Monday July 8th - New Hunger Strike Begins at Pelican Bay SHU

[dzerach]

The Pelican Bay Sate Prison Solitary Housing Unit Short Corridor Representatives will resume their nonviolent peaceful protest action on July 08, 2013. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) had promised meaningful reforms but have failed to make good on the promises. There is still nothing to prevent CDCR from keeping a person locked in solitary indefinitely. The prison is located in Crescent City, CA (Del Norte County).

Support the hunger strikers by signing the Petition:
https://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/51040...tion_KEY=11455

Support the hunger strikers by signing a Pledge of Resistance:
https://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/51040..._page_KEY=8133

The protest will be a combined Hunger Strike and Work Stoppage action. The protest will continue indefinitely until all Five Core Demands are fully met.

Background: In 2011, prisoners locked in the Security Housing Units (SHUs) at Pelican Bay and other California prisons went on hunger strike to protest the torturous conditions of solitary confinement. During two different waves of hunger strikes at least 12,000 prisoners participated in the strike. The strike received widespread support from outside prisons, and daily national and international media coverage.

Two years later, the brave actions of the hunger strikers and public pressure has helped ignite awareness about torture and solitary confinement inside prisons, and compelled the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to promise meaningful reforms. However, new regulations potentially empower prison officials to use even broader guidelines for locking people in the SHU—possibly resulting in more prisoners being condemned to horrors of solitary confinement.

Inhumane policies of California's security housing units:
https://prisonerhungerstrikesolidari...can-bay/305-2/

What is Solitary Confinement?
In California, nearly 12,000 imprisoned people spend 23 of 24 hours living in a concrete cell smaller than a large bathroom. The cells have no windows, no access to fresh air or sunlight. People in solitary confinement exercise an hour a day in a cage the size of a dog run. They are not allowed to make any phone calls to their loved ones. They cannot touch family members who often travel days for a 90 minute visit; their conversation and their mail is monitored by prison guards. They are not allowed to talk to other imprisoned people. They are denied all educational programs, and their reading materials are censored.

How Do Prisoners End Up in Solitary Confinement?
The prosecutor, judge and jury is a prison official called an Institutional Gang Investigator. The I.G.I.'s 'evidence' may be a book the prisoner has read, a tattoo, or some culturally based art the prisoner has created. But most often, the 'evidence' comes from another prisoner, a secret informant. With this 'evidence,' the I.G.I can 'sentence' the accused to a lifetime in solitary confinement.

More details: https://prisonerhungerstrikesolidari...met/#more-2219

The Pelican Bay Five Core Demands:

1. Eliminate group punishments and administrative abuse.
2. Abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria.
3. Comply with the recommendations of the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons recommendations and end long-term solitary confinement.
4. Provide adequate and nutritious food.
5. Create and expand constructive programming.

[Gene]

Doesn't Pelican Bay house the most violent and unmanageble inmates in California ?

[dzerach]

Five minute video link of Thom Hartmann interviewing Lee Fang, "The Nation" contributor, and author of The Machine: A Field Guide to the Resurgent Right.

Why we should be paying more attention to the Prison Industrial Complex: What they are doing both inside and outside of our prisons. What's the history behind this? Shouldn't imprisoning people be a function of government? Private prison involvement in immigration lobby, and how they will benefit from re-write of immigration laws. Why society won't be better off for it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fDFZ9GKQSjk#t=28s
KENTUCKY recently said NO to private prisons! Elsewhere, Money Grab in process. By now, this is not news: Corporations are people and their money is protected speech, according to SCOTUS.