation).”
Then it was given to IGI Tamayo, who read it. I then asked him, “This is what you’re using to remove me from general population?” I asked because they did so with another inmate in my building. IGI Tamayo said, “Oh, you’ll know when I come for you.” I got into a little discussion of how come they can’t just take my word that I have no safety concerns and I don’t know what’s really behind this chrono because it doesn’t say if and how it was proven to be true or reliable. So in reality I don’t know what and why I’m signing. Then IGI Sgt. E. Silva jumped in saying to chill out, that I do need to sign it or they will place me in the hole (ASU).
I ended up signing because I had a lot going: I was in vocational training – AA classes – in cell studies plus earning good time credits, and I remained in B yard for five and a half months until the incident involving inmates and COs (correctional officers) in B-2. After the incident with Velarde (Velarde vs. Duarte, Case No. 3:2011cv00287 in the United States District Court, Southern District of California) and CO Magdaleno, who hit the inmate while he was cuffed after the searches, me and other Mexicans/Latinos/Hispanics were placed in Ad-Seg – the hole!
I got targeted in this validated process, and I assert and refute the following: I was picked up by IGI pending an investigation into alleged association(s) with a prison gang and as an alleged active member of a street gang/disruptive group. I refute IGI’s source items used against me in this duo-validation individual and collectively and assert that this malicious targeting was done in retribution and revenge for the prior incident involving myself and IGI Duarte in which Duarte exhibited a hostile nature and unnecessarily forced me to sign a “safety chrono” as well as a subsequent incident involving Mexicans/Latinos/Hispanics.
I assert that Duarte’s unnecessary force was a personal attack on my character and positive programming in this institution. A fact supporting Duarte’s use of invalid information given by inmates seeking protective custody is illuminated by me remaining on B-yard general population several months with no incident, expounding on this doubly damning attack on my character.
After the incident with Velarde (Velarde vs. Duarte, Case No. 3:2011cv00287 in the United States District Court, Southern District of California) and CO Magdaleno, who hit the inmate while he was cuffed after the searches, me and other Mexicans/Latinos/Hispanics were placed in Ad-Seg – the hole!
I have been targeted and harassed on numerous occasions during this validation process and in violation of my due process rights, due solely to my appearance. IGI Duarte, while handing me my street gang/disruptive group validation packet, sneered at me stating to my surprise, “You got it all over your face.”
They’re using my past against me in addition to IGI Tamayo’s alleged interview where he states I admitted to being a gang member. That is a complete fabrication of the events of such day and the abuse of power and malicious harassment by IGIs. I have suffered these unconstitutional harassment specifically at the hands of IGI E. Duarte, IGI Tamayo, IGI Silva with a certain number of searches occurring after facility searches or returning from court in May 2008, with specific reference to incidents such as the constant search and seizure of property with no real provocation, no probable cause, and never yielding any contraband directly related to any association, either street gang or prison gang. Also, their malicious acts, such as withholding my outgoing mail and disallowing my incoming mail, are unconstitutional and put a strain on my family relationships.
The malicious acts of IGI E. Duarte, IGI Tamayo and IGI Silva, such as withholding my outgoing mail and disallowing my incoming mail, are unconstitutional and put a strain on my family relationships.
In 2009 I was given the street gang packet and was made to believe it was going to be submitted; so both packets gave me 11 points to rebut. I know how they go about their evil ways: 1) When Duarte and Tamayo came to pick them up, I slid them my arguments as soon as he got in front of my door and they stated, “You’re done?” looking all surprised. Plus when they left to do the copies they are obligated to give me, the copies were purposely made wrong! 2) All those points were obviously given to me all at once in hopes I get stressed out and not be capable of rebuttal nor do it correctly. 3) The IGIs were hiding my property because most of property consists of legal books and case law and coincidently I had a validation manual.
I made it clear to all involved – officers and officials – how I was not going to allow their criminal tactics to be pushed on me without a fight on my behalf. They all told me IGI has to have it. Then like magic my property appeared but days before I was officially validated by Sacramento.
I have several appeals/602s and staff complaints against IGI and ISU (Investigative Service Unit) as a whole as well as several of them as individuals. But I was expecting them to respond that their COs did nothing wrong. It doesn’t matter to me because I preserved my rights doing so.
Before I bring this to a close, just recently I was served again with the street gang/disruptive group just because I requested the face sheet of that packet out of my central file (C-file) so they retaliated and reserved me. On my interview for it, I came out and IGI Duarte was there. I made it clear: What was he doing there if I have a staff complaint on him?
And this past Monday when I went out for medical within the facility, I ran into IGI E. Duarte; he was the sergeant for that day. Yup, he’s a sergeant now. He was the last one of the squad that placed most all of us in ASU and he will be working in ASU a couple of days out of the week!
I know for a fact there’s a lot of merit in appeals/602s and complaints filed against Duarte. How is it that he got promoted and, on top of that, (got assigned to) work where inmates he conspired against are housed and where he physically hurt an inmate.
I know for a fact there’s a lot of merit in appeals/602s and complaints filed against Duarte. How is it that he got promoted and, on top of that, (got assigned to) work where inmates he conspired against are housed and where he physically hurt an inmate. People out there should request to be provided documents specific to what are the requirements for a CO to become a sergeant and what disqualifies a CO from getting promoted becoming a sergeant?
“Silence in the face of injustice is complicity with the oppressor.” – Ginetta Sagan
Send our brother some love and light: German Cabrera, T-50054, ASU-197, P.O. Box 5008, Calipatria, CA 92233. These letters were written to and transcribed by Kendra Castaneda, a prisoner human rights activist, whose husband, Robbie Riva, T-49359, is currently in segregation at Calipatria State Prison ASU for validation as a prison gang associate, being labeled “worst of the worst” by CDCR. Her husband, like many other men at Calipatria State Prison, was validated by CDCR as a prison gang associate due to IGI E. Duarte authorizing falsified evidence.
My bogus validation and torture at Calipatria ASU
From: SF Bay View, Sept 25, 2012
by Gualberto Lopez
In June 2002, when I was 21 years of age, I arrived at Pelican Bay State Prison. That is the institution where I was housed at after I left LA County Jail. I was at Pelican Bay for eight to nine years, most of the time in the SHU. At each Institution Committee hearing I had, the SHU ICC (Institutional Classification Committee) would always tell me, “We know you are associated with a prison gang.” They tried to make me accept it and force me to accept I was a part of a prison gang many times when I never was. I never bit into PBSP/CDCR’s game that they tried to play with me.
by Gualberto Lopez
In June 2002, when I was 21 years of age, I arrived at Pelican Bay State Prison. That is the institution where I was housed at after I left LA County Jail. I was at Pelican Bay for eight to nine years, most of the time in the SHU. At each Institution Committee hearing I had, the SHU ICC (Institutional Classification Committee) would always tell me, “We know you are associated with a prison gang.” They tried to make me accept it and force me to accept I was a part of a prison gang many times when I never was. I never bit into PBSP/CDCR’s game that they tried to play with me.
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| A Mexican Aztec drawing is used as a “source item” by California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to label a “Southern Hispanic” as a prison gang associate and put him in segregation (SHU/ASU) for decades calling him “worst of the worst.” Gualberto Lopez is Mexican, and CDCR is persecuting him based on his ethnicity and culture. |
Once I finally got out of the SHU at PBSP in 2008, I was allowed to go to general population for about a year and a half given clear status; then I was given a transfer to Corcoran for five to six months. After I did those few months at Corcoran without any 115 write-ups, I was transferred to Calipatria State Prison. In 2010, I arrived at Calipatria, and I was on general population for about six months until I was picked up by Institutional Gang Investigator E. Duarte based on artwork that PBSP tried to use on me when I was there in 2006 to try and validate me.
The IGI’s put me in Administration Segregation (Ad-Seg/A5) at Calipatria for this bogus validation saying that I was involved in prison gang activity when I never involved myself in any such conduct. The reason for me transferring down to a prison further south was to be close to home and to have a better time with all the rest of my family. I wasn’t going to jeopardize that by receiving a 115 write-up now that I was able to be closer to them. But when I was transferred to Calipatria and while in general population, I realized it was harder to receive visits from my family because they had to go through the approval process all over again at Calipatria after being previously approved from Pelican Bay.
When I was served with the bogus validation paperwork, about six to eight IGIs were telling me that they were after me since I was previously from Pelican Bay State Prison. The Calipatria IGIs falsely told me that a confidential informant told them that I was in a prison gang. I was programing just fine and there was no evidence of a confidential informant and the evidence the IGIs tried to falsely slam me with was not strong enough to validate me and was false.
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| In Gualberto Lopez’ committee hearing report after he was taken into segregation at Calipatria State Prison, the committee members found that Gualberto Lopez cannot be on the general population yard and is a “Threat to the Safety and Security of the Institution.” But this ruling is not due to any confidential information from an informant, and Gualberto Lopez doesn’t have any enemies. It is due to IGI E. Duarte stating he believes Gualberto Lopez is in a prison gang. The committee members include a doctor and associate warden, and the chairperson who signed this committee report for Gualberto Lopez to be kept in segregation is current Warden G.J. Janda. |
During this process of this bogus validation, I lost three family members; my family called the prison a few times so I could get the news of the passing of my loved ones. Calipatria never gave me that message while I was in Ad-Seg. The IGIs kept it from me and I had to find out later.
The IGIs at Calipatria, they took away all of my legal documents for my case I was working on and they trashed them. During my first two weeks in ASU, I was given a chrono 1030. It was put in my file by officers without me knowing. I had to ask for an “Olson Review” in the month of June 2011 to find out what they placed in my file.
Then in April 2011, IGI E. Duarte at the ASU unit planted two weapons in my cell on purpose while I was out to yard. I was given a 115 CDCR write up for those weapons placed in my cell by IGI Duarte. My mail is always being tampered with and trashed by officers. All the IGIs, they mess with us by harassment mentally and physically by putting us in cuff tie ups, giving us small portions of food and ripped up clothes, trashing our outgoing mail, planting specific artwork in our cells while we are at the showers or yard that is used later to validate us. The IGIs go into our cell and put toothpaste in our sink with our pictures in the toothpaste and shampoo in our food mixed together.
During the second hunger strike last year in September-October 2011, I was rushed to the hospital and in the emergency room the medical RN staff tried to take blood out of me for the second time in a week. While they were trying to take blood out of me, the nurse didn’t see that she broke the needle in my arm within the view of a lot of fellow prisoners.
At this moment I’m being denied proper “medical attention” for the pain in my feet. I have them all cracked from the bottom. It has been going on for many years. Last month in May, many of us inmates here at Calipatria ASU were finally allowed to be seen at an outside hospital for the first time in years. I was prescribed medication, but CDCR is denying all my medication I was prescribed for my feet by this outside doctor. Also I think my TB is acting up, but Calipatria is not hearing my pleas.
This is how this inhumane, torturous treatment in segregation makes me feel, so depressed, angry, sad, enraged. I’ve lost focus and changed from how I used to be. I don’t see people for how they are now or how I used to see them. My thinking is very different than before. I can’t be around too many people now. I have lack of sleep, and I have trouble concentrating.
All of my communication with my family has been cut off now because either my mail doesn’t get to me or I’m too afraid to worry my family of what’s really going on with me. I’ve been going through this for the last two years here at Calipatria State Prison ASU and I am up for transfer to Pelican Bay State Prison again to be placed in the SHU for years due to this bogus validation.
How long do I have to be tortured for? Will I be rehabilitated? Where are the programs available to rehabilitate me instead of torture me? I don’t know.
Only the governor and the state Assembly have the power to change it. But until then, all I know is that I am being mistreated in this crooked, broken system called California Department of Corrections and “Rehabilitation.”
Can somebody hear me out there?
Send our brother some love and light: Gualberto Lopez, T-81282, ASU-160, P.O. Box 5008, Calipatria, CA 92233.
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| The Office of Correctional Safety Special Service Unit’s special agents John Zinna and Jim Moreno approved the evidence submitted by IGI E. Duarte on Gualberto Lopez. The evidence used to label Gualberto Lopez as a prison gang associate – the “worst of the worst” – was an Aztec cultural drawing, two tattoos and a family member’s address in a telephone book. Gualberto Lopez was validated in May 2011. Since then, he has appealed this false validation with CDCR through the court and has been denied all appeals. That means Gualberto Lopez is labeled a “Threat to Safety and Security of the Institution” and is currently on a waitlist to be sent to the SHU at Pelican Bay for the next decade or more due to these four “source items.” |
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| The address in a telephone book of a member of Gualberto Lopez’ family who has no gang ties was used against him by IGI E. Duarte as a “source item” to validate him as a prison gang associate. When the Institutional Gang Investigators search an inmate’s cell, they take the inmate out of the cell and it is easy to plant evidence or write numbers in a telephone book, which is exactly what happened with Gualberto Lopez. |
Solitary Confinement Policies in California Revised Again, As Inmate Leaders Promote End to Racial Hostilities
From: SolitaryWatch:
September 24, 2012 By Sal Rodriguez
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has recently circulated a memo regarding the most recent revised edition of its Step Down Program (SDP) and Security Threat Group (STG) Program proposal. The revised policies come one year after a series of statewide hunger strikes by inmates in the Security Housing Units (SHU) in Pelican Bay and other California state prisons.
In California, one is placed in the SHU most commonly for being deemed a member of an STG–or, one of seven gangs known to be involved in criminal activity. These gangs are the Aryan Brotherhood, Black Guerilla Family, Nuestra Familia, the Mexican Mafia, Northern Structure, Nazi Low Riders and the Texas Syndicate. Currently, inmates deemed to be member of these gangs are sentenced to an indeterminate SHU term, which usually entails years of solitary confinement in either a SHU unit at one of three California prisons (Pelican Bay, Corcoran, and Tehachapi) or any of California’s Administrative Segregation Units (ASUs) until a SHU cell opens up.
The process of being labeled a member of the STGs, however, has been controversial. Inmates have reportedly been validated as members of STGs for, among other things, possessing calendars with certain artwork or making references to George Jackson (an African-American inmate who co-founded the Black Guerilla Family). The revised policies purportedly aim to strengthen the criterion for gang validation. However, critics such as attorney Charles Carbone counter that the proposed policies are more of the same. It has been noted that the revised policies include consideration of tattoos and artwork as contributing factors to a SHU term.
“Us in AdSeg arrived from county jails and are going through process to get transferred out of here to a SHU,” writes T., a SHU-bound inmate at North Kern State Prison, “my validation is just like everybody else falsely accused. Anytime you do certain things like speak Swahili or read and study our history as New Afrikkkan’s we get validated.” T. has been in the ASU for four years pending an opening of a SHU cell. “Our program is simple. Handcuffed everywhere, yard and shower three times a week, in waist and leg chains,” he writes.
Further, the revised policy plans to implement a Step Down Program in which inmates could hypothetically transition out of the SHU and back into general population in four years. This policy would be based on a series of steps with increasing numbers of privileges and ultimately involving greater social interaction. Currently, inmates sent to the SHU for STG membership must prove that they have been inactive in any gang for six years. Due to this standard, over 500 SHU inmates have been in solitary confinement for more than 10 years and nearly 80 for over 20 years.
This is the seventh time the policies have been revised since March. The memo provides highlights of CDCR’s policy proposals, including the following:
A new STG Behavior Disciplinary System has been developed that defines administrative and serious behavior or activities allowing offenders to be held individually accountable for STG-related behavior or activities. Offenders will be afforded due process using the existing disciplinary system.
The SDP will be an individual behavior-based program for STG affiliates that will provide housing, enhanced programs, interpersonal interactions, as well as corresponding privilege and personal property enhancements for participating STG affiliates. The SDP shall be completed in five steps; the first four steps will be accomplished in the SHU and the final step will generally be at a level IV 180 design facility. The SDP allows offenders engaged in STG behavior or activities to demonstrate their ability from this type of behavior, preparing them for return to nonsegregated housing.
Though the details of the revised policies have not been made available, there is some potential for reform. Among these are indications of a pilot program to be implemented “for up to two years” to “test, evaluate, and refine the program.”
Further the memo reads: “In the near future, case by case reviews will begin for the existing validated gang population housed in SHU facilities to determine their appropriate placement and/or retention within the SHU/SDP or release to general population.”
According to Marilyn McMahon from California Prison Focus, CDCR officials have stated that “in the next month or two several people were going to come down from Sacramento to review the 56 associates who have been in the SHU the longest for possible immediate release into the mainline.”
Michael Dorrough, an inmate at California State Prison, Corcoran, who has spent 24 years in the SHU after being validated as a member of the Black Guerilla Family in 1988, is skeptical of any talk of reforms:
It is virtually impossible to figure out or believe anything you might hear regarding the step down program. It’s supposed to be revised again. This will be the sixth revision. In all honesty I would not want to be included in it. Aside from those privileges that have been outlined in each of the draft proposals, you have no idea what the expectations are. And it is stated that there are expectations. There is a contract that you must sign stipulating that you agree with whatever the expectations are. No one knows what the contract looks like and that’s usually the best indication that something is wrong.I would be lying I said it is not tempting.It is.
Dorrough, who has been held in all three of California’s SHUs, writes of psychological struggles as a result of his prolonged isolation:
I know that, psychologically, damage has been done. I don’t just talk to myself, I curse myself out. Sometimes I’ll drop something, a piece of paper, a spoon, and I’ll get mad at whatever I’ve dropped. I’ll snatch it off the floor with the intention of harming it.
You can actually feel yourself disconnecting. And I ask myself from what? You really have been cut off from everything. This is it.
And here we are only allowed out to the yard cages once, maybe twice a week. We are confined to the cells 24 hours a day, five or six days a week. I have developed a condition in which I bite down on my back teeth constantly. It’s been happening for a couple of years. And the only thing I have been told is that it’s all in my mind.
“Isolation can really crush your spirit,” he writes.
Another Corcoran SHU inmate has also indicated a pessimistic view of CDCR’s policies, invoking deceased hunger striker Christian Gomez,who died while protesting the harsh conditions of Corcoran’s Administrative Segregation Unit,
“The reality is there is a significant number of us for whom death holds no real fear, in fact, in some ways—as an alternative to another few decades of this—it holds some appeal. If it becomes necessary to take up peaceful protest again—and it’s unfortunately looking that way—you may be writing a lot more Christian Gomez articles…Most here only want to, after so very long, hold their children, kiss their wives, speak to their families, and have access to some meaningful program that will give them some hope of parole, higher education, and marketable job skills. But all of this is indicative of a sick society, of values and mores that have never been seriously and confronted and corrected in the history of U.S. social, political, and economic development.”
Meanwhile, the validated leaders of various STG’s, including the Aryan Brotherhood and Black Guerilla Family, announced a call for an end to racial violence among California inmates. They have called for a cease of all hostilities in the prisons and jails starting October 10th. The group, referred to as the Pelican Bay Short Corridor Collective, were also the chief leaders of last years hunger strikes. They write: “The reality is that collectively, we are an empowered, mighty force that can positively change this entire corrupt system into a system that actually benefits prisoners and thereby the public as a whole.”
Thursday, September 20, 2012
13 inmates hurt, shots fired during 'New Folsom' prison riot
Prison does not rehabilitate, overcrowding does not create safe conditions, but we cannot keep on building prisons, we HAVE TO Educate and Create Futures and not rely on incarceration.
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From: NBC, Sept 20th 2012
By NBC News staff and wire reports
A prisoner was shot and wounded and 12 others were sent to the hospital with “stab and slash wounds and head trauma” after a riot involving 60 inmates broke out Wednesday at a prison in Folsom, California, officials said.
Officers at California State Prison-Sacramento – which houses mostly maximum-security inmates – fired six bullets from a rifle during their efforts to stop the fighting, according to a statement on the prison’s website.
California's state prisons have been plagued by hunger strikes, occasional violence and overcrowding and remain at more than 50 percent above capacity, despite a massive shifting of low-level offenders to county jails that began last year, Reuters reported.
Read the rest here: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/20/13981953-13-inmates-hurt-shots-fired-during-new-folsom-prison-riot?lite
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Press Release by CDCR:
CDCR Today
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2012
Incident at California State Prison-Sacramento Under Investigation
REPRESA – California State Prison-Sacramento (CSP-SAC) administrators are investigating the causes of a riot that occurred today at 11:17 a.m. on one of the prison’s maximum-security general population yards.
Sixty inmates were involved in the incident. Correctional peace officers used less-than-lethal force options including blast dispersion rounds to stop the riot. Officers also discharged six rounds from the Mini 14 rifle. One inmate suffered a gunshot wound and was taken to an area hospital for treatment.
Another 12 inmates were taken to area hospitals for treatment of injuries including stab and slash wounds and head trauma. Four of the 12 were treated and returned to the prison.
Several other inmates suffered minor injuries and were treated at the prison.
There are no reports of injuries to staff. Officers recovered four inmate-made weapons.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) sent a Deadly Force Investigation Team to conduct a criminal and an administrative investigation into the use of deadly force. A deadly force review board will conduct a full and complete review of the incident as well.
The Office of the Inspector General’s Bureau of Independent Review was also notified and will provide real-time oversight of CDCR’s investigation of its staff.
CSP-SAC is a multi-mission institution that houses 2,658 inmates. Opened in 1986, the institution primarily houses maximum-security inmates serving long sentences and those who have proved to be management problems at other institutions.
###
Contact: Sgt. L. Quinn, (916) 294-3012 or Terry Thornton, (916) 445-4950
-------------
From: NBC, Sept 20th 2012
By NBC News staff and wire reports
A prisoner was shot and wounded and 12 others were sent to the hospital with “stab and slash wounds and head trauma” after a riot involving 60 inmates broke out Wednesday at a prison in Folsom, California, officials said.
Officers at California State Prison-Sacramento – which houses mostly maximum-security inmates – fired six bullets from a rifle during their efforts to stop the fighting, according to a statement on the prison’s website.
California's state prisons have been plagued by hunger strikes, occasional violence and overcrowding and remain at more than 50 percent above capacity, despite a massive shifting of low-level offenders to county jails that began last year, Reuters reported.
Read the rest here: http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/20/13981953-13-inmates-hurt-shots-fired-during-new-folsom-prison-riot?lite
-----------
Press Release by CDCR:
CDCR Today
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2012
Incident at California State Prison-Sacramento Under Investigation
REPRESA – California State Prison-Sacramento (CSP-SAC) administrators are investigating the causes of a riot that occurred today at 11:17 a.m. on one of the prison’s maximum-security general population yards.
Sixty inmates were involved in the incident. Correctional peace officers used less-than-lethal force options including blast dispersion rounds to stop the riot. Officers also discharged six rounds from the Mini 14 rifle. One inmate suffered a gunshot wound and was taken to an area hospital for treatment.
Another 12 inmates were taken to area hospitals for treatment of injuries including stab and slash wounds and head trauma. Four of the 12 were treated and returned to the prison.
Several other inmates suffered minor injuries and were treated at the prison.
There are no reports of injuries to staff. Officers recovered four inmate-made weapons.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) sent a Deadly Force Investigation Team to conduct a criminal and an administrative investigation into the use of deadly force. A deadly force review board will conduct a full and complete review of the incident as well.
The Office of the Inspector General’s Bureau of Independent Review was also notified and will provide real-time oversight of CDCR’s investigation of its staff.
CSP-SAC is a multi-mission institution that houses 2,658 inmates. Opened in 1986, the institution primarily houses maximum-security inmates serving long sentences and those who have proved to be management problems at other institutions.
###
Contact: Sgt. L. Quinn, (916) 294-3012 or Terry Thornton, (916) 445-4950
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Short Corridor Collective Announces Agreement to End Hostilities
Short Corridor Collective Announces Agreement to End Hostilities
Posted on September 11, 2012 http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/short-corridor-collective-calls-for-statewide-end-to-hostilities/
See also: SF Bay View
Representatives of the CA Hunger Strike issued a statement calling for an end to all violence and hostility between different groups of prisoners throughout the state of CA from maximum security prisons to county jails. The statement asks prisoners to unite beginning October 10th, 2012.
In their statement sent to Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity, the representatives explain:
We can no longer allow CDCR to use us against each other for their benefit!! Because the reality is that collectively, we are an empowered, mighty force, that can positively change this entire corrupt system into a system that actually benefits prisoners, and thereby, the public as a whole… and we simply cannot allow CDCR/CCPOA – Prison Guard’s Union, IGI, ISU, OCS, and SSU, to continue to get away with their constant form of progressive oppression and warehousing of tens of thousands of prisoners, including the 14,000 (+) plus prisoners held in solitary confinement torture chambers [i.e. SHU/Ad-Seg Units] for decades!!!
Read the entire announcement from the Short Corridor Collective here.
CA PW posted it verbatim here under with screenshots of the PDF document.
Agreement to End Hostilities
August 12, 2012
To whom it may concern and all California Prisoners:
Greetings from the entire PBSP-SHU Short Corridor Hunger Strike Representatives. We are hereby presenting this mutual agreement on behalf of all racial groups here in the PBSP-SHU Corridor. Wherein, we have arrived at a mutual agreement concerning the following points:
1. If we really want to bring about substantive meaningful changes to the CDCR system in a manner beneficial to all solid individuals, who have never been broken by CDCR’s torture tactics intended to coerce one to become a state informant via debriefing, that now is the time to for us to collectively seize this moment in time, and put an end to more than 20-30 years of hostilities between our racial groups.
2. Therefore, beginning on October 10, 2012, all hostilities between our racial groups… in SHU, Ad-Seg, General Population, and County Jails, will officially cease. This means that from this date on, all racial group hostilities need to be at an end… and if personal issues arise between individuals, people need to do all they can to exhaust all diplomatic means to settle such disputes; do not allow personal, individual issues to escalate into racial group issues!!
3. We also want to warn those in the General Population that IGI will continue to plant undercover Sensitive Needs Yard (SNY) debriefer “inmates” amongst the solid GP prisoners with orders from IGI to be informers, snitches, rats, and obstructionists, in order to attempt to disrupt and undermine our collective groups’ mutual understanding on issues intended for our mutual causes [i.e., forcing CDCR to open up all GP main lines, and return to a rehabilitative-type system of meaningful programs/privileges, including lifer conjugal visits, etc. via peaceful protest activity/noncooperation e.g., hunger strike, no labor, etc. etc.]. People need to be aware and vigilant to such tactics, and refuse to allow such IGI inmate snitches to create chaos and reignite hostilities amongst our racial groups. We can no longer play into IGI, ISU, OCS, and SSU’s old manipulative divide and conquer tactics!!!
In conclusion, we must all hold strong to our mutual agreement from this point on and focus our time, attention, and energy on mutual causes beneficial to all of us [i.e., prisoners], and our best interests. We can no longer allow CDCR to use us against each other for their benefit!! Because the reality is that collectively, we are an empowered, mighty force, that can positively change this entire corrupt system into a system that actually benefits prisoners, and thereby, the public as a whole… and we simply cannot allow CDCR/CCPOA – Prison Guard’s Union, IGI, ISU, OCS, and SSU, to continue to get away with their constant form of progressive oppression and warehousing of tens of thousands of prisoners, including the 14,000 (+) plus prisoners held in solitary confinement torture chambers [i.e. SHU/Ad-Seg Units], for decades!!!
We send our love and respects to all those of like mind and heart… onward in struggle and solidarity…
Presented by the PBSP-SHU Short Corridor Collective:
Todd Ashker, C58191, D1-119
Arturo Castellanos, C17275, D1-121
Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa (Dewberry), C35671, D1-117
Antonio Guillen, P81948, D2-106
And the Representatives Body:
Danny Troxell, B76578, D1-120
George Franco, D46556, D4-217
Ronnie Yandell, V27927, D4-215
Paul Redd, B72683, D2-117
James Baridi Williamson, D-34288. D4-107
Alfred Sandoval, D61000, D4-214
Louis Powell, B59864, D1-104
Alex Yrigollen, H32421, D2-204
Gabriel Huerta, C80766, D3-222
Frank Clement, D07919, D3-116
Raymond Chavo Perez, K12922, D1-219
James Mario Perez, B48186, D3-124
[NOTE: All names and the statement must be verbatim when used & posted on any website or media, or non-media, publications]
Posted on September 11, 2012 http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/2012/09/11/short-corridor-collective-calls-for-statewide-end-to-hostilities/
See also: SF Bay View
Representatives of the CA Hunger Strike issued a statement calling for an end to all violence and hostility between different groups of prisoners throughout the state of CA from maximum security prisons to county jails. The statement asks prisoners to unite beginning October 10th, 2012.
In their statement sent to Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity, the representatives explain:
We can no longer allow CDCR to use us against each other for their benefit!! Because the reality is that collectively, we are an empowered, mighty force, that can positively change this entire corrupt system into a system that actually benefits prisoners, and thereby, the public as a whole… and we simply cannot allow CDCR/CCPOA – Prison Guard’s Union, IGI, ISU, OCS, and SSU, to continue to get away with their constant form of progressive oppression and warehousing of tens of thousands of prisoners, including the 14,000 (+) plus prisoners held in solitary confinement torture chambers [i.e. SHU/Ad-Seg Units] for decades!!!
Read the entire announcement from the Short Corridor Collective here.
CA PW posted it verbatim here under with screenshots of the PDF document.
Agreement to End Hostilities
August 12, 2012
To whom it may concern and all California Prisoners:
Greetings from the entire PBSP-SHU Short Corridor Hunger Strike Representatives. We are hereby presenting this mutual agreement on behalf of all racial groups here in the PBSP-SHU Corridor. Wherein, we have arrived at a mutual agreement concerning the following points:
1. If we really want to bring about substantive meaningful changes to the CDCR system in a manner beneficial to all solid individuals, who have never been broken by CDCR’s torture tactics intended to coerce one to become a state informant via debriefing, that now is the time to for us to collectively seize this moment in time, and put an end to more than 20-30 years of hostilities between our racial groups.
2. Therefore, beginning on October 10, 2012, all hostilities between our racial groups… in SHU, Ad-Seg, General Population, and County Jails, will officially cease. This means that from this date on, all racial group hostilities need to be at an end… and if personal issues arise between individuals, people need to do all they can to exhaust all diplomatic means to settle such disputes; do not allow personal, individual issues to escalate into racial group issues!!
3. We also want to warn those in the General Population that IGI will continue to plant undercover Sensitive Needs Yard (SNY) debriefer “inmates” amongst the solid GP prisoners with orders from IGI to be informers, snitches, rats, and obstructionists, in order to attempt to disrupt and undermine our collective groups’ mutual understanding on issues intended for our mutual causes [i.e., forcing CDCR to open up all GP main lines, and return to a rehabilitative-type system of meaningful programs/privileges, including lifer conjugal visits, etc. via peaceful protest activity/noncooperation e.g., hunger strike, no labor, etc. etc.]. People need to be aware and vigilant to such tactics, and refuse to allow such IGI inmate snitches to create chaos and reignite hostilities amongst our racial groups. We can no longer play into IGI, ISU, OCS, and SSU’s old manipulative divide and conquer tactics!!!
In conclusion, we must all hold strong to our mutual agreement from this point on and focus our time, attention, and energy on mutual causes beneficial to all of us [i.e., prisoners], and our best interests. We can no longer allow CDCR to use us against each other for their benefit!! Because the reality is that collectively, we are an empowered, mighty force, that can positively change this entire corrupt system into a system that actually benefits prisoners, and thereby, the public as a whole… and we simply cannot allow CDCR/CCPOA – Prison Guard’s Union, IGI, ISU, OCS, and SSU, to continue to get away with their constant form of progressive oppression and warehousing of tens of thousands of prisoners, including the 14,000 (+) plus prisoners held in solitary confinement torture chambers [i.e. SHU/Ad-Seg Units], for decades!!!
We send our love and respects to all those of like mind and heart… onward in struggle and solidarity…
Presented by the PBSP-SHU Short Corridor Collective:
Todd Ashker, C58191, D1-119
Arturo Castellanos, C17275, D1-121
Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa (Dewberry), C35671, D1-117
Antonio Guillen, P81948, D2-106
And the Representatives Body:
Danny Troxell, B76578, D1-120
George Franco, D46556, D4-217
Ronnie Yandell, V27927, D4-215
Paul Redd, B72683, D2-117
James Baridi Williamson, D-34288. D4-107
Alfred Sandoval, D61000, D4-214
Louis Powell, B59864, D1-104
Alex Yrigollen, H32421, D2-204
Gabriel Huerta, C80766, D3-222
Frank Clement, D07919, D3-116
Raymond Chavo Perez, K12922, D1-219
James Mario Perez, B48186, D3-124
[NOTE: All names and the statement must be verbatim when used & posted on any website or media, or non-media, publications]
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