America’s Shame, Nearly 12,000 Prisoners Join California Hunger Strike To End Torture Conditions

Nearly 12,000 Prisoners Join California Hunger Strike To End Torture Conditions
By Jeffrey Kaye – The Public Record – Oct 3rd, 2011

According to a report published Saturday by Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (PHSS), the Federal receiver’s office has indicated that “nearly 12,000 prisoners were on hunger strike, including California prisoners who are housed in out of state prisons in Arizona, Mississippi and Oklahoma.”

This is the second hunger strike in less than four months, with prisoners at the Supermax Pelican Bay Prison and other California state prisons protesting the use of long-term solitary confinement, in addition to four other main demands, including provision of adequate and nutritious food, an end to administrative abuses (such as group punishments), and expansion, and in some cases provision, of “Constructive Programming and Privileges for Indefinite SHU Status Inmates.”

But besides an end to state-sanctioned isolation, which amounts to torture, the most salient demand is an end to the hated “debriefing” system, which places inmates in solitary if prison officials determine they are “gang members.” As I noted in an article last July, determination of “gang” status includes “acquisition or exchange of personal or state property amounting to more than $50…. tattooing or possession of tattoo paraphenalia…. possession of $5 or more without authorization…. [and] refusal to work or participate in a program as assigned,” among others. Indeed, even refusal to submit to “debriefing,” i.e., interrogation of prisoners to get them to “snitch,” or give names of other “gang” members, is reason to label someone a gang member and put them in solitary indefinitely. The prisoners call this “snitch, parole, or die.”

Both isolation and forced confessions are illegal forms of incarceration. The 2006 Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons, co-chaired by former Chief Judge of U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, John Gibbons and former Attorney General Nicholas de B. Katzenbach, called for an end to isolation in U.S. prisons. (See summary of findings and recommendations, PDF.)

A Fight for Dignity, Justice, and Humanity

California prisons are a stinking mess, a scandal of gigantic proportions. The health care component of the California prison system has been in federal receivership for years because of the awful, insufficient care provided to the sick and mentally ill. As reported in a McClatchy article last May, the U.S. Supreme Court “cited ‘serious constitutional violations’ in California’s overcrowded prisons and ordered the state to abide by aggressive plans to fix the problem.” The court rejected state pleas to put off the necessary changes, and ordered the prison system to lower its population by approximately 37,000. (A plan to implement the changes is meeting some skepticism.) …source