Number 36  Winter 2011
Serving The Interests Of Prisoners And Their Loved Ones On The Outside For Twenty Years
THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF ISOLATION:
WHY SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IS PSYCHOLOGICALLY HARMFUL
Craig Haney is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
[Ed. Note: All footnotes were removed from this article as
they took up a page and a half of newsletter space.]
As everywhere else in society, social context matters a
great deal in prison. However, even the best correctional
environments are inherently problematic places; they
are extremely difficult for staff to operate humanely and
for prisoners to survive unscathed. They are also highly
improbable places—ones where large numbers of people
must be involuntarily confined under conditions of severe
restriction, deprivation, and dependency. In this brief ar-
ticle, I review the some of the psychological effects of liv-
ing in a particular kind of prison environment where the
inherent problems and improbabilities are made much
worse—solitary confinement.
The Effects of Solitary Confinement
T
he social extremes of confinement—intense over-
crowding and, at the other end of the spectrum, en-
forced isolation or solitary confinement—intensify
the challenges that are faced by both prisoners and guards
during their prison terms. Thus, the ecology of an over-
crowded prison creates heightened levels of psychological
stress by multiplying the sheer number of potentially prob-
lematic interactions that occur. Overcrowding also insures
that too many prisoners will be vying for too few already
scarce resources. As an overcrowded prison “runs out” of
space, programming, mental health services and the like,
the number and magnitude of unmet prisoner needs begin to
multiply. Prison staff members are often pressed to manage
the inevitable chaos and conflicts in increasingly repressive
ways.
Solitary confinement presents a different set of psycholog-
ical challenges. It subjects prisoners to a deeply monotonous
existence, and to unparalleled levels of social and material
deprivation. There is also typically a pejorative or stigmatiz-
ing component to the experience; prisoners are usually sent
to solitary confinement because they are thought to be “bad,”
even in comparison to other prisoners (in some jurisdictions
they are literally referred to as “the worst of the worst”).
Correctional officers who must implement the extra-punitive
measures that are used to maintain these especially harsh re-
gimes risk having their behavior descend into outright cru-
elty.
Prison officials and administrators are not oblivious to
these commonsense psychological notions about the ex-
tremes of confinement. Thus, they try to ameliorate over-
crowding when they can and they put prisoners in isolation
when they want to punish them. However, overcrowding is
regarded as an unwanted anomaly— something that prison
systems never seek out but nonetheless are forced to reluc-
tantly accommodate to. Solitary confinement, on the other
hand, is a practice that prison systems can choose to employ
(or not).
Indeed, despite its problematic history in corrections, there
is some evidence that certain prison systems are once again
resorting to the use of long term solitary confinement. The
trend is a regrettable one. We have known for well over a
century that placing people in conditions of severe isolation
for long periods of time places them at dire risk of grave
psychological harm. For example, in 1890 the United States
Supreme Court acknowledged that “it is within the memory
of many persons interested in prison discipline that some
30 or 40 years ago the whole subject attracted the general
public attention, and its main feature of solitary confinement
was found to be too severe.” The Court also noted that “in
Great Britain, as in other countries, public sentiment revolt-
ed against this severity and… the additional punishment of
solitary confinement was repealed.” No new insights about
human nature have surfaced in the intervening years to raise
doubts about the wisdom of these early precedents.
In fact, solitary confinement came to be seen as so painful
and destabilizing an experience that it emerged as a com-
mon feature in torture and so-called “brainwashing” proto-
cols. In addition, domestic and international human rights
organizations have concluded that solitary confinement
poses such a serious risk of psychological harm that they
roundly condemned its use and called for the severe restric-
tion or outright abolition of the practice. Moreover, proof of
the adverse psychiatric consequences of long term solitary
confinement led a number of courts in the United States to
formally prohibit the placement of mentally ill prisoners in-
side so-called ‘supermax”-type housing units. Nonetheless,
the myth continues to be perpetuated in some quarters that
the psychological effects of enforced isolation have not been
carefully enough studied and, as a result, too little is known
about its harmful consequences to require its strict regulation
or the outright elimination of its most extreme forms.
I believe this view is misguided. In the admitted absence
of a single perfect study of the phenomenon, a substantial
body of published literature clearly documents the distinc-
tive patterns of negative psychological effects that can and
do occur when persons are placed in long term solitary con-
finement. This work has been reviewed in detail elsewhere
and I will not belabor it here but will say that these broad pat-
terns have been consistently identified in personal accounts,
descriptive studies, and systematic research on solitary and
punitive segregation. The studies have now spanned a period
of over four decades, and were conducted in locations across
several continents by researchers with different profes-
sional expertise, ranging from psychiatrists to sociologists
and architects.
Of course, just as solitary confinement regimes vary in se-
verity, and people differ in their capacity to tolerate noxious
stimuli, the nature and magnitude of the adverse effects of
prolonged isolation are not entirely uniform. Yet, even re-
searchers who seem to be at pains to minimize the negative
consequences of solitary confinement are hard pressed to ig-
nore them (especially if they have interviewed a significant
number of prisoners who have undergone the experience).
For example, Canadian researcher Peter Suedfeld has some-
times been cited for the proposition that solitary confinement
is not particularly problematic or harmful. Indeed, he has ac-
knowledged beginning his research on solitary confinement
already “convinced” that reduced environmental stimulation
and social isolation were “extremely beneficial” for many
of the people exposed to it, and publicly recommended its
use in curing a remarkably wide range of maladies, includ-
ing addictive behaviors, snake phobias, and the negative af-
ter effects of electroshock therapy. But a close reading of
Suedfeld’s best known empirical piece on solitary confine-
ment in prison complicates things considerably. It is true that
Suedfeld concluded that the experience of isolation was not
“overwhelmingly” damaging and did not result in “deterio-
ration of personality or intellect” in the prisoners that he and
his colleagues assessed. Given the fact that only 15 of the 65
of his participants had ever served more than 90 days in soli-
tary, the negative conclusions he reached about these drastic
outcomes—the absence of “overwhelming” damage or “de-
terioration” of prisoners” “personality or intellect”—were
certainly not surprising.
However, a careful look at the actual results of Suedfeld’s
study—not just his vaguely worded conclusions—reveals
that, despite the limitations in duration and other caveats
about the circumstances of the prisoners” confinement, he
and his colleagues found and reported that prisoners who
had spent more time in solitary confinement were “inhibited,
anxious, cautious, dissatisfied, dull, submissive to authority,
and lacking in self-insight.” In addition, they reported that
“inmates who had spent longer periods of time in segrega-
tion scored higher on depression… and hostility,” and there
was a ‘significant correlation between length of the current
sentence and hostility.” At the one institution among the sev-
eral he studied that appeared to be most similar to an ac-
tual long term segregation unit, Suedfeld et al. reported that
“longer time in SC was associated with suspicion, distrust,
and forceful and self-seeking behavior” and also that there
was “a significant relationship” between “longer time in SC
[and] higher levels of hostility.” Despite the relatively mod-
est amounts of solitary confinement the participants in Sued-
feld’s study had experienced, the negative effects he found
were similar in a number of respects to those reported by
others.
What of the possibility that a disproportionate number of
the prisoners who are placed in solitary confinement suffer
from psychiatric disorders that account for the high levels
of psychological symptoms and distress that are manifested
there? There are several factors that mitigate against this as
a likely explanation for many if not most of the negative ef-
fects that have been identified in the literature. The first is
that the prisoners themselves attribute their acute suffering
to the painful conditions of solitary confinement. Many of
them report experiencing their psychiatric symptoms and
psychological distress only after coming into solitary con-
finement. In addition, most prison systems have screening
procedures that are supposed to prevent at least the most se-
riously mentally prisoners from going into solitary confine-
ment. No matter how imperfect these procedures and how
imperfectly they are implemented—and in some systems
they are extremely so—it is reasonable to assume that the
most obviously or flagrantly mentally ill prisoners have been
culled from the population of persons in solitary confinement
and spared this experience.
At the same time, it is certainly true that—despite these
screening procedures—we know there are elevated percent-
ages of mentally ill prisoners found in solitary confinement.
Several studies have estimated that about a third of prison-
ers in solitary confinement are mentally ill. In my own ex-
perience, in some poorly run systems or special units, the
number may even be higher. In addition, as David Lovell
points out, “mental health issues, variously conceived” are
much broader than the category of those diagnosed or di-
agnosable with ‘serious mental illness.” Thus, he and his
colleagues found that some 45 per cent of supermax prison-
ers suffered from overall “psychosocial impairments”— the
cumulative percentage of prisoners suffering serious mental
illness (based on prison documentation), marked or severe
psychiatric symptoms (based on the administration of a brief
psychiatric rating scale), psychotic or self-injurious episodes
(derived from prison files), or brain damage (again, as indi-
cated in prison medical charts).
Yet even if we assume that most or all of the psychoso-
cial impairment Lovell et al. uncovered was pre-existing (an
assumption that I think is highly unlikely, especially with
respect to the subset of prisoners identified through the psy-
chiatric rating scale), it does not entirely account for the very
high levels of psychological distress and other symptoms
documented in at least some of these units. For example,
my own direct assessments of prisoners in harsh solitary
confinement facilities located in several jurisdictions in the
United States indicated that two-thirds or more of them were
suffering from a variety of symptoms of psychological and
emotional trauma, as well as some of the psychopathological
effects of isolation. In some cases these symptoms of trauma
and distress appeared to have been related to more chronic
forms of mental illness that the prisoners brought into the
solitary confinement unit (which, in many instances, also
appeared to have been exacerbated by the harsh conditions
of their solitary confinement). However, in others that was
clearly not the case, and the negative psychological effects
and impairments appeared to have originated in solitary con-
finement.
Danish researchers reached similar conclusions in their
study of a group of prisoners in solitary confinement. In the
first study they reported that the probability of being admit-
ted to the prison hospital for a psychiatric reason was about
20 times as high for prisoners who remained in solitary con-
finement for longer than 4 weeks than it was for those housed
in the mainline prison population. The researchers attributed
causal responsibility to the conditions of confinement them-
selves, concluding that prisoners placed in solitary confine-
ment “are forced into an environment that increases their
risk of hospitalization to the prison hospital for psychiatric
Continued on page 14
LETTERS
Dear CPF:
I completely find fault with Ed Mead’s statement that be-
ing white automatically entails one being a racist and fur-
thermore that there are no black racists—that the [re]actions
[of Blacks] are only the response to white racism. What a
crackpot point of view.
There are many whites that are not racists. Ed’s response
is a reflection of his white guilt over the actions his ancestors
committed, as a result, he hates his race and wants to see it
dragged into the mud to add justification to how he feels.
As for no such thing as black racism, tell that to the parents
of Kevin Shifflet! Little Kevin was an eight year old boy out
of Alexandria, VA on April 17, 2001. While he was playing
in his front yard with his siblings, a black man cut the second
grader’s throat, spewing racial slurs while killing the boy.
But according to Ed, [this act] would only be considered rac-
ist if the victim was black and the attacker white, regardless
that the incident was racially motivated.
Racism belongs on both sides of the spectrum, and it’s irre-
sponsible to allow one to believe that they’re not responsible
for their actions just because they happen to be black—it is
not their fault, they’re only a product of white racism, right?
We are all responsible for our own actions. A person
chooses to be a racist or not. It is their choice. Granted, all of
nature instinctively migrates to be with their own kind, this is
nature’s law, only we have the choice if we want to continue
down that path. I chose to for I see it as a nobel [sic] path.
You do not. Each person chooses for themselves, we’re each
responsible for our own actions.
Now that we disagree you’ll go back to slandering my be-
liefs, then whine about how we can’t come together to fight
prisoner oppression. I’m not giving up my beliefs. I feel that
I am right, so tell me how do you expect us to come together
for the common cause of this oppression while you continue
to debase and belittle the other side? You can’t have it both
ways and we’re not going away!
Balderskin
[Ed. Note: Yes, there probably are some whites who are
not infected with any degree racism. But my point was that
we here in America were all raised in a racist and sexist cul-
ture, and because of this we all carry at least traces, if not
deep scars, of the diseases of that culture—such as racism,
sexism, homophobia, etc. This observation does not mean I
suffer from white guilt or hate my race, as I view the world
in class terms, not racial ones. I see a class interests in the
genocide of the native population, slavery, the armed theft of
northern Mexico, etc., not racial ones.
As for the tragic story of Kevin Shifflet (assuming it’s true
and that the boy was not yelling racial slurs at the killer), do
you honestly believe that the murder of this boy would have
occurred in the absence of the existence of white racism? My
point was that what is perceived as black racism is generally
a response to white racism. To the extent I have called that a
healthy response I was wrong.
While it is probably true, as you say, that “all of nature
instinctively migrates to be with their own kind,” horses
with other horses, dogs with dogs, cats with cats, etc., it does
not follow that horses, dogs, cats, and so on will only hang
out with animals of the same color. In a horse’s eye, a black
horse is the same as a white horse. There is no such color-
based discrimination in nature because it is an artificial dis-
tinction, as silly as discriminating on the basis of eye color or
foot size. Yet that is your firmly held belief, that black horses
are significantly different than white ones, a distinction na-
ture does not make. They are all horses, and we are all human
beings. But I am not trying to change what you believe, as to
do so would be a waste your time and mine.
Yet I am trying to reach prisoners less entrenched with the
pernicious ideology of racism. Over the last thirty plus years
the prison gang shot callers, black, white, and in between,
have led prisoners to their knees. They’ve destroyed what
generations of prisoners before them fought and often died
for, and replaced it with artificial divisions and internecine
warfare—with drugs and thugs, and oh yes, the SNY yards.
And now you ask me how we can come together against our
common oppression if I disagree with what these terrible
wrongs have done to the prisoner’s movement?
A part of me believes that California prison history has
passed beyond the old shot callers, and that if there is to be
any rebirth of resistance to oppression on the inside it will
come by others who see the bankruptcy of the path of artifi-
cial divisions and narrow self-interest. On the other hand, a
part of me feels it may be possible for the old guard to enter
into common cause with other races and ideologies for the
greater good. But to do so they would have to follow the
words of Malcolm X, “What you and I need to do is learn
to forget our differences...We have a common oppressor, a
common exploiter, and a common discriminator.... once we
all realize that we have a common enemy, then we unite on
the basis of what we have in common.”
We’ll just have to wait and see which sectors of the popu-
lation show a willingness to adopt Malcolm’s advice. In the
2 PRISON FOCUS
mean time I’ll continue to “whine” about these artificial divi-
sions on the inside.]
Dear CPF:
I recently received a letter from CPF thanking me for
sending a few stamps. The work you do is a lot more valu-
able than all the stamps that I could send. It is I who needs to
be thanking you. The work you do means a lot to prisoners
like myself and others I share your publication with.
The last prisoner I introduced to CPF told me that “it feels
good to know that there’s people out there who really care.”
It’s extremely difficult sometimes to get meaningful dia-
logue going with prisoners of another race here on the main-
line. Your publication helps a lot in overcoming the initial
obstacles. I’m a Mexican prisoner so when I show the cover
of CPF to a Black prisoner and ask if he reads it, the awk-
wardness of discussing struggles that transcend the divisions
we’re so used to living with, begins to disappear.
CPF is a great educational tool, so thank you for all your
dedication and commitment. The work you do is invaluable
and this prisoner, for one, is more grateful than you could
ever imagine. Keep up the great work!
Cacalott Cordova, Corcoran
Dear CPF:
Greetings to all of you there. I’m writing to express “grati-
tude” on the part of us here who read your paper and on a
periodic basis even scratch out a few lines of our own to
contribute. Having said that, myself and another camarada
here received your most recent issue. We especially “like”
the “new format.” And although it’s not the form, but the
essential content that determines the quality of your publica-
tion, I do have to sadly admit that in a superficial society,
and this also encompasses the prison population, most are
concerned and obsessed with “appearances.” So despite this
empirical outlook, your paper’s “new format” is likely to
appeal to more people, which should result in more people
gaining knowledge and raising their political consciousness.
But only time will tell if this is an accurate thought?? You
might equate this along the lines of leading a camel to water,
but not being able to make him/her drink…
Anyhow, again, “thank you.”
C.L., Pelican Bay
Dear CPF,
Greetings to all of you unsung heroes and tireless volun-
teers. The people here extend their fullest solidarity and sa-
lutes from the concrete coliseum of cages that is the Corco-
ran SHU. Your ‘issue 35’ of the CPF newsletter landed with
steel-toed spiked shoes in all the places intended and from
a conscious mind to the roots and truths of CPF… Thank
you! The information was heated and will hopefully wake a
prison population of domesticated circus lions up and shock
them into remembering “something,” “anything,” about the
struggle from which they stem. “Let us pray…”
In an effort at time-saving and expedience I won’t unload
an op-ed piece on you. This time. :-) I am simply requesting a
copy of your Habeas Manual and 1983 Manual. Enclosed is
a full book of stamps. Keep the extra to help with any mail-
ing you may use them for. I’ll send you stamps and/or money
whenever I am able. It’s sad that your work, our work, goes
underfunded! Your issue mentioned C.U.R.B. being in your
close proximity…who runs that? And do you know their cur-
rent active mandate? Any info would be appreciated.
Alright, I know you good folks are busy and are inundated
so I’ll end here. Once again, we appreciate you to the utmost
and give you all of our strength and support. Stay strong.
Never lose faith and keep the fire of progress and people.
Respectfully yours in freedom and struggle,
Kenneth Oliver, Corcoran
Important Notice
Any article (including the present notice) that
includes the name of George Jackson can and will be
used by CDCR (hereinafter referred to as CDC) as one of
the three points used to validate prisoners as BGF gang
members. See our letter to the CDC complaining about
this and their response on page 18. The cops claim that
if an issue of Prison Focus contains any George Jackson
material, that part of the newsletter kept by the prisoner
may be used for validation purposes. In other words,
prisoners who want to make sure that our newsletter
does not constitute evidence to validate them as a gang
member are being instructed by CDC to throw that part of
the newsletter away. We are leaving it up to the prisoners
to decide what to do, but CPF wants to make everyone
aware of what the CDC is up to.
In this issue the name of George Jackson was
mentioned in the exchange of correspondence between
CPF and CDC on page 18, in two of the book reports on
page 22, and in one of the letters on page 2, and in the
Marilyn Buck piece on page 10.
The outlawing of the use of this name is
reminiscent of the Israeli government, who passed a
law making it a crime for Palestinians to fly the Palestine
flag or even to wear or show the colors of their flag. That
outrageous law was violated so often and in so many ways
that the Israeli government had to stop enforcing it.
LETTERS
Dear CPF:
I greatly appreciate your concerns as well the
generosity in forwarding your newsletters, but
with all due respect please do not send me any
more of them. Just last night I received your #36
Summer 2010 issue, and as soon as I opened its
pages, I was hit dead small in the face with the
same exact literature that was used to validate me
with. (The interview with George Jackson, May
16 and June 29, 1971) My advice to you guys is
for you to stop putting things of the such in your
newsletter. I read where Voodoo said that receiving your
newsletter got him validated. I understand that you’re only
trying to help people, but you need to understand yourself
that including this type of material in your papers does not
help to bring injustice to an end, it’s only helping to get in-
dividuals caught up. Though you’ve placed your own piece
inside it stating your noninvolvement to promote and/or
support any types of gang activities, to CSP, IGI, SSU, and
OCS it means nothing to them. You, as well everyone else
knows why they’re validating practically the entire Califor-
nia prison population. It’s to gain full control and to break
the mind, strength, and the spirit of the strong. I won’t sit
here and mislead you or other readers. I’ve been broken. But
I’ve been broken in a different kind of way. You see, I’ve
been in prison 16 years now and from day one up till April
2010, my name and status as a solid individual have never
been questioned, compromised or challenged, for I carried
myself accordingly throughout my time. As of now I’ve been
in Calipatria’s ASU for over two years due to being vali-
dated, and awaiting my transfer up to Pelican Bay SHU. I’m
an inmate with a release date for sometime this year (2010).
That release date was stripped and taken from me because a
new law took effect on Jan. 25, 2010, stating that all Califor-
nia inmates validated with a release are to be placed from D1
status to D2 status (which is a non-credit-earning status). I
came in as a juvenile sentence under the half-time act, all in
all I have 10 years left on my max, so by my being validated
and because of the new law taking effect, I was placed in a
position to where I was going to have to do 4-10 more years
extra in prison. Taking this fact into consideration, as well
the fact that I have a wife and daughter who need me. Who’s
been there for me and who would have to do that extra time
with me. I weighed my options and chose to sacrifice for
my family. I choose them over doing that extra time and in
a dungeon at that. Which is to say that I dropped out of the
gang. I am no longer affiliated.
I have been broken y’all, and I’m not proud of it. I’m sorry
to those I’ve let down, but I don’t regret my actions, for I am
finally on my way home to my family. To my sickly grand-
mother who’s holding on so she can see me at least one more
time. So I would say that I am now considered a p.c. yet I
will tell you that I’ve never ran from anyone or anything in
prison and I’m not doing so now. I don’t ask for protective
custody. Yet we all know that in the eyes of the administra-
tion, to show your non-activeness and non-participation in
gang activity or any type of activity that they oppose, means
you must embarrass, humiliate, and disgrace yourself, and
for those I know in my heart and who have shown with ac-
tion as well patience and endurance that they love me and
is there for me, I openly accept my humiliation and embar-
rassment for them. I don’t dislike those who hate me over
the situation for I vow to redeem myself through getting out
and being a righteous husband and father to my wife and
daughter as well being a productive individual to the com-
munity in need.
D.C.
[Ed. Note: If we stop printing material by or about George
Jackson the terrorists win (that’s a joke, sort of). You admit
to letting people down, to being embarrassed, humiliated,
and disgraced by your captors. Debriefing is a nice sounding
word that means ratting on your former comrades. I support
those who choose to drop out of gangs, but to do so at the ex-
pense of others is naked self-interest in the worst sense. Drop
out if you wish, but don’t involve the cops in the process.]
Dear CPF:
California prisoners could learn about true activism and
struggle from homosexuals. You see Prop. 8 in this state con-
tinues to struggle for their human rights this is true activism.
These homo’s got more nuts and balls then majority of Calif.
prisoners, that’s a dame shame “but it is real talk: as you
already no the pigs,” Boogey Man took everything away on
these so call level 4 yards. These so call G.P. yards is respon-
sible for creating all these SNY yards. Now days you going
to be validated or go SNY Mothyfuckers in this penal system
do not no what active is all about. We’ll learn from Proposi-
tion 8, learn from homo’s about true activism and grow some
nuts, stop bitching and be men. I do not fault the pigs they
did what they train to do, divide/conquer. Pigs use specific
groups against the blacks for over 30 years that brought this
penal system to its knees, plus the gangs, you no who you
Continued on page 28
 CONTENTS
IN THIS ISSUE
The Social Psychology of Isolation .............................................................................................................1

Portland Bomb Plot .....................................................................................................................................4

Prison Focus is a publication of California Prison
Focus, a nonprofit organization that works with and
on behalf of prisoners in California’s control units
and other institutions.
Permission is granted to reprint original articles
from Prison Focus as long as credit is noted to Pris-
on Focus and California Prison Focus. Also, please
send us a copy of the publication in which the article
appears.
Ex-Cons Spearhead New Civil Rights Movement.......................................................................................4
Supreme Court: Guards Duty to Protect Prisoners from Rape ...................................................................4
HIV: A Life Living Among Us .......................................................................................................................5
Are We A Nation of Cowards.......................................................................................................................6
La Lucha - Pelican Bay ...............................................................................................................................6
A Flawed System: U.S. Highest Incarceration Rate....................................................................................7

How do Prisons Treat Pregnant Prisoners? ................................................................................................7

Prison Focus welcomes articles, stories, opinion
columns, news reports, poetry, photos, cartoons and Israeli’s Electrocute Child Prisoners to Get Confessions ............................................................................7
other artwork. Send contributions to Editors, Prison
Focus, 1904 Franklin Street, Suite 507, Oakland, CA Prison Rape: Eric Holders Unfinished Business .........................................................................................8
94612. Web: http://www.prisons.org. Email CPF at
contact@prisons.org. U.S. Death Squads Challenged ..................................................................................................................8

A Welcome Victory for Youngstown ............................................................................................................9

Subscribe to Prison Focus for $20 and receive four
issues ($6 for prisoners and free to California SHU IL Attorney General Sues Ex-Cons for Cost of Imprisonment ....................................................................9
prisoners). Back issues are $2 each (if available).
Stamps accepted for payment. Prisoners, Social Control, and Political Prisoners .....................................................................................10

© 2011 California Prison Focus Marylin Buck Has Died ..............................................................................................................................10

I Am An Outlaw Journalist ......................................................................................................................... 11

EDITOR
Ed Mead Prison Industries Feel Economic Pinch .................................................................................................... 11

Prison Win Landmark Case Against CDCR .............................................................................................. 11

ARTWORK
Sigue La Lucha .........................................................................................................................................12
Michael David Russell, a prisoner in the Pelican Bay
SHU, did the outstanding artwork “Caution” on page Study: One in 28 Kids Has A Parent in Prison .......................................................................................... 11
30. Read more about the art created by prisoners in
Ed’s Comments on page 24. Bradley Manning and Solitary Confinement..............................................................................................13

The rest of the artwork in this issue was created by Waiting to Die ............................................................................................................................................15
prisoners and is attributed where possible. If you see
Georgia Prison Strike Update ...................................................................................................................16
your artwork in Prison Focus without attribution let
us know and we’ll make a correction.
Georgia Strike Sets Agenda for Future .....................................................................................................16
SPECIAL THANKS Medical Neglect Stalks Georia Prisons .....................................................................................................17
A special shout out to our poets and letter writers in
Prison Focus and Gang Validation ............................................................................................................18
this issue. But the biggest and greatest thanks go to
the outstanding CPF volunteers and supporters who Cruel But Not Unusual ..............................................................................................................................20
raise the money and do the hard physical labor nec-
essary to produce and mail out this newspaper so it Iraq Operating Secret Prison ....................................................................................................................27
can be in your hands right now.
Money For Prisons, Not For Social Services ............................................................................................30
CONTRIBUTORS The American Nightmare ..........................................................................................................................30

Ron Ahnen Marilyn McMahon

Freedom Archives Charles Davis
DEPARTMENTS
Mumia Abu-Jamal Susie Day Pelican Bay Report ...................................................................................................................................19
C. Landrum Kit Aastrup
Craig Haney Prashant Rao Recent History ..........................................................................................................................................26
Paul Craig Roberts Haider Rizvi
Wendy Jason Hans Vogel Corcoran Report .......................................................................................................................................31
Just Detention Int. Jean Casella
Lonnie Williams James Ridgeway REGULAR FEATURES
Donnie Phillips Freedom Archives
Daniel “Loonie” Treglia Lovisa Stannow Letters .........................................................................................................................................................2
Kendall Taggart David Kaiser
Quote Box .................................................................................................................................................17
Denis O’Hearn Bob Susnjara
Marilyn Buck Kenneth G. Keel Message From The President ...................................................................................................................18
R.S. Morales Cy Ryan
David Slavin Daniel Pencer Book Reviews ...........................................................................................................................................22
Tom Bigwarrior Bouthaina Shaaban
Bruce A. Dixon Phillip Bannowsky Poetry ........................................................................................................................................................23

Ed’s Comments .........................................................................................................................................24

A NATION OF LAWS OR A NATION OF MEN? BY ED MEAD

I
n December 2003, CIA agents boarded a bus in Mace-
donia and snatched a German citizen. For the next five
months, that person was a ghost. Only a select group of
CIA officers knew he had been taken to a secret prison for in-
terrogation in Afghanistan. Turns out he was the wrong guy.
When a suspected terrorist froze to death in a CIA prison
in Afghanistan in 2002, the CIA inspector general faulted the
CIA spies running the prison.
In another case involving detainee mistreatment, a CIA
interrogator put an unloaded gun and a drill to the head of a
suspected terrorist at a secret prison in Poland. The inspec-
tor general labeled this a “mock execution”—something the
U.S. is forbidden by law to do.
The above facts were all taken from the February 9 edition
of the Washington Post, which, over the objections of the
CIA, printed the names of all the agents involved in these
incidents. The newspaper expressed concern that the CIA of-
ficials in each of these cases were never disciplined, indeed,
they were all promoted.
It is not often that news of this nature reaches the bour-
geois press, and when it does they report only the tip of the
iceberg, like in Abu Ghraib, where a couple of “bad apples”
were tossed under the bus so the whole mess could be swept
under the rug. Four years ago the world press was report-
ing dozens of killings of prisoners by U.S. forces in Afghan
prisons, and the military even said it would conduct murder
investigations (if it the military ever did the results remain a
mystery).
Waterboarding is torture, not “an enhanced interrogation
technique.” If government officials are kidnapping, killing,
and torturing people in our name, shouldn’t the American
people have a right to know about it? Torture is not a state se-
cret, it’s a crime. So is murder. Shouldn’t the criminals who
do such things be held accountable—rather than promoted to
higher positions of authority?
Who’s a terrorist? One day Nelson Mandela was a terror-
ist, the next day he was the president of South Africa. Is the
man trying to drive the foreign invaders from his homeland
a terrorist or a freedom fighter? The U.N. Charter and inter-
national law says he has an inalienable right to resist such
occupation “by any means necessary.”
If the U.S. is a nation of laws rather than men, as it claims,
then those who violate the law should be held just as ac-
countable to that law as the millions of prisoners slammed
away inside of the nation’s antiquated prison system. ♦

NUMBER 36 3
THE PORTLAND “BOMB” PLOT: Fabricating Terror
By Paul Craig Roberts
W
hy does the FBI orchestrate fake terror plots? The
latest one snared Osman Mohamud, a Somali-
American teenager in Portland, Oregon. The As-
sociated Press report by William Mall and Nedra Pickler
(11-27-10) is headlined in Yahoo News: “Somali-born teen
plotted car-bombing in Oregon.”
This is a misleading headline as the report makes it clear
that it was a plot orchestrated by federal agents. Two sen-
tences into the news report we have this: “The bomb was an
elaborate fake supplied by the [FBI] agents and the public
was never in danger, authorities said.” The teenager was sup-
plied with a fake bomb and a fake detonator.
Three sentences later the reporters contradict the quoted
authorities with a quote from Arthur Balizan, special agent
in charge of the FBI in Oregon: “The threat was very real.”
The reporters then contradict Balizan: “White House
spokesman Nick Shapiro said Saturday that president Barack
Obama was aware of the FBI operation before Friday’s ar-
rest. Shapiro said Obama was assured that the FBI was in
full control of the operation and that the public was not in
danger.”
Then Shapiro contradicts himself by declaring: “The
events of the past 24 hours underscore the necessity of re-
maining vigilant against terrorism here and abroad.”
The story arrives at its Kafka-esque highpoint when Pres-
ident Obama thanks the FBI for its diligence in saving us
from the fake plot the FBI had fabricated.
After vacillating between whether they are reporting a real
plot or a orchestrated one, the reporters finally come down
on the side of orchestration. Documents released by US At-
torney Dwight Holton “show the sting operation began in
June.” Obviously, the targeted Portland teenager was not hot
to trot. The FBI had to work on him for six months. The
reporters compare “the Portland sting” to the recent arrest in
Virginia of Faroque Ahmed who was ensnared in a “bomb-
ing plot that was a ruse conducted over the past six months
by federal officials.”
Think about this. The FBI did a year’s work in order to
convince two people to participate in fake plots.
If you are not too bright and some tough looking guys ac-
cost you and tell you that they are Al Qaeda and expect your
help in a terrorist operation, you might be afraid to say no,
or you might be thrilled to be part of a blowback against an
American population that is indifferent to their government’s
slaughter of people of your ethnicity in your country of ori-
gin. Whichever way it falls, it is unlikely the ensnared person
would ever have done anything beyond talk had the FBI not
organized them into action. In other cases the FBI entices
people with money to participate in its fake plots.
Since 9/11, the only domestic “terrorist plot” that I recall
that was not obviously organized by the FBI is the “Times
Square plot” to which Faisal Shahzad pleaded guilty to try-
ing to set off a car bomb in Manhattan. This plot, too, is
suspicious. One would think that a real terrorist would have
a real bomb, not a smoke bomb.
In the May 19, 2009, online site, sott.net (reprinted Nov.
27, 2010), Joe Quinn collects some of the fake plots, some
of which were validated by torture confessions and others by
ignorant and fearful juries. The US government comes up
with a plot, an accused, and tortures him until he confesses,
or the government fabricates a case and takes it to jurors who
know that they cannot face their neighbors if they let off a
media-declared “terrorist.”
Perhaps the most obvious of these cases is “the Miami
seven,” a hapless group of Christian-Zionist-Muslims that
called themselves the “Sea of David” and were quietly living
in a Florida warehouse awaiting biblical end times. Along
came the FBI posing as Al Qaeda and offered them $50,000
and an Al Qaeda swearing-in ceremony.
The FBI told them that they needed to blow up the Sears
Tower in Chicago and various government buildings. An
honest reporter at Knight Ridder revealed: “The Justice
(sic) Department unveiled the arrests with an orchestrated
series of news conferences in two cities, but the severity of
the charges compared with the seemingly amateurish nature
of the group raised concerns among civil libertarians,” who
noted that the group had “no weapons, no explosives.”
The Justice (sic) Department and tamed media made a
big show out of the “militaristic boots” worn by the hapless
“plotters,” but the FBI had bought the boots for them.
The biggest piece of evidence against the hapless group
was that they had taken photos of “targets” in Florida, but the
US government had equipped them with cameras.
The US government even rented cars for its dupes to drive
to take the pictures.
It turns out that the group only wanted the $50,000, but an
American jury convicted them anyhow.
When the US government has to go to such lengths to cre-
ate “terrorists” out of hapless people, an undeclared agenda
is being served. What could this agenda be?
The answer is many agendas. One agenda is to justify wars
of aggression that are war crimes under the Nuremberg stan-
dard created by the US government itself. One way to avoid
4 PRISON FOCUS
war crimes charges is to create acts of terrorism that justify
the naked aggressions against “terrorist countries.”
Another agenda is to create a police state. A police state
can control people who object to their impoverishment for
the benefit of the super-rich much more easily than can a
democracy endowed with constitutional civil liberties.
Another agenda is to get rich. Terror plots, whether real or
orchestrated, have created a market for security. Dual Israeli
citizen Michael Chertoff, former head of US Homeland Se-
curity, is the lobbyist who represents Rapiscan, the company
that manufactures the full body porno-scanners that, follow-
ing the “underwear bomber” event, are now filling up US air-
ports. Homeland Security has announced that they are going
to purchase the porno-scanners for trains, buses, subways,
court houses, and sports events. How can shopping malls
and roads escape? Recently on Interstate 20 west of Atlanta,
trucks had to drive through a similar device. Everyone has
forgotten that the underwear bomber lacked required docu-
ments and was escorted aboard the airliner by an official.
The “war on terror” provides an opportunity for a few
well-connected people to become very rich. If they leave
Americans with a third world police state, they will be living
it up in Gstaad.
This despite the fact that everyone on the planet knows
that it is not lactating mothers, children, elderly people in
walkers and wheelchairs, members of Congress, members
of the military, nuns, and so on, who are members of Al Qa-
eda plotting to bring aboard a bomb in their underwear, their
shoes, their shampoo and face creams.
Indeed, bombs aboard air liners are a rare event.
What is it really all about? Could it be that the US govern-
ment needs terrorist events in order to completely destroy the
US Constitution? On November 24, National Public Radio
broadcast a report by Dina Temple-Raston: “Administration
officials are looking at the possibility of codifying detention
without trial and are awaiting legislation that is supposed to
come out of Congress early next year.” Of course, the leg-
islation will not come out of Congress. It will be written by
Homeland Security and the Justice (sic) Department. The
impotent Congress will merely rubber-stamp it.
The obliteration of habeas corpus, the most necessary and
important protection of liberty ever institutionalized in law
and governing constitution, has become necessary for the US
government, because a jury might acquit an alleged or mock
“terrorist” or framed person whom the US government has
declared prior to the trial, will be held forever in indefinite
detention even if acquitted in a US court of law. The attorney
general of the United States has declared that any “terrorist”
that he puts on trial who is acquitted by a jury will remain
in detention regardless of the verdict. Such an event would
reveal the total lawlessness of American “justice.”
The United States of America, “the city upon the hill,”
“the light unto the world,” has become Nazi Germany. It
was the practice of the Gestapo to ignore court verdicts and
to execute or hold indefinitely the cleared defendant in the
camps. The Obama regime is in the process of completing
Dick Cheney’s dream by legislating the legality of indefinite
detention. American law has collapsed to the dungeons of
the Dark Ages.
This Nazi Gestapo policy is now the declared policy of
the US Department of Justice (sic). Anyone who thinks the
United States is a free society where people have liberty,
“freedom and democracy” is uninformed. ♦
Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Jour-
nal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His lat-
est book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been
published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached
at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
FORMERLY
INCARCERATED ACTIVISTS
SPEARHEADING A NEW
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
By Wendy Jason, Jan. 20, 2011
F
rom February 28th -- March 2nd, Alabama will play
host to formerly incarcerated activists from across the
country as they convene in an effort to organize what
may well be our nation’s next major civil rights movement.
The conference, which is being organized by a steering
committee comprised of prisoner rights and criminal justice
reform activist leaders, will draft a campaign platform call-
ing for the restoration of civil rights, a halt to prison expan-
sion, the elimination of excessive punishments, and the pro-
tection of the rights and dignity of family members of the
incarcerated. Conference events, which are slated to occur in
Montgomery, Dothan, and Selma, will include a backwards
march over Edmund Pettis Bridge.
Who better to lead this movement than those who have
first-hand experience of the dehumanizing, unjust nature of
our prison system? They know all too well the inequities that
exist within the system, the abuses that occur behind prison
walls, the suffering that families of prisoners must endure,
and the struggle that those returning from prison face in the
search for housing, jobs, and a sense of belonging.
In this incarceration nation, where more than 2.3 million
people wake up each morning behind bars, and another 10
million are on some form of court supervision, few of us
remain untouched by the demolition caused by the system’s
wrath, but none are more equipped to spearhead the fight
for reform than those whose lives have been most directly
affected.
The recent prisoner strike in Georgia has been integral in
building the critical mass necessary for a successful cam-
paign. Thousands of people have demonstrated solidarity
with Georgia’s prisoners—and their demands for decent liv-
ing conditions, fair wages for work, access to families, voca-
tional and self-improvement programs, educational opportu-
nities, access to health care, and an end to cruel and unusual
punishment—through signing online letters of support, like
this one. The convention in Alabama is yet another step to-
wards the formation of a strong, determined leadership core
for the movement—one that will demand the attention of de-
cision makers and inspire others to act.
A number of grassroots prisoner rights, criminal justice
reform, and service organizations are rallying in support of
this movement. Among them are All of Us or None, World
Conference of Mayors, Drug Policy Alliance, Equal Justice
Initiative, Prodigal Child Project, National Justice Coali-
tion, A New Way of Life, Legal Services for Prisoners with
Children, Women on the Rise Telling HerStory (WORTH),
Direct Action for Rights and Equality (DARE), MN Second
Chance Coalition, and The Ordinary People Society. Contact
these organizations, or join Supporting Civil Rights of the
Formerly Incarcerated if you would like to participate in the
campaign.
The convention in Alabama will be followed by another
gathering in Los Angeles, slated for November 11, 2011. ♦
SUPREME COURT
REAFFIRMS DUTY OF
GUARDS TO PROTECT
PRISONERS FROM RAPE
In a decision released Jan. 24th, the U.S. Supreme Court
overturned a lower court’s ruling that officials who retaliated
against a prisoner when she reported being raped by a prison
staff member were immune from litigation. Speaking for the
Court in Ortiz v. Jordan, Justice Ginsberg highlighted pre-
existing law establishing that officials can be held liable for
failing to protect an inmate who they know is at risk of harm.
“The right of inmates to be free from abuse, and the duty
of officials to protect this right, should be apparent,” said
Melissa Rothstein, Senior Program Director at Just Deten-
tion International. “All too often, however, courts are unable
or unwilling to hold officials accountable when they disre-
gard their duty.”
Michelle Ortiz was raped on two consecutive nights by
a prison official. She reported the first rape to case manager
Paula Jordan, who did nothing to prevent the second rape.
Ortiz reported the second rape and, in retaliation, prison
investigator Rebecca Bright placed her in solitary confine-
ment, shackled and handcuffed, without sufficient heat,
clothing, or bedding. In a 1994 case (Farmer v. Brennan),
the Supreme Court recognized the duty of officials to take
reasonable measures to protect inmates who they know or
should know are at risk of abuse.
Prior to trial, Bright and Jordan asked the court to dismiss
the case, arguing that they should not be held responsible for
the second rape or the punitive conditions imposed on Ortiz.
The trial court rejected this argument and a full jury found
Jordan and Bright guilty of violating Ortiz’s constitutional
rights. After the trial, the defendants did not raise the ques-
tion of their immunity from the lawsuit with the judge—as
procedurally required if they wished to make that argument
on appeal, which they did. Nonetheless, on appeal, the Sixth
Circuit overturned the jury verdict, ruling that the defen-
dants were not legally responsible. Today’s Supreme Court
reversed that decision, confirming that the defendants failed
to follow court rules for appealing after a trial.
“This is a technical case, but an important one. Under the
Prison Litigation Reform Act, inmates who bring civil rights
cases must meet strict procedural rules that tend to be both
unrealistic and confusing. Courts consistently hold inmates
to these requirements,” Rothstein said. “Ortiz was brave and
capable enough to succeed in bringing her case to trial. Un-
der those circumstances, it’s unconscionable for a court to
allow prison officials to ignore procedural rules that apply to
them. The Supreme Court’s ruling is important in demanding
prison staff accountability.” ♦
From: Just Detention International
 HIV: A LIFE LIVING AMONG US!
[Ed. Note: This article was submitted to CPF some time
ago and thus a part of the material may be a bit dated, yet the
content remains important. The two paragraphs in brackets
were re-written by a CPF volunteer.]
S
pring break was only a week old when Sandra Mc-
Coy’s life shattered. At the tender age of sixteen one
could possibly say that she had just begun to live. Or
that she had not lived at all. Either way it was not a life a
sixteen-year-old should have to live. Or any one for that mat-
ter. Sandra McCoy was HIV-positive.
The tragedy of these results hit her when she attended a
local blood drive in Los Angeles with a few of her friends.
Though the drive was completely voluntary, Sandra had only
participated in it because her friends were doing it. “They
were all doing it,” she said in an interview. “So I thought,
‘Why not.’”
But what Sandra could tell you is that she did not expect
the phone call she received from her mother. “She had called
me on my cell phone,” she recalls, eyes filling with tears.
“She said the doctor from the blood drive wanted to see me
immediately.” The doctor told Sandra that she was HIV-pos-
itive. Her viral load count was over one thousand and her T-
cell count was just below five hundred. “I was still healthy,”
Sandra said. “I mean, I didn’t feel sick at all.”
Like many teenagers her age, when new studies showed
that about one-fourth of all teenagers, particularly girls, and
nearly half of them Black, have sexually transmitted diseas-
es, Sandra ignored it. “I wasn’t shocked by it,” she says at
the statistics. “Sex was something nearly everyone my age
was into.”
Washington, D.C. was ground zero in the war against HIV
and AIDS. Studies show that one in every twenty people
living in the nation’s capitol is infected with the HIV virus.
That’s more than the rate reported in Port-au-Prince, Haiti!
With more than eighty-percent of Washington’s HIV-infect-
ed population being African-Americans. And according to
the latest studies, the rate of new HIV infections is nearly
fifty percent higher than previously reported.
In 1996, when Daniel Chase was attending a party with
friends in Malibu, HIV was not a part of his worries. “I never
really thought about it,” says Chase, now age twenty-eight.
“I mean, I knew it existed. But I didn’t think I needed to
worry about it.”
Twelve years after that dreadful party, around the same
time that powerful new drugs had surfaced, leading the me-
dia to broadcast “the end to AIDS,” Daniel Chase would
come to a quick reality check. “I was sixteen in ’96. We were
popping pills, partying. You know, hanging out,” he recalls.
“Then I ended up in this bathroom with this girl.” Taking a
deep breath, he immediately looked weary. “Man, she was
hot. I was glad and felt like I was the man because she picked
me.” Condoms were never mentioned. “Condoms were pop-
ular then. But they were only used to prevent pregnancy.”
The U.S. has seen a resurgence of new infections since
1996. About 70% of the estimated 5,000 teenagers diag-
nosed with HIV in 2008 will be African-American. The same
goes for 2009.
Like Chase, many people, not just teenagers, believe that
condoms are birth control. Pregnancy is a teenager’s big-
gest fear. Men dislike condoms because they take away the
sensations of sex. Unfortunately some women share the
same opinion. “Condoms just don’t feel right,” says Karen
McDonald, a 17-year-old high-schooler. “I mean, if I’m on
the pill, then why use a condom?” This sentiment has been
growing world-wide. Condom usage is at an all time low.
People are just not using them as much.
Details about STDs and sex are exactly what healthcare
personnel are complaining is missing from America’s ap-
proach to sex education. From over-rated religious zealots
to television and the Internet, the world is suffused with sex.
And over the past eight to nine years, the federal government
has done everything but take the word “sex” out of sex edu-
cation. Visit a health class at your child’s local school, and
if that school is receiving any funds from Washington, you
best believe that an “abstinence education” curriculum will
be taught. This bars instructors at the schools from talking
about birth controls, condoms, and abortion—making us a
sex-saturated and sex-suppressed society, one specialist says.
“Every single force and vector that affects a young person
is saturated with sex, from every magazine, show, to music
video. But sex, and how to prevent STDs, can’t be discussed
at schools.” Churches avoid it. And worst of all, parents
won’t deal with it at home. When there is no sexual literacy
among the young crowds, and little to no sexual literacy with
the parents, then the kids and parents pay the ultimate price.
For public health officials, that price is increasingly evi-
dent. Although there are six times more whites than Blacks in
America, the total number of deaths by AIDS among Blacks
(218,000) is fast approaching the number of deaths caused
by AIDS among whites (240,000), and AIDS is the leading
cause of death for Black women between the ages of 25-34.
Though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC) has reported that teens’ condom use has increased
from 46% to 63% between 1991 and 2005, condom usage in
the last three years has remained at a standstill.
NUMBER 36
As December 1st, “World AIDS Day,” nears, activists
would be gearing up to do what educators and some parents
won’t or can’t do. In 2008, Martha Kempner of the Sexuality
Information and Education Council of the US (SIECUS) told
VIBE magazine that SIECUS “think abstinence is important,
too,” further stating that “about 63% of high school students
are sexually active. We can’t just ignore them.”
“Abstinence education goes as far back as the early 1980s,
when the Christian zealots, emboldened by Ronald Reagan’s
presidential victory, began lobbying for funding to bring what
is known as “chastity education” to America’s schools. But
the say-no-to-sex approach to sex education was ill funded
until 1996, when Bill Clinton’s welfare reform legislation
renamed that approach “abstinence education” and set aside
$50 million annually for it. Under George Walker Bush, the
funding has more than tripled to $176 million annually.
School districts and community organizations looking to
qualify for the government funds have to do a lot more than
just tell children not to have sex. The law requires that any-
one receiving “abstinence education” funds must adhere to a
list of tenets that also includes telling kids that premarital sex
could have “harmful psychological and physical effects.” Is
this form of governmentally funded education scaring kids
into a form of revolt? The just-say-no-to-sex approach, influ-
enced by Christians and religious leaders, raising the rate of
rebellion among kids! “Abstinence education” is created and
favored most by the Christian fundamentalists. Ex-Alaska
governor Sarah Palin was a proponent of “abstinence edu-
cation” even after her then-unmarried 17-year-old daugh-
ter, Bristol, was impregnated. Like sophisticated intelligent
design, “abstinence education” is mainly a construction of
moralization and junk science.
The 2004 Congressional analysis reported that “abstinence
education” instructors often pushed forth myths such as
“abortion causes suicides and sterility,” and such ludicrous
fear tactics such as “pregnancy can be induced by simple
male-to-female genital contact,” or the insidious conclusion
that HIV could be spread through sweat. Rep. Henry Wax-
man (D-Calif.) told the Washington Post, “I don’t think we
ought to lie to our children about science.” Going on to say
that “Something is seriously wrong when federal tax dollars
are being used to mislead kids about basic health facts.” I
agree! Science and religion have been at war over human-
ity and the mere existence of life for millions of years. Dan
Brown wrote about it in Angels and Demons. And the gov-
ernment and religion have been enforcing it since the Cru-
sades.
However, though “abstinence education” has been con-
demned by the American Medical Association, the American
Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Public Health As-
sociation, the government and taxpayers have still pushed it
upon American children. “It’s a conservative social agenda
masquerading as policy,” Kempner says.
Other advocates for “abstinence education” say that the
best way to prevent cases like so many teenagers in America
infected with the HIV-virus is to raise the bar for sexual mo-
res. “It’s true that a lot of Americans will have sex before
marriage,” Valerie Huber , executive director for the Nation-
al Abstinence Education Association, told VIBE magazine.
“But we would strongly argue that the bar should be set at the
point where there’s the best public health outcome.” Huber
told VIBE that, citing the risks of pregnancy, that place is
marriage.
In that respect, teens have something in common with the
bigwig policymakers in Washington, D.C., who would rather
not think about kids having sex. During a 2007 presidential
debate at Howard University, then-Senator Barack Obama
did, at one point, outline a comprehensive AIDS strategy that
also included breaking down barriers centered around sex-
shame and homophobia that impeded sex education.
“One of the things we’ve got to overcome is the stigma
that still exists in our communities,” the most popular presi-
dent said. “We don’t talk about this. We don’t talk about it
in schools. We don’t talk about it in the churches.” And after
that, Mr. Obama didn’t talk about it much either on his cam-
paign trail to the White House.
[In a large study, released in 2008, of who is being infected
with HIV, the CDC estimated that the number of new HIV in-
fections in the US during 2006 was 56,300. Broken down by
race, the estimated new-infection rates (per 100,000 adults
and adolescents) were: 11.5 for whites, 29.3 for Hispanics,
and 83.7 for Blacks. The disparity is especially great for
Black women. The rate for black men (115.7) was six times
higher than that for white men (19.6), but Black women’s
rate (55.7) was almost 15 times the rate for white women
(3.8). Although African Americans constitute only 12% of
the US population, they suffered 45% of new HIV infections
in 2006.
The mortality (death) rates for Blacks with HIV are worse
than for other races/ethnicities, too. Figures for the year 2007
(covering 37 states) show that the rate of death for HIV-pos-
itive African Americans was 31.3 (per 100,000), almost 10
times higher than whites’ rate of 3.2.]
For Black women ranging from the ages of 25-34, HIV is
the number one cause of death. Accidents are number two,
and cancer is number three.
In 1998, when expensive drug therapies had the global me-
dia outlets fantasizing about “the end of AIDS,” Rep. Max-
ine Waters and the Congressional Black Caucus “sounded
the alarm in the halls of Congress,” leading then-president
Bill Clinton and Surgeon General David Satcher to declare
a “Public Health Emergency,” which led to the formation
of the Minority AIDS Initiative (MAI). Eleven years later,
the AIDS crisis in Black America has worsened (more than
200,000 Blacks are now HIV-positive). However, the support
system for MAI has stalled. “Funding has remained stagnant
at about $400 million per year since fiscal year 2003,” Rep.
Maxine Waters stated in a September 2008 hearing with of-
ficials from the CDC. Between 1998 and 2009, funding for
overseas AIDS programs skyrocketed from $146 million to
over $5.5 billion.
While global AIDS relief has been one of the few redeem-
ing features of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy, a
new report by the Black AIDS Institute suggested that the
crisis among Blacks in America has been blatantly neglect-
ed. “While the US government insists that all countries that
receive support have in place a national strategy to tackle
the AIDS epidemic, America has no strategy for its own epi-
demic,” stated the Black AIDS Institute. Their report points
out that American Blacks, as a whole, would make up the
16th largest AIDS epidemic in the world—nearly the size
of the AIDS crisis in Cote d’Ivoire. “Were Black America a
country on its own, it would undoubtedly attract the concern
and strategic focus of the US government. It is both a tragedy
and an outrage that it has failed to do so simply because its
AIDS epidemic occurs within the borders of the US.”
With the leading crisis among citizens within our societies
facing such turmoils, one could only imagine what prison-
ers face in the nature of medical treatments and care for the
disease. Pursuant to Farmer v. Kavanagh, 494 F.Supp. 2d
345, 362 (D.Md. 2007), the court held that a cause of action
was stated when medical staff interfered with inmates’ HIV
treatment. In 2005, the courts ruled that the “introduction
of a new class of anti-retroviral medications called protease
inhibitors, combined with other drugs, proved able to sup-
press HIV and prevent deteriorating compromise of patients’
immune systems.” (See Taylor v. Rice, 2005 WL 913221, 4
(D.D.C. 2005).)
Furthermore, in McNally v. Prison Health Services, 46
F.Supp. 2d 49 (D. Maine 1999), the court held that “where
an HIV-positive detainee repeatedly informed prison medi-
cal personnel that he was following a strict regimen of HIV
medication and was deprived of that medication for three
days, a jury could find the defendant was deliberately indif-
ferent to the plaintiff’s medical needs.”
And those prisoners released to parole from prison have a
right to continued HIV treatments. (See Lugo v. Senkowski,
114 F.Supp. 2d 111, 115 (N.D. N.Y. 2000).)
In addition, prisoners with HIV who were on special diets
and resource drinks have a right to have these treatments or-
dered and issued, regardless of the costs. Pursuant to Balla v.
Idaho State Bd. of Corrections, 595 F.Supp. 1558, 1574-75
(D. Idaho 1984), the court held that “as a matter of law, the
evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a
maturing society requires prison officials to afford inmates
special diets if prescribed for them. Regardless of the cost
involved, there is simply no penological justification for de-
priving inmates with serious medical problems of their duly
prescribed diets.” Denial of a special diet for an inmate is
evidence of deliberate indifference. (See Kyle v. Allen, 732
Of. Supp. 1157, 1159 (S.D. Fla. 1990).)
In this struggle we are all affected. ♦
About the writer: Ms. Lonnie Williams is a California state
prisoner and an advocate for prisoners’ rights. She is a pre-
operational transsexual serving a 15-year sentence for two
counts of alleged assault with a deadly weapon. Her con-
victions are currently being appealed. She is also writing a
novel and hopes to be published soon. If you wish to write to
her, her address is as follows: Ms. Lonnie Williams T-54378,
CSP-Corcoran, 3A-04 #122-L, PO Box 3461, Corcoran, CA
93212-3461
By Richard Hall
5
 ARE WE A NATION OF COWARDS Afterwards, I was took to CTC Medical. After that I was put
on contraband watch where they taped, chained, and tubed

W
hen President Obama retracted his characteriza-
tion of the Cambridge police department’s ac-
tions, regardless of how subtle the retraction was,
he instantly breathed new life into those unapologetic charg-
es that were previously spewed by his own newly appointed
attorney general, Eric Holder, alleging “America still re-
mains a nation of cowards” in regards to matters of race and
justice. This charge was not at all leveled towards those who
perpetrate the hate nor those who quietly perpetuate its bias
rationales from behind the scenes but absolutely was and is
aimed at the captive audiences who simply excuse it as “…
just the way it is!”
-o0o-
Cowardice is essentially the closest cousin to one’s natural
human instinct for self-preservation with only a thin demar-
cation line of: “…at what cost” which distinguishes the two.
America being a police state regulated by law enforcement
cadres and law interpreters who live to pervert it for profit,
our dear President was reminded how fragile his political life
really is and then self-preservation won.
Courage and heroism, however, is selflessness with the de-
liberate act of preservation for others, so perhaps the Presi-
dent resolved within himself that this small act of cowardice
shall be vindicated by the larger agenda of Universal Health
services, the CVUC (Crime Victims United of California).
Judges and candidates who all promise tough on crime legis-
lation, prison expansions, and more officers.
Today as our President, Officer Crowley of the Cambridge
Police Department, and Dr. Henry Louis Gates are enjoying
a beer, while the media ogles the dash cam of a 7-year-old
boy in his parents’ car, running stop signs and finally bolting
from the car into his home. This scenario played out in 2006
also, but the boy was 11 years old and L.A.P.D. said the car
was considered a weapon which forced them to riddle with
bullets an 11-year-old boy.
We are not a nation of cowards, but we sure are not a na-
tion of courageous citizens either. We’re just a nation posi-
tioning ourselves to mature and change and, like the unions,
we’re going to have to commit with our dollars and cents
into one purse. We lifers have family and friends and we just
want for lifers some hybrid form of P.E.T.A.-Prisoners. ♦
Donnie Phillips,
Crescent City
LA LUCHA –
IN PELICAN BAY
me up like an animal. Then they try to say I had a weapon?
I didn’t have no weapon. And like always, I fought for my
freedom, and In Pro Per.
I told the jury of 12 men and women how they treat us.
How they torture us, and paint us as brutes and animals, but
told them we all were human and had a story to tell and I told
them our story. How we are ran into a courtroom on bogus
charges, forced to take a deal, or else… and most equipped
with a public defender, who only wants a check. They take a
deal, then the system uses all those deals to scare the public,
with how many criminals were convicted, when little do they
know it was a fear-induced plea bargain…But not me. Not
today… They returned a not guilty verdict, not only because
they saw through the CDCR propaganda, but also because
there was no real evidence to convict.
Thus the struggle continues… So the fire was for all of
those who want better conditions, not just me… An inmate
once told me (regarding my litigation activities), “You’re in
prison, trying to fight a losing battle. You should just accept
it. Do your time.” I replied, “I will never accept being in
prison. I will never accept this system’s systematic ethnic
culturecide of my Raza, nor the ethnicide of any other race,
by validating us over signs, symbols, or books related to our
culture. I will never accept their boots and batons upon our
rights and beliefs. On the contrary, I will fight tooth and nail

R
Care or winning a second term to move the U.S. closer to a
evolutionary greetings. I write this article to correct for our rights, because if I’m going to be prepared to kill for
better world, who knows?
and clarify the misinformation someone has given respect, then I sure must be prepared to fight for our exis-
Nonetheless, today…seeing Californians blindly swallow
the Prison Focus about my “act of struggle,” but also tence and our rights. So—no, I will never accept it. I may
any and every pill that law enforcement provides and be-
to clarify and correct such lies that have undermined the act deal with it as I always have, but I will never accept it.”
ing unconsciously driven by fear is unfortunately a known
of revolution. Specifically, someone told CPF that I lit my- And that’s the message. We all must deal with it. We go to
hallmark of bully and street gang influences which I’m genu-
self on fire just to get out the ASU to get to the SHU, and that sleep surrounded by four walls, and wake up surrounded by
inely in authority to point out, redemptively denounce and
a week later I went to the SHU. All of this is false. four walls. So we deal with it. But the moment you accept
with solemn compassion categorically depose:
First, I lit a fire in my cell (not myself) to protest, and sec- it, you’ve already surrendered half your soul to a letter and
● Codes of loyalty and brotherhood, supporting each
ond, I was tortured for almost a week, and went back to my five numbers.
other’s decisions right or wrong.
ASU cell where I lit the fire at. I was also prosecuted for You must expand your mind in the struggle. Approach
● Dress codes to proudly distinguish themselves from all
supposedly possessing a weapon as a result of false charges things in a new way. The old ways are not working. Analyze
not sharing that uniform (or color).
they made as a result of contraband/torture watch. Luckily your surrounding and situations. Who cares about drama,
● Common enemy categorizations which subjects mi-
I represented myself, took it to trial and got a “not guilty” focus on what’s real. Existence. Our spirits can only con-
norities as a (1) primary or (2) potential adversary.
verdict, so I’m clear of that. tinue to exist through struggle. It’s not about winning or los-
● Random acts of violence, disregard and strong public
Now before all those who are active in changing our con- ing. It’s about opposing what your spirit doesn’t accept. If
presences to instill fear and display power.
ditions and Machiavellian practices imposed upon us, you you win a battle, great. If you lose, good. The war continues
● Constant propaganda that rationalizes why we are so
must first understand my state of mind which led up to such a through more battles.
duty-bound in this thankless and very “tough job” pro-
radical act of protest. In hopes of all revolutionaries expand- I will point out some new ideas for those of you in the
tecting and serving the beloved community (some even
ing their mind in progressiveness actions, here’s my story. SHUs across California. Starting with Pelican Bay. (1) Peli-
honor-via-tattoos).
After spending over two years in CSP-Sacramento ASU can Bay is built inside of a big hole. It’s built in an area known
These fantastical creeds and dubiously projected control
waiting to come to the SHU, based on a bogus violation im- to the city as “danger zones.” Specifically, the coast is always
tactics have succeeded ever since the Euro-Asian continent’s
posed on me through retaliatory acts of prison officials, be- vulnerable to tsunamis. If a tsunami hits, the hole fills. We all
dark medieval era which launched all the conquerors’ world
cause of my legal access to courts of Pro Per, phone calls, drown. No buses to evacuate us, and the locks they put on
expeditions and conquests that define today’s continental
library, and assisting others to beat their validations, I was our doors literally seal our fates to a mass negligent homi-
powers.
transferred to PBSP only to be placed in ASU…Quickly I cide. They knew the threat, yet they built this prison in such a
In these present times in American however (especially
realized my surroundings. I didn’t like what I saw, heard, hole and area. Get that in a court, and it might shut this place
in California), society is the perfect captive audience clear-
and experienced. down, because there’s no way they could evacuate us, even if
ly paralyzed by fear whenever our bully-minded unions
I saw cocky, disrespectful, ill-mannered, racist, bigot, sex- they tried, thus the only remedy is to shut this place down, to
threaten to release prisoners early or reduce patrol officers or
ist, and tyrants, working the ASU. Though they were racist, insure life preservation. (2) Tehachapi SHU: Tehachapi SHU
when law enforcement unions sponsor deceptive job security
they treated all inmates like they were worthless, regardless is built on San Andreas Fault. If the earthquake (Big One)
bills such as Three Strikes and Prop. 9 Marcy’s Law, both of
of their race. I heard them make sexist and racist comments hits, it goes in the ground, mass negligent homicide. Must
which absolutely resentence and condemn to death by attri-
about a Mexicana C.O. working. They referred to her as a shut down. (3) Corcoran SHU: The cells are bedrock, putting
tion human beings for transgressions committed over twenty
lazy fat Mexican lady that doesn’t like to work, when they inmates at risk for broken bones, and due to the smallness of
and thirty years prior. This recent Prop. 9 slow death scheme
were just lazy fat cops, wanting the Mexicana to do the work. cells, violates American Correctional Association size stan-
is a fate very few would allow to be visited even on rabid
I heard them try to mislead my fellow inmate because they dards. Further, inadequate ventilation puts inmates at risk to
dogs, where we want to be either put to sleep or permitted to
saw his English wasn’t good, so they tried to mislead him on inhale fecal fumes and airborne viruses, thus must shut SHU
return to our home and family once parole has been earned.
matters he seeked help on. So I got involved to help him, and down and send SHU inmates to different structure.
Where is our P.E.T.A.?
let them know not to pull that. These are examples.
Most of these middle-aged men who make up California’s
I experienced my cell being searched almost every day. Validation? They never give us warnings of who they vali-
lifer population, whether they once were killers or not, have
My property being thrashed and trashed. A false 115. Mail date. Instead of arguing that there’s no proof or evidence that
quietly and responsibly accepted the shrewdest comeup-
C.O. stopping at my door acting like he was going to give me you associated with so-and-so, argue to the courts that even
pances available although most (exactly like our military
a letter, only to walk away... Playing games. Taking all my if there’s “some evidence” you’ve associated with so-and-so,
youth) were just misguided youth who wanted to belong but
clothes out of my cell because of fishing line… I was tired of CDCR never gave you a warning they were validated. After
naturally evolved and outgrew their needs to belong to any-
it. I’m patient, but I’m sure no pacifist. all, if validation is an administrative decision, they how are
thing but their own parents, siblings, and children now and
I also realized this was a problem not just for me but for we to know what decision they make, and who they vali-
most (exactly like our military youth) have since absconded
all inmates there. We all wanted to be transferred to the SHU. dated, unless they first give us a Due Process warning of who
from their gangs, car clubs and military redeployment su-
The Title 15 mandates we be transferred within 30 days. We they validated? It’s a Due Process violation. We are entitled
periors to just live their own lives out and just be their own
wanted what we got coming. So with all of these factors, I to a warning. Likewise regarding signs and symbols.
human beings.
knew I had to do something that required strategy and the I currently have a motion for summary judgment pend-
Unfortunately the notorious CCPOA (California Correc-
element of surprise. Something different from the usual cell ing in the U.S.D.C. Eastern District of California (see Dan-
tional Peace Officers Association) like most labor unions
extractions and hunger strikes that hurt us more than them. iel Treglia v. Director CDCR et al., case no: 2:09-cv-0357
have long since moved into realms beyond the old “bread
Quickly I realized the cells were not equipped with fire KJN-P), raising those very issues. The defendant’s private
and butter” issues of wages and benefits, realizing that legis-
sprinklers. They say we can’t have TV because there’s no counsel didn’t even attempt to argue that CDCR/IGI gives us
lators and governors write the checks, contract for expansion
sprinkler. First off, TVs have got kill switches, so no fire. warnings of who’s validated or what signs and symbols they
and then make the sale to the public even to the demise of
But it was their admission that having no fire sprinkler is a consider prison gang related. Instead he only argued that we
education.
safety hazard. So we started a group 602 asking to be imme- are entitled to notice that we are being validated and an op-
Perhaps the charge of the US being a nation of cowards
diately moved to the SHU because they have us in a building portunity to rebut our validation. In other words, he argued
was a bit too sharp but we, as a nation, definitely have a
with cells that don’t have sprinklers. That’s a deprivation of a procedural Due Process, while my Due Process summary
problem with how to exert courage. We are being bullied
a right to fire safety, guaranteed by not only state law, but judgment is based on a right to a warning/notice Due Pro-
by a nation obsessed with police influences and occupations
federal constitution. This way it would get all of us moved… cess. This means they didn’t present any disputable facts.
even as Arizona protests Janet Napolitano’s 287-G immi-
But they ignored our 602s. We wrote the Inspector Gen- I’m hopeful The Honorable Judge Kendall Newman will
gration move which creates another force which will have
eral, P.L.O., Ombudsman. And they all pretty much shoved deliver justice. If he grants my motion, CDCR will be re-
federal police-type powers and most likely build and fill
it to the side. Then one day a guard tried to argue with me quired to give us warnings of who’s who and what’s what
more prison complexes. This is consistent with our nation’s
about no fire could ever happen, so there’s no need for sprin- before they give us a point for such. It won’t stop them, but
disorder for police domination, detaining, and union dues.
klers. They also denied our group 602s. Well, surprise, sur- it will surely slow them down.
CDCR’s union produced an old flow chart from 2002-03
prise… Revolution is the only solution… This is what struggle is about. Fighting for a greater
where approximately 31,000 officers paid $59.42 a month
So with a few matches I had left, I used them all up and good that abolishes the greater bad. Liberty, freedom, free
to the union plus 930 officers paying fair share monthly dues
lit a bonfire by my door to smoke out the building, to prove thoughts and beliefs. A fight today because of yesterday, for
of $40.00 all at 12 months per year securing an annual bud-
that fires can happen. Well, it got too big, and smoked out a better tomorrow. ♦
get of $21,887,512 to play politics with. A nice portion of
the cell, so I had to go to the hospital for smoke inhalation. Daniel L. (Loonie) Treglia, PBSP
that $22 million goes to rally up public relations, lobbying

6 PRISON FOCUS

A FLAWED SYSTEM? U.S. BOASTS HIGHEST PRISON
INCARCERATION NUMBERS IN WORLD
T
he United States of America currently incarcerates
the highest percentage of its own citizens when com-
pared to any other country in the world. With its harsh
drug laws, minimum sentencing guidelines and repeated im-
prisonment of non-violent offenders, the country has literally
thrown the shackles on millions of individuals. In fact, the
great superpower has more than 2.3 million of its citizens
imprisoned at this very moment. Below are several graphs
and charts from the Center for Economic Policy Research
depicting the most recent data obtained concerning incar-
ceration levels in the United States.
As shown above, the amount of individuals incarcer-
ated in the United States is quite alarming. In fact, there is
not a single country to compare it to on the (OECD) coun-
try list. The OECD is an international organization which
helps governments tackle the economic, social and gover-
nance challenges of a globalised economy. Basically, they
are working toward a global government/ new world order.
The above chart shows the correlation between crime and
incarceration. And as you can see, even as crime rates fall,
incarceration rates rise. The question we should ask our-
selves is why? Let’s look at a few more graphs.
This graph shows the U.S. Incarceration rate from 1880-
2008. Do you see a trend? For over 100 years the Incar-
ceration rate in the United States stayed considerably low,
(rivaling the incarceration rate of other nations) but in the
last 40 years we have seen a tremendous increase. Now,
some may argue that this is due to population, but remem-
ber these numbers do not depict population, they depict
the rate per 100,000. This is why this issue is important.
NUMBER 36
The last graph depicts the highest incarceration rates of all
countries. Now this may seem like no big deal, but we need
to read between the lines. Almost every country on this list
has either gone through a change in government, is a com-
munistic society, or is in an economic crisis. What does this
say about the United States? Are the laws too harsh? Is law
enforcement being used as a tool to create revenue in a strug-
gling, uneasy economy? These are questions we should ask
our representatives. Recently, laws concerning drugs and
other non-violent offenses have loosened in several states
due to growing concern. This shows that if the people speak,
the government may just have to listen. Be proactive, ques-
tion what is going on and think freely. ♦
Posted by freedomist in global agenda,
global government, incarceration, u.s
HOW DO PRISONS
TREAT THEIR PREGNANT
PRISONERS?
By Kendall Taggart
A
s a record number of women enter prison, many
states are failing to provide adequate medical care to
pregnant inmates and even shackling some women
during delivery, according to a new report by the Rebecca
Project for Human Rights and the National Women’s Law
Center.
California did better than most states – receiving an over-
all B grade on the report card, placing it among the top five
states. In the three categories the report examined—prenatal
care, shackling polices and family-based treatment as an al-
ternative to incarceration—California was given a C, B and
A, respectively. Only one state, Pennsylvania, received an
overall A-minus.
Since the introduction of mandatory sentencing to the fed-
eral drug laws in the mid-1980s, the number of women in
prison nationwide has risen by 400 percent, according to the
report. In California, the number of incarcerated women in
California rose from 1,232 in 1979 to 10,812 in 2009, ac-
cording to the California Department of Corrections and Re-
habilitation.
Barry Krisberg, a fellow at the UC Berkeley Center for
Criminal Justice and former president of the National Coun-
cil on Crime and Delinquency, said about this new report:
“What these people did is look at what’s going on at the state
level, and really the unfinished story is at the county level.”
So how is California really doing in practice?
The report gave California a C for its policies on prenatal
care, commending its medical examinations, prenatal nutri-
tion counseling and availability of HIV testing. It deducted
points for the state’s lack of screening and treatment of high-
risk pregnancies, planning for deliveries, and reporting on
pregnancies and their outcomes.
A 2006 investigation of the health care delivery system for
women imprisoned in California by the National Council on
Crime and Delinquency noted that:
“Stakeholders also report horrible prenatal care. Some
pregnant women, of whom many are considered high risk,
do not see obstetricians nor do they receive sonograms. Con-
cerns such as high blood pressure, lack of fetal heartbeat and
vaginal bleeding are often ignored.”
Ronald Babcock, captain of the Women and Children’s
Service Unit at the state Department of Rehabilitation and
Corrections, said prenatal care at the facilities is excellent.
“They get some of the best health care they’ve ever had
in their life. They’re given the information about pregnancy,
they get pregnancy coaching classes, and are continuously
monitored. We don’t take any risks.”
Shackling during labor and delivery
The report gave California a B for its policies on shack-
ling. California passed a statute in 2005 prohibiting the use
of restraints during labor and delivery. However, the report
notes that the Department of Corrections does not require
each incident involving restraints to be reported.
And in March 2010, Legal Services for Prisoners with
Children found that less than a third of California’s 58 coun-
ties are in compliance with the 2005 law.
Babcock, the department of corrections captain, said
women are rarely shackled in state facilities. “Hurting her-
self, an unborn child or another person – that would be the
only way we would shackle. It’s common sense. A lot of
pregnant women don’t have good balance.”
On Sept. 27, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed AB
1900, which would have ordered county jails and prisons to
stop shackling pregnant women during transportation.
“This bill had so much support – Democrats and Repub-
licans, law enforcement, medical groups – that the only real
reason I could think of that this bill was vetoed ... was a
bureaucracy getting in the way of pregnant women in Cali-
fornia,” said Alicia Walter, a consultant who worked with
ACLU-Northern California to pass the bill.
Carolyn Sufrin, an obstetrician-gynecologist at UCSF and
the San Francisco County Jail, wrote in a recent op-ed in the
San Francisco Chronicle that the current law, which prohib-
its the shackling of pregnant women only during labor, “puts
correctional officers in a difficult position, making judgment
calls about the beginning of labor without adequate informa-
tion.” She added:
“The result can be doctors and correctional officers nego-
tiating over the removal of shackles, and it takes time and
attention away from the laboring mother and her baby.”
Lt. Mark McCorkle of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Department said their policies are already in line with the
failed AB 1900 legislation.
Karen Shain, policy
 director of Legal Services for Pris-
oners with Children and a sponsor of the bill, said while “it’s
true that California is probably in a better situation than other
states,” advocates were hoping the state “could actually go
a little further.”
Family-based treatment
California received an A for its family-based treatment al-
ternatives to incarceration. There are currently five facilities
in California (San Diego, Sante Fe Springs, Fresno, Bakers-
field and Pomona) that enable incarcerated women to contin-
ue living with their children while serving time. The contract
for the Oakland location for the Community Prisoner Mother
Program recently expired and was not renewed due to the
budget crisis.
Michael Sumner, research manager at UC Berkeley’s
Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice, said Cali-
fornia generally does family-based treatment programs well.
The only issue, he said, is that there aren’t enough.
“I think the number of spots they have is 100, 140 tops.
If you look at the entire pool of incarcerated mothers, it’s a
very small percentage” who are able to participate, he said.
Babcock, with the department of corrections, noted that
such programs are voluntary for jailed mothers. “For the
women who are interested,” he said, “we are meeting the
request level.” ♦
ISRAELI SHIN BET
ELECTROCUTED CHILD
PRISONERS TO EXTRACT
CONFESSIONS
F
ollowing a visit with some young prisoners being held
at the Megiddo Prison, lawyers for the Ministry of De-
tainees have stated that the young prisoners testified
under oath that they had been systematically electrocuted
and tortured by Israeli intelligence officers in settlements
near to Palestinian cities.
According to Salim Redouane who was arrested near Qa-
lqilya on 08.05.2010, he was kept in a camp near Tzofin for
3 hours before being transferred to the settlement of Ariel
where he was questioned by Shin Bet interrogators. His head
was repeatedly hit against the prison room wall in an effort to
get him to confess and he was beaten severely. The investi-
gators threatened to burn his skin if he did not confess to the
accusations against him.
Another detainee, Mohamed Ali Radwan, informed the
lawyers that he was arrested at his home in Qalqilya Azzun
and the soldiers blindfolded and handcuffed him, and then
took him somewhere near the village where he was told to
hand in what was in his possession before he was hit in the
back with a rifle butt and kicked repeatedly in the stomach
and on the back. One of the soldiers then dragged him across
the ground. He was questioned for several hours and was hit
on the head, in the face and all over his the body.
According to the testimony of Yahya Ali Abdel-Hafez,
born 03.07.1995 and a resident of the Qalqilya Governorate
of Azzoun, he was arrested on 05.08.2010 near the city of
Qalqilya and taken to a camp near Tzofin where he was kept
for 3 hours before being transferred to the settlement of Ariel
and interrogated. During the interrogation, he did not recog-
nize some of the charges against him and so he was beaten
in the face several times and repeatedly electrocuted. Under
duress, Yahya eventually signed the statement to avoid fur-
ther torture.
Lawyers also visited Abdul Hamid Abdul Latif Sa’id
Abu Haniyeh who is currently in year 10 and was born
on 12/11/1994. A resident of Azzun, he was arrested on
05.08.2010 near Qalqilya, where was also taken to the Ariel
settlement and interrogated by Shin Bet interrogators. He
was beaten up severely before being hit hard by a large jolt
of electricity. A terrified Abdul Hamid who thought he would
be imprisoned at the Megiddo prison along with his brothers,
signed the statement he was given.
Lawyers for the Ministry of Prisoners also visited Ahmed
Hussein Mustafa who was born on 10/01/1994. He was ar-
rested from his home at three in the morning on 11.02.2010
and was beaten up inside his house before being taken to the
Beit El settlement. Ahmed remained in the settlement until
daybreak when he was transferred to Benjamin where he was
fined 2000 NIS and sentenced to 20 months in detention. His
two brothers were detained in the Negev prison. ♦
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org
7
PRISON RAPE: ERIC HOLDER’S UNFINISHED BUSINESS
By Lovisa Stannow and David Kaiser
A
new report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
provides grim reaffirmation of something we already
knew: sexual violence is epidemic within our coun-
try’s prisons and jails. According to the report, 64,500 of
the inmates who were in a state or federal prison on the day
the latest BJS survey was administered had been sexually
abused at their current facility within the previous year, as
had 24,000 of those who were in a county jail that day—a
total of 88,500 people.
In fact, as we’ve explained before, the true national total is
much higher. The BJS numbers don’t include thousands who
we know are sexually abused in juvenile detention and other
kinds of corrections facilities every year, nor do they account
for the constant turnover among jailed detainees. Stays in
jail are typically short, and several times as many people
pass through jail in a year as are held there on any given
day. Overall, we can confidently say that well over 100,000
people are sexually abused in American detention facilities
every year.
As appalling as this figure is, mere numbers can obscure
what is at issue here. So consider the case of Scott Howard.
Scott was a gay, non-violent, first-time inmate in a Colora-
do prison when he was targeted by members of the “2-11
crew,” a white supremacist gang with over 1,000 members
in prisons throughout the state. For two years he was forced
into prostitution by the gang’s leaders, repeatedly raped and
made to perform oral sex. Even after he told prison staff that
he was being raped and needed protection from the gang,
Scott was told that nothing could be done unless he named
his abusers—even though they had threatened to kill him if
he did. Because Scott is openly gay, some officials blamed
him for the attacks, saying that as a homosexual he should
expect to be targeted by one gang or another. And by his ac-
count, even those officers who were not hostile didn’t know
how to respond to his reports, because appropriate proce-
dures were not in place. They failed to take even the most
basic measures to protect him.
Ultimately, despite his fear, Scott did identify some of the
gang members who had raped him. Not only did the prison
authorities again fail to respond, they later put Scott in a
holding cell with one of his previous assailants on the day
he was to be released from state custody. Again, he was beat-
en and forced to perform oral sex. Scott had a civil lawsuit
settled in his favor recently, winning financial damages and
seventeen policy changes that will now become mandatory
in the Colorado prison system. Otherwise, however, nothing
about his story is unusual.
In 2003 Congress passed the Prison Rape Elimination Act
(PREA), legislation that, among other things, called into be-
ing the bipartisan National Prison Rape Elimination Com-
mission (NPREC), a panel of experts charged with devising
national standards for the detection, prevention, reduction,
and punishment of sexual abuse in detention. But the imple-
mentation of these standards is now being held up, because,
as Attorney General Eric Holder has explained, according
to PREA the new rules should not “impose substantial ad-
ditional costs compared to the costs presently expended by
Federal, State, and local prison authorities.”
Last September, the Justice Department commissioned
Booz Allen Hamilton to study what it would cost to imple-
ment the NPREC standards. Unfortunately, the results of
that study are too flawed to be of much use. Even more con-
cerning is that Mr. Holder has commissioned no study of the
benefits of reducing prisoner rape; nor, apparently, does he
plan to. Yet as a brief submitted to the Department of Justice
by New York University Law School’s Institute for Policy
Integrity makes clear, “substantial additional costs” can only
be understood in relation to the standards’ projected benefits.
Moreover, Mr. Holder is legally obligated to analyze the
costs and the benefits of the new standards together: he can-
not give greater emphasis to one half of the calculation than
the other. By failing to perform proper analysis, the Attorney
General is delaying the reform mandated by a unanimous
Congress in passing PREA—and he has already missed his
statutory deadline for issuing a final rule on the standards by
more than two months.
Prisoner rape is far more a legal and moral issue than a
financial one. Since cost considerations are impeding re-
form, however, it is worth taking a closer look at the true
financial implications of sexual abuse behind bars. There
are at least two ways in which the Department might try to
estimate the value of reducing sexual abuse in detention.
One—called “contingent valuation,” and used frequently by
environmental economists—seeks to assign dollar-values to
goods not traded in the marketplace. Using its techniques, a
recent study concluded that the public values the prevention
of a single incident of rape or sexual assault at $237,000, a
greater worth than it places on preventing any other kind of
crime except homicide.
Alternately, the Justice Department can try to quantify
particular, identifiable savings and benefits of preventing
prisoner rape, and weigh them against particular, quantifi-
able costs. The costs (no matter how benefits are measured)
8 PRISON FOCUS
are the investments needed by corrections systems to com-
ply with the recommended standards, divided by the Depart-
ment’s estimation of the percentage by which the standards
will actually reduce sexual abuse in detention. As for the
benefits, a partial list of those to be considered might begin
with the medical cost of treating rape victims, which must be
shouldered by corrections systems. This is much more ex-
pensive in the prison setting than in the general community,
because inmates must be transported to often-distant hospi-
tals and escorted the whole time by security staff. And it is a
cost that must be paid, not for every victim of prisoner rape,
but for every instance. We can deduce from the new BJS
study that victims of sexual abuse in detention suffer an aver-
age of three to five incidents apiece.
The Washington Department of Corrections estimates that
the cost of providing mental health treatment for victims of
prisoner rape or sexual assault—which is different from im-
mediate medical care—is approximately $9,700 per victim.
Neither category of care includes treatment for HIV, Hepati-
tis C, and other sexually transmitted infections, which are of
course spread by prisoner rape and also impose great costs
on prison health services. Making our prisons and jails safer
should have a positive effect generally on the mental health
problems that are endemic there. And reducing prisoner rape
would also lower the number of suicides and unwanted preg-
nancies in our prison systems.
Quite apart from the horror it inflicts on the victim, fail-
ing to protect an inmate from sexual abuse contributes to the
substantial legal costs our prison systems face. While it is
extraordinarily difficult for an incarcerated victim to bring
a civil lawsuit—the 1996 Prison Litigation Reform Act
(PLRA) was enacted with the explicit purpose of limiting
prisoners’ ability to be heard in court—prisons have still had
to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in damages and fees
to inmates who can establish that officials were “deliberately
indifferent” in failing to protect them.
When inmates do report sexual abuse in prison, they are
often put in “administrative segregation,” isolated housing
that can entail being locked alone in a tiny cell for up to
twenty-three hours a day. While this is purportedly done to
protect them from more assaults, such housing is also used
for punishment: inmates in solitary confinement are denied
many programs and services, and the extensive isolation of-
ten causes or exacerbates mental and emotional problems. It
is also enormously expensive. In California, for example, it
costs an additional $14,600 per year to house a prisoner in
administrative segregation.
Prisons and jails in which sexual abuse is widespread have
been shown to be more dangerous than others generally. At
such facilities, violence of every kind, importation of con-
traband, and other problems tend to flourish. Facilities with
less sexual abuse thereby have lower overall security costs
and fewer security breaches. When prisons are safer for in-
mates, they are also safer for corrections staff. The various
measures called for by NPREC’s standards—among them
better surveillance technology and external oversight—will
provide a wide range of benefits for the facilities in which
they are implemented, going far beyond the reduction of
sexual violence.
Preventing prisoner rape will also help inmates success-
fully re-enter their communities when they’re released from
prison (as almost all will be, eventually). Not only will recid-
ivism be decreased and the enormous costs of re-incarcera-
tion lowered, this will lower the costs of disability payments,
public housing, and other government-subsidy programs. As
we know from our extensive work with survivors of prisoner
rape, former inmates who have not been sexually abused are
far more likely to become members of the legitimate work-
force and pay taxes. Severe financial, emotional, and social
burdens are removed from the families who support former
inmates if their loved ones are released from prison with-
out the lasting trauma of sexual abuse. And the children who
depend on those former inmates will also do better. Today,
more than a million children in this country have at least one
incarcerated parent.
Testifying before a House subcommittee, Attorney General
Holder said, “We want to effect substantive, real change, so
that the horrors that too often are visited upon people in our
prisons [are] eliminated…. It is something that I think needs
to be done, not tomorrow, but yesterday.” That was on March
16. In mid-August a Department spokesman said that the At-
torney General would send a proposed rule on the standards
to the White House Office of Management and Budgets “in
the fall.” Even then, however, it will take months for another
layer of review. If well over 100,000 inmates are sexually
abused every year, that is something like 300 every day, or
even more. Since Attorney General Holder said that change
needed to come “yesterday”—five months ago now—more
than 40,000 people have been sexually abused in detention.
Good corrections officers are doing what they can, but they
are desperate for the support that binding national standards
would give them. It is time for Mr. Holder to act. ♦
From: Just Detention International
U.S. DEATH SQUADS
CHALLENGED
W
ill the U.S. government get away with the power
to target and kill individuals, including U.S. citi-
zens, far from any armed conflict and without
charge, trial, or judicial process? This is the central question
in Al-Aulaqi v. Obama, a lawsuit CCR and the ACLU filed
today in federal court.
On August 30th the Center for Constitutional Rights
(CCR) and the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of Nasser Al-
Aulaqi against President Obama, CIA Director Leon Panetta,
and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The lawsuit aims to
stop the U.S. government from carrying out a “targeted kill-
ing” far away from any armed conflict, without due process,
and where there is not an imminent threat and lethal force is
not necessary. Anwar Al-Aulaqi has not been charged with
any crime, but has been the target of several strikes in Ye-
men, a country in which the U.S. is not engaged in war but
where air strikes have caused civilian casualties and popular
protests, and where he is believed to be in hiding. Outside the
context of armed conflict (Yemen is almost 2000 miles away
from Iraq and Afghanistan), targeted killing is permissible
under international law only as a last resort and in the face
of a truly imminent threat - and then only because the immi-
nence of the threat makes judicial process infeasible. Outside
these narrow circumstances, targeted killing amounts to the
imposition of a death sentence without charge or trial. The
government’s authorization to kill U.S. citizen Al-Aulaqi
far from any armed conflict violates his Fourth Amendment
right to be free from excessive force and his Fifth Amend-
ment right to due process before being deprived of life and
to have notice of the criteria that make a person targetable for
death. It also constitutes an extrajudicial killing in violation
of international law.
Regardless of the government’s allegations against Anwar
al-Aulaqi or any person suspected of wrongdoing, authoriz-
ing the death of individuals on secret standards, far from
any conflict zone, and outside of any legal process not only
violates the Constitution and international law, but seriously
undermines our collective safety. The executive should not
be able to act as judge, jury, and executioner, substituting
its own bureaucratic process for the due process required by
law. The U.S. government should not be able to claim the
sweeping authority to carry out extrajudicial killings of U.S.
citizens or other individuals far from any actual battlefield,
nor make the dangerous contention that the entire world is
now a battlefield. Such assertions of power will inevitably
target innocent people-the U.S. government has a long and
well-documented history of wrongly accusing both citizens
and foreigners of terrorism and of being a threat to national
security-and kill scores of innocent bystanders, undermin-
ing the rule of law and effectively creating a war without
boundaries or end.
If the government suspects individuals of criminal activity,
they should be charged and tried in a court of law, not put to
death on the government’s say-so. ♦
Source: http://ccrjustice.org/targetedkillings
[Ed. Note: The above lawsuit has since been tossed out
by a federal court for “lack of standing” since the potential
death squad victims were not actual plaintiffs.]
A WELCOME PRISON VICTORY AT YOUNGSTOWN
By Denis O’Hearn
T
hree death-sentenced men went on hunger strike in
Ohio State Penitentiary on January 3 to win the same
rights as others on death row in the state. On Satur-
day January 15, the twelfth day of their protest, a crowd of
supporters gathered in the parking lot by the tiny evangeli-
cal church at the entrance to the prison on the outskirts of
Youngstown. They ranged from the elderly and religious to
human rights supporters to members of various left groups.
They were expecting to participate in the first of a series of
events in coming weeks to support the men on their road to
force-feeding, or even possible death. Things did not turn out
as expected. For once, this was for the better.
The day’s events began when a small delegation made up
of the hunger strikers’ relatives and friends (Keith Lamar’s
Uncle Dwight, Siddique Hasan’s friend Brother Abdul, and
Alice Lynd for Jason Robb), went up to the prison through
the snow and ice to deliver an Open Letter addressed to OSP
Warden David Bobby and Ohio’s state prison officials. The
letter, which supported the demands of the hunger strikers,
was signed by more than 1,200 people including the famous
(Noam Chomsky), human-rights-leaning legal experts from
Ohio and around the world, prominent academics and writ-
ers, and ordinary retired teachers and religious ministers. It
was Saturday, so Warden Bobby was not there to meet the
delegation, but he’d been aware of their coming and left
someone at the front desk to take the letter.
Hopeful word of a settlement of the hunger strike had been
circulating among a few friends and activists for two days. It
was definitively confirmed that morning when visitors to Ja-
son Robb received a copy of a written agreement from War-
den Bobby outlining a settlement that provided practically
all of their demands, despite his insistence at the beginning
of the strike that he would not give in to duress. [The five
will be permitted semi-contact visits, an hour of daily phone
calls, increased recreation time, several food and sundry
boxes a year, a commissary list similar to death row’s, and
access to a legal database.]
Although the hunger strikers told me that they were opti-
mistic from the very beginning, there were grounds to expect
a harder battle. Bomani Shakur (Keith Lamar) described an
incident with the Deputy Warden at the beginning of his pro-
test.
“You know, LaMar, a human being can only go so long
without food,” he chided Shakur. “Yeah, I know,” replied
Bomani, “but according to the state of Ohio I’m not human,
so I don’t have to worry about that!”
Nonetheless, Warden Bobby and his deputies had been
meeting with the hunger strikers for some days and they
agreed that they would end their protest upon receipt of the
warden’s letter. Friends and relatives who came to visit Sid-
dique Hasan and Keith Lamar (aka Bomani Shakur) told vis-
iting friends and relatives similar details about the end of the
strike. Both men said that they had resumed eating.
Shakur told one of his friends that he’d “just been eating
hot-dogs.” She replied that it was crazy to eat such things on
an empty stomach. Bomani just laughed and said, “but I was
hungry, man!”
The delegation returned to the crowd and began the rally.
The surprise was revealed to all. The hunger strike was over.
Jason Robb’s victory statement was relayed to the crowd.
He wanted to thank everybody for their support, for without
it the men would have won nothing. But now, he said, it was
time to shift the focus to the fact that five men, including the
three hunger strikers, are awaiting execution for things they
did not do.
“The energy around our protest went viral,” he told Alice
and Staughton Lynd on a prison visit. “This time around the
fight was for better prison conditions. Now we begin fighting
for our lives.”
Why a Hunger Strike?
The “Lucasville Five” includes the three hunger strikers
plus Namir Mateen, who did not join the hunger strike due to
medical complications, and George Skatzes, who was trans-
ferred out of isolation at OSP after he was diagnosed with
chronic depression. All five are awaiting execution for a vari-
ety of charges, mostly complicity in the murders of prisoners
and a guard during the Lucasville prison uprising of 1993.
In a case that resembles that of the Angola 3 in Louisiana,
they have been held in solitary isolation for 23 hours a day
for more than 17 years, since the evening the uprising ended.
This is despite the fact that three of them helped negotiate a
settlement of the uprising that undoubtedly saved lives, and
despite a promise within the agreement that there would be
no retribution against any of the prisoners.
The Ohio prison authorities went back on their word. They
not only put the five men in isolation but they built the super-
max prison at Youngstown to hold them that way in perpetu-
ity. Having built the prison, they had to fill 500 beds, despite
the fact that a small Secure Housing Unit at Lucasville had
never been full. But the 1990s were the decade of the super-
max. So men who were charged with minor offences found
themselves locked up in Youngstown on “Level 5 security,”
meaning that they were held for 23 hours a day in a cell no
bigger than a city parking space. The steel-doored cells and
even the recreation areas where they spent an hour a day
NUMBER 36
were built in such a way as to ensure that they would never
have contact with another living being -- human, animal, or
plant. “Outdoor recreation” was in a cement-walled enclo-
sure that was only outdoor if you consider that the roof is
a steel grille. Hundreds of men have come and gone since
1998. Only four, the three hunger strikers and Namir Ma-
teen, remain locked up in perpetual isolation.
A case is underway in the Middle District Court of Louisi-
ana that is likely to judge this kind of treatment as a violation
of the eighth amendment prohibitions on cruel and unusual
punishment. It may be that the Ohio authorities see the hand-
writing on the wall and they want to improve the conditions
of Ohio’s supermax before they are forced to do so by an-
other court ruling, like the Wilkinson vs Austin case of 2005
in which the US Supreme Court forced them to improve con-
ditions in the supermax.
One of the holdings of the Supreme Court instructed the
Ohio authorities to follow Fifth Amendment provision on
due process. In 2000, two years after the supermax opened,
they began giving annual reviews to the death-sentenced
Lucasville prisoners. But the reviews are not meaningful.
One of the reviews even concluded, “You were admitted to
OSP in May of 1998. We are of the opinion that your place-
ment offense is so severe that you should remain at the OSP
permanently or for many years regardless of your behavior
while confined at the OSP.” Thus, the four have been con-
demned to de facto permanent isolation.
This lack of meaningful review, as well as the continued
lack of human contact despite the agreement that ended the
Youngstown hunger strike, might yet be the focus of litiga-
tion not just in Ohio but in other supermaxes around the
United States, such as California’s notorious “Secure Hous-
ing Unit” at Pelican Bay State Prison.
The conditions of supermax are a running sore on the US
human rights record, a sort of elephant in the room that few
people want to talk about. Yet there is a growing sentiment
among experts and policymakers against extreme isolation,
both because of its cost but also due to the judgment that it
is a form of torture.
And it is these conditions of extreme isolation, without
hope of ever touching a fellow human apart from a prison
guard, that drove these men to the ultimate protest of hun-
ger strike. As Bomani Shakur wrote in a statement that an-
nounced his hunger strike, none of the men wanted to die.
But in such conditions of isolation, and in the absence of
any way of proving to the authorities that they were not a
security risk if allowed to mix with other prisoners or have
semi-contact visits, depriving themselves of food was the
only non-violent means of protest that remained for them.
What Now?
For the Lucasville Five, the main attention turns now to
their wrongful convictions and to the death penalty itself.
Ohio is the only state in the US that executed more men in
2010 than in 2009. And it is second only to Texas in its rate
of executions. For the past two years, the state has attempted
to execute one man a month, although that attempt has been
slowed by botched executions and by some surprising grants
of clemency by former governor Ted Strickland. One can
only hope that moves away from the use of the death penalty
in states like New Mexico and, most recently, Illinois are
the beginning of a more general move to do away with this
backward policy.
The hunger strikers expressed their hopes, to relatives and
other visitors, that the energy that built up around support-
ing their recent protest could now be turned toward getting
them off their death sentences and allowing them to prove
their innocence. Ironically, the improved conditions that they
won through hunger strike could help in this regard. Among
their demands -- increased time outside of their cells, semi-
contact visits, and equal access to commissary -- was the
demand that they be allowed to access legal databases like
other death-sentenced prisoners, so that they could work to-
ward their appeals.
For now, this is most important to Bomani Shakur. In a
shocking recent decision, a district court judge affirmed the
recommendation of the magistrate against his petition for ha-
beas corpus without any discussion of the merits of the judg-
ment. Shakur believes that the judge made this seemingly
rash judgment in retaliation for his role in the hunger strike.
Whether he has reason to believe this or not, he and his
counsel now have to turn to the Federal Court of Appeals
for the 6th Circuit. In real terms, what might have been a
further process of five years to execution now seems to have
been shortened to perhaps three. The US judicial system is
strongly biased against appeal, even in most egregious cases
of injustice.
So the Lucasville Five now have a hard case to argue. It is
a case where public opinion and social movement may have
more impact than the law, just as public pressure seems to
have played a decisive role in winning a successful end to the
hunger strike after such a short period.
Bomani Shakur told Alice and Staughton Lynd that the
denial of his habeas petition by the district court makes him
more determined and focused on what he needs to do in the
next few years. Activists and supporters in Ohio and beyond
will be asked to find the same kind of focus. ♦
ILLINOIS AG SUES
FORMER INMATE TO PAY
FOR INCARCERATION
Demands payment the for the care, custo-
dy, treatment and rehabilitation provided
to him by the department of corrections
By Bob Susnjara , Chicago Daily Herald
P
hilip Snow paid his debt to society by serving four
years in the state prison system for attacking a senior
citizen.
Now, roughly five years since his release, the Illinois De-
partment of Corrections wants Snow to pay $82,800, a bill
that includes the care and services he received while behind
bars.
Although Michigan and other states have become aggres-
sive in going after felons for their incarceration expenses,
such a move is a rarity in cash-strapped Illinois.
Officials say they believe Snow is one of the few felons
to have the means to pay for his time in the Joliet, Shawnee,
Dixon and East Moline correctional centers. A section of the
Illinois Unified Code of Corrections is being used in the at-
tempt to get the cash from Snow.
Some advocates for prisoners question chasing them for
money after release, saying it’s similar to being made to pay
twice for a crime. Snow couldn’t be located for comment.
Department of Corrections spokeswoman Sharyn Elman
said the attorney general’s office can be notified when it’s
discovered that an inmate has money that was not disclosed
at the time of incarceration.
Elman said corrections officials also can alert the attorney
general if they find out an inmate came into money during or
after a prison stay. The attorney general then can attempt to
get the money through a lawsuit for incarceration expenses.
“After a full investigation, if it is found the offender has
funds to reimburse the IDOC for costs, we will follow the
legal channels to acquire payment,” Elman said.
“Most offenders do not have the means, but in those un-
common cases where it is discovered that they do, we will
follow the code of corrections.”
Neither Elman nor Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s
spokeswoman, Robyn Ziegler, would say why it’s believed
Snow has the money to pay.
Snow, 50, believed to be from Zion, was convicted of ag-
gravated battery to a senior citizen. Lake County court docu-
ments show he was behind bars from July 5, 2001, to Aug.
12, 2005.
On Oct. 15, the attorney general’s office sued Snow in
Lake County court demanding the $82,800 for the care, cus-
tody, treatment and rehabilitation provided to him by the de-
partment of corrections. As of Friday, documents were not
yet filed indicating whether Snow has been served with the
complaint.
“The Illinois Department of Corrections knows or reason-
ably believes that Philip Snow has assets that may be used
to satisfy all or part of a judgment rendered against him,”
Assistant Attorney General James McCracken wrote in the
court file.
McCracken cites the Illinois Unified Code of Corrections
as the basis for the complaint against Snow. Established in
1982, part of the code says inmates are liable for their in-
carceration costs based on a rate determined by state prison
officials.
John Maki, coordinating director of the John Howard As-
sociation of Illinois prison reform organization, agreed it’s
rare for the state to seek reimbursement from felons. He said
many inmates who are freed have little money and often
wind up homeless.
But Maki said considering the law states all inmates are
liable for their prison expenses, it doesn’t make sense for
Snow to be singled out for his $82,800 tab while others don’t
have to pay. He said the John Howard Association views the
law as unfair.
“It’s like they’re punishing him twice,” said Maki, who
also questioned the public money that’ll be spent on the
Snow case.
Meanwhile, Michigan is among the states that have be-
come aggressive in gaining prisoner reimbursements through
lawsuits filed by Attorney General Mike Cox. His spokes-
woman, Joy Yearout, said it has become a priority for the
office.
Since 2003, Yearout said, Michigan has filed more than
1,000 suits against ex-felons believed to have financial
means to pay for their prison stays. She said the office has
recovered more than $17 million.
“Our investigative staff works to generate and process
leads on inmate assets,” Yearout said. ♦
9
PRISONS, SOCIAL CONTROL AND POLITICAL OUR DEAR SISTER AND
PRISONERS COMRADE MARILYN
By Marilyn Buck, Jan. 1999 governments that makes the political offense exception ap- BUCK HAS JOINED THE
I
ncreasingly, the globalization of markets and profit-seek- plicable, not the reasons for wishing to do so or the nature of
ing has pressed U.S. prisons to become profit-generating the acts by which they hope to accomplish that goal.3 ANCESTORS.
enterprises—the prison-industrial complex. Neverthe- As well there are some social prisoners sucked into the
less, prisons continue to serve their main purpose as well: prison machine who have become conscious through the “... I survived, carried on, glad to be
to warehouse and disappear the “unacceptable.” Prisons ex- daily, punishing repression, brutality, racism, and injustice. like a weed, a wild red poppy,
ist to deprive their captives of their liberties, their human These comrades, men like George Jackson, Ruchell Magee, rooted in life”
agency, and to punish. These institutions stigmatize prison- Hugo Pinell and many others, stepped beyond their social

O
ers through moralistic denunciations and indictments based offenses and kidnapping-victimization, beyond the indi- n August 3, 2010, long-time political prisoner and
on bad genes—skin color as a crime. The law—a political vidualism demanded by the prison system to challenge the acclaimed poet and translator Marilyn Buck, 62,
institution in itself—provides the framework for the war of system consciously, as self-determining protagonists. They passed peacefully at her home in Brooklyn, New
social control against oppressed nations, working classes and became enemies of the State, subject to that specific jacket York.
non-compliant women. and treatment for political prisoners. Comrades such as these A few short weeks earlier, on July 15th, Marilyn had been
The vast majority of prisoners are not imprisoned because are murdered by the prison or languish in control unit prisons released from the federal Bureau of Prisons medical facility
they are “criminals,” but because they’ve been accused of for decades as well. in Carswell, Texas and paroled to New York City. Thanks to
breaking one of an ever-increasing number of laws designed Political prisoners come from their communities, become the efforts of her long-time friend and lawyer Jill Soffiyah
to exert tighter social control and State repression. They conscious. Part of that consciousness is understanding that Elijah, her release came several weeks before the date origi-
have been scapegoated and criminalized. This can be seen we are from the community of oppressed and exploited. nally set for her release on parole, August 8th.
in the increased number of Black, Latino, Native Ameri- Many political prisoners were active in opposing the prison Marilyn served a total of 33 years of an 80-year prison
can and Asian youth detained under youth-crime acts and system long before we ever imagined that we would end sentence for politically motivated actions undertaken in sup-
“anti-gang” laws; the number of foreign nationals (exclud- up prisoners. Many continue to work against concentration port of self-determination and national liberation and in op-
ing most Europeans) imprisoned under hate-mongering kamp USA once released. The injustice and inhumanity of position to racial injustice and U.S. imperialism. Throughout
immigration laws; and of course, the “drug” war in which the prison system are only logical extensions or conclusions her years in prison, Marilyn remained a steadfast supporter
hundreds of thousands have been kidnapped from their com- of the overall inequalities of the entire system. We oppose of fellow political prisoners and an advocate for the women
munities, even from other countries. These sweeping laws cruelty, brutality, and inhumanity in the system and in our with whom she was imprisoned.
embody and embolden U.S. capitalist policies to criminalize communities. While incarcerated, Marilyn earned several educational
and decimate targeted populations and to sustain a hostage There will be more political prisoners as it becomes more degrees, including a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and
Third World and white working-class wage-labor force be- imperative to resist the rapacious, human-eating system, Master of Arts degrees in poetics. She published several
hind prison walls. Most prisoners, by virtue of their ethnic- as our social and political movements grow stronger and books of poems including Rescue the Word (Friends of Mar-
ity and class, are victims of ethnic-cleansing policies—death challenge more directly globalization, capitalism, and the ilyn Buck, 2001), Wild Poppies, original poetry by and for
deferred to incarceration. increasingly militarized police state. After all, the State is Marilyn Buck (audio CD, Freedom Archives, 2004), and the
There are other “undesirables” as well: those who have more invested in social control than ever. (It was caught off highly acclaimed State of Exile, by Cristina Peri Rossi and
consciously, politically resisted, opposed—even attacked— guard in Seattle at the anti-WTO demonstrations but reacted Marilyn Buck (City Lights, 2008). Her poetry and essays
the injustices and inequalities of this State system of social in a predictable manner.) What will be the destination of the have been printed in a wide variety of journals and books. In
control. These prisoners are political prisoners, historically 60 people still being charged there in Seattle? What about recent years she was preparing a new collection of poetry, to
among the most feared and despised by those who wield State the young activist given a seven-year sentence in Oregon for be published early next year under the title Inside Shadows.
power. In the 1950’s, COINTELPRO (the federal COunter throwing a rock in an anti-WTO demonstration last summer? Marilyn became involved in the civil rights and anti-war
INTELligence PROgram) was created.1 It employed dirty Or Khalil Jacobs-Fantauzzi, the Puerto Rican comrade who movements and joined the Students for a Democratic Society
tricks, disinformation, militarized police agencies and assas- was the only person to face trial after demonstrations against (SDS) during her college years at the University of Texas at
sination in its political war against the national liberation, corporate seizure of KPFA radio in Berkeley last summer? Austin and the University of California, Berkeley. In the fol-
anti-imperialist and pro-socialist forces. Imprisonment was Khalil is an anti-prison activist and played a leading orga- lowing years she became an active supporter of the Puerto
also, and continues to nizing role in Califor- Rican, Native American and Black liberation struggles in
be, one of its weapons nia in the campaign to this country. She was a consistent and outspoken advocate of
against political activ- The vast majority of prisoners are not impris- free the Puerto Rican liberation and equality for women.
ists. oned because they are “criminals,” but because Prisoners of War and Near the end of 2009, Marilyn was diagnosed with an ag-
The State shows they’ve been accused of breaking one of an ev- ppolitical prisoners. gressive form of cancer. Despite surgery and chemotherapy,
little mercy to its po- er-increasing number of laws designed to exert (He was acquitted af- treatment came too late to save her life.
litical enemies. The ter taking his case to Marilyn is survived by three brothers, three sisters-in-law;
case of Mumia Abu-
tighter social control and State repression. trial). several cousins, nieces and nephews; Soffiyah Elijah, and
Jamal is a currentt Many social and po- other loving friends worldwide including prisoners, political
well-known example. He was denied even a modicum of a litical activists have escalated their work in support of pris- prisoners, prisoners of conscience and political exiles. Her
fair trial, under more “liberal” standards than exist in this oners and to challenge the brutal slave-labor prison estab- parents, Dr. and Mrs. Louis Buck, both pre-deceased her.
period. Geronimo ji-Jaga (Pratt) and Leonard Peltier were lishment. This growth was reflected in the timely, qualitative Memorial gatherings [were] held in New York City, San
both framed for murders by Federal and local COINTEL- conference of Critical Resistance in Fall 1998. The work of Francisco, Texas, Puerto Rico, [and elsewhere]. Funds raised
PRO forces. Geronimo was freed after much struggle and 27 activists contributed to creating the conditions in which Am- for her that had not been dispersed at the time of her death
years. Leonard is still in prison. Assata Shakur was convicted nesty International at last issued a report on human rights in will be used according to her wishes to assist other aging
of a police killing she could not have done and is only free in the U.S., in the face of U.S. power and imperial pronounce- prisoners and advance social justice efforts. ♦
exile. More than a few political prisoners remain imprisoned ments that it is the godfather of democracy and human rights. From the Friends of Marilyn Buck website
for nearly two decades and some for nearly three decades - Prisoners in even the deepest of holes are feeling some hope
the Angola Three, the New York Three, Black Panthers and despite the downward spiral of inhuman treatment and in-
New Afrikan militants, Puerto Rican independentistas, North creasing demonization.
American anti-imperialist solidarity fighters, and other com- Yet in the midst of this rise of activism, there seems to
rades. To be a political prisoner is neither a comfortable nor be a reticence to support political prisoners and Prisoners
a privileged situation. To remain committed to one’s beliefs of War, or a tendency to say that there are no differences
and principles exacts a heavy price. Political prisoners in in consciousness, or roles of prisoners - for example, “all
New York state prisons are rarely held in the same prison. prisoners are political prisoners” since imprisonment is a
Many have spent years, even a decade, in isolation control political policy. Some pamphlets about prison support work
units for no other reason than their political association and include “support for political prisoners and POWs” but little
“political crimes.” Many have been denied health care for se- about who we are or why we should be supported as part of
curity reasons. Enemies of the state are deliberately targeted, prison activism. Surely supporting political prisoners is not
subject to continual surveillance. The State is determined to an impediment to the real work of opposing the prison estab-
destroy us. On purpose. Not merely because the prison sys- lishment or fighting for more humane conditions. We, too,
tem is a vehicle of equal-opportunity punishment and casual experience the full range of repression. We are here because
cruelty that is by its very nature crushing the life and breath we have challenged that social repression!
from its victims and hostages. At times it seems the hesitance to support is precisely be-
To be a political prisoner is not a matter of standing higher cause of our politics, our political consciousness and actions.
in a “hierarchy” of prisoners. Where one stands is a matter of Perhaps the conscious, relative political “crimes” we have
consciousness, not of social status or privilege. It is a place- been charged with committing conflict with some people’s
ment based in political practice and international law. A U.S. own political strategies. But should we as a movement not
court has even noted that “crimes” must be looked at differ- encourage consciousness, and self-determining, creative and
ently when carried out in furtherance of a political struggle collective protagonists in the struggle for human dignity and
against a State. There are both pure political offenses (like rights?
sedition) and relative political offenses. These include “oth- There is always room to debate politics, points of view,
erwise common crimes committed in connection with a po- strategies and tactics. To confront differences and questions
litical act, or common crimes committed for political mo- is a good thing. Any struggle for liberation demands free and
tives or in a political context.”2 The court goes on to say in open debate of ideas and practice. At the same time, active
relation to political status and international law: struggles need to support those who act consciously, politi-
It is the fact that the insurgents are seeking to change their cally. To do so is a part of asserting the right to struggle as
1. See Ward Churchill, Agents of Repression: The FBI’s well as to defend activism and promote stronger resistance
Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the to the military, financial, and political apparatus that denies
American Indian Movement, and Ward Churchill, Jim our society and the whole world true equality and justice.♦
Vander Wall, COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the [Ed. Note: Marilyn Buck wrote this article in January of This photograph of Marilyn Buck was taken in late 1992,
1999, some twelve years ago.] probably at the federal penitentiary for women in Dublin,
FBI’s Secret Wars Against Domestic Dissent. California.
2. Quinn v. Robinson, 783 F. 2d at 793-4. 3. Quinn v. Robinson, supra at 805.

10 PRISON FOCUS

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL : “I AM AN OUTLAW JOURNALIST”
[Reporters Without Borders Washington DC representative,
Clothilde Le Coz, recently visited Mumia Abu-Jamal,
prisoner on death row for nearly three decades. Ms. Le Coz
was accompanied by Abu-Jamal’s lead attorney, Robert R.
Bryan, and his legal assistant, Nicole Bryan. The meeting
took place in room 17 of the State Correctional Institution
(SCI) in Waynesburg, Greene County, Pennsylvania.]
tries, like European ones, went through a specific history of
repression. There was an in-their-bones-knowledge of what
it is to be in prison. They know about prison, death row and
concentration camps. In the US, very few people had that
experience. That speaks to how cultures look at things in the
world. In Europe, the very ideal of death penalty is an anath-
ema.
9/11 changed a lot of things in the US. People challeng-
taining artificial trans whatsoever,” our case was closed. On
Jan. 14, 2010, after I discovered that the CDCr lied to the
court and was secretly using large quantities of TFA in our
meals, I filed a Writ of Error Coram Nobis petition.
On Feb. 11, 2010, the court issued an Order of Reconsider-
ation and Request for Supplemental Informal Response. The
Attorney General’s Office, as legal counsel for the CDCr, ad-
mitted that the CDCr was violating Health and Safety Code
section 114377. Subsequently, the court granted my requests
for an Order to Show Cause and appointment of counsel.
The Attorney General’s Office then filed a Return with two

R
eporters Without Borders: As a journalist who con- ing or opposing the government would not be supported supporting declarations by CDCr food managers. Thereaf-
tinues to work in prison, what are your latest reports anymore. The press also changed. Things that were “allow- ter, by and through counsel, we filed a Traverse with two
focused on? able” became unacceptable after 9/11. I think 9/11 changed declarations by Folsom prison kitchen workers. On Nov. 3,
Mumia Abu-Jamal: The prison population in the United the way people thought and it changed the tolerance of the 2010, after reviewing evidence presented by both sides, the
States is the highest in the world. Over the past year, for the media. For example, even though 9/11 happened in Manhat- court granted our request and issued an Order for Eviden-
first time in 38 years, the prison population declined. tan and Washington DC, the jail was closed for an entire day, tiary Hearing, which expanded the case to include all CDCr
Some states, like California or Michigan, are taking fewer here in Pennsylvania, and we were locked down. facilities.
prisoners because of overcrowding. State budgets are re- To motivate more people around your cause, it might be On Nov. 12, 2010, the Attorney General’s Office filed a
strained and some prisoners are released because of the eco- helpful to get an up to date picture of you, today, on death Request to Vacate Evidentiary Hearing with an “Expedited
nomic situation. row. Does the fact that we Ruling by November 17, 2010.” Therein, CDCr’s counsel
Prisons in America are I need to write. There are millions of stories don’t have any updated unsuccessfully argued that “the issue of statewide compli-
vast and the number of pris-
oners is immense. It’s im-
and some wonderful people here. Among picture of you affect your
situation and the ability of
ance with the Health and Safety Code is not properly before
the Court because the Court limited the issue to whether Fol-
pressive to see how much these stories, the ones I chose to write are more people to mobilize som was in current compliance with the Health and Safety
money is spent by the US important, moving, and fragile. around your cause? Code. Further, the issue of statewide compliance was not
government and how invis- Having a public image briefed by the parties.” The motion was DENIED.
ible we are. No one knows. Most people don’t care. Some is partly helpful. The essence of an image is propaganda. On Nov. 19, 2010, this author attended the evidentiary
journalists report when there is a drama in prison and think Pictures are therefore not that important. The human image hearing, which was held at the Sacramento County Supe-
they know about it. But this is not real : it is sensationalist. is the true one. There, I try to do my best. In 1986, prison rior Court in Department 21. After myself and CDCr’s food
You can find some good writings. But they are unrealistic. authorities took recorders from reporters and you were only manager testified, Judge Steve White concluded that he will
My reporting is what I have seen with my eyes and what allowed a pen and a paper. Now that there is only the mean- “maintain jurisdiction of the case.” That means the court will
people told me. It is real. My reporting has to do with my ing of one article left, one can make monsters and models oversee CDCr’s compliance in 2011. Thus, the CDCr must
reality. They mostly have been focusing on death row and from his article. “destroy any and all such foods that still exist in the prison
prison. I wish it were not so. There is a spate of suicides on If the Supreme Court agrees on a new trial, only your sen- system on January 1, 2011.” The Attorney General’s Office
death row in the last year and a half. But this is invisible. I tence will be reviewed. Not your conviction. How do you feel vigorously defended CDCr’s unlawful actions because state-
broke stories about suicide because it happened on my block. about staying in prison for life, if you are not executed? wide compliance with the Health and Safety Code will cost
I need to write. There are millions of stories and some In Pennsylvania, life sentence is a slow death row. And the CDCr millions of dollars.
wonderful people here. Among these stories, the ones I chose under the state law, there are 3 degrees of murders. The first When Judge White’s final ruling is issued in December
to write are important, moving, and fragile. I decide to write degree is punished by life sentence or death. The second and 2010, CDCr prisoners may use the factual findings in our
them but part of the calculation is to know whether it’s help- the third ones are punished by life sentence. People do not case. That is, inmates who have developed serious medical
ful or not. I have to think about that. As a reporter, you have get out. The highest juvenile rate of life sentences is here in conditions may sue the CDCr for monetary damages or seek
a responsibility when you publish those kinds of stories. Pennsylvania. But here is my point, in Philadelphia, there early releases, based on the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition
Hopefully, it will change their lives for the better. were two other cases around my time were people killed a against cruel and unusual punishments.
Do you think the fact you were a reporter affected your cop. The first one got acquittal. The second once, caught on For further information about the case, including copies of
case? a surveillance camera, did not get a death sentence. our Emergency Group Appeal, Public Records Act Requests,
Being the “Voice of the Voiceless” played a significant How do you manage to “escape” death row? Petitions etc., order “Avoiding Trans Fats: What All Citizens
role. And this expression actually comes from the title of a I have written on History, one of my passions. I would and Prisoners Need to Know.” A special pre-publication edi-
Philadelphia Inquirer headline after I was arrested in 1981. love to write about other things. My latest works are about tion is available exclusively from FACTS, L.A. Chapter, for
As a teenager, I was a radical journalist working on the staff war, but I also write about culture and music. I have an in- a $15 tax deductible donation plus $4.95 shipping and han-
of the Black Panthers national newspaper. The FBI was ac- ternal beat that I try to keep through poetry and drums. Very dling. Make your check or money order payable to “FACTS
tually monitoring my writings since I was 14. My first job few things have matched the pleasure that I get from learn- Education Fund” and mail it to FACTS L.A. Chapter, 3982
was being a reporter. Because of my writings, I am far better ing music. It’s like learning another language. And to write, S. Figueroa Street #210, Los Angeles, CA 90037. ♦
known that any inmate in America. If it were not the case, I that’s a challenge! A music teacher comes every week and
think there would have been less pressure for the Court to teaches me. A whole new world is opening to me and I get a
create a special law to affect my conviction. Most of the men better grasp of it now. Music is one of the best thing mankind
and women on death row are not well known. Because I con- has done. The best of our lives. ♦
PRISON INDUSTRY
tinue to write, this is an element that would have affected the [For further information and to offer support for Mumia PROGRAMS FEEL PINCH
thinking of the judges and made them change the ruling for Abu-Jamal, contact: Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan 2088
not giving me a new trial. I think they were thinking “You’re Union Street, Suite 4, San Francisco, CA 94123-4117 http:// OF ECONOMY
a big mouth, you won’t get a new trial”. You expect a little www.MumiaLegalDefense.org. Petitions are available at By Cy Ryan
more from a federal Court. Because of my case, a dozen of their website. Not only has private business felt the economic pinch, but
other cases can be affected. Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists the slowdown has also hit the inmate industrial programs in
What do you think of the media coverage of your case? and press freedom throughout the world. It has nine national the Nevada State Prison system.
Once, I read that I was no longer on death row. I was sit- sections (Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ita- The number of prisoners working in these programs for
ting here when I read it. I haven’t stopped sitting here for ly, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland). It has representatives private companies has fallen from 786 in July 2008 to 496
one second. in Bangkok, New York, Tokyo and Washington. And it has in April.
Because I was coming from the craft, a lot of reporters did more than 120 correspondents worldwide.] “This is directly tied to the economy,” says Brian Connett,
not want to cover my case because they feared they would http://en.rsf.org/united-states-mumia-abu-jamal-i-am-an- deputy director of the state Department of Corrections.
be attached. They had to face criticisms for being partial outlaw-03-09-2010,38278.html He said private companies are either closing or reducing
and sometimes they were told by their editors they could operations at the prisons.
not cover it. Since the beginning of the case, people who The latest program to close was Shelby American, which
could cover me best were not allowed to. Most of reporters I
worked with are no longer working. They retired and nobody
PRISONERS WIN has made auto parts at the Southern Desert Correctional Cen-
ter in Clark County for about 15 years.
took the work over. LANDMARK CASE Connett told the Legislative Committee on Industrial Pro-
But the press should have a role to play here. Millions of grams that Shelby “could not come to grips with laying off
people saw what was done in Abu Ghraib. Its leader, smiling AGAINST THE CDCR their employees in Las Vegas but keep the inmates working.”
on the pictures that have been published, worked here before By Kenneth G. Keel Shelby paid $40,000 a year to lease the 15,000 square feet

A
going to Abu Ghraib. In death row, you have people without fter three years of appeals and litigation, I’m pleased at the prison and $190,000 to cover the room and board cost
a high school degree who can decide whether someone lives to announce that, beginning Jan. 1, 2011, the Cali- for the inmates, and contributed $38,000 to a victim’s fund.
or dies. For whatever reason, they have the power to make fornia Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation This results in a loss of 45 to 55 inmate jobs.
you not eat if they don’t want to. And none of that power is (CDCr) will no longer be allowed to furnish prisoners food Connett said there are no prospects to replace Shelby. But
checked by anyone. There are informal rules. These people containing poisonous trans fats. he said the prison is promoting its low lease and labor costs
can make someone’s life a living hell on a wink. When I On Nov. 5, 1998, on behalf of myself and 267 group ap- to entice another company to set up shop.
chose which stories I want to write about, I am never short on peal members, I recommenced the landmark case, In re Ken- The prison system is owed $1.4 million in back payments
material. From a writing perspective, this field is rich. neth G. Keel et al on Habeas Corpus, Sacramento County by industrial companies that operated at the various loca-
No matter what my detractors are saying about me, I am Case No. 08F09256. Our Emergency Group Appeal alleged, tions. Connett estimates about $850,000 is uncollectable.
a reporter. This country would be a whole lot worse without in part: “We are involuntarily being provided a diet with high For instance, TJ Wholesale, which ran a card-sorting busi-
journalists. But to many of them, I am an outlaw reporter. quantities of industrially-produced trans fatty acids (TFA) ness at the High Desert State Prison, went bankrupt.
Prior to prison, in my work for various radio stations, I met from partially hydrogenated oils. There is conclusive evi- “They no longer exist,” Connett said. Another company
people from all around the world and despite my conflicts dence indicating that TFA promotes coronary heart disease, purchased TJ Wholesale but did not buy the debt, he said. ♦
with some editors, I had the greatest job. sudden cardiac death, diabetes and many other diseases that
The support you receive in Europe compared to the sup- kill people. Even if doesn’t kill particular individuals, it can [Ed. Note: What the above article does not say is that
port you receive here in the United States, is very different. cause them to use medication for the rest of their abbreviated Shelby American, moved operations from the prison to Mex-
How do you explain the difference and do you still believe lives.” ico. Times must be really bad when a company can produce
international mobilization will be helpful? Prisoners win landmark case against the CDCr a product in Mexico cheaper than using convict labor in U.S.
Of course it will. The European mobilization might be On March 9, 2009, after the CDCr informed the court that prisons. Looks like NAFTA has even hit the prison slave la-
pressuring the US regarding the death penalty. Foreign coun- “beginning in January 2010, CDCR will serve no food con- bor market.]

NUMBER 36 11
 ¡SIGUE LA LUCHA! ONE IN 28 US KIDS HAS A
By C. Landrum out of the west as a result of settler terrorism and for the
PARENT IN PRISON: STUDY
better part of the last 150 years have been forced back to By Daniel Tencer

T
[Reprinted from May, 2006 issue of Prison Art newsletter.]

F
or 500 years now, from the South American cone to their homelands as a source of cheap legal and illegal “im- he US’s exceptionally high rate of incarceration is
the furthest reaches of the North American continent, migrant” labor. There are laws of motion at work here and causing economic damage not only to the people
from the Aztecs to Peru’s Maoist Sendero Luminoso, it is important that we not only understand them in order to behind bars but to their children and taxpayers as a
our indigenous and Mestizo brothers and sisters have been more fully grasp what is currently happening in regards to whole, a new study finds.
waging continuous heroic struggles against foreign and do- this particular phenomenon, but to place it in its proper con- The study from the Pew Research Center’s Economic Mo-
mestic exploiters. These foreign and domestic ruling classes text in connection with the rest of the world. bility Project, released in early October 2010, reports that the
have by the most ruthless methods imposed upon the masses All “things,” that is, all processes without exception, that US prison population has more than quadrupled since 1980,
a profit driven economy which has not only created poverty come into existence are not only pushed and forced into ex- from 500,000 to 2.3 million, making the US’s incarceration
and misery in a far greater number than those it has lifted, but istence as a result of struggling with those external forces rate the highest in the world, beating former champions like
which has perpetuated with increasing intensity those social and influences around it, but all things must also fight and Russia and South Africa.
inequalities which were already in existence. struggle their way into existence as a result of its own in- This means more than one in 100 Americans is in prison,
We’re witnessing manifestations of this continued re- herent contradictions. This is true of all things (motion), or- and the cost of prisons to states now exceeds $50 billion
sistance in the form of multiple and growing protests that ganic and inorganic alike. In the initial stages of something’s per year, or one in every 15 state dollars spent—a figure the
are taking place right here within the gated community of existence, its development is “progressive” as it fights and study describes as “staggering.”
US imperialism. It should be understood that this beauti- struggles it way into existence to establish itself. But once According to the authors, one in every 28 children in the
ful brown phenomenon is blooming out of a debate that is a thing (process) has come to its full maturity and has es- US has a parent behind bars—up from one in 125 just 25
waging within the ruling class and its reactionary supporters tablished its existence in interconnection with those other years ago. This is significant, the study argues, because chil-
over how best to pursue their financial interests on the one things and processes around it, its motion becomes increas- dren of incarcerated parents are much likelier to struggle in
hand, and other the other, how best to deal with the so-called ingly more “reactionary” as it now only “reacts” on those life. A family with an incarcerated parent on average earns
“immigrant problem” and the media’s manufactured threat it forces and influences around it, as well as those within itself, 22 percent less the year after the incarceration than it did
poses to national security. in an attempt to hold the clock back and remain in existence. the year before, the study finds. And children with parents
One faction forming within the ruling class, consisting of But like everything else that comes into existence, all things in prison are significantly likelier to be expelled from school
Democrats and Republicans alike, who cater to the most re- will eventually be forced out of existence as a result of its than others; 23 percent of students with jailed parents are
actionary sections of the population, support the newly pro- own inherent contradictions and those forces and influences expelled, compared to 4 percent for the general population.
posed “anti-immigrant” bill H.R. 4437 (The Sensenbrenner around it that are struggle “progressively” to establish their “Both education and parental income are strong indicators
Bill) or some variation of it. Should this bill become law, own existence. of children’s future economic mobility,” the survey notes.
an estimated 12 million oppressed nationalities will become This is true of all matter and society is no exception. The “With millions of prison and jail inmates a year returning
“felons” overnight, subjecting them to imprisonment and an- opposition against those “progressive” forces flooding like a to their communities, it is important to identify policies that
other round of mass expulsions from their homelands once beautiful brown wave across US cities, is nothing more than address the impact of incarceration on the economic mobility
again. a “reactionary” effort on the part of the ruling class and its of former inmates and their children.”
The other faction of Democrats and Republicans that are supporters to erect a barrier in an attempt to hold the clock In all, 2.7 million US children have parents behind bars,
forming within the ruling class are more dangerous than the back and preserve their established lifestyles which they fear and “two-thirds of these children’s parents were incarcerated
first faction in that they masquerade as champions of the is under threat by those oppressed nationalities surging for- for non-violent offenses,” the study notes.
gente in an effort to secure future political support while at ward. Not surprisingly, the statistics show large disparities when
the same time attempting to take steam out of the growing Although placing this particular phenomenon in its proper broken down by race. Among black children, fully one in
momentum out of fear for the people’s potential to truly chal- context, in its inseparable interconnection with the rest of nine, or 11.4 percent, have a parent in jail. For Hispanics, the
lenge the status quo. It should the world, we must understand number is one in 28, and for white children it’s one in 57.
not be overlooked that the voic- that seeking assimilation into a The study also finds that the US now has a prison popula-
es of these supposed champions society that holds a significant tion larger than the 35 largest European countries combined.
were nowhere to be heard until amount of responsibility for the The incarceration rate in the US is five times that of Great
after the gente began to take poverty and misery that plagues Britain -- 753 inmates per 100,000 people, compared to 151
matters into their own hands. Mexico, Central and South inmates in the UK. Even the British incarceration rate is high
This faction with the likes America, including the Carib- compared to some countries: 96 in France and 88 in Ger-
of Bush Jr. propose an updated bean and much of the rest of the many, for example.
version of the braceros pro- world, is not a possible solution The cost of such a high incarceration rate hasn’t been lost
gram, that is, some form of a for all. To avoid becoming re- on lawmakers in this era of budget deficits. Over the past
temporary workers status with actionaries themselves and an few years, numerous states have released prisoners early to
the promise of a future mem- eventual brake on the progress reduce incarceration costs. California granted early release
bership into the country club. of others to follow, the struggle to some 1,500 inmates this year, and the state hopes to reduce
In practice, this is designed to must not only be for “complete its prison population by a total of 6,500.
enable the government to track amnesty,” but more essential, But those early releases have proven controversial, both
and monitor millions of op- the struggle must be continued for political and public safety reasons. The New York Times
pressed nationalities with the in preparation for a future trans- reported earlier this year:
potential to “send them back” formation of the existing profit In February, lawmakers in Oregon temporarily suspended
under the guise of national se- driven economic system that a program they had expanded last year to let prisoners, for
curity the moment their labor creates the poverty and misery good behavior, shorten their sentences (and to save $6 mil-
is no longer politically or fi- that so many gente are attempt- lion) after an anticrime group aired radio advertisements por-
nancially beneficial to the rul- ing to escape from in the first traying the outcomes in alarming tones. “A woman’s asleep
ing class and its reactionary By C. Landrum place. in her own apartment,” a narrator said. “Suddenly, she’s at-
beneficiaries—something that Food, adequate shelter, cloth- tacked by a registered sex offender and convicted burglar.”
happened repeatedly since the ing, and medical services, edu- In Illinois, Gov. Patrick J. Quinn, a Democrat, described as
settlers first erected their artificial border through Aztlan. cation, work, etc. must not only be guaranteed to all people, “a big mistake” an early release program that sent some con-
Marx proved to us through “the absolute general law of but more importantly, the means to produce these necessi- victs who had committed violent crimes home from prison
capitalist accumulation” that poverty and misery accu- ties must also be owned and controlled by the people—not a in a matter of weeks. Of more than 1,700 prisoners released
mulates in correspondence to an accumulation of capital handful of rich, corrupt pigs. over three months, over 50 were accused of new violations.
(wealth). Surplus value is that additional value created by Today half of the world’s population lives on less than An early release program in Colorado meant to save $19
the laborer over and beyond the wages paid to the laborer. $2.00 a day, and literally tens of thousands of people die million has scaled back its ambitions by $14 million after of-
Surplus value (expansion capital and profit) is appropriated on a daily basis from curable and preventable diseases and ficials found far fewer prisoners than anticipated to be wise
by the capitalist upon sale of the goods produced or grown hunger, all within capitalist countries. This is not because release risks. In more than five months, only 264 prisoners
by the laborer. This form of production not only creates in- we as a species are incapable of meeting the world’s needs, were released, though the program was designed to shrink
equalities within a given nation, but also between nations but because competition and profit is what drives capitalist the prison population by 2,600 over two years.
themselves. production, and to share the knowledge and technology that With concern growing about the cost--both economic and
In the current stage of capitalist development, i.e., impe- would be necessary to meet these needs would create “un- social--of incarceration, lawmakers have turned an eye to
rialism, the US with complicity of Third World ruling class- necessary competition” and drive down the profits of those sentencing reform. But prospects for wholesale changes to
es, accumulates most of its wealth through the extraction imperialists who have monopolized the world’s production sentencing in the US are dim.
of Third World natural resources and exploited labor. This and natural resources. This year, the Obama administration backed sentencing re-
drives the third world masses further into grinding poverty In fact, we as a species already produce enough to meet form for crack cocaine, reducing the disparity between crack
and misery while in an inverse ratio increases their own the basic needs of all people, but under capitalism/imperial- sentences and powder cocaine sentences on the basis that
wealth and privileges at the expense of the world’s masses, ism the majority of the world’s wealth which is created on they discriminated along racial lines. But, as law professor
including at the expense of those oppressed nationalities and the backs of the world’s oppressed, is primarily concentrated Andrea Lyon noted at the Huffington Post, even that reform
poor whites within the confines of the US empire itself. One disproportionately within the imperialist countries, with the allowed for large disparities in sentences. “What was a 100
of the innumerable examples of this is the last decade of so- US as the number one beneficiary. While holding about sev- to 1 disparity is now ‘only’ an 18 to 1 disparity,” she writes.
called “free trade” agreements the US has had, and continues en percent of the world’s population, the US consumes be- In Missouri, an innovative new law gives judges access to
to have, with Mexico. While a handful of Mexicanos and tween 35 and 50 percent of the world’s resources and wealth. information about incarceration costs before they decide on
US corporations have increased their wealth tremendously, Any economic system that denies billions of the world’s punishment, as well as access to information on recidivism
nearly two million campesinos have been driven from their people of these necessities for the sake of profit, when the rates for various crimes. Lawmakers hope it will result in a
lands and left jobless to fend for themselves. means to meet these needs already exist, needs to be trans- more consistent application of the law.
Neither of the proposals, or any variation of the two, that is formed. ♦ Marijuana law reform could also have an impact, by sim-
being put forth by the ruling class and its supporters is a so- ply reducing the number of crimes for which people can be
lution to the grinding poverty that pulls so many gente back “…It is not simply a question of changing the individuals in jailed. Last year alone, there were more than 858,000 arrests
north to their ancestral lands. We must not forget the driving power, but rather of changing the system….” in the United States for marijuana. More than half of all drug
forces of human society or the current trajectory of develop- Carlos Fonseca arrests involved marijuana. ♦
ments. Mexicanos and other indigenous peoples were driven “Raw Story” October 01, 2010

12 PRISON FOCUS

WHEN WILL THE
CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE
END?
By Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban
S
econds passed like an eternity for a heart beating for
freedom, a soul which fought against occupation and
its humiliation and a body shrinking into itself try-
ing to avoid 21st century brutality in a prison cell without
door or windows. The body is thin and delicate, the head is
scarved and the eyes are blindfolded in absolute absence of
human conscience; while the monsters of the Western age in
the land of Jesus Christ dance around their victim. Are these
monsters dancing in celebration of kidnapping an Arab girl
whose only sin is that she has fought for her and her people’s
freedom? Or are they dancing in celebration of the death of
world conscience which drawls human rights and freedom
while turning its back on the most sacred cause of freedom
in the 21st century—the freedom of the Palestinian people
and its fight for salvation from Israeli terrorism perpetrated
through Western support for over sixty years.
Released prisoner, Ihsan Dababseh, tells the story of the
video in which Israeli soldier Avi Yakobov, who abused her
by performing a belly-dance and rubbing against her bound
and blind-folded body in December, 2007 at the Gush Etzion
military base. She says, “Another soldier brought a bottle of
wine and asked me to drink”. Minutes later, soldiers attacked
her like frenzied wolves with gun butts. “One soldier kept
hitting my head against an iron bar until I blacked out”.
Ihsan Dababseh’s story is only one of numerous daily sto-
ries in the lives of the eleven thousand Palestinian prisoners
in the last apartheid regime in the world. Nevertheless, the
‘civilized’ world hardly remembers them, except when sec-
onds of the suffering of one of them is leaked out. These are
mere seconds of long years of torture and humiliation, with-
out any protest on the part of the ‘free’ Western media, hu-
man rights organizations or the UN Human Rights Council,
maybe fearing the fate of American anchor, Rick Sanchez,
who was fired by CNN simply for saying that “Jews are not
oppressed”.
As a result of Western governments and media collusion
with Israeli government terrorism, Israeli soldiers have ar-
rested more than 90 Palestinian children in one month. The
youngest, aged 13, was taken out of his family home by court
order.
Human rights groups have revealed more than once that
Israeli soldiers attack female prisoners in their cells and
force them to take off their clothes, subject them to humiliat-
ing inspections and force them to raise their hands from nine
in the morning to three in the afternoon.
Do Western politicians, who flatter Israeli war criminals
like Benjamin Netanyahu, by calling Israel ‘and oasis of
democracy’ know this? Why don’t the Americans spread
freedom and human rights in Palestine instead of supporting
and funding torture, murder and settlement? Or do they view
Palestinians as they viewed red Indians in America and the
aborigines in Australia as people without human rights and
whose life is not equal to human life?
American and European silence towards these atrocious
Israeli crimes, even their absolute support of the racist gov-
ernment in Israel gave Israeli soldiers and settlers a free hand
to kill, torture and run over unarmed Palestinian civilians.
Their crimes have exceeded manifold those committed by
the Apartheid in South Africa. They even exceeded Nazi bru-
tality. This was the testimony of holocaust survivor on boat
Irene which tried to break the Gaza blockade. He said, “what
I suffered in the holocaust is largely similar to the suffer-
ing of Palestinian children today”. This was also expressed
by Amira Hass (Haaretz, 7 October 2010). She wrote, “Evi-
dence? Explanations? Common sense? No need. They, after
all, are paid a salary by the Israeli taxpayer in order to invent
new kinds of punishment and torture. She adds, “today, the
sense of shame has disappeared. Society’s backing is as-
sured.”
On my part, I add that the sense of shame has disappeared
because the silence of the ‘international community’ is as-
sured, because none of the world leaders is ‘free’ any longer.
They have become captive to the Israeli lobby which con-
trols the Congress, the media and the election money. That
is why no American or European leader, not even the United
Nations, will ever condemn any crime against the Palestin-
ians as long as the perpetrators are Israelis. Even when the
victim of such aggression is the Nobel peace prize laureate,
Mairead Corrigan-Maguire. The peace activist arrived in
Gaza on board the ship Rachel Corrie (named after the young
woman run over by Israeli bulldozers). When she returned to
Bein-Gurion Airport days ago, she was detained by Israeli
authorities in the same way they detained American thinkers
Noam Chomsky and Norman Gary Finkelstein and Spanish
artist Ivan Prado, secure in the knowledge that no one will
dare criticize the Israeli apartheid regime for fear of being
accused of anti-Semitism. Her crime was that several months
ago she took part in a demonstration organized by the Bili’in
villagers against the racist segregation wall and was twice on
board ships to break the Gaza blockade.
The crimes committed with impunity by this racist en-
NUMBER 36
tity against prisoners and peace, freedom, justice and hu-
man rights activists have gone so far largely because of the
‘silence’ of ‘democratic’ countries. It is true that Palestin-
ian prisoners and activists are fighting for the freedom and
dignity of the Palestinian people, but they actually embody
the conscience of free people all over the world. Should we
leave them in Israeli jails, as we have left Nelson Mandela
in the Apartheid prisons for decades, and wait for their re-
lease and turning them into icons of freedom and dignity? Or
should we start immediately to work for releasing all prison-
ers and for enabling them to live in freedom and dignity with
their families in their homeland?
No human rights organization, or regime claiming concern
for human rights and freedom, has any credibility as long as
eleven thousand Palestinians suffer the scourge of a hateful
criminal occupation, and as long as the world keeps silence
regarding the atrocious crimes committed against them in Is-
rael’s Nazi prisons. ♦
Provided by Freedom Archives,
522 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110.
ON BRADLEY MANNING,
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT,
AND SELECTIVE OUTRAGE
By Jean Casella and James Ridgeway
F
or the past few weeks, progressive online media sourc-
es have been burning with outrage over the conditions
in which accused Wikileaker Bradley Manning is be-
ing held. Manning (as we first noted on Solitary Watch back
in July) is in 23-hour-a-day solitary confinement at a Marine
brig in Quantico, Virginia, denied sunlight, exercise, posses-
sions, and all but the most limited contact with family and
friends. He has now been in isolation for more than seven
months. The cruel and inhuman conditions of his detention,
first widely publicized by Glenn Greenwald on Salon and ex-
panded upon by others, are now being discussed, lamented,
and protested throughout the progressive blogosphere ( our-
selves included). Few of those taking part in the conversation
hesitate to describe Manning’s situation as torture.
Meanwhile, here at Solitary Watch, we’ve been receiving
calls and emails from our modest band of readers, all of them
saying more or less the same thing: We’re glad Bradley Man-
ning’s treatment is getting some attention, but what about the
tens of thousands of others who are languishing in solitary
confinement in U.S. prisons and jails? According to avail-
able data, there are some 25,000 inmates in long-term isola-
tion in the nation’s supermax prisons, and as many as 80,000
more in solitary in other facilities. Where is the outrage–even
among progressives–for these forgotten souls? Where, for
that matter, is some acknowledgment of their existence?
...but what about the tens of thou-
sands of others who are languish-
ing in solitary confinement in U.S.
prisons and jails?
To be fair, a few of the writers who champion Manning
have mentioned in passing the widespread use of solitary
confinement in the United States. A very few have gone fur-
ther: One powerful piece by Lynn Parramore on New Deal
2.0, for example, uses the Manning case as an opportunity to
document and denounce the brutal realities of solitary con-
finement. She urges readers to “remember the thousands of
people being tortured in American prisons, including Brad-
ley Manning, and let us send our own message back to our
government: We are Americans…Most assuredly, we will
not accept torture in our name. Not of the accused. Not of the
mentally ill. Not even of convicted criminals.”
But Parramore’s piece is an anomaly. More often, pro-
gressive writers–and their readers, if comments are any
measure–have gone to some lengths to distinguish Bradley
Manning from the masses of other prisoners being held in
similar conditions. Whether explicitly or implicitly, they de-
pict Manning as exceptional, and therefore less deserving of
his treatment and more worthy of our concern.
Frequently, writers and readers make the point that Man-
ning is being subjected to these condition while he is merely
accused , rather than convicted, of a crime. Perhaps they
need to be introduced to the 15-year-old boy who, along with
several dozen other juveniles, is being held is solitary in a jail
in Harris County, Texas, while he awaits trial on a robbery
charge. He is one of hundreds–if not thousands–of prisoners
being held in pre-trial solitary confinement, for one reason or
another, on any given day in America. Most of them lack de-
cent legal representation, or are simply too poor to make bail.
We have also seen articles suggesting that the treatment
Manning is receiving is worse than the standard for solitary
confinement, since he is deprived even of a pillow or sheets
for his bed. Their authors should review the case of the pris-
oners held in the St. Tammany Parish Jail in rural Louisi-
ana. According to a brief by the Louisiana ACLU, “After the
jail determines a prisoner is suicidal, the prisoner is stripped
half-naked and placed in a 3 x 3 metal cage with no shoes,
bed, blanket or toilet…Prisoners report they must curl up on
the floor to sleep because the cages are too small to let them
lie down. Guards frequently ignore repeated requests to use
the bathroom, forcing some desperate people to urinate in
discarded containers.” The cells are one-fourth the size man-
dated by local law for caged dogs.
There is, rightly, concern over the damage being done to
Manning’s mental health by seven months in solitary. Sel-
dom mentioned is the fact that an estimated one-third to
one-half of the residents of America’s isolation units suffer
from mental illness, and solitary confinement cells have, in
effect, become our new asylums. Witness the ACLU of Mon-
tana’s brief on a 17-year-old mentally ill inmate who “was
so traumatized by his deplorable treatment in the Montana
State Prison that he twice attempted to kill himself by biting
through the skin on his wrist to puncture a vein.” During
his ten months in solitary confinement, the teen was tasered,
pepper sprayed, and stripped naked in view of other inmates,
and “his mental health treatment consists of a prison staff
member knocking on his door once a week and asking if he
has any concerns.”
Finally, many have argued that the nature of Manning’s
alleged crimes renders him a heroic political prisoner, rath-
er than a “common” criminal like most others. Those who
take this line might want to look into the “Communications
Management Units” at two federal prisons, where, according
to a lawsuit filed last year by the Center for Constitutional
Rights, prisoners are placed in extreme isolation “for their
constitutionally protected religious beliefs, unpopular politi-
cal views, or in retaliation for challenging poor treatment or
other rights violations in the federal prison system.” Or they
might investigate the aftermath of the recent prison strike
in Georgia, in which several inmates have reportedly been
thrown into solitary for leading a nonviolent protest against
prison conditions.
All of these cases are “exceptional,” but only in that they
earned the attention of some journalist or advocate. Most
prisoners held in solitary confinement are, by design, si-
lent and silenced. Most of their stories–tens of thousands of
them–are never told at all. And solitary confinement is now
used as a disciplinary measure of first resort in prisons and
jails across the country, so its use is anything but exceptional.
All across America, inmates are placed in isolation for
months or years, not only for fighting with other inmates or
guards, but for being “disruptive” or disobeying orders; for
being identified as gang members (often by a prison snitch
or the wrong kind of tattoo); or for having contraband (which
includes not only weapons but a joint, a cell phone, or too
many postage stamps). In Virginia, a dozen Rastafarians
were in solitary for more than a decade because they refused
to cut their dreadlocks, in violation of the prison code. In
many prisons, juveniles and rape victims are isolated “for
their own protection” in conditions identical to those used
for punishment. And for more serious crimes, the isolation
simply becomes more extreme, and more permanent: In
Louisiana, two men convicted of killing a prison guard have
been in solitary confinement for 38 years.
Moreover, if solitary confinement is torture–or at the very
least, cruel and inhuman punishment–then it shouldn’t mat-
ter what a prisoner has done to end up there. As Lynn Par-
ramore writes, “The placement of human beings in solitary
confinement is not a measure of their depravity. It is a mea-
sure of our own.”
The treatment of Bradley Manning, which has introduced
many on the left to the torment of solitary confinement, may
present an opportunity for them to measure their own hu-
manity. They might begin by asking themselves whether
prison torture is wrong, and worthy of their attention and
outrage, only when it is committed against people whose ac-
tions they admire. ♦
http://solitarywatch.com
By C. Landrum
13
Isolation ...........................................Continued from page 1
reasons.” In a follow-up, longitudinal study they were able
to identify some 28 per cent of solitary confinement prison-
ers who suffered psychiatric disorders during their imprison-
ment and, further, to determine that in more than 2 out of 3
cases the disorder was not present prior to their incarceration.
They concluded that solitary confinement was “a significant
risk factor for the development of… psychiatric morbidity in
comparison with [mainline] imprisonment” and that place-
ment in solitary confinement was medically “questionable.”
Some commentators have suggested that although solitary
confinement is so clearly harmful to mentally ill prisoners
that most or all of them should be removed from such con-
ditions—a proposition that seems indisputable—these same
painfully harsh environments are unlikely to have any nega-
tive psychological effects that put those who are not mentally
ill at risk. It is a position that seems to me difficult to defend.
The adverse effects of severe stress and painful, destabiliz-
ing trauma on mental health are not restricted to only those
who already suffer from serious mental disorders. Moreover,
there are a number of incipient or “premorbid” emotional
conditions that seem likely to be aggravated by the psycho-
logical demands of solitary confinement. And then there are
those mildly—perhaps undetectably—mentally ill prisoners
who can effectively manage their psychiatric symptoms in
mainstream prison settings but who decompensate under
the rigors of prolonged isolation. But whether and how of-
ten long term solitary confinement makes healthy people
“crazy,” or drives those predisposed to mental illness across
some diagnostic line, it certainly appears to cause significant
distress and even anguish in many people, and puts them at
risk of serious psychological harm.
Theoretical Bases for the Harmfulness of Isolation
The scientific analysis of the effects of a real world envi-
ronment such as solitary confinement is necessarily based in
part on research conducted under less than ideal conditions.
Some empirical questions simply cannot be examined in a
controlled laboratory setting. Under these circumstances, as I
noted in the preceding section, researchers and analysts look
to patterns in the data that have been collected to discern
whether consistent and apparently corroborating findings ex-
ist. In the case of the harmful effects of solitary confinement,
as I have also noted, they clearly do. It is also important in
this context to draw on knowledge gained from scientific re-
search that has been conducted on analogous circumstances
or phenomena. In the case of solitary confinement, this paral-
lel literature includes research on the effects of isolation in a
range of other contexts and settings that, although certainly
not always directly applicable, are highly suggestive. Finally,
it is essential to examine whether there is a theoretical logic
or valid conceptual apparatus that helps to account for the
patterns of results—that is, to determine, essentially, if the
findings “make sense.”
In fact, situating solitary confinement in broader body of
knowledge provides some very clear insights into how and
why it is likely to produce certain negative effects. Thus, in
addition to the empirical literature that documents the harm-
ful psychological effects of solitary confinement, and a par-
allel literature on analogous settings and circumstances that
reaches a number of highly compatible conclusions, there is
a conceptual framework that helps to explain how and why
this kind of prison environment is psychologically painful
and places those exposed to it at grave psychological risk.
This series of theoretical propositions underpins the many
concerns that informed scholars and practitioners have
voiced about the potential of long term isolation to produce
adverse psychological consequences. It also provides a way
of understanding the nature of the negative effects that do oc-
cur. Below I briefly discuss some of the theoretical and con-
ceptual explanations for these adverse psychological effects.
For one, the deprivation of social contact can undermine
social identity and destabilize one’s sense of self. Like the
rest of us, of course, prisoners are social beings. Although
they vary in their levels of sociability, they are nonetheless
dependent on social context and interaction with others to
remain psychologically grounded in their thoughts, feelings,
and actions. There is a long line of research in social psy-
chology that confirms the centrality of social interaction in
establishing and maintaining self-knowledge and anchoring
personal attitudes and beliefs through social comparison pro-
cesses.
Precisely because so much of our individual identity is
socially constructed and maintained, the virtually complete
loss of genuine forms of social contact and the absence of
routine and recurring opportunities to ground thoughts and
feelings in recognizable human contexts is not only painful
and but also personally destabilizing. This is precisely why
long term isolated prisoners are literally at risk of losing their
grasp on who they are, of how and whether they are con-
nected to a larger social world. Indeed, a number of prison-
ers whom I have interviewed in long term isolation admit to
having “acted out” while confined there literally as a way of
getting a reaction from their environment, to prove to them-
selves that they were still alive and capable of eliciting a hu-
man response—however hostile—from other human beings.
14
If they can still at least provoke others into responding to
them, then they must still exist.
As Joane Martel has poignantly phrased another aspect
of this phenomenon, “to be, one has to be somewhere.” She
observed that as prisoners in solitary confinement lose their
temporal and spatial grounding—by being placed in environ-
ments where the ‘space-time continuum of the prison’s “or-
dinary” life flies into pieces”—their very identity is placed
in jeopardy. Segregated prisoners “vanish in time and space”
which is “akin to losing connection to one’s prior experi-
ences and subsequent ones in a biographical narrative, thus
to one’s memory of [oneself] in the social world.”
The fact that they lack any tangible connection to their
previous biographical narrative—who they were before their
solitary confinement—does not obviate the need for prison-
ers to fashion some kind of identity that can sustain them.
A number of prisoners facing this dilemma come to define
themselves in terms of who they have recently become—that
is, the way they are defined in the punitive isolation unit that
surrounds them. Some isolated prisoners turn this process on
its head, and instead reconstitute their identities primarily in
opposition to the prison administration. They gradually de-
velop a conception of self that is anchored by the overarching
goal of thwarting and resisting the control mechanisms that
are increasingly directed at them. But, even here, it is still the
prison that sets the terms of their self-definition. Moreover,
as I have noted elsewhere, “the material out of which their
social reality is constructed increasingly consists of the only
events to which they are exposed and the only experiences
they are allowed to have—the minutiae of the [solitary con-
finement unit] itself and all of the nuances with which it can
be infused.”
Depriving people of contact with others for long periods
of time is psychologically hurtful and potentially destabiliz-
ing for another set of related reasons. The importance of “af-
filiation”—the opportunity to have contact with others—in
reducing anxiety in the face of uncertain or fear arousing
stimuli is long established in social psychological literature.
People who are denied the opportunity to express these af-
filiative needs and tendencies—especially when confronted
with uncertainty, stress, and danger—may become increas-
ingly frightened, anxious, even panicked. Similarly, the sig-
nificance of social cues and a larger social context in pro-
viding specific content and meaning to our emotional states
is well understood. Thus, one of the ways that people de-
termine the appropriateness of their feelings—indeed, how
we establish the very nature and tenor of our emotions—is
through contact with others. Harry Stack Sullivan once sum-
marized the clinical importance of social contact by observ-
ing that “[w]e can”t be alone in things and be very clear on
what happened to us, and we… can”t be alone and be very
clear even on what is happening in us very long—excepting
that it gets simpler and simpler, and more primitive and more
primitive, and less and less socially acceptable.” Precisely
because people’s emotional reactions are so colored by the
social environment in which they live, subjecting them to
severe and prolonged social isolation makes them especially
vulnerable to a range of emotional disturbances. For many
prisoners, solitary confinement is an especially unfamiliar,
threatening, and hostile environment. Not surprisingly, then,
the empirical literature on solitary confinement documents a
number of negative emotional effects, including heightened
levels of anxiety, the increased risk of panic attacks, and a
sense of impending emotional breakdown among prisoners
who are denied normal social contact with others on a long
term basis.
Whatever else it does, of course, solitary confinement
drastically restricts or completely eliminates opportunities
for normal social interaction. The claim is sometimes made
that prisoners who are housed in certain punitive or admin-
istrative segregation units are not “really” in solitary con-
finement. After all, the prisoners are almost always afforded
between 510 hours a week out of their cells and, in addi-
tion, most of them have managed to devise limited forms
of communication with each other—no matter how strained
and denatured. Moreover, they all have routine cell-front
“interactions” with correctional officers who—given the fact
that the prisoners are confined to their cells nearly around-
theclock—must administer to their basic needs. This argu-
ment seems to me to be somewhat disingenuous. Total and
absolute solitary confinement—literally complete isolation
from any form of human contact—does not exist in prison
and never has. Although I am aware of at least one prisoner
who lived under an official “no human contact” order for
over two decades, even he had some contact with others or
he could not have been maintained in prison.
In any event, I would take issue the contention that pris-
oners are being afforded remotely normal, adequate ‘social
communication” when they are reduced to yelling to one
another within or between cellblocks, or from one concrete
enclosed or caged exercise pen to another, or can only talk
to one another through toilets or plumbing chases. The asser-
tion that prisoners are engaged in remotely normal, adequate
forms of ‘social interaction” when the only face-to-face con-
tact they have with each other is mediated by iron cell doors
or bars or the wire mesh or metal fencing of the individual
cages in which they are increasingly enclosed (nowadays,
both indoors and out) similarly misses the point. So, too,
does the contention that the often brusque or hostile but at
best perfunctory exchanges that they have with correctional
officers is a genuine and psychologically adequate form of
meaningful social intercourse.
In this sense, then, solitary confinement is a socially patho-
logical environment that forces long term inhabitants to de-
velop their own socially pathological adaptations—ones pre-
mised on the absence of meaningful contact with people—in
order to function and survive. As a result, prisoners gradually
change their patterns of thinking, acting and feeling to cope
with their largely asocial world and the impossibility of re-
lying on social support or the routine feedback that comes
from normal contact with others. These adaptations represent
‘social pathologies” brought about by the socially pathologi-
cal environment of solitary confinement. Although they are
functional and even necessary under the circumstances, they
can become painful and disabling if taken to extremes or in-
ternalized so deeply that they persist long after the time in
solitary confinement has ended.
For example, some prisoners cope with the asociality of
their daily existence by paradoxically creating even more.
That is, they socially withdraw further from the world
around them, receding even more deeply into themselves
than the sheer physical isolation of solitary confinement and
its attendant procedures require. Others move from initially
being starved for social contact to eventually being disori-
ented and even frightened by it. As they become increasingly
unfamiliar and uncomfortable with social interaction, they
are further alienated from others and made anxious in their
presence. In extreme cases, another pattern emerges: this en-
vironment is so painful, so bizarre and impossible to make
sense of, that they create their own reality—they live in a
world of fantasy instead. Indeed, at least for some prisoners,
solitary confinement appears to be associated with paranoia
and the presence of both visual and auditory hallucinations.
Not surprisingly, some prisoners in long term isolation
also report that these adaptations to asociality are painful,
and that they feel their lives have been drained of meaning
and happiness. John Bowlby characterized intimate attach-
ments with others as the “the hub around which a person’s
life revolves,” and elaborated that “[f]rom these intimate
attachments a person draws his strength and enjoyment of
life and, through what he contributes, he gives strength and
enjoyment of others.” Prisoners who cannot manage without
such a “hub” may find themselves becoming increasingly
joyless, depressed, and even suicidal.
Virtually every solitary confinement unit with which I am
familiar subjects prisoners to more than simply social de-
privation. Life in these units also typically includes a high
level of repressive control, enforced idleness, reduced en-
vironmental stimulation, and physical deprivations that are
much greater than in other prison settings. Indeed, most of
the things that we know are beneficial to prisoners—such as
increased participation in institutional programming, visits
with persons from outside the prison, and so on—are either
functionally denied them or greatly restricted. The model
of profound deprivation on which most solitary confine-
ment units are built and run constricts virtually all aspects of
the isolated prisoner’s day-to-day existence. Thus, it is not
surprising that, in addition to the social pathologies that are
generated, the imposition of these other stressors produces a
number of other negative psychological effects.
For example, we know that psychological health, adjust-
ment, and wellbeing depend in part on people being able
to attain and maintain a sense of autonomy and purpose, a
modicum of what Albert Bandura broadly termed ‘self-effi-
cacy.” When people are placed in environments or situations
where little that they do seems to make a difference, or their
plight seems insurmountable and beyond their control, they
are likely to become despondent, lethargic, even depressed.
Years ago Martin Seligman coined the term “learned help-
lessness” to describe the consequence of being kept in envi-
ronments where negative outcomes appeared unavoidable or
environmental stressors could not be controlled or reduced.
In analogous ways, the numerous, seemingly insurmountable
restrictions of long term solitary confinement increase the
likelihood that a potentially disabling sense of helplessness
will become chronic, global, and internalized—the form that
Seligman and colleagues regarded as most likely to produce
debilitating depression.
Indeed, one of the hallmarks of solitary confinement is that
it constricts and constrains the already limited opportunities
that prisoners have to initiate behavior. Since they can do
very little—even less than in mainstream prison settings—
they cannot exercise autonomy or efficacy over much at all.
They are forced to become highly dependent upon the in-
stitution to authorize, organize, and oversee even the most
minute and mundane aspects of their daily life. In a related
way, some prisoners in solitary confinement find themselves
struggling to initiate behavior on their own, in part because
they have been stripped of the opportunity to organize their
lives around meaningful activity and purpose. They report
being unable to begin even mundane tasks or to follow
through once they have begun them. Or they find it difficult
to focus their attention, to concentrate, or to organize sus-
tained activity. In extreme cases prisoners may literally stop
PRISON FOCUS
behaving.
In fact, in most of these units in the United States prison-
ers cannot even come out of their cells without first being
cinched up in elaborate security devices and hardware—
handcuffs, leg irons, restraint chains and the like. Along with
the other degrading ways in which they are often treated,
these procedures undermine their sense of dignity, value,
and worth. But because almost every aspect of the prisoner’s
day-to-day existence is so carefully and completely circum-
scribed in these units, some of them also lose the ability to
set limits for themselves or to control their own behavior
through internal mechanisms. They may become uncom-
fortable with even small amounts of freedom because they
have lost confidence in their own ability to behave in the
absence of constantly enforced restrictions, the tight external
structure that surrounds them, and the ubiquitous physical
restraints into which they are repeatedly placed.
As might be expected, then, research confirms that per-
sons who have been kept in solitary confinement under
these conditions report having more negative attitudes and
affect as well as developing a sense of hopelessness, feel-
ing chronically lethargic, and becoming depressed. In more
extreme cases, solitary confinement has been associated with
self-mutilation, and suicidal ideation and behavior. The com-
paratively high number of suicides and suicide attempts that
occur in segregation and solitary-type confinement is due
in some part to the increased opportunity that being housed
apart from others provides prisoners who are intent on tak-
ing such a drastic, tragic step. But it is also in part the result
of the heightened levels of “environmental stress” that are
generated by “isolation, punitive sanctions, [and] severely
restricted living conditions.”
In addition to the profound social deprivation and nearly
complete undermining of self-efficacy that such extraor-
dinary levels of segregation, restriction and control bring
about, prisoners in long term solitary confinement must en-
dure prolonged and extreme monotony and idleness. They
are subjected to certain forms of sensory deprivation, and to
a lack of cognitive or mental stimulation that exceeds that of
the mainstream prison population. Of course, we know that
people require a certain level of mental and physical activity
in order to remain healthy.
In this context, some defenders of solitary confinement
have belittled the research that shows its negative effects by
distinguishing the conditions that prevail in the typical pris-
on isolation unit from those created in the total sensory de-
privation studies that were done decades ago. Of course, the
differences between the two environments are obvious, and I
know of no knowledgeable commentator on solitary confine-
ment who would equate or confuse one with the other. That
said, one of the basic lessons of that early sensory depriva-
tion research and the related research that followed— that
people are “dependent on adequate and changing amounts
of sensory and social stimulation in order to maintain [their]
psychic and physiological functioning”—does seem useful
in understanding at least some of the negative consequences
of solitary confinement. Of course, this implies that low lev-
els of cognitive stimulation and severe restrictions on activ-
ity are problematic for a variety of reasons.
Not surprisingly, prisoners subjected to the emptiness
of isolated confinement for long periods of time report be-
coming concerned (even obsessed) about their own poten-
tial physical and mental deterioration. In addition, they can
suffer from lethargy, a loss of direction and purposefulness,
hypersensitivity or a tendency to overreact to certain stimu-
li, ruminations, and certain forms of cognitive dysfunction
(such as an inability to concentrate, focus, and remember).
Finally, numerous studies provide support for the com-
monsense proposition that frustration makes people angry.
When persons believe that their desired goals have been
blocked for what they perceive to be unjustified or illegiti-
mate reasons, such frustration tends to produce even greater
levels of “angry aggression,” even very serious forms of ag-
gression in society at large. Yet, many solitary confinement
units are structured to deprive prisoners of most of the things
that all but the most callous commentators would concede
are basic necessities of life—minimal freedom of movement,
the opportunity to touch another human being in friendship
or with affection, the ability to engage in meaningful or pro-
ductive physical or mental activity, and so on. These depri-
vations, restrictions, and the totality of control fills many
prisoners with intolerable levels of frustration that, for some,
turns to anger, and then even to uncontrollable and sudden
outbursts of rage.
Others channel their anger by ruminating over the course
of the countless empty hours of uninterrupted time during
which they are allowed to do little else. Some occupy this
idle time by committing themselves to fighting against the
system and the staff and officials whom they perceive as in-
tent on provoking, thwarting, and oppressing them. There
are solitary confinement prisoners who become consumed
by the fantasy of revenge, and others who sometimes lash
out against those who have treated them in ways they re-
gard as inhumane. As two commentators wisely observed:
“Modern experts certainly imagined that they could shape
and monitor the identities of those whom they segregated,
but empirical studies based on institutional records and
NUMBER 36
memories expose the limits on those ambitions. Exclusion
produces submission but it also provokes noncompliance
at the very least, and organized rebellion at the extreme.”
Ironically, but sometimes uncontrollably, some prisoners are
driven by these deprived and oppressive conditions to pursue
courses of action that further ensure their continued depriva-
tion and oppression.
Conclusion
A very high percentage of the persons placed in long term
solitary confinement are truly suffering, and many are deeply
disturbed—emotionally and in other ways. In some cases a
prisoner’s preexisting psychiatric disorder has contributed
to the disturbing behavior that has resulted in his placement
in solitary confinement, making him more susceptible to the
painful stresses of the harsh and deprived environment in
which he is housed. In other cases, however, the painful ef-
fects and negative consequences stem more fully and direct-
ly from the harsh conditions— the stresses and traumas—of
isolated confinement. Moreover, as I have tried to show in
this article, there is a theoretical framework within which the
harmful effects of solitary confinement can be understood.
The resulting social pathologies and other adverse reactions
are precisely the ones that would be expected, given what is
known about the importance of social context and contact,
and the effects of severe deprivation and repressive control.
Thus, there is a logic to the way isolation hurts and can dam-
age those subjected to it.
I do not see any other way to interpret the renewed use of
this long discredited punishment except as a concession to
the punitive age in which we now live, one in which it has
become acceptable—even routine—within certain prison
systems to resort to extraordinarily harsh practices that are
motivated by little more than administrative convenience
(absent any penological justification or psychological ratio-
nale), no matter how much they may “hurt” prisoners (some-
times precisely because they do hurt them), and no matter the
risk that the painfulness of the experience will do real harm.
Modern and humane policy makers would do well to reflect
on the range of perverse outcomes that may occur when they
are designing regimes that are intended to control problem-
atic behavior in prison. ♦
WAITING TO DIE
By R.S. Morales, CSATF, Corcoran
“
Cuff up Morales! Boxers and shower shoes only!” The
guard’s brusque command rouses me from my medita-
tion/Walter Mitty daydream; she was a tawny brunette
who moved with the slow, languid gait of a lioness, hips
moving rhythmically in sync with the swaying palms, the
wine a seawater-chilled Merlot. We were strolling on an iso-
lated strand of beach in South America, a place I know all
too well. Two miles past my small seaside hut lies a small,
sleepy coastal fishing village and—“Let’s go, Mister!”
I glance at the reddened features of the guard and wearily
rise to my feet, reaching over to grab a towel and small bar
of soap. I hate the physical indignity of having to back up to
the cell door, of having to bend over and slide both clenched
hands behind me through a tiny food port.
The guard cinches the handcuffs too tight and, stepping
back, proceeds to smack the hollow metal overhang above
the cell. The resounding blast echoes like a shotgun through-
out the interior of the cellblock—I hate this damn noise too.
“Pop 125!” he screams to another guard in a bulletproof con-
trol booth. This fellow (bearing an uncanny resemblance to
Alfred E. Newman) casually leans over and presses a but-
ton on a brightly lit control console. The heavy metal door
slowly begins to grind open.
I take a careful step backwards—walking forward can be
construed as a threat when one leaves the cell. A prisoner
who makes this mistake can legally be clubbed like a baby
seal on an ice floe. As I exit the cell the guard turns and grips
my upper right arm in a firm grasp. “Let’s go!” he bars and
we both begin walking to a shower stall not ten feet down
the tier—WE? The word “WE” implies a mutual consent, as
if “WE” were school chums strolling nonchalantly through
MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, perhaps nibbling on cara-
mel popcorn and commenting on the fine geese which bob
handsomely in the water.
The grim reality of my life is altogether different. I am a
state prisoner being forcefully removed (in steel irons) to a
heavily fortified shower stall. All the while eyed warily, sus-
piciously, by uniformed men who are armed with heavy au-
tomatic weapons; ex-military personnel trained by the Unit-
ed States government to kill me at the slightest provocation.
The fresh-faced kid who has my arm in a death grip is wear-
ing stab-resistant body armor, wields a deadly steel-tipped
baton and has a toxic, large canister of extremely caustic tear
gas strapped to his thigh like a wild west gunslinger.
The daily violence waged against a man in prison is not
always overt, on the contrary, it can be imbued with gradi-
ent degrees of subtlety; with grey, fleeting dimensions that
flee the tactile, but always, always touch him in the center of
where he lives as a human being…
We arrive at a mold-encrusted niche in the wall protected
by a heavy steel grate. The damp interior is musty and reeks
of decaying mildew, of sulfur infused with the cloying scent
of weak, institutional disinfectant. A thick hydra nest of
knotted black hair lies menacingly in the tiled corner, gen-
tly teased in to a wicked tarantula shape by swirling eddies
of soap scum. I can sense the vibration in my teeth as the
shower door automatically pops open.
I step gingerly into this dank filth, mentally steeling my
nerves for that nasty, bone-jarring crash which always ac-
companies this profane ritual. The heavy steel grate does
not lock properly as designed, and as a result will have to
be FORCEFULLY, VIOLENTLY slammed; not once, but
TWO! THREE! FOUR TIMES—THERE! The assault upon
the sterile silence of the cellblock seems unholy, almost ob-
scene. Once I am inside, the guard removes the handcuffs,
and, almost as an afterthought, turns back to clamp a massive
steel padlock on the door. This being done, he nods once and
briskly walks off.
My name is Robert Salvador Morales, and while read-
ing this one might reasonably infer that I am a condemned
man residing on Death Row. That assumption is not far from
the truth, and arguably enough it is a valid comparison. The
California Legislature can tease and coax every genteel
euphemism it can find in its moral dictionary to justify the
enslavement and depraved barbarity of a Three Strike con-
viction—violent or not (the distinction is divisive and only
serves to marginalize thousands). The higher courts can ar-
gue the legality of the Draconian law (with the usual con-
voluted logic and circular semantics of entrenched power)
until hell freezes over, but the vulgar legitimacy of MIGHT,
of EMPIRE, of RAW, UNCHECKED POWER, must never,
ever be cited as the litmus test which defines the moral con-
science of a nation!
Truth be told, I live in the wretched shadows of the gal-
lows and the grim specter of a hooded, leering Father Time
looms large on my horizon, for one day he will come, and in
the guise of Morpheus, serve the State as a genteel apparatus
of my execution. My death certificate will read “cirrhosis,”
yet all the same will be a state-sanctioned murder by attri-
tion.
The moral tragedy is not that I will die redeemed (cogni-
zant and restored whole), nor is it the widespread contain-
ment and class genocide waged against those unfortunates
(male and female) who share my fate, no—IT IS THE COM-
PLICITY WE SHARE IN THIS CRIME!
There are thousands of California Three Strikers asleep at
the wheel, nodding off (literally and figuratively) at the helm
of their destiny! Thousands lulled into a dull complacency by
the medium of television. Thousands more coerced (through
want and necessity) into wretched lives of indentured ser-
vitude; toiling away for the meager, meat-stripped bone of
threadbare prison privileges. Thousands more, enticed by the
lure of a paltry sweatshop wage have sold their dignity in
exchange for the collaborator status of a plantation “HOUSE
NIGGA”—hoping against hope that one day the legislative
masters ‘sho “nuff goan free us!”
My Brothers and Sisters who live in the Iron House, who
share in this tragic narrative of human suffering and indig-
nity (can you not hear me?). I implore you, gently I sum-
mon your spirit of activism, of humanity, of shared human
purpose—do you not sense the storm clouds gathering on
the horizon of your stoicism? Do you not see the vultures
of time, at this moment, preparing to feast? Can you not un-
derstand that here, in this fiery crucible of indifference, of
acquiescence towards the lethal finality of our common fate,
that we are forging and tempering the very steel blade of our
guillotine? Every second we lie idle, every hour foolishly
whittled away, every day of political inactivity is YET AN-
OTHER STOUT PLANK TO BUILD THE GALLOWS IN
WHICH WE ALL WILL HANG!
And what of this man Robert Morales? What of my re-
demptive worth? My crime of Residential Burglary (P.C.
459) seems to be one whose political weight is now jetti-
soned from the F.A.C.T.S. flagship for fear it will compro-
mise the integrity of the cargo, i.e., non-violent/non-serious
passengers only (RE: Geri Silva interview. See Advocate.
Vol.2, issue 5). The mooring lines upon which hung our
hopes for victory, are now severed? We are cast adrift? Each
burglar to his own lethal end?
“Ready Morales?!” The young guard (with the Billy the
Kid swagger) arrives to once again truss me up and escort
me back to the granite sepulcher which has been my abode
for over a decade. Once inside I make a cup of coffee (with
cold water, still it comforts me in a great way). Sitting by the
metal door, savoring the coffee, I press my back against the
cool wall and close my eyes…
…The waves are crashing on the rocky shoals, rising from
the sea in roiling, translucent, cobalt-green arcs and I can
smell the briny foam. The sun, now mortally wounded, slips
deep into a distant horizon gloriously etched in salmon pink
clouds, and it is a splendid evening.
The wonderful grapes that produced the Merlot were
grown in the southern region of Bulgaria and it is a fine wine.
I have three cases cached in the hut and there is a certain
lobster fisherman in the village, Carlos Jesus, who has grown
fond of its cozy warmth.
I think I”ll walk down there and swap him a bottle for din-
ner, perhaps he”ll throw in a fine sea bass… ♦
15
GEORGIA PRISON STRIKE UPDATE
By David Slavin
T
he PRISON STRIKE has ended in 7 Georgia prisons
but organizing is ongoing. All 54,000 Georgia in-
mates work for “Prison Industries”: not a private cor-
poration but the wholly owned subsidiary of the Department
of Corrections. In effect, PI employs more workers than
Delta Airlines, Coca Cola, Home Depot or any of the largest
corporate employers in the state. Inmates are the largest sin-
gle workforce in Georgia. THEY ARE PAID NO WAGES.
To anyone who is familiar with Doug Blackmon’s Slavery
By Another Name, this forced convict labor system should
come as no surprise. It is part of the “New Jim Crow” mass
incarceration system that reincarnates the Old Jim Crow in
the first half of the 20th century.
This action by the inmates was a STRIKE, not a riot or a
protest. It was an action by workers TO WITHHOLD THEIR
LABOR by refusing to leave their cells. The risks they have
taken are enormous. Refusal to work gets you a “Disciplin-
ary Report” which can affect parole and your “privileges”
in prison. The demands they presented were for WAGES
and WORKING CONDITIONS (which in their case of
course includes living conditions). Since the work stoppage
involved THOUSANDS OF INMATES, it is probably the
largest strike / labor action in Georgia in decades. Moreover,
the inmates have firmly taken a stand of interracial solidarity,
particularly crucial in Georgia where more than 1/3 of the
inmates are white.
The importance of this interracial strike cannot be over-
estimated. These men are taking a stand against conditions
that violate human rights. Five years ago at a forum on Abu
Ghraib held in Atlanta, someone who then worked for the
Southern Conference on Human Rights (speaking for herself,
not the SCHR) remarked that the methods of Abu Ghraib had
their origins in practices common in Southern prisons. If this
observation raises skepticism, see the photos in Blackmon’s
book showing “stress positions” very similar to those in the
photos from Iraq.
The inmates’ resistance brings to mind Michelle Alexan-
der’s book The New Jim Crow, a book that this summer we
studied at UUCA. The vast majority of those in prison have
been targets of a 30-year policy of white supremacist, mass
incarceration. Under cover of “the drug war” and mass fel-
ony convictions, a bi-partisan consensus emerged with the
objective result of re-establishing second class citizenship
status for most non-whites in the US -- the New Jim Crow.
Georgia has 54,225 male state prison inmates, according
to GDC website, 33,689 Black [61.1%] and 19,459 white
[35.9%], with the remaining 4% Hispanics, “Indians”,
Asians. Inmates’ age distribution is fairly evenly divided,
with 2-3% of the population in each year of age from 19
to 50 years old. There are 3579 women in Georgia prisons:
women are 6.6% and men are 93.4% of the total. Women are
not broken down by race. So far as I know, women inmates
are [not yet] involved in the strike.
Figures compiled by the Sentencing Project show that in
2007 Blacks accounted for 900,000 of the 2.2 million people
incarcerated in state prisons, six times the incarceration rate
of whites. One in six Black men is in the system at any time.
Moreover, higher proportions of whites are locked up in lo-
cal jails (44%) than in state prisons (33%), and jails tend to
be short term sentences. The highest disproportions in prison
populations are in Northeastern and Midwestern states. In
Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia [as Georgia’s Corrections
figures attest], however, the proportion of whites in prison
[not jail] is around 33%, much higher than in other parts of
the US. Theodore William Allen, author of The Invention of
the White Race, points out that where racial inequality has
been most extreme, in the South, whites are the worst off.
The greater the gap between the white and Black worker, the
less able white workers are to defend themselves as workers.
The role racial privilege plays in the social control of white
working people, as well as Black, suggests why incarcera-
tion rates of whites are highest in the Deep South.
Working class interracial solidarity anywhere, anytime is
of historic significance, and according to Bruce Dixon’s re-
port, it is being realized in this movement of inmates. The
prison population is of course quintessentially working class,
and these workers have launched a strike for wages and im-
provement of “working conditions.” They have established
interracial solidarity. The political consequences of their ac-
tions could shift politics in Georgia and far beyond the state;
thus the strike deserves solidarity from every corner.
The inmate demands recall those of Black Reconstruction:
education, wages, decent food and medical care, the right to
be in touch with their families, and a chance at a decent life
once they are released by learning employable skills. In this
struggle may lie “the kernel and meaning of the labor move-
ment” to use the phrase WEB DuBois used to characterize
Black Reconstruction:
“The South, after the war, presented the greatest op-
portunity for a real national labor movement which the
nation ever saw or is likely to see for many decades.
Yet the labor movement, with but few exceptions, never
realized the situation. It never had the intelligence or
knowledge, as a whole, to see in black slavery and Re-
16
construction, the kernel and meaning of the labor move-
ment in the United States” [WEB DuBois Black Recon-
struction c. 1935; Atheneum edition 1962 p. 353 Ch. IX
The Price of Disaster]
Although there have been inquiries from my friends
around the country and demonstrations in several cities, so
far white progressives in Atlanta and Georgia have taken
few steps to support this strike. If we continue to ignore the
“kernel and meaning” of the progressive movement in our
own backyard, we risk losing any relevancy we might have.
Especially egregious is the loss of opportunity to support a
movement based on working class interracial solidarity.
As was the case in Iran, the cell phone has been used bril-
liantly as a tactical means to communicate with each other
and the outside world. When I was on the faculty of Vil-
lanova in 1992, I taught college courses in a prison outside
Philadelphia (Eastern Pennsylvania Correctional Facility,
Graterford PA) under a university program. I learned first-
hand from my students the feeling of being cut off from so-
ciety. As one of them told me, “we feel like we’re buried
alive in here.” Cell phone contact has been crucial, but it’s a
slender thread. Bootleg phones acquired from the guards can
easily be discovered and confiscated, with disciplinary ac-
tion taken against both sides to prevent recurrence. Inmates
need to establish their human right to contact with their fami-
lies and the rest of the outside world.
The greatest danger right now is that the protest strike be
cut off from unions and other progressive forces in Georgia
and the rest of the country. The article by Bruce Dixon lists
the phone numbers of the prisons where the protest is taking
place. Dixon urges everyone to call the prison wardens’ of-
fices and tell whoever answers that you’ve read the protest
demands and believe they should be implemented in the best
interests of everyone associated with the prison system. In-
form them that you will be following events closely and ex-
pect the inmates to be treated with respect and not subjected
to intimidation, discipline, or violence.
Other possible avenues of contact: The Office of Ombuds-
man of prisons, is a service set up to handle complaints from
prisoners’ families. Phone is 404 657 7588 email address
ombudsman@dcor.state.ga.us This suggestion comes from
me alone, but sending an email to this address would require
no follow up and hence would not interfere with the needs
of families. Directly communicate with Commissioner Brian
Owens from an email send box at the website www.dcor.
state.ga.us “About GDC” on the home page tool bar, pull
down “Contact Us”
Last Sunday, I spoke to Valerie Porter, one of the contacts
for the prisoners in Americus GA, who told me a support
group has been formed called “The Coalition to Respect
Prisoners’ Rights.” This group, led by families of inmates,
Elaine Brown [former national secretary of the Black Pan-
ther Party in the early 1970s], head of Georgia NAACP, Na-
tion of Islam minister and several others, met with the gov-
ernor’s representative on Sunday 19 Dec at 3:30 PM. I’ve
asked someone who attended the meeting to come to the Hu-
manists meeting and update us on what has transpired since.
Please familiarize yourself with the inmates’ demands
and read the Black Agenda Report article by Bruce Dixon at
http://blackagendareport.com/ga-prisoner-strike-continues-
second-day-corporate-media-mostly-ignores-them-correc-
tions-offi.
The most crucial support we can give is any action which
prevents the prison authorities from cutting these inmates off
from the outside world. In solidarity, ♦
Submitted by: Freedom Archives, 522 Valencia Street, San
Francisco, CA 94110, 415 863-9977
James Lawless
GEORGIA PRISON STRIKE
SETS AGENDA FOR
FUTURE STRUGGLE
By Tom Big Warrior
F
or years the courts have been dodging the issue of
the constitutionality of the exemption clause of the
13th Amendment. Comrade Jalil and Comrade Spider
both presented good arguments that challenged the legal-
ity of prison slavery based upon the Universal Declaration
on Human Rights (authored by the U.S.) which prohibits
slavery and compulsory labor under any circumstances. But
the courts refused to hear them dismissing their petitions
as “frivolous” lawsuits. But now, after the “Largest Prison
Strike in U.S. History,” the term “frivolous” hardly applies.
The Georgia prisoners are arguing that forced prison labor
violates the 13th Amendment which outlawed slavery in the
U.S. This forces the state to bring up the exemption clause,
which continues slavery for “those convicted of a crime.” If
the Court supports this, it calls forth an abolition movement
to amend the 13th Amendment. If it rules that it is unconstitu-
tional, it opens the door to defining what rights (as citizens)
prisoners do have.
If they are citizens, what rights of workers and workers’
protection legislation apply? Do they have a right to a mini-
mum wage? Do they have the right to collectively bargain?
Do they have a right to vote? Do they have a right to free
speech and to communicate with one another and to peace-
ably assemble and petition, and in general to organize?
The whole idea of the prison-industrial complex rests on
the ability to super-exploit prisoners for little to no wages
and pass the cost of their maintenance onto the tax-payers.
If paid a “livable wage” as the GA prisoners demand, the
incentive for mass incarceration goes out the window. The
alternative for prison slavery is not sitting in cells but going
home en masse.
Their fear was not just of the strike
spreading to other Georgia prisons
and other state prison systems but
of the lessons that could be drawn
by the oppressed everywhere.
The tactic of voluntary lock-down is powerful. They can’t
claim the security of the institution is being threatened. Any
violence that results is guard-initiated and the violence of the
slave-master. It serves no “legitimate” security interest.
The key to the success of the tactic is full participation of
the prisoners. The strength of unity is pitted against the in-
justice of the system. It is a proletarian way of fighting – like
the sit-down strikers at the Flint GM plant that established
the UAW.
One thing you always hear from prisoners is that “these
guys here are too divided by race, religion and gang affili-
ation to accomplish anything.” But where are the race divi-
sions greater than Georgia? Yet it was the leaders of these
sub-divisions that organized the strike. They became the
“shop stewards” of the de-facto “union.” Poor white, Black
or Latino, Rasta or Muslim, Blood or Crip, they led their
brothers as a class – the proletarian class – showing just how
powerful that is.
Not-for-nothing is the proletariat called the “class of the
future.” Only the proletariat is capable of leading society
beyond the Epoch of Exploitation to a new epoch based
upon social justice and equality for all. The attempted me-
dia black-out of news on the GA prison strike reflects how
seriously the capitalist-imperialist system was challenged.
Silence often speaks loudest. Their fear was not just of the
strike spreading to other Georgia prisons and other state
prison systems but of the lessons that could be drawn by the
oppressed everywhere.
The handful of super-rich “fat cats” running the world are
no match for the power of the people united. The reality is
the only thing keeping us down is our disunity and intimida-
tion -- our lack of consciousness. We could all be free and
enjoying the fruits of our collective, socialized labor without
their boots on our necks. We can sweep away poverty, war,
oppression, and yes – crime itself – if we come together and
stand up as a class.
The strategy of the United Panther Movement (led by
the New Afrikan Black Panther Party – Prison Chapter) is
based on building people’s unity and people’s power. From
transforming the “slave pens of oppression” into “schools of
liberation” to transforming the oppressed communities into
“base areas of cultural, social and political revolution in the
context of building the worldwide united front against capi-
talist imperialism,” we are moving towards a solution to all
our problems – and the solution is world proletarian socialist
revolution!
The fight for prisoners’ human and democratic civil rights
is an important part of this fight. For what is communism but
the extension of human rights to include all human needs? ♦
Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!
All Power to the People!
PRISON FOCUS
CAPITALISM PRODUCES
RICH BANKERS, BUT
SOCIALISM PRODUCES
HAPPINESS
By Phillip Bannowsky
S
ocialism is better than capitalism. So say 20 percent of
Americans, and another 27 percent say they can’t say
which is better, according to a recent Rasmussen poll.
There’s hope.
When you consider that virtually no newspaper, broad-
caster, well-funded think tank, teacher, or anybody’s boss or
commander ever said something nice about socialism, it’s
remarkable that only 53 percent of us still favor rule by the
moneyed class. Perhaps folks are learning how capitalism
sacrifices happiness for individual gain.
As Billy Bragg exhorts us in his update of the socialist an-
them “The Internationale”: “Stand up, all victims of oppres-
sion/for tyrants fear your might/Don’t cling so hard to your
possessions/For you have nothing if you have no rights.”
No less a “capitalist tool” than Forbes Magazine let a red
cat out of the bag with a report this month that the happi-
est countries tend to be Scandinavian socialist democracies.
High per-capita GDP certainly plays a role in their felicity,
but even social democratic New Zealand, with per-capita
GDP only 64 percent of the United States’, ranks with the
10 democracies above us in the happiness index. They pay
high taxes in these pinkotopias, but folks enjoy entitlements
like free college, extensive elder care, and 52-week paid ma-
ternity leave.
The 2005 poll measured personal reports of enjoyment,
pride in achievement and learning, being respected, among
other things. Forbes suggests that such happiness derives
from family, social and community networks, and a decent
work-life balance, noting that the average workweek in
Scandinavia is 37 hours.
Nice dream, but how do we get there? Most of these coun-
tries dumped capitalist exploitation long ago and instituted
mixed economies with socialist ideals. More contemporary
models are the 11 Latin America countries pursuing “Social-
ism in the 21st Century.” They too reject top-down Leninism
for a system based on participatory democracy and solidar-
ity.
In Ecuador, a land I have studied and worked in, a broad
coalition of indigenous, environmentalists, trade unions, pro-
fessional organizations, feminists, gay activists, left parties,
and students laid the groundwork for transformation. They
just re-elected Rafael Correa, their leftist standard-bearer, as
president. They fought racism, oligarchs, oil companies, and
corrupt politicians for decades.
The economies of Latin America’s red eleven are improv-
ing, although none of them has instituted a socialist utopia.
They are still subject to the slings and arrows of egotism,
error, and internecine conflict. But they have overcome the
greatest impediments to their advancement, including the
U.S.-based bankers who are draining our treasury now. And
the civil society they created in the struggle is the guarantor
of their democracy.
Before finding the path of progress, many of these coun-
tries had lurched from violent paroxysm to confusion and
resignation, not unlike what the U.S. currently endures.
For example, our Auto Industry Task Force just bankrupt-
ed GM and Chrysler, fired tens of thousands of employees,
extorted immense sacrifices from active and retired auto-
workers, and is dominated by the investment bankers who
absorbed trillions in national wealth to keep themselves rich
after destroying the economy.
Instead of seizing plants as our Canadian com-
rades are doing, or adding “bossnapping” to plant oc-
cupations as the French have done, we shake our
heads as the union negotiates the terms of surrender.
What could we do with socialism? Well, take banks for start-
ers: take them, so instead of private scams that go broke
gambling with money they don’t own, they’d become public
utilities that finance production, infrastructure, and homes.
And treat aging industries like autos: instead of dumping,
we’d transform them according to a national plan for green
jobs and a healthy environment.
Solidarity is the path as well as the destination of social-
ism. Solidarity grieves when a worker loses his job or sees
her pension slashed. Solidarity cheers when a union wins
middle-class pay. Solidarity rejects the greed of insurers as
the distributor of healthcare and demands single payer for
all.
Solidarity smells the rat who divides white from black,
black from gay, native from newcomer, or America from the
rest of humanity.
“So come brothers and sisters/For the struggle carries on/
The Internationale/Unites the world in Song.
“So comrades come rally/For this is the time and place/
The international ideal/Unites the human race.” ♦
[Phillip Bannowsky is a member of The News Journal
Community Advisory Board and is a retired autoworker. His
novel, “The Mother Earth Inn,” recounts the early stirrings
of Ecuador’s current transformation.]
NUMBER 36
MEDICAL NEGLECT
QUOTE BOX
STALKS GEORGIA “The three aims of the tyrant are, one, the humiliation
PRISONS of his subjects; he knows that a mean-spirited man will
not conspire against anybody; two, the creation of mis-
By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
A
trust among them; for a tyrant is not to be overthrown
rnold Porter was serious, and seriously worried. He
until men begin to have confidence in one another -- and
was dizzy and short of breath, he told Dr. William
this is the reason why tyrants are at war with the good;
Sightler, with a crushing, tightening sensation in his
they are under the idea that their power is endangered by
chest with pain shooting up once side of his neck. “Maybe I
them, not only because they will not be ruled despoti-
have a clogged artery. This is not my normal health,” he told
cally, but also because they are too loyal to one another
Dr. Sightler. “Please help. I need something fast done.”
and to other men, and do not inform against one another
Slow motion heart attacks, in which symptoms leading up
or against other men -- three, the tyrant desires that all
to full cardiac arrest build and worsen gradually over weeks
his subjects shall be incapable of action, for no one at-
or months are quite common. Porter should have been a
tempts what is impossible and they will not attempt to
lucky man, being able to bring his heart attack symptoms
overthrow a tyranny if they are powerless.”
into in a physician’s office, except for one thing. Porter was a
Aristotle
prisoner at Georgia’s Wheeler Correctional facility, operated
by the notorious Corrections Corporation of America. And
“Hear me people: We now have to deal with another
William Slighter was their doctor, not his.
race---small and feeble when our fathers first met them,
According to a complaint filed in US District Court in
but now great and overbearing. Strangely enough they
Dublin Ga, Porter repeatedly and insistently sought medical
have a mind to till the soil and the love of possessions is
aid throughout the month of December 2006, informing Dr.
a disease with them. They take their tithes from the poor
Sightler and a prison nurse of his symptoms, and urgently
and weak to support the rich and those who rule.”
requesting some kind, any kind of diagnostic treatment for
Chief Sitting Bull
his chest pain, shortness of breath, profuse sweating and the
other classic markers of cardiac disease. By December 29,
“Every generation needs a new revolution.”
the complaint states, Porter’s symptoms were well docu-
Thomas Jefferson
mented in his file, but the first appointment with Dr. Sightler
was delayed a full 35 days. It was at this appointment that
“If by the mere force of numbers a majority should
Porter stated he thought he might have a clogged artery, and
deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional
asked for help.
right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolu-
Dr. Sightler, Nurse Newcurt, and the prison’s Director of
tion”
Nursing Carolyn White, the complaint alleges, did nothing.
Abraham Lincoln
Wheeler is a privatized prison, run by a highly profitable
corporation. Private prisons, as well as publicly-run prisons
“The doctrine of non-resistance against arbitrary
with privatized medical care have built-in reasons to skimp
power and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destruc-
on diagnostic testing and all kinds of care. Medical care costs
tive of the good and happiness of mankind.”
money, and they’re in business to make it, not to spend it.
New Hampshire Constitution, Source: Article 10
On October 16, 2007 Arnold Porter went into full cardiac
arrest. He died. His pulse and breathing stopped, he had to
The lie can be maintained only for such time as the
be brought back with a combination of electric shock and
State can shield the people from the political, economic
cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes
Porter is lucky to be alive today. He’s a long way from
vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to
being well, but has made it far enough back to draft and file
repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the
his own complaint against CCA, the state of Georgia, and the
lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest
doctors and nurses who refused to treat him till he reached
enemy of the State.”
the point of death.
Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister
Wheeler is a privatized prison, run
“Among the basic freedoms to which men aspire that
by a highly profitable corporation their lives might be full and uncramped, freedom from
... with a built in reason to skimp on fear stands out as both a means and an end. A people
medical care. who would build a nation in which strong, democratic
institutions are firmly established as a guarantee against
Porter’s sister Vondra told Black Agenda Report that “My
state-induced power must first learn to liberate their
brother says ‘they’ve already tried to kill me, I don’t know
own minds from apathy and fear.”
what more they can do.’” So Porter is doing what he can do,
Aung San Suu Kyi
acting as a jailhouse lawyer, researching and assisting with
the pleas and motions of other prisoners at Coffee Correc-
“You may think your actions are meaningless and that
tional facility, where he is now held.
they won’t help, but that is no excuse, you must still
Some other Georgia prisoners are not so fortunate. Ter-
act.”
rance Dean, who was brutally beaten by officials at Macon
Mohandas K. Gandhi
State Prison in mid-December, around the same time as the
visit of a Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoners Rights
“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice,
fact-finding team, finally got a visit from his sister on Sun-
no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being,
day, January 2.
first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and
“He’s got a long way to go,” said Wendy Johnson of At-
whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”
lanta. “He’s in a wheelchair, his speech is slurred, and he
Malcolm X
seems to have partial paralysis in his arm and leg on one side.
He can’t walk without help... he is very fearful...” According
“...free enterprise, [is] a term that refers, in practice, to
to Johnson, the last time he saw his mother in November, he
a system of public subsidy and private profit, with mas-
was in normal physical condition with no complaints.
sive government intervention in the economy to main-
Dean was transferred in apparent secrecy to an Atlanta
tain a welfare state for the rich.”
hospital more than 130 miles away from the prison. His fam-
Noam Chomsky
ily was not informed at all by state authorities of either his in-
jury or his transfer. They had to find out by other means. And
“I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate
although Johnson spoke to Steve Franklin of CBS Atlanta on
these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a
Friday, the story appears to have received little or no on-air
socialist economy, accompanied by an educational sys-
coverage, and cannot be found on the station’s web site.
tem which would be oriented toward social goals.”
“We’re going to do everything we can to find out what
Albert Einstein, Monthly Review (May 1949)
happened to Terrance Dean, and everything we can to make
sure justice is served,” pledged Rev. Kenny Glasgow of The
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly,
Ordinary Peoples Society.
the true place for a just man is also a prison.
At Smith Prison, where another fact-finding visit occurred,
Henry David Thoreau
there was at least one incident which may be another case of
official retaliation for the prison strike. The wife of another
“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an
prisoner at that institution spoke to corporate media reporters
irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s
just before New Years about her husband, whose nose was
minds”
broken and not reset, and who had other injuries. Again, the
Samuel Adams
story has seen little light. The family has retained an attorney
and is looking into its legal options.
“Patterning your life around other’s opinions is noth-
The Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoner Rights ex-
ing more than slavery.”
pects to hold a press conference in Atlanta tomorrow at 10:30
Lawana Blackwell, Author
in downtown Atlanta. We’ll be there. ♦
Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report,
“Action is the antidote to despair”
and based in Marietta GA. He’s also a member of the GA
Joan Baez
Green Party’s state committee.
17
PRISON FOCUS AND GANG VALIDATION
A
s regular readers know, the CDC has been using a
prisoners’ receipt of some copies of Prison Focus
as one of the three “strikes” needed to validate him
or her as a gang member. In response to this practice the fol-
lowing letter was sent to the CDC Secretary Matthew Cate
on August 17, 2010:
“Dear Secretary Cate:
“California Prison Focus is a human rights orga-
nization that for nearly twenty years has monitored
and educated the public about the treatment and
living conditions of prisoners in California’s Secure
Housing Units (SHUs). We publish a newsletter,
Prison Focus, which we send to both prisoners
and non-prisoners. Consistent with our mission,
the newsletter contains information and opinions
concerning prison conditions and issues. No ma-
terial in our publication is related to gang activity,
membership, or association, nor reasonably con-
struable as such. Nor does any activity or commu-
nication of California Prison Focus have any con-
nection to gangs.
“The summer 2008 issue of Prison Focus (# 31)
contained several stories about Black August or
George Jackson. Subsequently, based on mere
possession of that issue, a number of prisoners
were “validated” as active gang members and sen-
tenced to years in the SHU. At least one other was
gang-validated based on possession of a different
issue of our newsletter. We denounce this use of
our publication in the strongest terms and demand
for every such prisoner (1) the rescission of his
validation and SHU sentence, and (2) immediate
release back to general population.
“Mere possession of historical writings or com-
mentary concerning George Jackson and Black
August cannot constitute evidence of association
with a gang. This is especially so with a periodical,
where a recipient has no knowledge of the specific
content of a given issue until it arrives in his hands.
Furthermore, punishing a prisoner based on pos-
session of such reading material flagrantly violates
the freedom of expression.
“Our Summer 2010 issue, very recently pub-
lished, contains material about George Jackson.
We expect that the CDCR’s illegitimate use of Pris-
on Focus as gang-membership evidence will not
be repeated.
“We appreciate your prompt reply. Please inform
us of your decisions and actions on these urgent
matters.”
The above letter was signed by CPF officers and a
copy sent to the ACLU’s Prison Project. We received
the following reply from Anthony Chaus, Assistant Sec-
retary:
“This is in response to your letter dated, August
17, 2010, regarding your publication (Prison Focus)
containing information on Black August and George
Jackson. In your letter, you expressed concern that
a number of inmates have been validated as gang
members/associates and given Segregated Hous-
ing Unit (SHU) terms for “mere possession” of your
publication, which contained the aforementioned
subject matter.
“Prison gang activity and gang related violence is
a very serious problem within the California Depart-
ment of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR).
To suppress this activity by gang members/asso-
ciates, it is imperative we identify and separate
these individuals for the overall good of the general
population. CDCR does not take the gang valida-
tion process lightly and have instituted a check and
balance system to ensure inmates identified as
prison gang members or associates are properly
categorized. While your letter stated a number of
inmates were given SHU terms for being in pos-
session of your publication, this statement is not to-
tally accurate. In order for an inmate to be validated
as a prison gang member/associate requires three
independent source items, these source items
may include self admissions, tattoos and symbols,
photographs, staff information and “written mate-
ria.” Your publication which included the article on
Black August and George Jackson would fall under
the last category of “written material,” and would
be considered as one of three independent source
items needed to validate an individual. To further
ensure we are accurate on our validation process,
we require one of the source items to be a direct
link to a current or former validated member of as-
sociate of the gang.
“As I am sure you are aware, “Black August” was
established by the Black Guerrilla Family (BGF)
to pay tribute to fallen “comrades” who have been
killed. These comrades include George Jackson
(founder of BGF), Jonathan Jackson (brother of
18
George), and Jeffrey Gauldin, all killed in the month
of August. BGF members are required to partake
in the observance of Black August. The BGF also
uses Black August as a time for training and the
spreading of their ideologies and philosophies for
the purpose of recruitment. If an inmate is suspect-
ed of being a member/associate of the BGF and
found in possession of written material contain-
ing information regarding Black August or George
Jackson, it could be considered as one the three
independent source items needed for validation.
As you mentioned in your letter, an inmate may
not know in advance what will be contained in your
publication; however, once the inmate becomes
aware of its contents, he may choose to turn in the
material or simply throw it away. Inmates will be
held accountable for all items found in their pos-
session or control.
“In your letter, you demand the rescission of the
validation and SHU sentences of every inmate
in which your publication was used in the valida-
tion process. You also demand the return of these
same inmates to the general population. While
CDCR appreciates you taking the time to address
your concerns, we are unable to comply with either
demand.”
Before any fruther action can be taken we at CPF need to
know what parts of the DOC’s response was a lie; for ex-
ample, was Black August created by the BGF?
FORGOTTEN PRISONERS
FORCED TO DRINK DIRTY,
CANCER-CAUSING WATER
By Charles Davis October 15, 2010
G
et convicted of a crime and there’s a good chance
you’ll not only lose your freedom, but your health as
well, with officials at many prisons the world over
unable or simply unwilling to provide inmates with access to
safe, clean drinking water, turning what might be a few years
behind bars into a death sentence.
So far, however, no one seems to be doing anything about
it. In fact, the problem’s “getting worse across the board,”
according to Robert Mardini of the International Committee
of the Red Cross. And “not just in developing countries.” In-
deed, the Red Cross notes that “forgotten or neglected” pris-
ons around the globe are now “breeding grounds for disease
due to a lack of clean water, limited access to latrines, inad-
equate waste management, poor hygiene and overcrowded
living quarters.”
In California, officials at Kern Valley State Prison, a mod-
ern, purportedly state-of-the-art facility built in 2005, are
forcing their 4,800 prisoners to drink water that they know is
contaminated with levels of arsenic that far exceed safe lev-
els, according to a report from The Boston Globe. Long-term
arsenic exposure is known to cause many different types of
cancer. Though scandalous, you almost can’t blame those
running the prison -- after all, who in a position of power is
going to make a fuss about poisoning some criminals?
“It’s not that major of an issue,” prison warden Kelly Har-
rington told the paper. The prison’s chief medical officer, Dr.
Sherry Lopez, likewise doesn’t seem to much care: arsenic is
“much more a regulatory problem than a public health prob-
lem,” she told the Globe.
Last year tests revealed water at the Kern Valley facility
was also contaminated with e. coli. The scary thing? Other
California prisons may be even worse.
“I just came from an institution where the water was just
atrocious, definitely foul,” one 25-year-old inmate serving a
drug sentence told the paper. “This to me is like spring water
here.”
And it’s just as bad on the East Coast. One prison in
Easton, Pennsylvania, has been sued no less than 37 times
over the last three years by prisoners charging that the condi-
tions there -- “overcrowding, leaking roofs, dirty drinking
water, cockroach infestations, sewage backup in the facil-
ity’s kitchen and moldy bathrooms,” according to allegations
in one lawsuit summarized by The Express-Times -- caused
them to come down with methicillin-resistant Staphylococ-
cus aureus.
It’s easy for some people to right stories like this off. After
all, it’s not happening to them, it’s happening to a bunch of
people who Did Wrong. But whatever law they may have
broken, and many people behind bars are there for non-vi-
olent drug offenses, prisoners have already been punished,
forced to live in a cage for years at a time. And the condi-
tions inmates face in prison are bad enough, including the
disgracefully rampant threat of rape -- the prospect of a
much-shortened life due to dirty drinking water shouldn’t be
one of them. ♦
http://criminaljustice.change.org/blog/view/forgotten_
prisoners_forced_to_drink_dirty_cancer-causing_water
MESSAGE FROM THE
PRESIDENT
I
t seems everywhere you turn, the news has been the same
for the last two years: crisis. Crises, they say, are not just
moments of dread, but opportunities. California Prison
Focus has taken this opportunity to “refocus” our focus. In
the past, we had several large committees working on issues
from HIV and Hep-C, to sexual and physical abuse of wom-
en, to defending the rights of gay, lesbian and transgendered
prisoners. We no longer have this separate committee struc-
ture and have zeroed in on the one issue that originated this
group: the torturous conditions of the SHU. With our budget
cuts, we have eliminated visiting the women’s prisons and
now we visit exclusively Pelican Bay and Corcoran prisons.
Our main goal is to continue to write hard hitting investiga-
tive reports on conditions in those prisons (see the Corcoran
Report, for example, in Prison Focus #35). As much as we
are able to, we will also investigate on-going abuses at other
prisons.
We receive some 300 letters from prisoners each month,
but with only a small number of volunteers to carry out all
of our work (working on the newsletter, keeping subscrip-
tion records, organizing and carrying out prison visits, writ-
ing reports, raising operating funds, updating the website,
developing new public education strategies, answering mail,
collaborating with other organizations, etc.), we simply can-
not get to all of the letters. This fact pains me as head of
this organization because the abuses that you write us about
cannot be tolerated. So I am writing here to let you know
that while we do not throw anyone’s mail away, we are quite
behind in responding to your requests. We continue to work
on volunteer recruitment so that we can “catch up” with this
backlog. We request that you help us by referring friends
or family members in the Oakland area to our office, or
to consider volunteering here after you get out.
Even though our donations and grant income have plum-
meted, California Prison Focus has been able to survive the
economic crisis due to dedicated volunteers, strong core
financial supporters, and drastic spending cuts. We have
learned to get by with less and less, yet we have been able to
maintain our essential programs such as providing self-help
gang validation manuals for those needing to challenge their
validation status, and conducting visits to prisons. While I
am happy that we have eliminated non-essential expenses
and achieved a truly “bare boned” budget, we still keep hov-
ering too close to running out of funds. But we are not ready
to give in or give up. This situation has reinvigorated me and
the rest of the group to work harder at raising funds and writ-
ing grants because we know how important it is to publish
Prison Focus, to continue our investigative visits to Pelican
Bay and Corcoran SHU, and to educate the public about the
abuses that happen every day in the prisons.
As long as the abuses continue, we
will not stop channeling your voices
and educating the public about the
true conditions in our prisons.
We have had a long standing policy at CPF of providing
subscriptions to this newsletter, Prison Focus, to prisoners at
$5.00 for four issues and sending it free of charge to prison-
ers in the SHU. (That price has not changed since we began
the newsletter 10 years ago!). We know that our issues have
fallen behind schedule as of late, but we are trying to make
up for that with the larger issues. We know how much you
appreciate the fine reading in each issue. But due to financial
constraints, we have decided to raise the prisoner subscrip-
tion price as of February 2011 to $6.00.
We will maintain our policy of sending free issues to SHU
prisoners. That policy had been relaxed in recent years to
include some Ad Seg and indigent individuals. Regrettably,
these exceptions to our rule cannot continue. In other words,
after this issue, we will no longer send Ad Seg or indigent
prisoners a free subscription, as much as we would like
to. We simply don’t have the resources.
Of course I have to end here by asking you to please do-
nate as much as you can to our efforts TODAY. Donating
even a few stamps means that we have fewer stamps to buy
in order to send out replies to prisoners. Please renew your
subscription with a donation of $6.00 if you haven’t done so
recently, and donate more if possible. We depend on your
subscriptions to keep our newsletter going.
CPF is not closing its doors any time soon. As long as the
abuses continue, we will not stop channeling your voices and
educating the public about the true conditions in our prisons.
We are proud to stand together with you, uniting prisoners
and non-prisoners of many different races to denounce the
racism and oppression of our failed prison system and prison
industrial complex. I thank all of you ahead of time for your
contributions, your letters, your cooperation on investigative
visits, and for your financial donations to keep our very im-
portant work going. ♦
In solidarity,
Ron Ahnen, President
California Prison Focus
PRISON FOCUS

PELICAN BAY
PELICAN BAY REPORT
Oct. - Nov. 2010
By Marilyn McMahon, based on investigators’ reports
T
hree investigators for California Prison Focus (Sacha,
Tonya, and Marlene) conducted a human rights inves-
tigation at Pelican Bay State Prison over two days in
October and November, 2010. This report summarizes what
they learned from the interviews with prisoners in the SHU
and other units.
Many of the problems reported CPF has heard about for
years. Some things have worsened, and new problems are
surfacing. Of course, things that may have improved are not
foremost in the minds of the prisoners or the investigators.
Yet improvements in some areas would not excuse the vari-
ous sorts of egregious abuses reported.
Guards instigating fights. We heard several reports of
guards setting up fights between prisoners by opening rival
prisoners’ cell doors at the same time. We also heard that an-
tagonistic prisoners or groups were sometimes given yard to-
gether so that they would fight. These reports are extremely
disturbing (especially given the “gladiator fights” history at
fellow SHU prison Corcoran).
Illegitimate gang validation. There is concern—among
prisoners of various ethnicities—about the disproportionate
number of gang-validations against southern Hispanics. For
example, about 95 of 104 prisoners in ASU are validated
Hispanics. This raises questions of profiling, discrimination,
and an assembly-line mass validation process, which is un-
likely to be accurate.
So-called evidence of the sort rejected by the court in Lira
that is not indicative of gang activity is still being used to
gang-validate prisoners: for example, tattoos, the number 13,
Aztec symbols, or cultural drawings.
Insufficient food. Prisoners reported that they don’t get
enough food. Portions get smaller all the time and in some
cases are literally cut in half. Supplementing with food
bought from the canteen is a necessity.
Silencing of prisoner grievances. The foundation of all
rights is the right and means to protect those rights. Sabo-
tage of this foundation is so frequent and many-faceted at
Pelican Bay that it appears deliberate and systematic. Vir-
tually the only ways prisoners can attempt to resolve any
problems—whether bad living conditions, maltreatment by
staff, medical neglect, or unfair policies—is to follow the
administrative grievance process (filing 602s) and to go to
court (which requires filing 602s first). So when prison staff
deliberately or inadvertently interfere with prisoners’ ability
to effectively use the 602 process or the courts, this strips
them of any means to protect their rights.
Such interference is rampant at Pelican Bay, with numer-
ous obstacles being placed in the way of anyone trying to
use the 602 process or the courts. These include retaliation
against those who file 602s, delay in returning legal papers
after confiscation, violating the confidentiality of legal mail,
and restricting or denying access to the law library and to
photocopies.
Retaliation for complaints We heard reports of prisoners
being retaliated against for filing 602s. The retaliation might
take the form of the prisoner’s cell being tossed, his mail be-
ing lost, or worse.
Legal mail A couple of prisoners reported that legal mail
was handled properly, being opened in front of the prisoner
and not being read by prison staff. Another said that it was
handled properly only if the return address read precisely,
“(attorney name), Attorney at Law”. If it said “Law Office of
(attorney name)” it would get treated as regular mail.
Other prisoners reported improper handling of legal mail.
They said that their legal mail was often opened without
them being present, which is a clear violation of the law.
There was also complaint of legal mail being delayed, espe-
cially when a prisoner has a court deadline to meet.
Holding of property We heard that after cell searches the
property office routinely delays the return of property in or-
NUMBER 36
der to delay a prisoner’s appeals processes.
Photocopying Page limits on photocopying cause difficul-
ties. To copy over 100 pages, a court order is required, but a
court told a prisoner that they do not give such orders. Copy-
ing also takes a long time. Prisoners waiting to get papers
copied routinely miss court deadlines. However, courts will
reverse decision if prisoners send in their papers late and ex-
plain the reason for the delay.
Law library access We heard that prisoners can use the law
library only once every six or twelve weeks and that prison-
ers are allowed only two small sheets of paper for taking
notes. One prisoner found access to materials and computers
in the library to be good, and several commented that the
library staff are helpful. Another prisoner reports routinely
being denied access to the computers in the law library. Ad
Seg prisoners reportedly get no law-library access.
On the other hand, several men reported that cell study is
good and that they get the material they want. One reported
that in the past at least sometimes he had gotten the wrong
cases.
Yard and showers. SHU prisoners are getting about six
hours a week of yard time. They are limited to three showers
a week. One prisoner reported that lockdowns happen week-
ly, especially on days when yard or showers are scheduled.
On A Yard, they get yard time only once or twice a week.
So in a month they may get only 8 hours of yard. On Tues-
days, Thursdays, and Saturdays, there is no phone, no yard,
no showers, “nothing.” The reason given is lack of staff due
to budget cuts.
...on Contraband Watch for 10 days,
without mattress, toilet paper, show-
er, and unable to wash his hands.
Conditions in ASU. We heard that men are spending one
to two years in ASU while they wait to be placed in SHU,
and the situation is likely to get worse. Currently (in Oct./
Nov.), prisoners who were endorsed in June 2009 are being
placed in SHU housing. It took six months to place all the
prisoners who were endorsed in April ’09. For these long
durations in ASU, prisoners have no TV or radio. They get
yard time only about once a week for 3 hours, but it varies a
lot due to a complicated rotation. Sometimes they get yard
only once every 9 days.
Contraband Watch. We heard, yet again, multiple reports
that guards often cause false triggering of the metal detec-
tors by running their keys by the detector when a prisoner is
being checked. Then they claim that the prisoner has contra-
band and put him on Contraband Watch.
One prisoner was reportedly held on Contraband Watch for
10 days, without a mattress, without toilet paper, and without
a shower or even being able to wash his hands. He did get a
blanket. We heard of others on Contraband Watch not being
given blankets though kept in areas where fans were on high.
Also, prisoners were said to be placed in the hallway while
using the toilet bucket, that is, in an open space where they
could be seen by people other than the guards assigned to
observe them.
Reportedly there are several lawsuits challenging condi-
tions in ASU.
Medical. There were complaints about Dr. Williams,
saying that he has cancelled treatment and medication pre-
scribed by doctors at other prisons. In addition, he doesn’t
always pay attention to the patient he is seeing, instead talk-
ing with other people during the visit, and as a result he has
missed extremely important information about the patient.
We heard repeatedly what many letters have told us about
medical pain management: that outside prescriptions for pain
medicine for men with severe pain are ignored by the prison
doctors. And SHU prisoners are routinely being denied ad-
equate pain medicine—as a matter of policy? ♦
SEEKING PLAINTIFFS FOR
SHU LAWSUIT
I
am preparing to challenge the conditions of Pelican
Bay’s SHU on the grounds that long-term solitary
confinement (1) causes significant and prolonged stress
and offers insufficient opportunities for exercise which in
combination cause or exacerbate serious medical problems
e.g., hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and
(2) causes or places inmates at significant risks of developing
serious psychological harm and mental pain/anguish. I also
intend to challenge the gang validation procedures seeking
the same procedural protections afforded in CDC hearings in
light of recently amended penal code section 2933.6 which
classifies validation as a form of misconduct and prevents
validated inmates from receiving any good time credits while
in SHU. (NOTE: All inmates who were validated before 01-
25-10 will eventually get back their release date prior to the
amendment of P.C. 2933.6 since applying the amendment to
those validated prior to 01-25-10 is a violation of the Ex Post
Facto clause). This amendment opens the door to demand
greater due process protections consistent with P.C. Section
2932 and Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 v. 539(1974).
I am looking for particular inmates to be plaintiffs to this
case. In short, I am attempting to present the most compelling
cases of the harmful effects posed by long-term solitary
confinement in Pelican Bay SHU. Going to court with these
cases will improve the likeliness of success, these strategies
have been successful in similar cases in other parts of the
country. If you are elderly, have been in PB SHU for over 15
years (the longer the better) and have medical problems, you
represent the ideal plaintiff in this case.
Many believe that Madrid v. Gomez, 889 F.Supp 1146
(N.D. Cal. 1995) was the only real shot we had at challenging
these conditions. This notion is easily dispelled by a key
passage in the Court’s opinion in Madrid:
“We emphasize, of course, that this determination
is based on the current record and data before us. We
cannot begin to speculate on the impact that Pelican Bay
SHU conditions may have on inmates confined in the
SHU for periods of 10 or 20 years or more; the inmates
studied in connection with this action have generally
been confined to the SHU for three years or less. Madrid
889 F Supp at p.1267”
Other ideal plaintiffs are those who suffer serious
psychological harm alleged to be or exacerbated by time
spent in Pelican Bay SHU. You must still be under treatment
for these mental health problems (due to statute of limitations
issues). It does not matter how long it has been since you
were in Pelican Bay SHU, all that matters is that you allege
that your time in SHU caused or exacerbated your mental
illness and that you still suffer the effects of that confinement.
You may be eligible for money damages for the injuries you
suffered.
We seek to improve the overall conditions in Pelican Bay
SHU and limit the time any inmate can be subjected to these
conditions. If you feel you meet the description described
above and are interested in participating in this case please
contact: [Sally, CPF 1904 Franklin St., #507, Oakland, CA
94612. The above is a letter from a prisoner.] ♦
FROM THE HOOD TO THE
PRISON
B
efore I came to prison (1996), I was illiterate. I still
remember the first inmate grievance that I submitted.
The lieutenant told me “Let me tell you something,
you have no rights. You are a criminal. I tell you to strip,
you’ll strip. I tell you to dance, you’ll dance.”
Fast forward to the year 2004, High Desert State Prison
implemented a “new rule.” Under this rule every time that
an incident occurred all inmates were to crawl backwards
on their hands and knees to a group of 12 to 13 officers who
were in a single file. The first time that I was ordered to fol-
low this rule my paisano, Emiliano Zupata’s words came to
my mind, “I would rather die fighting than to live on my
knees.” I could also see some of the officers gritting their
teeth, while watching us do the crawling. I filed a group ap-
peal challenging this “new rule” and it was denied all the
way to the top. I asked the fellows, “now what”? All I saw
was resignation and unwillingness to do anything at all. I
suggested that everybody refuse to do the “crawling” …
there were no takers!
I see a common denominator among us prisoners—illit-
eracy, ignorance, poverty, drug addiction and resignation to
spending the rest of our lives in prison.
I became very sad when I received letters from my nieces
and nephews (ages 10 to 16) who could barely write a full
letter using correct English grammar. Then we look at the
following quotation, “The quality of education given to the
lower classes must be of the poorest sort so that the moat of
ignorance isolating the inferior class from the superior class
is, and remains, incomprehensible to the inferior class. With
such an initial handicap, even bright lower class individuals
have little, if any, hope of extricating themselves from their
assigned lot in life. This form of slavery is essential to main-
taining some measure of social order, peace and tranquility
for the ruling upper class.” [By: The Quiet War Declared by
the International Elite – the Bilderberg Group at a meeting
held in 1954]
Could this Quiet War be the reason why the United States
Supreme Court judges reasoning in their decisions are so dif-
ficult to understand? How can an average prisoner ever be
able to briefly and concisely assert his claims? To argue the
law and convince a highly educated and wealthy man (judge)
that his “constitutional rights” had been violated during trial
proceedings. Or is this Quiet War the reason our kids in the
public schools can barely read and write; Or why prisoners
in the hole and SHU’s only get books that are fiction; Or why
administrative prisoners receive only two hours a monthly
for law library access.
One of my eyes cries while the other laughed when I heard
a prisoner say, “Football season is almost over. What am I
going to do now?” And others saying, “I know I’ll be back to
prison.” (Vicious cycle of parole violations)
Man, what a real waste of lives. Not everything is sleep,
eat, shit and get high. At the very least set the example so
that your little brother, son, nephew or cousins won’t come
to prison to crawl on their hands and knees. ♦
Soto Santiago
19
CRUEL BUT NOT UNUSUAL:
THE PUNISHMENT OF WOMEN IN U.S. PRISONS
AN INTERVIEW WITH MARILYN BUCK AND LAURA WHITEHORN
By Susie Day
[Marilyn Buck died on 3 August 2010, less than a month
after her release from federal prison. The interview below
was first published in the July-August 2010 issue of Monthly
Review. -- Ed.]
S
D: You both were arrested and imprisoned in 1985.
How have prison conditions around you changed over
those years?
MB: They’ve become much more repressive, particularly
since Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Each year, there’s been
slippage. And certainly Clinton played a big role with the
Anti-Terrorism Act, which further limited people’s legal
rights.
The balance of who is in prison has also changed. There’s
a much higher percentage of blacks and Latinos, and -- at
least in the Federal system -- an enormous number of im-
migrants. Not just immigrants but foreign nationals, who’ve
been arrested for incidents in crossing borders. People are
detained for years without ever being given any kind of ju-
dicial decision.
LW: I think it’s typical of Marilyn not to complain in an
interview about her own conditions. When we look at the
two million people now in the federal and state systems, the
proportion of women in those numbers has gone way up.
What that means to someone like Marilyn is tremendous
overcrowding: you’re living the rest of your life in a tiny cell
that was built for one person and now houses three. It means
you have no property, because there’s no room. Little by lit-
tle, they took away any clothing that was sent to you, and put
down much more stringent requirements. It means that you
have no desk. Marilyn Buck, like many prisoners who fight
very hard to get an education, has to sit on a cot and write on
her lap. The overcrowding means that people are treated like
problems and like baggage.
The other thing is the federal conspiracy laws, which are
particularly pernicious for women. In 1985, when people
heard that I was facing thirty-three years, they were astound-
ed. That seemed like so much time. In 1990, when I ended up
with twenty-three years, people were less astounded, because
the laws had changed and sentences were much longer. By
then, my cellmate had a twenty-four-year sentence on a first
offense. This was a drug conspiracy case where it was really
her husband who had run this drug ring, and she was swept
up in the indictment. Or there’s our friend Danielle, who
has a triple-life sentence for another drug conspiracy -- her
crime was basically refusing to testify against her husband.
We found many more women with those kinds of sentences.
SD: How do you think these last fifteen years have affect-
ed you, personally?
MB: Imagine yourself in a relationship with an abuser who
controls your every move, keeps you locked in the house.
There’s the ever-present threat of violence or further repres-
sion if you don’t toe the line. I think that’s a fairly good anal-
ogy of what happens. And imagine being there for fifteen
years.
To be punished, to be absolutely controlled, whether it’s
about buttoning your shirt; how you have a scarf on your
head; how long or how baggy your pants are -- all of those
things are under scrutiny. It’s hard to give a clinical picture
of what they do, because how do you know, when you’re the
target, or the victim, what that does to you? But there’s a dif-
ference between being a target and being a victim.
LW: The largest proportion of guards in federal women’s
prisons are men. That’s who’s in your living unit. That’s
who’s looking through the window in your door when you
might be using the bathroom or changing your clothes.
There’s the total loss of ability to defend your person.
For me, the hardest part was the pat-searches. In the fed-
eral system, it’s legal for male guards to pat-search women
prisoners. That means they stand behind you and run their
hands all over your body. The point is not to locate contra-
band; it’s to reduce you to a completely powerless person.
If I had pushed a guard’s hands away they would have sent
me to the hole for assault. In fact, that did happen once. It
reduces you to an object, not worthy of being defended. The
message is, “your body is meaningless, why don’t you want
this man to put his hands all over you?” Very, very deeply
damaging.
Marilyn talks about being “a target or a victim.” She makes
a distinction. That’s really important because the struggle
inside prison is to refuse to be victimized. Once you allow
yourself to be a victim, you lose your ability to stand up and
say, “I’m a person; I’m not a piece of garbage.”
But over the years, when you have to put up with that again
and again, you avoid situations because you just don’t want
to go through it. You have to exert an enormous amount of
psychic energy to remove yourself from the situation, where
this guy’s running his hands over your body. You end up ex-
hausted at the end of the day, and your nerves are shot. Your
20
only life is resisting these situations.
SD: Is there a portrait of a typical woman prisoner you
could draw?
MB: No, except in the broadest strokes. Typically, she’s a
woman of color. When she first comes to prison, she’s twen-
ty-three to twenty-four years old. Probably the median age of
women here is thirty-five to thirty-six, which is much older
than it used to be because women stay in prison much lon-
ger. Presently, in this particular institution, over 50 percent
of the women are Latin American, a large percentage of that,
Mexican. You could also say -- and this is not news -- a lot
of the women here come from abusive relationships, whether
parents or husbands. . . . If you look at the statistics, it says
up to 80 percent.
LW: I would also say that a huge number of the women
are mothers. It means that, on the outside, there are basically
a lot of orphans. I consider the prison system today to be a
form of genocide. Prison has been used against third-world
populations inside the United States, in particular African-
American and Latino populations. These women are very
young when they come to prison. They have sentences that
will go through their childbearing years. Their children are
either farmed out to relatives, or they become wards of the
state. It means that the women, who would form some sort
of collective bond when there’s a need for struggle, are gone
from the community. And it means that their children may
well go to prison themselves. Those of us who grew up with
mothers have complaints that we didn’t get enough love.
What does it mean to have your mother in prison?
One thing that would strike me whenever people came in
from the outside for something like an AIDS health fair -- we
fought very hard to have those fairs -- is that these straight,
middle-America types would be sweating bullets, they were
so scared. And they would be so expansive and warm when
they left. They would say, “My picture of you all was so
wrong. I pictured these killers with knives in their teeth, and
I find you’re just like my neighbors.”
If you look at the number of women in prison, some of
us are your neighbors. I don’t care where you live. People
who read Monthly Review: your neighbors are in prison,
OK? I must have met thousands and thousands of women
over almost fifteen years, and I would have to say that, of
the women I met, there are probably ten or fifteen who, in a
socialist society, would need to be in prison.
SD: Do women ever get “better” after they go to prison?
MB: Sometimes. I think there’s the possibility of coming
to terms with the fact that you were abused. Basically, you
have two things happening. One is that you have this poten-
tial, because you’re not running around, doing the things you
had to do as a mother, a wife, a partner, or as someone who
had to go to work. When that daily activity stops, then the
potential exists to discover a sense of independence.
The other side is that we’re in a situation where we’re ab-
solutely controlled. That sort of enhances another abusive re-
lationship. It can limit your imagination and shut you down.
So a lot of women become more creative here, in terms of
arts and crafts, but it doesn’t necessarily open them to their
potential as human beings.
LW: Also, a lot of women who have been in abusive rela-
tionships get into lesbian relationships. And one of the things
the chaplains do is preach against homosexuality, because
they’re terrified of it. I was once in a prison where there was
a progressive chaplain who told other chaplains that for a lot
of the women, these relationships were the first time some-
one looked at them and saw beauty and not something to
be used and abused. There were also some horrible lesbian
relationships that were a recreation of the worst in straight
relationships.
Can we talk about medical care? The women are getting
older. A lot of women in prison are going through menopause.
Many have gynecological problems. I had surgery when I
was in prison. There you are: you’re bleeding; you’ve had
surgery a few hours before. You’re strip-searched, shackled,
chained, and you have to walk back to a van. If you’re lucky
they’ll have a wheelchair for you to take you back to your
unit.
I now work at POZ magazine, and a woman in Danbury
Prison wrote a column for the magazine. She has HIV and
goes to the male gynecologist to be told that she needs sur-
gery on her cervix. She says to him, “I have to be completely
sedated for this operation.” And he says, “No you don’t.”
And she says, “Yes, I do. I have a history of sexual abuse and
I have a panic attack when I have to lie on my back with my
legs spread open and chained in front of strangers.”
And he laughs at her. He tells her, “Well, then, we can’t do
the surgery.” And she writes, “I hate my doctor. And that’s a
problem. For me, but not for him.” That’s so profound. That
relationship of being “cared for” by someone who sees you
as their enemy is completely deleterious to your health.
I hope everyone who reads this article is familiar with the
medical crisis in the California Women’s prison at Chowchil-
la. “Health care” there is left to the guards: they are trained as
low level EMT’s and they do the first stage of triage, decid-
ing whether a woman should be seen by a doctor or not. Sev-
enteen women died in that prison last year alone and inde-
pendent investigations concluded that medical incompetence
or refusal of medical attention contributed to the deaths.
The other thing I saw so much in women was the further
erosion of already-low self-esteem. What does it do to you
to have to go stand in line and get a man’s attention and ask
him for sanitary napkins and then be asked, “Didn’t you ask
me for some yesterday?”
SD: How do you deal with the deaths of family and friends
while you’re in prison?
MB: My mother died about six weeks ago. She became
ill in September, so I went through a phase of real guilt that
I wasn’t there. And real sorrow and real anger. I think I’ve
looked at the guilt a little more. I just couldn’t be there. But
the sorrow of not being able to hold my mother’s little bird
hand by the time she was starving to death from the cancer
... just breaks my heart. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
I could intellectualize it. I could have been on a ship half-
way around the world, and we got stuck in the trade winds
and couldn’t get there in time. But I’m an extreme realist and
understand who I am as a political prisoner. I knew that I
would not be allowed to go to her bedside, nor to her funeral.
That was just the reality. She died on a Sunday. And she was
buried on my birthday. So it’s just all very hard.
I talked to my mother every week I could. And she came
to visit me once a year. It was hard for her to get here. My
mom was seventy-four. She had to drive a long way and go
through all the emotional turmoil that you can’t avoid when
you see somebody you can’t do anything for. So I had to look
at her anger, too.
In a certain way, I want to be able to lie on the floor and
bang my heels and cry and scream, but that just hurts my
heels... So what can I say? I’m having a hard time. I’m hav-
ing a very, very hard time. I . . . you know, it’s grief. But it’s
grief under dire conditions. I’ll always miss my mother.
LW: One of the hardest things about being in prison is los-
ing somebody you love and being unable to be there with
them while they’re dying, or go to the memorial service af-
terwards. Being in prison through some of the worst years
of the AIDS epidemic meant that I lost friends, both on the
outside and the inside, very dear women who were among
the best friends I’ve ever had in life.
My father died while I was in prison. I was very fortu-
nate that there was a chaplain who allowed me to phone him
twice while he was in the intensive care unit. It’s just an em-
blem of how families are destroyed by prison -- the fact that
Marilyn was not permitted to go; that I was not permitted to
go to my father’s funeral; that there was no question of ever
being permitted to go.
SD: What kinds of internal resources have you developed
to deal with these years in prison?
MB: For me, the main thing is that I recognized, after the
first five years of being imprisoned and on trial a lot, that one
tends to build one’s walls. Which means that you begin to
censor yourself, so that they can’t censor you.
I censored how I spoke to people, how I interacted. It goes
in tandem with, “If I button my shirt the way they want, they
won’t attack me for not buttoning my shirt properly.” In some
ways, I found myself trying to be a “good girl,” because then
maybe they’d see I wasn’t a “bad girl.”
When I got a handle on what I was doing, I was horrified,
because how can you be a women’s liberationist and worry
about being a good girl or a bad girl? What I believed in my
PRISON FOCUS
gut was being turned inside out by my actual life. And it
made me understand a lot more about how any woman -- it
doesn’t matter who you are or what you think -- can get in a
relationship with another person -- generally a man, but not
always -- who can become your abuser, your owner.
So once I could begin to see that, I tried to find ways to
tear down my walls, to protect myself less. It’s always a risk,
because when you open a door, you don’t know what’s go-
ing to come in, or what’s going to go out. And everyone is
needy in prison. When you’re a prisoner, you’re needy. It’s
emotionally, psychologically devastating. But I felt like, if I
didn’t take that risk, that I was going to smother the essence
of who I was.
What I do is that I write. I write poems. Over the years I’ve
moved from being a rhetorical, frozen writer to try to put out
more of who I am, and how I feel. . . . I think that ultimately,
if we want human liberation, we have to be able to be hon-
est with ourselves and other people about our desires, our
resentments, as we say these days, our “issues.”
So I look to that as a little flame before my face. I can’t say
I’m there. But I can at least keep that in my mind.
LW: I think the hardest thing to maintain over the years,
for me, was my sense of outrage. After a while, your heart
hurts so continually, you begin to build a sort of padding
around it. For example, one of the hardest things for me in
prison was at the end of the visiting period, when you see
children being led away from their mothers and they don’t
understand, especially the little ones are just screaming and
crying. I got to a point where I would try to leave my visits
early because I couldn’t stand that any more.
I really started to disrespect myself for that. I felt like, the
mother’s going through it, how do you get the right to re-
move yourself from it? I think from that, I understood some-
thing of why people don’t want to know about prisons, be-
cause it’s too hard; there’s something so painful about seeing
a woman being removed from her baby. A woman who gives
birth in most U.S. prisons gets somewhere between eight and
twenty-four hours before she is taken back to the prison and
separated from the infant.
When people say, “God, how did you survive prison?” I
think the way I did it was by touching the lives and being
touched by the lives of women around me. I mean, I was in
prison with women who had been raped repeatedly by a step-
father when they were between seven and eleven, who had
to go through pat-searches every day, through shakedowns
where some man comes in your cell and paws through your
underwear. They would call home and find out that their
daughter, who was thirteen, was again being abused by that
same stepfather, who was back in the picture. They had to
deal with the most intense levels of abuse, and yet were able
to stand up through it, were able to survive.
I learned early on how people can communicate with each
other on a really deep level without having to give up their
own personal strength. I learned how to get emotional sus-
tenance from the women around me and how to try to give
some to them. That’s the main thing I learned from prison.
And it was easy for me because I knew I had a release date.
For someone like Marilyn, or our friend Danielle, finding the
strength to survive is an enormous job.
SD: What reactions do you get as a political person from
other prisoners?
MB: Most people don’t know my politics specifically. As
I get older and tireder, and more beaten down by being in
prison, I’m not out there as much with the population. I don’t
go to the dining room very much. I’m too tired to do that. So
less and less, people know me.
But some people do understand my politics. You know,
one woman who’s twenty-two years old just left. A young
black woman, we talked sometimes, and I have been sup-
portive and critical of her in a couple of situations. When she
left, she said, “Thank you. You helped me a lot.”
So, to me, what your politics are in the abstract don’t mean
a damn; it’s how you practice them. For myself as a white
woman, I ask, how do you treat people; how do people re-
ceive you as a human being? Are people abstractions to you,
in terms of racism? Or do you treat people as real equals,
even given all the issues of privilege? Because they exist in
prison, too.
Sometimes I’m treated differently by the administration. I
know that my mail gets opened. That’s not true of everyone
else. So I end up getting envelopes without any contents.
Every time you say anything about it, it’s “Oh, it must be the
post office.”
LW: Marilyn’s right that people knew us as political pris-
oners by how we dealt with people and situations every day.
I remember feeling that the main impact I’d had was when
I would intervene when a guard was picking on a woman,
or help somebody get her privileges back when they’d been
taken away unjustly. More than if I gave them a lecture on
the history of something.
But Marilyn’s also way too modest. When we were in
prison together, all the other women knew she represented
the politics of struggles for justice, human rights, liberation.
Women would always approach her for help in understand-
ing not only incidents on the news, world affairs, but also
incidents of racism and hostility among different nationali-
ties in the prison population. She may tire of talking about
NUMBER 36
it, but I know for a fact she never tires of acting on all of it,
treating people with respect, making peace in difficult situa-
tions, basically doing the right thing no matter how tired she
is, how long she’s had to do it.
One thing that changed while I was in prison is that there
were many more women political prisoners. It was a shock
to the prison system itself because they were terrified of us.
The government created a control unit. They tested it out
on two of the Puerto Rican women, Lucy Rodriguez and
Haydee Beltran. Then they put Alejandrina Torres and Silvia
Baraldini and Susan Rosenberg in an underground unit at the
Federal Correctional Institution at Lexington. It was actually
a basement unit and they were supposed to be there for the
rest of their sentences, which were fifty-eight and forty-three
and thirty-five years. It was a big mistake because it got in-
ternational attention. It was one of the first times Amnesty
International got involved in the conditions of incarceration
in the United States. Part of it was that they were terrified we
would revolutionize the rest of the prison population.
A few years after that unit was closed down, I was in Lex-
ington and working in the landscape crew, mowing grass,
and my boss was a guard who had been assigned to that base-
ment unit. She told me that they had been told not to speak
to the prisoners there because they would brainwash them.
I thought it was hysterical. I said, “You’ll see after we’ve
worked together, whether I brainwash you.”
About three months later, that guard asked me, “Who’s
that guy who’s the biggest mass murderer ever?” And I said,
“George Bush.” Then we got into a discussion about who
is a mass-murderer -- someone who kills five people or a
president who -- ? And she says, “You know, you’re making
a lot of sense, Whitehorn. Uh-oh. I am being brainwashed.”
SD: Some people say that political prisoners get more
recognition and support than social prisoners. What’s your
reaction to that?
MB: There’s a misconception that political prisoners al-
ways get so much support. There are some who were in pris-
on for years before they got any support at all, except for a
few people they’d worked with in the world. We could look
at Mandela. All these people worked to free Mandela. What
was done about all the other [African National Congress]
prisoners? Probably ninety-nine out of one hundred political
prisoners didn’t join the struggle to become famous.
Also political prisoners tend not to get parole. Particularly
men political prisoners, they’re in isolation for years and
years. There’s a lot of things we don’t get that sometimes
other prisoners do get.
I learned early on how people can
communicate with each other on a
really deep level without having to
give up their own personal strength.
I learned how to get emotional sus-
tenance from the women around me
and how to try to give some to them.
That’s the main thing I learned from
prison.
LW: If you want to understand prisons, you have to under-
stand both political and social prisoners. They’re two sides of
a program of repression. One is, you terrify communities and
tell them the law is all-powerful and people will lose their
freedom for many, many years if they transgress. The other
is, you give huge sentences to anyone who says, “There are
such egregious social injustices that we have to go up against
the government.” You lock those people up for long periods
of time, and that will prevent the rise of a new generation of
leaders or activists. If you leave out one side of that equa-
tion, you’ll never understand what prisons are. You’ll think
they’re just about making money, which is ridiculous.
Having said that, I think the current building of a mass
movement about the prison industrial complex began with
political prisoners. There is absolutely no division between
supporting political prisoners and fighting for an end to the
prison system. Angela Davis has been instrumental in it.
Who’s she? She’s an ex-political prisoner. The people who
have organized a lot of young activists in that movement are
political prisoners or ex-political prisoners.
Every single political prisoner did prison work before they
went to prison. We were the people who supported the At-
tica brothers; we were the people who were in the Midnight
Special Collective back in the early ‘70s in New York, which
was a prison support collective. We’re not the ones who
don’t think social prisoners are important.
And political prisoners often need extra support. Marilyn
Buck has an eighty-year sentence and she has never been
accused of actually hurting a single person. Or Teddy Jah
Heath, who just died in prison. He had been convicted of a
kidnapping, where a big-time drug-dealer was put in a car,
driven around, talked to, and let out. No injury; no noth-
ing. Jah did twenty-seven years in prison. After twenty-five
years, he went to the parole board and was rejected. Two
years later, he died in prison of colon cancer. Because his act
was a political act. It was done in line with the programs of
the Black Liberation Army, growing out of the Black Panther
Party, to stop the drug trade in the black communities.
SD: Marilyn, what do you need from people on the out-
side?
MB: What I need from people is what we all need: to seize
our human liberation as much as possible as women, as les-
bians, as heterosexuals. To support the right of human be-
ings to have their own nations, their own liberation, and their
own justice. If we stopped police brutality; if black women
and men were treated like equal human beings, that would
make me feel really, really good, because I would be less
dehumanized as a white person in this society. I would not
be objectified as the oppressor.
I would like us to be more creative; to be the artists that
we all are. I don’t want to see child prostitution. That to me
is oppression in the concrete; people having to sell their chil-
dren to stay alive. Or watching their children in the clutches
of the police. Or a woman standing on her feet as a waitress
for ten hours a day when her veins are breaking and still not
be able to pay the rent and be there for her children.
I was thinking about this the other day -- I think about the
vision I had when I was a nineteen-year-old of justice and
human rights and women’s equality. It was a wonderful vi-
sion. I think how it got implemented -- how we became rigid
and rhetorical within that -- took away from that vision. But
without a vision, you can’t go forward.
SD: Laura, now that you’re out of prison, what do you
want to do?
LW: I don’t ever want to forget. That would be like put-
ting calluses over my heart. It would be forgetting the people
I owe something to. I guess the hardest thing for me about
getting out was leaving so many people behind. I’ve been
working in release efforts. We filed papers for clemency with
Clinton for all the federal political prisoners. I try to do work
for HIV+ prisoners through my job at POZ magazine. And
when people ask me, “How can I support your friends who
are left behind?” that makes me feel whole.
It’s made me sad that I’ve tried to interest different groups
of women in supporting young women in prison on these
ridiculous [drug] conspiracy cases. The “girlfriend crimes,”
like Kemba Smith. There are hundreds of Kemba Smiths in
the federal system. And I have been singularly unsuccess-
ful in interesting any organized women’s groups to fight for
those women.
One thing that makes prisons so criminal is that they dam-
age people over time. I’m very damaged, and I had tons of
support. I did prison work for years before I was arrested,
so I knew what to expect. Nothing could really catch me off
guard. Yet I find I have places in me that I don’t know how to
go to, that are so filled with pain.
Especially late, in the middle of the night, when I think
about some of my friends, these young women who are do-
ing life sentences. They didn’t kill anyone. They didn’t hurt
anybody. They gave a fucking message to someone, or may-
be they didn’t turn their husband in, and they knew he had
killed someone. They’re doing life, and they have very little
chance of getting out. There’s a pain in me that I don’t know
how to deal with.
You know, it’s very difficult to carry on relationships with
people on the outside while you’re in prison. Your friends
shield you from things because either they think you don’t
want to hear about the great dinner they had the night before,
or you’re going to think their problems are trivial because,
after all, they’re not in prison. It damages your ability to
have human relationships. And I have to say that the people
I’ve seen who carry on friendships with prisoners are few
and far between, and I honor them.
So I need to continue to struggle for prisoners and to win
their release. And to say, it’s extremely important for people
on the outside to understand what prisons are and who’s in
prison and to visit them. To bring that kind of humanity into
the prisons -- but most of all, to bring those prisoners out,
back into the communities. ♦
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/day050810.html
21

BOOK REVIEWS
Jalil’s new book, the second edition of
“We Are Our Own Liberators,” is now
available from Arissa Media Group.
these because they were about the George Jackson Brigade,
of which I was a part. It isn’t that I only read books that have
THE NEW JIM CROW
something about me in them. It is, rather, that as a revolution-
ary I see little on the political horizon containing much of Alexander, Michelle, The New Jim Crow: Mass
what I would call real political substance or content. I tell my Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. (NY: The New
friends that I am “looking for [the] jesus” of political writ- Press, 2010, pp.290)
ings, I am looking for a revolutionary—a writer that strikes
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
a chord within my understanding of dialectical and historical

T
By Kit Aastrup he book, The New Jim Crow, offers an unflinching

I
have been waiting more than 3 month for this book, as
it’s publishing was delayed. Now it is finally lying on
my table with its shiny cover in brown and purple with
a photo of Jalil taken months before he was incarcerated at
the age of 19. Consisting of more than 36 years of prison
writings by Jalil Muntaqim, this second edition contains
numerous updates, poetry and additional essays added by
Muntaqim.
This is not a book you read from page one till the end. I
started with the Last Word by George Jackson: “Settle your
quarrels, come together, understand the reality of the situa-
tion, understand that fascism is already here. That people are
dying that could be saved, that generations more will die or
live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must
be done, discover your humanity and your life in revolution.
Pass on the torch, join us, give up your life for the people.”
This collection represents some of the significant contribu-
tions Jalil has made to the Black Liberation and New Afrikan
Independence Movements, and it is not bedtime reading. His
poems are strong and multi-layered and his analytical insight
is sharp as a razor. One of my favorite essays is The Crimi-
nalization of Poverty in Capitalist America. Although it was
written years ago, it is still as relevant today as it was then.
Another one is added after 9/11, America reaps what
it sows? In the 60s, U.S. progressives evolved the slogan
‘Bring the war home!’ “The question is, what will be the slo-
gan this time, now that the war has been brought home? Free
the land!!”
I really like the poems, What color is your blues?, Scream
Black, Outpost, Chairman Fred and Captain Mark, The Bush
Family and more. The following poem is written after the as-
sassination of Puerto Rican independentista leader Filiberto
Ojeda Rios by FBI snipers on September 23, 2005:
Filiberto’s Song
My machete is adorned, draped in red
and green, sharpened with the blood
of a patriot whose life beckons.
Viejo, I hear you from a distant land,
your words of liberation, freedom and
independence cut the wind of tyranny,
the howling ravishing wolves of the
U.S. neo-colonialism and exploitation.
The ancestors speak through you on this
137th anniversary of El Grito de Lares,
telling our youth NOW is the time to
restore and rebuild our nation.
Their echoes reverberate into chords of
African drums and coquitos “Libertad, Libertad,
Libertad, Libertad, Libertad”
We will not forgive or forget!
We will heed the call!
We will champion the Patriots!
We will free our nation.
For our machetes are adorned, draped in red
and green, sharpened with the blood of a
patriot whose life beckons.
Jalil Muntaqim calls on the Black progressive forces in A
challenge to the Black Bourgeoisie to take the lead in build-
ing national campaigns and mobilizations within a popular
civil and human rights movement.
“The struggle for the preservation and restoration of dem-
ocratic and civil rights must evolve towards a struggle for
human rights, which in turn will take the class struggle for
national unity toward the final and complete destruction of
corporate-capitalist class exploitation and racist imperialist
neo-colonial oppression.”
This new edition of the book is published by The Arissa
Media Group, Portland. ♦
DEFYING THE TOMB BY
KEVIN “RASHID” JOHNSON
By Ed Mead
materialism as applied to the conditions and circumstances
look at the US addiction to imprisonment, and comes
existing in the world today.
up with a startling diagnosis; American corporate
I have found such a book. It is Defying the Tomb by Kevin
greed, political opportunism and the exploitation of age old
“Rashid” Johnson.1 If you fancy yourself a progressive revo-
hatred and fears have congealed to create a monstrous explo-
lutionary and also feel you are too smart to be a part of one
sion in the world’s largest prison industrial complex. Fur-
of those dead-end ABCDEF (the Marxist alphabet) groups,
ther, the author, a law professor at Ohio State University’s
then this just may be the book for you. I wrote a small back
Moritz College of Law, Michelle Alexander, digs deep into
cover blurb for Defying that said something to the effect of
US history, and deeper still into US criminal law and practice
this: “Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to
to conclude that the barbarous system of repression and con-
buy as many copies of this book as you can, read it, and then
trol known commonly as Jim Crow, had a rebirth in this era.
get those copies into the hands of as many prisoners as pos-
That’s why she calls it: The New Jim Crow.
sible.” This is good advice and something I am passing along
This system of legal discrimination came into being much
here as well.
as the first one did. After the rout of the South by the Civil
With a forward by Russell “Maroon” Shoats, an intro-
War, millions of newly freed Africans exercised these new
duction by Tom Big Warrior, and an Afterword by Sundiata
rights under Reconstruction. Black men became senators and
Acoli, I figured this was going to be a good read. It was.
legislators across the South. But this period was short lived,
Mr. Shoats ends his forward by referring to Rashid and his
and as soon as possible, states passed harsh laws known as
comrades as young lions. He says: “…it’s up to all of you to
Black Codes, which denied rights and criminalized behavior
recognize how much we need him, and all of these unmen-
by Blacks, and exposed them to the repression of southern
tioned younger soldiers; comrades like him can raise us up.
prisons, where convicts were leased out to labor for others; it
Put as much protection around him as you can. Our future
was the rebirth of slavery by other means.
depends on it!” This is true. Rashid must be defended against
This present era began at the height of the US Civil Rights
the machinations of the state or he will suffer the fate of Fred
Movement, when millions of Blacks fought for their rights
Hampton, George Jackson, and countless other murdered
denied for more than a century.
revolutionaries here and around the globe.
Alexander concludes that this new system, this new co-
Like Comrade George before him, Rashid takes the reader
alescence of economic and political interests, targeted
to a level of political thought not fully contemplated before,
Blacks, especially those engaged in the drug industry, as the
yet one we already know so well. Also like George Jackson,
human capital with which to provide massive construction,
Rashid grew up on the streets and with a street mentality—a
huge prison staffs, and the other appendages of the apparatus
mentality than landed him in prison at a young age. We next
of state repression.
go through a section of the book with Rashid and watch the
But perhaps Alexander’s most salient point is her finding
process of his in-prison political maturation. Before long we
that America’s Black population constitutes a ‘racial caste’
are treated to the content of the letters exchanged between
that feeds and perpetuates mass incarceration [195]
Rashid and a fellow convict called Outlaw, where we see
those now mature politics address a practice that verifies Indeed, every other societal structure supports this super-
structure, from broken schools, to de-industrialization, to
theory. Woven throughout the whole book are discussions of
population concentration in isolated urban ghettoes, to the
subjects such as the application of dialectical and historical
violence of police, and the silence of the Black Middle class.
materialism to global, national, and local conditions, as well
One might argue that such a claim seems unsustainable
as a good discussion on the question of democratic central-
ism. when we see a Black president, hundreds of black political
figures and those in entertainment and sports. But Alexander
When I was a part of Men Against Sexism2 (MAS) in the
explains that every system allows exceptions, for they serve
Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla back in the
to legitimize the system and mask its ugliness and its gross
1970s, it became necessary to align with a group of social
effects upon the majority of Blacks.
prisoners who were then running the Lifers Club. In mak-
For example, while it’s well-known that apartheid was
ing this union I insisted that we be organized on the basis of
democratic centralism (DC). When one of our MAS mem- an overtly racist system, it allowed Asian and even African
American diplomats to live and work in such a regime, by
bers subsequently violated the group’s security a decision
the political expediency of identifying them as “honorary
was made to beat the offender with clubs fabricated from
whites” in their official papers.
broomsticks. I argued against this assault but after the dis-
When comparing both systems, Alexander argues that the
cussion ended I was out-voted and because of DC I was
forced to participate in the beating of a comrade. Ever since US imprisons more Blacks both in raw number and per cap-
ita than South Africa at the height of apartheid!
that time I have not been a proponent of DC. Not until now.
The New Jim Crow—indeed! ♦
Rashid’s examines the past abuses of DC and points out how
its true intent has been replaced by some form of authorita-
tive commandism.
Rashid correctly notes that none of Lenin’s contempo-
raries in the global Social Democratic movements criticized
DC, not even Rosa Luxemburg, who strongly opposed fea-
tures of “Leninist” organizations. He concludes by saying,
“…corruption and abuses of power are essentially impos-
sible when dc is observed, since all Party members, lead-
ers especially, are subject to criticism, exposure and recall
through open democratic processes. Leaders are elected to
their positions based upon demonstrated qualifications and
integrity, and are subject to having their powers revoked for
failure to live up to their responsibilities, also by majority
vote.” (Emphasis in original.)
The comparisons of Rashid to Comrade George cannot
be understated. To my way of thinking Defying the Tomb is
a more mature and well-reasoned Blood In My Eye. Rashid
builds upon and advances George’s political thinking. The
book concludes with a series of documents written by Rashid
on subjects such as “On the Roles and Characteristics of
the Panther Vanguard Party and Mass Organizations” and
“What’s Left of the Left.” As well as other commentaries
on today’s America. Rashid’s knowledge and research are
impressive and his writing style is one that’s easy to follow.
Rather than go further into the content of the book, I will
merely urge you to buy and read it for yourself. For my part,
I have bought ten copies and am working to use Rashid’s
book as the focus of a Seattle-based study group. That is as
high a praise as I can possibly give for any book. Read this Follow the author’s odyssey from lumpen drug

I
t is not often I write a book review. I’m a bit ashamed
to admit that I read very few books. The last review I
wrote was for Mumia-Abu jamal’s Jailhouse Lawyers:
Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A., which I read
because I’m a former jailhouse lawyer, and also because it
contained a chapter by me (it’s also an excellent book). I’ve
recently read two other books, Guerilla USA, and Creating
a Movement with Teeth, both by Daniel Burton Rose. I read
one now. Then start a study group of your own, one focus of
which can be sending copies of Defying in to rights and class
conscious prisoners. ♦
1. Available at AK Press (http://www.akpress.org/) and Left Wing
Books http://www.leftwingbooks.net/).
2. An organized group of gay and anti-sexist prisoners that fought
homophobia and prisoner-on-prisoner rape, using tools such as a
newsletter, films, and six home-made shotguns.
dealer to prisoner, to revolutionary New Afrikan,
a teacher and mentor, one of a new generation
rising of prison intellectuals. This book con-
sists primarily of letters between Rashid and
Outlaw, another revlutionary New Afrikan pris-
oner, smuggled between the segregation wing
and general population over a period of months.

22 PRISON FOCUS
 DRAGONFLY & BROTHER SKUNK
Hard men in irons, minds that steal
Most of them did it, the survivors deal
When you get strung with that spike in your hand
It winds up in here no matter how well planned
The walls and gates fences strained
Convict logic and the cops we train
If you could see from the eyes of the inside
You kill them thru fear for national pride
The cell block laughter at the jokes we’re made
Who holds the bill? Who stamps it paid?
I ran with the fellas when they took my land
Dragonfly and Brother Skunk outside the brand
When bad machines walk circles one way
Strung hypes under gun towers sway
Lost in the hope of cynicism’s role
How hard is cold turkey? When locked in the hole
When we get out one day we’ll be free
After paying my debt will anyone see?
Animal branded forged by fear and dope
I’ve got to be more important than what I stole
I hope!
By Dr. Pax, Ph.D.
THE PICTURE
Photographs can easily deceive
Seeing her pose next to this man is make-believe
The smile on her face is a lie
and you can detect the misery in her eye
This picture has so much sadness hidden from view
You can’t necessarily see the distress she’s going through
Nor can you see the marks across her chest that are black
and blue
She’s fighting the same spousal abuse you watch on the
six o’clock news
In this picture you just can’t see the physical pain
But with his arms around her, you can sense the disdain
The picture does not show fists clenched at her side
It is the “fear” she is unable to hide
In the picture you’re unable to see emotional scars
tormenting her mind
There’s bile in the back of her throat because the guy has
his hand on her behind
She tries to muster the courage to escape the rapes but she’s
terrified
Hard to believe this is not the once giggly bride that had
her dream wedding by the riverside
SOME PEOPLE
Some people are just misunderstood
Some people are just no good
Some people are just so wise
Some people are just wearing a disguise
Some people are just more than they are
Some people are much less by far
Some people are just so kind
Some people are just out of their minds
Some people are just queens and kings
Some people are just poor little things
Some people are just so real inside
Some people are just so full of lies
Some people are just so easy to please
Some people are just always in need
Some people are just all the rave
Some people are just not worth trying to save
Some people are just blessed from above
Some people are just unable to love
Some people are just misunderstood
Some people are just plain no good

In this picture you can’t see the many addictions

or in their house know his restrictions
They are on the verge of eviction
CATACOMBS OF THUNDER
Hospital or death is her family’s prediction Prisoners roam the catacombs
No court order can stop the bloodshed Wearing coats of sin
Before this picture is developed this Choking on their necklaces
once happy full-of-life girl will be dead! Woven of razor wire and broken time
By Jimmy Anderson, Marion, NC
Counting the dungeons of nowhere’s breath
Stepping into the between of each echo of silence
Crawling beneath empty guntower eyes
Hiding themselves within the thunder of their eternal
THE CALIFORNIA STATE ZOO darkness
As I look at these four walls, my mind starts to trip me out,
All doped out
Sitting in this cell like a lion trapped in a cage like the L.A.
Zoo
PRISON SHIRT
Wondering if the cage will be my life I wear a gulag shirt of bars and cement walls
POETRY Getting cell fed, waking back and forth As light as the moment
Like a caged up beast As heavy as my years
Wondering when will I be free from all the drama Gray and dark with thoughts
A neck of Gallows
A world full of hate, depression, With sleeves of memories
Listening to fools rattle their cages Like monkeys yelling Death’s head pockets
out for help And shrouded hood
Crying out for their medication Its fit too tight
To escape this f----- up world As in a loosed bundle
of unwanted realization
Being treated like animals Bought with my life
Fools die of starvation Until death-do-part
Some fools just call it the Last Supper and just hang
themselves
REALIZATION Couldn’t handle being caged up like a animal
Prison Nation In this world of disaster
Population—two million HOLE IN THE SKY
Industrial revolution C/O’s claim to help you out Although he drilled
Not near completion But instead they beat us for no reason A hole in the sky
Trying to just bring out the animal in us With his eyes
Investigation So we attack like a lion and get stomped out to death He could not slip himself
Instigation, agency cooperation, interrogation, Away from the moment
Coercion, character assassination, sleep deprivation Behind these four walls of hate and pain Away from the day
Confession, no education, poor representation Hurt like an animal that lives in me Away from the night
Conviction Cause I’m trapped in a cage of hate and hell Away from this place
Of corruption around this zoo of madness Or the darkness
Incarceration That controlled him
No correction, racial tension, division By: H. Lara Jr., Florencia-Travieso, Between it’s silence
No rehabilitation, self-paced progression, denied habeas Corcoran State Prison And it’s solitude
petition
Repression, depression, humiliation,
Degradation, psych medication, institutionalization
Pay restitution, more regulation, no conjugal visitation,
INTO THE FORWARD
No media communication, segregation, assimilation,
The moment passes
Parole violation
As if rain in darkness
Constant in its silence
Colonization
As it sails between
More administration, privatization, more taxation, The following six poems are by Robert C. The fingers of lightening
Organization, capitalization, criminalization, Fuentes At Crescent City And footsteps of thunder
Political maniuplation, public relation, globalization
Wandering the distance
More crime legislation
In a herd of individual
Bodies of solitude
Worthless Constitution PRISON GHOSTS Coming and going
Corruption? I am stuck in this prison listening to the night From beginning to end
Fact of Fiction? As ghosts crawl between the walls here inside Swallowing tomorrow voices
Realization Watching darkness pass into lights eye once again Drawing yesterday eyes
By Lawrence M. Martin Pulling the chain of time with it as quickly as it can Touching nothing
Moving everything
And all I can do is live for the moment as I slowly die Forever continuing
Listening to the ghosts inch ever closer to my side The endless journey

NUMBER 36 23
Recidivism
T
he CDCR (oh hell, let’s be honest and just drop the
phony “R”), the CDC website claims a recidivism
rate of only 49 percent (that’s lower than any other
state in the nation). Well, of course they cook the books to
make themselves look better. According to the website on
the governor’s strategic growth plan, on the other hand,
“California has the highest recidivism rate in the nation.”
Their figure of a 70 percent recidivism rate within three
years of release is also low but we’ll use it. A 2002 national
study survey showed that among nearly 275,000 prisoners
released in 1994, 67.5 percent were rearrested within 3 years
(and economic conditions were a whole lot better back then).
That’s nearly a 70 percent admitted recidivism rate. Here in
Washington State, the DOC claims a 72 percent recidivism
rate within the first year, and of those 43 percent recidivate
within the first three months of release. Washington’s
admitted rate is nearer to the 86 percent return rate over three
years that some experts claim. Whatever the exact figure is,
we can all agree it is too high.
Another interesting statistic I read was that California’s
unemployment rate for ex-prisoners is a whopping 70
percent, which is probably about the same in Washington
and most other states. The reader should note how the
unemployment and recidivism numbers are almost identical;
some might even go so far as to conclude that there’s a causal
relationship between the two?
Suppose you’re the owner of some manufacturing plant
that produces a product (solar panels) with a 70 percent
failure rate. The waste of raw materials in producing the
failed widgets would drain your resources, the public would
stop buying these poor quality widgets from you, and your
stockholders would be organizing a revolt. You could not
stay in business. Yet the prison is just such a factory. It too
produces a product. At present that product is angry people so
full of rage that when released (and over 98 percent of them
are eventually released) they take it out on their partners,
their children, their neighbors, or the community in general.
Some forward thinking individuals can see this process
unfolding and they advocate “rehabilitation” as the solution.
If we train the widgets makers for jobs that don’t exist, all
will be well. Of course this has been tried over and over
again. In the 1950s, in response to a national wave of prison
riots, the era of rehabilitation was ushered in. Prisons became
correctional institutions, wardens became superintendents,
guards were miraculously transformed into correctional
officers, and so on. Everything was essentially the same,
but the names of things were altered to give the illusion
of change—sort of like CDC’s (California Department of
Corrections) recent transformation to CDCR (California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation). Nothing
has changed but the name. Indeed, things on the inside have
steadily become worse.
It’s an established and admitted fact that California is
housing prisoners in workrooms and dayrooms and triple-
bunking in gymnasiums and dormitories and so on. These
places were never designed to for such purposes. The state’s
solution to this problem is to build more prisons and expand
existing facilities to house more people. This takes us back
to our solar panel factory analogy. We produced a product
that the public won’t buy, that drains our limited resources,
and that our outrages our stockholders. Our current solution
is to build more factories based upon the existing model of
failure? Gee, here’s a wild idea: How about jobs, not jails?
That would at least help to solve their outrageous recidivism
problem.
In 1970 California’s population was 16 million and
10,000 of those were incarcerated at a cost of $500 million
per year. In 2008 California’s population is 34 million, yet
there are 176,000 are incarcerated at a cost of $11 billion per
year (cost includes average base salary of $74,000 per state
prison employee). There are currently 2.38 million people in
US prisons, 1 in every 32 people are in the criminal justice
system in the US (includes probation & parole). Where does
it end? When half the population is prisoners and the other
half are prison guards? Again: jobs, not jails!
War and Peace
As I write this the Arab world is in turmoil. The masses of
people in Tunisia have just ousted their government, and the
repressive leadership Egypt has just suffered a similar fate.
One million plus protested the U.S.-supported dictatorship;
and the gas canisters being used against them by the security
forces had “Made in USA” printed on their casings. Massive
demonstrations are also taking place in Jordan, Syria,
Yemen, and other Middle Eastern nations. The U.S., having
supported every dictator and thug in that part of the world,
including the Shaw of Iran and Saddam Hussein, is now
finding its foreign policy in the region in shambles. Obama
is scrambling, but it is too little too late.
The CIA overthrew the democratically elected secular
government of Iran and replaced it with a dictator, the Shah
of Iran. The blowback from that act of interference in the
internal affairs of another nation is the conservative religious
theocracy that now rules in Iran.
In 1967 Martin Luther King Jr. railed against U.S. military
interventions against progressive movements in the Third
24
Note: The views expressed in these comments are
the opinions of the writer, and do not necessarily
reflect the views of California Prison Focus or its
members.
World, and in doing so he invoked the words of John F.
Kennedy: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible
will make violent revolution inevitable.” That warning has
been ignored by every president, including JFK, who helped
to start the Vietnam War against a people seeking peaceful
change.1
The demonstrators in places like Egypt, Tunisia, and
Yemen all say that inequality is one of the main reasons they
are protesting. It might surprise the reader to know that the
U.S. has much greater level of inequality than any of those
nations. The Gini Coefficient is the figure economists use
to measure inequality, in this case, like golf, the lower the
score the better. According to the CIA World Fact Book,
the U.S. is ranked as the 42nd most unequal country in the
world with a Gini Coefficient of 45.2 Tunisia’s coefficient
was 40, Yemen’s at 37.9, and Egypt’s at 34.4. As noted by
Washington’s Blog, “inequality in the U.S. has soared in
the last couple of years, since the Gini Coefficient was last
calculated, so it is undoubtedly currently much higher.”
You might well ask, why are the Egyptians rioting,
while we Americans are so complacent? According to a
recent report ... “Building a Better America -- One Wealth
Quintile At A Time” by Dan Ariely of Duke University and
Michael Norton of Harvard Business School, it is because,
across ideological, economic and gender groups, Americans
thought the richest 20 percent of our society controlled about
59 percent of the wealth, while the real number is closer to
84 percent. Americans vastly underestimate the degree of
wealth inequality in America.
According to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
the cost of the Iraq war was $709 billion, but independent
experts put it at $300 billion more, over one trillion dollars.
Stop and think for a moment how much that money could
have improved the health and material wellbeing of the
people of this planet. Instead it was used to slaughter 1.3
million Iraqis, and to send another two million into exile. As
William Blum recently said about Iraq:
[The U.S.] “invaded, then occupied, overthrew the
government, killed wantonly, tortured ... the people of
that unhappy land have lost everything — their homes,
their schools, their electricity, their clean water, their
environment, their neighborhoods, their mosques, their
archaeology, their jobs, their careers, their professionals,
their state-run enterprises, their physical health, their
mental health, their health care, their welfare state, their
women’s rights, their religious tolerance, their safety,
their security, their children, their parents, their past,
their present, their future, their lives ... More than half
the population either dead, wounded, traumatized, in
prison, internally displaced, or in foreign exile ... The
air, soil, water, blood and genes drenched with depleted
uranium ... the most awful birth defects ... unexploded
cluster bombs lie in wait for children to pick them up ...
an army of young Islamic men went to Iraq to fight the
American invaders; they left the country more militant,
hardened by war, to spread across the Middle East,
Europe and Central Asia.”
The war in Iraq is over? Well, it’s actually the continuing
occupation of Iraq has just been re-branded. The 50,000 plus
remaining U.S. troops in Iraq have turned many military
operations to an increasing number of “contractors” (read
mercenaries).
During the Vietnam War (the Vietnamese people called
it the American war) the U.S. military would often destroy
an entire village in order, they said, “to save it.” Today that
same government, in the name of seeking to safeguard
our freedoms, have destroyed them. The constitution has
become, as George W. Bush was quoted as saying, merely
a scrap of paper. For example, the Constitution says only
Congress can declare war, yet it has not done so since the
1. It was decided by all parties in Geneva that free elec-
tions would be held in Vietnam. A subsequent poll was taken
by the U.S., which found that 80 percent of the population
would vote for Ho Chi Minh. It was then that the U.S. set up
a puppet government in the south, leaving the north with no
option but to enforce the will of the people by armed force.
2.See:https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-
factbook/rankorder/2172rank.html
Second World War. Since then we’ve invaded (and these are
just some off the top of my head) Korea, Vietnam, Panama,
Granada, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Not to mention proxy wars
in places such as Nicaragua or, more recently, Lebanon,
Yemen and Somalia.
Economics
Class warfare is already being waged. Not by workers
against the rich, but the other way around. Between 1979 and
2007, income for the bottom fifth of the country went up by
just 16%, but for the top 1% income it went up a staggering
281%. Two million Americans lost their homes in 2008, and
2.8 million more in 2009, and the numbers are expected to
be even higher in 2010. Latin American countries - which
have long been big buyers of U.S. goods - are increasingly
making a larger chunk of their purchases from other parts of
the world, such as China. According to information provided
by the census for 2009, about 44 million Americans - one
in seven - lived last year in homes in which the income was
below the poverty level, which is about $22,000 for a family
of four. That is the largest number of people since the census
began tracking poverty 51 years ago. While homelessness
in the U.S. is rampant, according to the last census eleven
percent of the houses in America are empty.
The writer John Pilger recently wrote:
“The major western democracies are moving towards
corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan,
with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream,
every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary
parties are now devoted to the same economic policies
—socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor—and
the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This
is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to
food.”
As noted before in these pages, Italy’s fascist leader during
World War II, Benito Mussolini, described fascism this
way: “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism
because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” We
arrived there a long time ago.
It’s all economics. If the recent stimulus measures had
any meaningful effect, it was to stimulate employment
in places where the jobs have gone, like China and India.
Indeed, Citigroup Inc. plans to triple its workforce in China
by hiring up to 7,500 people in the next three years. And
the Federal Reserve has just approved the China Investment
Corp. to buy up ten percent of the voting shares of Morgan
Stanley. U.S. companies are hiring, they are just not hiring
American workers. The capitalist economy is global; the rich
use off-shore dummy companies and banks to evade U.S.
taxes we poor working suckers have to pay. They have no
loyalty to any nation. But if they want to steal someone’s oil
reserves or other natural recourses, they beat their patriotic
media drums for us dummies to go fight and die for their ever
greater profits.
And the beat goes on…. In late 2010 Congress passed a
tax cut, the benefit of which will go to the richest Americans
—including the bankers responsible for the crisis. The rich
will receive lower payroll taxes, lower income tax rates,
low taxes on capital gains, lower taxes on dividends, and
lower taxes on the money they pass on to their heirs. The
government “of the rich and for the rich” coddle the wealthy
while cutting medical care, Social Security, and other safety
net programs for the poor.
Life expectancy of about 78 years of age in Cuba is
equivalent to the US. Yet, in 2005, Cuba was spending
US$193 per person on health care, only 4% of the $4540
being spent in the US. The other 96% of US health care
dollars go into the pockets of the pharmaceutical, medical
insurance companies, and related health care corporations.
I recently read that plaintiffs in a class action law suit
against a section of the nursing home industry won a
whopping $677 million settlement (I’m sure the amount
will be reversed). Seems the nursing homes violate many
state laws and a lot of regulations in their care of the elderly,
resulting in the death and suffering of the old and infirm. The
root problem is inadequate staffing in the nursing homes.
Many of the nation’s 16,100 homes are owned by public
companies—meaning they are traded on the stock exchange.
When these chains buy up nursing homes the first thing they
do is to cut staff in order to increase profits for stockholders.
In short, they put profits before people. The same is of course
true for these publicly traded private prisons, your already
inadequate medical care plummets even further; food quality
goes down, etc. An economic system that puts profits above
the needs of people is a moribund social system that should
be replaced by a saner and more just social order—that of
course being the system of socialism.
The Law
In early September the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit issued a ruling that’s raising widespread alarm
among advocates for civil liberties. The court held that law
enforcement agents can sneak onto a person’s property,
plant a GPS device on their vehicle, and track all of their
movements. The court’s ruling means the spying is now legal
in California and eight other Western states. But what the
hell, they already track our every movement with the cell
PRISON FOCUS
phones us street people carry with us every place we go.
I was reading up on 18 U.S.C. 922(g), which is the federal
law that prohibits anyone ever convicted of a felony to ever
possess any firearm or ammunition either inside or outside
of his home, lest they be subject to ten years in the slammer.
Well, come to find out it is not “anyone” convicted of a
felony. While the law says “any felony” one would think the
federal law applies to all felonies rather than most. In fact,
18 U.S.C. 921(a)(20)(A) expressly exempts certain white
collar felonies such as antitrust or unfair trade practices. In
other words, while on its face the law seems universal in its
application, it in fact only applies to us poor people.
On Art
Many of you probably know that for the past twelve
years I’ve run the Prison Art website, a not-for-profit site
that sells the arts and crafts of prisoners on the Internet. The
site ran off a server located in my home, and, unfortunately,
that server recently suffered a catastrophic failure. I may or
may not rebuild the site, time will tell. Regular readers have
probably also noticed that Prison Focus carries the some of
the best prisoner-created artwork around. A few items of this
outstanding art is sent to me in care of the Prison Art website
here in Seattle, and some of it is sent to the California Prison
Focus office in Oakland. In this publication the two sources
are often merged. I would now like to take a moment or two
to discuss the subject of prison art, which is a growing area
of folk art in America today.
The above example is very typical of the type of art
generated by prisoners. This one is a drawing of the inside
of one of the Security Housing Units at the infamous Pelican
Bay state prison in Northern California (the TV program
“60 Minutes” once did a segment on Pelican Bay, about
guards who gave a prisoner a bath in a tub of scalding hot
water and used a wire brush on his body). This drawing was
done by a SHU prisoner named Chris Carrasco. It shows a
prisoner entering the pod. Notice that he is standing on a
chess board. Is he one of the pawns? The pelican speaks for
itself, the broken clock represents how time is frozen and
does not move here. The postage stamps in the upper right
corner symbolizes the only method for communicating with
the outside world. And the skulls mean he is in there forever.
There are other symbols and meanings, such as the scantily
clad woman which could represent unfulfilled desire.
Most prison artwork has both form and content, but some,
like much in the bourgeois art world, has only form (and
much of it even lacks that). I recently went the Picasso exhibit
at the Seattle Art Museum, where a lot of the art lacked either
significant form or content. Picasso is famous world-wide,
yet he is a good example of what I am talking about in terms
of bourgeois art—it usually lacks content and often the form
is deficient as well.
The next piece of prison art was done by Adam Shave, a
prisoner in Pennsylvania. In this abstract piece you can see it
has some remote prison-related form, but it lacks meaningful
content.
NUMBER 36
As mentioned earlier, prisoner-created art and crafts are a
genre of folk art that is beginning to gain some recognition.
Gregg Stone, an artist and exhibitor in the L.A. area, has
put on popular art exhibits using art created by prisoners
(much of it purchased from the Prison Art website). Popular
or not, art is and always has been one the ways in which
the oppressed communicate their condition of their existence
and the spirit of their struggle for justice.
While the first example did have form and content, that
content did not inspire. It reflected a slice of the SHU reality,
and for this we are grateful. But it was not propaganda.
Propaganda tells one side of a story. When you get your
information from bourgeois media sources you are getting
information from a ruling class perspective, from the
perspective of international imperialism. In short, it is
bourgeois propaganda. What we seek in the best prison art,
and what you often see in the pages of this publication, is
working class art—propaganda that reflects our struggles
and political aspirations. The last piece of prison art was
done by Dominic Lucero and it is entitled “Resist” (note its
prison specific theme and message to the viewer).
When reading Prison Focus be sure to pay special attention
to the artwork; understand what the artist is trying to say
to the world. It may be something as simple as rage, or as
important as the meaning of being human.
Ranting
Most of the prisoners reading this are “illegitimate capital-
ists” (as much as I hate to quote Eldridge Cleaver), what that
phrase means is that capitalism is so deeply driven into our
heads that we act like capitalists even though we are pen-
niless. And I would wager that if a study was conducted it
would show that most sex crimes, too, have their roots in
capitalist ideology, its culture—that everything is property
(a commodity), even women and children. When prisoners
start to question these and other long-ingrained capitalist as-
sumptions they will then be on the road to class conscious-
ness. They will be on the road to breaking the damaging
cycle of in-and-out of prison. Staying out of prison should
be the goal. It is what we owe to ourselves as well as to our
loved ones on the streets.
I am no expert in any of these things, but I have done a lot
of time—a little over 35 years. From the tender age of 13 in
the Utah State Industrial School for Boys in Ogden, to my
release from federal prison in 1993 at the age of 53 (after
doing 18 years). Now I’m almost 70 and have not been ar-
rested or even questioned by police since my release soon to
be twenty years ago. Here is what I’ve learned. A job is key.
Office or labor temp work after release is low paying but still
a living wage. For me it was the best way to start.
But for the long run, ex-convict owned cooperatives pro-
viding various services to the community, welding, electri-
cal, labor, etc. The multi-racial group All Of Us Or None
is a good seed for such communities in today’s California.
They are not only trying to find employment for ex-cons,
they are also working to extend the civil rights of ex-felons.
What they have not accomplished, however, is being able to
provide adequate amounts of housing because of a lack of
available jobs.
A more distant yet more successful example in this regard
is Delancey Street in San Francisco. It is a huge operation
covering seven acres of prime San Francisco waterfront
property. They provide jobs in their many businesses; print-
shop, moving company, restaurant, etc., as well as housing.
The problem is that they are now a big foundation and I be-
lieve, maybe wrongly, that they only select non-violent drug
offenders. And I’d bet the small number of those released to
them are all carefully screened.
Delancy Street was started in 1971, and, according to their
website, “...began with 4 residents [ex-cons], a thousand dol-
lar loan, and a dream to develop a new model to turn around
the lives of people in poverty, substance abusers, former
felons, and others who have hit bottom, by empowering the
people with the problems to become the solution.” Since then
I feel the opposite is true. Over the years Delancey Street lost
its way and became just another tool of the system. They
lacked ideology. Well, no, they did have the ideology of capi-
talism. But they’ve always lacked progressive politics.
Prisoners can organize themselves out on the streets and
become an asset to their communities, rather than liabilities.
If I were younger, I’d try to start a factory in my garage mak-
ing solar panels with a bunch of ex-con comrades. The slick
talkers could be out selling and others building and installing
them for both home and businesses clients, the latter being
ongoing contributors in battling one of every city’s greatest
ills—crime. That’s how you stay out of prison. The govern-
ment is not going to help you. You must help yourselves, and
each other, as you do in so many other contexts.
It comes down to George’s message: “Settle your quar-
rels, come together, understand the reality of our situation,
understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying
who could be saved, that generations more will die or live
poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be
done, discover your humanity and your love in revolution.
Pass on the torch, give up your life for the people.” If you
think things are going to improve on their own, then you are
in for a rude awakening. It goes even further down-hill from
here. The first step in way forward is to come off our knees.
I should not badmouth Delancey Street, as my little imagi-
nary garage of ex-con comrades would also be selective of
those chosen to participate. They’d have to be rights- and/or
class-conscious and willing to help build our collective way
to full equality—including smashing the 13th Amendment of
the Constitution, an amendment that legitimizes human slav-
ery inside the nation’s prisons to this very day. That would
be the political spirit and will of those working inside my
imaginary garage, busily building solar panels for the greater
glory of the people of the planet Earth.
A guy named “Donny The Punk” used to sometimes crash
at my place when he was in town. While on the streets he
started a group called “Stop Prison Rape.” Not too long after
the group got going good he up and died, leaving the organi-
zation (if it could be called that back then) in the hands of its
liberal supporters. That organization has since grown large,
with a paid staff, and even changed its name to Just Deten-
tion International (JDI). You will see articles from them in
various issues of this newsletter, including this one. They do
good work, but they are liberals. Their approach to the prob-
lem of prisoner-on-prisoner rape is not the same as Donny’s.
He wanted to work from the ground up, within prison popu-
lations, with the message that rape is a crime of violence
against a person and should not be condoned by prisoners
in the prison setting, let alone against women and children
on the streets. Instead JDI has adopted a from-the-top-down
approach to the problem. They lobby Congress and the state
legislators to pass laws punishing perpetrators of prison
rape. They’ve been successful, too. There are now new fed-
eral laws and many new state anti-prisoner rape crimes to
compound the problems with more people doing more time,
destructive time. This too is an example of a prisoner-created
group going bad because, like Delancey Street, their found-
ers were not rooted in the ideology of progressive politics.
We should look below us, not above us, for the tools needed
to build our communities (as All Of Us Or None is doing).
Men Against Sexism (MAS), at the Washington State Pen-
itentiary in Walla Walla, back in the mid-1970s is a practical
example of what Donny was trying accomplish on the inside.
Men Against Sexism stopped prisoner-on-prisoner rape and
the then too common practice of buying and selling weaker
and more vulnerable prisoners by predators. They did it with
a newsletter, called the Lady Finger (a take-off of The Bomb,
a clandestinely published paper printed with a home-made
press by Mark Cook and others at the penitentiary in the early
1970s). The membership of MAS consisted of nearly all the
prison’s homosexuals and those on the inside who supported
them (and substantial support from the gay community on
the outside). MAS screened films on subjects like “Men and
Masculinity”, these screenings were attended by the more
advanced elements of the population. They also had the help
of six home-made shotguns and hand grenades. MAS was
both multi-racial and largely made up of cock suckers. MAS
was led by class conscious prisoners, including this writer.
Let me put an end this diatribe by urging each of you to
sell subscriptions to Prison Focus to other prisoners for six
bucks each, and to ask your loved ones on the streets to sub-
scribe for twenty dollars a year. Those with friends, families,
or comrades in the Bay Area who might wish to volunteer
should get in touch with CPF, or other prisoner support or-
ganzations in their areas. I don’t have to tell you that it’s
gonna take all of us working together to make things better.
Just overcoming the inertia inherent in the way things are
today is going to be an uphill struggle. But, as Jonathan Jack-
son said, “The sooner begun, the sooner done.”
If not you, who?
If not now, when?3 ♦
3. Hillel the Elder, popularly known as the author of say-
ings: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And when
I am for myself, what am ‘I’? And if not now, when?”[2] and
the expression of the ethic of reciprocity, or “Golden Rule”:
“That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That
is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.”
Hillel lived in Jerusalem during the time of King Herod.
25

RECENT
HISTORY
Inmates say they witnessed man’s death when jail-
ers restrained, shocked him repeatedly
Marvin Booker just wanted to get his shoes. But deputies
at the new Denver jail told him to stop. When Booker, who
was being processed on a charge of possession of drug para-
phernalia, didn’t obey, he was held down, hit with electric
shocks and then placed face down in a holding cell, accord-
ing to two inmates who watched it unfold.
Booker never got up. He was pronounced dead later that
morning.
“I’ve never seen anything happen like that before in my
life,” said John Yedo, 54, who was being processed on a
charge of destruction of property and said he witnessed the
scene. “What I saw is not what you’d expect to see in Amer-
ica.”
The two jail witnesses, who were both arrested in the early-
morning hours of July 9 around the time Booker was being
processed, were contacted and interviewed by The Denver
Post separately. Both of them said they had not been ques-
tioned by police investigating the death of Booker, a home-
less ordained minister who served the poor.
By Kirk Mitchell, The Denver Post
Jul. 20, 2010
Israel jails Arab for ‘deceit rape’
An Arab living in Israel has been sentenced to 18 months
in prison for having consensual sex with an Israeli woman
who apparently believed he was Jewish.
Sabbar Kashur was sentenced on Monday after being con-
victed of “rape by deception”.
According to the court, Kashur met a Jewish woman in Je-
rusalem in 2008 and introduced himself as a single Jew look-
ing for a serious relationship. The two had sex in a nearby
building. The woman filed a criminal complaint after learn-
ing Kashur was Arab, not Jewish.
Prosecutors acknowledged that the sex was consensual,
but accused him of misrepresenting himself.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middlee-
ast/2010/07/201072191017847251.html
California prisoners’ rights often trampled
The prison official assured his warden in an e-mail that
everything was set: A group of 77 inmates accused of inter-
fering with officers would be found guilty, no matter what.
Disciplinary hearings – required proceedings where inmates
can defend themselves with witnesses and evidence – had
not yet taken place at North Kern State Prison. Yet, in the
April e-mail obtained by The Bee, acting Associate Warden
Steven Ojeda promised to provide the hearing officers – lieu-
tenants he supervised – “with direction prior to the hearings
and ensure they understand to hold all of these inmates ac-
countable.”
Sacramento Bee,
Aug. 1, 2010
Judge denies Troy Davis appeal
SAVANNAH -- A federal judge Tuesday denied Georgia
death row inmate Troy Davis’ innocence claim after a rare
hearing.
The ruling against Davis sets the stage for Georgia offi-
cials to move forward with executing him for the 1989 shoot-
ing death of Mark MacPhail, an off-duty Savannah police
officer.
In June, U.S. District Court Judge William T. Moore Jr.
heard two days of testimony from witnesses seeking to cast
doubt on Davis’ conviction. The Supreme Court ordered the
hearing for Davis a year ago.
Davis has been spared from execution three times as his
attorneys pushed their argument that new evidence showed
police ignored MacPhail’s real killer as they rushed to pin the
shooting on Davis.
For more than a decade, Davis has sought to present in
open court his claims of innocence, including the testimony
of seven key prosecution witnesses who have recanted or
contradicted their trial testimony.
Davis’ innocence claims have attracted international at-
tention, including former President Jimmy Carter and Pope
Benedict XVI urging that he be spared from execution. In re-
cent years, Davis’ scheduled execution has been halted three
times -- on one occasion just two hours before he was to be
put to death by lethal injection.
The Associated Press,
Aug. 24, 2010
http://www.ajc.com/news/judge-denies-troy-da-
vis-598191.html
26
‘Pain ray’ in California prison amounts to ‘torture’
of US prisoners
The American Civil Liberties Union is outraged over the
application of a “pain ray” recently installed in a Los An-
geles County Jail -- a technology first seen used by Ameri-
can forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, which relies upon beams
of microwave energy to inflict an intense burning sensation
upon anyone in its path.
Inmates at the Pitchess Detention Center’s North County
Correctional Facility will likely soon know what it is to face
the “Assault Intervention System,” according to reports by
local media the device:
“fires a directed beam of invisible “millimeter waves” that
cause an unbearable burning sensation by penetrating 1/64 of
an inch into the skin, where pain receptors are located, said
Mike Booen, Raytheon’s vice president of advanced security
and directed energy systems.”
The ACLU mailed a letter demanding he never use the en-
ergy weapon against inmates.
“As we are sure you are aware, the military incarnation of
this device (the Active Denial System) (“ADS”) was briefly
fielded in Afghanistan in June and then withdrawn in July
without ever being used. The military version can be mount-
ed on a truck and was intended to be used against protesters
outside American military bases. While the device was be-
ing tested by the Air Force, a miscalibration of the device’s
power settings caused five airmen in its path to suffer lasting
burns, including one whose injuries were so severe that he
was airlifted to an off-base burn treatment center.”
According to a 2008 report by physicist and less-lethal
weapons expert Dr. Juergen Altmann, “the ADS provides the
technical possibility to produce burns of second and third
degree . . . over considerable parts of the body, up to 50%
of its surface,” and “without a technical device that reliably
prevents re-triggering on the same target subject, the ADS
has the potential to produce permanent injury or death.” As
the report also points out, “the possibility of re-triggering the
same target subject puts avoidance of bums at the discretion
of the weapons operator.”
The ACLU insists use of such a device on American pris-
oners is “tantamount to torture.”
By Stephen C. Webster,
Aug. 26th, 2010
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_15844824
Man ‘sick’ of poverty gets prison in PA heist
An Erie man who told the FBI he was “sick of being poor”
has been sentenced to serve six years and nine months for
robbing a northwestern Pennsylvania bank and violating his
probation for another robbery. Twenty-three-year-old Cam-
eron Minniefield was sentenced by a federal judge.
Authorities say Minniefield robbed the First National
Bank in Meadville on Jan. 26, giving a teller a note, then
taking $1,010 before catching a taxi back to Erie. Police say
witnesses who saw Minniefield at a library across the street
from the bank before the heist later identified him as the rob-
ber. Minniefield had previously been convicted of robbing a
National City Bank in Erie in 2006.
Minniefield suffers from various mental illnesses, but the
judge found Minniefield is unwilling or unable to take medi-
cations on a regular basis.
Erie Times-News,
Sep. 1, 2010
http://www.goerie.com,
Ventura County jail limits inmates to postcards
Beginning Oct. 4, the jail is banning most letters as a se-
curity threat and will only allow mailed postcards, following
similar restrictions implemented by counties in several other
states. The new jail policy announced this week mandates
the cards be no larger than 6 inches wide and 11 inches long
and can’t contain paint, crayon, glitter, labels, stickers, lip-
stick, perfume, obscenities or nudity. Inmates also won’t see
postcards that depict weapons, have gang references. The ex-
ception: Inmates still will be able to send and receive letters
from their lawyers.
There are no plans to institute a similar ban in Los Angeles
County jails, which house about 20,000 inmates and com-
prise the nation’s largest local jail system. “We believe the
mail coming to inmates is as important as their phone calls,”
Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore told the
Times. “If we were to limit the mail, we believe we would
see a rise in mental challenges, maybe even violence.”
County jails in at least seven states have postcard-only
policies. Lawsuits have challenged some as violating free
speech rights. An inmate in Maricopa County, Ariz., lost a
lawsuit against Sheriff Joe Arpaio over Phoenix jail restric-
tions. The American Civil Liberties Union has suits in Colo-
rado and Florida. “There’s no question that this is a serious
abridgment of the First Amendment rights both of detain-
ees and people on the outside who want to correspond with
them,” David Fathi, director of the ACLU’s National Prison
Project, told the Times.
The suit against the policy in Boulder County, Colo., ar-
gues that the postcard-only policy would chill inmates’ free
expression. It cited the cases of an inmate who wanted to
discuss a medical condition with his former doctor and an-
other who did not want his children to see private messages
intended for his wife.
Associated Press,
Sep. 24, 2010
Soledad prison guard charged in smuggling case
A state prison guard has been arrested in a sting in which
he allegedly agreed to smuggle drugs and cell phones to in-
mates in exchange for cash, Santa Clara County sheriff’s of-
ficials said Wednesday.
Sergio Javier Noguera, 38, a guard at Salinas Valley State
Prison in Soledad (Monterey County), was taken into custo-
dy about 10:30 p.m. Tuesday after he showed up for a meet-
ing in Gilroy with undercover detectives pretending to be
a source of contraband for inmates, said sheriff’s Sgt. Rick
Sung.
Noguera believed he would be paid $2,500 to smuggle in
an ounce of methamphetamine, an ounce of heroin, 3 1/2
ounces of marijuana and four cell phones, authorities said.
The investigation began in April, when an informant told
detectives that Noguera had been providing drugs and cell
phones to inmates at the prison, which employs 946 guards
and houses about 3,700 minimum- and maximum-security
inmates.
Noguera is being held in lieu of $130,000 bail on drug-
related counts, Sung said.
Noguera has been a guard at the prison for eight years. If
he is released on bail, he will be reassigned to another posi-
tion outside the prison while the investigation continues, said
Sgt. Kim Traynham, a prison spokesman.
Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer
Oct. 27, 2010
Guards stage protest at CCPOA headquarters
State correctional officers are staging a small protest at
CCPOA’s West Sacramento headquarters, calling for the
union’s executive council to step down over a series of legal
and leadership miscues that the protesters say reveal ethical
and possibly legal lapses among their leaders.
Eight men gathered this morning in the union office build-
ing’s parking lot, near an SUV from which hung a crude
spray-painted banner that read, “TAKING BACK CCPOA.”
Their stated aim: Get rid of the current slate of CCPOA
leaders and restore the union’s honorable image, which they
say has suffered from infighting, lawsuits and public spats
with Schwarzenegger.
It’s difficult to know how many correctional officers are
involved with protest, since they’re circulating to the site
throughout the day, said CCPOA board member Ian Pickett,
a Kern Valley State Prison sergeant who organized the event.
The protest started this morning at 8 a.m. Pickett said he’ll
stay there as long as correctional officers keep showing up.
Pickett ticked off a list of problems that the protesters have
with the union’s leaders, starting with a recent $12 million
verdict against CCPOA in a federal defamation lawsuit.
“Why did it have to come to that?” he said in an interview
this morning. “You have to be smart. Pick your battles.”
Pickett also alleges that CCPOA officials suspended union-
provided life and health insurance for eight Corcoran correc-
tional officers and their families after the officers ousted the
Corcoran chapter president who supported union President
Mike Jimenez’s 2008 reelection.
The union has filed lawsuits against retired members, in-
cluding CCPOA founder Don Novey, which Pickett called
“despicable.”
CCPOA has been without a contract since July 2006, and
has blamed Schwarzenegger as a double crosser whose word
at the bargaining table can’t be trusted. “I blame Arnold,”
Pickett said, “but I blame (union leadership) even more.”
http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/2010/11/cor-
rectional-officers-stage-pr.html#ixzz14wVAnkT6
A US military court sentenced an American soldier
to nine months for shooting unarmed Afghan civil-
ians for fun.
Staff Sergeant Robert Stevens, 25, from the State of Or-
egon, was only sentenced to nine months in prison on De-
cember 1, 2010, for killing Afghan civilians. He confessed
to opening fire on two Afghan farmers in March 2010 for no
apparent reason.
The case began as an investigation into hashish use among
US soldiers who were part of an infantry unit then known
as the 5th Stryker Brigade. But the investigation has grown
into the most serious prosecution of alleged atrocities by US
military personnel in nearly nine years of conflict in war-torn
Afghanistan.
Four more US soldiers are implicated in the case. The sol-
diers have been charged with other crimes, including muti-
lating bodies and keeping body parts as trophies.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/153539.html
Two inmates from L.A. detained in attack on
guards at Pelican Bay State Prison
Pelican Bay State Prison was placed on indefinite lock-
down Tuesday after at least two inmates, both convicted of
crimes in Los Angeles, allegedly attacked three prison guards
with homemade weapons, state corrections officials said.
PRISON FOCUS
 The union representing the state’s 31,000 prison guards
said two officers required dozens of stitches after suffering
deep slash wounds on their faces. Another officer sustained
multiple stab wounds, including one cut through his collar-
bone. Union officials blamed overcrowding.
The attacks were carried out by a 20-year-old inmate, who
was not immediately identified but has been in custody since
October 2009, according to a statement released by the state
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
That inmate is serving a 50-year sentence for a first-degree
murder conviction in Los Angeles County. A second inmate,
a 36-year-old man who had been behind bars since February
1997, is suspected in the attacks.
Corrections officials said Pelican Bay State Prison would
remain locked down until further notice and would issue a
notification if visits are cancelled. The prison, which opened
in 1989 and houses 3,200 inmates, deals with some of the
state’s most dangerous inmates. It is located outside Crescent
City in Del Norte County.
The attacks at the maximum-security facility were re-
ported about 9:25 a.m. when two inmates rushed the offi-
cers with prison-made weapons as they were being released
into the exercise yard, authorities said. Fellow prison guards
responded immediately, using physical force and batons to
subdue the inmates.
Union officials said the prison was designed to house
2,280 inmates, but because of the state’s inmate overcrowd-
ing crisis, the prison houses 3,461 inmates.
“We urge the Governor, the Legislature and the California
Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation to act swiftly
to ensure that proper staffing, equipment and adequate pris-
on space are provided to reduce the potential for future at-
tacks on California’s sworn law enforcement officers,” said
Chuck Alexander, executive vice president of the California
Correctional Peace Officers Assn.
Andrew Blankstein, LA Times
Jan. 11, 2011
Company Recalls 200,000 Pounds Of Beef
Distributed To Calif. Prisons
More than 200,000 pounds of ground beef products sent to
prisons in Oregon and California are being recalled after an
inspection found them may be spoiled.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says products from
One Great Burger in Elizabeth, N.J., were discolored and
smelled wrong.
The products came in 20 pound boxes of Onegreat Ham-
burgers, with the item number 02044 and the establishment
number 34575. The products have packed-on dates between
July and November 2010 and were distributed to institutions
in California and Oregon.
One Great Burger spokesman Frank Tobin says the beef
was distributed to the prisons. He says none was sent to re-
tailers.
Associated Press
Jan. 11, 2011
-o0o-
Federal authorities seized crackers, cookies and potato
chips valued at $859,000 that were stored in a rat-infested
warehouse in Athens, according to the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration and the Georgia Department of Agriculture.
The snack food seized at the Mid-State Services Inc. ware-
house on Thursday was to have been distributed to jails and
prison around the Southeast. Oscar Garrison, assistant com-
missioner for consumer protection with the state Department
of Agriculture, said the agency notified six prisons in Geor-
gia that had received the snacks for vending machines and
inmate commissaries to reclaim the snacks.
The raid was led by federal authorities. The state was in-
volved because of its power to issue a “stop sale” order.
“You had contaminated products going to consumers,”
Garrison told WSB radio.
FDA investigators and U.S. marshals found at the ware-
house July 14-21 “widespread active rodent infestation both
inside and outside the facility,” according to the complaint
that was the basis for the raid.
Federal investigators reported they found 14 live rodents
and seven dead ones, 23 gnaw holes on food containers, ro-
dent droppings inside food containers, four rodent nests and
numerous rodent pellets on and around food packages. In-
vestigators also found structural defects that made it easy for
rodents to get inside the warehouse.
“The FDA took this action because the company failed
to provide adequate safeguards to ensure that products they
produce or hold for sale remain free of contamination,” Mi-
chael Chappell, acting associate commissioner for regula-
tory affairs, said in a written statement.
A message left with the company’s vice president Thurs-
day was not returned.
The Georgia Department of Agriculture put a “stop sale”
order in place for the warehouse on July 15. The FDA said
the company destroyed some of the food four days later but
a significant amount of food remained. Then the company
did not respond to a list of violations the FDA issued July 21.
http://www.ajc.com/news/fda-athens-food-ware-
house-595706.html
Aug. 20, 2010
NUMBER 36
Ninth Circuit Recognizes Link Between Cross-
Gender Searches and Sexual Abuse of Inmates
In an en banc opinion released in early January, the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the search of
a male jail inmate by a female cadet, who touched his thighs,
buttocks, and genital areas while other officers watched,
amounted to an unreasonable search in violation of the
Fourth Amendment. Just Detention International served as
amicus curiae in the case, Byrd v. Maricopa County Sheriff’s
Department.
“This is an important decision, as cross-gender searches
of male detainees rarely are recognized as a serious problem
even though they are directly linked to sexual abuse” said
Melissa Rothstein, Senior Program Director of JDI. “As the
Court notes, everyone has the right to personal dignity, re-
gardless of gender and custody status.”
Recent studies by the Bureau of Justice Statistics have
found that, in both adult and juvenile facilities, most sexual
abuse of male inmates is committed by female staff.
In reversing the ruling of the Arizona District Court, the
Ninth Circuit acknowledged the link between cross-gender
searches and sexual abuse committed by corrections staff.
Among other sources, the Court cited the National Prison
Rape Elimination Commission, which was established by
federal law to develop standards addressing sexual abuse in
detention. The Commission’s standards, which are currently
under review by the U.S. Attorney General, prohibit cross-
gender searches in non-emergency situations.
“The decision in Byrd underscores the need to limit in-
trusive cross-gender searches, particularly in non-emergency
situations,” said Rothstein.
JDI is pleased that the Ninth Circuit has taken this im-
portant step toward protecting the safety of the 2.4 million
people behind bars.
Submitted by Just Detention International (JDI)
Senior policeman who ‘tortured’ suspects into
confessions facing up to 30 years in jail
A decorated Chicago police lieutenant who apparently
put plastic bags over suspects heads and stuck guns in their
mouths to extract confessions should face 30 years in jail,
prosecutors have said.
Dozens of alleged victims have claimed Jon Burge, 63,
and his officers tortured them into confessions to serious
crimes including robbery and murder.
But his defense lawyers will argue the former commander
should be allowed out in less than two years. Some of the
victims were given electric shocks as they were forced to
confess, they claimed.
Burge was convicted of perjury for lying to a jury in 2003
when he claimed he had no knowledge of violent methods
being used to extract confessions. He was not put on trial for
torture because the statute of limitations had expired.
One victim, Madison Hobley, who was sentenced to death
for a 1987 fire that killed seven people including his wife and
son, claimed he had a plastic typewriter cover put over his
head so he couldn’t breathe.
Ronald Kitchen, who was freed from prison after 21 years
when it was proven that the senior officer had coerced him
into falsely confessing to murder, said the officer deserved a
long spell in jail.
‘He was our Al Qaeda, our bin Laden in the neighbor-
hood,’ said man who falsely confessed to murder. ‘I would
love for him to do 21 years of hard time and to feel the loss
that I felt and other people have felt.’
U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow will hear two days of evi-
dence before deciding what sentence to pass on the 63-year-
old.
Former Illinois Governor George Ryan released four con-
demned men from death row in 2003 after saying Burge
extracted confessions from them using torture. Prosecutors
presented testimony at trial from Anthony Holmes, Melvin
Jones, Andrew Wilson, Gregory Banks and Shadeed Mu’min
at the trial. Burge has been free on bond since his five-week
trial that finished in June.
The allegations against the 63-year-old and his men
even helped shape the state’s debate over the death penalty.
Former Illinois Governor George Ryan released four con-
demned men from death row in 2003 after Ryan said Burge
extracted confessions from them using torture. The allega-
tions of torture and coerced confessions eventually led to a
still-standing moratorium on Illinois’ death penalty.
This month, legislators voted to abolish capital punish-
ment in Illinois. The bill is awaiting the signature of Gover-
nor Pat Quinn.
Prosecutors will argue that the nature of the violent acts
the defendant was convicted of lying about should lengthen
his sentence, as should the cost his conduct has had on the
city, his fellow officers and his victims.
More than 30 people, many of them police officers, have
sent letters to Lefkow asking for leniency, with one calling
Burge a ‘policeman’s policeman.’
The same man added: ‘If my soul was on the way to heav-
en and Satan made one last attempt for my soul, Jon Burge
would be the person I would want covering my back.’
Mail Online, Jan. 20, 2011
[Ed. Note: Burge was sentenced to 4.5 years.]
Numbers Placed on Rape in Prison
On January 25th the Department of Justice launched its
60-day public comment period on proposed national stan-
dards addressing sexual abuse in detention. In an extensive
report, the Department also released, for the first time, its
own estimate of the number of inmates who endured sexual
abuse while behind bars in a one-year period: 216,600.
Let’s put 216,600 in perspective: almost 600 prisoners a
day are subjected to rape and other forms of sexual abuse
while in the government’s care. Or, put differently, 25 in-
mates are abused every hour of every day. That number re-
flects only the first time each person was victimized during
a one-year period; the number of incidents of sexual abuse
is several times higher, as many inmates are assaulted again
and again. Prisoner rape survivors continue to be locked up
with their assailants, unable to escape—forced to live in con-
stant fear of another attack, their trauma renewed every time
they see their abusers. These are our fellow human beings;
men, women, and children who one day will return home to
their families and communities.
Just Detention International
Los Angeles, CA
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
SAYS IRAQ OPERATING
‘SECRET PRISON’
By Prashant Rao
S
ecurity forces linked to Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki
are operating a “secret detention site” and elite teams
are torturing detainees at a separate facility, Human
Rights Watch charged on Tuesday.
The New York-based watchdog’s claims come a week
after the Los Angeles Times reported some detainees at a
prison in the Iraqi capital’s heavily fortified Green Zone had
been abused and held without charge for up to two years,
charges Baghdad denies.
HRW said that in late November, Iraqi authorities moved
nearly 300 detainees to a secret site within a military base
known as Camp Justice in the Kadhimiyah neighbourhood of
north Baghdad, citing interviews it had conducted and classi-
fied government documents it obtained.
“The hurried transfers took place just days before an in-
ternational inspection team was to examine conditions at the
detainees’ previous location at Camp Honor in the Green
Zone,” HRW said in a statement.
“The Iraqi government should immediately close the fa-
cilities or regularize their position and make them open for
inspections and visits,” it added.
The rights group said it had obtained 18 documents on the
subject, and cited a letter dated December 6, 2010, from the
prosecutor’s office at a top Iraqi court asking Maliki to stop
barring prison inspectors and relatives from visiting.
It said it had also obtained a January 13, 2011 letter from
the justice minister to Maliki, addressed to the premier in his
role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, stating that
human rights ministry prison inspectors had been prevented
from visiting the site.
HRW said that the facility was run by the Iraqi army’s 56th
brigade, known locally as “the Baghdad brigade,” and the
counter-terrorism service, both of which report directly to
Maliki.
The rights group said the site was located within a legiti-
mate detention facility located within Camp Justice.
Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim denied that there
was any such secret site, telling AFP: “All the sections of the
prison are available to us—there are no secrets. ... There is
no secret prison there.”
HRW also said that former detainees had told it they were
subjected to abuse at Camp Honor. The LA Times said last
week that detainees at the camp, a facility in a defense min-
istry compound within the Green Zone, were abused and not
provided regular access to lawyers or their families.
Ibrahim, the minister responsible for prisons, told AFP
the same day that rights groups, including the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), had visited Camp Hon-
or, but the ICRC said it never inspected the facility.
HRW said in its statement that detainees held there said
“interrogators beat them, hung them upside down for hours
at a time, administered electric shocks to various body parts,
including the genitals, and asphyxiated them repeatedly with
plastic bags put over their heads until they passed out.”
The group’s HRW deputy Middle East director Joe Stork
said in the statement: “The government needs to close these
places or move them under control of the justice system, im-
prove conditions for detainees, and make sure that anyone
responsible for torture is punished.”
Iraq has a fractured penal system in which the interior, de-
fense and justice ministries all run their own detention cen-
ters. Convicts are held in justice ministry jails while detain-
ees yet to face trial are held in any of the three. ♦
Yahoo News,
Tue Feb 1, 2011
27
Letters ..............................................Continued from page 2
are, no need to say names. Grow some balls and nuts and be
about activism, not just saying you active. Unify, organize,
or suffer on your knees.
Long live, R.I.P. Marilyn Buck, I heard she pass away. She
a true real freedom fighter.
VooDoo
Dear CPF:
I would respectfully like to thank you for the last copy
newsletter that you sent me (Newsletter #35). And I would
just like to let you know that a lot of the stuff you said in that
newsletter which is going on at Corcoran SHU is what is go-
ing on right here in your backyard, Prison Focus. And I’m
talking about San Quentin State Prison!
In your newsletter you stated that there are a few bad ap-
ples there, well here in San Quentin State Prison there is an
orchard of bad apples here in this prison. And the worse thing
is that it comes from the top. If the warden don’t care of dis-
ciplining his chain of command, then what makes you think
that a captain will discipline his chain of command; and if
a captain don’t care of disciplining his chain of command
then what makes you think that a lieutenant would care; and
if a lieutenant don’t care then what makes you think that a
sergeant would discipline his regular C/O. So now that the
regular C/O sees that the upper chain of command is lax then
they run around this prison as corrupted as they could. All
major complaints that you referred to and mentioned in your
newsletter about Corcoran SHU is what is going on here at
San Quentin- Excessive use of force by prison guards, bogus
validation of gang activity leading to solitary confinement,
and racial discrimination against Hispanic prisoners.
I have been in this Ad-Seg now for 20 months and there
has always been at least 75 percent Hispanic here in Ad-
Seg. Also failed administrative grievance procedures. You
say that at Corcoran they get blatant denial of a 602—well
here at San Quentin State Prison, you don’t hear anything
back from the Appeal CORD. Once you are “Red Tag” by
I.G.I/I.S.U any 602 appeal goes straight to the trash can. We
also get denial for effective use of the law library even if you
have a court deadline. Also, very poor sanitary and general
health conditions; and the food trays here would not fill up an
8-year old kid let alone a grown man. I came here in 1/9/2009
weighing 230 pounds and right now I weigh 195 pounds. I
go to sleep hungry and wake up starving. The laundry is bad
and the mail is corrupt. My family sent me two months of
the San Francisco newspaper and I did not get any of them
until the last 4 days of my subscription. Just to rub it in my
face, I believe, was why they let me have the last four days
only. I filed a 602 appeal which never got logged and I wrote
the newspaper and they said they sent it, but I never got it.
And now because I have tried to fight for my rights they’re
doing some underground regulations and have taken my re-
lease date away from me twice, and are vindictively trying to
apply that new Senate Bill SBX3-18 which was signed into
a bill [law?] on January 25, 2010. I was sentenced to three
years with half time on September 22, 2008 and they (San
Quentin Records Analyst C. Bishop CCRA), has me on D2-2
status zero credit earning since 1/9/2009 and that’s before the
law even passed! My 2/3 release date was 7/8/2010 sentence
on a 3-year deal. There is no justice here in San Quentin State
Prison. But I have filed a petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus
in Marin Court. I have also filed a complaint by a prisoner
under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 1983 on an unlawful
validation back in 1999 which they are using on this new “G-
number.” So I just want to thank your office very much for
all the help you have given me in the past. Without your help
I would not have known how to file good writs in a court of
law and to also ask for an attorney.
I plan to come and volunteer once I get released from
prison, which should hopefully be next month if all goes
well with my writ. But you really need to also focus on your
own back yard and straighten out the corruption here in San
Quentin State Prison.
Alfred Torres Jr
Dear CPF:
Hello. I write as I begin my 8th term. A lot can be said
about the California Industrial Prison Complex. Without
reliving history, which I have 23 adult years of in CDCR,
I will say this… Employees for the Green Wave are upset.
Who wouldn’t be upset when pulling 80K plus (first year
employee including overtime) for “escorting” inmates across
the yard? The thing is: Inmates are suffering even with staff
pay cuts; with “rolling lockdowns”, cut programs, even the
discontinuation of indigent envelopes (here) until the gover-
nor can be haggled into signing a budget.
But let’s take a closer look…Since the three judge panel
ordered CDCR to drastically improve medical treatment in
CDCR (thank God), CDCR has gotten creative to insure
that with its supposed three billion per annum losses it will
not suffer. So, forty thousand inmates must be released? A
schedule was created to identify those eligible: violence,
gang classification are two things which preclude one from
eligibility. So let’s march 50 northerners off of High Desert
“C” yard and validate them. Then let’s create a law (passed
in January at the same time a law was passed giving ½ time
28
to pre-sentenced inmates and violate in county jails to help
overcrowding and reduce spending) that takes all credit from
validated prison gang members, thus creating higher costs,
high custody housing and longer prison incarcerations! Then
let’s lower the level of points of information needed to vali-
date inmates (a fistfight) (a tattoo) a (letter from a friend)
so that thousands of new inmates require security housing!
Bingo – release 10,000 low security inmates and re-punish
thousands of mainly minorities (some whites and “others”)
by creating new SHU’s and “maxing” them out with time
while giving no incentives for good behavior and housing
them with (some) of the hardest gang members in California.
That’s just one approach the geniuses in Sacramento who
are employed (lawyers – who else!) by CDCR to continue
a tradition of business. The business of incarceration – be-
lieve it. I don’t know about you but if you don’t think that
$1000.00 per sixteen hour shift is just plain ludicrous then I
don’t know what is. I know 25 year old burger flippers at fast
food restaurants who would be lucky to make that in 3 weeks
(or 120 hours) and work ten times as hard!
We, as inmates, need to look at the bigger picture…in-
stead of focusing on white/black, South/North, “Mainline”
vs. “S.N.Y”, etc. or Neurontin, dope, coffee, packages, etc.,
we all need to wake up. Quit being small minded. Quit the
labels! CDCR as an entity loves nothing more than seeing
us remain ignorant and stabbing each other over a color or a
twenty dollar paper of dope.
Start filing paper. Do a 602, keep a copy and a memoran-
dum of every complaint filed with the dates of filing. Always
complete the appeals process unless getting a ruling of “Fully
Granted”, “Partially Granted” means absolutely zero except
for recognition of your issue. If you lose at the Director’s
Level then go to Habeas Corpus; sue in Small Claims; go to
1983 U.S. and stand up! Make employees serve the food! To
hell with working!
Most of us were not worried about quarterly packages on
the outside!! What? Is it too much to imagine everyone in
CDCR going on lockdown and losing all program because
we refuse to work? Is nonviolent protest (not working and
hunger strikes) too much? I’m white and I’ve seen white
pressure groups slice a white guy’s face for playing basket-
ball with black inmates and feel they are “stronger” for it.
Imagine the camaraderie when everyone of every race in a
building, a whole yard, a whole state, refuse to eat! Together!
Having informed human rights groups and media well ahead
of time, the effect would be disastrous to Sacramento and
CDCR. You see, when we (inmates) physically hurt one an-
other or staff, or when we cell extract, what we do is justify
our captors use of force and, therefore; validate the outcry
by lawmakers for newer, stronger, more secure prisons and
more money for CDCR…none of which will be spent on the
inmate. However, when one stops eating, in essence says,
“Things are so bad that I am willing to deprive myself the
essence of Life itself (food)” then the public says, “My God,
what is going on in there?” Brothers, wake up! Join! Rise!
Change is a statewide seven day hunger strike away!
Your brother in bondage (chains)
Robert Dragusica “Bigfoot” Delano, CA
Dear CPF:
A letter to inform those of you in county jail: do not
come to Lancaster State Prison or Reception Center. Any
E.O.P., SNY, or Honor Yard inmate that plans on transfer-
ring to Lancaster should review the above and below facts.
Lancaster forces inmates to cell together; hence, a murder
between cellmates on August 19, 2010. Mass fights and Ad-
Seg placements for so called criminal activities by CSP-LAC
custody staff to hide the fact that the “E.O.P.” program at
“Klankaster” is a sham.
C/O’s force inmates to house together. They threaten in-
mates with such things as: SNY inmates are forced to accept
non-SNY inmates as cell mates within the General Popula-
tion/EOP program or remain in management status Ad-Seg
status in housing unit A4.
Building #2 in D facility had 3 fistfights; an inmate dove
off the second tier and a violent extraction in a 36 hour pe-
riod. All psych doctors were denied access by custody to in-
mates on their EOP case loads.
I am a gay HIV/Hep C co-infected inmate. That signed
off my SNY status in order to avoid management status in
Ad-Seg. Still, my CDCR 602s on all my property being lost
go unheard, my A.D.A. CDCR 1824 appeal for hearing aids
goes unheard. I’m deaf in one hear and partially deaf in my
other ear. Yet “Klankaster” claims to be a medical facility.
There’s no HIV, Hep C, Transgender or A.D.A. services of-
fered at the leading reception center for Los Angeles County.
At least not without an appeal directly to Federal Medical
Receivership or dying. A request to the Coleman Law firm
isn’t without merit. Take care and consult with your travel
agent carefully.
“Gypsy” Lancaster State Prison
Dear CPF:
Thanks Prison Focus in that you do so much and get so
little in return. So I call on those of us still true to form to
step up and do what convicts do, do what prisoners do, do
what responsible readers and forward thinking human beings
must do and that is…to give a little of ourselves (economi-
cally and socially) to things we believe in and hope to sustain
it – So keep Prison Focus alive!
Now its been an ever-standing law of nature that “chang-
es” shall occur and these dungeons are not exempt. Long
gone are the days when prisoners ran the joints and held our-
selves to the higher standards of being convicts, not inmates.
Convicts were principled and disciplined prisoners whom,
although deprived of physical liberties, would self construct
within these and any confines, staying so motivated to sal-
vage our integrity even with deliberate interest towards gain-
ing more intellect and true integrity along the way in here,
but sadly idiot boxes and ADHD (attention deficit hyperac-
tive disorder) have retarded the whole process by which such
and esoteric form of integrity is achieved.
First of all lets do this…lets carefully re-examine (PF is-
sue #34) C.L.’s question of integrated celling and Ed Mead’s
history lesson and rant then couple them with Mr. Gray’s and
Tracy B’s issue #35 entries and notice they all have a core
message that “change” has come already and their dialog is
their proactive preliminary hearings seeking the best way to
reconcile and go forward in light of all these changes.
For goodness sake I should absolutely refrain from mak-
ing mention of the seven prong diatribe against prisoners
unifying (issue #35) offered by the self-described “inmate”
housed out-of-state, but I never proclaimed to be purely
good; plus there is a lesson to be learned here. His attempt
to impress and cite “Fait Accompli” as though it is a specific
tactic which uneducated prisoners fail to see is improper.
However, his harried resignation to defeat by the obstacles
and psychological pressures he encountered inadvertently
provides a more appropriate definition as he is clearly a lost
cause – fait accompli (an accomplished fact, presumably ir-
reversible).
The truth is…prison gangs and racial divides are premised
on un-education and the multiple lies which can easily be
facilitated, adopted and maintained through miss-education.
There is a rich history of black solidarity with Puerto Ricans,
Dominicans, Belize, and South/Mexicans, who agreed to be
colorized “brown” and the Asians temporarily accepted “yel-
low” all during the Civil Rights (“People of Color”) Move-
ment right beside the staunchest whites who knew that their
participation – even their simple presence – legitimized the
whole process over and over at very key junctures in the
struggle. We could not have accomplished it alone.
If I am ever released from this Pelican Bay tomb, I shall
certainly encourage the celling of different races because
times have changed dramatically. I have two grandsons and
a 21 yr-old daughter who tells me the teenage generation un-
der her calls it “The Swirl” to be sexually active blacks with
whites, and whites with blacks. The multiple H.B.C.U.’s
(Historically Black Colleges/Universities) are full of rural
white kids. I see jam-packed NCAA football and basket-
ball arenas full of this new swirl-tweeking generation and
the many white college kids who volunteer even until this
day to help rebuild the ghetto wards (5, 7th and 9th) in New
Orleans and so much more. Prison Focus can do what the
mainstream news is afraid to do and that is “Tell the truth!”
Change has come, and let’s stop pretending that supremacy
and race based groups stand a sliver of a chance. Everyone
proclaims to know the lessons recorded in the “Art of War”
so a true leader, a general, a master tactician knows that:
“The war that can’t be won should not be fought” so it would
be truly irresponsible, especially for Mexican intellectuals to
keep prodding the blacks when their population of well over
110,294,036 people is only equal to the est. 113,828,887
people in Nigeria. There are more blacks in Brazil than in
all of the U.S.A. so it’s illogical to promote hostility as the
world gets smaller and correlative. The Crips and the Bloods
are global and have close relationships with all of the Asian
Americans and Caribbean Islands because there are so many
racial inclusions within our ranks. The only bad part to this
actuality is that we’re so unafraid, unfazed and impartial
that, yes, we would charge right past a Nazi drew or circle
of Mexicans (whispering about hating us) all just to attack
another group of blacks that may have crossed a treaty or
line of respect. The point is…those of you out on the main-
lines must shed your old phobias and work together to better
our own prison conditions. No longer can you assume “big
homie” back here has your best interest at heart. They’re all
reconciled with being tucked away back here safe and sound
with zero points, zero HS’s, no cell mates – zero account-
ability and a steady program of watching cartoons, cheering
Cops re-runs against the suspects and even today as I fast,
study and prepare to go work out, the SHU soldiers have vol-
unteered to give up yards “if” the officers will pass out can-
teen faster. We’re already down four days out of seven due
to the budget crisis and now for a couple cookies and chips
the prison gang leaders offer up even more? Times have cer-
tainly changed. Prisoner politics is played out!
Its incumbent on you out there to man up, cell up and stand
up for the last bit of true integrity and program rights you
have left – we have left. I know the Crips and the Bloods
aren’t afraid nor are the blacks from the Bay because we’re
not assembled under narratives of race fears but our street,
ghetto and hood loyalties, which, here in the 21st century
includes whites and/or Hispanics (a parent, baby’s moma,
PRISON FOCUS
homie, lover or friend) so we don’t have to front like we
can’t cell up together, lets just do the damn thing! Separate
the coward from the convict time.
Fear has controlled people since the beginning. Pay your
taxes and get protection from the bad guys. This has worked
ever since knights were claiming to have slayed the town
dragons and fear explained famines and weather, public flog-
ging and beheadings, witches being burned and all the way
up to the western days of outlaws being hammered by firing
squads or hung and now today…we lost our rights to ap-
peal under the guise that we are terrorists, while the truth
is…street gangs, drug dealers, car jackers, etc. together all
amount to approx. 24,000 Americans murdered each year;
according to a Russell Mokhiber corporate crime report –
56,000 Americans die from job related accidents and disease
and the O.S.H.A. (Occupational Safety Health Administra-
tion) buys political and media silence. According to Ralph
Nader sources (F.G.I reports) street crime costs approximate-
ly $4 billion per year, while white collar crime costs $200
billion per year and gets ignored.
We’ve got to reverse course; we’ve got to start donating
and not just the five dollars to our Prison Focus but even
blood to society’s blood banks, perhaps even liver, kidneys
and bone marrow to save and restore families in society.
CDCR and the whole American prison structure has become
a beast and the only way to stop it from growing bigger and
stronger is to stop feeding it to us!!!
Donnie Phillips, Pelican Bay SHU
Dear CPF:
I would like to take this opportunity to express my deepest
appreciation to all the staff, and volunteers at CPF for their
hard work and dedication at exposing the countless atroci-
ties that exist within the CDCR gulag, and for supplying us
California state prisoners with a venue in which to have our
voices heard.
Alright, onto the subject at hand! Over the many recent
years I have been very active at communicating with all the
prison advocacy groups, and deploying some of my own re-
sources in an effort to challenge rank and file of the CDCR
establishment, and doing everything within my means to
preserve and protect the rights of all prisoners. However, on
the flip side of this equation I must express my extreme sad-
ness and disappointment over the lack of involvement from
my fellow prisoners. I realize that some individuals lack the
knowledge, and know-how to challenge their conditions, and
protect their vestige rights, but it’s easy to learn.
Then there’s those groups of inmates who just don’t care
about their conditions or protecting their rights… these are
generally the individuals who are all caught up in the gam-
bling, drug dealing, yard gossiping, and gang activity. Then
there’s another group who also refuse to get involved sim-
ply because they fear retaliation in one form or another. For
these people I only have one thing to say, “You’re not part of
the solution, you’re part of the problem!”
Well, rather than dwell on the many different aspects of the
problems let me offer up some solutions…Now I guarantee
you that what I’m about to suggest will have most of your
readers squirming in their seats, and saying, “not me man”…
but before I blister you with my prison reform strategies I
need to point out to those of you who don’t know, or have
heads stuck in the sand, whether you want to believe it or
not, the prison system is a big political and money operation.
Disrupt either one of the two and you’ll have a foundation
for prison reform.
Now having said that, I strongly believe we, as the prison
population, (under the direction of an outside organization)
could seriously disrupt the flow of the CDCR’s cash crop.
The first stage of this process could be accomplished by ev-
eryone clearing their money off their prison accounts and de-
clare indigent status. This effort alone would trigger a series
of events to unfold:
1.It would deprive the CDCR of all the interest they ac-
quire from our money.
2.It would deprive them, and the state, of all the restitution
funds that victims of crime never see anyway.
3.It would deprive them of the $5.00 co-payment for medi-
cal and dental visits that they extort from us.
This action alone would cost them tens of millions annu-
ally. The second phase would require all inmates to stop us-
ing the phones. For those of you who don’t know the phone
companies kick back about 20 million annually to the state
for allowing them the contract, which all goes into the Gen-
eral Fund – not the inmate welfare like they would have you
believe.
Another thing that would be difficult to endure, but would
need to be part of this strategy, would be to suspend the pur-
chase of all products from the visiting room (vending ma-
chines, hobby crafts, canteen items and so forth), and with
all that we would be able to effectively cut off their flow of
incoming money.
Now just imagine for a moment if everyone was indi-
gent…if that were to occur and everyone applied for indigent
envelopes the CDCR would have to pay out $1,320,000 per
month – that equates to $15,840,000 annually. Now combine
that with all the tens of millions that we would deprive them
of by not having money in our accounts. What? You don’t
think that won’t get someone’s attention? Think again!
NUMBER 36
The next stage of this operation is to begin a movement for
ex-felons and state prisoners to have a right to vote. If, and
when that could be accomplished, we could strip the power
from the guard’s union and have the political capital to bring
about prison reform, kill the “three-strikes” law and move
towards positive sentencing reforms. But if we continue to
sit on our hands, bitching and complaining and not doing
anything…well, I’ve only got one thing to say…”Get com-
fortable – you’re going to be here a long while”, and for all
of you stepping out – “We’ll see you when they bring you
back!”
Douglas L. Hopper
Dear CPF:
I am presently in “Z” unit Ad Seg Unit at HDSP and go-
ing through the process of validation as a retaliatory action
again me for not cooperating in an investigation of free staff
here at HDSP. I was given a choice to cooperate with the ISU
investigation or get validated.
My family is in the process of trying to find a prisoner’s
rights attorney to challenge this injustice and assist me with
this forthcoming legal fight and the ongoing constitutional
violations that HDSP administration and IGI continue to fab-
ricate to send proportionate amounts of convicts to SHUs
across the state of California for warehousing; but yet they
continue to complain when they get pay cuts. But they don’t
complain about the enormous amounts of overtime that they
are getting all at the taxpayers expense. This is all a fleecing
of taxpayers’ money. Who are the real victims of this? - The
citizens of this great state of California!
Intervention needs to happen now and stop the injustice
that HDSP IGI/ISU are practicing here at HDSP in order to
have the job security that is currently in limbo due to the
proposed guard cuts of 3% across the state. Nearly 80% of
prisoners housed in “Z” unit are all here pending validations
or have already been validated and are waiting for a bus ride
to the SHU which normally takes an average of two years to
get there, and a lot of these validations are based on fabri-
cated and false information.
The public needs to know how their money is being spent
and why. There is a need to pull back the curtains that HDSP
administration and IGI continue to hide behind. The Grand
Jury and other government officials need to intervene and
cease the continued injustice that they practice here on a
daily basis.
Anonymous
Dear CPF:
Ever so often I encounter a CPF newsletter and I am both
excited by it (feeling a stronger call to action than I already
have) and turned off due to the overwhelming amount of Af-
rican black power/panther ideology. But I accept and under-
stand Mr. Mead having been a part of these different orga-
nizations, and I greatly respect and appreciate the effort put
into educating and helping to gain ground in the fight to unite
us all against injustice and uncivil government.
In one recent CPF newsletter Ed Mead’s editorial stated
that all white folks were inherently fascist [he means rac-
ist]. That is ludicrous! On behalf of my mother, my sister
and other non-racist whites, I object. If Ed Mead’s comments
were true – What are millions of American dollars and pri-
vate donations doing in places like Haiti and impoverished
Africa? Maybe it’s the mainstream media, but you’ll hardly
ever see well off blacks contributing to these countries and
continents.
As for me, I am a white racist skinhead, who maintains
solid friendships with Black Nationalists both in the prison
system and out. Because any such organization of individu-
als is only fighting for security for their people or beliefs –
we have a common bond.
As to the constant pr Black August, Black African content,
all I’m saying is if the intent of the Focus is to call attention
to injustices in the prison system and supermax facilities that
that reporting is overwhelming and a “turn-off” to a whole
group of inmates who, for their own blindness to larger is-
sues, may not be able to see beyond.
To respond to Ed Mead’s editorial in issue No. 34, where
he calls for inmates to embrace the 2005 integration order…
that’s a tall order! I have no problem with co-mingling on
the yard, library, basketball court, bus, holding cell, or even
to double bunk with any other race, religion, political belief,
etc. I actually enjoy the company of all persons, especially
when that person can challenge me to think and learn. But
we come from vastly different backgrounds and communi-
ties. It is inconceivable that a skinhead, even a liberal skin
like me, could ever cell up with a Crip from South Central.
The two of us might get along as best friends on the yard,
but to live together would be like putting together the sun
and the moon.
Therefore, in my thinking, it would be better to focus on
issues that bring us together intellectually; to challenge one
another to think and to act. Currently, I am locked up in
COR-SHU indeterminately under the “three strike” you’re
out policy. I am challenging it as an underground policy and
have obtained a determination from the Office of Adminis-
trative Law that the policy is not legally enforceable as it was
not promulgated pursuant to the A.P.A. I am trying to gather
as much authority in statutes and judicial law as an individu-
al, in my situation, can and then proceed to court as was done
in the Castillo case for gang validation. I want to do it cor-
rectly so as to get a favorable ruling for all prisoners. There’s
people getting indeterminate SHU’s for 3 fist fights (battery
on inmates). Most of us will get released to the mainline if
we stay disciplinary free usually two I.C.C. reviews (1 year).
Nevertheless, it is hard on family and on relationships. I’m
going to contact Mr. Charles Carbone, but I am prepared to
proceed pro se, if necessary.
There is one other topic I wanted to cover – the prison abo-
litionist movement. Mr. Mead has a far more superior intel-
lect concerning such things that I have, but I believe nearly
all civilizations have had some form of prison or incarcera-
tion for crime. How would that even work? What would be
the deterrent for crime? I can understand abolishing some
forms of punishment, but civilization cannot operate without
deterrents for crime.
Actually, one other thing, On June 3, 2010, the State As-
sembly voted 37 no to 27 yes (AB1751) to repeal a section
of the “three strikes” law as it pertains to juveniles. This bill
was introduced by Assemblyman, Amiano. Another defeat,
but a gracious attempt, by Mr. Amiano!
Because you are in financial difficulties, you might start
charging SHU inmates at least the $5.00. That would prevent
CPF from being just another free rag guys write to because
it’s free. Free back issues with a donation request would help
keep it circulating. I haven’s seen an issue since last year and
it was the 2008 “Black August” issue. Since Issue #34 was
shared with me, I am refocusing thanks to Focus. As I said,
send my mom an issue and I guarantee she will subscribe
for a year.
Anonymous
[Ed’s Response: Thank you for your support of Prison
Focus, it’s appreciated, as are your criticisms. On the whites
and racism issue, please read my response to the first letter
on page 2. It is interesting that the only objections to my
comments on that subject were from self-described racists.
Anyway, as for celling with a member of another race, I un-
derstand it is a tall order for some. It represents the difficult
junction where class and race intersect--to be a race traitor
or a class collaborator, to continue these artificial divisions
which only serve the interests of the pigs, or to take some
serious risks to bring about long overdue change. I was not
asking readers to do anything I have not done myself.
As for prison abolition, you should not think of things the
way they are now, but rather picture them how they could
be in a more rational society. You say people (society) need
deterrence and hence prisons. Yet deterrence is just another
word for punishment. Two years ago I got a puppy and took
it to training classes where I learned that it was rewards, not
punishment, that motivates dogs. I think the same is pretty
much true for people.
Imagine living in a society in which there is no poverty or
greed, where the nation’s wealth is distributed evenly, and
the people themselves control the means of production and
distribution. It would be a social order in which the means
of information and education are in the hands of the working
class, where evils such as racism and sexism would disap-
pear. In a society without want there would be little need
for incarceration. And to the limited extent such institutions
were needed, they would not resemble today’s prisons—they
would not be predicated on concepts such as punishment or
deterrence, they would not be places where people are en-
slaved, degraded and dehumanized.]
Dear CPF:
This letter is in response to Prison Focus #35. In it Jimmy
Boots pointed out the conflicting nature of issue #34, in re-
gards to alienating our white brothers via race-based rhetoric.
The editor made a note which included “Those who seek to
divide along racial lines are doing the work of the class ene-
my. Those who seek to unify prisoners, on the other hand, are
doing progressive work regardless of their race or region….”
I agree with Mr. Boots and with your comments. However,
your mission often gets lost within the countless articles that
foster and perpetuate racial tension. This is counterproduc-
tive, ironic, and wrong. Our plight as liberal-activists is in-
capacitated by this tired “liberation-ideology” grounded in
race, as opposed to class.
America is unique and blessed because it possesses the
strongest wills and greatest minds from all nations. We need
to get past the global horrors that guided us to one another—
made us one tribe—and act as one tribe!
I say this as a friend and dedicated revolutionary, African-
Americans weren’t the first group of people to be enslaved,
Native –Americans were not the first people to be conquered,
Mexican-Americans are not the first immigrants to be feared,
European-Americans are not in danger of being assimilated
and Islam is not the first religion to be persecuted in Ameri-
ca. Each and every one of us Americans were horrendously
mistreated by our own ancestors before Americans followed
suit (that’s why we are all here to begin with!). The class-
powers (bourgeoisie) utilize these age-old qualms to further
their objectives and thwart our success!
When Nelson Mandela was released (he spent 30 years
incarcerated by white apartheid authorities) the black ma-
jority in South Africa voted him into the presidency. When
29
reverse racism began to be demonstrated by his constituency,
he flat-out said no! Here are two pertinent quotes relevant to
MONEY FOR PRISONS, THE AMERICAN
his noble sentiments: “forgiveness liberates the soul, it de- NOT SOCIAL SERVICES NIGHTMARE
stroys fear, that is why it is a powerful weapon.” And “If I
By Haider Rizvi By Hans Vogel

M C
can’t change when circumstances demand it, how can I ask
any of those who have lost their jobs and homes uriously enough, US administrations seem intent on
others to?”
in the United States due to the lingering economic accelerating the destruction of the American Dream
He understood the danger of self-sabotaging the momen-
recession are ending up in jail, according to a new and the very infrastructure that made it possible in
tum of a movement by reciprocating the opposition’s hate
study released by an independent think tank Thursday. the first place. It now seems eons ago when US presidents
and prejudices. The world now knows the Mr. Mandela’s
There is a strong link between poverty and incarceration only got themselves into wars they could win, or at least
tactics were successful—he did the impossible and healed
in the United states, according to the report, “Money Well wars from which they and their friends could reap handsome
most of South Africa’s major apartheid travesties.
Spent: How positive social investments will reduce incar- profits at minimal cost. For instance during World War II and
For the health of the individual and eventual victory of
ceration rates”, by the Justice Policy Institute (JPI). Korea, the US tried to leave the fighting and dying to others.
our cause, every race, gender, ethnicity, etc. within our ranks
The report’s findings on the relationship between poverty It took the Vietnam War for the US to realize that the time
must rectify ingrained animosities before we make serious
and the justice system suggests that more and more people of easy war fighting were over. But instead of drawing the
progress together. How can we fight the status-quo if we are
from poor and low-income communities are being arrested right conclusions, the US has rushed headlong into expen-
fueled by its sinister stereotyping? This is why our ultimate
and jailed, even though nationwide, crime rates have fallen. sive, unwinnable colonial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
aspirations have been so elusive.
“What we have seen in this research is that there is less Meanwhile, due to the rapacious policies of a ruthless rul-
I am writing to provide objectivity, as a former white
focus on safety for the poor and more on policing and ar- ing class devoid of any sense of responsibility whatsoever,
supremacist/Muslim convert (12 years in CDC, 7 years in
rests,” Tracy Velázquez, executive director of the JPI said. the US middle class is being chased out of its homes, jobs
SHU).
The report notes that as prison populations have grown, so and colleges. And if that weren’t enough, it is being robbed
Ahad Ali Tawhid
too have racial disparities in the justice system. of its savings through cleverly masked fraudulent schemes
“This is especially evident in arrest and incarceration pat- such as Obama-care.
[Ed’s Response: The ‘liberation-ideology’ is in fact
terns for drug offences,” said Sarah Lyons, National Emer- Today, 40 million out of 300 million people in the US are
grounded in class, not race, and it will continue. Race is only
son Hunger Fellow and primary author of the report, who on the dole and many millions more are set to join their ranks.
mentioned in the context of the adverse effect it has on the
added that without adequate funding for social services, it Most of the national wealth is concentrated in the hands of
class struggle. America is “blessed” (rich?) not because “it
is less likely that people will be able to succeed and avoid a small percentage of the population. They include bankers
possesses the strongest wills and greatest minds” but because
contact with the justice system. pocketing bonuses and salaries running into the hundreds of
of the exploitation of the labor and natural resources of the
Despite comparable usage of illicit drugs, in 2008, African millions of dollars.
world’s poorest people. As for Nelson Mandela, he was a
Americans, who make up 12.2 percent of the general popu- At the same time, the conversion of the US into a single
socialist revolutionary when he went into prison. When he
lation, comprised 44 percent of those incarcerated for drug giant prison, has been proceeding apace. Whereas back in
came out his job was to put a black face on white capitalism
offences, according to the report. the 19th century, Russia was sometimes characterized as the
in South Africa (sort of like what Barak Obama is doing here
Researchers say that disproportionate enforcement of drug prison of peoples, today the US is truly a prison of individu-
in America). Today progressive Blacks in South Africa are
laws in communities of color destabilizes families and com- als. Nowhere in the world are there more people in jail than
waging armed struggle against that same government. You
munities and decreases the likelihood of positive outcomes in the US. Nowhere in the world are so many people under
are of course correct in saying that we cannot “fight the sta-
for children and other family members left behind. some form of penal surveillance, such as the millions on pa-
tus quo if we are fueled by its sinister stereotyping.”]
Due to the prolonged economic meltdown, many states are role.
now making drastic cuts in funding for social services - such The government tries to control every movement by ev-
Dear CPF:
as health, education, and public housing - but not on policing ery citizen, subjecting them to humiliating and degrading
It’s been an ordeal setting into the program, or what’s
and prison improvement and expansion. searches at airports, public buildings and sports events. Just
passed off as a program is coming apart at the seams due
There are over two million people behind bars in the U.S., as Tocqueville, the perceptive French observer predicted in
to massive overcrowding here. There’s been a complete ab-
most poor whites and people of color, making the United the 1830s, the US has now been turned into a panopticum,
sence of coordination between P.B.S.P. prisoncrats and those
States the number one country in the world in terms of the the perfect prison envisioned by Jeremy Bentham in the late
(Sacramento?) responsible for organizing the quantity of
imprisonment rate. 18th century. New legislation under way is set to eliminate
prisoners being sent here and their housing. The most recent
The report notes that about 16 percent of incarcerated the remaining aspects of freedom.
arrivals are spending their first days, sometimes weeks, in
people also experienced homelessness before being arrested. One could say the US ruling class is trying to dehumanize
are what’s known as ‘wet cells’. These cells are not designed
“Most of these people are significantly more likely to have life. No doubt the ruling class believes it can continue living
for spending more than a couple of hours at most. There’s
both a mental illness and a substance addiction, which fre- a comfortable life while making it miserable for their less
neither enough room to lie down, no lockers, desk, bunk,
quently go untreated,” said Nastassia Walsh of JPI. She said fortunate countrymen. Indeed they might, for a while. But
etc. They’ve now transformed ‘A’ facility, blocks 1, 2, 3, and
that states with higher high school graduation rates and col- eventually the Frankenstein monster they are creating will
4 from ‘Ad Seg’ into a ‘SHU’ facility, both in content and
lege enrollment have lower crime rates than those with lower turn against them.
practice, while retaining its former label of ‘Ad Seg’ (a tem-
educational attainment levels. Now that the US has become one giant prison, its streets
porary hole pending cases and transfer). With the retention
The JPI study points out that the stress of living in poverty patrolled by swaggering, overweight and brutal policemen, it
of its former label of ‘Ad Seg’ serves the interests of certain
is a “risk factor” for experiencing mental health problems, is attempting to impose its dreary way of life (if that is what
C/Os, who work less, such as not having to pass out and issue
and that many people who want treatment can’t afford it. it can still be called) on the rest of the world.
all of our personal property as required in a designated SHU
“More than 50 percent people in prisons are suffering from However, if the world was once willing to adopt the Amer-
facility. The fact that over ninety percent (no exaggeration)
mental illness of some kind,” said Walsh, who holds that in- ican Dream and accept a change in life style to make it more
of us are SHU, some of who have spent over two years, is
creased investment in mental health and substance abuse like life in the US, it is to be doubted the world is willing to
irrelevant to those who are responsible for our classification
treatment can improve public safety and reduce criminal jus- be turned into a US style prison, a kind of globalized Guan-
and housing.
tice involvement. tanamo. The American Dream was once sold to the world by
Aside from the fact that it has long ago been established
According to the study’s findings, investments in job train- the friendly cigarette smoking, gum chewing, coke-drinking
by previous generations of prisoners and the courts that we
ing and employment have been associated with heightened GI. Today’s salesmen of the American Nightmare are less
are entitled to ten hours a week for exercise (yard), we are
public safety. Youth who are employed are more likely to friendly. They are often mean, crack smoking, coke-sniffing
receiving about two hours a week in isolated ‘dog kennels’
avoid justice involvement. In addition, people who are in- desperadoes, killing Third-World civilians.
and some weeks we don’t even receive this.
carcerated are more likely to report having had extended There once was a time when the US produced good sales-
Now that C/Os are being threatened with minimum wages
periods of unemployment and lower wages than people in men. They found a warm welcome because they sold quality
they’ve locked down the program on one yard for several
the general population. “It’s time for our elected officials goods made in the US. Today the good salesmen have been
days—no visits, no yard, commissary, etc., including ac-
to realize that creating safe, healthy communities is a better replaced by shifty-eyed marketeers with nothing to sell, be-
cess to the legal library, and then alternate to another yard
investment in our country’s future than more prison beds,” cause the once flourishing US industry has been offshored to
for several days. It’s somewhat morbidly humorous that the
stated Velázquez. “Low-income communities and people of China and elsewhere.
CDC pillaged and mismanaged the budget allocated to them
color are bearing the brunt of this recession, as well as of our The only products the US has on offer these days are mis-
with clocking in a tremendous and unsustainable quantity of
policies that have led to mass incarceration.” ery, death, threats and endless doses of violence. Certainly
overtime hours. Now, in an attempt to help alleviate and off-
“By shifting our priorities, we can reduce these dispropor- the world—and the US—deserve a better fate. It might actu-
set ‘their crisis’ they strip our programs first. But then why
tionate impacts and make a real difference, especially for our ally be a good idea for us in the rest of the world to encour-
should it matter anyways, we’re a bunch of animals that have
country’s children and families,” she said. age US citizens to re-establish control over their own lives,
no place in a profit driven society.
More funding for affordable housing, education and em- to summon their leaders to stop being selfish, to punish their
C.L., Pelican Bay
ployment could help turn around the lives of people strug- irresponsible ruling class. The whole world would be a better
gling with homelessness, including children and youth, who place if they did! ♦
are particularly affected by lack of housing, the report says. Pravda, September 02, 2010
‘It’s a question of where we choose to spend our money,” [Ed. Note: The U.S. is 4.7 percent of the world’s popula-
said Velázquez. “Until we quit funneling tax dollars into tion yet it consumes 26 percent of its energy, creates over 40
prisons and policing practices that sweep large numbers of percent of its physical garbage, and is the greatest purveyor
people into the system — many of whom pose little risk to and exporter of violence and terrorism the world has ever
public safety — we should not be surprised to see incarcera- seen.]
tion rates continue to climb.”
Last year, the United Nations Committee on the Elimi-
nation of Racial Discrimination (CERD) expressed similar
concerns about the lack of progress to end racial discrimi-
nation in the U.S. criminal justice system and urged Wash-
ington to take practical actions to end unjust police actions
against the poor and minorities.
The international body documented a number of cases that
showed that police officials in many cities were not only en-
gaged in acts that violated the U.S. constitution, but also the
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Racial Discrimination.
The report’s authors urged the U.S. government to take ac-
By Michael David Russell tions to comply with that international human rights treaty. ♦

30 PRISON FOCUS

CORCORAN
CORCORAN REPORT
JANUARY 2011
By Ron Ahnen
T
he present report follows up on our more comprehen-
sive report from October 2010 and published in Pris-
on Focus #35. That report again brought several key
human rights abuses to light that are persistent to the present
day. This report is based on letters received from prisoners
through February 1, 2011 (including some reacting to the
October report) and our visit with over a dozen inmates at
Corcoran SHU on January 19, 2011.
Assaults. While some prisoners have reported that the as-
saults by guards are not as frequent as they were in the 1980s
or 1990s, they clearly have not stopped. CPF heard from
several prisoners that guards have used excessive force on
many occasions, even after prisoners’ hands and feet were
cuffed and shackled in some cases. These assaults are al-
legedly planned out ahead of time by a small group of cor-
rupt guards. Some of the guards belong to a gang called the
“Green Wall.” Prisoners reported being severely beaten, suf-
fering broken bones, internal bleeding, severe bruising, etc.,
that have left them unable to walk properly, to read normally,
to maintain normal strength in their hands, or even to uri-
nate normally. These guards are quite willing to empty whole
cans of pepper spray into the faces of prisoners, even as they
are handcuffed. Some prisoners also reported being partially
disrobed and humiliated before or during these assaults.
Bogus gang validations. Probably the most egregious dis-
regard for the rule of law by prison officials is the abuse of
the gang validation protocol. Officials at Corcoran and other
California prisons systematically ignore the Castillo settle-
ment which outlines the legal directives regarding gang vali-
dation. Instead, the CDCR interprets its minimalist pieces
of “evidence” to be directly and indirectly related to “gang
activity” even though the activity is not outlined in any fash-
ion. Most prisoners reportedly were not afforded their legal
right to see or challenge the evidence used to validate them
as gang members. The clearest evidence of this blatant abuse
of authority is the practice of mass validations that have oc-
curred recently. Besides 60 prisoners validated at High Des-
ert in 2009, a group of at least 100 southern Hispanics were
validated at Lancaster and sent to Corcoran SHU recently.
One prisoner reported yet another mass validation at Iron-
wood, though CPF has yet to confirm this with someone
who was validated in that sweep. In the Lancaster case, the
100 prisoners were simply rounded up while on the general
population yard and told that they were being transferred.
Only later did they find out that they had been validated.
Even though they are in Corcoran SHU, they still have not
had the opportunity to review the evidence which allegedly
stems from names and evidence from only one person’s cell.
Some prisoners feel that the purpose of the mass validations
is to keep the SHU (over)full. CPF regularly receives letters
from prisoners who are in Ad-Seg and who are waiting to be
transferred to Pelican Bay or Corcoran SHU.
Retaliation. Several prisoners have indicated that they are
in the SHU for reasons of retaliation by the guards. If the
prisoner does something that ticks off a guard, the guard will
then look for anything they can find to get the prisoner in
trouble. Often this includes putting two prisoners together
on a yard, on a work detail, or in a cell together who are
clearly going to fight. Often those prisoners who stand up
for their rights are the ones who receive the brunt of the re-
taliation. In those cases where prisoners have successfully
followed through with a 602 against a guard or commanding
officer, those guards or the corresponding COs will try to
find a way to get the prisoner into trouble and thus land them
in the SHU. The torturous conditions of the SHU are used
as a punishment, therefore, for whatever reason the guards
decide. Another way to retaliate against a prisoner even after
they are in SHU is to toss their cell, returning only some of
their property and returning legal paperwork only after mix-
ing it all up.
NUMBER 36
602s. The 602 complaint process has never been worse
according to most prisoners. Many prisoners report that the
majority of their 602s get “lost” or are unfairly screened out.
The problem of “lost” (that is, mishandled) 602s is particu-
larly acute when a prisoner makes a claim of excessive use of
force by a guard and that guard has access to the 602s. One
prisoner reported having more than 85% of his 602s screened
out for this reason.
There are other games played with 602s, too. A 602 may
be sent back to a prisoner because it “needs more supporting
documentation.” But getting the documents takes a long time
(also controlled by the prison), and once the prisoner gets
them together, the resubmitted 602 is rejected as too late.
In fact, 602s are often handed back so late to a prisoner
that the appeal filing date has already passed. The result is
rejection due to failing to file in a timely fashion. This tactic
has become common practice according to many complaints.
Prisoners reported on the day of our visit that the 602 pris-
on is currently undergoing a change, however, in that prison-
ers will now receive a receipt when they turn in a 602 and
must sign for it when they receive it back. If this is true and
the new process is implemented properly, it may help reduce
the number of “lost” 602s. On the other hand, the number
of 602s allowed per prisoner is being reduced and the turn
around time is being lengthened, so that it will slow down the
process even more than it already is. One frustrated prisoner
noted, “After a while, you just give up on it.” It would appear
that this is exactly the intended effect.
Medical Abuse. Prisoners reported not being able to fol-
low up with the same doctor and thus having to explain com-
plicated conditions over and over again to different person-
nel. Mainly this means that they cannot receive the medical
procedures they are entitled to by law. Most doctors and
nurses are under pressure by CDCR to deny medications,
especially pain medications, and a couple prisoners reported
that one doctor quit simply because he could no longer stand
having to deny care to the prisoners in that way. Prisoners
reported having their medications arbitrarily changed and/or
reduced by nurses or doctors.
Hep-C patients are still denied treatment until the illness is
advanced, though treatment is known to be far more effec-
tive if administered early.
A CPF visit may convey a benefit on the medical/dental
situation: one prisoner told CPF that the dentist is happy
when CPF comes because then “all of a sudden” he receives
his supplies.
retaliation by the guards ... includes
putting two prisoners together on a
yard, on a work detail, or in a cell to-
gether who are clearly going to fight.
Often those prisoners who stand up
for their rights are the ones who re-
ceived the brunt of the retaliation.
Food. While nobody expects the best of food in prison,
most people expect that prisoners in the US will not be
starved. Yet the calories are not adequate for prisoners to
stay healthy and fit. Several prisoners reported being unable
to exercise, and drastic weight loss is common even though
the food has a high fat and salt content. Prisoners report that
without access to the canteen/store, they just would not make
it.
At least three of the men we interviewed had lost between
25% and 30% of their body weight, and another spoke of
seeing men’s “skin hanging down” when they lifted their
shirts, due to the rapid weight loss. Most reported being hun-
gry all the time.
One reason may be that what comes from the kitchen
doesn’t make it onto the prisoners’ trays. One prisoner told
us that one day he personally witnessed guards taking food
from the supply that was to be served to the prisoners. He
saw them taking half of the cheese provided, plus a stack of
tortillas.
In addition, the condition of the food and sanitation of
food service are woefully inadequate. One prisoner reported
being able to view the food service area from his cell and
noted that the trays were not clean when the food was being
served. After a complaint, the guard merely told the prisoner
working in food service to wipe the tray with a towel, but not
to wash or sanitize them. The prisoner reported that he and
at least 30 other prisoners have suffered from food poisoning
and other digestive problems due to the unsanitary condi-
tions of the food service.
Mail. Most prisoners complained that they are not receiv-
ing all of their mail. In those cases where the mail must be
read to a prisoner or shown through the window in the door,
the guards will not leave it up long enough for the prisoner
to read everything. Often the guard calls off the names in a
low voice and if no one responds, they claim the prisoner
refused to accept the mail. Prisoners even received legal mail
already opened, rather than it being opened in the prisoner’s
presence, as required by law.
Law library. Prisoners can hardly get any time in the law
library. Most report getting once or twice a month at most,
and that is only if they can prove that they have a case com-
ing up soon. Getting PLU status is also very hard if not im-
possible.
Cold cells. Between midnight and 5a.m. there is no heat
in the cells of the SHU. Many prisoners are cold with only
the single blanket they are given. Sixty of them submitted
a group 602 on December 17 and as of the date of our visit
(Jan. 19) had gotten no response.
IEX Jumpsuit. When a prisoner who is in the IEX (in-
decent exposure) program exposes himself outside of his
cell, he must wear a special, locked jumpsuit whenever he’s
out of his cell. (For the first offense, the jumpsuit term is 30
days, and for subsequent offenses, 90 days). A special key is
needed when the wearer needs to use the bathroom or have a
medical visit. But sometimes the key is far away and it takes
a long time to get it, so the wearer may wet himself. The suit
is not laundered between wearers, but if you refuse to wear
it, you have to give up your visit or whatever you were leav-
ing your cell for.
This issue has been 602’d, with no response.
Cleanliness. This topic is really Lack of Cleanliness. The
showers and hallways are not being cleaned. Apparently the
guards whose job it is to clean them simply don’t do it.
SHU prisoners are given only a half bar of soap a week
and no disinfectant. If they want disinfectant or additional
soap, they have to make a deal with a guard (“I’ll give up my
shower today for some disinfectant”).
Yard. The walk-alone prisoners reportedly get yard only
every week to ten days. In the SHU, yard is generally every
other day “if we’re lucky.” We were told that as of our visit,
Ad Seg had gone 11 days without yard. ♦
31
CPF GOALS
● End all human rights abuses against prison-
ers.
● End the use of long-term isolation.
● Close the Security Housing Units.
● Educate the public that SHU prisoners are
torture survivors.
● Improve medical care and living conditions
for prisoners living with HIV, hepatitis C and
other life-threatening diseases.
● Help gain compassionate release for prison-
ers with serious illnesses and physical dis-
abilities.
● Stop all discrimination against LGBT prison-
ers.
● Abolish the prison system as we know it.
CONTACT US
California Prison Focus
1904 Franklin St., Suite 507
Oakland, CA 94612
E-mail: contact@prisons.org
Web: http://www.prisons.org
SOME GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTIONS
TO PRISON FOCUS
SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR SUBMISSIONS:
• Artwork or graphics
• Letters (250 words) Let us know if you want us to
use your name or we will only publish your initials and
city & state of residence. You can also specify “anony-
mous.”
• Short Articles (250-500 words) The same
identification guidelines apply. Topics can be issue
specific, or current news or information.
• Helpful resources with address and pertinent infor-
mation.
• Larger articles are accepted but be aware that our
space is limited.
Topics: PF topic of issue; current news; recent or pending
legislation or policy; news from your institution; organizing
efforts; books—basically anything related to the prison
industrial complex as you see it. Individual legal cases are
not usually printed.
Sorry, we cannot return your submissions unless a prior
arrangement is made. Submissions are not guaranteed
to be published and we generally cannot respond to your
submissions because of the volume of mail we receive. PF
welcomes all submissions (they will not be returned).
CPF’S MISSION STATEMENT
California Prison Focus fights to abolish the California prison
system as we know it. We investigate and expose human
rights abuses with the goal of ending long term isolation,
medical neglect, and all forms of discrimination. We are
community activists, prisoners, and their family members
working to inspire the public to demand change.
BECOME A VOLUNTEER
CPF depends on volunteers to do our invaluable work. We
need your help answering mail, working on our newsletter,
staffing our office, fund raising, and outreach. Check our
website for the date of the next CPF meeting.
PRISON FOCUS #37
The topic for Prison Focus #37 will be on the issues you
send articles for, whatever that might be. Please send us
your articles and artwork. The due date for submissions for
the next issue is June 1st, 2011. If you have ideas for issue
#38 send them in to us as well.
ABOUT CPF
California Prison Focus is a non-profit community-based
human rights organization working with and for California
prisoners. Our two main issue areas are fighting against the
longterm isolation, torture and abuse in Security Housing
Units (SHU) and demanding an end to the medical neglect
and abuse of prisoners with life-threatening diseases. The
focus of our work is our investigative trips to prisons with
SHU facilities and/or medical units. We make several visits
a year. We also work to build strong bridges between the
prisoners and the community, and to bring forth the voice
of the prisoners through our newsletter, Prison Focus, and
our ongoing educational outreach and community forums.
Central to our work is training ourselves, prisoners and
their loved ones in self-advocacy through public protest,
networking, coalition building, letter writing and contacting
prison officials and policy makers.
Founded in 1991 (as Pelican Bay Information Project)
we have made hundreds of prison visits and conducted
thousands of interviews with prisoners. Our membership
is comprised of prisoners, activists, family members of
prisoners, former prisoners, human rights advocates,
attorneys, and prison visitors.